Easy martial class for a kid to play

[ProximaC]

Bigdaddyjug wrote:

My son is only 7, but he's been playing computer RPGs for a few years already. He did very good last Sunday.

I may trust him with the ranger. I think he'll catch on quick.

Yeah, Ranger's a good choice, I feel, for a lot of reasons. First of all, it fits your son's concept. Plus, Rangers are decent at a lot of things without being too overwhelming about it. As the character levels up your son will learn to handle:

* Fighting in combat
* Using skills out of combat
* How to handle conditional bonuses (favored enemy/terrain)
* Handling minions at the table
* Preparing and casting spells

However, they don't have to deal with all of these things all at once. I'm running a PF game for my 8 year old and we started him off with a Ranger for that very reason.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Yep, he's going to stay a ranger and he'll take a small cat animal companion.

[Lady-J]

should get him a big cat instead its better

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Lady-J wrote:

should get him a big cat instead its better

Agreed. Pounce and Rake is too good to pass up for a battle companion. At least, certainly not for a climb speed or some other dumb crap.

[Ascalaphus]

Rangers don't get Big Cats on their list of options.

And the small cat isn't a poor choice, because Bite-Trip can help if it's job is to prevent enemies from closing in with the archer. It just isn't as brilliant as the big cat.

Also, Sprint-Bite-Trip has its uses when you don't want enemies to get away and warn others.

[Kileanna]

If you don't want to mess with spells, the Skirmisher archetype might be a nice option too.
Anyway, if you think he'll learn quickly, it could be a good thing to introduce him into basic spellcasting.

[Lady-J]

if thats the case then you should have him to use the wild shadow archetype(its a half elf only archetype but can be used by humans with racial heratige) as all of the animal companions on the ranger list are terible the only animal companions that are good as far as i know are big cat, velosoraptor,rino and gorilla none of which are on the ranger animal companion list(which i had no idea they had a restriction on) and the other hunter bond ability is even worse than the animal companion list

[Quentin Coldwater]

Wild Shadow is Half-Elf only. All archetypes from the ARG are race-locked in PFS due to the way the Additional Resources are worded. I can't link the source due to mobile, but it's been clarified you can't use Racial Heritage cheese to circumvent that. At least, not for ARG archetypes.

[Lady-J]

Quentin Coldwater wrote:

Wild Shadow is Half-Elf only. All archetypes from the ARG are race-locked in PFS due to the way the Additional Resources are worded. I can't link the source due to mobile, but it's been clarified you can't use Racial Heritage cheese to circumvent that. At least, not for ARG archetypes.

every day i learn more and more about how i should stay the hell away from pfs cuz it seems like no fun

[Derklord]

My Self wrote:

Still, resource management. For Rangers, resource management is minimal - you have HP, and yeah, maybe spells if you like them, but you're not significantly crippled without them.

I think recource management on a sorc is easier than adjusting your attack and damage rolls all the time. Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim, Point-Blank Shot, multiple Favored Enemies with different values, and possibly even spells all change the rolls. And that's without buffs from other characters!

I heavily suggest making a cheat sheet every level with a list of feat combination and the respective attack and damage rolls. In my current campaign, I made such a cheat sheet for the Wildshape Druid's player and it significantly smoothed her combat. In this case, the sheet has all the possible combinations of Haste, Power Attack, Charge, and Greater Magic Fang for attack rolls and damage rolls; the AC for any combination of Mage Armor, barkskin, and Haste; all the main stats (init, saves, AC x3, CMD), and skills. Everything for both character and animal companion, of course.

[Finlanderboy]

well you slowly level your characters, and a pet is received until level 4.

Keep in mind how advanced your kid is and that he will be slowly learning these new things as levels.

The biggest factor I find is how into the game they get. If you child really gets into the game he may surprise you a great deal.

[Bigdaddyjug]

He was very into it when he played his first session last weekend. He paid attention to the GM's instructions, participated in out of combat stuff, and generally did pretty well.

@Lady-J PFS is a lot of fun and there's a very good reason for most of the restrictions. I'd say don't knock it til you've tried it.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Lady-J wrote:

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

If you are looking at the task of making good decisions to navigate a character from level 1 through level 12,

Fighters are the most difficult class to play.
Clerics are the easiest, followed by Wizards.

But if you are looking for a Martial Class, umm, how about the Zen Archer Monk Archetype? Pretty straightforward as to what you want to do, quite powerful.

fighter archers are like the most streat forward thing to play.... way simpler than playing a cleric or a wizard

At the table, perhaps. But the bulwark of a Fighter's power is Feats: a small number of special abilities that work together in complex ways which, once chosen, you can't change your mind about.

Clerics, on the other hand, have a large array of spells that they can change their minds about every day. You might have a lot of reading to do for starters, but Clerics, and to a slightly lesser extent Wizards, are very forgiving of character build mistakes you make as you go. And there is very little problem with learning as you go.

With Fighters, you need to plan your build many levels in advance, and a single misunderstanding of the rules can wreck your character build beyond repair, and you might not even know you made your mistake for several levels of adventuring.

Lots of people say that Fighters are underpowered, but easy to play. I say Fighters are only underpowered because they very complicated to play, and most people don't realize that because you don't see the complexity at the gaming table.

you know fighters have the ability to retrain feats right? also retraining is a thing in pathfinder that just take a little bit of time and a small ammount of gold

Retraining Feats costs more than a little time, and many GMs don't allow downtime in their campaigns, in fact, mine almost never do. In Pathfinder Society, it costs Prestige Points, often a lot of Prestige Points.

A Cleric who wants to change his mind completely about his spells pays nothing at all. Clerics have full access to the full Spell lists every day.

For Wizards, they have to choose which spell they want to learn next, but there is no limit as to how many they can learn, and learning a new Wizard Spell is much cheaper than learning a new Feat. Plus, they don't lose their old spells: they just keep gaining spells until they have a large library of spells that they, too can change their minds about which ones to prepare every day.

A fighter might be able to swap out feats like you change tires on your car, but for Wizards and Clerics, changing your Spells is as trivial as changing your clothes every morning.

[Ascalaphus]

Lady-J: there are far more animal companions that are good than the ones you listed, and just because an animal isn't the absolute best doesn't make it terrible. The ranger list has several that are fully functional.

But on the whole companions were never meant to be quite as good as someone else's whole character, so maybe you're just expecting too much?

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Lady-J: there are far more animal companions that are good than the ones you listed, and just because an animal isn't the absolute best doesn't make it terrible. The ranger list has several that are fully functional.

But on the whole companions were never meant to be quite as good as someone else's whole character, so maybe you're just expecting too much?

I think they're speaking objectively in relation to other companions (and not PCs), and in that light, I agree.

The Big Cat has so much power and versatility between the Pounce and Rake abilities that other animal companions will, at the very least, have difficulty competing with it. There are some that have similar (or even identical) options, such as that one dinosaur that gets ~5 attacks on a Pounce (without Rake) whose name escapes me at the moment, though it does lack in size and other benefits in comparison, so while they may be useful, in comparison, the Big Cat is the strongest battle companion (ironically enough).

Making the most out of your class feature is an inherent part of optimization and min-maxing, and selecting the best companion for X purpose is just another Tuesday for such behavior.

A battle campanion would most likely never (read: shouldn't) outpace a PC who follows similar optimization/min-maxing protocols.

**EDIT** Engrish is hard.

[Derklord]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

that one dinosaur that gets ~5 attacks on a Pounce (without Rake) whose name escapes me at the moment

Deinonychus/Velociraptor.

Ascalaphus wrote:

But on the whole companions were never meant to be quite as good as someone else's whole character, so maybe you're just expecting too much?

Yeah, only Eidolons are allowed to do that!

[Lady-J]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Lady-J: there are far more animal companions that are good than the ones you listed, and just because an animal isn't the absolute best doesn't make it terrible. The ranger list has several that are fully functional.

But on the whole companions were never meant to be quite as good as someone else's whole character, so maybe you're just expecting too much?

i was comparing them to other animal companions not player characters unless it gets pounce or is an uber tank its practically useless as an animal companion

[Lady-J]

Bigdaddyjug wrote:

He was very into it when he played his first session last weekend. He paid attention to the GM's instructions, participated in out of combat stuff, and generally did pretty well.

@Lady-J PFS is a lot of fun and there's a very good reason for most of the restrictions. I'd say don't knock it til you've tried it.

dont want to try it there are way to many restrictions in place and your locked into a pitiful 20 point buy were you cant even get a decent stat array going :( if the point buy were maybe 40 points it would be a bit more managable but any less makes most of what i want to do unplosible

[Bigdaddyjug]

Lady-J wrote:

Bigdaddyjug wrote:

He was very into it when he played his first session last weekend. He paid attention to the GM's instructions, participated in out of combat stuff, and generally did pretty well.

@Lady-J PFS is a lot of fun and there's a very good reason for most of the restrictions. I'd say don't knock it til you've tried it.

dont want to try it there are way to many restrictions in place and your locked into a pitiful 20 point buy were you cant even get a decent stat array going :( if the point buy were maybe 40 points it would be a bit more managable but any less makes most of what i want to do unplosible

I'm just going to "whatever" this whole post and move on.