Figure 1: Dwarven character creation flow chart

Following yesterday’s post, here I present flow charts for the best survival options for Dwarves (Figure 1) and Halflings (Figure 2). Both charts are based on CART analysis of the simulation data generated for yesterday’s post.

Figure 2: Flow chart for halfling fighter creation

For dwarves, weapon and armour choice is crucial, and weapon finesse is a decision so bad that it actually negatively affects survival: with two feats to choose, wasting one on weapon finesse is a very bad idea. For hobbits, like humans, toughness is only important if the PC doesn’t have good constitution, and weapon choice is only important for clumsy fighters. Note that if a halfling has no strength bonus, constitution is irrelevant to survival but dexterity is important. This is also true for humans, though weapon choice is not important in their case – presumably because they don’t suffer the size penalty on damage dice. For weak dwarves constitution bonus is also not important, but both weapon and armour type make a difference to survival.

Elven decision rules will be posted later…