What is the absolute minimum amount of Con can a melee get away with?

[Solarium]

Whether your a Skirmisher, a Full Attacking barbarian or a tank. Just bare base minimum.

[ekarney]

12.
10 If you have literally nothing at all higher.
Below 10 don't even bother.

[Firest Kathon]

The absolute minimum is 1. With 0 Con you would be dead.

This is a question that cannot be answered otherwise. There may be a minimum reasonable amount of Con a frontline character should have, but that depends on many factors, not the lease the power level at which your group plays. For a low-powered game 10-12 may be enough, if attack bonuses are low enough that AC offers reasonable protection even on the first iterative or you have another PC who draws more attacks. In a higher-powered game, 14-16 may be too low, depending on what other defenses (miss chances etc) you have available. So without more information about your game, there is no real answer to your question.

[Killer Angel]

The absolute minimum is 1.


Nope.


The absolute minimum is 1. With 0 Con you would be dead.


Exactly.
The minimum Con is 0: meleer with necropolitan template.

(edit: to be fair, you don't even have 0, since you don't have Con score at all)

[Curmudgeon]

I've managed OK with 8 CON. I played a Rogue with Hide in Plain Sight (Dark Creature template from Cormyr: The Tearing Of The Weave) and maximum Hide ranks. If you're (almost) never seen and thus (almost) never attacked, low CON isn't much of an issue.

[Kurald Galain]

Whether your a Skirmisher, a Full Attacking barbarian or a tank. Just bare base minimum.

I recommend a benchmark of 8 hit points per level for melee character. Whether you get that from constitution, hit dice, fave class bonus, or toughness doesn't really make a difference.

[FocusWolf413]

I've managed OK with 8 CON. I played a Rogue with Hide in Plain Sight (Dark Creature template from Cormyr: The Tearing Of The Weave) and maximum Hide ranks. If you're (almost) never seen and thus (almost) never attacked, low CON isn't much of an issue.

That's generally how I view it. If they can't find you, they can't hit you.

[sleepyphoenixx]

That's generally how I view it. If they can't find you, they can't hit you.

Until someone casts Daylight. Or Touchsight. Or uses Mindsight.
Or, if we're talking lower optimization, casts any kind of damaging AoE spell that your Evasion won't protect you from. Do your DM's never use AoE spells at all?

Sure, people here generally look down on blasting, but that doesn't mean monsters won't use it. Not to mention the many BFC spells that have damage as a rider effect.
And if a single high roll on a casting of Haboob or Hailstones drops you your career as a melee rogue will end swiftly indeed unless your DM is coddling you or you are incredibly lucky. And that's not even going into things like Stinking Cloud and other fort-negates stuff that will leave you a sitting duck.
You can get by with Con that low, but you'll certainly want to get more HP elsewhere.

My minimum for any character is that the average blasting spell shouldn't take more than 1/3 of your HP. How you get there depends on your character.
A psion with psicrystal, Vigor & Share Pain can certainly get by with 8 Con. A Fighter or Rogue usually can not, or at least not for long.

[Taveena]

1, really. If you have Faerie Mysteries Initiate or Altered Life, and either Impure Prince 4, Exemplar 8, or Unnatural Resilience.

Or ∅, if you think of that as lower than 1.

[Vhaidara]

I have a duelist with a 7. Could have been a 5, but I didn't fancy being level 5 with 12 hp. She is a gestalt initiator, so she relies on counters to stay alive, and has a lot of high efficiency combat heals (move action, then a standard for a temp hp strike). And she's going to become a vampire, so then her 16 cha will go to work.

[darksolitaire]

1, really. If you have Faerie Mysteries Initiate or Altered Life, and either Impure Prince 4, Exemplar 8, or Unnatural Resilience.


Faerie Mysteries Initiate is something I always want to take, but I never dare to use it in actual game. :smallbiggrin:

[ZamielVanWeber]

The answer I always found is that it depends on the build. I am currently running a Vow of Poverty Master of Many Forms, so having sizable HP is highly necessary. On the flipside I have played a swiftblade; with its massive mobility and 50% miss chance on targeted attacks and spells my low HP was not nearly as big a burden.

[Curmudgeon]

You can get by with Con that low, but you'll certainly want to get more HP elsewhere.
A wand of Vampiric Touch is especially nice to use when you've got a low CON Rogue. The temporary HP you gain are equal to the total damage dealt, which also includes your sneak attack and Craven bonus. A couple times I've more than tripled my normal HP total from this combo before the enemy died.

[Zetapup]

Exactly.
The minimum Con is 0: meleer with necropolitan template.

(edit: to be fair, you don't even have 0, since you don't have Con score at all)

Add in being made in the area of a desecrate spell by an 8th level dread necromancer (the dread necromancer part is fuzzy RAW, since I'm not sure if performing the necropolitan ritual on someone really counts as creating them) and maybe a few corpsecrafter feats (corpsecrafter, nimble bones, and hardened flesh are what I'd recommend), and you end up with a character with d12+6hp per level, plus 4 to strength and dexterity, +4 to initiative, +10 base land speed, and +2 natural armor.

Some DMs might find that cheesy, but if you want to have a melee character with low/no con, necropolitan with the above bonuses is probably the way to go (bonus points if you involve an 8th level necromancer in your creation for extra hp).

[sleepyphoenixx]

A wand of Vampiric Touch is especially nice to use when you've got a low CON Rogue. The temporary HP you gain are equal to the total damage dealt, which also includes your sneak attack and Craven bonus. A couple times I've more than tripled my normal HP total from this combo before the enemy died.

That's certainly one way to go. Another would be to get a Bloodstone enhanced weapon (or several, they're not that expensive at higher levels) and have your party wizard fill them during downtime.
Not that tripling your HP is that much of an achievement when you're on d6 HD with 8 Con.:smalltongue:

Since temp hp from different sources stack you can actually get by pretty well with low con as long as you have good caster support or at least UMD.
At least until you run into someone with dispel or an AMF.

[Pex]

All my characters must have at least a 14 CO. I have played with a 12, reluctantly. There are many factors that go into me willing to play with a 12 - character creation method and ability scores generated, class, roleplay, potential AC, combat role, other hit points sources - self healing, feat, game rules such as Pathfinder favored class bonus. However, if I'm playing a warrior I can usually manage to get that 14. Anything less, I'm playing a spellcaster.

[Curmudgeon]

Since temp hp from different sources stack you can actually get by pretty well with low con as long as you have good caster support or at least UMD.
At least until you run into someone with dispel or an AMF.
I've run into an Antimagic Field, and the DM was kind enough to say that I noticed (felt weaker, & c.) when my Xmas tree of many magical devices stopped working. Luckily I had a 5' step available, so I just sidestepped the problem. The Hide in Plain Sight to enable a Hide check was Supernatural, but Hide itself is mundane; my Rogue was never seen. Antimagic Field is very potent but with a limited (10' radius) area. Even if you're focused on melee combat, sometimes it's better to switch to ranged attacks. A Rogue's got to know his limitations. :smallcool:

[Inevitability]

Or ∅, if you think of that as lower than 1.

Well, we do know it is less than 3 (Fiendish gelatinous cube monk) so it probably is less than 1 too.