Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I think part of knowing where you stand when comparing to these benchmarks is knowing your limitations. Tactics can overcome a lot. If you look at that save chart and can see you don't meet the standard for overcoming someone's high save, then target low saves instead (or other opponenents). However, if you are throwing DC31 confusion spells at tier 7, then you pretty much don't care who you throw it at.
My highest level character is a Ranger (now level 11). He fell short of the AB, DPR, AC, and especially hit point benchmarks at every tier on the list. do a number of tricks on the side that can help, but I know I can't just tank things like most fighters and barbarians anymore than I should be the face with my negative charisma modifier. (For some reason I end up tanking about 1/3 of the time, and being the face 1/3 of the time though, in spite of those not being my strengths. My real strength is versatility, as I end up filling in for many of the things the party I end up in can't otherwise do.)
So none of your benchmarks were really BASELINE COMPETENT? That or your ranger isn't competent. It really seems like the numbers are high across the board.
I'm asking about of this because I'm right now in the process of trying to decide if my Blood Rager can afford Iron Will rather than Power Attack, and if the game mechanics are basically going to require he take Power Attack at some point. I was thinking of doing Arcane Strike at 5th level hoping that would be a replacement for Power Attack.
Even with the Iron Will, his bad saves are going to suck. I expect the Will save to be 6 (2 for level, 2 for iron will, 2 for Cloak of Resistance +2), 8 if raging, at about level 7. I'm not sure exactly where I would be for a weapon at that point.
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Please notice the low bar that's being given: Using aid another helps. That's all.Aid another
Give someone a piddly +2 to their AC or attack for a round. Is that really so hard?
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Well, honestly I think that might be setting the bar too low for a high tier table. At low level tables it is fine as long as everyone isn't doing it. It's even ok a mid level tables occasionally. But I think at a high level table you should usually be able to contribute more than that. But certainly, not less than that.
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Well, honestly I think that might be setting the bar too low for a high tier table. At low level tables it is fine as long as everyone isn't doing it. It's even ok a mid level tables occasionally. But I think at a high level table you should usually be able to contribute more than that. But certainly, not less than that....
Please notice the low bar that's being given: Using aid another helps. That's all.Aid another
Give someone a piddly +2 to their AC or attack for a round. Is that really so hard?
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PFS scenarios often have enviornmental considerations factored into the encounters. They're usually ignored or not realized, but they are often there regardless. If you're struggling to come up with something more effective than Aid Another, there's a decent chance there's something you can do about the environment that was specifically anticipated in the programming of the encounter- to either remove hindering effects on the party or to add hindering effects to the bad guy(s).
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I'm asking about of this because I'm right now in the process of trying to decide if my Blood Rager can afford Iron Will rather than Power Attack, and if the game mechanics are basically going to require he take Power Attack at some point. I was thinking of doing Arcane Strike at 5th level hoping that would be a replacement for Power Attack.Even with the Iron Will, his bad saves are going to suck. I expect the Will save to be 6 (2 for level, 2 for iron will, 2 for Cloak of Resistance +2), 8 if raging, at about level 7. I'm not sure exactly where I would be for a weapon at that point.
A will save of +4 at level 7 is about the bare minimum I would consider for a martial character of mine. I personally really don't like it that low.
I will accept that low or lower on a reflex or fort save since it will usually only kill myself at the absolute worst. But a failed will save could have me killing (or at least trying to kill) the rest of the party. That could be bad.I would almost certainly pay 2 PP for a wand of pro from evil. At the start of every scenario give it to a friendly caster (or UMD skill monkey) with the statement, "Don't worry about burning the charges. Use this anytime it looks like it might be a caster in the opposition or if you think I might have been affected by something (second save). I don't want to take a chance on chopping one of you in half. Feel to use it on yourself also if you want."
Or the ioun stone that gives it permanently.
Or some other save buffing wand.
Or a +3 cloak of resistance.
Or Iron Will.
Or Improved Iron Will.
Save a folio re-roll just for failed will saves.
The ACG feat that gives charisma to saves.
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What happens if you want to play a Human Wizard, rather than a gnome wizard?
Um. Then you have an easier time meeting those spell DCs for a wider variety of spell types due to your bonus feat and increased INT?
Sometimes optimizations do not need to start at Level 1. People play their own characters, but from what I am seeing is that there are people on the side of playing optimization builds
I think you missed my point-- I provided a random example of a relatively unoptimized character, who just made smart use of the advantages he did have and did a tiny bit of planning ahead based on his starting information. That's all people should try to do, reevaluating at certain points in their character's career, to stay happy and relevant in 7-11 scenarios, a view that is well-expressed by this guide.
As a Gnome, my sample Wizard has +1 to the DCs of Illusions, even though he doesn't gain INT which isn't great for a Wizard, and gains CHA which normally doesn't do much. Aware of this, he takes Spell Focus: Illusion as his bonus Wizard feat, which he can even retrain later on if he'd like to shift his focus. This didn't even note a chosen Wizard school, or archetype, or whether or not he took a Bonded Item or a Familiar.
I chose a trait that gives a very restricted +2 bonus, which probably isn't better than Magical Lineage but could be apropos to this character's backstory and jive with his goals as a member of his faction. Compare to a level 1 spellcaster who chose Magical Lineage and Wayang Spellhunter to add Persistent Spell to his level 1 save-or-die spell of choice. Better yet, he takes a longer view of things and takes Extra Traits as his first feat to acquire these traits, so that they can be retrained later on to a more powerful spell. Now that's "starting optimization at level 1."
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Looking specifically at those DC's, here are some other ways to look at the DC's you need. The following table with lower DC's as a caster will do approximately the following (though not exactly):
35% chance to beat a boss (CR+2) on their good saving throw.
55% chance to beat a boss (CR+2) on their bad saving throw.
60%+ chance to beat a henchmen (CR+2) on their good saving throw
Tier 1-2: DC 15
Tier 3-4: DC 17
Tier 4-5: DC 18
Tier 5-6: DC 19
Tier 6-7: DC 16
Tier 7-8: DC 21
Tier 8-9: DC 22
Tier 10-11: DC 24
I would consider that totally acceptable, especially when considering area effects where I can force multiple saves at once. You can see that you can raise your chance of contributing considerably by not targeting the boss's best save, or not targeting the boss at all.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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So none of your benchmarks were really BASELINE COMPETENT? That or your ranger isn't competent. It really seems like the numbers are high across the board.
1) I took someone else's definition of competent (successful 50% of the time against hard cases. (I lowered the standard of 1/3 because that seemed too high to me before looking at the numbers.) I personally feel the 50% standard is too high for baseline competent as I look at it. (See the revised table of spell DC's and what that would mean to a character.) I'm wondering if 35% is the right number for baseline competent on other items too, which means -3 to AC, -3 to hit. DPR is the hardest one to balance out through since to hit and AC really factor in there too.
2) A lot of people would probably argue my ranger is not competent. I'd argue that combat is a secondary thing for him. He's built for the non-combat stuff, so I didn't plan for him either to be a tank, or a primary damage dealer. I take some ribbing for my non-optimal builds in my area though.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Please remember that you don't need to be baseline competent at everything. You need to be baseline competent at what you do. The numbers are the baseline needed to tank, dpr, or shutdown via spell. You can be effective by helping other people be effective. Give the barbarian pouncer an extra attack via haste and suddenly you're doing 1d12+234145987 damage a round. Sure, he's rolling, but that extra attack comes from you. Give everyone a +2 or 3 to their attack rolls and that 10-15% accuracy boost (and the additional damage) comes from you.
Absolutely agree. Using my ranger as an example:
My character's primary function is to scout and gather information. He is a high intelligence ranger, meaning I have a boatload of skillpointss in addition to my level 1 feat being Breadth of Experience, giving an extra boost to knowledge skills and allowing a role on any knowledge.
Combat is a secondary role. Non-buffed, and assuming now species enemy bonuses, my AB always lagged by a couple points vs the benchmark, meaning I am likely hitting 40% of the time instead of 50%. My average damage per hit sits at about 60% of the DPR benchmark without using any gimmicks. I'd say just with that I can "contribute" to a fight in just damage, although it's obviously a lot less than a pure damage dealer should be putting out. However, my contribution is boosted by handing shaken conditions to pretty much anyone I hit and to everyone in 30 feet if I make a killing blow, sickening anyone I crit, and kicking off an automatic prayer spell every time I crit (with a 15-20 crit range). (This means I can be giving up to -5 on saves to an enemy, which is huge for casters in the party, not to mention that same -5 applying to the enemy attacks, helping out everyone) I also have an animal companion that can contribute or at least soak up an extra hit or two.
So the point is, although I lag a lot in the pure damage and hitting I built a niche for my character so that I have things to do to help my party out.
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An example of an actual "deoptimized" character, a character that is going to have a very difficult time of things without planning ahead at Tier 7-11 would be a Gnome Transmuter who plans to enter Eldritch Knight. Let's go as generic as possible and say Wizard 5 / Fighter 1 / Eldritch Knight X. Note that this character is still fairly "strong" because they are a spellcaster, and with a little bit of planning could still contribute just fine to a 7-11 scenario-- but a lack of preparation would be deadly.
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He probably still takes Magical Knack as long as he knows about the trait, so he has a full CL but is a spell level behind (casting only 3rd level spells at level 8). He also only has a BAB of +5, 1 BAB behind a 3/4 progression character and lacking an iterative at level 8. He has little HP due to his d6 levels, 12 CON, and lack of a FCB for his Eldritch Knight levels. His to-hit is boosted slightly by his small size, but the damage die on his weapon decreases. He lacks the statistics or the feats to engage in Archery, so is stuck with his single melee attack.
Even worse, he may have been tricked into taking the Arcane Armor feat line, tying up his swift action each round he wants to cast (precluding Quickening at higher levels) and reducing his total number of combat feats. He also spends a lot of money upgrading his armor and other defensive items to try to offset his low HP, and doesn't have many consumable items beyond a basic healing wand and maybe some alchemical splash weapons.
Typically he casts Fly or Fireball in combat, and memorizes Heroism but doesn't take any special steps such as Extend metamagic rods to try to always have it "up." He is able to cast Glitterdust in combat but is no more likely to have See Invisibility up than Heroism.
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I was going to compare this to an "optimized" straight Transmuter Wizard, but I don't need to really. Just to show the difference a little bit of planning ahead makes, let's not change overmuch at all about the character (stick with Eldritch Knight, don't do anything drastic like put an 18 in a statistic, or change the race, etc.) but noticeably increase its effectiveness.
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First, obviously, we reexamine the point buy. Some people hate decreasing any statistics below 10 but that's never made sense to me, as people in real life (even exceptional people) rarely are at least average in everything. A very minor change could be reducing CHA to 9 at level 1, which gives just enough points to bump CON to 14 due to racial bonuses. We've lost basically nothing in exchange for our level in bonus hit points and a +1 to a common save that frontliners face, Fortitude.
Now lets take a look at level progression. We'll trade the base Transmutation school for the Shapechange school, which loses a power we would never use in exchange for the ability to grow a magical natural attack as a swift action. Instead of assigning our +2 Enhancement bonus to STR, now we'll assign it to CON, so we have a respectable 16 CON. We'll spend money on a +4 STR belt, giving us a much more impressive 20 STR.
Instead of baseline Fighter, we can take an archetype, either of Fighter or a different martial class. If we took a level of Gendarme Cavalier, we would gain the same benefit as a level of Fighter (martial weapon proficiency, Power Attack as a bonus feat) and gain a useful 1/day Challenge and a basic mount for overland travel. Or we could take a level of Blood Conduit Bloodrager, giving the ability to rage for ~10 rounds a day, the proficiencies we need, and Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat which is useful for our attack plan and helps qualify for Grapple feats.
Instead of spending feats on Arcane Armor Training, let's stick with Mage Armor (easily Extended to last all day), and look to get our armor bonus from another source. Let's also buy a Wand of Shield and use it liberally. As an effectively level 6 Wizard, we can cast Monstrous Physique I several times a day (or Alter Self from lower-level slots). Either spell will let us avoid having our gear meld into our body, and grant a number of natural attacks and statistic boosts, and/or useful abilities like Flight.
Since we took the Shapechange subschool, we could assume a form like the Witchwyrd which has 4 Slam attacks. That's a total of 6 attacks before Haste, if we make an Unarmed Strike, 4 Slams, and use our Shapechange school power! No matter what form we assume, Small or Medium, we could use an Extend rod to increase duration to a nice 16 minutes at level 8, and we gain +2 STR or +2 DEX and some amount of natural armor.
Even if we didn't take the Shapechange subschool, we could pick up Arcane Strike to add a nice damage boost to all of our natural attacks, which is a lot more valuable than when we only had 1 attack with our weapon of choice, or 2 with Haste.
In combat, this character tries to have Heroism and See Invisibility up as often as possible, while retaining the ability to Glitterdust; he can potentially use scrolls of these spells as needed. He does not memorize Fly, but gains Flight from his polymorph abilities, and trusts other martial characters in the party to have their own means of flight (not that he has the spell slots to hand out free magic without using scrolls). Instead of Fireball, he could have Burst of Radiance prepared in one of his free second-level slots, targeting a notoriously easy save (Reflex) vs. Blindness, and guaranteeing damage against hordes of evil foes.
Finally, this Eldritch Knight makes a point of leveraging his Wizard abilities and purchases a number of scrolls and wands to help open up his options. Glitterdust, Haste, Protection from Evil, Heroism, sure, but also Tongues, Air Bubble, etc. are all things this EK looks into, and can afford due to the money freed up from not focusing on upgrading magical armor and other defensive items.
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Now obviously the second build is more complicated than the first, and takes more preplanning. But making any number of the choices in the second build provides a demonstrable effectiveness boost over the choices of the first build, while detracting nothing from roleplaying and even adding some cool additional "hooks" for the character. It's still not a character a monstrous "minmaxer" would bring to the table, but I'd be totally happy to play it or see it played at my table in a normal 7-11.
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Aid another is not an acceptable use of a 7th level characters action. It is not contributing meaningfully to the fight.
I totally agree with your main point, but the pedant in me has to point out that aid another CAN be an effective contribution if you build for it. Handing out +8 is a lot different than handing out a +2 :-).
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Aid another is not an acceptable use of a 7th level characters action. It is not contributing meaningfully to the fight.I totally agree with your main point, but the pedant in me has to point out that aid another CAN be an effective contribution if you build for it. Handing out +8 is a lot different than handing out a +2 :-).
Even then, +8 to one persons one attack is kinda pushing the lower bounds of usefulness. (unless they're the only effective attacker or something). You really should be contributing more to the fight than one attack from another party member.
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I really wish people would refrain from dehumanizing others over a difference in how a game is enjoyed...
My statement was hyperbole if it helps.
That being said, unless there was some amazing backstory hook or hidden mechanical benefit from going Gnome I would probably play a Dwarf EK over a Gnome if I wanted a short but very resilient EK with no racial STR or INT bonus, unless it was a home game where I was specifically told to go goofier on character concepts.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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For a small detour on the subject, I'd like to go into RP vs. tactical play again.
As I've said before, I enjoy both. There's often some entertaining RP to be had in PFS scenarios, and you can definitely have a character with style and personality. But let's be honest: PFS isn't the best forum for deep character development. If that's truly your main goal, you're better off in a home campaign, with more storyline continuity and less "because the scenario says so".
I really like it when a scenario has a decent story to it. Just like action movies, all the explosions and violence are even better if there's a narrative. PFS is not deep literature, it's blockbuster action. In at least two high-tier scenarios my paladin has ousted supernatural tyrants - there's definitely story there, but more of the Die Hard variety than the Downton Abbey kind.
On the other hand, PFS offers something that home campaigns can't: comparability. If you talk to other people who played the same scenario, with a different group, you can compare how the adventure went for both of you. Which may include bragging about how you did a better run, or bemoaning that your idiot GM gave you such a hard time, or learning from another party's totally out of the box tactics.
This is the part of PFS that really makes use of the "run as written" part. Comparing your experiences to other peoples' only makes sense if they're playing at least somewhat the same scenario as you are. It creates a sort of shared misery/friendly competition that I rather like.
Edit: The comparing isn't just about numbers and DPR, either. It's also like hearing a familiar story told by someone else, and finding it to be different.
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Edit: The comparing isn't just about numbers and DPR, either. It's also like hearing a familiar story told by someone else, and finding it to be different.
"I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff! And I want in. "
I would stand outside the game store for hours listening to interesting stories about the scenarios played the week before. Even though I was at the table. Interesting stuff.