Power Gaming

Theorycrafting, T.O Builds and Caster/Martial Disparity

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Barbarian Sample

Sample Build: Barbarian.

Your average Barbarian

Barbarians are generally beatsticks, and rightfully so. They’re the meatheads of most parties, with Rage amplifying their already considerable strength and constitution. General Barbarian tactics boil down to “Grab lethal object with both hands, swing, and repeat”. Here’s a little sample of what your general 15 point buy Barbarian looks like at level 1.

Level 1. We’re a Barabarian, we want strength and constitution. Fuck dex, we have armor, D12 hit dice, and DR for that. We’re likely human, because a floating +2 to any stat, a bonus feat, and a bonus skill rank every level is delicious. Our +2 goes into strength, because cracking skulls is what we do. Our starting stat array looks a little something like this.

STATS

Strength: 18 Dexterity: 13 Constitution: 16

Intelligence: 7 Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 7

Intelligence and charisma have nothing to do with bashing in berks who rub us the wrong way, we dump them. If anyone implies you’re rude, inform them you have smashingly good manners, and beat them soundly. Even if we want to build for intimidation (based on charisma) we alter that to strength later with a feat.

FEATS

We get two feats, because we’re human. We take Power Attack (our bread and butter) and Weapon Focus (whatever weapon you like). Or you can grab bonus traits, there’s some nice ones for skills or save bonuses.

TRAITS

If permitted, we grab traits. Reactive (+2 to our initiative) is a staple. We also grab Indomitable Faith (+1 will save). We don’t want to be dominated and told to eat our friends. If you don’t worship a deity, tell your DM your faith is in your ability to smash.

SKILLS

We get 5 skill ranks (4 base, one from human, and you know damn well your favored class bonus is either going into bonus health or the Superstition rage power, for this sample, we’re assuming health). We stick our skill ranks into Acrobatics (for combat mobility) and Perception (important on every character). The other three are up to personal taste, so I’ll do Swim, Climb and Ride.

GEAR

We start with an average of 105 GP. We grab a barbarian kit (9 GP), hide armor (15 GP) and if our DM is nice and lets us buy gear from the Eastern setting, a nodachi (60 GP). If your DM tells you to stop being animu, buy a falchion instead (75 GP). From there purchase rope, 10 foot poles, caltrops, whistles, centipedes, or any other miscellaneous doodads your heart desires. Your three necessities (kit, armor, weapon) will run you 84 GP (Nodachi) or 99 GP (Falchion).

Basic Rundown

Your little level 1 murderhobo is now ready to go. Remember that your alignment can be anything non-lawful, so basically just do whatever. Neutral is safest from alignment magic though.

At level 1, you’re sitting on 10 rounds (1 minute) of Rage per day. Remember that you’re fatigued when you stop, and you can’t rage while fatigued, so don’t get caught moping around in the aftermath of your carnage.

Your standard solution to problems (smash) will look like this.

Nodachi + 6 (1d10 + 6)

Rage Nodachi + 8 (1d10 + 9)

PowerAttack Nodachi + 5 (1d10 + 9)

Rage PowerAttack Nodachi + 7 (1d10 + 12)

Yes. You hit like a very angry truck falling onto your poor foe from a mountain. Feels good man.

You have an AC of 15, but your health is 15 (prior to raging, and assuming your FCB went into the superstition bonus). When you rage your health will jump to 17, but your AC will drop to 13. This is because you’re level 1, and poor. Your AC will improve when you can afford medium armor. Or when you murder someone for theirs, whichever comes first.

Your saves are at Fortitude: 5 Reflex: 1 Will: 1. When you rage, Will becomes 3. Don’t get greased, color sprayed, dominated, etc.

This sample will be continued through levels 4, 7, 10 and 12 (the PFS level cap) in further posts.

Happy smashing.

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Character Concept: What if you had a rogue in the party, but it was actually just a wizard pretending to be a rogue and they pretended to stab people and use sneak attack but it was actually just enervate

This was actually a thing in 3.5 where players would go Duskblade13/EnlightenedFist7 to full-action attack with enervation channeled through each strike.

An extremely niche build, but it was pretty cool to when it actually hit the table.

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Overview of the Classes (PFRPG)

Pathfinder is the most recent system I’ve had the pleasure to GM, so we begin here. Pathfinder is very similar to D&D 3.5, with primary changes to the base classes being the general buff to martial based classes and a slight nerf to full casters. We’ll start with just the core classes, don’t want to overwhelm anyone who hasn’t been living in the system.

Tier 1: Here you have your full casters who retain full spell list access. Wizard, Druid, Cleric. These classes retain huge amounts of versatility from their spell lists, and can quite literally bend reality and planes to their will at higher levels. The primary difference between a a tier 1 and tier 2 caster is the number of spells they have acess to. With Wizards, Clerics and Druids retaining access to their full spell list, they have a much larger selection of magical shenanigans they can get up to than their spontaneous counterparts.

Tier 2: Full casters who lack the versatility of a full spell list. The Sorcerer is the only core tier 2 class. They might be charismagic and have an extra spell per day of each level over the Wizard, but they still can't hold up to the size of the Wizard's spell access.

Tier 3: Many of the gishes (martial casters) at least from later books. From the core classes, we only have the Bard. A 2/3 casting progression with some nifty abilities. As for Paladin and Ranger;

Tier 4: Sorry guys, you go here. A class that only cast up to 4th level spells, that can do one thing well (though others do it better). This tier has the aforementioned Paladin and Ranger, as well as the Barbarian.

Tier 5: Fighter and Monk. Sorry guys. Very little in terms of options, not even matching others in competence in their field of expertise. Note that with archetypes both of these can be bumped up to tier 4, but that's a discussion for another time.

Tier 6: NPC classes and Rogue. Rogue was one of my favorite classes in A:D&D, but it's one of the worst classes in Pathfinder. The rogue is not a competent combatant when compared to your other choices (even when specced for it, it is out-performed by virtually every other class) and it's only other call to glory (skill monkey) is covered by other high skill-rank classes, classes with passive bonuses to skills and spells that handle the check on their own. NPC classes are just that, classes with no real abilities that are relegated to the faceless NPCs your PCs will meet on their journey. Rogue still outperforms them, but can't stand with the rest of the core classes.

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Hierarchy of Tiers

Following the lovely tradition of the class guides, color coded terms will be used to demonstrate the viability of your options when building a character.

Sky blue is for a fantastic choice. You take this if you’re optimizing. Build doesn’t matter, you take it.

Blue is for an excellent choice, build dependent. This is normally a staple feat or item, like Power Attack, Metamagic Feats, Crafting Wondrous Items and other feats, etc. Take these if your build corresponds to the ability in question.

Green is for a solid choice. It's good for your build, it's good for you. Pick it up if you can.

Orange is for flavor town. It’s not bad, but usually you can pick up something better. Usually these can be safely ignored unless required for prerequisites, as a niche build or if you just want the flavor.

Red for stahp plz. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 GP. Stop where you are and think about what you’re doing, this is not a good pick-up. Probably a trap option.

Remember as always, that these are my opinions. I am not the end-all of D20 builds, just have a bit of experience on the scene. Feel free to critique, criticize, deride and otherwise correct any mistakes you feel I have made. I always love to learn new tricks or takes on abilities I’ve overlooked.

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OP

Power gaming. Generally looked down on as poor form in TT-RPGs. Especially by those who can’t figure out the system. Power-gaming is explicitly building your character into the most effective wall of numbers you can wring out of your pile of splatbooks. Expect sample builds, explanations of feat, spell, item and class combinations (and why they can make the CR table cry).

Note that for all the anti-powergamers out there, roleplaying and rollplaying are not mutually exclusive. A well built character is just as interesting as the flavor-laden heal-bot cleric that follows the party around.

Welcome to the crunch of TT gaming.