Which class/race combo is the best survivor?

[Chimerasame]

"Survival" can have many meanings.

Anyone with the Dark Wanderer epic destiny can essentially not die, for example, but they might be rendered useless in any particular combat if they suffer the conditions which would usually cause death.

 

[Mengu]

What is survivability based on?

The human wizard is the most survivable character in our group. He has gone down maybe once in 5 levels, where as everyone else goes down a time or two per level. And he never even runs low on healing surges. The elf archer ranger is probably the next most survivable. As a leader, I rarely have to worry about healing the two of them. The ranger does have to move around a bit more to quarry the right targets, which occasionally puts him in danger, but that's why he has hit points and healing surges. He can usually get out of trouble (or I can get him out when needed).

In the days of broken battleragers, our dragonborn battlerager was on the same boat, I never had to worry about healing him. But since the fix, he does go down occasionally, and I do have to direct some healing his way.

One time when my dragonborn warlord fell in a pit and got separated from the party in the middle of a battle, and I was fighting a spider in the pit, I wasn't worried so much about my own survivability, as I was about my companions. With a good number of hit points, second best AC in the group, second best fortitude defense in the group, a high healing surge value, and access to two inspiring words and a few potions, I wasn't in any real danger. So I could argue in such a situation, a warlord would fair better than most.

But if we are talking about surviving raw number of hits over the course of a day, a Goliath, Warforged or Dwarf Battlerager or Earth Warden will do quite well. With Earthwarden, you can also multiclass into fighter and grab one of the nice regeneration powers, as well as a fighter paragon path like Dreadnought.

 

[Samir]

2) The evasive type. Constantly in stealth mode, getting concealment, teleporting, damaging with teleporting, teleporting when hit, having a polearm perhaps.

I personally dislike option 2). It's not very heroic in my opinion, and I think most DM's and players get annoyed by a PC in a group that's constantly sneaking around and making everything so complicated with his invisibility and cowardly tactics. End of rant.

Heaven forbid tactics enter into this.

 

[Garthanos]

Warforged Battlerager Fighter Warden MC/maybe hybrid not sure.... Warforged similar to taking 10 on death saves? Warforged cant be a revenant can they?

Actually is it worth optimising for?... 4e is far more survivable than it ever was (harder to accidentally kill but it still can happen .. any DM can kill you off if they want just by forcing the fight and number of adversaries beyond your resources).

 

[JiffyPopTart]

My current character is an elven druid who is set up to be hard to pin down and kill. I have a run speed of 12 (15 one encounter a day) without any magic items assisting. I can use my at-wills on a charge and push my opponent back one space allowing me to run back where I came from.

In the even I get pinned down I can teleport out or become invisible each once per encounter.

This is at 10th level...and without any items....

DS

The best part of the build is the GM can't have the bad guys turn tail and escape at the end of an encounter unless we want to let them go (teleporting or magical wierdness excepted)

 

[RigaMortus2]

The classic build is "The Tank". He will still stand when everyone else is dead. Almost always. Someone posted it on gleemax.

Can you post the link to this build? Or was that the lvl 14 build you posted?

 

[Klaus]

You want a character with good defenses across the board. That means high Con (Fort + hp/surges), Dex (Ref + initiative) and Wis (Will + Perception).

Since you want a good Reflex defense, it's best to go with Hide Armor and Dex 16 (or Con, or Wis, if you're a Warden or another such class), putting you on par with chainmail.

Humans get you a +1 to all defenses, and Human Perseverance gets you a +1 to all saving throws. Halflings, otoh, get you that nice reroll, and gnomes give you Fade Away. Dwarves give you Con/Wis, which go well with the Warden's ability to replace Dex with either of those two. Elves, otoh, give you Dex/Wis, and there's a regional benefit in FR that lets you use Wis to determine starting hp. In both cases, though, one defense suffers (Ref for dwarves and Fort for elves). In addition, Warden attacks based on Strength, which neither race focus on.

 

[-Avalon-]

A by the original 4th ED PHB book paladin has amazing survivability, as not one enemy will even look his direction...

As for REAL survivability, the Human Battlerager Fighter/Warden in our group is _awesomely_ survivable... at 24th lvl he has 40+ fort, around mid-30's on the other two, and high 30's AC... gets temp HP every time he does anything, got the right armor/items for resists across the board, and feats to boot... he even got an ability that says it only works when he is not bloodied, _because_ he is never bloodied...