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Yora
2010-05-20, 02:27 PM
Is anyone aware of something like an E6 Handbook? I think the handbooks people made for many classes are really great guides to building characters without merely picking some feat that looks fun every three levels.

But in an E6 game, prestige classes, many feats, and a huge number of spells and magic items are unattainable, while the number of feats you gain increases dramatically.
I'm not a good optimizer at all, but to me it seems that for example feats like Toughness and Weapon Focus, which are usually a huge waste of a valuable feat slot, suddenly become a rather interesting choice. And with lots of feats and a BAB of +4 (and the quite good likelyhood of fighting 1st level NPCs), two weapon fighting and whirlwind attack are also becoming open to consideration.

So, does anyone know about a good guide how building and equipping a character is different in an E6 game compared to the more common games of 10th level +x played by people who put some effort in optimization?

Eldariel
2010-05-20, 03:29 PM
No, Weapon Focus, Toughness and company are still utter ****. In fact, Weapon Focus is worse than ever now since it doesn't qualify you for Weapon Mastery on level 8 (well, the Fighter Capstone enables that if used). Though if you have absolutely nothing else to pick, might as well. Feats are even more sparse (until Epic) and thus you gotta be careful with them. Even in epic, it's long until Weapon Focus gives you the biggest payoff.

And most of the traditional optimization guides apply; Wizard's spells are still the same and it's all the more important to make the most out of your few slots with the superawesome Conjurations you can even leverage against Vastly Beyond Your Level CRd creatures. Druid 6 is amazing, while Monk 1/Druid 5 isn't bad either.

In fact, without a capstone, Monk 1/Druid 5 might just win out in the end since both have Fleshraker Wildshape as their best option and with Extra Wildshape-feat on the Epic levels, the Wildshape duration discrepancy disappears. Both have level 3 slots. Over most of their career though, straight Druid will be superior. It's only on level 6 that Druid 5/Monk 1 really picks traction as you get Wildshape + Monk-abilities which is a potent combo indeed.


Umm, what else, Artificers have access to higher level spells than anyone else. There's few tricks involving Dragonwrought Kobolds to get level 4 spells but as those are in the league of Loredrake or Whitespawn, that's kinda...eh. Clerics never really get to their best stuff though they are still fair anti-caster characters.

ToB classes shine pretty much throughout the level range while also making for good multiclassing and gaining a lot from the Epic feats (Martial Studies and Stances mean that with Initiator Level 5, you can go to town on level 3 maneuvers). Dungeoncrasher Fighter is very scary indeed and well-optimized Barbarian can rock. Rogue is still Rogue and most Rogue-like classes are quite unaffected by the low cap level.

The biggest difference is in terms of magic item availability since even with Artificer, most of them require rather high level magic to craft (Righteous Might is a common prerequisite, for example, and a level 5 spell) and thus can only be made by superior creatures like Aberrations, Outsiders and Dragons. As such, the better stuff simply doesn't exist for common use. And with the way LA is handled, some LA races and templates are actually playable with strong LA +1s becoming somewhat OP (merely slight drop in PB doesn't really hurt a Half-Minotaur for example and 25pb is plenty for SAD classes).


But no, no such handbook exists unfortunately. Mayhap someone should write one.

gorfnab
2010-05-20, 03:37 PM
Plug for Wildshape (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/unearthedCoreClass.html#simple-ranger) Mystic Ranger (http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Classes-Base.pdf) (page 91) Arcane Hunter (CM) with Sword of the Arcane Order (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Sword_of_the_Arcane_Order) and Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a). May have the Trapfinding (DS) variant as well, since you could also just get Track as a feat.