[WIP] CHARACTER SELECT: A guide to class selection


Advice

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So I'm working on this here guide.

It's mostly meant for anyone who wants to know a bit about a class without having to delve into a guide and more or less help them out deciding if it has the things they want.

So far, I've done from Alchemist to Bard. I'm not even finished with letter B and there's a whole alphabet ahead of me, so yeah, this is going to move along slowly.

If I don't mention your favorite archetype, don't take it personal. I mostly mention things that change the way a class plays in a big way. I'm not going to mention, for example, the Trap Breaker alchemist even if it's a good archetype, because the class is not significantly modified.

Anyway, let the flaming begin <3


I did mention this before elsewhere but the layout is awesome! I'll look into it a bit more and flame later...

Edit: So much MtG Art and no Goblinz?

Seriously this is really cool. How many years until completion?

Not much to be criticized except that your subheadings in the Analysis section sometimes don't make much sense without reading the full text.

Also the links to the builds could also open new windows. On my machine it seems to load fairly slowly.


Yeah, I'm concerned about the document's size. Maybe I should break it down into different pages so as not to make loading so difficult.


Ah Ninja'd my edit...


I just had all the class sections separated in their own pages. Seems cleaner and loads the main document faster.


Alex Mack wrote:


Edit: So much MtG Art and no Goblinz?

I'm really picky about art so I set up a couple of standards for the images:

- MTG shit
- Humans
- Ok so maybe an Elf here and there if I can't find good art

I love gobbos (Goblin Guide is probably my favorite design/card art/flavor in the game), but I had to draw a line or otherwise I'd take ages to find good art for each thing.


Quote:
Psychic: Psychic spellcasting is granted by innate mental prowess. Unlike Arcane or Divine spellcasting, no free hands are required to cast. Also, wearing armor carries no penalties to Psychic spellcasting. However, Psychic spellcasters must concentrate to cast spells, and have a harder time doing so than Arcane or Divine casters unless they take the time to center themselves. They also cannot cast if their emotions are altered.

The bolded line is wrong and should be changed. They cannot cast spells with somatic (emotion) components if their emotions are altered. But they can still cast spells that are verbal (thought) component only, such as Suggestion or Teleport.


El fixo!


Very cool and handy! Seems like a good thing to show new players.

Wondering if archetypes with casting should get any mention in the caster list? Rogues can get 6/9 prepared Int-based arcane casting through an archetype, Fighters can pick up 4/9 prepared Int-based arcane casting, and there are some archetypes that change casting types.


I thought so too... there's Psychic Investigators, Reliquarian Occultists and so on to take in mind.

By the way, if someone wants to tackle a class from the list, be my guest! You can make a copy of one of the class pages, edit it, and post it here.


Secret Wizard wrote:
Alex Mack wrote:


Edit: So much MtG Art and no Goblinz?

I'm really picky about art so I set up a couple of standards for the images:

- MTG s#~%
- Humans
- Ok so maybe an Elf here and there if I can't find good art

I love gobbos (Goblin Guide is probably my favorite design/card art/flavor in the game), but I had to draw a line or otherwise I'd take ages to find good art for each thing.

Well if you ever fail to find art for Gunslinger.

QuidEst wrote:
Wondering if archetypes with casting should get any mention in the caster list? Rogues can get 6/9 prepared Int-based arcane casting through an archetype, Fighters can pick up 4/9 prepared Int-based arcane casting, and there are some archetypes that change casting types.

In Paizo books?


Arcane Anthology.


Ahh interesting...spell casting Rogue sounds nice...

Silver Crusade

I must say that your handle of the format is very nice.

I like the idea and the structure of the guide, gJ.

Regards.-

Liberty's Edge

I will be pointing new players to your guide!


Good structure, good layout, good content. Good project! :)


One thing that occurred to me: you could consider linking to existing Class Guides as further reading...

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

Alex Mack wrote:
One thing that occurred to me: you could consider linking to existing Class Guides as further reading...

Or rather, to the most recent or most complete guide to each class. The current "guide to the class guides" sticky has the problem that some classes have five to ten guides (most of which are outdated or show only one build, but the list doesn't indicate that).

Also, perhaps the guide to archetypes that's currently being worked on may be useful here?


Brawler + Bloodrager added!

Not sure if I'll include Guide links, the idea is that players simply learn to analyze a class, stop optimizing so much and just build sensibly.

That being said, I did create an Id Rager monstrosity.


Cleric and Cavalier are in!


Cleric wrote:
Your STR/DEX will matter as much as you pretend to be in combat and what armor you plan to use.

You meant intend, right?


You listed the Quadiran Horselord archetype twice in the Cavalier section. I also think that the Ghost Rider archetype from Occult Adventures warrants a mention, since the Ghost Mount that the archetype gets can be stored in the Cavalier's subconscious when having the mount there is too difficult.


Fixed, fixed, and added!

Again, if anyone feels like helping me out with this one, much appreciated :P


dotting..

BHH


Having a really hard time thinking about the Challenges of being a Druid XD

So far I've got comments on wild shape and armor, on the nature of the druid spell list (wide but shallow) and crappy leather armor, but that's it.


Character Select: Spiritualist

I broke the ice by being the first to helping with this guide. Pathfinder has a lot of classes and doing even a majority of it by oneself is quite the endeavor. Hats off, Secret Wizard!

By the way, I would have wanted to send this to you via PM so that I could have exercised humility by submitting this anonymously. Seems you have PM disabled. (Also feel free to change the images, finding suitable images for spiritualist flavor is somewhat hard.)


I'd love to but currently don't have the time :(


Mighty Glacier wrote:

Character Select: Spiritualist

I broke the ice by being the first to helping with this guide. Pathfinder has a lot of classes and doing even a majority of it by oneself is quite the endeavor. Hats off, Secret Wizard!

By the way, I would have wanted to send this to you via PM so that I could have exercised humility by submitting this anonymously. Seems you have PM disabled. (Also feel free to change the images, finding suitable images for spiritualist flavor is somewhat hard.)

Thanks so much!!!!

I hope you don't mind if I tinker with it :3

And yeah, I've started trying to find spiritualist pictures and it's quite difficult.

Once I finish toying with it, I'll post it with credits to you. Alas, anonymousness...

Shadow Lodge

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Added to the Guide to the Guides


Secret Wizard wrote:
Having a really hard time thinking about the Challenges of being a Druid XD

A lot of their spells call for a divine focus, and there aren´t many places that say what a druid´s divine focus may be. Traditionally, it used to be fresh holly, which means the druid has to spend time locating and harvesting it. It also means that you need to find suitable substitutes when you are, say, in the desert.

This is a huge pain in the ass to manage (unlike the cleric, who can just have a few holy symbols in the bag) and such foci are naturally quite easy to sunder, on top of the usual disarm. Not every druidic spell requires divine focus, but quite a few do - including the summoning line most druids like to make use of. I am not sure if the Birthmark feat functions for druids as well as for clerics - if yes, good.

Another possible hurdle is the need for good physical scores if you plan to use combat wildshaping to its fullest - in PF shapeshifting gives you bonuses and minuses to scores, rather than substituting your scores with those of the form - not sure if that is what you meant, so I thought I´d throw it out there.

Yeah, it isn´t much :) .


In your guide you say that Con is a casting stat. Is this just for the kineticist or was there another in mind? And if Kineticists, what's the reasoning for calling it a caster when it doesn't have spell slots. That just seems a little confusion lumping it when it's so different from the rest. But it is casting SLA so I can see it as a caster. Curious as to what you thought. And if just kineticist maybe make a note that the con casting is just for them.


Chess Pwn wrote:
In your guide you say that Con is a casting stat. Is this just for the kineticist or was there another in mind? And if Kineticists, what's the reasoning for calling it a caster when it doesn't have spell slots.

The Kineticist is an odd duck, because it is a caster in the sense that it needs to pass concentration checks in order to not mess up the s̶p̶e̶l̶l̶ wild talent they're c̶a̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ gathering power for, and a lot of the wild talents literally are slightly different versions of existing spells (celerity is haste, gravity master is a better reverse gravity, slick is grease, etc.) The Kineticist is almost an extreme version of the sorcerer: you have *very* few "spells", but you can use them as much as you want (potentially even more than the sorcerer, depending on burn management.)

But tactically the Kineticist is much more of a caster than a martial, since you blast, buff, debuff, etc. and you most likely want to avoid melee (since you spend your HP to cast.)


Also, only the alchemist counts as an arcane caster for spell trigger items. The investigator doesn't.


A problem with your bloodrager section.
Mark confirmed that Id bloodrager modifies your spellcasting so Urban Bloodrager doesn't stack with it as Urban adds to your spell list, which is classified as modifying spellcasting.

EDIT: Also you might want to mention bloodline familiars. I feel they are a good deal for bloodragers as getting your late bonus spells later isn't as bad as it is for a sorcerer who is focused on spells.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

Ok, I'm working on the Magus for this guide.

Dark Archive

Oh, this looks like a lot of fun. If I find some time tonight, I'll figure out this google docs black sorcery and try writing for the Summoner a crack.

Dark Archive

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Secret Wizard wrote:

Having a really hard time thinking about the Challenges of being a Druid XD

So far I've got comments on wild shape and armor, on the nature of the druid spell list (wide but shallow) and crappy leather armor, but that's it.

Well one thing I've got in mind for Summoner is the bookkeeping when dealing with your bountiful Summon spells. It can grind the game to a halt if you don't have pre-written stat cards that take things like Augment Summoning into account. Between that and the complications of both building and running two characters at once, there's a lot to deal with when you're new to the class.


I'm unfortunately not well versed in the system or I'd help. But Iwanted to say thanks, this is a great resource, and has given me ideas for several characters I want to play.


Rosc wrote:
Well one thing I've got in mind for Summoner is the bookkeeping when dealing with your bountiful Summon spells. It can grind the game to a halt if you don't have pre-written stat cards that take things like Augment Summoning into account. Between that and the complications of both building and running two characters at once, there's a lot to deal with when you're new to the class.

Yeah, the druid is possibly the most bookkeeping intensive class (except maybe the Medium). You have to simultaneously manage:

- A whole second character that's an animal.
- A fairly large list of spells and decisions on which to prepare
- A whole variety of different stat blocks for your myriad and various shapechanging options.
- Summons.

These are all things that are going to give people below a certain level of system proficiency trouble, so the Druid is a really newbie-unfriendly class IMO. Even if you're the sort of person who doesn't want to do homework for playing a game, the Druid might be a poor choice.


I've got Druid mostly set up!

I'm going to be really busy for the next couple of weeks so I'll eagerly wait for submissions <3


In the Bloodrager "Ragedeath" section you have a repeated typo. Your example is for a Lvl 1 Bloodrager, but you have them gaining (and losing) 4 hps while in Bloodrage. It should only be 2 hp.

Dark Archive

Putting work into the Summoner section, progress is good. I even managed to talk about the Unwavering Conduit archetype without breaking into a frothing hate speech.

Also, I have a question for Secret Wizard.

The class guide wrote:
Race choices. Choosing your character’s race is not as big of a deal as it seems. However, in order to reduce the scope of this guide, all proposed builds will deal with regular Human characters.

Now I know that the guide is going to use Humans as a standard race for each build, and I appreciate the simplicity. But does it go against the spirit of things if I use Racial Heritage: Half Elf for one of the builds? Their FCB really is all that and a bag of holding.


I'd prefer not.

Besides, from a 12 level viewpoint, 3 evolution points for 1 feat investment + 12 FCBs is just one feat ahead of simply spending that feat for Extra Evolution and spending those 12 FCBs in the equivalent of Toughness.


DRUID IS UP

I'll take Fighter as the last one I'll do before going on a break because it's easily my favorite class (ok, it shares that honor with Monks and Brawlers).

Athos710 wrote:
In the Bloodrager "Ragedeath" section you have a repeated typo. Your example is for a Lvl 1 Bloodrager, but you have them gaining (and losing) 4 hps while in Bloodrage. It should only be 2 hp.
jedi8187 wrote:
I'm unfortunately not well versed in the system or I'd help. But Iwanted to say thanks, this is a great resource, and has given me ideas for several characters I want to play.

These are both the types of comments that I love the most, btw. Editing help and thankfulness <3

Dark Archive

Secret Wizard wrote:

I'd prefer not.

Besides, from a 12 level viewpoint, 3 evolution points for 1 feat investment + 12 FCBs is just one feat ahead of simply spending that feat for Extra Evolution and spending those 12 FCBs in the equivalent of Toughness.

Actually, the FCB gives an extra evolution for every 4 levels of investment, not 6. You'd get 3 feats worth of return compared to the single feat "Toughness equivalent" of HP every level.

But yeah. Sticking with normal Human on this one. I'll leave the Half Elf praise to the dedicated Summoner guides.


Yeah, the idea here is players are left thinking "huh, so this is how this class works", and then they find out all the other optimization tips and such by themselves.


FIGHTER UP


Secret Wizard wrote:

So I'm working on this here guide.

It's mostly meant for anyone who wants to know a bit about a class without having to delve into a guide and more or less help them out deciding if it has the things they want.

So far, I've done from Alchemist to Bard. I'm not even finished with letter B and there's a whole alphabet ahead of me, so yeah, this is going to move along slowly.

If I don't mention your favorite archetype, don't take it personal. I mostly mention things that change the way a class plays in a big way. I'm not going to mention, for example, the Trap Breaker alchemist even if it's a good archetype, because the class is not significantly modified.

Anyway, let the flaming begin <3

This is simply a perfect work. I got huge problems to motivate some of my players to create correctly their characters because of the bloat. I'll keep watching your work, thank you very much!


Secret Wizard wrote:
FIGHTER UP

Might I suggest including Martial Master in the Archetypes section?


I like it but I think that at this point, considering the amount of power that advanced weapon training provides, martial master is only relevant in combination with lore warden to obtain quick access to maneuvers.

As it stands, I'd rather take Bar Room Brawler and Abundant tactics and keep WT.

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