Making a couple of builds for a friend. He wants the in-game math as simple as possible. He said everyone was waiting too long for his adding 8d6+4d8+etc… for his two weapon fighting build last time. Personally, I don’t think it was as bad as he thinks. But he felt pressured to add faster (which of course made him nervous and slower). Note: pre-game math to get the build and character sheet set-up right is fine. There is plenty of time for him to do and check that. (Herolabs also helps tremendously with that.)
So we talked about it and he would like me to make two concept builds for him.
1) Build focused on single big hit with static bonuses (power attack, size, strength, enhancement, etc…) not a bunch of additional dice of damage. Adding 1 die and the same number all the time won’t be a problem. Multiplying for the occasional crit also shouldn’t be a problem. But he doesn’t want to be a crit fisher trying for constant crits. So a crit threat on a 20/x3 or 20/x4 should be what he wants. Also seems like a mobile combatant focusing on the single hit (maybe after a charge) would be ideal.
2) Spontaneous caster focus on debuff spells and/or SoS spells. Then he really doesn’t have to do any math at all. Just tell the GM the save DC and give him the static effects staggered for 1 round and -2 to dexterity or whatever. If we help him select generally useful spells, a spontaneous caster would at least mean the fewest spells needing to be learned. This caster seems like the very least math, but he’s never played a caster before and is a bit leery of that. I said I’d go ahead and build it then we could go over it and he can decide between the two after checking out both of them. Really, the GM would probably be ok with him trying both for a while to see which he likes better.
So, you guys have any ideas on how to go about making either one of those and still being at least fairly effective?
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Measured response is what I was going to suggest as well. It's an Abadar only feat, but Abadar is a decent god to worship. A greatsword 2H Fighter of Abadar seems perfect. Every hit does 7+Static Mods. Very little to worry about keeping track of conditional modifiers, buffs, or anything else. You roll to hit and do your damage.
Wow! I'd never heard of that one before. That should be almost perfect for him. Then could use really any kind of build.
Thanks guys
Has he considered some sort of electronic dice?
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If he's interested in a debuff/SoS caster, a sorcerer would be a good shot. He'd have fewer spells to learn, but the most of them to cast per day.
Color Spray is awesome at low levels, and at 4th level you can trade it out. Grease is useful too. Just about anything in the Illusion, Enchantment, or Necromancy trees would be decent.
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Build him an evoker with Arithmancy and Sacred Geometry.
Make him a Witch. The hexes are all about the DM rolling dice, not the player. All he has to know is the save DC's for his hexes and those are rather static, in play and never require him to roll a die at all. What few spells he has that have die rolls in 'em he can just skip.
-S
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Just from an in play perspective, you might have him announce the bonuses before he rolls. So before the d20, "First attack is plus 11" or before the damage rolls, "This is dice plus 13". That way, if he feels he's too slow adding up the result, other people at the table can chime in and help. (Likewise, if nobody chimes in, he might be able to relax and stop thinking he's too slow.)
When dropping tons of dice, it's usually fastest to group them into sets of five and ten. Instead of trying to add up 7d6, find a six and a four, etc. Then count your sets and add the leftovers. (I learned that trick playing Hero System, where 10 or 20 d6 was common and you actually had to count them two different ways. It's exponentially faster for most people.)
Does he have a laptop and use Herolabs? If he does have him use the built in die roller and it will automatically add up the results. It can even add a static bonus to the total.
I use this feature when I am running as it saves a lot of time. It works really well for when you need to make a lot of rolls. Having a group of 20 orcs make a saving throw vs a fireball is now a single click.
Ok, bunch of questions.
He is probably too much of a technophobe to get a dice roller app.
I'm not in that group because of a scheduling conflict. But I know several of them and I seriously doubt they were giving him a hard time. I think he is just feeling self-conscious about poor math skills in a fairly well educated group of guys.
He doesn't have Herolabs to run during a game. I have it and use it to make his character sheets for him. He rarely touches a computer.
An unarmed striker never occurred to us. We were thinking the biggest weapon available. I'll see if he's interested.
Yeah, I was thinking a sage or empyreal sorc for the dubuffer/SoS caster. Though it seems kinda squishy for a guy that has never played a caster. Maybe an oracle would do better.
He doesn't like the idea of a bard. Not sure why.
What about the Battle Amplifier Responder Debilitator? ;) BARD
Really it's probably cause he thinks of a sissy bard that is the best 5th man of a 4 man party. Similar to how people would think that a Rogue is stealthy. They let the class define the character rather than being a chassis for the character.
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Tell him to play another game.
That sounds bad, but the truth is that conditional bonuses and penalties are all over the place in Pathfinder. Positioning, magic, items, monsters... your situation changes and the math changes with it.
It sounds like his troubles stem more from totaling dice than the other bonuses. In which case, there's a simple solution - just have him pre-roll the dice! I do it all the time when I'm controlling summoned monsters - roll the dice and figure out the bonuses and damage while everyone else is taking their turn, instead of while I'm in the spotlight. Granted, this does mean you get a limited amount of fore-knowledge, but for the summons I'm generally committed to attacking anyways; it just requires the player to resist the urge to metagame.
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Measured response is good and I suggest taking greataxe instead of greatsword (same average)
Actually it's not. A greataxe has an average damage of 6.5, rounded down to 6. A greatsword has an average damage of (3.5+3.5) or 7. You always round down, so the great sword or earthbreaker come out on top.
Actually it's not. A greataxe has an average damage of 6.5, rounded down to 6. A greatsword has an average damage of (3.5+3.5) or 7. You always round down, so the great sword or earthbreaker come out on top.Measured response is good and I suggest taking greataxe instead of greatsword (same average)
I guess I assumed you would round down each die individually. So both of the 3.5's would become 3's making it a 6.
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An unarmed striker never occurred to us. We were thinking the biggest weapon available. I'll see if he's interested.
I ran a punchy halfling for awhile. I took a sharpie and wrote the 2 possibilities for damage on either side of a quarter. That way the total was readily available by just looking at the coinflip result.
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I guess I assumed you would round down each die individually. So both of the 3.5's would become 3's making it a 6.Actually it's not. A greataxe has an average damage of 6.5, rounded down to 6. A greatsword has an average damage of (3.5+3.5) or 7. You always round down, so the great sword or earthbreaker come out on top.Measured response is good and I suggest taking greataxe instead of greatsword (same average)
I think a lot of people look at it as... the average of a d6 is 3.5, rounded down it's 3. so 2d6 is = (3 + 3) or 6. But if you take it as the average of the combined roll then yes it is 7 (like 3% above a six).
I ran into this problem in a 3.5 game we ran. I was playing a Goliath two handed weapon wielding barbarian and was rolling more dice and adding more bonuses that I could manage after several beers.
Drinking less would be one solution, but I found a dice app for my phone and Ipad called Dicenomicon.
I love it when technology allows me to combine two things I love.
-MD
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The rules treat the damage die of weapon as a single die roll, regardless of how many dice are actually rolled. It's why if you have Devastating Strike on a greatsword, you still only get +2 per vital strike instead of +4. Whenever you average a damage roll, you average each die and then total them before you round down.
Any arcane caster can be played effectively with virtually no rolling. Support spells, buff spells and control spells have virtually no rolls.
How about a build that lets you deal over 311 damage in a single attack with no excessive rolling and no mathematical damage calculations. All you gotta do is make the attack roll and hit.
How about a build that lets you deal over 311 damage in a single attack with no excessive rolling and no mathematical damage calculations. All you gotta do is make the attack roll and hit.
Huh. That's sweet!
How about a build that lets you deal over 311 damage in a single attack with no excessive rolling and no mathematical damage calculations. All you gotta do is make the attack roll and hit.Huh. That's sweet!
There's plenty more where that came from over in my Crazy Character Gallery thread. Be sure to check out the "Master Link" (all other links risk being defunct/outdated) and click "favorite" before leaving.