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lsfreak
2009-07-01, 06:15 PM
First, walloftextcritsyoufordead. Thanks to anyone who spends the time to read and respond. Also, this is 3.5e, and every source is open, including homebrew if I okay it.

I'm going to start DM'ing my first game some time in the next month, most likely. To preface, I joined this group about 6 months ago, while they've known each other for... 10 or 15 years, so I'm the newbie. I frequent the boards and hold to the mindset that good roleplaying means good optimization, and that you start with a concept and build your classes around that, and if you end up with 10 classes over 20 levels, great, you've hopefully got a powerful character and unavoidably have some excellent background. I never make a character without building it to level 20, adjusting if needed as the campaign goes on.

The other players... do not. One of the characters I'm playing currently is a rogue4/fighter1/assassin5/swordsage1, which I'm pretty sure is more classes than they've ever seen on a single character. My warblade smashes encounters (well, at least individual enemies) with the simple combination of Power Attack and a 15-20 crit range, and the group seems reluctant to accept that's normal melee stuff and not "overpowered warblade stuff." I'm probably going to have to threshold myself so that the guys they come up against don't smash them.

I don't want to push them into too much because I already convinced them to accept 4 pages of houserules (mostly to bring melee up; shields are better, TWF'ing is one feat, etc). They like leveling a lot ("if you're making everything more powerful, why not just start us at 10 so we can do all kinds of cool stuff?"), and for the most part tend to be pretty unattached to their characters (oh well he died, pull out another sheet). They also seem to like to build classes, rather than concepts, though one the guys is definitely excused because he lacks any books except the PHB and lacks the internet to obtain them by... other means :shiftyeyes: On the other hand, I've read almost every non-setting book cover-to-cover since I picked up D&D again 6 months ago and can remember much of it, and I absorb the knowledge of the Playgrounds like a hungry, hungry leech.

So my first thing is, any advice for this kind of situation. I can hopefully get them a bit more attached to their characters because I'm going to see if I can push roleplay more than we do in our current campaign, and leveling is going to be a lot slower (we currently level every other encounter, usually one huge encounter/battle per week), and balance slower leveling by letting them get more loots than normal to minimize any boredom.

I also want to help them to see my perspective a bit more, with building characters rather than classes. I'm hoping one way of pulling this off is making all kinds of crazy characters for them to go up against so that when they're done they go, "What the hell was that?" and I can respond, "Bard/sorcerer/swordsage/jade phoenix mage/sacred exorcist with dragonfire inspiration."

Shifting topics, one of the players wants to play a monk/paladin. I convinced him to go into onewingedangel's rebalanced paladin, but he didn't like Fax's monk or unarmed swordsage (he's determined to play martial arts more like it really is). He does at least have good stats - iirc his lowest stat was 12 (in Cha, maybe?) the rest were over 15, with 18's in Str and Dex. He's going either Denying Stance or Undying Way from UA, I can't remember which, and wants to use a ranseur and unarmed attacks so that he can attack anyone within 10 feet of him (speaking of which, can he make a full attack using his unarmed attacks while holding the ranseur? What about TWF'ing with unarmed while holding it? I'm going to let him either way, just like to know RAW, ignoring the RAWness of TWF'ing). He wants the 6th level bonus from taking the variant monk, and he wants a special paladin mount that he wouldn't be able to get until about 16th level anyways, though he might take leadership and get it as his cohort. I've considered just giving the monk full BAB and working up a paladin/monk prestige class that advanced all the main stuff (including mount, probably), but I'd like other options as well if anyone has any.

I think that's all for now, I'd welcome any advice, and again thanks for putting up with my habit of being waaay too verbose. I'll probably remember more questions later tonight.

d13
2009-07-01, 06:31 PM
// On Monk/Paladin and stuff //.

I'd reccomend him to dump Str or Int (since he's going Paladin, Cha mod would apply to every save), put de 18s in Dex and Wis, his next highest stat in Con/Cha, and Weapon Finesse all the way 'round.
I'd also tell him to drop the ranseur, and see if he can get you to give him Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain) [y'know... since he's a Monk/Paladin, and all that xD] for free.
IIRC, he can Full Attack with his unarmed strike, 5 foot step behind and attack with his Chain as a secondary attack (or vice versa), and that would be all the RAWness xD.

Besides that, the only thing I can advise you, is to check the homebrewing forums. If I'm not mistaken, someone already brewed a PrC that advances Monk and Paladin stuff.
If I'm mistaken, then it shouldn't be THAT difficult to homebrew something along the lines of Eldritch Theurges or Disciples (Maybe... Ascetic... Knight? No, that's a feat... Holy Fist? Ascetic something-related-to-paladins?)



2 cp, going ~

lsfreak
2009-07-01, 07:00 PM
What I'm really trying to do it come up with ways of giving him options without telling him how I'd play (he already knows how I'd play... unarmed swordsage >.>). So giving him free stuff, and changing his fluff by giving him a spiked chain, is probably out of the question, though I might mention it to him. Also forgot to mention that he is getting both Str and Dex to his damage for unarmed strikes (made Finesse base and changed Finesse itself to give Dex->dmg), which should help out the damage department.

Also, just to clarify with the ranseur/spiked chain:
- Someone is standing next to him, and someone else is standing 10 feet away. Can he making a full attack with his ranseur and then offhand attacks with his unarmed strike?
- He has the ranseur. Without moving, can be make a full attack including offhand attacks with unarmed strike?

I'll take a closer look at homebrew, I quickly skimmed it.

erikun
2009-07-01, 07:15 PM
First, I'm pretty sure I polymorphed into an Ice Elemental before entering the thread, so no critical for you. Second, your wall o' text is standing on icy terrain, so unless it has several ranks in balance, prepare for the sneak attack. :smallbiggrin:

Next order of business:

I think that you are vastly misinterpretting this group's desires and motivations. You group has been together for a lot time - they apparently know what they like. It sounds like they either enjoy just hanging out, not overly concerned with the game itself, or they just have fun roleplaying, not overly concerned with what's printed on paper. Either way, it sounds like they're enjoying themselves.

I will admit, I don't have full access to your group to see how they interact. However, with the wording you've used, it sounds like you're trying to push minmaxing onto everyone else. Terms like "why not just make us level 10" or "oh well, he died" indicates a lack of caring about the mechanics - so I doubt their interested in the Half Giant Fighter Barbarian Psychic Warrior Leap Attack Power Attack Shock Trooper Lion's Charge Shillelagh Expansion build you can create. :smallamused: Don't get me wrong, you're apparently having a lot of fun with creating builds and strong characters - put unless I'm missing something, your players aren't. I'd recommend pulling back a bit, letting them play what they like and fight off more basic enemies. Keep the unique, fancy builds for interesting antagonists.

As for the Ranseur Monk, you can hold the Ranseur in one hand while using unarmed strikes without problem. Heck, you can even flurry, as unarmed strikes use "elbows, knees, and feet" along with fists.

[Edit]
Using a full attack, he should be able to switch between Ranseur strikes and unarmed strikes - I don't know of anything specifically with RAW, but it certainly makes sense. He can't flurry with the Ranseur by RAW, unless you houserule. (I believe there is a prestige class in Oriental Adventures that allows flurries with any weapon, though.)

lsfreak
2009-07-01, 07:34 PM
They've known each other for that long, not sure how long they've all been playing though. And they certainly like just hanging out, a typical 6-hour night is 10 rounds of combat and some time doing stuff in town.

They do care about mechanics to some extent; they prefer to do things by RAW unless it's really stupid, they just don't optimize. That I'm okay with, but I'd like to make sure the characters are fairly close to each other (because even unoptimized, a sorcerer is probably going to outshine a straight paladin/monk). Also, I don't plan on sending them up against optimized characters necessarily, but ones that aren't "I'm taking levels in paladin because I want to be a paladin," but that "paladin" might be a duskblade, simply to show there's a different way of doing things (and also keep things interesting, keep metagame out and keep them guessing). And yea, I meant interesting builds only against important NPC's.

d13
2009-07-01, 08:23 PM
Also, just to clarify with the ranseur/spiked chain:
- Someone is standing next to him, and someone else is standing 10 feet away. Can he making a full attack with his ranseur and then offhand attacks with his unarmed strike?
- He has the ranseur. Without moving, can be make a full attack including offhand attacks with unarmed strike?


Yes and no, unless I have misunderstood the second question. He can full-attack with the ranseur and use his unarmed strike as "offhand attack", or vice versa. He cannot "dual wield" unarmed strikes (that I think is what you're doing at your second example).

Regarding the suggestions, they are just that, suggestions. Don't make him feel compelled to use them.

You can also suggest him the feat "Ascetic Knight" (Complete Adventurer, pg 105//Crystalkeep Feat Index, pg 94), whose prerreqs are Improved Unarmed Strike and Smite Evil class ability, that stacks Monk and Paladin levels for the Monk's Unarmed Damage and the Paladin's Smite Evil, and gets rid of the penalties regarding returning to those classes after multiclassing with the other.
(Remember that normally you cannot keep gaining levels of Paladin if you multiclass away from the class. Same for Monk).