The Power Gamer's 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide

[Messageboard Golem]

The Warrior Strategy Guide is divided into seven sections: ability scores, races, classes, skills, feats, equipment, and combat. In each one, the various PHB options are taken, dissected for what gives you the most numerically, and then put back together for how you can make a character that is absolutely lethal in combat.

 

[Brian Compton]

A book useful to new and grizzled alike

In Everything Bad is Good for You, author Steven Johnson makes the argument that many things thought bad in popular culture are, in fact, making us and requiring us to be smarter. He makes a brief example in the beginning about D&D being such a phenomenon; the complex mathematics of bonuses, penalties, and dice variables makes one learn and use math in a practical way. The authors of Goodman Games' Power Gamers 3.5 Guide to Warriors obviously subscribe to this theory of the smart, math savy gamer, because this book is not for the number-shy. It is, however, for people who want to know how the math affects the game and how to use this knowledge to their advantage.

Some things to get out of the way now that one notices throughout the book. First, this uses only material from the Player's Handbook. No optional rules from other WotC books (obviously, since they can only deal with SRD material), but it also doesn't try to sell new stuff. Therefore, everything they describe is 100% legal. I appreciated this, but if you're looking for new feats and PrC's, this is not that book.

Also, the book makes judgements about damage based on averages. Part of the consideration of damage is attack average- you cannot hurt what you cannot hit. Average damage is 1/2 maximum + .5. This is explained in the Classes chapter if you are interested, but it is some big math. Fortunately, the tables do all the math for you, you just have to interpret the data.

Finally, as you read my descriptions of the chapters, if you think to yourself "duh" after every paragraph, don't think you can't use this book. A lot of this may be learned or known just from experience, but I guarantee there will be goodies for all. Just skip the chapters that don't teach you anything and check out the ones that will.

The book begins with an introduction that establishes a framework for organizing information and hints: archetypes. These are character concepts that you are meant to use in establishing the long-term idea of your warrior, based on fighting styles. The six are:

1. Archer- applies to any ranged weapon fighter, not just bow users.

2. Cavalry- again, applies to any mounted character, not just horse riders.

3. Guerilla- warriors that go after particular targets based on race, strength, or importance.

4. Light Infantry- warriors that favor a defense of mobility and a quick offense.

5. Heavy Infantry (aka Tanks)- big weapon, big armor, big person

6. Skirmisher- a support fighter who is decent at two or three fighting methods.

The next chapter is about ability scores. Using the default array from the DMG, the book shows how to arrange your scores over the six abilities based on what kind of warrior archetype you're trying to create. Obviously, Strength is a big factor for all, but some archetypes might emphasize Dexterity, while others emphasize Constitution, and some archetypes are ideal for classes that need good Wisdom and/or Charisma also. This is great even if you don't use the default array, as it shows what your priorities should be for whatever your score allotment is.

After this comes Races. Each PHB race gets a discussion going over their ups and downs, and what their best choices for archetype are. Also, each race gets a stat block, showing the order of ability scores with appropriate racial modifiers for each of the six archetypes. That way, if you don't want to follow their recommendations for ideal archetype, you can still make an effective character.

One thing the authors do at the end of the chapter is show the downside of playing a non-standard race. Looking at two ECL 4 characters, they show a human ranger and a gnoll ranger. All things being equal, the human wins on pure numbers. That might be a wake-up call for players thinking that monsters, with all their cool abilities and stat bumps, are automatically preferable to the basic races.

Next up is Classes, starting with an in-depth look at the Fighter. They give a treatment of a common fighter development problem, EFBOS (Early Fighter Burn Out Syndrome). This happens to fighters who don't have a plan for development and start picking random and useless feats that in the end make them less than ideal. After a one page discussion of how to fight this, they do an analysis of the fighter-unique feats and how they affect average damage. The nice thing is that they look at all possible situations, with no feats all the way to all available feats.

Then comes details of the other fighting intensive classes: barbarian, monk, paladin, and ranger. Each contains a look at pros and cons, as well as what races and archetypes fit well with each. The last part is a detailing of some multiclass combinations for each archetype, mixing in some warrior class combinations with some other things, such as rogue, bard, cleric, and arcane caster. My personal feeling on these: don't try them unless your party is already well balanced and has all needs covered, and even then I'd by wary. You'll get a lot of different abilities and skills, but you'll never take anywhere near full advantage of any one classes' abilities. This can make for less than totally effective characters. However, YMMV.

Following this is the skills section. What this mostly gets across is that, while certain skills are key to certain classes' abilities (for example, Survival for a Ranger), skills as a whole are not terribly important to warriors. Also, a lot of their skill advice assumes that your DM allows taking 10 or 20 and, therefore, you don't need as many ranks to make most checks. If your DM doesn't do that, be careful of what they say. Also, your particular campaign may require different skill choices; if you tend to play in the mountains, Climb is a lot more important than if you're in an urban setting. However, the advice is pretty sound to make sure that you don't waste points on things that you don't need or aren't going to use.

Feats come next. As you can imagine for a warrior, this is one of the most important chapters here. There is a lot of mathematical analysis here, so be prepared. First is looking at feats that aren't as great as they sound; these provide a benefit once, or aren't very sound tactically, or don't help you kill enemies. Then they look at the big feat trees: Combat Expertise, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, Mounted Combat, Point Blank Shot, and Power Attack. They carefully explain how and why each is useful, then look at appropriate class and archetype combinations and what feats they should pick at what level (this assumes a non-human that doesn't get an extra level 1 feat, so take that into consideration). They have some peculiar ideas, such as a heavy infantry fighter choosing spiked chain with one of their feats, but it might work (check out a recent Order of the Stick cartoon detailing the benefits and-literal-pitfalls of this weapon with other feats). I really found the analysis of Power Attack very interesting- your strategies with this feat might be seriously challenged (and improved) after you see this.

Next is equipment. The book categorizes weapons by damage die and threat range, then gives advice on what weapon is appropriate based on damage potential. Again, there is analysis of average damage using escalating BAB vs. escalating AC. This might be the least useful of the chapters, though it might make you look twice at some weapons like the scimitar and kukri. It also does an analysis of armor with different shield options and effects of Dexterity bonus.

Finally, we come to the chapter on Combat. First, a look at territory and how to fight according to environment (halls, intersections, rooms, trapped areas). Then comes how to qualify enemies and their threat levels. Different strategies are given for different kinds of enemies, with a specific example from each group given with specific strategies. Lastly is discussion of action planning, detailing different strategies to employ and how. Such ideas as timing in initiative, fighting defensively, avoiding attacks of opportunity, and the special attack options (trip, sunder, overrun, charge, aid another, bull rush, disarm, and feint) get good tactical treatment. A warning: the book assumes you are making extensive use of grids to detail combat. If you aren't, the diagrams may not be as useful to you. The ideas are still the same.

So, who should buy this book? Beginners for one. If you're just starting out, the book gives a lot of ideas that you'll find useful. It can be a little overwhelming, so be sure to have some idea in your head of what kind of warrior you want.

Another audience is people tired of the same old fighter and looking for new ideas. After reading this book, I saw feats such as Improved Trip and Disarm and Spring Attack in a new light. Sometimes you need to build a character around such concepts, so trying this mid character might not work so well. But it's well worth the look.

Of course, as the title shows (and I say this with no animus or anger), this book is ideal for the munchkins and min/maxers among us. You'll learn helpful choices for hitting the most often and doing the most damage without resorting to extra rules that your DM may not approve in his game. You'll make a pretty effective character that can deal out big numbers of hp loss to your enemies. Most importantly, this isn't based on someone's opinion; the math of the game supports it all.

Final Rating:
Style- 4. The book is informative, but it's not didactic. The writers' tone is definitely funny, which makes what really is a serious analysis of mathematic reality much more palatable. One thing I didn't like in the layout, though, was the (I assume) black-and-white blood splattered background. It made some parts unnecessarily hard to read.

Substance- 4. I would have scored it a five if all the information in here was truly effective and useful to everyone. Veterans, however, will likely skip a number of chapters, and newbies may get a little inundated with all the math. However, if you carefully look at what's in here, you'll see carefully reasoned and numerically supported arguments for some very diverse character options. They can all be fun to play, it's just a matter of what you like in a killing machine.

 

[DMR]

Average damage is (max+min)/2. The equation you give is only true for the special case of min=1. Back to math class mister! ;-)

 

[Brian Compton]

For most of the damage they're looking at, minimum is 1. They aren't factoring in any variable bonuses from Strength because they don't assume any particular score. The only bonuses in the averages they calculate come from statics like Weapon Focuses and Specializations. The notable exception would be a 2dX weapon like a greatsword, but most basic weapons are 1dX.

 

[Alzrius]

Power Gamer's 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide

The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide is a book on how to make the strongest kind of combat character for your 3.5 Fantasy d20 game. As a note, this review was conducted based on the print version of the book, so PDF-specific information (such as if there’s a printer-friendly version or not) is not given. There is no interior artwork, save for the black-and-white diagrams given in the last chapter. The pages themselves are splotches with gray, as though they had been bled on, which gives a very nice but subtle effect.

This book contains absolutely no new rules whatsoever. There are no new races, classes, skills, feats, items, etc. The totality of this book is devoted to using the materials in the Player’s Handbook to make a character that can effectively kill opponents in combat. Because of that, this book doesn’t focus on in-game rationale for why a character would choose what he does; the focus here is on telling the player how he can make the strongest kind of character.

The book has an introduction, followed by seven chapters, closely paralleling the PHB. The introduction notes how this book will always be useful to you, because it only utilizes material from the PHB, and thus can’t be excluded by a DM. It also lays down the format for how the book treats building warriors. Because there are different types of combat, the book talks about building different warrior archetypes. These archetypes are archer, cavalry, guerrilla, light infantry, heavy infantry, and skirmisher. These are the kinds of characters the book teaches you how to build.

Chapter One covers ability scores. It talks about which ability scores are best in general for a combat character, and what works best for each kind of archetype, using the elite array of ability scores (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8).

Chapter Two covers races, noting how the various races’ special abilities are either helpful or detrimental to a combat character, and breaks down how the races’ ability adjustments are good or bad for each archetype. Sidebars cover most of the subraces from the Monster Manual also. Finally, a section at the end talks about the advantages and disadvantages of monstrous PCs.

Chapter Three covers classes. Instead of covering all eleven classes in the PHB, it only covers the five most martial classes: the fighter, barbarian, monk, paladin, and ranger. Each class is covered for what archetypes it best lends itself to, as well as how to best use its special abilities. The fighter is given a helpful chart (the first of the many charts in the book) showing the benefits of taking the fighter-only feats at higher levels (Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Greater Weapon Specialization). A sidebar is provided for this and all the other tables in the book showing how they did the math, just in case you want to check it yourself, or work out some number-crunching of your own. Finally, a considerable section is given to multiclassing, and working out the best multiclass combos for your archetype.

Chapter Four covers skills. The skills warriors should take are broken down into three broad categories: combat mobility, combat staging, and combat tactics. Various skills are discussed for each, breaking down why such skills are a good or bad choice, and how many ranks are optimal. Sidebars provide great insight on which skills should be avoided, since magic items can make them altogether useless. Finally, there’s a recap on how many ranks warriors should use for the various skills; maxing them out is not always the best decision.

Chapter Five covers feats. Feats here are dealt with in trees; a feat tree being one feat that is needed to access the later feats, such as how you need Power Attack to take Cleave, Great Cleave, etc. After a short list of feats that should be avoided (which has some surprising choices, such as Improved Initiative). After this comes the breakdown of the various feat trees. This involves a lot of tables to back up the mechanics of exactly how much these feats will do for you at various levels, showing you how much more likely you are to hit and cause damage against various armor classes. Finally, it talks about what feat trees are good for what archetypes.

Chapter Six covers equipment. Virtually all of this is dedicated to weapons. Each weapon is listed, along with their damage and critical information, their cost, their average damage inflicted (both not taking critical hits into account, and taking them into account, followed by miscellaneous information, and a table breaking down their damage potential at base attack bonus +1 through +20, versus armor class 10 through 20. Needless to say, the information here is absolutely invaluable. A short section (less than a page) then covers armor, before then giving you a page-long table of the various armors, cross-indexing their armor bonus against possible Dexterity bonuses (ranging from -1 to +6), also taking into account each of the different types of shields. It even lists the costs for each such combination. Great stuff here.

Chapter Seven covers combat. This diverse chapter is probably the greatest one in the entire book (and that’s saying something). It first discusses qualifying the battlefield, qualifying your opponents, and then establishing an action plan. The first part involves figuring out the logistics of where you’re fighting, what to take into account, and how to make it work for you. The second part breaks down enemies into various categories (critters, fiends, terrors, toughs, etc.) and what you should and shouldn’t do against them. Finally, the last part discusses your action plans; that is, what you can actually do in combat. It covers basics like attacks of opportunity and movement, and then breaks down the special attack actions, such as charging, bull rushing, and more.

It’s worth noting that, although the above paragraphs may make the book sound like a dry, boring breakdown of information, this book is anything but. The narrative style comes off as rather like a drill instructor (some of the bad feats are under the heading “Miscellaneous Suckness,”) and the entire book is quite amusing in that regard. Make no mistake, this book is as fun to read as it is useful. While many players and DM’s may encourage good role-playing, no one can really deny that combat is at the heart of the game, and this book will make sure that it’s a game that you win.

 

[pogre]

The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide
Publisher: Goodman Games
96 pages
$19.99
Also available as a pdf.

This is a playtest review. Those wanting my general impressions may skip to the Summary at the end of the review.

I have owned this little gem for several months and I must say it is one of my most used books aside from the core rulebooks. The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide (Warrior Guide) seeks to show folks how to maximize the effectiveness of their fighter characters under the core 3.5 rules. The premise of the book can be boiled down to – How do I kill the enemy as quickly as possible? It is a book of valuable advice and fulfills its stated goals.

The Warrior Guide gives advice to all players creating fighting characters about choices they face. The chapter headings reflect this: Chapter One is about how to arrange ability scores appropriately for your chosen fighting style. Chapter Two covers what races kick butt in the fighter roles and which ones are best left to the drama players. Chapter Three is entitled Classes, but that is a bit of a misnomer. Really, Chapter Three covers the various archetypes of fighters and what class choices lend themselves best to pursuing the associated fighting style.

Skills are covered in Chapter Four, and perhaps the most important chapter, Chapter Five covers feats. Chapter Five makes some very convincing arguments on what are good feats, and those that are bad deals. Naturally, there are plenty of feats in between those extremes and it gives advice on which feats to take for your chosen archetype. There are several helpful spreadsheets, illustrating the effectiveness of the feat choices. I really like these spreadsheets and the comparative damage analysis one can take away from them.

Chapter Six examines weapons. Want to know what weapon will deliver the best damage? It’s in here. Want to know what weapons are bad deals? Yep, it’s here. Several more charts give average damage scales for each of the weapons and are very handy in helping on choices.

Chapter Seven covers combat and although there is some quality material, it’s too short. The chapter covers how to take on various types of monsters, but I would have preferred reading more about specific tactics for entire parties. Arguably that is outside the role the book has designated for itself, but most fighters are part of a party. That slight criticism aside, this is an excellent section well worth the read.

Several grognards and old time D&D players might scoff at such a tome. It is true veterans probably know most of the tricks of the trade and have analyzed the feats and weapons independently. But, let me tell you, as a 30-year plus wargamer I was impressed with the systematic approach of the book. I picked up a couple of things. Further, this book is an excellent primer to someone fairly new to the game who wants more insight. I have loaned it out to several of my players, although they wince a bit knowing I own a book on how to maximize combat monsters.

Others who might pass this book because it is for powergamers are making a mistake. Sooner or later your character is going to face combat in D&D and making the wrong choices in weapons and feats could be deadly. Just because you are an awesome roleplayer does not forbid you from being effective in combat.

Finally, the book can help give insight into the combat process. While reading it I remembered a couple of rules and learned of one thing my group had actually been doing incorrectly. Because the book limits itself to the core rules it can actually help illuminate those rules even more.

The book’s authors use a fun sense of humor that makes the book enjoyable to read. There were a couple of quips in the book that made me laugh out loud.

The only drawback is one I have mentioned already – the combat chapter is too short. I would also liked to have seen a discussion of unusual tactics and combos that could throw your opponents off guard. A discussion of combos with other party members would be cool too. But these are all nitpicks – the book does what it sets out to do and is well worth the read.

Summary
The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide is an advice guide for creating effective fighting characters. It fulfills its stated design goals and I recommend it heartily as a book that will see lots of use in your group.

December 26, 2005
Keith Pogue (AKA pogre)