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Need help with picking a class

   
I dunno, giving someone a class which requires loads of system mastery to make work well doesn't seem like a nice thing to do to a newbie. The big benefit of the PoW classes is that they pretty much all give improbably rapid reloading, which turns guns from basically not viable into, well, bows, but bows which target touch AC (which is pretty potent). If you're OK with using alchemical cartridges all the time then it's not such an issue but even just knowing that you need to pay all those feat taxes isn't something you'd expect of someone who's never played the game before.

A lot of this depends on the game, the vision for the character, etc, but as to the question of which class is "better" or "stronger", the PoW classes are definitely the latter and arguably the former too (they're slightly less well-written and polished and suffer from a lot of feature creep, but most importantly they have more options and are therefore - subjectively - more fun, and probably a smaller proportion of "trap" options to catch out newbies, too).

If you're looking for a strong, versatile gunslinging class, you're probably best off with either the Gunsmoke Mystic or Hawkguard Warder, both Path of War classes. While the latter is technically designed for use with bows, it actually works pretty well with a rifle, too. They are both, however, really complicated for a beginner (the Gunsmoke Mystic even moreso).

The standard Gunslinger and Fighter are much simpler characters to learn, but by merit of that fact are also far more one-dimensional in play. Your tactical options are pretty much restricted to "shoot, hit/miss, end turn" with only slight variations, and your out-of-combat use to the party is pretty minimal as well. Rangers can track and hunt, Rogues can set and disable traps and locks, magic-users have a wide range of utility spells... and you basically just shoot things and keep watch at night. Path of War opens up unique ways to help your party like supernatural senses, wall-running, and various other support/utility functions that give you a lot more tactical options in-combat and make you feel like you're not completely irrelevant outside of it as well.

If you're a newbie I would seriously just go Gunslinger. Yes, you lack a good bit of options compared to Gunsmoke Mystic, but Gunslinger is still a decent class you can have a lot of fun with without getting too far in over your head.

I dunno Fred, I think the gunslinger is fine. Mediocre, but fine. You'll learn systems well enough as one, and having the feat taxes spelled out for you might be a benefit to someone who might otherwise be completely confused over the stupid high number of feats there are. It's why Fighter is a bad newbie choice: too many feats to choose from.

I love the Path of War system, but learning boosts and disciplines and discipline skills and stances and maneuvers and maneuver recovery and discipline weapons and all that is a baaaad idea for someone who'd already trying to learn the basic systems of Pathfinder.

As someone trying to teach Path of War to his casual players, yeah, it's not a simple system for the weak of heart. I love it, and my players are really starting to groove on it although they're very slow to pick it all up (although we finally had a chance to actually use it last week, so I think it's starting to click).

In this case, it'd depend on the OP on how confident they are with learning new sub-systems. If they're brand spankin' new to RPGs, especially crunchy ones, I'd advise against it. If they're like some of us veterans who wade into the thickest of crunchy systems without batting an eye, then it should not be too much of a challenge.

Fighter is a bad choice for newbies not only because there are too many feats, but because too many of the feats are bad and because the Fighter itself is bad, to the point that if you don't pick the good feats, you risk being completely nonfunctional.

Gunslinger is a bit different but you can risk crippling yourself even worse if you don't take things like the almost-mandatory Rapid Reload and Deadly Aim.

Path of War is not really any more complicated than, say, spellcasting*, and I for one started with a Wizard. It really depends on the appetite and aptitude of the player. Admittedly, it's less well-written and suffers from more feature creep than the rest of PF, or Tome of Battle upon which it was based; I wouldn't have any problem starting a (relative) newbie off with a Warblade or Crusader but PoW, I dunno, it's not ideal I guess. However without knowing more about the player in question it's not something I'd want to rule out because it might be "too complicated" or something. It also depends on the rest of the group.

*Especially since, for the most part, discipline skills and discipline weapons aren't even worth knowing about; you basically just have some abilities (no different to spells) that you can use once per combat, plus a recovery mechanic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsunflowers View Post
Pick whatever looks cool, that's my go to optiion.
#wisdom

It always cracks me up to see threads debated for weeks then you look at the date the OP posted the thread and notice he hasn’t posted since or responded to any of the advice they asked for. Then you dig deeper and see that the OP hasn’t been active on the site for 2 weeks! Lmao

I’m guessing he picked a class and is learning at the table as we speak!




 

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