
My Self |
So what I've seen so far:
Barbarian
Cleric
Fighter
Monk (Zen Archer)
Paladin
Ranger
Sorcerer
Unchained Barbarian
Unchained Rogue
Unchained Summoner
Gunslinger
Inquisitor
Magus
Magus (Eldritch Scion)
Oracle
Summoner
Bloodrager
Brawler
Swashbuckler
Kineticist
Barbarian
Monk (Zen Archer)
Paladin
Ranger
Bloodrager
Summoner
Kineticist
Am I missing anything? Thanks for the input.

Heretek |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

In the "Most endorsed" I'd ignore:
Kinetecist. Non-lethal and burn is a whole new level of annoying mechanic to deal with.
Summoner. Summons are a whole new level of confusion and the action-economy created by summoning will drag gameplay to a halt for a newbie. Synthesist on the other hand, much better option.
Lame as it is, I'd recommend the fighter. It does what it says on the tin can, and there's no thought required of it really, despite other classes being a clearly superior option.

Paulicus |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Heretek is right, summoner and kineticist have some complicated aspects that might confuse a new player. Though you probably know the person better than we do.
Fighter is simple, but depending on the player they might get frustrated by the lack of out-of-combat versatility, and there are a lot of feats to sort through. They'd need some guidance on useful feats.

Shiroi |
You can take the archetype to ignore burn. It's not as strong, but realistically there's no possible way I'd consider it to be less adept than a fighter (or any melee non utility class really).
Kineticists, burn or not, can get most of their good options just by accident. There's not a lot of choices for your talents, and the few trap options are pretty obvious usually. If you want the power of burn but not the complexity, it's quite easy to spend all of your burn on all day abilities right at the start; you don't have burn options throughout the day but you have massive defensive abilities and a set amount of HP for the day.

Heretek |

Heretek is right, summoner and kineticist have some complicated aspects that might confuse a new player. Though you probably know the person better than we do.
Fighter is simple, but depending on the player they might get frustrated by the lack of out-of-combat versatility, and there are a lot of feats to sort through. They'd need some guidance on useful feats.
With regards to fighter guidance, provided they are doing a standard two handed fighter, you take power-attack, and then nothing else matters really. But you are absolutely right about the lack of out of combat versatility. Fighters, if built very carefully, can absolutely accomplish a number of things, it's just incredibly rare to see that occur, and you certainly won't see a newbie pull it off as they simply don't have the system mastery.
You can take the archetype to ignore burn. It's not as strong, but realistically there's no possible way I'd consider it to be less adept than a fighter (or any melee non utility class really)
Because ignoring burn for negative levels is totally a good less confusing tradeoff. /sarcasm

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In the "Most endorsed" I'd ignore:
Kinetecist. Non-lethal and burn is a whole new level of annoying mechanic to deal with.
Summoner. Summons are a whole new level of confusion and the action-economy created by summoning will drag gameplay to a halt for a newbie. Synthesist on the other hand, much better option.Lame as it is, I'd recommend the fighter. It does what it says on the tin can, and there's no thought required of it really, despite other classes being a clearly superior option.
If you're starting at 1st level, burn's easy to learn how to play with, I don't see why people are talking about how overly complex this is.
As for summoner, I'd probably say 'unchained' for this one, less options to mess up with a powerful partner still, but it's no big deal.

EpicFail |

Note that the original request doesn't mention the word simple or the phrase "easy to play."
If you had a poor optimizer starting a new character in your party, what classes and/or archetypes would you recommend to them? Not builds, just classes with high optimization floors.
Obviously both are probably useful here, but an optimized character was the original request.

My Self |
Note that the original request doesn't mention the word simple or the phrase "easy to play."
My Self wrote:If you had a poor optimizer starting a new character in your party, what classes and/or archetypes would you recommend to them? Not builds, just classes with high optimization floors.Obviously both are probably useful here, but an optimized character was the original request.
The biggest thing would be to have no required builds or significant feat investment. Ease of play is certainly helpful, but the idea was to have a class that works fairly well without relying on specific feat or gear choices.

Captain Morgan |

Yeah, people keep glossing over that. Which disqualifies the Fighter, as even the two-handed build has tons of feat choices and won't do anything well outside of hit things without additional optimization, including skills and surviving save or dies. (dat poor will save tho.)
Unchained Barbarian has choices but they are safer than the normal Barbarian.
And while not at all Bloodlines are equal, the Bloodrager is pretty straight forward once you make that initial choice. Even if you pick bad spells, you won't have enough spells per day to blast long enough to remain ineffectual. You will at worse be a less good Barbarian, which is still functional at face smashing.
I think the only way you could really butcher the class is in assigning stats, but what class is that not true for?

Captain Morgan |

Captain Morgan wrote:Even if you pick bad spells, you won't have enough spells pee dayUh.
Lalwz. Typing on the phone.
Also, Fighters are VERY gear dependent, perhaps more than any other class. They have to use specific weapons to interact with their class features, and gear is the only way to make up for some of their short comings.
Also, you should consider implementing Unchained's Automatic Bonus Progression. I like this system for a lot of reasons, but in particular it means your players have very little room to screw up their equipment.

Captain Morgan |

I'm running a game right now with auto bonus progression. The line about specific gear choices was more about a build requiring a certain item to function (such as lower-level ragecycling builds, among others).
The Unchained Barbarian and Bloodrager don't use rage cycling at all, as far as I know. They will appreciate specific gear as much as anyone but it isn't needed for them to function.

Create Mr. Pitt |
Ranger is perfect. Easy mechanics and enough skills to make playing it fun without any optimization. The key is fun and easy. Single repetitive actions without skills won't make this a fun playing experience.
If you want a one-trick pony with a ton of skills, thundercaller bard is the way to go. It's one trick is calling thunder or some such which duplicates the spell sound burst which does some damage and stuns creatures in a 10 ft. radius burst. It's a super easy, effective character with a ton of skills.
If you want a bit more diversity than that I say ranger.

Captain Morgan |

Ranger is tricky. While it might be hard to build a bad Ranger, making the most out of favored enemies requires knowledge of the game, and making the most of combat style feats requires planning out ALL your feats.
The skills are nice, but having 2 more skill points a level over a Barbarian or Bloodrager won't make a dramatic difference in playstyle. Nor will it's very small number of spells per day, and that's a complete wash with the Bloodrager.
Where the Ranger exceeds is on its tracking, wild empathy, and in its favored terrain. Those first two are neat, but not relevant in every campaign. They may not also be features the player is interested in. Favored terrain suffers from the same problem Favored Enemy does.
So I would consider the Ranger if you're going to give the player hints at what enemies and terrains are useful, and/or they are interested on being Mr. Tracker and Wilderness. Otherwise, Paladin, Barbarian, or Bloodrager with a two handed weapon and Power Attack, all day.

Lemmy |

In the "Most endorsed" I'd ignore:
Kinetecist. Non-lethal and burn is a whole new level of annoying mechanic to deal with.
Summoner. Summons are a whole new level of confusion and the action-economy created by summoning will drag gameplay to a halt for a newbie. Synthesist on the other hand, much better option.Lame as it is, I'd recommend the fighter. It does what it says on the tin can, and there's no thought required of it really, despite other classes being a clearly superior option.
I agree, except for suggesting Fighters... Building them requires quite some knowledge of the rules, they can't afford to play around with skill points and their almost nonexistent out-of-combat utility is likely to bore the player.

Lemmy |

If the objective is for a new player to learn the system, Ranger is probably the best choice:
- It has in-built straight-forward feat chains that ignore prerequisites. The player doesn't have to worry about qualifying for feats levels in advance like Fighters do.
- It has lots of skill points to play with. You can grab the "mandatory" skills and still have something to fool around.
- It has minor casting. It allows you to learn vancian spell-casting without the complexity of a huge spell list or dependency on self-buff. And Divine Casting means you don't have to worry about learning the right spells. Worst case scenario, you get weak spell for a single day.
- It has an Animal Companion. This lets you gain some experience controlling minions without being too dependent on it. If you don't like playing with minions, you can always just use it as a pet. Or simply give it up for something else (Divine Hunter has some cool Blessings!).
- It has good AC and saves. Medium armor is pretty awesome. And usually better than heavy armor, IMHO. Good Fort and Reflex progression, plus some minor focus on Wis also mean you can adventure without being easily neutralized by every enemy spell caster.

My Self |
Remind them that they can flavor barbarian in many ways if they don't want to be a stereotypical angry brute (though if they like that, all the better).
For some of my group, that's all they do. The paladin becomes a noble, uprighteous, evil-intolerant warrior, the barbarian froths at the mouth, drinks like a fiend, is giant and green, and the rogue backstabs what he can't steal and steals what he can't backstab. It's all in good fun, but that's a good 50% of my group, right there.
Back on topic, the Ranger and Barbarian seem to be favorites. I've got multiple players who could use an easy to build class, but one in particular who is interested in taking more control over their character. Their previous characters have been built either by me or whoever was GMing the campaign, and they're interested in building it without too much intervention. They build flavorfully, although they want to be reasonably optimal, hence the thread.

Paulicus |

Stereotypes can be fun to play too ;)
On topic, Ranger is also good, just make sure they don't slow down combat too much if they can't handle running two creatures.
With rangers, I found it was a little tricky remembering which rolls favored enemy/terrain applied to, though it was easy to fix by using two colors of highlighter as reminders. I highly recommend that if they're using pencil & paper.

Qaianna |

Again, go Unchained if you are going Barbarian. Or go Bloodrager.
I'll agree there.
Also think that if your player is into it, maybe some of the more shooty classes mentioned. Even an archery-devoted fighter can be interesting there. Helps ease a little of the moving-around stuff that comes up, and gives a definite direction on feats and so forth. Archery can eat feats like mad, but then that gives a path. 'OK, first off, PBS. Then ... ' This might help teach a little of the idea of building to the player too.
Giving the character a back history of being the second woman rearing a child and having her nicknamed 'Ma Deuce' is probably a bit gratuitous tho...

Boomerang Nebula |

Stereotypes can be fun to play too ;)
On topic, Ranger is also good, just make sure they don't slow down combat too much if they can't handle running two creatures.
With rangers, I found it was a little tricky remembering which rolls favored enemy/terrain applied to, though it was easy to fix by using two colors of highlighter as reminders. I highly recommend that if they're using pencil & paper.
Guide archetype doesn't have hunter's bond and you don't have to worry about choosing a favoured enemy either. Ideal for poor optimisers. Barbarians and Paladins would also be a good option.

DoubleBubble |
I think bloodrager is the best for non optimizers. You have full BAB throughout the game so you don't suffer as much in the first five levels like most non martial classes. After level five, you will have not only be able to cast spell but also have bloodline power while bloodrage. Bonus feats and bonus spells always help, DR and uncanny dodge is not bad for defensive ability. Fast moment in early game always help when you are not optimizing, and the hit dies are not bad as well as the skill points. One of the best feature I like the most is that it is the only class that have both full BAB and caster level.

Just a Guess |

Barbarian for melee else witch.
For the witch once you have decent hexes your spells are just topping and you always have something useful to do (except perhaps vs. undead)
Hexes:
- evil eye: unlimited use and always useful
- healing: unless the group is very small it's helpful and it opens up spell slots on the witch or who ever would do the healing.
@UBarbarian: I think it sucks because on early levels when you need to conserve your rage rounds the fixed 1min fatigue can lead to frustration.

BigDTBone |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

BigDTBone wrote:Two Handed Weapon Archetype Fighter
STR>CON=WIS>DEX>INT=CHA
Human.
This class is a trap.
To get the damage bonus you must take a single attack.
This removes extra attacks, and since you get this ability at level 3, it only shines for 3 levels and charges.
Meh, backswing kicks in at 7th. It is pretty obviously meant to augment overhand chop. So unless you are playing PFS or with a RAW nazi then it works just fine.

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Poor optimization is due to a couple things IMO:
-Focus on flavor
-Lack of knowledge regarding what you can do and what's effective
-Lack of understanding regarding what is considered a "Good Build" and what kind of roles there are/how much to specialize.
For those reasons, I'd focus on simple classes that clearly specialize in something. For me, those include:
-Barbarian
-Fighter
-Paladin (a fighter, minus all the feat choices!)
-Bloodrager
...because with each of them all you have to do is attack, and you don't need to do anything but give a decent stat array to be effective in some way. For a little more flavor/abilities, I'd recommend:
-Magus (an edge case, but with a little help easy enough to have a really strong pocketful of regular tricks)
-Bard (sing and attack!)
-Skald (Rage-sing and attack!)
Things I'd avoid to minimize mid-game delays, rule confusion, and the impact of a shoddy build...
-Full-Progression Mages: they can do anything, but they have to be focused to do anything decently and people tend to want to try to do everything, which invites poor builds.
-Complicated Melee Classes: anything but simple monks, ranged characters (those penalties hurt a LOT unless you've made a strong build, and they are a pain to keep track of if you're not really familiar), and almost any of the hybrid characters from ACG (they are most often complicated and have many things to keep track of).
-Most Archtypes: keeping it simple!
The player will feel useful because they can contribute to the game with any of those classes, but not have too much to keep track of and the only thing they really have to worry about in almost all cases is stat distribution, and even okay distributions will work well enough.
As for people who focus on flavor, they know what they're doing or they suffer from the other problems too. They might be more willing to accept help though.

The Mortonator |

In my opinion, Fighter is a good introduction to the game. At the same time, you won't build a good Fighter, that requires system mastery of an absurd level. But you also won't build a bad Fighter. Even things like Weapon Training which is bad for "optimisation" is very good for someone who's new to the game to stay relevant.

thegreenteagamer |

In my opinion, Fighter is a good introduction to the game. At the same time, you won't build a good Fighter, that requires system mastery of an absurd level. But you also won't build a bad Fighter. Even things like Weapon Training which is bad for "optimisation" is very good for someone who's new to the game to stay relevant.
I agree with this. I mentioned the two I did for someone who isn't new but just can't optimize for garbage...but yeah, in general, fighter I what I always recommend for newbies.
I also recommend the other players not be glory hogging dicks and tone down their power gaming when a newby is at the table

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It depends how much the poor optimizer is willing to take advice.
If they are - I'd recommend a bard. Inspire Courage is always awesome and the rest of the party will be appreciative. The bard's jack-of-all-trades vibe will let the player dip their toes into all of the systems without getting too deep.
Bard only works if they let people give them advice about spell choices though - or they may be stuck with all bad ones. (I'd especially recommend a combat bard instead of a pure support bard. That way - whether they choose to fight or cast - its still a decent choice.)

Arachnofiend |

Confused by all the calls for fighter. I would think that learning the system would work better if you actually use a class that has at least some access to the majority of the game mechanics.
No kidding; if you want to contribute anything other than damage the Fighter arguably has the highest skill floor of any class that isn't a prepared caster. Even with recent additions to the Fighter's repertoire making it one of the better full BAB classes it takes a ton of game knowledge to properly utilize these abilities.

Turgan |

A beginner/non-optimizer can't go wrong with a paladin.
Of course, if the player is immune to advice and wants to go with 8 charisma...
There are two feats to take: Power Attack and Deadly Aim and that's it.
So mechanically this is easy, but there still is the fluff to consider.
Like the paladin, the Zen Archer also has nearly all his important features build in without the possibility of falling from grace.

fretgod99 |

Are you the GM or in the group with the player? Is this a long-term game? If so, then figure out what type of character the person wants to play, talk to them about a couple of different ways to build that character, then be available to help out when they have choices to make when gaining new levels.
Because really you can make any class or character pretty playable and fun (within reason and assuming they're not the only character in the party that isn't optimized to the hilt).
So if they're really into melee, you can give them a feel on different ways to take a Ranger or Barb, for instance. Hell, TWF unchained Rogue is pretty straight forward, too. It's better than regular Rogue, not super strong, but ways to feel useful outside of combat.
Magic I'd favor spontaneous over prepared. But again, it really depends on what the person wants. You can help them pick spells at level up, etc.
Archaeologist Bard could be fun as a hybrid.
I've had a bunch of new players join us in the last few years. Really just get a feel for the type of character that person wants to play, then present them options. At level up, they usually ask because they're not sure what feats to pick. So there's a lot of "Well, you do X a lot, and this feat would help do that. You could also try doing more of Y, which this feat will help you." I also throw out a lot of "Saving Throw Feats/Improved Initiative/etc. are always solid options".
If you're helping someone out with generating a character, then it's probably going to be a good idea to make yourself available to help (if they want it) as you play. And give them some options, as opposed to "take this feat".

My Self |
Are you the GM or in the group with the player? Is this a long-term game? If so, then figure out what type of character the person wants to play, talk to them about a couple of different ways to build that character, then be available to help out when they have choices to make when gaining new levels.
Mid to short term games, GM switches, it's occasionally me and sometimes not. Player is fairly independent and wants to do most of their own building, with minimal outside involvement besides class advice. Most of what I'm asking is for a class that works regardless of if the player optimizes, so there is no special pressure to optimize and the player isn't left in the dust if they don't.

Helikon |

Well I have played with people who are very unoptimizing and all I can say is, you can totally screw every char. Like a Str 14 con 20 Paladin.
Does 1d8+5 damage at level 10. He wanted to build a tank.
A blaster sorcerer in council of thieves. Focusing on aoe damage. How could I know that most enemys have good Ref.
All I can say is my wive learned to play with a bow ranger. NOT easy, but not hard. Stay away from all 9th level casters. WIDE away! Why? They will continously pick the wrong spells. Every caster needs system mastery.
Stay away from difficult mechanics. Like pets!
So I would advice Barbarian or Fighter and Ranger.

strayshift |
BigDTBone wrote:Two Handed Weapon Archetype Fighter
STR>CON=WIS>DEX>INT=CHA
Human.
This class is a trap.
To get the damage bonus you must take a single attack.
This removes extra attacks, and since you get this ability at level 3, it only shines for 3 levels and charges.
And the Level 7 & 15 powers?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fig hter-archetypes/two-handed-fighter

Boomerang Nebula |

I'm gonna recommend Guide ranger specifically. You trade out favored enemy for a smite-like x/day bonus to attack and damage against a single target. Much easier to remember. Then the player only has to worry about when to apply favored terrain.
Totally agree, I made the same suggestion as it also has the additional advantage of no animal companion to worry about. I also recommend allowing the retraining rules for favoured terrain. It is also a nice easy class to learn the spell casting rules with.

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Or just go with a pre-gen to start with if they are new.
Yes, some have awful gear, skill and feat choices.
But that would get them started, rolling dice and getting a feel for game mechanics. Then after they have a session or two under their belt, they could roll up something that plays like they want.
I'd also recommend Ranger, apart from your first level favored enemy there are few choices to begin with. Well, skill points - which is nice. They get to fight, but also be good at some other things too. If they enjoy the fighting bit a lot, they could try a fighter, paladin, barbarina, stick with ranger etc..\
If they enjoy the skulking around bit they could try rogue, bard..stick with ranger...
If they enjoy wielding the wand of cure light wounds, then heck, cleric, druid, oracle... or stick with ranger.
Actually I just like rangers. Lots of in game options, but not a lot of mechanics to worry about.