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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.
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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.
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
You're right about two-handed and power attack.
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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.
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.
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Two Handed Weapon Archetype Fighter
STR>CON=WIS>DEX>INT=CHA
Human.
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?
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.
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.
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.
apparently like all the classes are good.
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.
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.
Seriously, barbarian is hard to screw up and versatile enough to be interesting to play in most situations.
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).
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.
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.
Again, go Unchained if you are going Barbarian. Or go Bloodrager.
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...
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.
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.
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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.
A full bab class with fourth level casting is a great way to train up new players. Each rules element is added at different levels, so the player doesn't have to know it all right from word go.
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Brawler. Need a feat you weren't smart enough to remember? Get it on the fly!
Half elf paragon surge sorcerer. The brawler of sorcerers.
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.
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.)
Sword and board fighter! You can't go wrong with the basics.
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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.
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.
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.
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".
which seems to be every class.
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.
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.
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.