Commoner as a PC?

[Bookworm702]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

UMD, Magical Aptitude, and Skill Focus: UMD

[Flickerdart]

There are a number of Commoner-only builds (Chicken Infested cheese). Don't let him take flaws.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

It will be hard to keep him alive let alone useful. But it could be fun for all if he plays a duck and cover type of PC.

This lucky (http://d20npcs.wikia.com/wiki/%22Lucky%22_Lyle_Woodaxle) NPC may give you some ideas.

[Guancyto]

Skill Focus (Handle Animal) and whatever the related skill feat is. Flavor-tastic, and it lets him contribute significantly to the party while still remaining a Commoner.

The CharOp boards have an excellent guide to making the most use of Handle Animal, including a listing of the really good pets to get.

[BloodyAngel]

Leadership, Leadership and MORE leadership. Alas, all your followers are ALSO commoners. PEASANT REVOLT!!!!

But seriously. Get a new sheet ready, he'll die or grow bored with that character REAL quick.

[VestigeArcanist]

I concur, when everyone else is getting their spells and class features and such, he will be a detriment to the group after level 2.

But leadership would be good if they were to lead a peasant revolt. I would suppose this person would be heavy in RP and flavor.

[Bookworm702]

So it looks like if we mesh all these things together, we have a commoner with leadership that would be able to command other commoners, acting as support, information gatherers, and emergency fighters. In combat, he would use handle animal checks to command a few pets as well as use magic device for wands, rods, etc. If we put all these things together, it's starting to look like he might actually be able to moderately contribute to the party. Amazing! :smallbiggrin:

[VestigeArcanist]

If we put all these things together, it's starting to look like he might actually be able to moderately contribute to the party. Amazing! :smallbiggrin:

Mediocrely contribute, not moderately contribute. A single Fighter at the same level will probably be able to slaughter the whole bunch of them.

Also,


one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training.

Actually the ones who fight evil do largely have the benefit pf good combat training because the ones who don't, die very very quickly. What that person is thinking is an ordinary person being pushed into extraordinary circumstances. And they with a lot of luck, they are able to evade and run away from evil, not fight it head to head.

[Tengu_temp]

Can't he be an expert? At least he'd make a decent skill monkey. And, if you ask me, everyone with some level of education/training is at least an expert anyway - commoner is a class meant for children, old and crippled people, beggars, starving dirt-farming peasants and total inepts.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Have him PrC out ASAP. I like Survivor for this, as he can get it at level 2, and it fits for what he did the previous level.

[Devils_Advocate]

Commoner isn't a class for someone who lacks combat training in particular; it's a class for someone who lacks training in general, and also doesn't have all that much in the way of natural talent. You could as easily play a Fighter or Sorcerer or Psion or Barbarian or Rogue or whatever with a natural aptitude for whatever that he has yet to discover. That makes about as much sense as starting a Commoner and then leveling in a PC class.

I think that you can go right into Survivor after one level of Commoner, and that Commoner is the only class that lets you do that. You could also keep leveling in Commoner, but of course that means falling further behind the power curve.

As others have pointed out, if an untrained guy goes off to fight the forces of Evil, his natural story role is to die (thereby illustrating how dangerous the forces of Evil are to ordinary people). Which isn't necessarily a bad role for a PC, so long as the player has a backup character ready.

I'd recommend not trying to force his survival or inclusion in the group. And then if he can manage to do well as a Commoner, hey, great; but if not, time for a new character.

If you want the character to be able to grow into more normal PC, make him an Expert instead of a Commoner, and have him pick class skills from the skill lists of appropriate classes like Rogue, Bard, Ranger, ect. Then let him upgrade his levels to PC class levels later.

[Kosjsjach]

Forgive me if this seems a bit off-track, but I felt it applied.

I remember reading over at The Gaming Den forums (http://tgdmb.com/) that a popular idea was to just remove the Commoner class, and instead use empty levels of humanoid (which can later be replaced with class levels if the need arises).

Empty humanoid (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typessubtypes.htm#humanoidType) differs from Commoner in three main respects:
d8 HD (instead of d4),
one good save (instead of none), and
3/4 BAB (instead of 1/2).
Skill points stay at 2+Int, though there are no class skills listed (I'd suggest using the regular commoner skill list).

In the end, this "empty" version makes commoners more durable, but just as blank. It also just makes sense.

Please forgive my tangent.

[Chronos]

I homebrewed a new class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98922) for this a while back. It's still not quite up to snuff, but it's a heck of a lot better than the NPC class.

[Hat-Trick]

I like that Humanoid idea, go with that. It seems like a good idea to me, keeps the feel with better survivability.

[Saph]

I remember reading a link a while back to a thread on the WotC boards where someone actually played a commoner in a solo campaign. I think he was called Joe.

He dealt with threats such as wandering monsters (a fox) calming an enraged runaway beast (a horse) and trying to make enough silver pieces to stay alive.

It actually made for a brilliant campaign journal. I wonder where it was . . .

- Saph

[Curmudgeon]

You don't want a Commoner. That's someone who's ill-suited to adventuring. If you want someone without class training, but with a chance of surviving, try a racial paragon instead.

[SilverClawShift]

He dealt with threats such as wandering monsters (a fox) calming an enraged runaway beast (a horse) and trying to make enough silver pieces to stay alive.

My group did a campaign like that a few years back, in our earlier gaming careers. Our DM wanted us to do it to help divorce our roleplaying from the mechanics of the game itself (he wanted to make us get into our characters and get creative).
It was a resounding sucess. An aristocrat, a warrior, and two experts. We wound up capturing an escaped dire tiger that was cornered in a mansion and stuff like that. The highlight of the campaign being when we squared off against a dread necromancer with an army of skeletons and WON with geurilla tactics and taking advantage of the skeletons mindlessness.

I think it's good to avoid getting roped up in "What are my characters class features compared to others?" in favor of "What can my character actually DO here?".
That said, I'll still play a sorcerer over a commoner any day of the week :smalltongue:

[Gaiyamato]

If the campaign is a little location static then he could be a merchant running a business using the rules from the DMG II. Combined with leadership he would provide a lot fo extra gold and followers to the group. He could give out low interest loans to the other PCs so they could buff even more.
No good in a fight, but a really useful guy to know.

But then that is filling the roll of an NPC more and a PC less. At higher levels he probably won't even bother to go adventuring.
I would have him multi-class into the generic PC Expert class later on to reflect his gorwing expertise and the extra feats would be really useful.

His leadership npcs could also be useful as commoners, he could run some factories or farms. Gradually arm some as militia. At level 9 with the landlord feat he could build a town.

:)

I've run all commoner games before. Works much better if you allow them to use the re-training rules.

[Draz74]

I remember reading a link a while back to a thread on the WotC boards where someone actually played a commoner in a solo campaign. I think he was called Joe.

He dealt with threats such as wandering monsters (a fox) calming an enraged runaway beast (a horse) and trying to make enough silver pieces to stay alive.

It actually made for a brilliant campaign journal. I wonder where it was . . .

- Saph

You wouldn't be thinking of this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=763260&page=61), would you? (Still going, too.)

[Saph]

You wouldn't be thinking of this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=763260&page=61), would you? (Still going, too.)

That's it! Cool, it's still going? I think I'm going to go catch up.

- Saph

[bosssmiley]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

Commoner is not a real class. It is a bad idea that the editors didn't stamp on hard enough.

Have the player roll up three or four commoner characters. Rightfully, they will die like flies and need replacing rapidly. He will learn the hard way why it is that people with PC classes are adventurers, whereas commoners are not. :smallamused:

@v: I have read it. It's a good self-imposed challenge, c'est ne pas D&D.

[Saph]

Commoner is not a real class. It is a bad idea that the editors didn't stamp on hard enough.

Clearly, you haven't read the adventures of Joe Wood, Commoner (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=763260). Go and be amazed.

(Yes, seriously. It's a commoner campaign, has been running for more than fifty sessions, and has a devoted Internet following.)

- Saph

[Quietus]

That's it! Cool, it's still going? I think I'm going to go catch up.

- Saph

I, too, sunk a couple hours into updating myself with regard to the tale of Joe Wood. It pleases me to see that it's still going. :smallsmile:

[TheOOB]

Once you start adventuring, you stop being a commoner rear wuick.

[Haven]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

Why would you not obtain training before going off to fight evil? Even if you don't, you definitely should have some special skill or talent. I think the way to make his character concept would be a newly-awakened sorcerer or psion who's just growing into their new abilities.

Failing that, they could take their first three levels human paragon, which I'd argue would make them even more of an adventuring Everyman than a commoner. If they do this, I'd allow those latter two levels to stack with levels in whatever their next class is for spellcasting purposes.

Oh well. If they insist on sticking with the Commoner class, you should given them the option to take the "Chicken Infested" flaw, because that is one of my favorite things from D&D that doesn't really get a lot of play. :P

[Omegonthesane]

Why would you not obtain training before going off to fight evil? Even if you don't, you definitely should have some special skill or talent. I think the way to make his character concept would be a newly-awakened sorcerer or psion who's just growing into their new abilities.
Say you've just lost your home, your family, have nothing to go back to except revenge. You're probably not going to spend too long on training before trying to do something, since you have nowhere else to go. That said I agree, if you aren't going to be a psion/wilder/sorcerer/something else (not in the sense of multiclassing you understand) then I'd do a homebrew class, possibly based off buffing and reflavouring the Aristocrat or the Humanoid creature type. At least one such class was already linkeded.

Or you could play an Expert, because by definition an Expert is a little exceptional. The big thing is, you'd need a lower CR for such NPC levels because they're intentionally designed to be wimps who can't stand up to real heroes.

[Gaiyamato]

Ok, gone over the infested chicken builds and they are all flawed to a degree.

Here is why:



Chicken Infested

Whenever you draw a weapon or pull and item out of a container, you have a 50% chance of drawing a live chicken instead. No we don't know where the chickens come from; it's your character.


Firstly you require something to be able to draw or pull out to begin with.
Should you fail to draw a chicken you draw the intended object, no longer having anything to attempt to draw. So you cannot gain infinite chickens unless you prepare before hand.
Meaning that all of these builds fail unless you include a couple more details.

So it is hardly cheese. :P
That said it is amusing.

Also the necromantic chickens works slightly better when you think about it.

Human
Commoner 1/Dread Necromancer 6
Flaw: Chicken Infested
Flaw: Shaky
Level 1: Tomb Tainted Soul
Human: Corpse Crafter
Flaw: Destruction Retribution
Flaw: Quickdraw
Level 3: Versatile Spellcaster
Level 6: Nimble Bones

Fill a small bag/pouch with tiny pebbles or beads.
When you get into battle as a free action draw all of the pebbles/beads from the bag and drop them on the ground. You will get a bonus chicken 50% of the time. Solve your chicken problem by activating your negative energy burst. Make sure to stop drawing chickens when you have enough or else you might make a bit of a mess. The chickens will all be within 5 feet of you as they have not had a move action yet. As these are instantaneous free actions they are all automatically slain (you deal 6D4 damage to creatures with 1 hp).
Once you run out of chickens cast animate dead as your action. Turn them into zombies. Note: Chicken zombies have limited flight!
Order them to all attack your enemy.
Spend your next action picking up your pebbles and putting them back into your pouch/bag.
Repeat if needed.. or just summon some slightly more useful undead.

They will fail and gradually die. But not before they deal a LOT of negative energy damage to the target.
If you have suffered damage stand close by in order to heal.

Your suicide chicken army may be pre-prepared for battle ahead of time. Though really why bother?

At higher levels make wight chickens instead.
Yes.. that is right exploding wight chickens that if they actually get a kill turn the target into a useful wight that you can rebuke and keep for your own.

Once you can make wight chickens go and find an unprotected village or hamlet and make a real army.

[Curmudgeon]

Fill a small bag/pouch with tiny pebbles or beads.
When you get into battle as a free action draw all of the pebbles/beads from the bag and drop them on the ground. Stop right there: I call shenanigans!
In most cases, moving or manipulating an item is a move action.

This includes retrieving or putting away a stored item
Dropping an item in your space or into an adjacent square is a free action. Dropping things is free. Drawing them out of a bag isn't.

[Flickerdart]

It is a free action to draw material components from a bag intended for storage thereof. It is a free action to drop said material components. Half of them turn into chickens. You see where I'm going with this?

[mistformsquirrl]

Possible recommendation:

Have them start as a commoner, but begin to pick up combat abilities later on - normally you'd just multiclass when that happens, but in this case, retraining might be a good idea.

(Ex: By level 4, he's got enough idea of what he's doing to qualify as having a fighter level or two. So he takes a fighter level as his 4th level, and another as a retraining level, leaving him at Commoner 2/Fighter 2; then at 5th level he gains another fighter level, and then another fighter level from his Commoner levels - going to Commoner 1, Fighter 4, finally becoming a full fledged 6th level fighter at level 6.)

It'd essentially be an organically grown character.

The only problems are...

Keeping him alive long enough to take PC levels...

Roleplaying training... (Fighter and Barbarian are both probably straightforward enough that spending a good amount of time in combat could do it over time. I doubt you'd pick up Wizard that way though)

If I were the DM that's the path I'd set the player on, as going straight Commoner for the long term strikes me as poor for both gameplay and RP.

After so long adventuring, that commoner is bound to gain some levels in something other than being a commoner... you just can't spend that much time walking through trapfilled dungeons and fighting without picking something up >.< well, unless your incompetent.

So that's how I'd handle it; though obviously there are other ways to do it, especially if he's comic relief.

[MountainKing]

Uh, isn't that what Quick Draw is for? :smallconfused: In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why he's got Quick Draw.

[Gaiyamato]

It is a free action to draw material components from a bag intended for storage thereof. It is a free action to drop said material components. Half of them turn into chickens. You see where I'm going with this?

This.

I took quick draw in case I wanted to throw some pebbles. lol.
Strictly not even needed.

You could use the feat used for quick draw and nimble bones to get lich loved instead and then not even bother controlling the chickens.
Just walk through town making undead chickens and seeing what amusing antics they get up to.

Here is side idea for you: Awaken undead on a zombie chicken.

:D

[Curmudgeon]

It is a free action to draw material components from a bag intended for storage thereof. Says who? This is all I could find in the rules about material components, and the term free action isn't used:
Material (M): A material component is one or more physical substances or objects that are annihilated by the spell energies in the casting process. Unless a cost is given for a material component, the cost is negligible. Don’t bother to keep track of material components with negligible cost. Assume you have all you need as long as you have your spell component pouch.

[daggaz]

As a DM I would step all over this, even tho the build is amusing as hell.

When you reach in to grab a handful of pebbles, you are reaching in for something. "A handful of pebbles." Although physically it is a collection of many things, efectively it is a single item or object. What you get with the chicken infested flaw instead of the handful of X, half the time, is a chicken.

So 50% of the time, you toss pebbles at your enemies. 50% of the time, its a chicken.

The chicken comes out of your bag. It does not mysteriously appear out of thin air when you open your hand. The whole mystery is where all the chickens are coming from from inside of your bag, as on inspection, you probably dont have that many chickens on your person. (You are chicken infested after all, its not entirely unlikely that visual inspection reveals a few chickens :smallamused:). Is there some unseen portal inside the hem of your ragged leather backpack which leads to the plane of chickens? Is it a onesided gate? Or is there some strange fey playing a very odd trick on your character
? The world will simply never know. Hope you like chicken.

Honestly, what would you do if the player had actually been a bit more clever, and instead of merely drawing pebbles, drew sand? Or a finely ground powder, like flour milled into dust? The feat is only broken when the DM is bad enough to let each molecule of dust to count as an individual object, when in fact, they were pulled at the same time, and it is the _action_ of pulling an object which triggers the flaw.

[Gaiyamato]

For a semi serious attempt at pure commoner:

Human
Level 1: Commoner 1
Level 1: Negotiatior
Human: Skill Focus (Profession(any))
Flaw: Business Savvy
Flaw: Mercantile Background (FR version)
Level 2: Commoner 2
Level 3: Commoner 3
Level 3: Item Familiar (invest every last exp and skill point into it.)
Level 4: Commoner 4
Level 5: Commoner 5
Level 6: Commoner 6
Level 6: Leadership
Level 7: Commoner 7
Level 8: Commoner 8
Level 9: Commoner 9
Level 9: Landlord
Level 10:Commoner 10
Level 11:Commoner 11
Level 12:Commoner 12
Level 12: Rulership
Level 13:Commoner 13
Level 14:Commoner 14
Level 15:Commoner 15
Level 15: Fanatical Devotion
Level 16:Commoner 16
Level 17:Commoner 17
Level 18:Commoner 18
Level 18: Extra Followers
Level 19:Commoner 19
Level 20:Commoner 20
Level 21:Commoner 21 (yes epic commoner)
Level 21: Epic Leadership

Highest stat should be WIS, followed by CHA, followed by INT, followed by DEX, followed by CON. STR is your primary dump stat.

At level 1 purchase a sleep arrow for 99gp.

For your business find the largest city you can (for maximum bonus) and make a farm just outside of it.
As a commoner you can easily justify starting with this farm and the initial business for free. If not then we need to try tactic #2 (see far below)

A farm has low capital, low risk and low resources giving awesome bonuses and little chance of bankruptcy. Farm wheat.
Hire an expert with Skill focus - profession(farmer) and skill focus - knowledge(nature). These people come under untrained hireling becase they are farmers/manual labourers. they cost 1sp per day.
This gives you +3 to profit/loss rolls. For each hireling of this sort.
Join the local farmers guild

You now have:
+1 for member of a guild.
+2 for spending 40 or more hours per week working on business.
+2 for business savvy feat.
+4 for metrolpolis (hopefully).
+1 for a low resource business
+1 for a low risk business.
+2 for each hired specialist (hire 1 at a cost of 10gp per month)
+4 for ranks in profession(farmer)
+4 for WIS bonus
+3 for skill focus

total: 24
Profit check at level 1: ((1D20+24)-25)*5 -10 gp per month

At level 1 it comes down to the dice roll.
To break even you really need to roll 3 on the check.
Any number higher is a profit.
Take 10 on the rolls until you get to level 3 or higher. Then you can afford to risk it.

This is without risk to your health. Like adventuring is.
Each level add one to your profession skill and you get a free bonus to the roll!

Every 4 levels add 1 to your wisdom.

----------

Use the arrow as item familiar. You do not actually need to be able to use this item at all. You merely need to own it and bond with it. Make a special case for it and keep it closed. That is more than enough for it to be an item familiar. Also the arrow can be of any size. Make it tiny and place it on a chain around your kneck.

-----------

Use DMGII rules for gaining XP through running your busines on a daily basis including business events. you will gain profit result x 5 xp per month for free.
Invest every last scrap of this into your familiar. Really, what do you have to lose? This is then aplified by 10% from level 3 onwards for nothing.

When you get to level 6 and gain leadership use the teamwork rules to get a team spirit.
Make sure that every low level follower has profession(farmer), except for a few who are profession(cook), every level 2 follower has profession(shopkeeper), profession(baker) or profession(butcher). Make all of your highest level followers with profession (Bookkeeper).

Use some of your farmers on growing wheat, and a tiny amount growing potatos. Expand the wheat production as much as possible. Use the rest of your farmers to produce cattle. The wheat farm seels the wheat cut-offs and left overs on the cheap to the cattle farm.
Use Set up a butchers shop just inside the city. Butcher all of your cows here. Make sure the cattle farm sells the cattle to your butcher on the cheap (just above wholesale). Your wheat farm and cattle farm will only make tiny profits. Your butcher then sells most of the meat to the shopkeeper on the cheap. Your wheat farms sell most of the wheat to the baker on the cheap who in turn sells most of the bread buns he bakes to the shopkeeper. The potato farmers sell all of their potatoes to the shopkeeper.
the shopkeeper makes hamburgers and sells them to the populous.

Call it McJoes.

Now we take most of the profits from these businesses and invest it into your own bank run by your profession(bookkeeper) commoners.
You then loan money to only the wealthiest nobles at a good return.
Start pumping your profession skill points into profession(bookkeeper) as well and assist this section of the business.
It should make a good profit with your bonuses.

Use the team spirit training option to eneable everyone on your leadership roster to communicate at will as if using message spell.

At level 9 get the landlord feat. Start purchasnig the properties your businesses run from and charge virtually no rent. Another big bonus for every business and as your landlord gold is free it costs you nothing other than a feat. You get extra income for nothing.
Reinvest any spare cash you have unril you own all of the premises.

Once you have that gather all of your gold and save it.

At level 12 you get your own town. Pay a whole bunch of commoners to move to your town and rent out the houses. Use your landlord gold and any gold you have saved to create branches of all of your businesses in this new town. You also now have a title and can legally collect taxes.
Your businesses will attract a lot of merchants. Make sure to sell them houses at decent prices and tax them. Tax your own business. It is included as an expense in the DMGII rules, so it costs your businesses nothing but gives you free income.

You are now earning tens of thousands of gold per month.
You are a noble, you are earning free gold for construction.
Anything you spend on construction out of your own money is doubled.

Build a castle.

From there begin to expand your McJoes thrugh the entire kingdom.. even beyond.
Pull in favours from the nobles and merchants who owe you money to monopolise markets where-ever possible.

Build castles and hire guard in every town you can afford too.
Eventually you should be more powerful than the King himself.


Option #2:

DM insists on you paying for your starting business?
Well that makes it much much harder.

It is entirely up to your DM how much gold you start with.
But we shall presume 100. That gives you 400 total from level 1.
This is not even enough to start a farm in the middle of the wilderness.

So we need to take out a loan!

The best business to start with using this method is money lender.
It has a medium risk which potentially gives us much faster returns in place of very little penalties, but no bonuses.
Ironically we need to borrow money from a potential rival. Try and do it in another city.. >.>

You are goign to need to borrow 36,600gp.
But you now own a medium sized house(why?? I could run a money lender from a back alley for nothing!) and have 32,000gp to lend to people.

Hire some helpers. More the better. A +2 to the roll equates to 40gp extra with a money lender.
The second helper is not worth it except at lower levels to get the ball rolling.
Get three of them this time.

As before:
You now have:
+1 for member of a guild.
+2 for spending 40 or more hours per week working on business.
+2 for business savvy feat.
+4 for metrolpolis.
+2 for each hired specialist (hire 3 at a cost of 60gp per month) -> +6
+4 for ranks in profession(bookkeepr)
+4 for WIS bonus
+3 for skill focus

total: 26
Profit check at level 1: ((1D20+26)-25)*20 -60 gp per month
A roll of 2 breaks even.
Anything higher is profit.
Pay back your loan asap. Save up for a sleep arrow. Should have one by the end of the first month, second at worst case. As before, use this as your item familiar when you get to level 3.

An average year (12 rolls) if you take 10 on every roll you make 1680gp per year profit. So only do this for the first level. At level 2 a roll of 1 breaks even and an average roll should do you fine. If your previous month was a break even then take 10 to garuntee some profit.
Remember taking 10 in a month will earn you 700xp.
After 2 months, even without events, you will level up.

If you can get your diplomacy and appraise up to level 5 each you gain an extra +1. I would not bother.

Once you have your loan paid off start investing in other areas and follow the steps for the farming option above and take over the world.

-----------------------

An idea is to have a party of commoners.
4 players with mercantile get a free 1200gp.
The "Owner" takes business savvy and the others assist as partner for a total of +8 to profit/loss rolls for free.
If you go this road try out a more risky business.

Start a shop. Buy and sell anything. It does not matter. Everything comes down to the profit/loss roll.

A shop:

+1 for member of a guild.
+2 for spending 40 or more hours per week working on business.
+2 for business savvy feat.
+4 for metrolpolis.
+2 for each business partner who assists -> +6
+2 for each hired specialist (hire 5 at a cost of 250gp per month) -> +10
+1 for low resource
+4 for ranks in profession(shopkeeper)
+4 for WIS bonus
+3 for skill focus
-4 for high risk

total: 29
Profit check at level 1: ((1D20+29)-25)*50 -250 gp per month

A roll of 1 breaks even.
Take 10 and make 450gp profit for the month.
Gain a level as well.

:)

This works for any option also.

[Gaiyamato]

Says who? This is all I could find in the rules about material components, and the term free action isn't used:

It is a free action to remove anything from an accessible pouch or container for any reason, cois or spell components.
There are a lot of broken builds that work on this concept.

If mages had to make a move action to draw a spell component then they would really begin to quickly suck. Hrrmm.. good idea for an easy wizard nerf actually. Though eschew materials gets around that far too easily. :(
*bans eschew materials*

I am not sure where it is mentioned. It is hard enough to find most things in all these books. Let alone a single silly rule like that.
But it is in there somewhere.
Keep looknig and you will find it. Or someone else might.


As a DM I would step all over this, even tho the build is amusing as hell.

When you reach in to grab a handful of pebbles, you are reaching in for something. "A handful of pebbles." Although physically it is a collection of many things, efectively it is a single item or object. What you get with the chicken infested flaw instead of the handful of X, half the time, is a chicken.

So 50% of the time, you toss pebbles at your enemies. 50% of the time, its a chicken.
No, you reach in for a single pebble. You may do this infinite times.
Just on pebble at a time.
Lets say we buy an empty pouch and place 500 tiny pebbles into it.
We now have 500 potential chances for chickens. Giving us an average of 250 chickens.

But I get what your doing.
It is a valid nerf. One single exploding chicken is harmless.



The chicken comes out of your bag. It does not mysteriously appear out of thin air when you open your hand.
If you read the flaw a chicken pops out of nowhere in your hand as you draw the item out of the bag and the original item is still in the bag.
Semantics.. matters little really.



The whole mystery is where all the chickens are coming from from inside of your bag, as on inspection, you probably dont have that many chickens on your person. (You are chicken infested after all, its not entirely unlikely that visual inspection reveals a few chickens :smallamused:). Is there some unseen portal inside the hem of your ragged leather backpack which leads to the plane of chickens? Is it a onesided gate? Or is there some strange fey playing a very odd trick on your character
? The world will simply never know. Hope you like chicken.
Indeed. :D



Honestly, what would you do if the player had actually been a bit more clever, and instead of merely drawing pebbles, drew sand? Or a finely ground powder, like flour milled into dust? The feat is only broken when the DM is bad enough to let each molecule of dust to count as an individual object, when in fact, they were pulled at the same time, and it is the _action_ of pulling an object which triggers the flaw.

Well you can only make so many chicken zombies and you cannot draw out individual grains.
The trick only works with things you can draw out one at a time. Else single getting one handful of sand only creates one check for the chicken.
Which is useless.

Pretty glass beads works best perhaps.

But yes you are correct.

[Irreverent Fool]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

Just thought I'd remind y'all what the OP's original question was since it seems to have been interpreted as 'how should I stop him since this is obviously a sub-optimal choice and his choice to play a commoner must stem from some twisted understanding of the rules'.

Don't even mention chicken-infested to him. It's silly.

As for Gaiyamato's suggestion, commoners don't start with farms. They work for the guys that start with farms. Also, the DMGII business rules make us sad. This is why the Economicon (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=9483527&postcount=5) was written. Beautiful build though.

As a serious suggestion for someone who wants to play a commoner, the basic feats in the PHB (or SRD if you prefer) should be given a good look. I once tried to start a campaign as a commoner with a high charisma, full ranks in handle animal, and skill focus: handle animal. The character had a pair of trained hunting dogs which helped him earn his living and weren't too shabby in a fight at level 1. The DM vetoed it. He didn't want me to play a commoner. Jerk. (I made a feral half-minotaur raptoran refluffed as a demon bound to the prime material plane instead. Muahaha.)

Simple feats such as armor and weapon proficiencies are good. Tower shield proficiency will let him turn himself into mobile cover and keep him out of harm's way until someone sunders the shield. If he lives long enough to get his fort high enough, he can take improved toughness which will be quite a boon to that 1d4 hp per level. Diehard would be amusing.

Assuming he 'trains' and 'survives', he should certainly be offered the option to retrain his commoner levels but I don't see why he should be forced into it or how he'll be any more of a hinderance on the party than any other non-caster. Heck, he could even take martial study and learn a Tome of Battle maneuver and have something more interesting to do in combat than a single-classed fighter with power attack. (How many points will he take off his BAB THIS TIME? Stay tuned!)

So yeah. Handle animal. Dogs. Maybe a pony. I always wanted a pony.

obnoxious
sig

[Mr.Bookworm]

Firstly you require something to be able to draw or pull out to begin with.
Should you fail to draw a chicken you draw the intended object, no longer having anything to attempt to draw. So you cannot gain infinite chickens unless you prepare before hand.
Meaning that all of these builds fail unless you include a couple more details.


Actually, drawing from a spell component pouch is a free action. Therefore, you draw something as a free action. If it's not a chicken, you can drop it as a free action too. Repeat unto infinity.

EDIT: And ninja'd unto hell.

On the matter at hand, this is one of the few cases where I'd allow Leadership. Take Survivor and Human Paragon levels, and you could probably do okay. Maybe upgrade his Commoner HD to d6 or d8?

[Coidzor]

What is the source of Survivor, anyway? This is the first I've heard of it.

Unfortunately I don't have much to offer beyond either just telling him no or offering him one of the alternatives suggested here...

If he really wants to try out the whole "untrained idjits thrown into the thick of things" bit, maybe try the variant rules for apprentice characters to remind them of why level 1 is to be treasured rather than scorned?

[hamishspence]

Savage Species.

[Gaiyamato]

Ok.. well what about this:


Halfling
Chose shortspear as a commoner weapon proficiency.
Level 1: Commoner 1
Level 1: Sheild proficiency
Flaw: Tower Shield Proficiency
Flaw: Armor proficiency (light)
Level 2: Commoner 2
Level 3: Commoner 3
Level 3: Phalanx Fighting
Level 4: Commoner 4
Level 5: Commoner 5
Level 6: Commoner 6
Level 6: Leadership
Level 7: Commoner 7
Level 8: Commoner 8
Level 9: Commoner 9:
Level 9: Swarmfighting

OR


Human
Level 1: Commoner 1
Level 1: Seventh son of a seventh son[GENERAL]
Human: Wild Talent[PSIONIC]
Flaw: Psicrystal affinity[PSIONIC]
Flaw: Mercantile Background[GENERAL]
Level 2: Commoner 2
Level 3: Commoner 3
Level 3: Psionic Body[PSIONIC]
Level 4: Commoner 4
Level 5: Commoner 5
Level 6: Commoner 6
Level 6: Practised Manifester[PSIONIC] (Manifester level becomes 5)
Level 7: Commoner 7
Level 8: Commoner 8
Level 9: Commoner 9
Level 9: Expanded Knowledge[PSIONIC] (Energy Ray)

Or go for a Human Chameleon (Races of destinty) the commoner gets spellcasting abilities then.

yeah.. lets leave that there.
I would discourage him from such a route as it is worse than anything else I can imagine.

If he wants to do things the hard way let him be a standard non-multiclas fighter.

EDIT:
ROFL!!!



The rules presented in the DMG2 for running a business make us very sad. Apparently the best way to make money is to run a shop out of a shack in the woods and pour money into it until noble djinni are teleporting to your door to hand over large gems for whatever the heck it is that you're selling.



Rome had steam engines. Actual difference engines that propelled a metal device with the power of a combustion reaction through the medium of the expansion of heated water. Really. They never built rail roads because slaves were cheaper than donkeys and the concept of investing in labor saving devices was preposterous.

This is actually true. :P