One of my players has a very hard time keeping track of her to hit and damage modifiers. It shouldn't be too complicated in my view, but she is confused easily, and already in danger of finding her 6th level paladin overwhelming. She knows her base numbers, but when she's using Power Attack against her Smite Evil target with Bless active, her brain freezes and she gets confused. Then she gets angry at herself for not knowing what her total to hit modifier is and because she knows she's delaying the game ... I'm sure you can imagine.
So we've tried adding notes to her character sheet ("Smite Evil: +x to hit, +y to damage" etc.) right below her list of weapons. She has also created her own cheat sheet of sorts. Things didn't improve much. It's not for lack of trying on her part, she's just not good at this and the excitement of combat makes it worse. She also has trouble remembering her abilities - like that she can Smite Evil in the first place. Again, it isn't for lack of trying, I know she reads up on things and prepares for sessions.
Apart from trying to help her relax and not worry about making mistakes, do you have any suggestions what might help her? Do you have players like that, what helped them? What form do their cheat sheets / notes / summaries take, if they use them?
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With my new player, we just take a moment later on his turn. As the GM you should know what abilities are active. Sometimes it is just a pause of, "Okay 23. Did you remember bless? Point blank shot? Good."
I actually get it with damage more. "OK, critical. You normally do +11 damage. With the inquisitor ability, that adds 3, right? So for the crit you are rolling 2d8+28."
At least I'd rather do it that way than three people later have the player go... "Wait. That should have been X more damage."
Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Honestly, I have notepaper where I create columns. The first column is BAB, and then each column to the right of it is another modifier. After each modifier I write the cumulative to hit bonus in ( ). To the far right is the TOTAL bonus modifier (all of them added up).
Each round, I start with the BAB, and review the bonuses moving right to each column to check if they apply this round.
It gets even more complicated when you get multiple attacks (which become rows).
Often, this creation applies throughout the session, as combats are similar in the bonuses and buffs applied.
For damage, I write out the base damage in the first column, and then each new column gets the extra damage info (smite dmg, bard bonus dmg, shock dmg, bane dmg, holy dmg, etc) in dice terms (e.g. +2d6)
And, I do this with a paladin (Lvl 12 now), and it helps. I did it with a Lvl 11 Inquisitor/3 Assassin and it got....complicated.
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Make up flash cards of each individual modifier. Write what each one is at the top, and when it is added.
Have her put the cards together for what she is doing each time and add all the numbers together. The more she does this, the easier it will get.
Example: +4 BAB card, +4 Str Bonus card, -2 Power Attack card, 1d8 Weapon Damage card, +4 Str Bonus Damage card, +4 Power Attack Damage card.
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Is this her/she actually interested in the game or being brought as an attachment to a male counterpart? If they are truly disinterested any attempts to help are useless.
The way I have done it in the past is to use a plastique page protector and dry erase markers and physicaly write on new players sheets.
Is this her/she actually interested in the game or being brought as an attachment to a male counterpart? If they are truly disinterested any attempts to help are useless.The way I have done it in the past is to use a plastique page protector and dry erase markers and physicaly write on new players sheets.
She is an avid gamer and has been playing RPGs for years. Her male counterpart doesn't play. So that's not it at all. Pathfinder is just more rules-, numbers- and modifiers-heavy than the whole group was used to from our previous system, and she has more trouble adapting than the rest of us.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I'll talk them over with her and we'll try them and see what works best for her.
Most character sheets have multiple weapon boxes have her fill them in as follows remember to include all the damage bonuses as well in each box
Foster Said it the best.
I know what also helps is to use dice to keep track of spells and attribute that are active for any number of rounds or minutes.
I also know Combat Manager is a HUGE help. It can keep track of Spells, Charater Attriutes, and qualities that can be detrimental or beneficial to the Charater.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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One of my players has a very hard time keeping track of her to hit and damage modifiers. It shouldn't be too complicated in my view, but she is confused easily, and already in danger of finding her 6th level paladin overwhelming. She knows her base numbers, but when she's using Power Attack against her Smite Evil target with Bless active, her brain freezes and she gets confused. Then she gets angry at herself for not knowing what her total to hit modifier is and because she knows she's delaying the game ... I'm sure you can imagine.
So we've tried adding notes to her character sheet ("Smite Evil: +x to hit, +y to damage" etc.) right below her list of weapons. She has also created her own cheat sheet of sorts. Things didn't improve much. It's not for lack of trying on her part, she's just not good at this and the excitement of combat makes it worse. She also has trouble remembering her abilities - like that she can Smite Evil in the first place. Again, it isn't for lack of trying, I know she reads up on things and prepares for sessions.
Apart from trying to help her relax and not worry about making mistakes, do you have any suggestions what might help her? Do you have players like that, what helped them? What form do their cheat sheets / notes / summaries take, if they use them?
I agree that flashcards/modifier cards are the answer. Make them up for her, and then each time she activates an ability, the card goes down next to her character sheet. The +4 BAB and +4 Str are always down, and then Power Attack is -2 attack +2 damage, etc. This will help immensely.
I'm our last campaign I builded a table of attacks for each of the characters in the back of their character sheets, the barbarian table was something like this (not the real stats, just and example):
Type Attack/Damage
Normal +15/+10 (2d6+8)
Power Attack +13/+8 (2d6+14)
Rage +17/+12 (2d6+14)
Reckless Abandon +17/+12 (2d6+8)
P. Attack + Rage +15/+10 (2d6+20)
P. Attack + Rage + Rec +17/+12 (2d6+20)
.
.
.
And added as many entries as possible combinations, it's a bit large but it worked perfectly for them, helping them to track their modifiers and remember their attack options.
For the fighter I added one column for one handed attacks and another for two handed, you also can include a column tracking the AC (specially for the barbarian).
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Is this her/she actually interested in the game or being brought as an attachment to a male counterpart? If they are truly disinterested any attempts to help are useless.The way I have done it in the past is to use a plastique page protector and dry erase markers and physicaly write on new players sheets.
That is a fairly sexist assumption. Are you lacking in social interaction with females?
I run a spreadsheet character sheet with a SLEW of modifiers on it. Mine is fancy and has nice drop down boxes for all the modifiers, but it could be as easy as just having a long list of bonuses with the name in A, the bonus type in B, the to hit bonus in C, the damage bonus in D and a check block in E. Have columns C and D tally based on a check mark in E and optionally no repeats in B.
As you level you run into more oddball modifiers, she can just add a row and tack it on there.
One of our players is older and has some of the same problems, he writes it out on a colour coded spreadsheet.
I use «The Only Sheet» . it uses Excel and claculates all the stacked effects and shows conditional bonuses. You also have a laptop tab in the sheet to use whil playing so you can add remove buffs.
My experienc has shown that many so-called «savvy» players make mistakes on thei paper and penci sheets.
There is a forum on the site with all kinds of downloadeable goodies and support from gamers all over the world.
No, it is not my creation, and I am not making any money out of this.
http://theonlysheet.com/homepage/
Paizo has a deck of buff cards and another for effects also.
Again : No, it is not my creation, and I am not making any money out of this.
Make a card for each ability that clearly identifies the attack and bonuses. Add a few standard bonus cards (flanking, for example) and have them arrayed out. Make the name and very short description large font and easy to pick up.
Glance over the cards, grab the ones that count, then add the numbers on the cards. Color code +attack and +damage bonuses differently. This helps because they are separate physical things that can be grouped and arranged easily. It isn't just a bunch of lines on a spreadsheet and allows mix-and-match with ease.
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Google Sites has a Pathfinder theme made by SRD. Just make a page and one of the sections of the site is a spreadsheet of all the characters in the games saves, BAB, modifiers, popular skill checks, etc.
Reward the players with 1% more exp for keeping their sheets up to date and penalize them by using whatever is on the site even if it is out of date.
I do two things.
Feats or abilities I use on a regular basis get written down beside the weapon, e.g., "PA +2/+6"' "Smite +3/+5" so I can quickly mentally add them in if I'm using them.
Then I use a few dice to just list my current hit/garage bonuses, e.g at 5th level I might have a +11 to hit and a +10 to damage, so I just set up a couple of d12s with 11 and 10 up, anfthe adjust them any time a buff effect happens. At higher levels I need more than a d12, usually 2d10 for each modifier. It really speeds up combat for my fighter types.