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huttj509
2010-02-26, 07:07 PM
So, my player wants a certain style/feel of character, and I'm trying to figure out what sort of classes, crunch, if you will, to set up behind it so it feels fairly natural.

a) Acrobatic style fighter, with fluid options to move in combat, getting from range to melee and enemy to enemy.

b) Preferably wields war fans (currently statted em as shortswords that do slashing damage instead of piercing, think they're somewhere actually, but don't remember where).

Basically the issue she has now is that it feels like she has no options at range. Has to spend the first part of the battle getting around and to the enemy before she can do anything. She could pull a bow, but it doesn't "cinematically" flow as well with firing as she moves into melee, then pulling her fans.

House rule: The TWF chain is a single feat, needing dex 15, that gets better as you reach the BAB requirements for improved and greater TWF.

Part of it might just be a game flow thing, as all 3 players are new to 3.5 (lots of experience with 2E, and earlier). Just mulling over possibilities and wondered what sort of thoughts you guys would have. Other party members are a druid and a rogue (sneaky skillmonkey-style).

Eldariel
2010-02-26, 07:27 PM
What sources are you working with?


Swordsage [Tome of Battle] sounds like exactly her thing. Approach, strike, dance away, rince and repeat. Hell, there's a maneuver that IS a dance (Desert Tempest). Warblade from the same book could also work, but probably slightly less impressively. Stuff like Stormguard Warrior in that book sounds like exactly what you want. Maybe you want a multiclass of said two classes. Shadow Blade gives you Dex to damage (Fans could easily be made into Shadow Hand weapon seeing how appropriate they are) and such.

Without ToB, Dervish [CWarrior] and Swift Hunter [CScoundrel; multiclass Ranger/Scout] are the next-best fits, probably. Swift Hunter with a Cleric-dip could work extremely well, and Dervish...well, it has the fluff built-in but realizes it a bit worse than Swordsage.

Keld Denar
2010-02-26, 07:43 PM
Swordsage [Tome of Battle]

+1. Swordsage is everything you described and more. Use it, enjoy it, love it.

Pluto
2010-02-26, 07:46 PM
So, my player wants a certain style/feel of character, and I'm trying to figure out what sort of classes, crunch, if you will, to set up behind it so it feels fairly natural.

a) Acrobatic style fighter, with fluid options to move in combat, getting from range to melee and enemy to enemy.

b) Preferably wields war fans (currently statted em as shortswords that do slashing damage instead of piercing, think they're somewhere actually, but don't remember where).
I'd second Eladriel. Swordsage and Scout (CAdv) are made for this.

I've been playing a Rogue/Barbarian/Thief Acrobat (CAdv) that captures this feeling quite well.

If getting into combat is a problem, stealth skills and party coordination can help some of the time. Keeping a mount and watching environmental features that can be turned to her advantage might also help.

Bibliomancer
2010-02-26, 07:58 PM
Depending on how you visualize the war fans, they could easily be modified to be an exotic weapon usable in melee and with a range increment of 30ft. If you gave them the Returning property, or treated them like boomerangs (return if they don't hit, requires an attack vs. AC 10 to catch as a free action), then you're all set.

Scoot
2010-02-26, 08:07 PM
As for the actual whereabouts of the War Fan stats,

Arms and Equipment Guide has the exact, "War Fan", but Sandstorm has the collapsing cresent fan, which is very similar in the exotic bonus, but I think is more flavorful.

I actually had a player who had an idea similar to this, he used a barbarian variant, and focusing on charging with the fans. It didn't work very well, but looked pretty darn cool. :smallsmile:

huttj509
2010-02-26, 09:19 PM
Swordsage was my main thought, along with Dervish. She started off wanting swordsage, but switched to fighter because it was less complicated. Methinks she shall reconsider :-)

Eldariel
2010-02-26, 09:25 PM
Swordsage was my main thought, along with Dervish. She started off wanting swordsage, but switched to fighter because it was less complicated. Methinks she shall reconsider :-)

Fighter is spectacularly poor at this, since it doesn't gain any skill points nor ability to move after attacking nor ability to do full attacks after moving, and so on. So yeah, I think if what she wants is an agile, acrobatic two-weapon fighter, Fighter is definitely not the class.

Heck, the class is deceptively hard to build; knowing how to make efficient use of all those feats is not simple, especially when the pre-designed feat chains leave a lot to be desired, leaving it entirely up to the player's mechanical know-how to make efficient use of all the class gets (or have issues being efficient later on with poor resource expediture).


So yeah, Fighter is both, not-newbie-friendly and not suited for representing the character she wants; I'm willing to wager learning ToB is a LOT less trouble than figuring out how to make Fighter work out here. Good luck :smallbiggrin:

Jack_Simth
2010-02-26, 09:32 PM
+1. Swordsage is everything you described and more. Use it, enjoy it, love it.
Yep. Swordsage fits what's requested to a T. Has maneuvers available to deal with ranged attacks, has enough melee punch to get by, and has monk-like Wis to AC (in light armor).

huttj509
2010-02-26, 11:08 PM
Fighter is spectacularly poor at this, since it doesn't gain any skill points nor ability to move after attacking nor ability to do full attacks after moving, and so on. So yeah, I think if what she wants is an agile, acrobatic two-weapon fighter, Fighter is definitely not the class.

Heck, the class is deceptively hard to build; knowing how to make efficient use of all those feats is not simple, especially when the pre-designed feat chains leave a lot to be desired, leaving it entirely up to the player's mechanical know-how to make efficient use of all the class gets (or have issues being efficient later on with poor resource expediture).


So yeah, Fighter is both, not-newbie-friendly and not suited for representing the character she wants; I'm willing to wager learning ToB is a LOT less trouble than figuring out how to make Fighter work out here. Good luck :smallbiggrin:


I agree, but she was frightened briefly by the large list of maneuvers.

Now I just need to figure out how the heck to work with the rogue, so he doesn't feel useless next to the swordsage and druid.

Flickerdart
2010-02-26, 11:11 PM
I agree, but she was frightened briefly by the large list of maneuvers.

Now I just need to figure out how the heck to work with the rogue, so he doesn't feel useless next to the swordsage and druid.
If he's willing to go for any sneaky class, Beguilers are exceptional sneaks, as are Factotums. Psychic Rogue combines the Rogue and the Psychic Warrior in a nice package, and then you can dip Pyrokineticist for reach touch attacks infinity times per day.
If he wants Rogue specifically, then Craven and Darkstalker are godsends for him.

Pluto
2010-02-26, 11:16 PM
Now I just need to figure out how the heck to work with the rogue, so he doesn't feel useless next to the swordsage and druid.
You probably won't have to worry too much there. The Rogue's skill list is very long and very widely applicable.

Also, Sneak Attack will usually do more damage than maneuvers (when it works, anyway).

Tao the Ninja
2010-02-27, 08:38 PM
Swashbuckler/Dervish, maybe. Not so powerful, but nice fluff-wise.

Set
2010-02-27, 08:48 PM
One of the Scarred Lands sourcebooks, the Player's Guide to Fighters & Barbarians, IIRC, had a 'Master of the Iron Wind' Prestige Class that was built specifically for a two-war-fan-wielding warrior.

It had abilities like Increased Attacks (iterations happened on 3, instead of 5, so that someone with a BAB of +10 would get attacks at +10 / +7 / +4 / +1, instead of +10 / +5) and some stuff that allowed information to be transmitted to allies across the battlefield, or to go into a 'tower of iron' stance where you fought defensively and parried blows. At the higher levels, you even treated the fans as if they had the Returning property, if the short, short write-up here (http://www.cresswell.org/scarred/Scarred%20Lands%20Prestige%20Class%20Guide.pdf) is any indications.

I'm not sure if the PrC would work 'out of the box' with this character, but it might be something worth looking at to pillage ideas for custom feats or maneuvers or whatnot, if you (or one of your players) have the book lying around.

Grumman
2010-02-27, 08:52 PM
b) Preferably wields war fans (currently statted em as shortswords that do slashing damage instead of piercing, think they're somewhere actually, but don't remember where).
One slight modification: I'd suggest you stat them as slashing Broadblade shortswords (from Complete Adventurer) rather than regular shortswords. These give a greater bonus to AC when fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise, and seem appropriate to the weapon.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-02-27, 08:55 PM
The other option would be Rogue/Master Thrower/Invisible Blade. Declare the fans to be 'daggers' for purposes of the IB class, use Master Thrower dip for Sneaky Shot so you can get your additional dice at range, maybe a two-level dip in Swordsage for Island of Blades and Assassin's Stance, with Shadow Blade to make STR a complete dump-stat.

I've got a character in the game I'm running now with Rogue/Master Thrower/Invisible Blade, and it's working well for her.

Greenish
2010-02-27, 09:03 PM
Arms and Equipment Guide has the exact, "War Fan", but Sandstorm has the collapsing cresent fan, which is very similar in the exotic bonus, but I think is more flavorful.The difference: War Fan is x3, CCF is 19-20/x2. The latter is also lighter. Both are d6 slashing weapons. Found here (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/weapons.pl?all).