I'm reminded of my first Pathfinder character - Major Biff Biff, the Halfling Barbarian. Definitely not optimized for frontline dps, but he still had some great moments of ass kicking, and the group had a great time with him out of combat, as I basically roleplayed him like GIR. Would a Human or Dwarf Barbarian have done a better job? Obviously. We still got by, though, and that's what's important for making thematic characters - keep your flavor, but make sure you won't be responsible for a TPK from design alone.Ayup. No different from the Elf Barbarian above-- there's a massive gulf between "fully optimal" and "asset to the party", and people tend to get their wires crossed between the two.
Indeed. I think a lot of people tend to overlook the middle ground in favor of focusing on the two extremes. When people hear about an unoptimized character, too many think of the useless kobold I mentioned, not the very useful but not 100% optimized elf barbarian.
Player attitude is also a big factor, I find. Someone who makes a slightly unoptimal pick in order to match their character concept is usually aiming at something fun and different. Whereas in my experience a lot of the players who make utterly terrible characters tend to blame the GM, the others players, and everyone but themselves and their build choices for why their character can't do anything useful.
I'm reminded of my first Pathfinder character - Major Biff Biff, the Halfling Barbarian. Definitely not optimized for frontline dps, but he still had some great moments of ass kicking, and the group had a great time with him out of combat, as I basically roleplayed him like GIR. Would a Human or Dwarf Barbarian have done a better job? Obviously. We still got by, though, and that's what's important for making thematic characters - keep your flavor, but make sure you won't be responsible for a TPK from design alone.Ayup. No different from the Elf Barbarian above-- there's a massive gulf between "fully optimal" and "asset to the party", and people tend to get their wires crossed between the two.Indeed. I think a lot of people tend to overlook the middle ground in favor of focusing on the two extremes. When people hear about an unoptimized character, too many think of the useless kobold I mentioned, not the very useful but not 100% optimized elf barbarian.
Player attitude is also a big factor, I find. Someone who makes a slightly unoptimal pick in order to match their character concept is usually aiming at something fun and different. Whereas in my experience a lot of the players who make utterly terrible characters tend to blame the GM, the others players, and everyone but themselves and their build choices for why their character can't do anything useful.
Called it on the halfling barbarian earlier.
As far as player attitude, yeah, that's a huge thing. Especially if the attitude is 'I don't wanna listen to any of you on things like doing my job!'.
[...] I think when this sort of thing happens, especially if the player's new (I don't know if he is or not), maybe have a talk with them. Just to guide them, don't start dropping elite build guides on them. There's ways to build a summon cleric, and I think someone can build a TWF cleric, but a TWF summoning cleric is a little mixed up. (And light hammers suck.)Well, in my group we have a DEX based TWF Cleric.
He took all his feats to be able to fight with 2 light hammers (not good at it of course) and than stands there summoning monsters and is really hesitant to go into melee... so there is that... [...]He is not really new, but i am not sure he ever bothered to read the rules. We kind of carry him because the rest is quite experienced.
His Character before was a sword and shield Fighter (Viking) who never used his rage because his AC would go down and when he found a Longspear that became his primary weapon because reach made him feel save.He thinks he knows what he wants to play beforehand, but than ingame he somehow does a 180... its a little funny, and a little frustrating.
The good thing about the cleric is even without any feats, he is still never useless.
I've had that happen in a roleplay environment, based on pro wrestling. My character was going to be a clever grappler and acrobatic type. No change in her build, but now she's considered to barely outrun the ring, and possibly better able to take impacts.
One thing that might help is IC encouragement when it comes to things. My GM dropped a little of it on my character when I was dithering on a few things, and helped settle me on things. I've also tried to pass that sort of thing along to the rest of my group. (And for your cleric, replace his hammers with light maces. Blame Folgers.)
Others see it as gimping your character, but I see it as making a memorable character.
Example:
A cleric with a low Charisma
A fighter that's charming
A druid that hates animals
etc...A luckily there are archtypes that allow us to do that. My question to you is creating a character like this that obviously isn't taking advantage of a class feature or optimizing, necessarily gimping your character?
Possibly, but not necessarily.
Cleric with a low charisma can do just fine. Conversion inquisition, buff spells attack spells, spontaneous healing, condition removal, utility spells, etc... Still plenty to do and contribute. There really isn't any way to be good at everything possible with your character's class.
I've had several charming fighter's in my groups before. It usually works just fine. However, we had one that felt he had to have a 20 charisma and a 16 intelligence to get enough skill points for all the face skills. Then every feat/trait/skill rank possible went into face skills. That corresponded to lousy physical stats and very limited combat capability. He fought substantially worse than a vanilla rogue.
A druid that hates animals is a little weird, but not impossible. hates the natural forces so became a druid to get mastery over nature and use it as a route to power. It works just fine.
As others have said, it isn't gimped if you can still accomplish what you set out to do. If you can't... well then you have problems to fix.
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Basically though with all the classes, hybrid classes, archtypes, multi-classing, etc... available to PF; I rarely find it advantageous to start with "I'm going to be a charming fighter." then trying to build it.
I almost always find it works best to start with personality factors, roles intended to fill, any particular power or capability desired, any particular restrictions.
So I would start with charming (not primary face, but can help in social situations), combat tank protecting the squishies and secondary damage dealer, good with weapons and at most a little bit of magic, religiously irreverent (not any kind of divine class).
Start looking it over and thinking about things. Might end up with a aberrant/abyssal bloodrager.
I tend to run my games for the players. I also generally homebrew and only put a ton of work into boss monsters and NPCs. This means the majority of the action in my games is mechanically generic, made interesting only by setting and tactical choices made by participants.
If a player wants to play a charming fighter, that's totally fine with me. So long as at 1st level he can reliably hit a 14 AC (he has a +4 or better to hit) and those hits can deal an average of 4 HP (average monster at CR 1 has 15 HP, so an average 4-person party needs every party member to deal about 4 HP each to bring it down) then he's a useful member of the group.
This is why at 1st level you can get away with a non-optimized wizard in my game. With the right familiar choices or spells and good use of scrolls you can easily have 2 combatants for the price of one and delivering upwards of 5.5 average damage right at 1st level and going up from there.
On the other hand though certain "non-optimal" choices tend to make your character stick out like a sore thumb. An animal-hating druid for example. While there's nothing inherent in the mechanical choice certain extreme departures from the class can lead to players doing everything they can to be the opposite of said class.
I find that players who make choices like this, like say a merman who wants to adventure on land and takes a spellcaster who constantly needs to use their spells to be a fish out of water, tend to center the game on themselves. I have an issue with selfish players in my games and I generally try to counsel players away from extreme game play or mechanical choices that detract from the rest of the group.
Of course, the same could be said for extreme optimizers...
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Cleric with low Cha is fine. Most of my clerics don't have enough cha to take selective channel feat. I figure that being able to spontaneous heal should cover your healing needs, or your group needs to rethink tactics. Repeat after me: Your cleric is not your healbot.
Fighters with high charisma...nah, if I wanted to go that route, I'd roll a battle oracle. They function pretty much the same anyway. Fighter with high int, now that's an interesting one to work towards :)
Cleric with low Cha is fine. Most of my clerics don't have enough cha to take selective channel feat. I figure that being able to spontaneous heal should cover your healing needs, or your group needs to rethink tactics. Repeat after me: Your cleric is not your healbot.
Fighters with high charisma...nah, if I wanted to go that route, I'd roll a battle oracle. They function pretty much the same anyway. Fighter with high int, now that's an interesting one to work towards :)
Honestly, in every d20 game I've ever been in, I've always been afraid of being short on skill points. Thus I usually try to keep a minimum of 12 Int despite being the barbarian damage sponge. (And a deep reluctance to tank Int with a fighter, too.) The prior game? Still made sure to get a 12 Int.
I've thought of trying to do an Int dump on a character, but I'm not sure I'd really like that. Oh well.
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I've thought of trying to do an Int dump on a character, but I'm not sure I'd really like that. Oh well.
Check this this idea I had a couple weeks ago.
I am fine with making characters that break the mold for race/class or iconic archetype. That doesn't mean the character is "gimped". Roleplaying and creating an effective character are not two sides of the same spectrum. They are not mutually exclusive. You can do both.
Purposefully making an ineffective character... well, that is just being a jerk. No one wants to carry you. There is no excuse to carry around a ball and chain with an adventuring party.
As to concepts, I have made several. Here are some ideas:
1. Rangers or any class with favored enemy make good "hunters" when you give them favored enemy: animals. This actually can help at the low to mid levels and works well with dealing with their animal companions as well. I have a friend that is adept at playing these as "animal haters" that just look at the lesser meatbags as a form of a tool to complete a task. There seems to be no end to the number of issues that can be resolved by just throwing more critters at it as a means of solution. Cruel, but effective (and often hilarious in a sort of morbid grim way).
2. There are several caster classes that make good tanks and come across as breaking the mold for their "intended purpose". Among them Alchemist is my favorite. I played a Hyde type tank build with a single level of barbarian and played up the alternate personality side of it quite a bit. It was great RP fun and a blast to play. It was also very effective and there were several times that I kept fighting while deep into negative hitpoints and still came out ahead. Definitely one tough cookie and he could dish out decent damage as well.
3. Small (and Tiny) sized martials are fun. I currently have a couple concepts I just started playing. One is a Halfling Paladin/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple. The other is a Kitsune who fights in Fox Form. Both are a lot of fun and the looks you get from your party when you explain that you aren't the scout or weakling that they might expect from looking at you and pull out great martial prowess in game play are priceless. This goes well with the Kobold Dragon Disciple mentioned earlier. I have played that concept as well. Unfortunately, I didn't get to play it out to it's higher levels as it would have been entertaining to have the highest Strength score by far in a party of other martial characters ... on a Kobold.
4. I took on a personal challenge inspired from a thread on these boards. It was one of the many rogue-hate threads. Someone made the assertation (I think it was BBT) that almost any class makes a better rogue than a rogue. Someone defended the rogue stating that surely can't be true. They tried to think of classes that would make the worst rogues and said Barbarians would surely make worse rogues than a rogue. I thought about it and decided to make it a personal challenge. So I have a Barbarian Liberator/Breaker with a single level in Trapper Ranger and the feat Trap Wrecker. She carries a Adamantine Greatsword with the letters B.L.P. She doesn't tell anyone what it means until she has to use it. Her normal schtick is she tries to disable the trap first but if she fails then she says, "Welp, looks like it is time to pull out the B.L.P.!". And then if someone asks she will kindly explain it means, "Big Lock Pick... you may want to stand aside." She then typically rages, uses Trap Wrecker, her B.L.P. and destroys the crap out of the trap. Tons of fun. And she is far more effective in combat than a Rogue as well. I consider that challenge met, succeeded and exceeded. :)
...I got more if you find any of these fun.
The red D&D Basic book included a section on hopeless PCs. I think it mentioned a Dwarf (basically like a Fighter back then) with 5 Str who couldn't cause much damage in combat no matter how hard he tried. I haven't read that book in years, but I think the sentiment was that such characters could be fun once in a while.
I don't really mind having subpar PCs in the party. PCs who routinely get themselves in trouble with bad tactics and need others to take risks to save them can become a nuisance though. I can also be a little peevish about PCs who frequently refuse to act at all. I'm talking about those situations where somebody could flank, attack, use Aid Another, etc but doesn't bother, perhaps reasoning that "it won't help anyhow" or "I'll just roll low again".
There's a difference between roleplaying a character who feels depressed and useless (which can be funny) and actually making your PC act in a mechanically useless manner. Even something like moving into position to flank can make a big difference. A low Str, high Cha melee combatant who flanks and uses Aid Another could actually make a big difference in some fights. A halfling with the right feats could make a career out of stuff like this, and Fighters get lots of feats.
Cleric with low Cha is fine. Most of my clerics don't have enough cha to take selective channel feat. I figure that being able to spontaneous heal should cover your healing needs, or your group needs to rethink tactics. Repeat after me: Your cleric is not your healbot.
Fighters with high charisma...nah, if I wanted to go that route, I'd roll a battle oracle. They function pretty much the same anyway. Fighter with high int, now that's an interesting one to work towards :)
Honestly, in every d20 game I've ever been in, I've always been afraid of being short on skill points. Thus I usually try to keep a minimum of 12 Int despite being the barbarian damage sponge. (And a deep reluctance to tank Int with a fighter, too.) The prior game? Still made sure to get a 12 Int.
I've thought of trying to do an Int dump on a character, but I'm not sure I'd really like that. Oh well.
The obvious solution is to play a Core Bard; with 7 Int you have 4 skill points, and with Versatile Performance you're stretching that out by a lot more.
The obvious solution is to play a Core Bard; with 7 Int you have 4 skill points, and with Versatile Performance you're stretching that out by a lot more.Cleric with low Cha is fine. Most of my clerics don't have enough cha to take selective channel feat. I figure that being able to spontaneous heal should cover your healing needs, or your group needs to rethink tactics. Repeat after me: Your cleric is not your healbot.
Fighters with high charisma...nah, if I wanted to go that route, I'd roll a battle oracle. They function pretty much the same anyway. Fighter with high int, now that's an interesting one to work towards :)
Honestly, in every d20 game I've ever been in, I've always been afraid of being short on skill points. Thus I usually try to keep a minimum of 12 Int despite being the barbarian damage sponge. (And a deep reluctance to tank Int with a fighter, too.) The prior game? Still made sure to get a 12 Int.
I've thought of trying to do an Int dump on a character, but I'm not sure I'd really like that. Oh well.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm. 'Meet Desnera. A voice like a choir of angels. Fingers that could strum a hymn from a tennis racquet. And enough rapier skill to strum that hymn with one. And DUMB AS DIRT.' It's an idea, anyway ...
You want a real anti-character?For a "real anti-character", it's probably hard to beat a full spellcaster with his primary ability score too low to actually cast any spells.
Whatever else he can do won't be enough to salvage him as a group-worthy successful adventurer.
This can actually work with an Alchemist.
You make an Alchemist with awful Intelligence, and then use Cognatigin to boost up your intelligence. Then you can use...Owl's Wis...whatever the Int Boosting spell is for another +4. Early game thats +8 to Int which can turn an Alchemist from moronic to Brilliant.
This is a really fun as an NPC, by the way.
My last one was a goblin druid, low Str and Cha so not much in combat and not great calming the animals, but that was ok because he was under 4'tall, had Craft: Head Shrinking, ate pieces of fallen comrades "out of respect for their sacrifice", was riding his T-rex familiar, Chompy (after Wolfy passed away), and ran around shouting, "I am Urmok, (insert most recent creature slain by party here) Slayer! FEAR ME!"