So, I'm in a bit of a quandry, and I'm curious as to the feed back of fellow gamers here. For a little background, it should be known that I have HORRID luck. No, worse than that. No, worse than THAT. In one infamous game session, I started off by rolling four 1's and a 3 in my first five rolls. If there is ever a time that I absolutely need to roll well, I am guaranteed to flub it up. I am jinxed. I am hexed. I am cursed though I cannot in my life imagine what has brought me to this position in life.
The second piece of background information that I wish to offer is that one of my best friends and long time fellow gamer is an obsessive power gamer. If it isn't min/max'ed, he isn't happy. He exclusively plays warriors and mages, and he rolls quite well on an average basis. So, every campaign we play, he's always this shining star within our group and I'm the sidekick who humorously died a few times through the adventure in some really unexpected ways. As you can imagine, no one enters into a campaign with the goal of being the sidekick, and it's a role that's gotten quite old.
Unfortunately, I'm drawn to characters that have a bit of depth to their personality. My pal in the above paragraph is happy enough to have a character with a personality like wet cardboard and put straight 10's in all of his mental stats so that every one of his characters has the complexity of a high school jock that earns C's in his classes. Me, I'm drawn towards the more complex personalities. A character that has a few quirks, some strengths and flaws. Which sounds like the more interesting individual, but let's face it... the majority of Pathfinder is a combat game. You can throw in plenty of little side events as much as you want, but in the end it's about how well you can squash the creepy thing. If you fail in a social event, you always get a second chance down the line. If you fail to kill the creepy beastie, it's a TPK.
I'm curious as to what advice this community would offer an unlucky, rogue-inclined player who always seems to exclusively play second fiddle to his friend that always plays a character that is like Conan or Merlin in all but name.
And in preparation for certain suggestions... yes, I've tried my hand at playing the tank from time to time. Firstly, they feel far too "direct" to me. They're very "from point A to point B" sorts of characters, both in playing style and in nature as decided by their ability scores. I'm actually playing one now, and that friend who usually plays them is game mastering for a change. Except, by coincidence we're playing the Reign of Winter campaign, and for once ranged attackers are at a premium in this campaign. Two out of every three combats my Bloodrager is either out of range or he's had every effort concentrated on him and he's knocked unconscious before the combat finishes. That's not much fun, either.
I would consider playing a spellcaster - that way, the bulk of the randomness connected to your character is others' dice rolls, not yours. :) And you're more equipped to make yourself resistant to others' good fortune by careful spell choice and pumping spell DCs. The witch especially has several ways to make nasty stuff stick, and I only roll a handful of dice a session playing mine.
For the rogue-inclined, you could consider a warlock vigilante - they have a skills-y, Dex-y chassis along with decent spellcasting off the wizard list, and their mystic bolts can target touch AC after a while to make bad rolls less impactful. The damage of the bolts isn't great, and it's hard to improve, but it can mostly play second fiddle to your spells anyway, and Two-Weapon Fighting with them can get you enough attacks a round for them to stack up ok.
We have a guy in our group who consistently seems to roll low, it is uncanny. It was great for gurps but terrible for Pathfinder. I haven't paid enough attention to determine whether he actually rolls lower than the expected long term average, but I suspect that he doesn't actually roll low, we just tend to remember the low rolls because he makes a big song and dance about it.
In your case, I don't know, are your dice weighted incorrectly?
If you are genuinely unlucky, assuming there is such a thing, then you might want to consider playing classes that are good at summoning like summoners and druids so at least some of your bad rolls are absorbed by your minions.
Options:
do melee in such a way that you hit on a two, wont help with those ones, but anything else is fine.
Do offensive spellcasting. You should only need to rarely make defensive casting and SR checks.
Do buffing, a bard/evangelist cleric that buffs and uses aid another only needs to reach an attack of 10 and not roll a 1.
Do a mesmerist/witch, it's a debuff support that again needs no rolls or makes the enemy roll with penalties to avoid more penalties.
do a stalker vigilante intimidate build, skill checks don't auto-fail on a 1 and you do damage when you intimidate, debuffing and damage at the same time.
be the band-aid. Life oracle that's all about healing and some buffs.
All of these have room for deep and complex characters that use mental stats.
A support character is my first thought. If you're able to make the powergamer even better at fighting it's kind of 'reflected glory', but it nonetheless means you're integral to all of his successes.
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Play a buffing/debuffing witch and share your bad luck with your enemies!
Use fortune/misfortune hex, evil eye, etc. and make your bad luck a background element for your character.
A witch is a powerful character and you'll be able to make your friend shine.
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You need new dice.
Maybe some kind of ranged skald.
For players with bad luck I've heard trying to subtract the roll from 20 to get a new roll.
If nothing is wrong with the dice, then it should sort itself out... Kind've. Probability is weird.
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You aren't unlucky, you only think you are.
Pathfinder Chronicler UMD abuser with brilliant planner. Take 1 level in pathfinder savant beforehand so you can take 10 on umd. Pack some scrolls of high level spells and you get that many epic moments in the day. Also with Brilliant Planner and Deep Pockets you can have some fun moments where you pull out weird stuff that nobody would pack but just so happens to be the right tool for the job. For your bardic performance I always took inspiration from the bard from "Kights Tale"
Thank you all for your input... and I'll confess, I wrote this post up more as a vent than actually hoping for some successful answers. Still, I think it's a good idea to address some of the suggestions that were offered.
○ I have purchased new dice several times over the years. Nothing has improved by taking this measure.
○ The other gamers in our group are resistant to suggestions that would alter the straightforwards use of how dice are currently used... so, no declaring that 1's are the best results and such. Sadly, it seems that in other game systems where rolling low is better, I will then tend to roll high. I've even gone so far as to suggest an alternate rolling system that instead of rolling 1d20 you roll 2d12 and increase the DC of every result by +2. I've showed them the math of how this only minorly increases probability of successes, while creating a bell curve of results that makes criticals and critical failures less common. Naturally, the friend who min/max's and rolls 20's rather frequently objected the loudest to this idea, and even when I game master the group as a whole are unwilling to even give it a chance.
○ I like the idea of spellcasters, and I've tried them on occasion to mixed success. They don't die off as frequently as my rogues do (a class that in my opinion is always two mediocre rolls away from dying due to a failed perception check and saving throw), but they don't exactly fair too well either. I despise the Vancian magic system used by Pathfinder and similar games, as I always seem to have prepared the spell that's the most useless to the scenario. Oh, we're facing a horde of creatures packed closely together and perfect for my fireball? Guess what, they're immune to fire and now that spell has been wasted! My most powerful spell is Lightning Bolt and I only have one of them, but I get my shot off before the rest of the group can act? Well, of COURSE it's an illusion and I just threw away my best chance of making an impact in that encounter. Variations of these situations seem to happen to me all the time. Then, there's the fact that your efforts are too limited in times per day. It always seems there are more encounters than you have spells, and you'll have encountered the really important combat of the day AFTER you've used up all your most useful spells.
○ I am actually quite good at the support character. However, it's the classic theme that defense may win the game, but offense gets the glory. Numerous times it's been that a bard of mine's buffing (and bluffing) are the reasons we won, or that my cleric's channeling are the sole reason our group were still on their feet after an encounter. However, it lacks that appreciation of being the hero who's blade is the direct cause the big bad's head goes flying through the air. It's more fun to be the wide receiver who catches the touchdown that wins the game than the safety who's coverage prevented the other team from scoring. As I said in my main post, at the end of the day the story is primarily about who can kill the creepy thing. You may want to make it about you, but the game master is the one who directs the focus of the action regardless of what you want.
○ For those that don't believe in luck... well, I say sometimes it's a term used for consistent results. It's mathematically possible that one individual over the course of their role playing career statistically rolls lower on both mean, median, and mode than the average predicted by the nature of sides on the dice. Reword it however you want, but all of my friends widely and openly recognize that probability moves in such a way as giving the appearance of actively disliking me. I'm not a superstitious individual, I like to make decisions based on factual evidence and remain objective while making them. It's simply easier to say that I have bad luck, and my friends all agree on it.
Still, there have been some interesting suggestions that I will look into. Thank you for your advice, as it's clear by my verbose reply all the points have been given quite a bit of thought. Now, I just have to hope that I can find some fashion of improving my results in game.
Trade dice with someone just in case.
Write down all your rolled d20s.
If everything remains the same, you know it to be true. If your luck changes... it knows you're watching!
Instead of Wizards and Clerics try Sorcs and Oracles since you don't like the prepared casting and have no luck with it. Also they're CHA classes which lends itself to being the party face, so you'll be a shining star out of combat.
if you find your whole list resisted one of two things has happened.
1) you've made a horrible list, which probably won't happen and we can help you not do anyway
2) your DM is being an ass.
I'm currently playing a fun arcane caster build but it expensive GP wise and goes online at late levels. Ring of Continuation + 7th level spell Deflection. Everything else is just stacking AC effects. Requires absolutely no rolling on your part and provides substantial DPS provided they can overcome their own DR. Not optimal but definitely fun
A feat you might find helpful is Measured Response if you can find a way to hit consistantly
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Go Bard. I get that you want to be the one to land the killing blows but you are never going to compete with your powergamer pal. Might as well make him even better and have fun while you can. I'd suggest looking for another game with a playstyle closer to your own to supplement your gaming experiences.
It sounds like you want to be the obvious hero this time around, rather than the 'unsung' hero, so I won;t suggest support characters like life oracles, bards, evangelist clerics, etc. (notwitstanding that I really like those sorts of characters).
In that case, I quite like Chromatic Durgon's suggestion of playing a spontaneous caster, probably a sorcerer. I'd then focus on learning spells which have multiple potential uses, like Grease and Glitterdust, as well as ones which don't trigger saves or spell resistance. Variety is key, so you have at least one option for every situation (this becomes easier to plan for as you gain levels).
A Conjuration specialist makes good sense for this purpose, which means you could also pick up Augment Summoning to boost summoned creatures (another strong way of ensuring effectiveness and minimizing the effect of bad rolls).
Do you have a particular campaign you're building for? If so, I'm sure you could gets lots of character creation help on these boards.
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Next time your dice roll a 1, line them up then summary execute the offender by smashing it with a hammer in front of them. Muttering "you have failed me for the last time" is optional, but appropriate.
Do you mainly only roll low on d20s, or on other kinds of dice too?
If it's just d20s, you can reduce (or eliminate) the impact of consistent bad luck while still getting to slay the dragon (because let's face it, slaying the dragon yourself is more fun than watching others do it). My recommendation? Evocation spells that don't require an attack roll (magic missile, lightning bolt). To get around enemy resistances, lots of sorcerer bloodlines let you change the damage to a specific energy type-- or the Admixture wizard subschool of Evocation lets you change the damage to any other energy type.
If it's any kind of dice, I'd recommend a sorcerer/arcanist/oracle who specializes in dramatic save-or-suck spells that don't require an attack (blindness/deafness, suggestion, hold person). Operating idea here is to cripple the creature in a way that it reduces the fighter's job to "hit a wall until it falls down." You won't be killing the dragon yourself, but even the fighter can't deny that you won the battle, not him.
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I'm going to offer some thoughts for general campaigns - fitting them into a published campaign like Reign of Winter might be more difficult.
Me, I'm drawn towards the more complex personalities. A character that has a few quirks, some strengths and flaws. Which sounds like the more interesting individual, but let's face it... the majority of Pathfinder is a combat game. You can throw in plenty of little side events as much as you want, but in the end it's about how well you can squash the creepy thing. If you fail in a social event, you always get a second chance down the line. If you fail to kill the creepy beastie, it's a TPK.
I agree that this is often the case, but it doesn't have to be, and that might be something to talk to your GM about. Failing a social event might not be a TPK, but it might mean you're all thrown in jail for a crime you didn't commit, or fail to unmask the corrupt baron behind the whole scheme. Maybe the magic treasure you're seeking is protected not by a powerful monster, but a series of Indiana Jones-like traps that your rogue is best suited to get through. In other words, in most campaigns the DM can create situations that let less combat-oriented characters be the star sometimes.
Your GM can also create combats and situations that favor a more balanced approach. A melee character can be challenged by flying or distant enemies. A mage can be stymied by silence, blindness, or other effects. And the more dangerous a PC seems, the more the enemy will focus on taking him out. Min-maxing involves mins as well as maxs - if those mins never come into play, then yes, the character is going to feel overpowered.
These don't have to be big changes. Your min-maxed friend should still get the chance to shine sometimes too.
A support character is my first thought. If you're able to make the powergamer even better at fighting it's kind of 'reflected glory', but it nonetheless means you're integral to all of his successes.
Yes, do a Life Oracle. Be the BEST at a support character.
I also will note that everyone has the same luck. But some people announce and enjoy getting a 1, while others crow and brag about a 20.
It can be fun to complain about “bad luck” or “The Fates” and cultivate a reputation for complaining and being a whiner to gain sympathy or to help fill your friends with joyful schadenfreude (perhaps both). I get into that mode sometimes myself.
Really dice are hunks of plastic which roll around pretty randomly though. If you want to perceive more “good” rolls then change your PC so that more of the results you get on d20s have “good” results. If a 2 is a success is is a lot harder to “roll bad”. I haven't played a lot of Rogues recently, but if you think about their medium BAB and tendency to use TWF you might see that it is easy to have "bad rolls" when you need a higher result to succeed.
As for your Bloodrager...
- Ruthlessly maximize your attack bonus, your AC, and any skill modifier you intend to use in combat such as Intimidate or Bluff. These numbers can never be high enough.
- Use debuffs when possible. I really like Intimidate.
- Use good tactics in combat.
- Get Mirror Image and use it often.
- Consider enlisting the help of an animal companion or familiar.
- Consider 4 Paladin levels with Oath of Vengeance.
- Adopt a confident attitude.
The last point can be the most important since if you get really into roleplaying a "can do" PC it might get you to try heroic stuff once in a while, and trying is a prerequisite to succeeding. You should probably have a realistic idea of what you probably can't do too though.
Also, if you're going to play a Rogue insist on using the Unchained Rogue.
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It can be fun to complain about “bad luck” or “The Fates” and cultivate a reputation for complaining and being a whiner to gain sympathy or to help fill your friends with joyful schadenfreude (perhaps both)....
- Adopt a confident attitude...
CONGRATULATIONS! You, Devilkiller, have taking a commanding lead in the most condescending post in this thread. I sure you're Momma's proud of you. Now, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you weren't meaning to talk down to a fellow gamer, but you did. And it wasn't well received. So, for the sake of progress I'm just going to be ignoring any posts from you from this point forwards on this matter so not give you any chance to threadjack.
Second; have somebody else roll your dice.
No offense on the "high school jock with a C average" comment, but I think you knew the point I was going for. And secondly... participation is kind of half the fun. If I'm not rolling my own dice, my own level of participation has diminished. Which makes me less engaged.
Trade dice with someone just in case.
This has been attempted, with no better result than buying a new set of dice.
Instead of Wizards and Clerics try Sorcs and Oracles since you don't like the prepared casting and have no luck with it. Also they're CHA classes which lends itself to being the party face, so you'll be a shining star out of combat.
I have to admit, I really liked the Sorcerer in principle when the class was first introduced. Thematically, the idea is closer to the whole "you have a special gift", which is always cool. Mechanically, however... the lack of access to higher level spells compared to the wizard really feels like an unfair trade off. Compared to the wizard which gets increased spells known for a high ability score and an inability to swap out spells until two levels have passed, I simply don't see the bloodline abilities as a fair trade off. For example, you could have a 5th lvl Sorcerer who has a singular 2nd level spell they know that they can cast four times a day at best. A 5th lvl Wizard can have one 3rd level spell, and if they're using a bonded item they could have a secondary version of the same spell saved up in there. That faster advancement is too advantageous compared to the spontaneous casting of the sorcerer.
It sounds like you want to be the obvious hero this time around, rather than the 'unsung' hero, so I won;t suggest support characters like life oracles, bards, evangelist clerics, etc. (notwitstanding that I really like those sorts of characters).
Yes! This fellow gets it! Well, this part of it at least.
Next time your dice roll a 1, line them up then summary execute the offender by smashing it with a hammer in front of them. Muttering "you have failed me for the last time" is optional, but appropriate.
While a cathartic answer, it would eventually prove to be an expensive one. And wouldn't improve my results.
Do you mainly only roll low on d20s, or on other kinds of dice too?
I roll poorly on all dice. I think sometimes I need to blame my no-good-dirty-rotten pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather for not carrying Madam Zeroni up the mountain to drink.
I agree that this is often the case, but it doesn't have to be, and that might be something to talk to your GM about. Failing a social event might not be a TPK, but it might mean you're all thrown in jail for a crime you didn't commit, or fail to unmask the corrupt baron behind the whole scheme. Maybe the magic treasure you're seeking is protected not by a powerful monster, but a series of Indiana Jones-like traps that your rogue is best suited to get through. In other words, in most campaigns the DM can create situations that let less combat-oriented characters be the star sometimes.
I appreciate the suggestions, but sadly my game master isn't the sort who listens to suggestions. In any aspect of his life. I've known him for 28 years, he's as flexible in his ways as a rock. I've been telling him for over a decade that not all campaigns have to end with a planned need for one of the characters to sacrifice themselves and half of the remaining members to be burdened with joyless responsibilities that are contrary to their natures. Yet, he won't plot his stories in any other way. Still, it was a good suggestion.
... and talking to the min/max'er doesn't work, either. I've tried to convey to him, "Maybe you could try a more challenging concept? Something a bit more unique and off kilter, maybe? A warrior who isn't human so you don't grab up that extra feat, or a wizard who isn't this perfect combination of Dex and Int?" He just looks at me like I've grown two heads, and makes it clear that he simply doesn't find the idea the least bit interesting (in his words). As I said before, if it isn't the ULTIMATE combination possible, he doesn't find it appealing.
A quick word about summoning-type characters... sadly, no matter the level or the buffs you can push into them, the creatures you summon are never equal to the team tank. Even when you augment their summoning, they're still a far cry from that brute warrior. I often consider summoning as a way to delay an attack or two against you, which for most spell levels is worth the price. However, as an offensive option, it's simply not an efficient one.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I do worry about the fact that you've gotten quite a bit of good advice, but have basically shot it all down as either not good enough or not suitable for you personally for whatever reason. It makes me think that perhaps you're looking less for advice, and more for the opportunity to vent about a problematic powergamer co-player, and an inflexible DM (which is totally fine, but you might be in the wrong forum).
Given all the suggestions you've considered and shot down, it sounds like you have good knowledge of the various classes available to you, and strong views regarding their usefulness. To recap, you don't like playing tanky melee characters or prepared casters like wizards, but find spontaneous casters like sorcerers/arcanist underpowered, and are disinclined from playing a support character this time around. That leaves you with limited options, and while I could suggest a Magus, Bloodrager (which you are currently playing in ROW but not enjoying) or perhaps a Melee Shaman or Melee Oracle, I suspect you may have some difficulty with the limitations inherent to those classes, as well.
As rough as it may sound, you might be happier if you found a different group to play with for a bit, whether in-person or online. That way you might be able to find a group more interested in a roleplay focused campaign, or one where powergaming is discouraged. Then you could just play whatever you actually like to play, without feeling like second fiddle to your companions.
Whatever you end up doing, I wish you the best of luck and happy gaming!
So are you looking for Rogue/Rogue like builds or...?
There's nothing anyone can do about bad rolling but to stat around it. Either making a character less dependent on rolls or to make bonuses so high for what you want to do that you won't fail on a lower roll. Either of these can be achieved with some degree of success but to offer any helpful advice we need design parameters.
If I didn't trust my dice, I'd try to plan around them. Spells that make the GM roll saves/damage, spells with no saves, beneficial spells that boost my allies...
A reach cleric maybe. If you miss on an AoO, so what? It was a free attack, anyway.
Caltrops.
Illusions.
Somebody already said Bard. This is a second of that.
If I wanted to mix it up in melee, maybe Magus. True Strike into a Bull Rush can be hilarious.
If your GM was more receptive, maybe a deck of cards instead of d20. 40 cards, 1-10, Red +10, one or two Jokers mean to shuffle the deck again. You draw off the top, whenever you'd roll a d20.
And keep on roleplaying.
Arcanists are prepared spontaneous casters. I am currently playing a white mage archtype and loving it, i dont roll dice often, except for the occasional burning hands, all my dc's are 17+ which requires the enemy to make its rolls, not me make mine, i also carry various buffs like haste and heroism, strengthening the party. Sometimes i summon a pit for the fighter types to bull rush enemies into if they pass their saves. The options to juggle spells, while still casting what you want and when is beautiful. They also have things they can do special with arcane points. I mam known in my circle for using the dimensional slide to go to the ceiling where i stand using boots of spider climb. melee enemies cant hit me up there, so i remove about 70% of combatants, allowing me to survive longer without being hit....
furthermore while it is more common to build a support character that is not the "sung" hero, it is not too difficult to play a support one, when a caster, and draw attention to your obvious control of the battlefield. Support spells that command attention are things like WEB, PIT, Hold Person. You may not be the one dropping the big bad, but ther group should realize they only did it so well due to your participation.
As for the "Wizard sget higher level spells" that is sheer nonsense in my opinion. The spontaneous classes, like sorcerers may not progress quite as fast, but they get alot more spells which is far more useful.
The wizard casts his level 3 fireball... yay, he has 3 or four more spells that may be useful... Sorc steps up and empower 6 burning hands, why so glum chum?
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It can be fun to complain about “bad luck” or “The Fates” and cultivate a reputation for complaining and being a whiner to gain sympathy or to help fill your friends with joyful schadenfreude (perhaps both)....
- Adopt a confident attitude...CONGRATULATIONS! You, Devilkiller, have taking a commanding lead in the most condescending post in this thread. I sure you're Momma's proud of you. Now, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you weren't meaning to talk down to a fellow gamer, but you did. And it wasn't well received. So, for the sake of progress I'm just going to be ignoring any posts from you from this point forwards on this matter so not give you any chance to threadjack.
Well done. If you hadn't said it, I would have.
I feel your pain. I too suffer from bad luck in real life games. Perhaps not as bad as yours, but I got tired of playing characters that always seemed second rate, no matter what I did. It's easy to blame the GM and the other players, and in truth they bare some of the blame, but after 28 years you have invested in them it would be wrong to just walk out on them without at least trying something else.
So, first off, as Arbane the Terrible suggested in the previous thread, optimize your characters. I'm serious. You can roleplay an optimized character just as easily as an unoptimized character. If you want the quirks, you can roleplay them or just pick a few sub-optimal choices that fit your quirks. Your performance will improve and everyone will love you for it.
Regarding your distaste for martials, I'm with you there. You can play indirect martials (e.g. trip builds) that would suit your style better - and no one would be able to deny that fighting an opponent who is prone is much better than just a stand up fight, but they aren't always optimal and are still a bit of a one trick pony.
So, stick with the characters you enjoy. It sounds like you have dabbled in playing spellcasters, using Fireball and Lightning Bolt and summons. Just so you know, these can be very powerful options - if you optimize - but they are not really the strengths of a spellcaster. Your play style seems better suited to control; be the one who divides the enemies so the martials can defeat them piecemeal. This involves using spells to delay or separate opponents; Grease and Web at low levels and the various wall spells at higher levels.
But if you want to be the one with the most kills, go for a blaster caster. There are several guides for optimising a blaster; if you go with Wizard, try this;for a sorcerer try this or for an arcanist, try this
Regarding the weakness of sorcerors, yes it's true they get access to spells levels one level later, but it's only really a problem at 5th level when you are stuck using 2nd level spells while the wizard blasts away with fireball. After that, you want to be able to use fireball as many times as possible and there, the sorcerer wins. Also, the wizard suffers from a certain amount of inflexibility; once he's chosen his spells for the day, he can cast them only as many times as he has memorised them. If he memorises a spell that the adventuring day never calls for...that's a spell wasted. If he uses up his only lightning bolt on an illusion...that's a spell wasted. The sorcerer shrugs his shoulders and casts it again on the following turn. He has plenty of spells/day and can use them as needed. Does the party need to cross a chasm in a hurry? the wizard likely has 1 fly spell momorized so he can get 1 person across, 2 if they can carry another. The sorcerer can spam his fly spell as many times as needed, the entire party gets across. Personally I prefer spontaneous casters, but it really comes down to personal choice.
Also I would recommend Arcanists. They can combine the strengths of Wizards with the strengths of Sorcerors and get to add some cool abilities on top of that. Sadly they get fewer spells/day, but Dimensional slide can be a life-saver, and potent spells a real boon to a blaster.
But if, at the end of the day, you want to play some other class; go for it. Just make sure you optimize them and role-play them. A good guide for optimization can be found here
Some more good suggestions, thank you all. Yes, there was a degree of venting in this post, but another aspect of it was that there are now so many archetypes and specific combinations that I haven't explored each and every permutation and then sifted through them for the best combination. In particular, I hadn't considered the Grenadier Alchemist, and looking a bit closer at the Investigator there are some intriguing archetypes as well. Reading the Steel Hound Investigator and their access to both firearms as well as the rapier made me imagine one of those Renaissance ideals of heroes... the sort who uses their intellect and skills in the midst of a fight as much as their brawn. I've only ever given the Arcanist a singular try, when the book first came out, and I realized shortly after the campaign started that I perhaps hadn't taken the best options for that level; and it was a game in which there were CONSTANT impediments to your sight through supernatural fog which will hurt any ranged combatant in their ability to take care of anything except what's right in front of them.
My group is only half way through the Reign of Winter campaign at the moment, so it'll be a bit of time before I have a chance to use any of these suggestions. However, I'll definitely refer back to this thread when I have the next chance to make a new character.
Maybe we can help sooner. What is your character like: how many levels in which classes does he/she/it have? What are your character's Feats? How is your character equipped?
How is your character supposed to work, and how has your character been frustrating?
I consider myself an sophisticated min/maxer, and I suspect I'm not the only one with further advice.
I'm not poor at building the characters I have, it's more the circumstances I seem to find myself in combined with poor dice rolls at inopportune moments. For example, in the current campaign of Reign of Winter (which the gamemaster has admittedly customized to include more encounters and what encounters we've had so it could very well be fairly different from the existing source material), I've notice there are a LOT of encounters that do not suit a melee combatant. An inordinate percentage of the encounters take place with flying opponents that can target us at a range, sometimes turning invisible immediately after they attack, or they have a ranged option from a distance with difficult terrain between my Bloodrager and themselves so my progress is slow at best. Or such as in this weekend's session when I went against a creature that was sedentary that had a paralysis effect... and though the save was against Fortitude (my best save), the save DC was of such a high value that no one who was struck by it saved and I was removed from the combat before I even got in a single swing.
Or in the campaign before this, I had a Rogue who was built towards being an archer. Only to find that there were mists that prevailed all through the land, limiting sight distances so both he and the mages were always at a disadvantage. And in those instances when we finally got away from those mists, we were involved in a dungeon crawl in tight quarters so I was unable to use the benefits of being at a range.
I think something I may have to incorporate in the next campaign would be a discussion with the gamemaster to find out what avenues might be considered a more "challenging build" for their campaign concept. You don't want to run an Enchanter Wizard specialist and find yourself in an undead themed adventure. I know when I'm the game master I'll give them a bit of warning when their idea might not be the strongest with the manner of trouble they have ahead, so perhaps it might serve me well if I turn the tables and actively have a bit of a tête-à-tête with them prior to starting for their input towards my idea; and see if they don't give a little bit of a slip for something that might actively do well in their scenarios.
I don't feel that my previous post was condescending. In any event, chastising me for my post, bringing up my "Momma", and promising to ignore me seems relatively rougher to me than telling somebody that his or her gaming dice really aren't likely to be controlled by nefarious supernatural forces even if it can sometimes be fun to pretend that's the case.
Anyhow, I tried to offer some actual advice on how to survive and possibly have more success when your dice roll low. Focusing on game mechanics you can help make your own luck to some extent. It seems likely that your group's "optimizer" has already done so. It is also possible that the DMs are favoring other players by making mist when you're an archer but not when they are, etc. I guess two options you could look at are either trying to think of situations which would reduce your PC's effectiveness and ways to deal with them or playing a PC who functions a lot like the PC run by another player you think will be favored in the hope that if the DM caters challenges to that PC they'll be suitable for yours too. I'd probably go with the first option since I don't generally like filling the same role as another PC (I don't play cooperative games to compete and would generally rather let others have their own areas to shine in)
If rolling hit is an issue, Swarm Monger Druid's familiar can turn into swarm deals auto damage like all swarms.
This damage is increased by effective HD (familiar level) due to swarm type.
So you don't have to stay druid (although level 5 gives a cool ability of distraction like a real swarm): you can multiclass if wish, but make sure they have familiar option.
Bloodrager can get a bloodline familiar at 1st level by sacrificing 1st bloodline power later (you get familiar before you trade).
So if you had a decent Bloodrager idea, it isn't hard to redo it. Although, no metal armor you need dragonhide full plate or breastplate now.
Now, swarms seems best if deal addition effects like poison. But up to you.
You can stay Druid as spells are awesome.
Heck, either way giving Mauler archetype to familiar and taking feat Mauler's Endurance will make the Familiar have almost much hp as you (2x lv). Plus, swarm form grants temp hp = 1/2 yours.
Got new dice yet? ;)