Toughening Up


Advice


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

What are some ways of making a character tougher? That is, not as easily killed from common things such as hit point damage.

Some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head:
- Play a high hit point ancestry and class.
- Raise your Constitution score for lots of hit points.
- Take the Toughness feat for more hit points.
- Play a dwarf with Mountain's Stoutness for even more hit points.
- Obtain resistances though spells, feats, and ancestry/class abilities. (Got any specific suggestions?)
- Have a regular source of temporary hit pints through spells and abilities like drain life, false life, rage, or vampiric touch.
- Shield Block for what is essentially damage reduction.

EDIT: Let's make it a challenge. What is the toughest PC character we can make in terms of hit points and damage negation?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Animal Totem Dwarf Barbarian with mountain stoutness, toughness, Raging Vitality, and Die Hard would be the obvious answer. That is pretty much tops for taking a punch.

Monks and Paladins are going to be up there for avoiding damage and healing it thanks to great AC and saves.


Ironblood stance monks have less resistance than barbarians, but they resist all damage as opposed to specific types of damage.


Several Multiclass archetypes (Barbarian, Champion, Fighter, Monk, and Ranger) have Resiliency feasts that give you 3 hp per archetype class feat.


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I'm playing an Abjurer Dwarf Wizard.
This is my thread.

Okay let's see, starting with high Con, picking Toughness and Mountain Stoutness, False Life will be my daily friendo, Shield I don't even get to not pick... Stoneskin and Energy Resistance have decent duration, and I'm debating Energy Aegis (24hr, but competes with party-wide Energy Resistance, which synergises with Reach Spell).
Contingency for a quick Stoneskin sounds neat until you need Freedom of Movement.
Blink is more likely, as it also allows for no-AoO repositioning.
I suppose battle forms count as bonus hp, but only Gaseous Form grants notable blanket resistance.
Fire Shield, Globe of Invulnerability, Spell Immunity (with the ever-trolling Time Stop Immunity trick), Cloak of Colour, Spell Turning and Mind Blank are great all-around protections.

Verdant Wheel

Gisher wrote:
Several Multiclass archetypes (Barbarian, Champion, Fighter, Monk, and Ranger) have Resiliency feasts that give you 3 hp per archetype class feat.

These raise the floor not the roof.


rainzax wrote:
Gisher wrote:
Several Multiclass archetypes (Barbarian, Champion, Fighter, Monk, and Ranger) have Resiliency feasts that give you 3 hp per archetype class feat.
These raise the floor not the roof.

Sorry, I was only interesting in researching options to address the original question. I didn't realize that would disrupt the new game. I'll desist.


Captain Morgan wrote:
Animal Totem Dwarf Barbarian with mountain stoutness, toughness, Raging Vitality, and Die Hard would be the obvious answer. That is pretty much tops for taking a punch.

On that Barbarian, we also have a new capstone feat from PF150. It's uncommon, but still reasonable to consider.

Invulnerable Juggernaut grant universal resistance equal to 3 + CON, and raises the Rage resistances to 8 + CON.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
TheGentlemanDM wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Animal Totem Dwarf Barbarian with mountain stoutness, toughness, Raging Vitality, and Die Hard would be the obvious answer. That is pretty much tops for taking a punch.

On that Barbarian, we also have a new capstone feat from PF150. It's uncommon, but still reasonable to consider.

Invulnerable Juggernaut grant universal resistance equal to 3 + CON, and raises the Rage resistances to 8 + CON.

Nice.

Are there any multiclass options (such as specific spells perhaps) that could allow us to take it even further?


A Necromancer with just a dip into Rogue for Nimble Dodge can be much tougher than you may expect. Their 4th lvl Focus spell, and spamming of Vampiric Touch through a spectral hand can keep them topped off for a decent time even going solo vs an on lvl party of 5.

...and you still get to play with Wiz abjuration and battlefield control spells.


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Looking at the new capstone feats, I think that Monk could prove better than anything else for building an unkillable character.

A STR-based Ironblood Stance monk has resistance 7 to everything at 20th level thanks to Ironblood Surge, and an AC of 47. (Lvl 20, DC 10, Legend 8, DEX 5, Item 3, Circumstance 1).

They also have some of the best saves in the game, with +34/+34/+36 spread as you wish (Canny Acumen bringing up to Master).

Golden Body grants them Fast Healing 20. If we go with Dwarf and start 18/14/14/10/14/8, we cap out at 24/20/20/10/20/8 (Apex included). With Toughness and Mountain Stoutness, we get to 350 HP, which effectively increases by 20 for every round the fight progresses.

Now, we could take Barbarian Dedication for more HP, but at this point we're better served with some spellcasting. Since we're Wisdom focused, our options are either Druid or Cleric.

The Divine List is better for keeping us going via Heal, and there's a few options we can use to self buff. We already have resistances for days, but there's room for status bonuses to our AC and saves, plus even more healing if we want it.

A 6th level Heroism grants a +2 bonus to our saves (and attacks and damage, since killing enemies faster technically helps our survivability). Depending on whether Regenerate at 7th level stacks with our Fast Healing, that can get us up to an extra 35 HP per turn.

Protection can grant us an AC bonus, provided we can correctly discern alignment (when in doubt, guess evil?), and Sanctuary can buy us more time if we're being purely defensive.

(For comparison, the Animal Barbarian build has resistance 8 to everything, an AC of 46 with a shield, with specifically +36/+34/+34 saves, and 390 HP. Shield Block on the Barbarian gives a bit of an edge on raw endurance, but the Monk pulls ahead since it's much easier for them to cast. They also move way faster, and Flurry further improves their action economy, though Predator's Pounce means that the Barbarian is barely behind in that regard.)

Verdant Wheel

Gisher wrote:
rainzax wrote:
Gisher wrote:
Several Multiclass archetypes (Barbarian, Champion, Fighter, Monk, and Ranger) have Resiliency feasts that give you 3 hp per archetype class feat.
These raise the floor not the roof.
Sorry, I was only interesting in researching options to address the original question. I didn't realize that would disrupt the new game. I'll desist.

Not opposed, just pointing out.

This would help Ediwir for example.


rainzax wrote:
Gisher wrote:
rainzax wrote:
Gisher wrote:
Several Multiclass archetypes (Barbarian, Champion, Fighter, Monk, and Ranger) have Resiliency feasts that give you 3 hp per archetype class feat.
These raise the floor not the roof.
Sorry, I was only interesting in researching options to address the original question. I didn't realize that would disrupt the new game. I'll desist.

Not opposed, just pointing out.

This would help Ediwir for example.

Probably not - toughness is neat, but I also want wizard stuff. But it’s true that it helps resistance, and could work very well for a Warpriest.

Wayfinders

TheGentlemanDM wrote:


Golden Body grants them Fast Healing 20.

What is Golden Body? I cannot find it in the CRB or Lost Omens.


Claudius16309 wrote:
TheGentlemanDM wrote:


Golden Body grants them Fast Healing 20.
What is Golden Body? I cannot find it in the CRB or Lost Omens.

Golden Body is an uncommon 20th level feat unlocked from PF AP 150.

"You perfect your body, refining the flex of every muscle and the bend of every joint to maximum efficiency. Your unarmed Strikes gain the deadly d12 trait, and you have fast healing 20, causing you to regain 20 HP at the start of each of your turns provided you have at least 1 HP."

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1166

Wayfinders

TheGentlemanDM wrote:
Claudius16309 wrote:
TheGentlemanDM wrote:


Golden Body grants them Fast Healing 20.
What is Golden Body? I cannot find it in the CRB or Lost Omens.

Golden Body is an uncommon 20th level feat unlocked from PF AP 150.

"You perfect your body, refining the flex of every muscle and the bend of every joint to maximum efficiency. Your unarmed Strikes gain the deadly d12 trait, and you have fast healing 20, causing you to regain 20 HP at the start of each of your turns provided you have at least 1 HP."

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1166

Thank you for the quick reply!


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"By default, half-elves and half-orcs descend from humans, but your GM might allow you to be the offspring of an elf, orc, or different ancestry. In these cases, the GM will let you select the half-elf or half-orc heritage as the heritage for this other ancestry. The most likely other parent of a half-elf are gnomes and halflings, and the most likely parents of a half-orc are goblins, halflings, and dwarves."

Begin with this as a base:

Start with a half-orc Dwarf.

Get Toughness, Mountain Stoutness, Orc Ferocity, and Incredible Ferocity.

This gives you a bunch of extra hit points, you can avoid getting knocked out once per hour, and your stabilize on a 6+ if you are knocked out.


Neat. Very neat.

Verdant Wheel

Dworc


rainzax wrote:
Dworc

Orf

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