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Not sure if this has been brought up, but can't you only have as many property runes as the potency?

I'm a little curious though. Is there any point to this exercise?

Orichalcum Weapons can have 4 property runes (CRB page 599).

For me, the point of this is to showcase an edge-case oddity that I find interesting, even if it will never show up in a game. As you mentioned, there are some sub-optimal choices that have been made for the sole purpose of enabling this situation.

The rule states that, "You immediately move your initiative position to directly before the creature or effect that reduced you to 0 HP."

Since the actor doing the damage is the Fighter, to me that's a strong case for using "creature" instead of "effect". If anything a creature does is considered an effect, then there's no reason to have "creature" in that sentence. I believe "effect" applies to environmental hazards or traps that have a place in the initiative order.

Since the Fighter is the "creature" that brought the Trolls to 0, the Trolls move to in front of the Fighter.

First off, apologies if this has already been posted. I did a couple quick searches but didn't find it.

Second, this does use a variant rule (at GM discretion, enemies can follow the PC rules for changing initiative order upon reaching 0 HP, CRB page 459) and is extremely contrived. However, I think it's fun nonetheless.

The relevant actors are Troll A, Troll B, and Fighter.

The Trolls have AC 20, Regeneration 20, and 115 HP.

The Fighter has Barbarian Dedication (for Rage), Boundless Reprisals (Reaction at the start of each opponent's turn, only usable that turn), a Belt of Giant Strength (base Strength of 22) and a +3 Major Striking Holy Frost Shock Thundering Orichalcum Mace.

The Fighter's attack bonus is +38: 28 (Proficiency) + 7 (Str Mod) + 3 (+3 Major Striking Orichalcum Mace)

The Fighter's minimum damage while Raging is 21 (42 on a crit): 7 (Str mod) + 4 (Weapon Specialization) + 4 (+3 Major Striking Orichalcum Mace) + 4 (Holy, Frost, Shock, Thundering) + 2 (Rage).

The Fighter's maximum damage is 53 (106 on a crit): 7 (Str mod) + 4 (Weapon Specialization) + 16 (+3 Major Striking Orichalcum Mace) + 24 (Holy, Frost, Shock, Thundering) + 2 (Rage).

Therefore, the Fighter is guaranteed to hit a Troll on an attack for at least 21 damage (a roll of 1 would normally be a Critical Success so it is downgraded to a success). The Fighter is also incapable of one-shotting a Troll, even on a max damage crit (though this isn't terribly relevant).

Suppose the Initiative order is Troll A > Troll B > Fighter, the Fighter is Raging, each Troll is at 1 HP, and each Troll is adjacent to the Fighter.

Troll A's 1st turn: Troll A regains 20 HP from Regeneration and goes to 21 HP. The Fighter gains a Reaction. Troll A Strides 5 ft (staying adjacent to the Fighter), provoking an Attack of Opportunity. The Fighter does a minimum of 21 damage, bringing Troll A to 0 HP. Troll A moves in the Initiative order to directly ahead of the Fighter. Initiative order is now Troll B > Troll A > Fighter.

Troll B's 1st turn: The same thing happens as with Troll A. Initiative order is now Troll A > Troll B > Fighter.

Troll A's 2nd turn: Troll A regains 20 HP from Regeneration and goes to 20 HP. Troll A stands up, provoking an Attack of Opportunity. The Fighter does a minimum of 21 damage, bringing Troll A to 0 and shifting the Initiative order.

Troll B's 2nd turn: The same as with Troll A.

Repeat ad nauseam. By constantly taking attacks of opportunity, the Fighter has prevented themself from taking another turn. Because of Regeneration, the Trolls will never die until their Regeneration is turned off, which the Fighter's weapon cannot do.

Yes.

You choose your Ancestry (Human). You then pick your Heritage (Half-Elf).

Now you choose an Ancestry Feat. From the text of the Half-Elf Heritage, "you can select elf, half-elf, and human feats whenever you gain an ancestry feat."

Therefore, yes, you can take Elf Atavism (a Half-Elf Feat 1) and select Cavern Elf to gain Darkvision (because the Half-Elf Heritage gives you Low-Light Vision).

Draconic is my favorite so far because it feels like a naturally synergistic fit for a martial Sorc.

I feel like I'd end up taking many of the granted spells anyway so I'm not getting stuck with spells that don't fit my concept. I'm not sure how much I love True Strike in this edition, but I certainly intend to cast it a couple times at least. I might like it more at higher levels since it might be the most value I can get from a level 1 slot, especially since it'll proc Bespell Weapon.

The Bloodline spells seem really good. Dragon Claws doesn't seem like the best, but it looks like good damage at level 1. Breath weapons make for good AoE and flight is never not useful.

Since nearly every Bloodline Spell and Granted Spell are really only usable in combat, you're always going to get value out of the Blood Magic and I'll never turn down a +1 to AC. I do have some concern about the status bonus not stacking well, but Shield is circumstance so at least those will.

Ape Barbarian (with Monk Dedication), my friend.

That gets to 4d12 (Ape Fists + Major Striking) + 7 Str + 6 GWS + 12 Rage + 3d6 Ki Strike = 61.5 damage (Critical 123).

Now, your build might actually do more damage in practice due to greater accuracy (you have a +38 to this build's +36), but the raw damage is higher.

So, I made a table that has expected damage against AC 20 for a 0 to hit and a -2 to hit that each deal 1 damage (to represent the two builds' expected damage percentages based on what the first build needs to roll) and how much more damage the -2 would need to deal to have the same average damage (+0 expected damage divided by -2 expected damage for a given AC).

AC 20 0.100 0.050 2.000
AC 19 0.150 0.050 3.000
AC 18 0.200 0.100 2.000
AC 17 0.250 0.150 1.667
AC 16 0.300 0.200 1.500
AC 15 0.350 0.250 1.400
AC 14 0.400 0.300 1.333
AC 13 0.450 0.350 1.286
AC 12 0.500 0.400 1.250
AC 11 0.550 0.450 1.222
AC 10 0.600 0.500 1.200
AC 9 0.700 0.550 1.273
AC 8 0.800 0.600 1.333
AC 7 0.900 0.700 1.286
AC 6 1.000 0.800 1.250
AC 5 1.100 0.900 1.222
AC 4 1.200 1.000 1.200
AC 3 1.300 1.100 1.182
AC 2 1.400 1.200 1.167
AC 1 1.450 1.300 1.115

Using the expected damage from your build and OP's, the table becomes:
Roll Art20 DMW Art20/DMW
20 4.750 3.075 1.545
19 7.125 3.075 2.317
18 9.500 6.150 1.545
17 11.875 9.225 1.287
16 14.250 12.300 1.159
15 16.625 15.375 1.081
14 19.000 18.450 1.030
13 21.375 21.525 0.993
12 23.750 24.600 0.965
11 26.125 27.675 0.944
10 28.500 30.750 0.927
9 33.250 33.825 0.983
8 38.000 36.900 1.030
7 42.750 43.050 0.993
6 47.500 49.200 0.965
5 52.250 55.350 0.944
4 57.000 61.500 0.927
3 61.750 67.650 0.913
2 66.500 73.800 0.901
1 68.875 79.950 0.861

So from what I have, your build does more damage if you need to roll a 1-13 (with the exception of 8, crits are weird) and less if you need to roll 14+. Sorry if that's a bit unreadable, I'm not sure how to format tables on here (I have it in an Excel spreadsheet).

tqomins wrote:

CRB p.278, Critical Hits. This section misstates the rule for critical hits, saying that any nat20 attack roll is a critical hit.

I'm certain you're incorrect and that the text is correct. A Natural 20 is a critical success.

I had trouble wrapping my head around the whole "degrees of success" thing, too, especially with the "by 10 or more."

A natural 20 is only a Critical Success if you would succeed on the task with a roll of 20.

On the scale of Critical Failure/Failure/Success/Critical Success, natural 20s move you one step closer to Critical Success. If you're attacking something that has AC 30 and you only have a +6 to hit, your 20 gives you a 26. This isn't enough to hit the AC, but it is high enough to avoid a Critical Failure. Therefore, your Failure becomes a Success. If the AC is less than or equal to 26, you would have a Critical Success. If the AC is greater than or equal to 36, then your 26 would be a Critical Failure and your natural 20 would only bring you to a Failure.

The same applies for natural 1s, but they move you towards Critical Failure.

54
Name: TBD
ABC: Elf/Gambler/Rogue (Cleric Dedication)
Weapon: Whip/Hand Crossbow if proficient, otherwise the highest damage finesse weapons

Relic hunter that specializes in locating and retrieving artifacts/items of significance for their faith.

Starting as Bard, I'd probably stat it as:

Str 16 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 10 Cha 14

But if you wanted a bit more juice on your spells you could drop Con to 12. I probably wouldn't make that choice, myself.

Grab something like Fighter multiclass at level 2 for the greatsword, I guess.

Could also start martial and multi into Bard.

I would probably do Dex 16, Con 12 for the Cha 14 build. I think the +1 AC will help more than +1 HP/level, but I'm not sure if that's true.

Pumpkinhead11 wrote:

John Lynch 106 wrote:

thistledown wrote:

but that's the goal of character building.

As someone who has made a great sword wielding halfling bard* and an elven paladin I respectfully disagree.

*I did have to cheese him out pretty hard with that handicap

This is more a difference in building characters. I prefer to pour over splatbooks for any concept i think up; though i agree that everything is better with less cheese. Even cheese is better with less cheese.

Obligatory plug of how the Ancestry system lets a Halfling Greatsword Bard work in the CRB. Though admittedly it's one of the few trickier builds since you can't boost both Cha and Str with Ancestry... So one would unfortunately have to be a step behind at some levels. XP

You can by taking the voluntary +2/-2/-2 which gets you Str 14/Cha 18 or Str 16/Cha 16. Unless you meant that you can't get to Str 12/Cha 12 from Ancestry alone, in which case you're right.