Beginner's guide to martial characters.

[Ravios]

As someone who plays pathfinder and enjoys it I'd consider myself a casual. I don't know all of the ins and outs I can use to make the most of the situations I find myself in. Whether it be trying to get past a wizard's defenses, effectively distracting guards and the proper way to explore dungeons. I made another post recently about the type of character I want to play in my friend's next game and I am aiming to come up with creative ways of closing the power gap that martial characters seem to have later on (at least from what I have experienced, I'm a casual remember!)

I'm hoping this thread will teach me the ins and outs and maybe some staple things I need to know to be an efficient martial character player. So that when my turn comes in combat I might be able to think about doing something else than moving and attacking. Perhaps a lot of its just common sense but if that's the case I seem to be clear out of it.

Any advice you guys have on making the most of sword-slinging, spear-stabbing, and hammer crushing combatants I am all ears.

[Anzyr]

Accept that the classes that are going to be the best at being a martial are the half and full casters and that at high levels the way to get through a casters defenses is to be another caster. It's one of those hard truths that's best to get out of the way. But my best advice is so find a reliable way to be full attacking, be it archery, being a class that gets pounce, or some other method.

[bfobar]

I think that you don't have to be another caster, you just have to be friends with one. Having your caster buddy telekinetic charge your superstitious barbarian right into the evil wizard's face is pretty effective.

[sunbeam]

Ravios wrote:

Whether it be trying to get past a wizard's defenses,

I want to give you a little advice on this.

Arcane Casters defend themselves a number of ways:

1) Not being there by escaping, whether long term or a tactical reposition (Dimension Door, Teleport, Shadow Walk or Plane Shift those latter two aren't used much)
2) Not being there (blink)
3) Mirror Image
4) Invisibility
5) Stoneskin
6) Flying

A few miscellaneous things like Contingency that uses one or more of the above to get them out of trouble or put a defense quickly.

Now to get to where I want to go:

You need:

1) A way to deal with illusions or invisibility (however you do it, gear, class feature, a couple of feats give you tremorsense or blindsight if you are the right race)
2) A Ghost Touch weapon that is also an
3) Adamantite Weapon
4) Some way to apply a Dimension Lock effect to them (to preclude escape)
5) Some way to fly

Now to be honest there are a couple class features floating around that give you dr/cold iron or dr/alignment or something similar.

But those are the big ones. If you have the levels, it is a wise thing to get the kind of gear it takes to accomplish these things. Offhand a class like Horizon Walker can get you tremorsense and the ability to fly. I know in 3.5 a couple items gave you that as well. True Seeing items are expensive or cumbersome though (Gem of Seeing). A couple see invis items exist, but you also have to deal with the cliche of the flying caster with mirror images.

The problem is the game is tilted towards offense and rocket tag (cue the blackbird swarm to pounce, intent on pecking eyes out). You have to live long enough to do something, or be able to move enough to do something.

Paladins, Barbarians, and to a lesser extent Monks have the class features to take a fistful of spell to the face and live if they lose initiative. They all do it different ways.

And we aren't talking about hit point damage per se, we are talking about save or die (or suck) spells, or those that turn you against your own party (will saves).

I'm taking a long time to say make sure you play a Barbarian, Paladin, or Monk (Zen Archer or maybe Sohei only, so you can go archery).

Unbreakable Fighter gets honorable mention, but he trades a ton of melee power to get what the Barbarian and Paladin still do better.

Well that's my two cents, and it is only intended as advice for dealing with arcane (or divine) casters.

[aegrisomnia]

Read through some of the stuff in the "Guide to the Class Guides" list. These guides contain good basic information (sometimes CRB only) on making a solid character and avoiding choices that sometimes play out differently than you'd think.

Magic items are your best friends. Keep your weapon and armor enhancements as high as you can afford, and try to shore up at least your will save. Having a way to counter flying (e.g., the ability to fly yourself) and, possibly, teleportation, is a good idea.

Especially if you're going straight fighter, intimidation (to demoralize in combat) is something you can actually be pretty good at. If you have the skill points to spend on intimidation, it's worth it to pick up the relevant feats (shaken is a pretty good condition to land in a fight, for you and for your allies).

Most importantly - have fun! Pathfinder, like other systems, is mechanically slanted heavily in favor of casters; they are more and better options, in combat and out. If your group & GM are relying heavily on casters and not pulling punches, being a fighter and staying relevant will start to become difficult at higher levels (exact level depends on how much everybody's optimizing). It's a game, and more importantly, it's not a game one "wins" in the traditional sense. If you're having fun and feeling like you're accomplishing something, then you're winning... and you can do that equally well with any class (personally, I feel like playing mechanically weaker classes presents an additional challenge which is rewarding in its own right; that said, I must admit that I almost always prefer to play at least partial casters, such as clerics or (anti-)paladins).

[TarkXT]

Look at Trinam's Barbarian guide.

Follow it and learn.

Laugh at lesser mortals and sunder the sky.

[Cathulhu]

invest heavily into Use Magic Device.

[Scott Wilhelm]

I don't think that melee characters are the weakest characters to run in a campaign, but they are the most difficult. Clerics are the easiest to play, and wizards are the 2nd easiest. Most people would disagree with me in this, but let me explain.

The key to a cleric's power is his spells. A cleric can choose from huge list of spells, and he can change his mind every day.

A wizard has to learn his spells before he can use them, but there is no limit as to how many spells he can learn. Whenever he finds a new spell, he can learn it, and why shouldn't he? And once again, there is no limit as to how many spells he can learn. And from his huge list, he can change his mind every day.

A fighter's power comes from acquiring and combining special physical abilities--called feats, mostly--that are gained a few at a time, and once selected are very costly to change. You have to plan far in advance. You have to make sure your dungeon master thinks your feat combination will work the way you think it will. Otherwise, your character concept may get wrecked beyond repair after you committed months to playing with it, and few things are more frustrating.

I have lots of ideas about how I build martial characters, but your goal shouldn't be to make my character. It should be to make your own.

My advice to you is to think about what kind of fighter you want to be: do you want to be like an Ancient Greek hoplite with a spear and shield? A Mongolian horse-archer? An armored knight with lance and flail? A Viking with sword, shield and chainmail? A naked savage from the desert with poison arrows? A child throwing rocks?

Then find out what resources your DM allows. Look through the lists of feats and abilities available to you, and see if you can put together some combinations that make you smile. People on these message boards share lots of ideas. I particularly liked the Monktopus. You can find a very big list feats and special abilities on d20pfsrd.com

But it sounds like your friend is running a homespun campaign, and so he might allow almost anything, even 3.5 feats, psionics, or even d20 Modern, Gamma World, Dune, or Star Wars feats. You have to ask.

Share some rough drafts of your ideas with your referee. Tell him what you want your character to be like, and tell him about what combinations of special abilities you are looking at. You should get his vision about how he sees your ideas interact with his, and with luck yours, his, and the groups will meld together into an awesome gaming experience.