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then they should be making it in the pfs specific forum
That's for specific questions about PFS protocol, I believe. If you just have a question about how to build, play, etc. your Pathfinder character the advice forum is still the place to ask, because the benefit of playing in PFS is that everybody (even people who don't play PFS) can know immediately the full set of house rules they are playing under, and are therefore able to offer advice relevant to the game that player will be in. It's really not hard to internalize "20 point buy" after all.
This is often preferable to the standard advice forum dance of "ask your GM if you can..." and the like.
then they should be making it in the pfs specific forumthat monk was actually with 3d6 for the rolls rolled in fornt of the gm and got 18,18,14,11,10,10Just as an etiquette matter, however, when someone is making a PFS specific query (the OP begins with "Having started Pathfinder Society...") then suggesting things that are not possible within the boundaries of PFS is not helpful.
More often than not, it would be moved to Advice. The PFS forum is to discuss scenarios, gming, and other thing related to organized play. OP's request for advice on increasing their AB is meant to be here on Advice. If it needs to be PFS legal, that's usually mentioned in the title or in the first post.
Per RAW Rich Parents sets starting Wealth to 900, it does not increase it by 900 (meaning Lady-J's character only had 900 gp, not ~1050 gp). However IIRC, there is another obscure trait somewhere that actually does increase Wealth by 900.
Regardless:
A character buying a Breastplate (200 gp; +6 AC), Heavy Steel Shield (20 gp; +2 AC), and Longsword (15 gp) is 85 gp short before they purchase anything else. Scale Mail (50 gp; +5 AC) is about the best they can afford sans Trait at 1st level.
So...
Halfling Fighter 1
14 Str, 16 Dex, 14 Con, 12 Int, 12 Wis, 9 Cha
Traits: Defender of the Society*, and One Other.
Feats: Dodge*, Shield Focus*
Gear: Scale Mail, Heavy Steel Shield, Longsword, etc (85/150 gp).
AC: 24 | Touch: 15 | Flat-Footed: 20
10 (Base) +5+1* (Armor), +2+1* (Shield), +3 (Dex) +1* (Dodge), +1 Size
Requires: Core Rulebook, Faction Guide
Starting gold is 150gp, and rich parents is not legal. Tieflings require a boon from a convention to play.while not ideal 16,14,14,12,12,7
halfling +1ac +2dex+2 cha-2 str
fighter 1
depending on how they rule with starting wealth if average the 1st trait will be needed if max the 1st trait less needed
traits rich parent(+900gold), defender of society(+1ac in medium or heavy armor)gear brestplate +7ac, heavy steal shield +2 ac, longsword and other starting gear
while less than ideal in this combo dodge,shield focus(or armor focus) would net another +2 ac
recap +3 dex,+7 armor, +1 size, +3 shield, +1 dodge for 25 ac so while restricted to core only 26 doesn't seem possible but if allowed teifling with halfling heritage could get 26 with their +1 natural armor and the process gets easier the more variety of races are allowed and would allow for slightly more optimal feat selection at level 1
please show us how a lv1 PC on a 20 pt buy, with starting wealth and a core race, no templates, no self crafting of gear achieves 26 AC and has a stat spread that makes for playable character.these were the rules put forth no more no less so the character made is completely legal by the parameters set forth
traits weren't included
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all pfs issues/posts should be done in the pfs forums though
Nope, PFS forum is for PFS related questions, NOT how rules work or advice for characters in there.
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Considering that Adventure Paths assume you use them, PFS uses them standard, herolab assumes you use them, and unlike any other optional rule systems they've published Paizo has continued to support them in new products, I'd say its pretty safe to say they're fairly standard :)
Lady-J did do well with the challenge given, true. The challenge was not specifically to make a PFS legal character, but within a bunch of rules that PFS uses.
PFS does in fact use traits (2 with no drawbacks), and has a bunch of options that are not legal.
That said, little effort for a min/maxing power gamer with plenty experience is quite different from little effort for someone just starting.
Oh come on Chess Pwn, that's not fair. Traits are a normal part of character creation. And I don't think you stipulated PFS rules in your challenge.
No mine wasn't PFS required, nor did I say traits were included. Should I also have had the need to stipulate no profane gifts? no armor as DR rule? Sure traits are more common of the optional rules. But by building without them you'd get a character that was more likely to be what you'd actually see in a game. Had I included traits it would have come down to no money traits following closely to PFS rules though, getting 6 times or more starting wealth is huge, allowing far better starting gear for a specific spike.
and Lady-J managed 1 specific build that gets close to their "easy" benchmark. Lady-J even supported my point with this line, "the claim was without those specific boundaries in place they said try to make it with this list of boundaries and i got close." Showing that Lady-J's statements aren't normal. Getting close to reaching your easy benchmark mean that for normal games the benchmark is a focused build, not something that most if any characters can actually reach.
So Lady-J, if you are giving advice, just default assume that those specific boundaries are always in place, and then decide if the advice is still applicable.
the other goal was to show an example of what a character trying to meet 1 of Lady-J's goals would look like, a character that had to really specialize to reach the one goal.
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True, OP did say this was PFS which uses a 20-point buy for ability scores and montrous races require boons and are therefore exceedingly rare.
You can also fight a white dragon @1st in part2 of a 3parter. Comes out of nowhere if you open that last door despite having just completed your mission. Bonus points in that not doing so loses you 1 prestige!
I killed that white dragon (High tier!) as a level 1 Sorcerer. Burning hands! The other party members might have knocked it down to 1 HP first... Its breath weapon was rolling almost as many dice (6) as I had hit points (8). Thankfully I was off to the side and not in the cone.
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I have a fighter that's pretty close to the Halfling build up thread, but Human. I think he ended up with a 23AC at first with an array of 16, 16, 15, 10, 10, 8 or something like that, including the +2 racial bonus. He was built to use the Bodyguard feat and hand out AC to others. I ran into a problem around 3rd level where that part of the build worked great, but he wasn't dealing enough damage, so I'm reworking him (retraining out of the Armor Master archetype so I can get Weapon Training back next level, picked up Power Attack, and a few other things).
Anyway, back to the topic at hand... In PFS you can expect to have at least one fight that has a CR tier +3. Sometimes it won't go above +2, sometimes it will be +4. If you're in Tier 1-2, that means you can expect a CR 5 fight at some point. Usually that's a CR4 boss with some henchmen pushing the overall CR up, but sometimes it's a CR5 creature.
Looking at the Monster Creation guidelines, a CR5 creature has, on average, an AC of 18. So if you can reliably hit an 18, you're doing good. A +3 is still a bit low for that, and that's an average AC, so you might run into something higher, but that's a good place to start comparing. You can probably aim for hitting CR tier+2 60-70% of the time (before party buffs) and be very effective. That would be an AC 17, so you're low there, too. That's where squeezing out any bonuses from tactics and party buffing you can really helps.
Got a Bard? +1. Cleric or someone casting bless? +1. Flanking? +2. Now you're at +7/+7 and looking a lot better.
I feel like most of this thread is not about how does a magus hit things, which is a disservice to the OP.
If what I'm reading is true, the fact that the OP's character struggled at that particular difficulty spike is not an indictment of the character. Dragons are above the CR curve intentionally (they're iconic) and no developer worth their salt puts a dragon in a low-level adventure without trying to get the "whoa" bit where you feel out of your weight class.
That being said, dragons have low touch AC and you probably prepared some touch attack spells; you don't have to gish if it doesn't serve you. Accuracy isn't the selling point of the Magus to begin with, so I wouldn't worry too much.
Multiclass as an eldritch knight? Magus is one of the few classes that can directly multiclass into eldritch knight without dabbling into yet another class.
I'm going to agree with others, AC 20 shouldn't be common at that level.
Although I think a Dex focused Magus is a little weaker than a Strength focused on, I don't think either would have made a large difference here. You would have still had a lot of problems hitting that AC. The main difference with a strength based Magus is when you hit it would have hurt more. The strength based one also isn't as dependent on magic to do the damage.
In addition to the other things already mentioned, there are Tanglefoot bags. They target Touch AC and if they hit the target is entangled -- making them easier to hit after that.
In my mind the Magus really comes into their own at 4th level where they can pick up the spell bladed dash. Spell combat with this spell would allow you to move 30', take the attack from the spell and still do your full round of attacks.
Has blade lash be mentioned yet. It's an amazing spell, even on a wand.
It can be, but likely not too useful for a 1st level character facing a dragon.
I aware but it unlikely this character will be fighting a second dragon at this level but it will help for many other hard level 1-5 encounters I can think of.
That's true.
I think you've got those backwards. You have a .1 chance to hit rolling once and a .0975 chance to hit at least once rolling twice.
You are giving up the .0025 chance that you hit twice, but that's included in the .0975 chance that you hit at least once already.
It's difficult to get .95^2 with a single roll.
And yes, the 1/400 chance is included in the .0975 (The chance for one or more successful attacks.)
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I think you've got those backwards. You have a .1 chance to hit rolling once and a .0975 chance to hit at least once rolling twice.
You are giving up the .0025 chance that you hit twice, but that's included in the .0975 chance that you hit at least once already.
It's difficult to get .95^2 with a single roll.
And yes, the 1/400 chance is included in the .0975 (The chance for one or more successful attacks.)
I'm not sure what you're saying here. You also quoted the part of my message before I corrected my math in the edit.
Your original message stated that if you only hit on a 20, you have a .0975 miss chance rolling twice. That's backwards. If you only hit on a 20, you have a .0975 (9.75%) chance to hit at least once. If you roll a single attack without the spell combat penalty, then you hit on an 18-20, or 15% of the time.
You'll never hit twice rolling once, obviously, and in a large sample size your DPR might be higher always rolling twice (depending on your damage), but in a specific circumstance where your attack is likely to drop an enemy regardless of whether you hit once or twice, not using spell combat gives you a 5.25% better chance of ending the fight. It's limited to those three situations (needing a 19, 20, or 21 (via nat-20) on the die to-hit), but in those cases forgoing spell combat is a valid tactic.
Really, all of that was meant more to show that forgoing spell combat when you hit on an 18 or better with it isn't worth it, because in those situations you're more likely to hit at least once if you are rolling twice, even with the penalty. So for the AC20 dragon fight, with a +3 to-hit using spell combat, the OP is better off using spell combat than not. For AC 22-24, there's a slight edge toward using a single attack, if the goal is to hit at least once.
Shocking Grasp has +3 attack vs creatures wearing or composed of metal. Frostbite as a Touch attack applies the Fatigued condition with no save, which lowers enemy AC by 1. Blade Lash, Grease, and Thunderstomp can trip enemies, giving you +4 Attack against them. Blade Tutor's Spirit reduces the attack penalty of Spell Combat and various feats, effectively increasing your attack rolls. Reduce Person on a Dexterity build grants a +2 Attack bonus.
Each of those is a Level 1 spell, so they are usable from Level 1 (if you own their source books, of course).