[3.5] Multiclass or Prestige Class for Venerable melee character?

[Unoriginal]

Hello, everyone.

I haven't seriously interacted with the 3.5 ruleset for more than a decade and half, but I got that question lodged in the ol' nogging and I figured you would be the best persons to ask.

Imagine an human adventurer who was one of the main melee combatants of his party while in his prime, and who retired from questing at around level 15-ish after the quest was finished.

Now it's more than half a century later, and he's an old man in the Venerable age category, but circumstances are pushing him back into action. Maybe youngsters need his help, or an old foe is targetting him personally, or any other possibility, the fact is that staying safe and letting others protect him just wouldn't work.

With that context, my question is: if this old man was to level up, which class or prestige class would work the best with the melee combatant role, considering the massive age penalty on his physical stats and the not-so-massive boost on his mental ones?

[Paragon]

You're looking for classes able to add Mental stats to melee fighting imo.
Shiba Protector could fit the bill as could many cleric PrCs such as Ordained Champion. Having access to Divine Power and the likes can help too.

Intuive attack (feat).
Warblade 7 has Int to dmg iirc
Swashbuckler
Factotum

The X stat to Y bonus thread should help a ton

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Either add (or replace) your physical stats with your mental stats (see above), or just find a way to replace your physical stats. This includes altering your physical age.

Races of the Dragon's dragonborn of Bahamut template has the following:

Age: After a dragonborn underoes the Rite of Rebirth, she emerges as an adult creature regardless of her previous age. If she lives for 200 years, she enters middle age.

You may also want to look into adding the Mulhorandi divine minion template (found here) and start taking levels in wild shape PrCs to replace your physical stats outright with other ones.

Alternatively, pay for a casting of polymorph any object to a form with excellent physical stats (as well as Intelligence).

[Unoriginal]

You're looking for classes able to add Mental stats to melee fighting imo.
Shiba Protector could fit the bill as could many cleric PrCs such as Ordained Champion. Having access to Divine Power and the likes can help too.

Intuive attack (feat).
Warblade 7 has Int to dmg iirc
Swashbuckler
Factotum

The X stat to Y bonus thread should help a ton

This is great advice, thank you!

[Darg]

Something to also consider is that you can have polymorph any object cast to return them to their younger form as a permanent effect. If you find a dweomerkeeper willing to cast it, even better.

[Inevitability]

A Swordsage with Intuitive Attack can work as purely wisdom-based melee really well.

[Biggus]

This reminds me of Cohen the Barbarian from the Discworld, I've often suspected that he was created in part as a parody of the fact that a 20th-level Barbarian who's 90 years old is still roughly as strong a combatant as a 17th-level one who's 30.

With a Furious weapon (OA) and the Reckless Rage feat (RoS) a level 11+ Barbarian can get +10 to Str and Con in rage...

[Unoriginal]

I've often suspected that he was created in part as a parody of the fact that a 20th-level Barbarian who's 90 years old is still roughly as strong a combatant as a 17th-level one who's 30.

That is quite unlikely, given the book in which Cohen first appears was published in 1986.

[Soranar]

I would go for a wildshape ranger

turn into a legendary ape (30 STR, 17 DEX) medium animal
it's human enough that you can wield weapons and don armor after you've changed and it fixes your physical stats (except for CON obviously)

you need 14 levels of ranger to get everything you need

you can dip shiba protector to get WIS to hit and damage

then I'd take 2 levels of swordsage to get WIS to AC while wearing light armor and a bunch of high level abilities

[pabelfly]

A few observations:

Advancing by three age categories is a -3 to your STR, DEX and CON, and +3 to INT, WIS and CHA. Depending if your scores are odd or even, that's either a - 1 or -2 to your physical stats and a +1 or +2 to your mental stats. It's not an optimal stat change, sure, but it's not terrible either. You could work with this debuff with your original build concept if you really wanted, is all I'm saying.

This seems like a general question, but the specifics of the class picked actually matter. I wouldn't suddenly change from a Swordsage 14 build to anything other than Swordsage 15 unless I was using a Tome of Battle prestige class. I wouldn't change from other melee classes like Psychic Warrior, Totemist, and so forth, either - giving up the extra abilities would be too much a loss, for example.

Prestige classes usually require some planning in advance. Someone mentioend Shiba Protector, which gives WIS to Attack and Damage rolls with just one level. Seems like a great answer, right? But you need the feats Alertness, Expertise, and Iron Will on your build, and you need to be a Phoenix Clan Human. You won't have all of those prereqs unless you planned your build from level 1. 3e is largely unfriendly to unplanned multiclassing, especially into prestige classes.

So, to answer the question: I'd actually stick with the original class and build. I think it would be an interesting character still trying his best as a martial, even in old age. He's slightly less accurate and slightly less powerful than in his prime, but he's a bit wiser, gets more skill points, and is slightly better at social manipulation than he was when he was younger. And maybe you can find some X stat to Y stuff to add to the build, depending on the weak points of the build and what needed fixing.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Advancing by three age categories is a -3 to your STR, DEX and CON, and +3 to INT, WIS and CHA.

Sorry, but you gain a -6 to physical stats. It's -1 for the first, -2 for the second, and -3 for the third for a total of (-1) + (-2) + (-3) = -6.

1. At middle age, -1 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
2. At old age, -2 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
3. At venerable age, -3 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.

Getting old sucks.

[Unoriginal]

Sorry, but you gain a -6 to physical stats. It's -1 for the first, -2 for the second, and -3 for the third for a total of (-1) + (-2) + (-3) = -6.



Getting old sucks.

Aye. -3 to three stats is manageable, -6 is massive.

In any case, thank you everyone, I found my answer.è