Min / max or ability tax?

[Finlanderboy]

Trollbill I say exessively specialize and make sure that specialization is as useful as much as possible. IF a person can only do one thing in one situation that is somehting else as well. Trollbill you are the one eliminating options of pregens. I have a friend who pretty much only plays pregens and enjoy them greatly. So I am gald you applied the standard person problem to him and alerting people like them they are not having as much fun as they should be. Very polite and fallical as well. So I am glad my sarcasim was lost on you as well. I said the extreme opposite of what I do to provide a counter arguement that is obviosuly silly. Alas I thought you would be smart enough to pick that up.

Byrdology If you are a primary caster where all you do is cast spells your stat should be as high as possible. My level 8 is at 28 cha right now.

[Byrdology]

I'm thinking more in line with a melee capable cleric who can throw out a decent SOS vs a weak willed character.

[Finlanderboy]

If you are a side caster, then whatever you can afford. I would not rely on SOS spells as a side caster so much. At low levels they may save you at higher levels not so much.

Honestly at higher levels I would take spells like Shield of faith and such that are not stat dependent that make you and yoru group more of a terror in combat. That 10% miss chance, or extra to hit might remove the need of an SOS since the chance their chance to save is too high.

Keep in mind you are spreading yourself thing to be good at combat and good at casting spells. If you do this too much you may become not good enough at either and near worthless at mid to high levels(I have seen this in PFS from poor character builders a couple of time).

[Byrdology]

That is the point of this thread. Finding a balance.

Here is an example: Melee-ish cleric: 13 (+2), 13, 14, 7, 15, 14 with a + 1 to str at 4, and +1 to wis at 8 and, and +1 to dex at 12. A +2 belt of physical perfection and eagle splendor + owls wisdom = 18, 16, 16, 7, 20, 18 @ lvl 12.

Is this a good balance between melee and saves?

[master_marshmallow]

Byrdology wrote:

That is the point of this thread. Finding a balance.

Here is an example: Melee-ish cleric: 13 (+2), 13, 14, 7, 15, 14 with a + 1 to str at 4, and +1 to wis at 8 and, and +1 to dex at 12. A +2 belt of physical perfection and eagle splendor + owls wisdom = 18, 16, 16, 7, 20, 18 @ lvl 12.

Is this a good balance between melee and saves?

A bit expensive, but solid.

[Byrdology]

Not too bad, +2 to 3 stats costs the same as +4 to 1.

[Finlanderboy]

it will be expensive to have eagle splendor and owls wisdom running at the same time(either gobbling up your spell slots or money in potions).

I think you will be one of the examples I mentioned earlier if you do this. You int is low for skills. You will spend a fortune on magical combat gear to be decent at combat. So buying a headband to increase your mental stats will be hard. You action economy will be weak since you can cast a spell or attack. If you wanna cast spell adn melee dump cha too. That is good for channel but that is where you will get your weak points up. If you waste your turning buffing your self to cast spells your spelss will be gone by the third combat.

Not to mention the feats that will be split across the things you wish to do. At level 12 a +5 is decent, but expensive for a side ability.

[master_marshmallow]

Clerics are also the absolute worst example to use for this discussion.

[Byrdology]

Ah... I see. Thanks.

[anon fem]

Byrdology wrote:

I have been messing around with some builds and such and I have been wondering about skyrocketing certain abilitie scores sometimes to the detriment of others. This is PFS that I am talking about here because a 1-20 campaign follows a bit of a different guide line.

So here is the crux. Full casters and 2hw brutes pretty much need the highest stat possible for save DCs or dmg output, because that is what they do... Alot of your 3/4 BaB melee + other classes need diverse stats and are generally called MAD because of it. But I don't think that "optimal/ maximum" dmg is the point of these classes.

You want to be competent in melee, sure, but there are other things these classes bring to the table as well. So what is a good and reasonable balance for stats? If You get a free +3 from lvls and can assume a couple +4s from ability increasing items, then where do you draw that soft line in the sand?

PFS? feel free to min max all you want, I wouldn't trust anything they have to be challenging enough to require the superior route of a more balanced array of stats. Generally speaking an 18 via racial boosting is probably the most economical choice, but even some people don't mind starting at 16 including racial bonus.

[soupturtle]

Byrdology wrote:

That is the point of this thread. Finding a balance.

Here is an example: Melee-ish cleric: 13 (+2), 13, 14, 7, 15, 14 with a + 1 to str at 4, and +1 to wis at 8 and, and +1 to dex at 12. A +2 belt of physical perfection and eagle splendor + owls wisdom = 18, 16, 16, 7, 20, 18 @ lvl 12.

Is this a good balance between melee and saves?

I'd say this cleric is a bit too spread out. For a melee cleric, I'd keep cha low. possibly even lower than int. Between being in melee and casting spells you're not going to do much channeling in combat anyway (and if you want to fight and channel but not cast spells, you should probably play a paladin). If you want to cast and channel, you don't really need the 15 str. However, if you want to be versatile out of combat, a bit more int probably wouldn't hurt.

As for a balance between melee and save-or-suck DCs: I'd try to focus on one or the other. Finding a balance to me is about being useful in and out of combat, and in a variety of situations. It's about being able to scout and fight close combat as well as ranged, or about being able to do crowd control and direct damage and be good at face-skills. However, save-or-suck and melee don't really complement each other well: they're both about putting the maximum amount of hurt on a single opponent. So they're not a terribly useful thing to balance between in my opinion.