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Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 12:28 AM
As most of you know, I'm trying to come up with character ideas for upcoming 3.5 games. I'm sure many of you are familiar with my threads "Building a Spellsword" and my more recent "Building a Dwarf."

I'm writing this mainly because I'm noticing a frustrating pattern in the kinds of characters I like to play. Every time I get an interesting concept in mind, I try to make it work and I get told that the concept is based off poor mechanics. The base classes I pick are weak, the almighty caster level dominates all, and most of the prestige classes I think fit the concept are a load of garbage.

Why is it that the concepts I want to build just don't work well in practice? Why is it that in order to optimize my character, I have to do things or use combos that just seem ridiculous to me? Why do they all involve books I don't have? The list goes on.

I really don't get why the concepts I think are awesome turn out to be weak in terms of actual gameplay. You can't survive in D&D on your cool factor alone, and that's what think I go for when I make a character.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-12, 12:41 AM
Because 90% of PrCs WotC printed could have appeared in one book, Complete Carp. -some guy on the WotC forums.

Look at the base class tier list sometime. You'll notice that while the tiers are mostly even in number of classes, the distribution is odd. Most of a class's location depends on what mechanics it uses, not the class itself. You get full casters on tier one, limited casters on tier 2, non-casters with a variety of abilities on tier 3, 'pure' martial characters on tier 4, and classes that are nerfed on tier 5.
These boards are actually good with building optimized characters to fit most fluff, as long as you aren't tied to any specific mechanics. If you want to play optimized melee, though, ToB is required. For a Rogue that does more than toss d6s in combat, Factorum or Swordsage. For a divine knight, a warrior for all that is good and pure, pick Crusader, Knight, or Cleric over Paladin. For a front-line tank, Knight, Warblade, Crusader, or such over Fighter. Yeah, it sucks, but there is a lot of cruft in some of the books.

Keld Denar
2009-05-12, 12:50 AM
Complete Carp.


Is this the book you turn to to optimize your Profession: Fishing skill?

The trick is to be a little flexible in your concept. As you saw in the Spellsword thread, you can build a "Spellsword" that is decent, without taking any more than one level in the actual "Spellsword" class. As well as in the Paladin that I helped you build, 5 paladin levels were enough, and Divine Crusader helped round out the build to bring it up to a higher level.

So...what is it that you are trying to do? To build?

Goatman_Ted
2009-05-12, 12:52 AM
I notice that you ask for optimization advice when you don't seem to care about optimizing.

It also seems the concepts you say can't be portrayed by D&D are often specific D&D prestige classes or rooted in specific D&D objects and abilities. In the Spellsword thread, for instance, you were weakening your character because your concept was very specific about one fictional material in place of another.


You play in a group where 10 levels of Spellsword or Warpriest are the norm.
These forums exist in a vacuum. We don't know the power level accepted in your campaigns.
We can only assume that when you say "Optimize" you mean "optimize."

(Hint: 100% of character concepts can be effectively portrayed with one of these two builds: Rogue 20, Cleric 20)

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 12:57 AM
The main problem I have is that the concepts that I'm looking for can't really be expressed in 3.5e terms. Here's the concepts I have so far:

An arcane gish who focuses on destroying enemy spellcasters or magic items. "Magic must defeat magic."

A dwarven Joan of Arc figure whose goals are to recover ancient relics of his people, restore his people's kingdom and make the dwarves powerful again in Moradin's name.

Here are some other concepts I've been thinking about:

A "knight" who adheres to the historical code of chivalry, which according to Terry Jones meant three things: Learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous.

A factotum that basically fills any gap the party has.

A Stormlord who worships Heironeous.

A Crusader of Heironeous who can somehow use Iron Heart stuff, enabling him to use the Kamate sword.

A merchant who can still adventure.

A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver.

A robot who recieved a small fragment of a divine spark, endowing him with sentience and a personality all his own (effectively making him a warforged). He'd fight with an AK-47.

A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple.

A sagely character, who has as many knowledge skills as is possible and can still be useful to the party in a practical sense.

A character who doesn't die in three hits with one critical from a giant's club, or one martian heat ray.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 01:00 AM
I notice that you ask for optimization advice when you don't seem to care about optimizing.

I notice you ignore the simple option in favor of the best option, then become upset when it doesn't match your concept exactly (the wrong skill ranks, armor made from the wrong material).


You play in a group where 10 levels of Spellsword or Warpriest are the norm.
These forums exist in a vacuum. We don't know the power level accepted in your campaigns.
We can only assume that when you say "Optimize" you mean "optimize."

(Hint: 100% of character concepts can be effectively portrayed with one of these two builds: Rogue 20, Cleric 20)

Actually I play in a group where virtually no prestige classes at all are the norm. My DM really had to stretch to accomodate me. Virtually everyone else was using the Player's Handbook and the Player's Handbook only.

And that's part of my gripe. That's what optimized doesn't look as cool.

RTGoodman
2009-05-12, 01:18 AM
An arcane gish who focuses on destroying enemy spellcasters or magic items. "Magic must defeat magic."

A dwarven Joan of Arc figure whose goals are to recover ancient relics of his people, restore his people's kingdom and make the dwarves powerful again in Moradin's name.

Not sure on the first since I don't do much with casters or magic in general. I guess you could be (if you're willing to be Evil) a Hexblade/Paladin of Tyranny (get out before the divine casting) or something, with a focus on debuffing and such.

For the second, that's a Crusader up one side and down the other. Focus on White Raven, but maybe Devoted Spirit for a more "divine" leader version.



Here are some other concepts I've been thinking about:

A "knight" who adheres to the historical code of chivalry, which according to Terry Jones meant three things: Learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous. Definitely a Warblade.

A factotum that basically fills any gap the party has. Factotum/Chameleon - you can find build guides online in several places.

A Stormlord who worships Heironeous. Don't know anything particularly, since I don't know anything about Stormlords or Heironeous, really.

A Crusader of Heironeous who can somehow use Iron Heart stuff, enabling him to use the Kamate sword. Not sure, again. You could, of course, just ask for a homebrew discipline switch - trade one or two Crusader disciplines for Iron Heart and maybe a re-touched Desert Wind that focuses on electricity.

A merchant who can still adventure. Factotum - you can use it for all sorts of Average Joes who get by on wits alone. Bonus points for using the Farmer miniature (http://www.trollandtoad.com/images/products/thumbnails/173535.jpg). :smallbiggrin:

A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver. Again, Factotum, or maybe even an Artificer from Eberron. Maybe add in Trapsmith or Combat Trapsmith if you want a PrC.

A robot who recieved a small fragment of a divine spark, endowing him with sentience and a personality all his own (effectively making him a warforged). He'd fight with an AK-47. Warforged Scout Warlock. Refluff Eldritch Blast as needed. Or maybe even just a Fighter/Rogue with a repeating crossbow.

A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple. Not sure here, but there's gotta be a CharOp Dragon Disciple thread somewhere.

A sagely character, who has as many knowledge skills as is possible and can still be useful to the party in a practical sense. This just SCREAMS Archivist (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3).

A character who doesn't die in three hits with one critical from a giant's club, or one martian heat ray. Not sure on this one either, but defense/HP optimization surely exists.

Suggestions edited in above in bold.

Myrmex
2009-05-12, 01:26 AM
An arcane gish who focuses on destroying enemy spellcasters or magic items. "Magic must defeat magic."

Any standard gish board on these fora would work. More exotic builds could include phantom knight or swift blade (both on wotc website). A shadowhand swordsage could make a fairly effective mage killer, just reflavor his blade magic as an alternate source.

psychic warrior 20 or psychic warrior 10/illithid slayer 10 are both extremely solid gish builds, as well.

Duskblade works good right out of the box.


A dwarven Joan of Arc figure whose goals are to recover ancient relics of his people, restore his people's kingdom and make the dwarves powerful again in Moradin's name.

Cleric 20, Bard 20, or a martial build could all fit this concept quite well, and be effective.


A "knight" who adheres to the historical code of chivalry, which according to Terry Jones meant three things: Learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous.

Warblade, beguiler, barbarian, factotum, rogue, glaivelock, really anything. Archivist using things like Produce Flame & Holy Sword, along with animate objects on his 2 dozen other swords is a concept I've been kicking around. He likes swords.


A factotum that basically fills any gap the party has.

Factotum 20 or Factotum10/Chameleon10.


A Stormlord who worships Heironeous.

Sorc/Rainbow Servant using text trumps table (full casting) and reflavored for Heironeous. Wouldn't even have to change the domains!

You would get all cleric spells on your spell list as well as more iconic stuff like lightning bolt.

An alternative would be to talk to your DM, and simply play a sorc that picks spells from ANY list (sorta RAW- in part about sorcs learning new spells). With some metamagic tricks, you could so some really solid blasting. If you wanted more martial, just go gish and reflavor as suited. Or there might be a druid variant out there with better casting and no wildshape.


A Crusader of Heironeous who can somehow use Iron Heart stuff, enabling him to use the Kamate sword.

Burn some feats and go into Master of the Nine (or multi into warblade for a level or two).


A merchant who can still adventure.

Beguiler, wizard, rogue, bard, or factotum.


A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver.

Check out the combat trapsmith in Dungeonscape.


A robot who recieved a small fragment of a divine spark, endowing him with sentience and a personality all his own (effectively making him a warforged). He'd fight with an AK-47.

Warforged archer cleric with crossbow with the splitting enhancement on it.


A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple.

Go standard fighter-lockdown build, or perhaps a fear based build. With 6 levels of fighter, you could do both, and get dungeoncrasher, which means mad damage.


A sagely character, who has as many knowledge skills as is possible and can still be useful to the party in a practical sense.

Archivist + Knowledge Devotion. Or wizard or bard with Knowledge Devotion. I would go archivist with a dip in lorekeeper.


A character who doesn't die in three hits with one critical from a giant's club, or one martian heat ray.

Dwarven barbarian/fist of the forest? Throw in bear warrior for even more con bonuses.

[edit]
That ninja said almost the same things I said....

I feel your pain, though. There are a lot of hoops to jump through to build certain concepts, and most of the time a caster can do you 10 level build worth of tricks with a single spell.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-12, 01:28 AM
An arcane gish who focuses on destroying enemy spellcasters or magic items. "Magic must defeat magic."Destroying magic items is not cool, but could be doable with a refluffed Vow of Poverty. Gish isn't really great for anti-caster(which is best done via Arcane Archer, pure caster, or lockdown melee), but a Duskblade/Crusader/JPM using Thicket of Blades, Wraithstrike, and a Whipdagger and maybe taking the hit from Mageslayer could do it.
A dwarven Joan of Arc figure whose goals are to recover ancient relics of his people, restore his people's kingdom and make the dwarves powerful again in Moradin's name.Knight, Crusader, or Cleric. Season to taste.
A "knight" who adheres to the historical code of chivalry, which according to Terry Jones meant three things: Learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous.Pretty much any Cha-based melee. I'd go Bard, but Crusader works. Bardbarian is pretty nice, as is Bardblade.
A factotum that basically fills any gap the party has.Either Factorum 20 or Factorum 8/Chameleon 10/Factorum 2. Font of Inspiration to taste.
A Crusader of Heironeous who can somehow use Iron Heart stuff, enabling him to use the Kamate sword.Generally you can replace one school of the 9 with another(with DM permission of course), as long as the 2 aren't too far apart on the power scale(the schools are mostly balanced, but there are issues with a couple). I'd recommend swapping Devoted Spirit or White Raven, due to the weakness of Stone Dragon.
A merchant who can still adventure.Is there any problem that can't be solved by money? Make him an Artificer. Now he has a reason to have massive amounts of magic items, to be able to 'fix up' weak/useless ones, and he only adventures as long as the group is in the black.
A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver.Combat Trapsmith, CWar IIRC. It's good for the levels you're in it, but falls behind fast after you leave(so only really useful levels 5-10), but it sounds like what you want.
A robot who recieved a small fragment of a divine spark, endowing him with sentience and a personality all his own (effectively making him a warforged). He'd fight with an AK-47.No.
A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple.Play a Spellscale, Half-Dragon, or essentially anything other than that class. It gives you nothing that you can't get better with the actual Half-Dragon template and, you know, CLASS LEVELS. There's even a template class in RotD that could give you the same thing, but not as sucky, as a progression.
A sagely character, who has as many knowledge skills as is possible and can still be useful to the party in a practical sense.Archivist/Loremater with Knowledge Devotion.
A character who doesn't die in three hits with one critical from a giant's club, or one martian heat ray.Assuming you're talking about a Stone Giant(the biggest club-wielder of them),one hit deals 21 damage, 4(or 3 with a crit at x2) deals 84. You face them at level 7-8, so we'll say 7 HD, each of which has to grant 12 HP(and the doubling from 1st level will keep you on your feet). Let's say you can afford to put a 16 in Con before you have to sacrifice other stats. The d12 of a Warblade, Barb, or Knight grants 6-7 HP, meaning you would need a +6 Con. But Improved Toughness drops that to a +5. A +2 item drops it to a +4. Meaning that for a Warforged or Dwarf(or almost any Dragonborn of Bahumet), it's doable without undue sacrifices to your other stats. A Raging Barb can do it without needing Imp Toughness or a racial boost. The issue is that surviving 4 hits from any level-appropriate 'massive melee brute' isn't going to be easy. It's generally better to avoid hits in the first place, through AC, miss chance, Flight, or having some idiot take the hits for you while you hit it with spell...oh. :smallwink:

Tell us the concept, most of the time we can make it work.

RTGoodman
2009-05-12, 01:40 AM
Assuming you're talking about a Stone Giant(the biggest club-wielder of them),one hit deals 21 damage, 4(or 3 with a crit at x2) deals 84. You face them at level 7-8, so we'll say 7 HD, each of which has to grant 12 HP(and the doubling from 1st level will keep you on your feet). Let's say you can afford to put a 16 in Con before you have to sacrifice other stats. The d12 of a Warblade, Barb, or Knight grants 6-7 HP, meaning you would need a +6 Con. But Improved Toughness drops that to a +5. A +2 item drops it to a +4. Meaning that for a Warforged or Dwarf(or almost any Dragonborn of Bahumet), it's doable without undue sacrifices to your other stats. A Raging Barb can do it without needing Imp Toughness or a racial boost.

Or heck, if you wanna be Con based, a Dragonborn of Bahamut Mongrelfolk. That's what, +6 Con with no LA right off the bat? Start with an 18, so that's a starting Con 24, maybe with a +2 item of Con by that level. That's 8 HP per level, for 56 BEFORE class levels. Even more with level 4 and 8 bumps to Con. For a class, you can still be a Barbarian/Deepwarden/Fist of the Forest melee-type person, or put that Con to use with Dragonfire Adept.



Tell us the concept, most of the time we can make it work.

No kidding - the three of us a;ready came up with WILDLY different builds for most of the above suggestions! :smalltongue:


EDI @\/: Mineral Warrior template is +4 Con or so for +1 LA, right? It's cheesy, but it works.

Myrmex
2009-05-12, 01:42 AM
Are there any LA 1 templates with +4 con?

Goatman_Ted
2009-05-12, 01:45 AM
Are there any LA 1 templates with +4 con?

Underdark's Mineral Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e) springs to mind


(And since everyone else is doing it:
Cleric, Cleric, Rogue, Cloistered Cleric, Hey! that's mechanics, not concept!, Ditto, Rogue, Cloistered Cleric, Rogue, Clostered Cleric, !Concept, Cleric)

Icewalker
2009-05-12, 01:45 AM
I'll say that I run into this problem from time to time, but not too often. I think one way to better keep a functional character with a cool idea is not to come up with a fun flavor of build, but to come up with a fun flavor of general character, then you can find useful chains of feats and etc to fill it out. The more baseline of a cool character idea you have, the more variability you have in the build to keep it functional.

Some optimization will always be lost to mechanics chosen for flavor, but if that's a problem, then you just need to play with a less optimizing group.

Another option is to base your interesting character on drawbacks which can be compensated for. For example, a blind character, but you get blindsight, so you aren't playing a hugely nerfed character for the sake of flavor without any compensation to keep them on par with the rest of the party. Flaws often help for this, but they're usually too simple to help develop an interesting character.

herrhauptmann
2009-05-12, 01:50 AM
Are there any LA 1 templates with +4 con?

Here's a great source of feats, races, templates etc. Best of all you can save it as a pdf and peruse later.
http://crystalkeep.com/d20/

edit: Copied wrong link into post.

Animefunkmaster
2009-05-12, 01:51 AM
Why is it that the concepts I want to build just don't work well in practice? Why is it that in order to optimize my character, I have to do things or use combos that just seem ridiculous to me?

This largely has to do with the term "character". This term can have different meanings for different people. For me, at a very basic level, this can mean either: the sum ranks of level/feats/skills that comprise an imaginary entity that a player plays to enjoy said game, or the backstory, personality, future goals, hopes and aspirations that comprise an imaginary entity for a player to play said game.

Its seems more likely to me that when someone posts looking for help they are not trying to optimize the backstory/hopes/dreams/personality but the ranks/feats/class abilities. So when making your posts you might want to keep that as a starting point or at least explain the elements of your backstory you want represented by feats/skills/class abilities ((Keep in mind: a character who is 'tough' does not mean he should take the toughness feat, but classes that will make him 'tough' as a descriptive word)).

While optimizing skills feats and class abilities to a given backstory/persona you have to keep in mind that this is a game. While many things can be represented, not everything is within level shot to be a viable option at the level of play and some ideas might simply not be in the rule set at all (this is what homebrew is for). Example: I want to play a cautious lumberjack that can explode towns with my little toe, since it is a magical graft that connects me with my real father, baccob. Obviously for most levels of play, optimizing character will focus on the lumberjack rather than the exploding powers of a god.

Crazy Scot
2009-05-12, 02:07 AM
Are there any LA 1 templates with +4 con?

The only one that I know of off the top of my head would be Mineral Warrior from Forgotten Realms Underdark (p.97).

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2009-05-12, 02:20 AM
The main problem I have is that the concepts that I'm looking for can't really be expressed in 3.5e terms. Here's the concepts I have so far:

An arcane gish who focuses on destroying enemy spellcasters or magic items. "Magic must defeat magic."
Any 'standard gish' build (9th level spells and +16 BAB at level 20), but include improved sunder, adamantine weapon, rods of cancellation, maybe even take the feat extraordinary spell aim to use with antimagic field (cheese). Be sure to have plenty of (greater) dispel magics prepared, possibly max abjurant champion as early as possible (while still maintaining 9th level spells at 20) to get swift abjuration with dispel magic. A cleric with the inquisition domain, possibly via church inquisitor, or a specialist abjurer/master specialist would also fit this, though not necessarily as a gish.


A dwarven Joan of Arc figure whose goals are to recover ancient relics of his people, restore his people's kingdom and make the dwarves powerful again in Moradin's name.
Crusader 20, or cleric 20, or warblade 20. A dwarf is a dwarf regardless of whether he wields a dwarven waraxe, a warhammer, or a... trident. If he only has simple weapon proficiency, use that to your advantage: There was a volcanic eruption that threatened to flood his clan's caves/mines/etc. with liquid hot magma, though a shaft had been cut to act as a drain for just such an event. However, a large rock had fallen over the opening, and it was flowing in faster than it was draining; the character rushed into action, but didn't have the strength to lift the rock. He grabbed the jagged piece of volcanic glass that was left from a previous eruption, and tightly grasping its razor-sharp edges he pried the rock free and saved his community. He wasn't able to release his grasp without the aid of a surgeon. It now serves as a morningstar which he uses to bludgeon the life out of his clan's enemies, the business end is permanently stained red with his own blood. Much better than the stereotype dwarf-with-an-axe, you just have to get creative.


Here are some other concepts I've been thinking about:

A "knight" who adheres to the historical code of chivalry, which according to Terry Jones meant three things: Learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous.
Just about any decent melee build would fit that, just go crusader 20 if you don't want to put any more thought into it.


A factotum that basically fills any gap the party has.
That's one class I'm not too familiar with, but I'm pretty sure it's one of those that stays good for all 20 levels.


A Stormlord who worships Heironeous.
"Adaptation: If you do not have the god Talos in your game then this prestige class works well with any god of storms, obviously, but it’s also
appropriate for nature deities or clerics and druids that venerate
nature or weather in the abstract without worshiping a specific deity."
Storms are seen as the embodiment of chaos or simply nature, neither is suited to Heironeous. Maybe pick a good-aligned deity who can grant the storm domain, such as Anhur or Isis in the Mulhorandi pantheon, Acrdric Faenya in the Elven pantheon, or even Istishia in the general FR pantheon. If you pick Isis you can go LG, and her favored weapon is the often neglected punching dagger, which would make for a very unique character.


A Crusader of Heironeous who can somehow use Iron Heart stuff, enabling him to use the Kamate sword.
I just read the entire Kamate entry, only the stance agility ability requires anything from iron heart. The ability itself isn't even impressive, so there's not really any drawback if a single-classed crusader wields it as long as they meet the requirements of BAB +4, EWP: bastard sword, and balance 4 ranks which is a class skill. You didn't see anything that says you need an iron heart maneuver or stance to use Kamate, other than the lackluster stance agility which is easily ignored.


A merchant who can still adventure.
Any decent build that gets appraise as a class skill, maybe get the broken/abusable feat mercantile background, which can only make a character better because you should get every piece of expensive gear at 75% cost.


A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver.
Artificer 20 is a tier 1 build.


A robot who recieved a small fragment of a divine spark, endowing him with sentience and a personality all his own (effectively making him a warforged). He'd fight with an AK-47.
Make a warforged character, but rather than holding a gun replace one of his hands with a gun-like device. Give him mithral body and make him a warlock, reflavor his eldritch blast to be shots coming out of his built-in weaponry, reflavor all of his invocations to be technological upgrades. Walk unseen is a cloaking device, flee the scene is a short-range teleport that cloaks him and leaves behind a hologram, baleful utterance uses ultrasonic vibrations to destroy things, summon swarm releases nanobots that return to him at the end of the duration, etc. He'd be more than just a robot-turned-sentient with a gun, he'd be a super high-tech master of gadgets.


A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple.
Use duskblade to qualify, maybe get abjurant champion for the last five levels. Not a spectacular build, but better than using sorcerer.


A sagely character, who has as many knowledge skills as is possible and can still be useful to the party in a practical sense.
Archivist (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3) 20 is a tier 1 build.


A character who doesn't die in three hits with one critical from a giant's club, or one martian heat ray.
Vow of peace in the Book of Exalted Deeds, maybe even go into apostle of peace. Beguiler would also work rather well with that, they get a lot of nonlethal damage spells, plus a lot of enchantment and illusion spells. Beguiler 20 is a tier 2 build, vow of peace and nonviolence wouldn't give it any meaningful drawbacks.

Animefunkmaster
2009-05-12, 02:23 AM
I will try to go through these the best I can:

An arcane gish who focuses on destroying enemy spellcasters or magic items. "Magic must defeat magic."

Fighter**1/Wizard*6/Spell Sword1/Abjurant Champion5/Eldritch Knight 7
*Focused specialist (CM variant on the specialist wizard)Abjuration
Drop: Illusion (Or Necromancy if you don't have frost burn), Evocation, Enchantment.
((Use primarily transmutation buffs, buff in brawl tactics))
**You can swap this out for anything full bab with good proficiencies.
PHB: Fighter, Wizard, Eldritch Knight
CW: Spell Sword
CM: Abjurant Champion


A dwarven Joan of Arc figure whose goals are to recover ancient relics of his people, restore his people's kingdom and make the dwarves powerful again in Moradin's name.

You can do just about any melee warrior. If you have ToB, Crusader is great, bloodstorm blade is fun. Recovering ancient relics makes me think a little about dipping some rogue in the mix (always a good thing for UMD skills) to grab some trapfinding.


A "knight" who adheres to the historical code of chivalry, which according to Terry Jones meant three things: Learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous.
Avoid the Knight class like the plague, and paladin for this one. You are looking at a regular melee warrior type, maybe a warblade, mix with some skills.

A factotum that basically fills any gap the party has.
You are looking for a changling factotum Chameleon
A Stormlord who worships Heironeous.

A Crusader of Heironeous who can somehow use Iron Heart stuff, enabling him to use the Kamate sword.
Have you considered building a master of 9? Or perhaps a paladin/warblade? You can be a crusader for Heironeous without actually taking crusader levels.

A merchant who can still adventure.
Nothing is ever wrong with a bard or a factotum as a merchant.

A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver.
Gnome artificer you say? Want to go less magical, Warcraft 3rd edition has a tinkerer which might need some help to bring up to snuff, Dragonmech has the coglayer which is more on the broken end as far as mechanics go.

A robot who recieved a small fragment of a divine spark, endowing him with sentience and a personality all his own (effectively making him a warforged). He'd fight with an AK-47.

Well, barring mechanics for the campaign for a moment, this could easily be represented by a warforged, from there you have to decide if you want him to be more in tune with the divine (favored soul sounds reasonable) or with his weapon of choice.

A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple.
This reads like you want a build, not help optimizing usability of a persona. A dragonborn can easily represent someone who is the disciple of dragons, mix in your favorite divine classes and you have a melee dragon disciple.

A sagely character, who has as many knowledge skills as is possible and can still be useful to the party in a practical sense.
Heroes of Horror has the archivist, a brilliant knowledge monkey whose class abilities really pack a punch in the right party (I believe it is also in a WoTC preview if you don't have the book). Otherwise we can look at the Cloistered cleric variant or simply the wizard. You should always be making tons of knowledge checks when the dm allows it, knowledge is the most useful skill in the game, the dm actively tells you how to succeed.

A character who doesn't die in three hits with one critical from a giant's club, or one martian heat ray.
Plenty of things can be optimized for this. Including but not limited to: saves, hp, evasion, mettle.

A quick example could be a: paladin of slaughter2/hexblade2/monk2/blackguard2/yadda yadda
Keep in mind, optimizing defense in actual play is not fun. I have played everything from the warforged who took the vows and was a heal monkey to a warrior with crazy high hp and AC to a hexblade rogue. What you want is a fun way to prevent damage. One way I enjoy playing is through the classic spiked chain AoO tripper. Play through it with either a gish or maybe some psychic warrior, either way fun stuff stopping enemies from moving and messing with some casting (casting will almost always win).

Decoy Lockbox
2009-05-12, 02:30 AM
As most of you know, I'm trying to come up with character ideas for upcoming 3.5 games. I'm sure many of you are familiar with my threads "Building a Spellsword" and my more recent "Building a Dwarf."

I'm writing this mainly because I'm noticing a frustrating pattern in the kinds of characters I like to play. Every time I get an interesting concept in mind, I try to make it work and I get told that the concept is based off poor mechanics. The base classes I pick are weak, the almighty caster level dominates all, and most of the prestige classes I think fit the concept are a load of garbage.

Why is it that the concepts I want to build just don't work well in practice? Why is it that in order to optimize my character, I have to do things or use combos that just seem ridiculous to me? Why do they all involve books I don't have? The list goes on.

I really don't get why the concepts I think are awesome turn out to be weak in terms of actual gameplay. You can't survive in D&D on your cool factor alone, and that's what think I go for when I make a character.

You need to figure out what makes a "good" character "good", and implement that or another type of goodness in all the characters you make.

That, or just switch to 4th edition :smallbiggrin:

I noticed a mention to Minimus in your sig -- are you playing in any minimus games right now? If so, has your group had to make any houserules? I'm currently playing in a Steampunk nautical mercenary (think Firefly on a boat) game using minimus, and its going pretty well.

Behold_the_Void
2009-05-12, 02:59 AM
The main problem I have is that the concepts that I'm looking for can't really be expressed in 3.5e terms. Here's the concepts I have so far:

An arcane gish who focuses on destroying enemy spellcasters or magic items. "Magic must defeat magic."

Abjuration-focused wizard/fighter/spellsword/eldritch knight/abjurant champion


A dwarven Joan of Arc figure whose goals are to recover ancient relics of his people, restore his people's kingdom and make the dwarves powerful again in Moradin's name.

Dwarf, I don't see what class has to do with this but Crusader works just fine for the religious angle. Done.


A "knight" who adheres to the historical code of chivalry, which according to Terry Jones meant three things: Learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous.

Warblade. Fits the inherent fluff of a Warblade to a T.


A factotum that basically fills any gap the party has.

Font of Inspiration intelligence maximized factotum is pretty good at this as I recall.


A Stormlord who worships Heironeous.

Get your DM to change the Stormlord requirements.


A Crusader of Heironeous who can somehow use Iron Heart stuff, enabling him to use the Kamate sword.

I don't recall the exact requirements, but either multi into Warblade or spend some feats for the Maneuvers or go into Master of Nine.


A merchant who can still adventure.

Artificer. Or, alternately, any class with skill points in profession (merchant).


A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver.

Rogue Master Trapsmith, I think the prestige class was. I know there's something there that works.


A robot who recieved a small fragment of a divine spark, endowing him with sentience and a personality all his own (effectively making him a warforged). He'd fight with an AK-47. Warforged with homebrewed AK-47 weapon, choose whatever class you want. Swift Hunter Ranger/Scout combo might work.


A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple.

Well, OK, got me there. Dragon Disciple sucks. You could just apply the template and use LA buy off to make it hurt less. ToB class of course.


A sagely character, who has as many knowledge skills as is possible and can still be useful to the party in a practical sense.

Wizard/Loremaster.


A character who doesn't die in three hits with one critical from a giant's club, or one martian heat ray.

High-con race with lots of con boosting items and probably some kind of class like a Warblade or Crusader with good defenses/HD. Then be high level.

Done. All reasonably optimal choices within the critieria, and I don't even play 3.5 any more.

Edit: Incredibly Ninja'd

Darrin
2009-05-12, 07:24 AM
The only one that I know of off the top of my head would be Mineral Warrior from Forgotten Realms Underdark (p.97).

Try Lolth-Touched in MM4. +6 Str, +6 Con, +1 LA.

Severedevil
2009-05-12, 07:33 AM
Actually I play in a group where virtually no prestige classes at all are the norm. My DM really had to stretch to accomodate me. Virtually everyone else was using the Player's Handbook and the Player's Handbook only.

And that's part of my gripe. That's what optimized doesn't look as cool.

Then don't optimize. Problem solved.

Seriously, if your group avoids prestige classes and relies primarily on the PHB without using Clericzilla or Superman Wizard, you do not need to optimize. If you do optimize, you will probably ruin the game.

kamikasei
2009-05-12, 07:35 AM
Seriously, if your group avoids prestige classes and relies primarily on the PHB without using Clericzilla or Superman Wizard, you do not need to optimize. If you do optimize, you will probably ruin the game.

You're missing a basic problem with the D&D system, which is: if his character concept is unusual, he has to optimize it just to make it playable at the same level as unoptimized characters that keep more closely within the lines of the system.

Morty
2009-05-12, 07:46 AM
I'm writing this mainly because I'm noticing a frustrating pattern in the kinds of characters I like to play. Every time I get an interesting concept in mind, I try to make it work and I get told that the concept is based off poor mechanics. The base classes I pick are weak, the almighty caster level dominates all, and most of the prestige classes I think fit the concept are a load of garbage.


The answer is: you care too much about a bunch of optimization-bent people. Others have been playing "unoptimized" characters before and they will play them until D&D 3.5 is forgotten. They had also been playing core meleers before the Almighty Tome of Battle was released and not owning it became a capital offence and will still play them not matter how hard the ToB fans scream. It doesn't entirely solve the problem with unusual characters, but it does make it easier. Most of PrCs really are garbage, though.

Gorbash
2009-05-12, 08:50 AM
Every time I get an interesting concept in mind, I try to make it work and I get told that the concept is based off poor mechanics.

Why don't you try to find a concept that works with a strong class? Do things reverse way. That's how 'optimizers' do it. :smallbiggrin:

Another_Poet
2009-05-12, 10:22 AM
Hi Archpaladin.

One thing that might help you, quite a bit actually, is to divorce your concept from your mechanics.

For instance, I play a merchant who adventurers in one PbP game. That's one of the concepts on your character list that you say is hard to optimise. Well, I didn't use any merchant-themed classes. my merchant is a straight sorcerer. He has max ranks in bluff, and is a charm specialist. What could make a more successful merchant than that? Well, wizard obviously, but then I'd want to max both Int and Cha since I want to be able to bluff people even when I'm out of spells. So instead I put everything into Cha, fueling both my sorcerer spells and my main skills. It's awesome. A very effective character, with his own import/export business.

Same thing for your stormlord who worships Heironeous. D&D is polytheistic, remember? Your stormlord can worship multiple gods. She/he can worship whatever god is most beneficial crunch-wise, perhaps out of a sense of duty since that god is the patron of his/her profession. But on a personal level, she/he feels total devotion to Heironeous. She talks all the time about Heironeous, gives to the church of Heironeous, etc. God X maybe the god of stormlords, and she carries out that god's rites faithfully, but Heironeous is her personal tutelary deity. Easy, and plenty of precedents in real world history.

You ask why so many of the PrCs that fit your concepts seem weak, and it's because many PrCs are built only around a cool concept and not around good mechanics. There really are no good pirate classes or PrCs that I know of, for instance. Some have great flavour, but the abilities suck. So what do you do? Talk privately to your DM. "I'm going to use the swordsage class to build my character, but I don't want to be called a swordsage. I'm going to be a pirate, and call myself a pirate, and don't want people mixing me up with swordsages. That cool?" 95% chance your DM says yes, you build an effective character, and you don't even have to tell the other players it's a Swordsage because then they'll start to pigenhole you. Just play your pirate and love it.

Anyway, that's my advice. Most PrCs are ineffective and the 10-20% that are awesome are overused. So use whatever class(es) make a good build and then describe your character any way you want. In other words, reinvent the fluff - put your char concept above everything.

ap

Curmudgeon
2009-05-12, 10:33 AM
For a Rogue that does more than toss d6s in combat, Factorum or Swordsage. No, the base Rogue class is workable; it just requires creativity. I made a level 17 Rogue for a convention game and ended up being the most effective member of the party. But I did use 21 WotC D&D books to get the job done. :smallamused:

Justin B.
2009-05-12, 10:47 AM
It seems to me like you've become a slave to the written text Zousha, you need to realize that homebrew is available for you to make these concepts fit in a playable way.

This thread is filled up with perfectly viable characters for what you want. It's all about tweaking the flavor.

As for the "magic killing magic" idea, may I suggest a Battle Sorceror? It gets less spells than the regular sorceror (more than wizard still though, I believe) and still gets some proficiencies and heavy armor. Use a spear, take some AoO feats, (be human) and take all of the Dispel-line that you can. Also, I suggest a nifty little spell called Dispelling Ray from the Spell Compendium, kind of expensive, but very very worth it.

Also, to help ease your book woes, there is an excellent source for feats at realmshelps.dandello.net, combined with the aforementioned Crystalkeep d20, you can find much of the available 3.5 material online.

Good luck. Remember, if you can't find something that you like, invent it!

Crow
2009-05-12, 11:08 AM
Maybe you should just make and play your characters how you want to and have fun with it. You don't need to make every character you play be "optimized". Your builds should be optimized for fun, not to measure up to some board's impossible standards of in-game effectiveness.

Seriously dude.

Telonius
2009-05-12, 11:34 AM
Why is it that the concepts I want to build just don't work well in practice? Why is it that in order to optimize my character, I have to do things or use combos that just seem ridiculous to me? Why do they all involve books I don't have?

Last question is the easiest: because WOTC wants you to buy more books.

Think of it like a bell curve. For most books, there are a few things that are really mechanically powerful, a whole bunch that are kind of middling, and a few things like the Samurai. If you're going for things that are the most powerful altogether, you're not going to be able to find it in any single book. There are a few books that don't fit the general pattern - most of ToB is on the high end, and the Big Three casters are all in the PHB. But even a ToB class can make use of Complete Warrior; and while Cleric is terrific in Core, Divine Metacheese makes it truly ridiculous.

In my experience optimization only matters relative to the other members of your gaming group (and your DM). If nobody in your group has any idea of what a CharOp forum is, you could probably play basically whatever you want (outside of the "Samurai" range of the curve) and still be able to contribute. You really want to play that Dwarven Defender? As long as you aren't playing with Batman, Codzilla, Factotum and Warblade, go for it.

There are unfortunately some character ideas that really don't match up well to published materials. There really isn't any class or PrC that has "Adventuring Merchant" as its fluff. You could do a couple of things with that. Either find something that's conceptually similar and go with it (Rogue, Bard, or Factotum to Horizon Walker comes to mind), or homebrew it. No matter how many classes and PrCs Wizards puts out, it's impossible for them to exhaustively cover every single archetype or character idea.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-12, 11:41 AM
There really are no good pirate classes or PrCs that I know of, for instance. Dread Pirate. Inspire Courage is awesome.

@ Curmudgeon: Yeah, Rogue is effective, but it has issues. The various ways of getting SA immunity(plants, oozes, and Elementals are basically immune no matter what, Fortification gets more common as you get better) hurt when your combat options are basically Tumble and Sneak Attack. Factotum and Swordsage aren't really much better IMHO, but they are much harder to render useless.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2009-05-12, 11:50 AM
Another thing to keep in mind is that the built-in flavor text of every class is 100% optional. If you think the mechanics of a given class/PrC fit your character concept, but the built-in flavor of the class doesn't, you can change every thing about the class except the mechanics to make it fit your character. Change the name of the class, change the name of the abilities, and change the overall theme of the class.

It sounds to me like the people you play with sit down for a new game and say, "I'm playing a [class]." This habit of assuming that every member of a given class fits the stereotype flavor of that class proves that someone is not as good a role player as they claim to be. Quite a while back I played a Ranger/Barbarian/Horizon Walker, who described himself as a scout because that was his profession. This was years before the release of Complete Adventurer and the Scout base class, and it made perfect sense for this character to be called a scout. Years later I decided to play the same build in another game with a different group. My character described himself as a scout, and the other players assumed that he had the scout class. My character use his barbarian rage in melee, used his shifting planar terrain mastery to teleport, and didn't use the skirmish mechanic, and someone tried to say that he's not really a scout because he doesn't have levels in that class. In-character, PCs are not aware of the existence of classes, prestige classes, levels, feats, etc. If a character's profession and capabilities are best described with the word scout, then that's what he is, regardless of what classes he has levels in.

If you want to make a 'Swordcerer' and go Fighter 2/ Sorcerer 4/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 8, in-character nobody is aware of how many classes he has levels in, so as long as everything fits his concept he can describe himself however he wants. Someone who claims that he has too many classes would probably be the sort of poor role player to describe him in-character by naming classes. He's simply a warrior who is talented in the ways of magic, and training to fight against evil outsiders is either typical for someone in his field of magic or has been learned by choice due to a particular hatred of such creatures.

Mechanics are not married to flavor. Find a class with strong mechanics that fits your concept, and reflavor it to suit your character.

Keld Denar
2009-05-12, 12:16 PM
My character described himself as a scout, and the other players assumed that he had the scout class. My character use his barbarian rage in melee, used his shifting planar terrain mastery to teleport, and didn't use the skirmish mechanic, and someone tried to say that he's not really a scout because he doesn't have levels in that class. In-character, PCs are not aware of the existence of classes, prestige classes, levels, feats, etc. If a character's profession and capabilities are best described with the word scout, then that's what he is, regardless of what classes he has levels in.


Sounds exactly like Miko, rest her soul. Not a single level in anything "samuri" related, but described herself to others as a samuri. Your character is more than the sum of his or her levels. Your character is a character. A person. You can be whatever you want, regardless of your build.

When I used to play LG, I knew a couple characters who introduced themselves as merchants. Now, there is no class that lets you actually be a merchant. If I remember right, one was a cleric, another was a rogue, and the third was a multiclassed fighter. None of those facts restricted their ability to RP as a merchant. Fun was had by all.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 01:15 PM
I think I see what everyone's saying here. I worry too much and I'm too married to concepts. I need to relax a little and be more flexible in my interpretation.

For that dwarven Joan of Arc, I don't need to be a cleric. A member of any class can claim that their god speaks to them. It may be true, or they may be completely nuts, but it doesn't have to be represented in the stats.

I also need to relax a bit. Having played through a campaign with the paladin build Keld gave me (which worked FANTASTICALLY by the way :smallsmile:) I know that the DM's pretty generous, considering when I reached level 12, he gave me a treasure trove of magic items that included the Book of Exalted Deeds and a Daern's Instant Fortress. Just for me. My paladin only died twice, and the first time he died, three solars descended from Heaven to bring him back, and the second time, he was raised by our bard's cleric cohort, and then the Spirit of the West removed the negative level in exchange for me doing the upcoming quest. He made my character the Heironean version of the Pope. He also nerfed the Tarrasque bigtime so we stood a chance at fighting it. And gave us Segways.

The reason I mentioned an AK-47 is that that's what the robots we've encountered use. Our campaign world is Europe several millenia into the future, following a second Ice Age, and our main enemies were the "Clockwork Servants" a group of robots who wanted to basically borg humans, elves, dwarves and merfolk and massacre everybody else, wishing to restore the status quo, but our medieval people would have none of it, so we fought back. The DM uses the firearm rules from the DMG, and at one point we got a dancing AK-47. We sold it because my paladin was the only one who knew how to use firearms (our DM ruled that instead of one exotic weapon proficiency feat for each weapon, Exotic Weapon Proficiency made you proficient with all exotic weapons, including the strange weapons of the enemy), and he didn't want to give up the money from his share of the treasure because he had a debt to pay off for his new gathering space and didn't really need the gun anyway.

And as for the whole Stormlord who worships Heironeous gig, Stormlords don't have alignment requirements, so a Lawful Good Stormlord, especially one with Cleric levels instead of Druid, is perfectly viable, and Heironeous, despite the lawful alignment, has an affinity for storms and lightning. It's right in his holy symbol for Heironeous's sake!

Keld Denar
2009-05-12, 02:17 PM
Yea, Big H does have lightning in his motif, but its not really the natural lightning that occures in clouds based on static charge difference as would be revered by a druid. Its the righteous smitatude that flashes in the darkness to illuminate evil things, and strikes swiftly to punish the wicked where ever they may hide.

Same lightning, different idiology.

Like, the shocking javelin part would fit nicely, but the stormriding part would just feel kinda wonky as a Heironiite, since while Big H is into lightning, he's not into weather or storms. Something like a HEAVILY HEAVILY BUFFED Shining Blade of Heironeous might work. I'd suggest giving the class more daily uses of its abilities, perhaps Cha times per day, or even 3+cha per day, make em last for a whole minute, and require only a swift action to activate. then give it 8/10 casting or something, and strong fort/will saves. That would make it a strong and flavorful class worth taking as it gives you the whole Lightning concept without the storm idea.

The Rose Dragon
2009-05-12, 02:27 PM
Did you try playing an effects-based system, such as Tri-Stat dX or Mutants & Mastermind?

Most people have been saying that fluff is optional, but playing an effects-based system helps you grasp it better. You don't think in terms of fluff and find that what fits that fluff can't do anything; you think in terms of what your character can do and add fluff to the mechanics as desired.

After that, if you don't want to return to D&D, all the better. :smalltongue:

((Damn D&D and how it steals the market share which rightfully belongs to other, better games.))

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 03:02 PM
Did you try playing an effects-based system, such as Tri-Stat dX or Mutants & Mastermind?

Most people have been saying that fluff is optional, but playing an effects-based system helps you grasp it better. You don't think in terms of fluff and find that what fits that fluff can't do anything; you think in terms of what your character can do and add fluff to the mechanics as desired.

After that, if you don't want to return to D&D, all the better. :smalltongue:

((Damn D&D and how it steals the market share which rightfully belongs to other, better games.))

D&D is the only game I've ever known. I am playing in a Mutants and Masterminds game here on the boards, but I'm needing a lot of help to make it work since I don't have the books and I doubt my mother will be interested in me buying a new game after I have more than 50 D&D books of 3.0e, 3.5e and 4e.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 03:07 PM
Yea, Big H does have lightning in his motif, but its not really the natural lightning that occures in clouds based on static charge difference as would be revered by a druid. Its the righteous smitatude that flashes in the darkness to illuminate evil things, and strikes swiftly to punish the wicked where ever they may hide.

Same lightning, different idiology.

Like, the shocking javelin part would fit nicely, but the stormriding part would just feel kinda wonky as a Heironiite, since while Big H is into lightning, he's not into weather or storms. Something like a HEAVILY HEAVILY BUFFED Shining Blade of Heironeous might work. I'd suggest giving the class more daily uses of its abilities, perhaps Cha times per day, or even 3+cha per day, make em last for a whole minute, and require only a swift action to activate. then give it 8/10 casting or something, and strong fort/will saves. That would make it a strong and flavorful class worth taking as it gives you the whole Lightning concept without the storm idea.
So why do the Heironean "storm forts" have lightning rods everywhere, and why are they built in places where thunderstorms are a frequent occurence? By my reckoning, Heironeans wouldn't place such a strong value on lighting if they didn't think lightning and the weather associated with it had sacred significance. Being struck by lightning could be considered either a sign of the Archpaladin's displeasure if the person is killed, but if the person survives, it means they've been marked by Heironeous to do great things in his name.

Plus there's that bit in "Something Wicked This Way Comes" when the bad guy says that the lightning from a coming thunderstorm will break the evil his carnival has brought to the town, and the rain that comes with it will wash it away. You could easily believe that thunderstorms are not chaotic things of destruction and chaos, but rather a manifestation of Heironeous's wrath to the wicked and his mercy to those who repent.

Myrmex
2009-05-12, 05:46 PM
Yea, Big H does have lightning in his motif, but its not really the natural lightning that occures in clouds based on static charge difference as would be revered by a druid. Its the righteous smitatude that flashes in the darkness to illuminate evil things, and strikes swiftly to punish the wicked where ever they may hide.

Same lightning, different idiology.

Like, the shocking javelin part would fit nicely, but the stormriding part would just feel kinda wonky as a Heironiite, since while Big H is into lightning, he's not into weather or storms. Something like a HEAVILY HEAVILY BUFFED Shining Blade of Heironeous might work. I'd suggest giving the class more daily uses of its abilities, perhaps Cha times per day, or even 3+cha per day, make em last for a whole minute, and require only a swift action to activate. then give it 8/10 casting or something, and strong fort/will saves. That would make it a strong and flavorful class worth taking as it gives you the whole Lightning concept without the storm idea.

Just turn Shining Blade into a prestige class for Crusaders. Done & done.

The Rose Dragon
2009-05-12, 05:53 PM
D&D is the only game I've ever known. I am playing in a Mutants and Masterminds game here on the boards, but I'm needing a lot of help to make it work since I don't have the books and I doubt my mother will be interested in me buying a new game after I have more than 50 D&D books of 3.0e, 3.5e and 4e.

Tri-Stat dX is free! (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=368&it=1&filters=0_0_0_10121) You don't need to buy it.

And if you look over at myth-weavers.com, there are several Tri-Stat game advertisements you can show interest in.

In fact, if you and your group is willing to experiment, there are several free games over on RPGNow.com that might suit you better. Such as Witchcraft.

Callos_DeTerran
2009-05-12, 06:34 PM
A gnome engineer who can easily dismantle any trap or lock the characters come across and can build technological marvels from scratch, like McGuyver.
Gnome artificer you say? Want to go less magical, Warcraft 3rd edition has a tinkerer which might need some help to bring up to snuff, Dragonmech has the coglayer which is more on the broken end as far as mechanics go.

Okay, I'm fairly curious here. How is a coglayer broken? I'm not doubting you, I'm just wondering how because it seems a class more well-suited to having a set of coglayers then one on their own. (Although I did come up with a combination to essentially recreate an attack helicopter with a rather pansy death ray...)

Because it fits the above concept perfectly.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 07:18 PM
Tri-Stat dX is free! (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=368&it=1&filters=0_0_0_10121) You don't need to buy it.

And if you look over at myth-weavers.com, there are several Tri-Stat game advertisements you can show interest in.

In fact, if you and your group is willing to experiment, there are several free games over on RPGNow.com that might suit you better. Such as Witchcraft.

I don't know, I'm not comfortable with change and new things, and D&D's really the only thing I'm comfortable playing. :smallfrown:

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 07:20 PM
Just turn Shining Blade into a prestige class for Crusaders. Done & done.

Shining Blade sucks though. It just gives you the ability to slap powers on your weapon that you could just have enchanted onto the weapon permanently for some money. Definately not worth ten levels.

Myrmex
2009-05-12, 07:54 PM
Shining Blade sucks though. It just gives you the ability to slap powers on your weapon that you could just have enchanted onto the weapon permanently for some money. Definately not worth ten levels.

With full crusader initiator advancement, it would be. I'd have its lightning damage run off of steely resolve instead of 1/day or whatever crap it is now. Based on the size of your delayed damage pool (which SBoH would advance), you get shocking, shocking burst, holy, axiomatic, etc. The real power of the ToB classes aren't the minor class abilities they get, but the maneuvers.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 07:57 PM
Initiator advancement? What's that?

Myrmex
2009-05-12, 08:11 PM
Initiator advancement? What's that?

You play anything from ToB? It's essentially like your "caster level" for learning "blade magic", or maneuvers.

1 level in warblade, crusader, fighter or swordsage = 1 initiator level, which means you can learn a maneuver equal to one half your initiator level, rounded up. So a 3rd level swordsage can learn second level maneuvers, you get 3rd at fifth, and so on- just like a wizard. Only warblade, crusader, and swordsage (and a smattering of prestige classes) give you new maneuvers known. Otherwise, you gotta take a feat. Basically, my "fix" for shining blade would be that one level of it would = one level of crusader, for the purposes of learning maneuvers.

All other classes count as 1/2 initiator level. So a 10th level wizard who gains one level of swordsage has an initiator level of 5 + 1, or six, which means they can learn up to third level maneuvers. An 11th level swordsage, though, would have level 6 maneuvers.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 08:22 PM
I own the Tome of Battle, but I've never read it extensively, and I'm only involved in one RP that allows it. Indeed it's centered on it. But I don't really know what I'm doing, and my character was made by someone else for me because I had neither the time nor knowledge to do it on my own, and it was a homebrew class from these very forums.

So in a word, no, I've never played anything from TOB. :smallfrown:

Keld Denar
2009-05-12, 09:17 PM
Try it. Warblades and Crusaders are optimization in a can. You can do funny things by multiclassing them with other martially oriented classes, or just take straight levels in one or the other or both. Its fun, its effective, and its not really that difficult to learn. Really, reading through the first 1/3rd of ToB gives you a great deal of what you need to know, skipping most of the fluff in the first chapter if you really don't have time. Then, just take a look through the maneuvers. Most are pretty self explanatory.

Seriously, its everything you want from melee combat....and more!

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-12, 09:40 PM
I really think of all the 3.5 supplementary books I bought, Tome of Battle was one of the best choices.

What kind of funny things are you talking about with multiclassing? I know that some of the PrCs require some multiclassing notable the Jade Phoenix Mage and the Ruby Knight Vindicator. Would Deepstone Sentinel be a good idea? It's very, very dwarfy.

tyckspoon
2009-05-12, 09:54 PM
Funny things? Well, one of the most basic is using another martial class to delay acquiring a stance so you can pick from a higher level one (although that's really more of a design issue, since the maneuver levels of the stances don't match up very well to the class levels where you can select a new stance.) And there's quite a few classes who have abilities that can complement a primarily ToB build very well- consider something like dipping a couple levels of Ranger for ranged skill with a Warblade, for example.

Keld Denar
2009-05-12, 10:16 PM
Like how when you multiclass Swordsage from a rogue build, you take your first SS level at 5, so you get 2nd level maneuvers (like Cloak of Deception), and then your 2nd level at level 8 or 12 to so you have an EL of 5 or 7 respectively to get Assassins Stance and, if you opt for the later level, Pouncing Charge. Stuff like that. Most warblades tend to dip 2 levels in something before level 4, as this delays their 2nd stance until they have an IL of 5 and can take a 3rd level stance. Typically Fighter for the feats, although Barbarian and Ranger are also decent choices.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2009-05-12, 10:30 PM
Just remember that you get 1/2 your levels in other classes to your initiator level, so a Fighter 4/ Warblade 1 can take 2nd level maneuvers since he has an initiator level of 3, though that makes a very weak starting build. As another example, you could go Crusader 1/ Warblade 6/ Crusader, and get Thicket of Blades as your stance at Crusader 2 and pick Revitalizing Strike at Crusader 3. Again not exactly optimal, but if you get stuck with no useful Crusader maneuvers granted you can just use a Warblade maneuver that round instead. I'm sure there are some superb level combinations to use, but I'm not very familiar with ToB builds.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-13, 12:02 AM
I see. I'm really getting interested in both Tome of Battle and the Factotum of Dungeonscape.

Maybe I should really go off the wall and just play a spellcaster for once.

I've got so many options now I just can't decide! :smallamused:

sonofzeal
2009-05-13, 12:16 AM
Alongside ToB and Factotum, I think the most compelling class for me at this stage would be the Dragonfire Adept. It's like a Warlock, but instead of emo it's metal. Awesome class, fun to play, very evocative style. ToB and Factotum rock for basically the same reasons. Now if only we could combine all three into the prince of all builds..... :smallcool:

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-13, 12:30 AM
Damn, and I don't have Dragon Magic. Nuts. :smallsigh:

Dacia Brabant
2009-05-13, 01:37 AM
I really think of all the 3.5 supplementary books I bought, Tome of Battle was one of the best choices.

What kind of funny things are you talking about with multiclassing? I know that some of the PrCs require some multiclassing notable the Jade Phoenix Mage and the Ruby Knight Vindicator. Would Deepstone Sentinel be a good idea? It's very, very dwarfy.

Deepstone Sentinel is really only something you want to get into if you're doing dungeoncrawling stuff almost exclusively, since everything it does requires you to be standing on natural (and mostly unworked) stone surfaces and is practically useless against flying opponents--which, let's face it, are common once you're at level 11+. It also has the problem of not being a full BAB class (which makes no sense) despite requiring +10 BAB to enter it, and its maneuver progression is slow and you only gain Stone Dragon, generally a weak discipline although it does get some nice things like overcoming Hardness. In the right campaign though it can be a solid choice for a dwarf battlefield-control tank type.

Definitely do read over the maneuver list in ToB though, there's something in there for everything you'd want to do as a melee fighter, including utility stuff like Blindsense, Scent, Spider Climb, Air Walk, incorporality and teleportation, plus the all-mighty Iron Heart Surge, capable of breaking nearly any status affect as long as you're allowed a standard action.

Curmudgeon
2009-05-13, 06:31 AM
@ Curmudgeon: Yeah, Rogue is effective, but it has issues. The various ways of getting SA immunity(plants, oozes, and Elementals are basically immune no matter what, Fortification gets more common as you get better) hurt when your combat options are basically Tumble and Sneak Attack. Factotum and Swordsage aren't really much better IMHO, but they are much harder to render useless.
Penetrating Strike lets you deal 1/2 normal sneak attack damage even against 100% Fortification if you flank an enemy. And Rogues still have options against those creature types that can't be flanked. The Crippling Strike Rogue special ability, combined with the Savvy Rogue feat, still delivers STR damage on every hit even if there's no other sneak attack damage. All Elementals except for the Elder ones are easy to Hide from, and that sets them up for Crippling Strike. Oozes are harder, but Darkstalker fixes that. Vine Strike (via Use Magic Device) easily takes care of plants; maybe you were thinking of swarms instead?

If you add Hide in Plain Sight (from Shadowdancer) you'll be able to do full sneak attacks against all of these things at their flatfooted AC, ratcheting them down in STR every time. But of course when you know you're going up against one of these sneak-immune creatures you can add something like Contagion (UMD again) for faster effect. Only undead and construct types are automatically immune to disease, and spells and weapon augment crystals let you do full sneak attack damage against those types anyway.

Yeah, it's annoying to deal with all those things that are normally immune to sneak attack. But you can build a Rogue that's able to sneak attack almost anything.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-13, 08:47 AM
Deepstone Sentinel is really only something you want to get into if you're doing dungeoncrawling stuff almost exclusively, since everything it does requires you to be standing on natural (and mostly unworked) stone surfaces and is practically useless against flying opponents--which, let's face it, are common once you're at level 11+. It also has the problem of not being a full BAB class (which makes no sense) despite requiring +10 BAB to enter it, and its maneuver progression is slow and you only gain Stone Dragon, generally a weak discipline although it does get some nice things like overcoming Hardness. In the right campaign though it can be a solid choice for a dwarf battlefield-control tank type.

Definitely do read over the maneuver list in ToB though, there's something in there for everything you'd want to do as a melee fighter, including utility stuff like Blindsense, Scent, Spider Climb, Air Walk, incorporality and teleportation, plus the all-mighty Iron Heart Surge, capable of breaking nearly any status affect as long as you're allowed a standard action.

Hmm... it might not be such a good idea then. The battles our DM put us through were generally smaller parts of larger-scale battles. Probably would have drawn a lot of inspiration from Heroes of Battle if he had it. I'd probably just go straight crusader then. Crusaders can't get Iron Heart stuff though. That's a swordsage only discipline right? Or was it a Warblade only discipline?

Glimbur
2009-05-13, 08:56 AM
A melee-oriented Dragon Disciple.


Fighter 4 or Barbarian 4 or whatever 4/ Bard 1/ Dragon Disciple 10/ Whatever 4.

This requires 12 Int and human, or 14 Int, but view that as an excuse to get Combat Expertise and related feats. You'll like tripping with this because DD gets you extra Strength. Or go Dungeoncrasher Fighter.

The other problem is it gives you a pile of cantrips. Save those in case you get kidnapped and de-armored.

Eskil
2009-05-13, 09:11 AM
Damn, and I don't have Dragon Magic. Nuts. :smallsigh:
Well, 3/4 of the Dragonfire Adept (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060912a&page=2) are available free and legal, only missing detail-descriptions for the invocations.

Crusaders can't get Iron Heart stuff though. That's a swordsage only discipline right? Or was it a Warblade only discipline? Warblade only.

Dacia Brabant
2009-05-13, 09:44 AM
Hmm... it might not be such a good idea then. The battles our DM put us through were generally smaller parts of larger-scale battles. Probably would have drawn a lot of inspiration from Heroes of Battle if he had it. I'd probably just go straight crusader then. Crusaders can't get Iron Heart stuff though. That's a swordsage only discipline right? Or was it a Warblade only discipline?

Warblade only, but you can also get access to Iron Heart via Master of Nine or Eternal Blade PrCs, although they do have difficult entry requirements. You could also ask your DM to allow you to replace one or more of your base class's disciplines with Iron Heart, or spend feats on Martial Study and Martial Stance. Or you could look at some of the homebrew ToB rebuilds of core classes that are out there and see if there are any that would work for you.

But a pure 20-level Warblade progression is eminently playable right out of the box, so you don't have to jump through a bunch of optimization hoops to make it work.

Eldariel
2009-05-13, 09:46 AM
Fighter 4 or Barbarian 4 or whatever 4/ Bard 1/ Dragon Disciple 10/ Whatever 4.

This requires 12 Int and human, or 14 Int, but view that as an excuse to get Combat Expertise and related feats. You'll like tripping with this because DD gets you extra Strength. Or go Dungeoncrasher Fighter.

The other problem is it gives you a pile of cantrips. Save those in case you get kidnapped and de-armored.

Better take a level of Sorcerer and get an actually useful 1st level spell (say, Enlarge Person or True Strike).

Glimbur
2009-05-13, 10:40 AM
Better take a level of Sorcerer and get an actually useful 1st level spell (say, Enlarge Person or True Strike).

The problem with that is sorcs only get 2+Int skill points a level, and you need 8 ranks in Know:Arcana to get into Dragon Disciple. The spells aren't a big deal, especially if you plan on wearing armor.

Also, bard gives you proficiency in the whip, and that's all kinds of useful.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-13, 10:52 AM
Warblade only, but you can also get access to Iron Heart via Master of Nine or Eternal Blade PrCs, although they do have difficult entry requirements. You could also ask your DM to allow you to replace one or more of your base class's disciplines with Iron Heart, or spend feats on Martial Study and Martial Stance. Or you could look at some of the homebrew ToB rebuilds of core classes that are out there and see if there are any that would work for you.

But a pure 20-level Warblade progression is eminently playable right out of the box, so you don't have to jump through a bunch of optimization hoops to make it work.

I don't doubt that, but the warblade doesn't fit so well with my dwarven Joan of Arc character. That's more of a "Warrior of God" idea, which is more in line with the Crusader, which has exactly what I want for the character.

The Warblade fits better with that knight idea I had that focuses on "learning how to kill people, making money and getting famous."

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-13, 10:58 AM
Better take a level of Sorcerer and get an actually useful 1st level spell (say, Enlarge Person or True Strike).

Actually the build I was considering for that idea, reccomended by a friend of mine, functions on that very principle.

Fighter 9/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 10, with their main sorcerer spell being True Strike.

Eldariel
2009-05-13, 11:20 AM
The problem with that is sorcs only get 2+Int skill points a level, and you need 8 ranks in Know:Arcana to get into Dragon Disciple. The spells aren't a big deal, especially if you plan on wearing armor.

Also, bard gives you proficiency in the whip, and that's all kinds of useful.

*shrug* Invest some cross-class ranks. I'd rather have access to a large number of Enlarge Person/True Strike/Grease/Silent Image/Ray of Enfeeblement than a dozen cantrips. Hell, there're all kinds of other useful options out of Core - think Benign Transposition, Nerveskitter, Swift Expeditious Retreat, Combat Readiness, Guided Shot, Sniper's Shot, etc.

Basically, I find having useful spells and having to use some of those Barbarian skillpoints on qualifying MUCH preferable to getting no useful spells whatsoever. There are too many good 1st level spells that remain useful all the way to 20 to not want some.


Also, I'd probably dip that second Sorc-level ('cause none of the other levels are too useful either) and pick a second spell known.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-13, 12:08 PM
Like Identify?

Eldariel
2009-05-13, 12:32 PM
Like Identify?

Like another one from the list. Identify really isn't something a fighter-type should spend his spells known on as there're so many spells able to actually augment your fighting ability, and you're like to have a caster capable of Identifying (if it's necessary in the first place; oft-times, Knowledge-checks can do it too).

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-14, 02:10 PM
I see. Actually I'm looking for a character to make for my brother. I'm gonna try and set up a low-magic campaign this summer. He initially wanted to be an elf ranger who used a single sword and sometimes archery, kind of like Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings, but I steered him towards warblade since the ranger really isn't meant for single-weapon fighting, and he wasn't interested in an animal companion anyway. He's fallen in love with the Iron Heart style and wants to use a bastard sword. Is there some way to make a warblade as the kind of archetype he's interested in (a woodsy warrior who uses ranger-like tactics and doesn't rely on magic.) He wants to stay in light armor, by the way, but he's not interested in swordsage because it seems to magical.

Faleldir
2009-05-14, 03:10 PM
I never actually played the game, so don't trust me unless someone else agrees, but I think a Warblade/Scout would work. In your case, you could take Track and Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance to qualify for Highland Stalker instead. There are lots of good low-level and mid-level Warblade maneuvers (Steel Wind, Wolf Fang Strike, Sudden Leap, Mithral Tornado, Pouncing Charge, Dancing Mongoose) that allow multiple Skirmish attacks. Of course, you could probably do more damage with a Warblade 20, but you want flavor as well.

Myrmex
2009-05-14, 07:04 PM
Actually the build I was considering for that idea, reccomended by a friend of mine, functions on that very principle.

Fighter 9/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 10, with their main sorcerer spell being True Strike.

I would do Fighter 6/Warblade3/Sorc1/DD 10. Never end on an odd fighter number. It does nothing for you. Unfortunately, you will end up being a dragon at level 20, which is very weak.

Fighter 6 lets you swap out your bonus feat for Dungeoncrasher which is totally badass and does a ton of damage.

Pick a useful spell, like Nerveskitter (+5 to initiative), for your first level slot. Keep scrolls of identify, a wand of truestrike, and a wand of enlarge person. The latter two wands only cost 750 gp each, and should last you a long time. You can get them built into your glaive with wand chambers from either Dungeonscape or Complete Scoundrel, or maybe Complete Adventurer. It's dirt cheap, whatever the source.

Use your warblade maneuvers & stances to make you better at tripping and battlefield control.

Alternatively, try and convince your DM to let dragon disciple be a prestige class for swordsages, with stone dragon (decent for offense/defense/battlefield control), desert wind (does fire damage), and tiger claw (all about flipping out and killing people) as the disciplines. I would make the first level of dragon disciple allow you to use your chosen dragon heritage elemental damage in place of fire for desert wind maneuvers and stances. So you can do acid, lightning or ice damage instead of fire when using a desert wind maneuver. I would keep it to elemental damage types, so you aren't doing force or sonic damage, which practically nothing has resistance to.

Dacia Brabant
2009-05-14, 11:43 PM
I would do Fighter 6/Warblade3/Sorc1/DD 10. Never end on an odd fighter number. It does nothing for you. Unfortunately, you will end up being a dragon at level 20, which is very weak.

Nothing other than a below-average Int would keep him from going Fighter (or Warblade) 4/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Discipline 10/X 5, which nets him half-dragon at level 15...which is still very weak because DD is a sucky class in anything outside of Neverwinter Nights.

I like your idea of turning DD into a martial adept PrC though, I think it would make it worth taking if it had Warblade initiator progression (+1 maneuver known every odd level, +1 readied every even level, +1 stance every 5 levels) with the disciplines you mention as well as what it already gets. I'd allow Desert Wind's damage type to be changed to whatever the proper type is for the chosen dragon color too.


I think a Warblade/Scout would work. In your case, you could take Track and Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance to qualify for Highland Stalker instead.

It's not a bad idea but you would need to burn another feat on Martial Study for a Shadow Hand maneuver to be able to do this, and this is likely going to be a feat-starved build.

But yeah, a single-classed Warblade is going to have a tough time of it as a wilderness warrior due to the lack of relevant class skills and only getting 4 points per level anyway.

I know Zousha said his brother is put off by Swordsage seeming "too magical" (which is kinda odd, they're more like Monks only better) but that would really be the way to go. More skill points and more class skills that fit the role--you'd really only be missing Survival, but you'd also be pumping your Wis up anyway. It doesn't get Iron Heart though, but what it does get is versatility, which is what a good ranger should have.

And I'm pretty sure that Aragorn used Anduril two-handed at least most of the time, and if you're not dual-wielding or sword-and-boarding it's a waste of a feat to use a bastard sword one-handed with nothing in the off-hand.

DeathQuaker
2009-05-15, 08:48 AM
I'm writing this mainly because I'm noticing a frustrating pattern in the kinds of characters I like to play. Every time I get an interesting concept in mind, I try to make it work and I get told that the concept is based off poor mechanics. The base classes I pick are weak, the almighty caster level dominates all, and most of the prestige classes I think fit the concept are a load of garbage.

I know at this point I will be overlapping with some other stuff that people have already said, but my 2 cents to take or leave:

First, when you "get told" that your concept is poor--is it by people on Character Optimization forums, or by your GM/fellow players? How do your concepts actually play out in real games? I had trouble getting a full sense of that reading the thread.

Here's the thing: CharOp forums can be fun character building exercises, but they tend to take into account actual story telling and gameplay situations that a good, creative GM is going to come up with. I've seen a lot of "Internet-built" characters that would kick ass in a PVP/1-on-1 arena type setting, and who would quickly find themselves all but useless in any decent game where there is more than just combat going on (and-IMHO-by my play preferences, if combat is the only focus in an RPG, then "you're doing it wrong").

While it's important to build a character who will contribute to the party usefully, there is more ways to measure that than what your damage output is. Everyone has a role to play. Questions to ask yourself are

-what is my role in combat? Ranged/melee/attack spells/buff spells/healing/distracting enemies/inspiring allies/etc.etc.etc. Distracting enemies or buffing your friends is a role, a useful role, even if it doesn't result in you yourself killing enemies in one hit.
- How do I contribute to situations like dungeon crawls? Do I find traps, notice things, discuss important arcane or architectural details, keep the paladin and the ranger from fighting while the rogue is checking for traps? All important things.
- How do I contribute to setting-specific situations? Am I friends with the king? Is the king impressed by the holy voices I hear in my head? Do I have friends in high, low, middle, or no places? Etc.
- What other things do I give to the party? Information, a friendly face strangers like to talk to, background knowledge, magic item mastery,

Anyway, the point is, a character who is not optimized may still be contributing valuably to a party. At least in my personal experience, D&D and other RPGs are a cooperative ventures to engage in a story together, not a competition to see who can put the highest modifiers on their character sheets.

And this does NOT mean "gimp your character for roleplaying purposes" (I'm sure OP understands this, but I'm imagining some readers going too fast might jump onto that particular bandwagon). You DO need to plan and focus on your build somewhat, to make sure you can do the things you want to be successful at. You do need to make sure you can at least survive combat and other dangers, and have some role to play in those particular scenarios.

If your players and GM are saying it's a poor concept AND it is proving itself so IN PRACTICE, then work with your GM on doing a little rebuilding to help remove some of the characters' weakness. In this case, it's best to do it this way, because the GM will be able to comment on what will be useful for his/her campaign, which may not be the same as random guy X on the forums.



Why is it that the concepts I want to build just don't work well in practice? Why is it that in order to optimize my character, I have to do things or use combos that just seem ridiculous to me? Why do they all involve books I don't have? The list goes on.

I saw your later epiphany in thread about needing to be flexible and nod enthusiastically along with this. As other have said, don't be restricted by class names and other things. Usually if I have an idea for a character, I think of key things I want the character to do (e.g., "I want her to be charismatic, fast, and hit things with two kukri, and she should be good at underwater basket weaving and know and tell a lot of the tales about her home town), and THEN use the classes and feats available to me to build that as best I can (hmmm... I could make her a rogue or a bard, with a few fighter or ranger levels for her fighting style, with skill points in diplomacy, craft, and perform, and obviously I'll want two weapon fighting).

And I have yet to come up with a concept I couldn't build only with core SRD material. There are some splatbooks that provide classes or feats that make it easier to build certain concepts, but often, I found them quite unnecessary.

Waspinator
2009-05-17, 02:49 AM
About the engineer/inventor idea that was mentioned: it's not something easy to do with Wizards products only. They tended to stay with more "pure" fantasy settings. However, if you go third party, both the Dragonmech and the Warcraft settings have technology systems and associated classes for building various gizmos:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Warcraft_The_Roleplaying_Game
http://www.goodman-games.com/dragonmech.html

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-05-17, 11:34 AM
I see. I'm trying to limit my spending though. My money situation just got a lot tighter when the grocery store I worked at over the summer and holiday seasons didn't want to hire me back.