Establishing a baseline - The Vanilla Fighter (+APG)

[harpy]

I wanted to get an idea of baseline to hit and damage output for the system and so I'm starting with the Fighter, using Core plus APG elements. I'm really interested in seeing the math "as is" in the system.

The idea is to just get down a "standard build" that is simple and to the point. The guy just hits things hard. The only versatility the build has is to allow as much hard hitting on any given round. Ideally he'd be full attacking, but cleave and the vital strike chain are there when he can't. Iron Will and Nimble Moves are there to just to help with other hurdles that would prevent him from laying out his full attack.

I didn't want to use archetypes, such as the Two-Handed Fighter, just because I want this to be more of a baseline, with just a few of the feats from APG that help patch the fighter up a bit more.

Do people have any suggestions on what ought to be adjusted to make this as vanilla and "no-brainer" as possible? Eventually I want to calculate the DPR for each of the 20 levels and then work my way out from there.


Vanilla Fighter with APG

Human
15 point buy

Str 16, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 7

Armed with a Great Sword or Falchion


Level Feats
1 Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Furious Focus
2 Cleave
3 Iron Will
4 Weapon Specialization
5 Nimble Moves
6 Vital Strike
7 Combat Reflexes
8 Improved Critical
9 Critical Focus
10 Weapon Focus Greater
11 Bleeding Critical
12 Greater Weapon Specialization
13 Penetrating Strike
14 Critical Mastery
15 Blinding Critical
16 Staggering Critical
17 Improved Vital Strike
18 Stunning Assault
19 Greater Vital Strike
20 Greater Penetrating Strike

 

[pawsplay]

Hm, the idea of a "vanilla" fighter is problematic. To me, it is emblematic of the fighter that he likely has several tricks up his sleeves. You also have to resolve the two-hander/has shield dilemma. Then there's Weapon Focus v. generalized feats.

To me, a classic fighter has Point Blank Shot and Far Shot at some point, as you ought to have some kind of ranged attack capability. To me, your two-handed beater looks like a rather specialized build. The critical feats to me suggest the falchion is implied.

 

[BriarMonkey]

A "vanilla" Fighter to me would be a generalist. He needs to be able to use his two-hander when facing an opponent needing a big smack down; a sword and board for when defense is needed; and a bow, or somesuch, for being able to take the fight to a distant enemy.

The build you have there, it's far too weighted to a smack-down variant. It's not nearly "vanilla" enough.

 

[pawsplay]

A "vanilla" Fighter to me would be a generalist. He needs to be able to use his two-hander when facing an opponent needing a big smack down; a sword and board for when defense is needed; and a bow, or somesuch, for being able to take the fight to a distant enemy.

The build you have there, it's far too weighted to a smack-down variant. It's not nearly "vanilla" enough.

It's more of a Chunky Monkey build.

 

[BriarMonkey]

It's more of a Chunky Monkey build.

I like Chunkey Monkey - with extra chocolate sauce and strawberries.









And monkies.

 

[pawsplay]

Marcus Genericus
Human Fighter
Str 15, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8

1 EWP (bastard sword), Power Attack, Furious Focus
2 W Focus (bastard sword)
3 Iron Will
4 W Spec (bastard sword)
5 Combat Reflexes
6 Vital Strike
7 Quick Draw
8 Point Blank Shot
9 Far Shot
10 G W Focus (bastard sword)
11 Imp Vital Strike
12 G W Spec (bastard sword)
13 Deadly Aim
14 Cleave
15 Improved Iron Will
16 G Vital Strike
17 W focus (longbow)
18 Rapid Shot
19 W Spec (longbow)
20 Penetrating Strike (bastard sword)

 

[BriarMonkey]

That one looks better. With the Bastard Sword you can go two-handed or sword and board as the scenario deems; and there's the ranged attack elements to help with distance.

I guess the issue with "vanilla" is figuring out at what point do you take what feats (aside from level and other restrictions). I mean, is there really such a thing as a "vanilla" fighter? Doesn't everyone have an idea of what they want, so that is how they build?

Mayhaps for this exercise a hybrid approach is needed. What I mean is this: build a two-hander fighter; build an archer; build a sword-and-board; and build a crit machine. With those, you have a "baseline" for the specific types of fighters. Then determine your averages between them to get an "average" build.

Though, I never took Statistics or the like in school so I don't know how close that will get you to the goal - but it should be workable.

 

[ruemere]

No need to use Bastard Sword. You can use any medium weapon two-handed. Better take Blind-Fight to counteract all cases of low or zero visibility (or mirror images).

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[harpy]

So I goofed up in a couple of places. One of those was that I forgot to add the +2 human bonus to strength with the original build. Because of that I went back and decided to start with the Elite Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8). Thus, the Strength for this "vanilla" fighter is 17.

I also tweaked a few things, such as not capping crit percentages based on base to-hit percentages. The end results:

Str 17 with Greatsword


[CR] DPR
[1] 7.87
[2] 7.87
[3] 7.87
[4] 12.45
[5] 14.2
[6] 20.7
[7] 22.9
[8] 23.76
[9] 26.68
[10] 29.44
[11] 35.88
[12] 36.4
[13] 51.04
[14] 41.18
[15] 41.18
[16] 38.44
[17] 43.52
[18] 43.52
[19] 47.36
[20] 50.4
[21] 47.6
[22] 31.62
[23] 31.62
[25] 35.7


Str 17 with Falchion

[CR] DPR
[1] 6.96
[2] 6.96
[3] 6.96
[4] 11.6
[5] 13.32
[6] 19.82
[7] 21.96
[8] 23.5
[9] 26.83
[10] 29.57
[11] 36
[12] 36.87
[13] 51.53
[14] 41.75
[15] 41.75
[16] 39.27
[17] 44.46
[18] 44.46
[19] 48.33
[20] 51.6
[21] 50.66
[22] 33.83
[23] 33.83
[25] 38.25


The post monster yesterday ate one of my posts about feat configurations and I'm still bummed about lose that post.

In short, in posting here and on other forums, I've realized that "vanilla" is in the eye of the beholder from the wide range of opinions I've gotten.

For myself, I was thinking of the most basic of fighter, one that just does damage. It's for the player who shows up and just wants to say "I attack" for his contribution to roleplaying for the session.

Getting that baseline of damage output down is going to help get an idea of the rest of the system and how magic impacts the game.

 

[pawsplay]

No need to use Bastard Sword. You can use any medium weapon two-handed. Better take Blind-Fight to counteract all cases of low or zero visibility (or mirror images).

Regards,
Ruemere

There's no "need," I just figured why not.

Blind-Fight is a good idea, and I usually include it, but things are going to be stretched doing that and archery, too. Still Far Shot is more of a corner case, maybe I can reshuffle things. And I forget the +2 ability score, as well.