How not to die!?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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Hello,
I have played 2 characters so far, a rogue and a fighter. I had a lot of difficulty not to die with my rogue, everything seemed to get me to negative hit points in one turn if I was caught out of guard. Even my Tower Shield specialist fighter was dying quicker than I was expecting.

I would like to see everything you know to prevent your characters from dying. So far I know diehard(you can still act while under 0hp), toughness, evasion, another day talent and defensive roll talent. I also heard of hero points but my group is not playing with that.

How are you not dying guys?


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Tactics is the biggest form of defense in the game. Using cover, Fighting Defensively/Total Defense, keeping threatening enemies away from you through distance and obstacles, and most importantly, killing the bad guys before they kill you by going first and setting the tone of the battle.

Another is by having combat abilities that help sustain the damage you take, or reduce it. Paladins have Lay On Hands to heal themselves from sustaining damage and removing incurred conditions via Mercies. Barbarians (eventually) have DR, and Rage for supplementary hit points. Wizards and other spellcasters have defensive spells that they can cast on themselves (and others as well). Clerics have Cure spells and Channel Energy, as well as multiple buffs as well.

Not all classes have them, which means they will need to rely on the more mundane means of survival. Speaking of which, you'll want things like more AC (from Armor and Dexterity), more Saves (especially Will Saves), and so on, which can be acquired from class features and magical equipment. The Big 6 goes a long ways to make sure you aren't extremely lagging behind the expected power level of a given encounter.

The biggest thing with all of these is that you want such options so that they do not (overly) hinder your ability to defeat enemies, which is the biggest defense besides going first in combat; the longer enemies last, the more likely they will roll good and have a negative impact on you and your party members. It is because of this ideal that a lot of players believe that Offense>Defense.

Another big thing is action economy; the more actions you can take (and don't interfere with other actions), the better you're contributing to defeating an encounter, so having abilities that trigger off of different actions (Lay On Hands is a Swift Action, Rage is a Free Action, and so on) is equally crucial.

With that being said, the problem with your experience is that you've played two of the most known weakest classes in the game. Unchained Rogue can last quite a bit (but regular Rogue is a joke), and a Fighter, unless you're running Weapon/Armor Master Handbook material, is extremely sub-par, even with archetypes replacing garbage stuff with more desirable features.

I suggest you play a more substantiated class, like Paladin or Barbarian, who have better options to defend themselves (and smash their enemies).


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Are you starting at level one? Is this happening to other people in your party? Also are your characters just going unconscious or are they actually getting killed?

If it's the latter it might just be a DM thing, talk to your dungeon master and see if maybe he can throw weaker enemies at your party and save potential TPKs for encounters that deserve it.

Otherwise it's just simple tactical choices. Make sure your heavies/tank have high constitution, and always to get flanking, either with rogues or fighters. If you are playing a rogue, ask your tanks to use aid another to sure up your defense until you can withdraw from melee if you're hurt, or consider using thrown weapons entirely.


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AM NOT "AM BARBARIAN," BUT AM DIFFERENT BARBARIAN, AND BARBARIAN AM SAY THAT BARBARIAN SMASH NOT-BARBARIANS LIKE PANCAKES AM BEST DEFENSE FOR BARBARIAN!

NOT-BARBARIANS AM NOT HURT BARBARIAN WHEN BARBARIAN AM SMASH!


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My methods for not dying are good hit points, good AC, good tactics, good teamwork, and good intelligence.

In my Rise of the Runelords game, one of the party rogues would frequently become heavily damaged, because he stepped behind his opponent to get a flank. Unfortunately, that left him in easy reach of the foes who were not in the front line. As the GM, to remove this weakness, I had the party find a Rapier of Puncturing at 9th level. That gave him an alternative tactic was was not as risky.

Good teamwork and good intelligence are the defenses that are most overlooked. A martial character could have stepped behind the opponent to give a flank to the rogue rather than the less-armored rogue taking the risk. In a Serpent's Skull game, I played a barbarian that had Dodge and Mobility and usually flanked for the rogue. In addition, teamwork where a weaker combatant steps forward temporarily can let a damaged PC retreat safely to drink a Cure potion. Good intelligence relies on the GM: the party can gather information in town and scout the countryside to find information on the enemy and chose their battleground rather than step blindly into danger.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

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You need to avoid taking damage by preparing properly and playing smart. This isn't a game about tanking damage.

Scarab Sages

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1st Lesson of How Not to Die: Not to stand up.


Like everyone is saying, at low levels, especially lv1 full hp and unconscious is 1 good hit for almost everyone.

If you're higher leveled the way you're going down is
1) getting hit to often
or
2) getting hit for too much

you can work at 1 to be hit less, but 2 isn't something as easily fixed. It's only solved by HP, DR, and temp HP. So if your con is able to be 14 or higher it'll help you have HP to survive. DR isn't something either of those could get, and neither is temp HP really. So it's either look for different enemies to fight, or ask your GM to lower their damage.

for 1) it's AC and positioning, If your rogue was running into the middle of enemies to flank with the front line then he's getting to much focus without enough defenses. If your shielded fighter was getting flanked or mobbed then it could be bad. but here's some general rules, level+25 is great ac, level +20 is good AC, level +15 can maybe avoid a few attacks and is passable for someone that isn't getting hit targeted all that much.

Verdant Wheel

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Seconding the importance of Tactics and Teamwork, especially when considered together. The game is very lethal unless a party works together smartly, unselfishly.

If I had to quantify it, I would say the party tactics and teamwork can be "worth" up to 3 CR in either direction. As the party understands this more, their collective chances of survival improves.

Link to a great article!


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Intelligence wins wars. (I mean gathering information, not a high Int score.) If you're playing a rogue, max out stealth and perception, then stay on high alert. Peek around corners, listen at doors, all that good stuff. You're _always_ better off knowing as much as you can about the enemy before you engage.

Fighting at range wins wars. The bow and arrow achieved tactical dominance pretty much everywhere in the world that it was developed. The same holds for Pathfinder: archers can own this game. High Dex boosts your to-hit while at the same time boosting your initiative, reflex saves, AC, and a bunch of life-saving skills.

I say try playing a stealthy archer. You can make some really solid builds as a rogue or a fighter, or multiclassing between them. Maybe even play-test character concepts with some friends out of game. Just run a little mock battle, experimenting with different tactics.


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Magnus Arcadian wrote:
Intelligence wins wars. (I mean gathering information, not a high Int score.)

Wizard says hi.


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Well, hello there. :)

I'll respectfully disagree with one thing you said, Darksol:

"With that being said, the problem with your experience is that you've played two of the most known weakest classes in the game."

I think the fighter and the rogue are both terrific. They _used to_ suck, back in 3.5 days, but now they're two of the best in the book. They're infinitely flexible, and that by itself makes them more survivable: you can play the character you understand best. They're also the simplest, most straightforward classes, and for beginners that makes them more survivable: you only have to focus on a couple of things, instead of keeping track of spells and all the rest.

Obviously everything comes down to what you build and how you play. But Doppleman, I think you shouldn't give up on fighters and rogues. They're fun, they're time-tested, and every adventure ever published has a place for them.


Magnus Arcadian wrote:

Well, hello there. :)

I'll respectfully disagree with one thing you said, Darksol:

"With that being said, the problem with your experience is that you've played two of the most known weakest classes in the game."

I think the fighter and the rogue are both terrific. They _used to_ suck, back in 3.5 days, but now they're two of the best in the book. They're infinitely flexible, and that by itself makes them more survivable: you can play the character you understand best. They're also the simplest, most straightforward classes, and for beginners that makes them more survivable: you only have to focus on a couple of things, instead of keeping track of spells and all the rest.

Obviously everything comes down to what you build and how you play. But Doppleman, I think you shouldn't give up on fighters and rogues. They're fun, they're time-tested, and every adventure ever published has a place for them.

Wizards say die fighter and die rogue.

and Hi too, lol


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Magnus Arcadian wrote:

Well, hello there. :)

I'll respectfully disagree with one thing you said, Darksol:

"With that being said, the problem with your experience is that you've played two of the most known weakest classes in the game."

I think the fighter and the rogue are both terrific. They _used to_ suck, back in 3.5 days, but now they're two of the best in the book. They're infinitely flexible, and that by itself makes them more survivable: you can play the character you understand best. They're also the simplest, most straightforward classes, and for beginners that makes them more survivable: you only have to focus on a couple of things, instead of keeping track of spells and all the rest.

If by "flexible," you mean "can choose different talents," then guess what, Paladin and Barbarian have those same options to, via Rage Powers, Spells, Mercies, and more. And those options are flat-out better than the options that Fighters or Rogues get, since they're more powerful in comparison, and have better application.

Can Rogues or Fighters use things like Spell Sunder? No way. What about Auras which grant bonuses (and personal immunities), and survivability with Lay On Hands? Rogues don't get any of that, and Fighters have a gimped version of the former with absolutely nothing of the latter.

There are so many Rogue talents that are traps, there are so many feats that aren't worth the bonus feats a Fighter gets, and even then the Fighter's feats don't compare to the likes of a Ranger's, who can circumvent pre-requisites entirely, even if they're restricted to a sub-set of feats, which is objectively irrelevant if you were gunning for feats within that sub-set in the first place. Who cares if you get 10 feats if you can get 5 of them without having to straight-jacket your character build? Not to mention Favored Enemy/Terrain, an Animal Companion, PLUS Spells. A Ranger is like a Fighter, except so much better.

Every class has choices and options to choose from, so saying that's the biggest benefit for a Rogue or Fighter, when their options are garbage in comparison to the other precedents set, is just misleading.

That isn't to say that there aren't trap options in other classes, because there are. The point is that Fighters and Rogues not only have the most trap options, but also have the least interesting options as well, and a lot of the most interesting options are simply "+1 to attack rolls," which is both boring as hell, but also basically the only good option out there, especially for the Rogue whose to-hit sucks nuts.

You're also hurting new players by not introducing them to mechanics they don't know, spellcasting in particular. Spells are a major (in fact, required) part of the game; giving them a class that doesn't even do some form of spellcasting (Major Magic talent doesn't really count) means you're dismissing a very important teaching lesson that they, as newcoming players, need to understand, especially if they want to succeed at a game such as this.

Verdant Wheel

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Not sure arguing MCD is helping OP...


rainzax wrote:
Not sure arguing MCD is helping OP...

If all you gathered from my post is "Martial/Caster Disparity," then you clearly didn't understand what my post was trying to say.

My post said Rogues and Fighters suck because they lack powerful options that other martials have, and only referenced Wizards as an example of the type of powerful options that they should be compared to.

Playing the two weakest classes in the game and complaining about being weak or dying too easily isn't exactly convincing anyone that the player has problems beyond actually picking the two weakest classes at a GM table who clearly demands more than an inefficient beatstick and an outdated skill monkey.


Things that influence your character’s survivability:

1. Your build
2. Your tactics
3. The builds and tactics of the other players
4. The GM

The last one is a pretty big one. We can come with endless tips and tricks on what feats to pick and what tactics to use. It won't help a bit if you've got a GM who misuses rules (deliberately or not) or is out to get you.

It won't help much if the GM runs a module with or personally favours a type of monsters with unusual abilities. For example, high AC is great. But if you're GM is making you fight swams and gunslingers, that high AC does very little to help you. Or take that rogue you played. You could have made a good build and used it correctly, but if all you faced was elementals and other things which are immune to sneak attacks, you'll end up dead more often than you should (since offence is very important part of defence).

The other players obviously also plays an important part in your character's survival. You'll die faster if one of your 'allies' is a blaster sorcerer who cares little if you're caught in his fireball. Suboptimal builds and poor tactics on behalf of your fellow players will affect you. It's hard (though not impossible) to build a character that can survive and dominate encounters regardless of the effectiveness of other PCs, especially at low levels where everyone's a bit fragile and doesn't have that many tools to play around with.

So, it would probably help us help you if you told us about your campaign. What are you playing? How experienced are the GM and the other players? Are you the only one experiencing problems with dying to often?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Off-Topic Fighter/Rogue stuff:
Caveat to the Fighter and Rogue discussion, Advanced Weapon Training options for Fighter as well as some archetypes for both classes can greatly increase their ability to survive. For instance, Armed Bravery and Smash from the Air on the AWT options from Fighter are great for increasing defenses vs magic and ranged attacks, and the Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue gets 6-Level casting from the Wizard list so they can access more defensive buffs.


I think both DarkSol and Magnus both have points. The core rogue is extremely weak which is why they came up with the unchained rogue. They did an excellent job on the unchained rogue for numerous reasons and anyone wanting to play a rogue should be using this version. Just getting weapon finesse and DEX to damage really improved the class. Cleaning up the rogue talents and giving them more class abilities was also needed. Skill unlocks finally gave the rogue a chance to be better at skill than other classes. But even so knowing that the class like any other has some weaknesses built in can help you not only in building the character but also choosing appropriate tactics.

The fighter is a little different. Their combat ability is not really the problem it’s what they cannot do out of combat that is the problem. With very few skill points and no out of combat class abilities all they can do is combat. The sheer number of feats and the long list of feats actually make it one of the more difficult classes to build. Sure they are easy to play but without knowing all your options it is difficult to build a character as effective as it can be. While there are a lot of good feats there are also a lot that are crap. The other thing that can make the difference is the books available to build the character. Many of the latter books gave options that fixed a lot of problems, but without access to those it is difficult to build an effective fighter.

A couple of things to keep in mind is that to survive you need to shore up your weaknesses. Both the fighter and the rouge have two bad saves and this can be a problem. Look for things to increase your saves. If you are playing a fighter consider picking up iron will for a +2 on will saves. Also look at traits and races that give you bonuses to your saves. For fighters don’t ignore your touch AC many spells target touch AC and don’t allow a save. Ray of Exhaustion can absolutely shut down a fighter.

Watch your stats and be careful what you dump. All characters should invest in CON as it not only determines HP but also improves your fortitude saves. WIS should rarely be dumped and never by a fighter or rogue. The penalty on Will saves means your character is easy to control. WIS also affects perception and sense motive and failing to notice something can kill your character. If you are playing rouge make sure you have enough STR to carry any gear without taking encumbrance penalties. Having a high DEX bonus does not help your AC when you cannot use it.


Remember your tactics will have to change, often by a lot, every couple of levels.

Some military game theory might help. It can be hard to judge on a low information game but still has some value.

Inferior Force tactics:

  • Avoid full engagement without significant situational advantage.
  • MIsdirect and Harry hard targets.
  • Focus resources on soft targets (especially support or glass cannon targets)
  • Face strength with weakness and weakness with strength.

Superior Force tactics:
  • Force engagement to the best of your ability
  • Attack the enemy where the enemy is strongest.
  • Maintain your focus

Always avoid letting the enemy dictate your tactics.
Nullify the enemy's situational advantages.
Avoiding a fight is better than being drawn into a bad one.


If you want to get the right numbers, I recommend this chart. More specifically, your AC should probably be somewhere between green and blue for your level. (You don't need to go over the blue numbers, and you're fine as long as you're at least green. Character who are subjected to attacks more often will, of course, want to be higher instead of lower.)


Doppleman wrote:

Hello,

I have played 2 characters so far, a rogue and a fighter. I had a lot of difficulty not to die with my rogue, everything seemed to get me to negative hit points in one turn if I was caught out of guard. Even my Tower Shield specialist fighter was dying quicker than I was expecting.

I would like to see everything you know to prevent your characters from dying. So far I know diehard(you can still act while under 0hp), toughness, evasion, another day talent and defensive roll talent. I also heard of hero points but my group is not playing with that.

How are you not dying guys?

Short answer: L2P

Long answer:

  • Understand the trade off between offense and defense and knowing how to get the most of each without sacrificing too much of either.
  • Knowing your role and how to perform in it.
  • Understanding the flow of the battlefield and making sure you are controlling it, not reacting to it.
  • Know when to stand and fight, know when to run.
  • Resource management, don't waste resources on trivial encounters and make sure you get maximum impact from resources when used.

All of the above requires experience, and you only get experience by playing, making mistakes and, occasionally, dying.


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^-^
up, down, up, down, a, a, a, b, start

The Exchange

You can do lots of different things. One good way to stay alive is to have the PC hang out with more friends. Numbers are a good way to stay alive. an easy way is to play a pet class (hunter, druid, cavalier, summoner...).


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Survival is very dependent on many factors, more than we can reliably all predict for. At best we can give you is some basic mechanical answers, but some things are very situation specific. AC won;t help you survive a desert after all, and flight won't keep you safe underwater.

Generally speaking there's a few rules you want to follow that you want in general.

Don;t take negative stats in dexterity, constitution or wisdom. The Paladin can get away with a low constitution or wisdom, but nobody else can. These stats affect all your saves, your hp, your ac, and your perception skill (the most important skill.)

Tying to this, always take perception, even if it's not a class skill. Being ambushed can get you killed very fast, and as a pc, 95% of the time, you'll be the ambushee not the ambusher. This also let's you find traps which could be a big problem sometimes. Just because you can't disarm it doesn't mean knowing not to walk into it is not useful.

Do not be the first to move into melee. This only applies once multiple attacks are a thing. How the game works is you can't move more than 5 feet and make a full attack. So if you run at them, you get one attack on them. Then they get all their attacks on you. Bad trade, right? There's nuance to this mind you. If you have pounce, then you want to charge every time you can, as if you get the full attack and take them down in one round, they do no damage to anyone. And classes with negligible physical attacks like primary arcane casters you can move into melee with without much concern. And Reach will force you to get in close, and take an aoo while at it, so be aware against large creatures you're in for a rough time either way.

Flank, don't be flanked. Flanking gives a +2 to attack rolls and opens them up for sneak attack if it's at play. Try to position so you can flank, but avoid it yourself. That being said, make sure not to over extend. Your positioning matters, and getting yourself surrounded can get yourself killed with no way for your friends to help you.

Focus defense over offense, but not to exclusion. Always get the best armor you can use, and if you get access to a shield it can be worth using. Armor and Shield enchantments cost half the amount weapon enchantments cost, meaning you get more defense than offense per cost. Just make sure not to ignore all offense, as someone with high ac and no offense is the equivalent of a stone pillar, and they'll sooner or later just start going around you. Be threatening enough to draw fire.

Defense is not just AC. Saves, Resistances, Miss Chances and Immunities are all very important. Cloaks of Resistance are considered a "staple" item for a reason, without them you tend to fail saves way more. Unless you're a paladin or maybe a barbarian but they do stack so can still be worth it. Resistances help a lot against enemies who spam nukes for chip damage over and over. Eat enough fireballs and it adds up. Having 10+ fire resistance helps a ton. 5 resistance isn't worth all that much except at level 1-3 though when alchemist fire can be dangerous. Buffs or class features that block debuffs are also very important. Freedom of Movement and Death Ward are very important to have access too through one means or another. Fortifications popular for saving you from critical hits.

Don't ignore consumables. Potions of healing aren't all that great but oils of bless weapon, magic weapon, or other potions and scrolls are all priced very reasonably compared to the permanent bonuses and might save your life and wallet in the long run if used properly. For healing, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds is usually the more economical answer.

Mobility matters. If you can't reach an enemy you're not going to kill them, generally. Archery allows one to circumvent this to a degree but for all it;s power, archery has several hard counters out there that have to be accounted for. As such, make sure you have a method to get airborne. Not only will this save you from land targets who don;t have ranged answers, it let's you chase down the flyers. Swim speeds underwater are the same way. There's not many answers to burrowers unfortunately, so your best bet is to stay off the ground and try to force them to the surface or circumvent them.

Not every battle has to be fought. While there are many times that leaving no enemies behind you is very wise, for unintelligent monsters like animals and creatures between you and a place may not have to be fought at all. Never underestimate the usefulness of means to circumvent danger to protect yourself and resources. Why travel through a desert when you can teleport to the other side? Why fight the beast in the moat when you can fly to the top of the castle? And so forth.

Familiarize yourself with your enemies when possible. Knowledge skills help there, but asking experts, going to libraries and gathering information is very helpful. Bringing weapons that strike enemies weaknesses, enhancing defenses against the enemies strengths, and leveraging what you have is always better than running in blind. Just make sure not to specialize too hard. One trick ponies don't work well in the long run, and enemies are likely aware of their weaknesses too and may shore them up. Just because white dragons hate fire doesn't mean it will work, because that white dragon may well have a ring of fire resistance. So be ready to counter such things as needed.

But one can continue with this for ages. That's how involved survival can be. Fact is, sometimes you'll just die to bad luck as well, and nothing can stop that. The trick is to try and tip the odds as far in your favor as you can. And that's always situational to certain degrees.


Determination armor is great if you can afford it. Adding a Shawl of Life-Keeping to your Cloak of Resistance is good to have in the meantime. Permanent symbol of mirroring can stop one attack per round.

Boosting Dex and Con is always good. Having a good ranged option keeps you out of melee.

Two characters that worked well for me are an Alchemist with a protector tumor familiar and a Hexcrafter Eldrich Archer Magus. The tumor familiar provides an HP battery with fast healing 5, very useful to stay alive. With the Magus I used the flight hex each combat and was able to hit enemies at range.


Hey, op, you an Unchained Rogue?

Get Resiliency.

As far as I can tell, this talent occurs after damage is taken, and seemingly prevents death from negative hit points for 1 minute so long as you have the temporary hit points. If you use it with Multitalented, that's potentially multiple rounds in which you say no to death.


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Doppleman wrote:
How not to die!?

Painfully. You really don't want to die painfully.

Also, from a game standpoint, try not to die permanently, either.

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