Core only "optimization" [3.5e/PF]

[Yora]

Just having talked about how great Quick Draw can be, I was wondering how much fun you can have with just the PHB or the CRB in regard to feats, class features, and the like. Obviously, all the best spells are in core, so I think we could leave those out for this discussion and instead focus on anything that is not spellcasting.

Most optimization guides and general handbooks draw on material from a wide range of sources, but I think in practice most people don't most or even any of those books.

So yeah. Anyone having any good guides for this, or even just some fun things that you've been doing yourself within these limitations?

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Sneak Attack + Quick Draw: Quick Draw is an awesome feat, since it allows you to draw a weapon as a free action. True, in most situations you can either draw a weapon as a move action and attack an enemy next to you, or you can draw it for free as you are moving up to an enemy. There are really just two reasons to have the feat: Full attack in the first round for fighters and barbarians, and Sneak Attack in the suprise round for rogues.
If you are talking to a guard who is not particularly suspicious about you, you should be able to start a fight with a suprise round. No standoff with a challenge to a duel, but just shanking him. Normally, you only could draw your weapon in the suprise round, but don't get to attack. With quick draw you immediately get your standard attack against him and also a sneak attack since he is still flat footed. If he survives and you win initiative, you get to sneak attack him a second time (and possibly even more, if you are higher level).
Or you come round and corner and run head first into two enemies. Everyone is suprised, nobody gets a suprise round. But if you win initiative, you can use your first turn to full attack with sneak attacks, instead of just a standard attack sneak attack.
And of course, you also get to draw a hidden weapon as a move action instead of a standard action. That means you can both draw the hidden weapon and make an attack in the same round. And again, this increases the chances to strike while the enemies are still flat footed.
If you are a rogue in a campaign where fights are usually not arena style, this feat is awesome. :smallbiggrin:

All of this is also the reason why Improved Initiative is a marvelous feat as well. It's not just the ability to have one more turn in the fight. For a rogue, attacking first means enemies are flat-footed and you get to sneak attack them.

[Psyren]

Saph's Horizon Tripper is a 3.5 core-only optimization exercise if you wanted a handbook example.

Most PF core-only classes got a leg up over 3.5 core-only.

[Gavinfoxx]

Grease or Glitterdust + Sneak Attack + Quick Draw + Two Weapon Fighting + Point Blank Shot + Precise Shot + Acid Flasks or Alchemist's Fire = You have an effective rogue in Core!

Another good thing to do in Core is the Horizon Tripper:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80415

Another good thing is the mounted combat Barbarian charger with two handed lance.

[Slipperychicken]

Another little trick with Quick Draw: Draw a torch and flint&steel as free actions, light torch as full-round, drop flaming torch into adjacent square as free action. For when you want to light things on fire quickly and cheaply.

If you allow dropping handfuls of marbles on the ground to count as "spreading" them, then you can deploy them with no action cost in combat. Very nice for sneak-attackers (or Iaijutsu-users) to score the Flat-Footed condition on opponents without Balance ranks. Also can help in a chase, tripping up pursuers.

[Seharvepernfan]

Quick Draw is such a good feat.

Any twf halfling should love it, in combination with javelins/darts.

Any 6th+ fighters and barbarians should love it. At 6th+, you make a full attack but drop every opponent within melee range on the first strike, so your iterative attacks go to waste. Unless you have quick draw that is.

Higher level high-bab types will love it for control purposes as well. Quick draw a whip/nets/bolas for disarms/trips/entanglings against a room full of enemies, then draw your favored melee weapon at the end of your turn (especially effective for high level twf rangers).

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Enemy caster got your party worried? Just use improved initiative, dispel magic, a good spellcraft score, and readied counterspells to lock them down while your party whoops 'em.

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Enlarge person + great cleave + combat relflexes + a horde of approaching enemies. Wait until 3 or 4 move within reach, then take an AoO on the next one to great cleave the whole bunch! Rinse and repeat!

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1st level druid with maxed wisdom and survival + dog animal companion + assist track trick + skill focus: survival = track anybody, anywhere!

[Larkas]

Quick Draw + Shuriken = Ranged Flurry of Blows right out of the gate! You'll want a way to increase damage, though.

[ericgrau]

Ammo doesn't require quick draw to be drawn as a free action.

Since you can have a weapon drawn at all times, I do like it for other thrown weapons and for switching back and forth between ranged and melee. If your weapon stays the same you don't need it, if it changes you do.

[Curmudgeon]

All of this is also the reason why Improved Initiative is a marvelous feat as well. It's not just the ability to have one more turn in the fight. For a rogue, attacking first means enemies are flat-footed and you get to sneak attack them.
No, Improved Initiative isn't a "marvelous" feat for a Rogue; the descriptive term that generally comes to my mind for that feat is "sucky". Here's why.

First, the Rogue has Spot and Listen as class skills, and enough skill points to maximize at least one of those (typically Spot). Consequently, the Rogue should almost never be surprised.
Second, the Rogue has (composite) shortbow on their list of weapon proficencies, so there's no reason not to walk around with one of those ready to fire. (Unless they're an Elf Rogue, in which case substitute "longbow" for "shortbow". But regardless, the Rogue should always have a missile weapon ready to fire.)
In the surprise round, the Rogue fires at any enemy who hasn't acted yet. Surprised or not, those enemies are flat-footed. With DEX an important skill for the Rogue, the chances are good that at least some of the enemies will have lower initiative, even if every one of them has Improved Initiative; the random variation (19 points on the d20 roll) greatly exceeds the static boost (+4) from the feat.
In the first regular round of combat, the Rogue fires a full attack at (surprised) enemies who haven't acted yet. Enemies who weren't surprised will have acted already and aren't flat-footed, but because the Rogue is using a missile weapon, they can select targets from any enemies in line of sight. It's very likely that at least one such enemy will still be flat-footed.
In the second regular round of combat it's time to switch to a melee weapon, which can be drawn during a regular move (no Quick Draw needed). But it's much better to Delay until your flanking partner gets into position; if you move first, you squander an opportunity for sneak attack. Again, Improved Initiative isn't going to be much use.

Unless Improved Initiative makes the difference between all or only some enemies having better initiative than the Rogue, the feat isn't worthwhile. It only takes one enemy with lower initiative to make the feat unnecessary. So why take it? Feats are precious to a Rogue, so you should always make a better choice — like one of the (too many) feat prerequisites for Shadowdancer, for a core-only example. If you spend your feats to get that class's Hide in Plain Sight, you've got a guaranteed useful ability. There's no guarantee with Improved Initiative. :smallannoyed:

[Xerxus]

Against a single really dangerous foe getting your initiative above his makes all the difference.

[Yora]

This makes a couple of assumption that I think are true in a lot of games, but I don't think really happened that much in most game I played.
That's a chessboard battle. In more "cinematic" ones, I don't see it really working well.

[rockdeworld]

There's no guarantee with Improved Initiative. :smallannoyed:
Regardless of being class skills, Listen and Spot require Wis, which increases MAD for rogues. Plus, they have a lot of other skills to put their skill ranks in, so it's not automatic to assume rogues will never be surprised, or that they will always surprise their enemies. Feats are important, but SAD isn't?
The RNG argument would be more applicable to +1 or maybe +2. Your same argument means that there's no reason for a character to have high stats, because a +4 Str modifier can't possibly make a different to your to-hit. +4 is +20% out of 100% that you'll beat your enemy - not negligible.
Granted it's good to delay until your flanking partner gets in position, if your only objective is to hit enemies with sneak attack. There may be other things to do, like tossing a tanglefoot bag or UMDing a useful spell.

[ericgrau]

Improved initiative is nice for a ranged rogue early on b/c he can get a full attack round 1 sneak attack. So that 4/20th of a round is nice because that's the round when he does the most and earliest damage. For other rogues it's not as special.

Instead of 20% of a round on a medium BAB melee rogue I'd rather have weapon focus for 10% more hits per round. I'm not saying weapon focus is that great compared to splatbook options, but at least it beats improved initiative for any fight lasting longer than 2 rounds.

EDIT @ V: Steering it back towards the topic, when you're limited to core weapon focus is actually pretty nice for anyone who sticks to one weapon.

I think blind fight is pretty cool too. Without a million splatbook options to blindsight/mindsense/touch sight away invisible foes, in core you instead blind fight + listen check your way to an unseen foe and take out the foe with your eyes closed and ears open, batman style.

[Seharvepernfan]

I like the idea of this thread, let's not have it dissolve into an argument on the first page.

[Answerer]

Most PF core-only classes got a leg up over 3.5 core-only.
I cannot more strenuously disagree with this statement. The Paladin was improved; the Core Bard, Barbarian, and Fighter were nerfed, the Rogue got some major improvements and some significant nerfs, the Monk is as bad as it ever was, and all of them are nerfed in comparison because the Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard all got some class features they never had before.

I'm not a master of Pathfinder because the Core rulebook disgusted me and I haven't read a Paizo product since. The Core rules are awful for a product that came out after nearly a decade of finding the problems with 3.5.

[Xerxus]

Paizo loves their casters. Even if it means improving an already way, way too improved group of classes.

[Curmudgeon]

Regardless of being class skills, Listen and Spot require Wis, which increases MAD for rogues. Plus, they have a lot of other skills to put their skill ranks in, so it's not automatic to assume rogues will never be surprised, or that they will always surprise their enemies. Feats are important, but SAD isn't?
The attribute really isn't that important. With point buy you're going to have -1 to WIS-based skills, or maybe -2 if you get a racial penalty. Pick one perception skill as an important one for the character, and you'll already be at about +3 when you start at level 1. So what if your DEX-based skills are 5 points higher? The relevant comparison factor isn't that, but rather your enemies' weakest Hide or Move Silently check. You only have to notice one enemy to avoid being surprised. The more skill ranks you have the less most attributes matter. (Just start with INT high to get those skill points!)

[TuggyNE]

Unless Improved Initiative makes the difference between all or only some enemies having better initiative than the Rogue, the feat isn't worthwhile. It only takes one enemy with lower initiative to make the feat unnecessary.

Assuming, of course, that you're within sneak attack range (30') of the relevant enemy, which is a rather strong assumption.

I decided to calculate how often Improved Initiative improves your odds for one opponent (http://anydice.com/program/1f07/transposed/graph), and then realized I needed to account for multiple opponents (http://anydice.com/program/1f08/transposed/graph) as well. (The bump seen in the first graph is due to the lower modifier no longer winning ties at a certain point while the Improved Init version still does; the second is limited by execution time to a subset of the enemy initiative modifiers, but you can tweak it to check others. Also, only the lines labeled 1 are really relevant in either graph.)

Improved Initiative is relevant for a rogue in at least 10-15% of two-enemy combats at around CR 8, and anywhere from 5-20% of one-enemy combats. Whether you consider this worthwhile is I guess up to you.

[Yora]

This sounds statistically doubious. :smallamused:

[TuggyNE]

This sounds statistically doubious. :smallamused:

Well, let's put it this way: it relies on a lot of assumptions, but I think I measured about the low end of the feat's utility, really.

[sonofzeal]

I used to think Quick Draw was pretty awesome. Then I LARPed for a year, which is about as close as anyone will come to seeing how D&D-ish stuff actually works in real life, and.... man, what sort of adventurer routinely walks around in a dungeon or cave or whatnot with their weapons sheathed? Once you've seen whole groups troop off to the restrooms with weapons drawn, it stops being a big deal. I mean, sure, if you're in the king's court or a crowded street, but even then there's ways of carrying weapons without being threatening, and some weapons (staffs, polearms, spears) are never sheathed in the first place and just get carried around like walking sticks when you aren't using them in combat.

All of which is to say... while Quick Draw may be viable for a Rogue in a Social game, it's seriously situational and not even that big a deal when it does come up. Not enough to warrant the feat cost, at least. I'd rather have Weapon Focus on most characters.

[rockdeworld]

Strict core (not SRD) and ignoring both magic and magic items...

Builds:
-I once saw someone comment that Spirited Charge was being the end-all-be-all for damage in Core. A Half-Orc Fighter 2/Barb 1 with PA, Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, and an assumed 20 Str has, on a charge:
Lance +7 melee ((1d8+13)x3, 20/x2), AC -2
for an average 52.5 damage.

-A half-elf Expert (or your preferred class) 3 can have +23 Diplomacy, with 18 Cha, the SF(Diplomacy) and Negotiator feats, 6 ranks in Diplomacy, Bluff, K(Nobility and Royalty), and Sense Motive, and a masterwork tool (such as a dashing monocle). If your DM uses the table as guideline and says that enemies turned from Hostile to Unfriendly stop attacking you, that can end encounters with a full-round action on a 7 or higher.

Races:
-Human, obviously, for most things.
-Gray Elf for wizards.
-Troll and Treant for melee characters, if you can get rid of the LA or use it in Gestalt. Troll has regeneration, Treant has natural fortification with plant type and other useful abilities.

Other Skills:
-Sleight of Hand can be used to disarm opponents using a small-sized weapon, and as long as you hit the DC20 check, they can't stop you even if they see you doing it.
-As Saph says in her Horizon Tripper guide, Tumble is useful for any melee character. You only need to hit DC15 to ignore AoOs.

Feats:
-Blind-Fight is useful if you think your enemies will ever use concealment. (Hint: they do.)
-Exotic Weapon Proficiency(Spiked Chain) is a worthy investment for melee characters.
-Improved Critical is situationally useful (if you have many different weapons for bypassing various DRs)
-Improved Familiar gives you access to an Imp, though that may be crossing over into the "magic" category.
-Improved Initiative is good for anyone.
-Great Fortitude/Lightning Reflexes/Iron Will aren't terrible choices for anyone, although I put GF and IW ahead of LR.
-Rogues get good mileage out of TWF.
-Weapon Focus is still bad.
-Ability Focus is necessary for Assassins, but they still can't get their Death Attack into the 40s in core.

Equipment:
-Caltrops are a poor man's BFC and useful into mid-low levels
-Tanglefoot bags are useful against anyone with a poor reflex save even into higher levels.
-Archers can buy an exotic saddle for a flying animal they've tamed with, eg. Handle Animal, and then they have a flying mount, useful for moving and making full-attacks in the same round.
-3gp gets you 10 trained mercenary warrior hirelings. If your DM uses the same rule as DDO, that's 10 level 1 warriors who can clear out a dungeon at no risk to you.
-A lance is the most useful weapon for a supercharger.
-A spiked chain (or guisarme, without the feat) is the most useful weapon for a BFC tank.
-Falchion and scythe are both better than a greatsword, despite their lower damage dice.

And I think that's the extent of my knowledge for core without magic or magic items. Bluff can't be raised high enough for suggestions, nor can intimidate do anything in combat except make an opponent shaken for 1 round as a standard action :smallsigh: But there are still useful optimizations to be made.

[Yora]

-A half-elf Expert (or your preferred class) 3 can have +23 Diplomacy, with 18 Cha, the SF(Diplomacy) and Negotiator feats, 6 ranks in Diplomacy, Bluff, K(Nobility and Royalty), and Sense Motive, and a masterwork tool (such as a dashing monocle). If your DM uses the table as guideline and says that enemies turned from Hostile to Unfriendly stop attacking you, that can end encounters with a full-round action on a 7 or higher.
Maybe they stop attacking, but still being unfriendly, they probably want to take you prisoner.