Binks
2010-06-03, 01:44 PM
While reading through the 'rules alone logic exploits' thread I noticed someone mention you could put some absurd enhancements on a necklace of natural attacks to get them on your unarmed attacks. This, naturally, got me and my friend chatting and we ended up going through the MiC looking for amusing enhancements. Came across Morphing and I thought 'what would a character who could turn their unarmed attacks into other weapons look like'. The immediate response was, of course, Alex Mercer (http://prototype.wikia.com/wiki/Alex_Mercer) from Prototype.
Might be minor spoilers below, just fair warning.
So here's a thought experiment, how would you build Mercer?
Species-wise he needs to be able to change shape to disguise as someone else. Possible options I've seen would be Doppleganger (which fits nicely, especially the detect thoughts and bluff bonus but suffers from a large LA) or Changeling (no bluff bonus unfortunately, which hurts a bit, but no LA either).
Stats-wise he's probably pumping Str, Dex and Con (not necessarily in that order) while dumping most of the mentals, he's not super intelligent, wise, or charismatic (except when disguised and using bluff). I'd personally say he's using Str > Con > Dex > Wis > Int > Cha but then he needs some way to buff his bluff when he's disguised...
Here's the list of things he really needs to be able to do:
Proficient with his 5 main weapons:
Claws (of some kind...does morphing let you shift your weapon to a natural claw attack? if so then this would be covered already)
Hammerfist (heavy mace? warhammer? greatclub?* not sure on this one.)
Blade (axe or sword probably)
Whipfist (whip obviously)
Musclemass (less a weapon than a power, looks a lot like hulking hurler to me)
So he needs at least martial weapon proficiency (for blade/hammerfist). Ideally proficiency with whips and some kind of damage bonus with natural attacks (for claws).
He's got a lot of hp, so ideally a decent hit die. Skills aren't that important, aside from jump/climb/bluff/disguise he doesn't have much in the way of out of combat skills, and ideally we'd want to get the bluff/disguise from species/feats since his cha is going to be so low.
He needs to be able to replicate his defensive powers, shield and armor. Shield could conceivably be done by simply using the morphing necklace to convert one hand('s unarmed weapon) into a weapon and the other into a shield (depending on how lenient the rules are being read, but bending a rule or two for a character like this is fine IMHO).
Armor's a bit harder...need a simple way to don/create/morph a set of armor onto you, probably mythril full-plate from what it can do (though that's just a guess). Anyone know of an easy way to do this?
'Absorb' people, somehow, to gain health/knowledge/disguises (the last can just be RP). Perhaps another enhancement to his weapons (vampiric or something, though the thought stealing might be hard to replicate without going doppleganger)
So we need a class or other way to get good BaB progression, a good hit die, proficiency with martial and ideally exotic(whip) weapons (though we can just grab a feat for that I suppose), ideally some bonus to natural attacks, car throwing (hulking hurler?) high speed (boots of striding/springing?), regen, darkvision (or some other special vision type, since he can see normally, infrared, and 'infected vision'), ridiculous climb/jump and some kind of gliding among other things.
Something from ToB might work for the base levels (for the spiderwalk stance which negates the need to worry about climb) but I'm not sure what a good progression would be, probably want some hulking hurler later if possible.
So that's what I've come up with so far. Anyone got any ideas of how to pull off all that by, say, level 15-20 or so? Just a thought experiment for some fun.
*What size category are your unarmed attacks? One handed?. If nothing else we can just tack on sizing to the necklace so any weapon goes. That costs him his standard/swift to change weapons, which fits the game nicely (you generally have to be at a distance to swap weapons since it takes a small amount of time, but you can move while doing it).
Might be minor spoilers below, just fair warning.
So here's a thought experiment, how would you build Mercer?
Species-wise he needs to be able to change shape to disguise as someone else. Possible options I've seen would be Doppleganger (which fits nicely, especially the detect thoughts and bluff bonus but suffers from a large LA) or Changeling (no bluff bonus unfortunately, which hurts a bit, but no LA either).
Stats-wise he's probably pumping Str, Dex and Con (not necessarily in that order) while dumping most of the mentals, he's not super intelligent, wise, or charismatic (except when disguised and using bluff). I'd personally say he's using Str > Con > Dex > Wis > Int > Cha but then he needs some way to buff his bluff when he's disguised...
Here's the list of things he really needs to be able to do:
Proficient with his 5 main weapons:
Claws (of some kind...does morphing let you shift your weapon to a natural claw attack? if so then this would be covered already)
Hammerfist (heavy mace? warhammer? greatclub?* not sure on this one.)
Blade (axe or sword probably)
Whipfist (whip obviously)
Musclemass (less a weapon than a power, looks a lot like hulking hurler to me)
So he needs at least martial weapon proficiency (for blade/hammerfist). Ideally proficiency with whips and some kind of damage bonus with natural attacks (for claws).
He's got a lot of hp, so ideally a decent hit die. Skills aren't that important, aside from jump/climb/bluff/disguise he doesn't have much in the way of out of combat skills, and ideally we'd want to get the bluff/disguise from species/feats since his cha is going to be so low.
He needs to be able to replicate his defensive powers, shield and armor. Shield could conceivably be done by simply using the morphing necklace to convert one hand('s unarmed weapon) into a weapon and the other into a shield (depending on how lenient the rules are being read, but bending a rule or two for a character like this is fine IMHO).
Armor's a bit harder...need a simple way to don/create/morph a set of armor onto you, probably mythril full-plate from what it can do (though that's just a guess). Anyone know of an easy way to do this?
'Absorb' people, somehow, to gain health/knowledge/disguises (the last can just be RP). Perhaps another enhancement to his weapons (vampiric or something, though the thought stealing might be hard to replicate without going doppleganger)
So we need a class or other way to get good BaB progression, a good hit die, proficiency with martial and ideally exotic(whip) weapons (though we can just grab a feat for that I suppose), ideally some bonus to natural attacks, car throwing (hulking hurler?) high speed (boots of striding/springing?), regen, darkvision (or some other special vision type, since he can see normally, infrared, and 'infected vision'), ridiculous climb/jump and some kind of gliding among other things.
Something from ToB might work for the base levels (for the spiderwalk stance which negates the need to worry about climb) but I'm not sure what a good progression would be, probably want some hulking hurler later if possible.
So that's what I've come up with so far. Anyone got any ideas of how to pull off all that by, say, level 15-20 or so? Just a thought experiment for some fun.
*What size category are your unarmed attacks? One handed?. If nothing else we can just tack on sizing to the necklace so any weapon goes. That costs him his standard/swift to change weapons, which fits the game nicely (you generally have to be at a distance to swap weapons since it takes a small amount of time, but you can move while doing it).