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View Full Version : Fist of Forest damage, cohorts making magic items, and other char building help (3.5)



Hirax
2010-07-25, 02:12 PM
Hello! I'm happy to have found an active forum to talk about 3.5. My last character got scared out of their skin by a phantasmal killer, and I'm now in the process of making a new character (12th level). I thought I'd get some input on a couple totally unrelated ideas before getting DM approval.

I came up with a goliath rogue4/monk4/fist3. I'll be taking ascetic rogue so the monk/rogue level stack for unarmed strike. The way I'm reading the fist's improvements to unarmed damage is that it increases it to the next die step. My character with a monk's belt would have the damage of a monk in the 12-15 range. Am I right in thinking that their first fist level would take them to the 16-19 damage range, and their third fist level would bump it to 20th level damage, meaning I'd be doing 4d8+str (imp. natural attack for large monk damage)?

I've seen people argue that the fist can't improve damage beyond 2d6, but frankly WotC (particularly in Complete Champion) words things poorly often enough that I feel like it wasn't their intention to cap the improvement at 2d6, and that something along the lines of 'or to the next step' was omitted. Do I have a leg to stand on here? I'll be taking the class anyway for the novelty. It particularly feels like they're shafting anyone not on the medium damage continuum since a 4th level monk with large damage does 2d6. Here's the relevant snippet from the ability, if his isn't ok to post let me know and I'll edit it out. "Your unarmed attacks deal more damage than usual. At 1st level, you deal 1d8 points of damage with each unarmed strike. When you attain 3rd level, this damage increases to 1d10 points. See the monk class feature (PH 41). If your unarmed attack already deals this amount of damage, increase the base damage to the next step indicated on the monk class table."

Now for super munchkining: I figured it would be really cool to have an uldra druid as a cohort. I'd like to give them the ability to craft wondrous items, then the magical artisan feat from PGF to reduce the cost of making magic items by 25%, and maybe even the legendary artisan feat to reduce the exp cost by 25%. As an example this would mean I could make +6 ability score increasers for 13.5k and some of my cohort's exp. Legal? I'm going to have an uldra druid as my cohort regardless, I think it would make for a fun and amusing companion.

I've never taken leadership before, and I notice that it says "The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level." Does that mean they should get 40k~ worth of gear (where's that table in the DMG)? Supposing it's okay for the cohort to make gear, could he spend the gold on making his own gear rather than buying it to get the most bang for buck, at the cost of starting exp? I'm not worried about him losing exp because even with the reduced rate at which cohorts appear to receive exp, their lower level would get them a disproportionately large amount of exp from encounters, causing them to get back to within two levels of me it seems.

Also, any general suggestions for the character, both for building and future direction? I've got 88k total to spend on magic items and am thinking I'll go 14/14/14/14/14/10 for stats (32 point buy). I'm thinking of becoming a kensai down the road, but that would eat up my next 2 feats. I'd need to put 4 levels into something else in the mean time, and I'm not sure where they'd go. I'm excited to have the goliath rogue's racial substitution ability (mettle of the mountains) AND evasion. The fact that I'll have con, wis, and dex going to my AC is also exciting since it will make for great touch and flat footed AC.

Would it be fair to ask my DM for a possible exception in never raising my monk level again? I find it strange that Complete Champion doesn't have that clause for the fist like Complete Warrior does for the kensai.

I suppose I should mention my backstory in case that inspires some cool ideas for character direction. The sole survivor of his tribe after being raided by hill giants, Aukauli Avalanche Kanapko-Olavi begins his journey to the peak of the unnamed mountain (the tallest mountain in the world I'm playing in), to seek guidance from Kavaki the Ram-Lord. In his journey he meets another lone goliath, who eventually recruits him into the guardians of the white (a spin on guardians of the green from Complete Champion, white because it's a frigid snow covered mountain), to become a protector of the mountain peak from which Kavaki created the goliaths. This leaves the door open for a lot of Races of Stone's adventure hooks to be thrown in, which would be convenient for my GM since they like to build off book ideas, even if only vaguely.

I'll entertain pretty much any suggestions, even if I don't use them for this character it might be useful to me later. I'm just getting back into D&D after 3 year hiatus. Thanks!

edit: any suggestions on a goliath age spectrum? WotC doesn't seem to have put an official one anywhere. The only thing to go off of is that it says goliaths are spooked by longer lived races that could have known their great-great-grandfathers.

edit2: I'm considering taking this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue) rogue variant for more feats. Worth losing sneak attack? This would mean I could go straight to kensai. Also, a mostly rhetorical question, but would this qualify me for fighhter only feats such as weapon spec. perhaps? +2 damage is tempting, but I'm not sure I could justify it.

Eldariel
2010-07-25, 05:49 PM
Hello! I'm happy to have found an active forum to talk about 3.5. My last character got scared out of their skin by a phantasmal killer, and I'm now in the process of making a new character (12th level). I thought I'd get some input on a couple totally unrelated ideas before getting DM approval.

I came up with a goliath rogue4/monk4/fist3. I'll be taking ascetic rogue so the monk/rogue level stack for unarmed strike. The way I'm reading the fist's improvements to unarmed damage is that it increases it to the next die step. My character with a monk's belt would have the damage of a monk in the 12-15 range. Am I right in thinking that their first fist level would take them to the 16-19 damage range, and their third fist level would bump it to 20th level damage, meaning I'd be doing 4d8+str (imp. natural attack for large monk damage)?

I've seen people argue that the fist can't improve damage beyond 2d6, but frankly WotC (particularly in Complete Champion) words things poorly often enough that I feel like it wasn't their intention to cap the improvement at 2d6, and that something along the lines of 'or to the next step' was omitted. Do I have a leg to stand on here? I'll be taking the class anyway for the novelty. It particularly feels like they're shafting anyone not on the medium damage continuum since a 4th level monk with large damage does 2d6. Here's the relevant snippet from the ability, if his isn't ok to post let me know and I'll edit it out. "Your unarmed attacks deal more damage than usual. At 1st level, you deal 1d8 points of damage with each unarmed strike. When you attain 3rd level, this damage increases to 1d10 points. See the monk class feature (PH 41). If your unarmed attack already deals this amount of damage, increase the base damage to the next step indicated on the monk class table."

Meh, it's arguable but the intent is obvious so just go with it. It should increase all the way.


Now for super munchkining: I figured it would be really cool to have an uldra druid as a cohort. I'd like to give them the ability to craft wondrous items, then the magical artisan feat from PGF to reduce the cost of making magic items by 25%, and maybe even the legendary artisan feat to reduce the exp cost by 25%. As an example this would mean I could make +6 ability score increasers for 13.5k and some of my cohort's exp. Legal? I'm going to have an uldra druid as my cohort regardless, I think it would make for a fun and amusing companion.

You'd end up with legally 37.5% prices, so yeah, 13.5k. Legal, fair, useful. People tend to prefer Artificers for that though, for Craft Reserve and other utility like Metamagic Item and such.


I've never taken leadership before, and I notice that it says "The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level." Does that mean they should get 40k~ worth of gear (where's that table in the DMG)? Supposing it's okay for the cohort to make gear, could he spend the gold on making his own gear rather than buying it to get the most bang for buck, at the cost of starting exp? I'm not worried about him losing exp because even with the reduced rate at which cohorts appear to receive exp, their lower level would get them a disproportionately large amount of exp from encounters, causing them to get back to within two levels of me it seems.

"WBL to craft" is always arguable since apparently crafting is mostly intended for NPCs, but it's perfectly alright by the rules and since the characters tend to have long histories, it even makes sense. So...there.


Also, any general suggestions for the character, both for building and future direction? I've got 88k total to spend on magic items and am thinking I'll go 14/14/14/14/14/10 for stats (32 point buy). I'm thinking of becoming a kensai down the road, but that would eat up my next 2 feats. I'd need to put 4 levels into something else in the mean time, and I'm not sure where they'd go. I'm excited to have the goliath rogue's racial substitution ability (mettle of the mountains) AND evasion. The fact that I'll have con, wis, and dex going to my AC is also exciting since it will make for great touch and flat footed AC.

Yeah no, focus your stats a bit. That's a huge trap to split your scores evenly. You'll want some 16s in there for some actual numbers and maybe even an 18. Get Weapon Finesse and Shadow Blade [ToB] for using Dex for everything, go that road. Drop Str to 8 and Int to 12 and go with 16 Wis/Dex. Monk styles (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#monkVariantFightingSty les) offer you PA without prerequisites so that's cleared.

And you can take something else over Imp Bull Rush you won't be using anyways. Though I'd personally be wary of losing too much BAB as a frontliner. 4 levels of Monk is unlike to be amazing; 2 Monk and 2 Barbarian would be much better, and would definitely make sense for such a feral (wilderness) type, alignment restrictions be damned. Use Chaos Monk [Dragon Whatever] or something if DM goes retentive about alignment restrictions that mostly embody major stupidity and general nonsense. Superior Unarmed Strike [ToB] would get you some further advancement to your UA Strike if you again ask your DM. Should be alright.


Would it be fair to ask my DM for a possible exception in never raising my monk level again? I find it strange that Complete Champion doesn't have that clause for the fist like Complete Warrior does for the kensai.

Why would you want more levels in Monk? Take e.g. Shou Disciple [Unapproachable East] instead if you're an asskicker-type. Really, Monk serves as a good baseline but offers nothing down the road; it sounds like that's what you want anyways so focus on the "asskicking" aspect of Monk and go with it. There are better classes than the actual Monk-class there making the multiclass restrictions trivial.


I suppose I should mention my backstory in case that inspires some cool ideas for character direction. The sole survivor of his tribe after being raided by hill giants, Aukauli Avalanche Kanapko-Olavi begins his journey to the peak of the unnamed mountain (the tallest mountain in the world I'm playing in), to seek guidance from Kavaki the Ram-Lord. In his journey he meets another lone goliath, who eventually recruits him into the guardians of the white (a spin on guardians of the green from Complete Champion, white because it's a frigid snow covered mountain), to become a protector of the mountain peak from which Kavaki created the goliaths. This leaves the door open for a lot of Races of Stone's adventure hooks to be thrown in, which would be convenient for my GM since they like to build off book ideas, even if only vaguely.

I'll entertain pretty much any suggestions, even if I don't use them for this character it might be useful to me later. I'm just getting back into D&D after 3 year hiatus. Thanks!

edit: any suggestions on a goliath age spectrum? WotC doesn't seem to have put an official one anywhere. The only thing to go off of is that it says goliaths are spooked by longer lived races that could have known their great-great-grandfathers.

edit2: I'm considering taking this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue) rogue variant for more feats. Worth losing sneak attack? This would mean I could go straight to kensai. Also, a mostly rhetorical question, but would this qualify me for fighhter only feats such as weapon spec. perhaps? +2 damage is tempting, but I'm not sure I could justify it.

It wouldn't qualify you; you need Fighter-levels, not Pseudo-Fighter levels (classes that qualify you for it spell it out). Also, no, it's not worth losing SA since the main reason you're taking Rogue is the SA. Though if you're not using it, go ahead. And you don't really want Weapon Specialization anyways; Imp Nat Weapon grants you ~2d8 or 9 points of extra damage. That's the kind of increase that you can consider a feat for. 2? Fat chance. If anything, consider some of the Devotions in CChamp; Law Devotion is v. good if you go Lawful (without Chaos/Ex-Monk > Barbarian) for example, and Animal Devotion (Kung-Fu = emulating animal combat styles so it makes perfect sense) is all good too, being very versatile and quite strong.

Hirax
2010-07-26, 01:16 PM
Thank you so much for taking the time to give such a thorough reply! Some of this will very obviously be directed at you, but I’d still love some more replies from others, even if only to parts of my posts. Keep in mind throughout the post I’m probably asking for more info that I probably need, since even if I don’t use it for this character, I can probably use it down the road. I recognize that I’m probably scaring a lot of people off with such a massive wall of text, but I suppose that it’d be better than posting a lot of different threads. Or would it? Anyways, I’m bored at work, so onward.

After some more rumination, I find myself still stuck to the rogue4/monk4/fist 3 class level idea because my DM enforces the multiclass XP penalty, so I don't want any base classes more than a level apart. More PrCs start to eat up more feats, too. I like the idea of getting to level 4 as a rogue, because in sacrificing 2d6 of sneak attack damage I gain 3 feats. Uncanny dodge is also nice (improved uncanny dodge will then be obtained as a fist). I definitely want to get some monk levels for evasion, since I'll be getting mettle as a rogue (which is good based player accounts that this GM likes disintegrate). Which means I need to get to monk level 3 to avoid the exp penalty. 3 fist levels then only leave me with one more level to allocate, and a 4th monk level is appealing because my BAB, all saves, and monk damage all increase a step, plus it makes my unarmed strike magic, which in turn causes my fist levels to make unarmed strikes minor ghost touch weapons (50% chance of full damage, otherwise half damage). I’ve also just learned about buying back level adjustments ( http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm), which seems very much worth it, yes?

Since I'll be getting 9 feats (3 from variant rogue, 2 from flaws, and 4 from levels) here's how I'm thinking of allocating them:
Weapon focus (for Kensai prereq.)
Imp. natural attack
Ascetic rogue
leadership
Might makes right (str. bonus to leadership score)
Extra followers (double followers)
Great fort (fist prereq.)
power attack (fist prereq.)
Knowledge devotion
Combat expertise (take at level 12, Kensai prereq.)

I'm not sure about extra followers and might makes right though. Might makes right would be to get to a leadership score of 25 (very doable), and extra followers would mean I get 4 level 6 followers and 4 level 5 followers, and a hoard of lower level ones to utilize if I felt so inclined. Devotion or luck feats are other candidates, or I might even take auspicious markings (useless but good for narrative) and markings of the blessed (roll a second d20 for a save 3x a day). Law and strength devotion together are very appealing, though. Could I use the slam attack granted by strength devotion during a full attack while in a feral trance, meaning I'd get all my unarmed strikes (4d8+str), a bite (1d6+str), and slam (2d8+str) in a full attack? Relevant snippet: "you gain a slam attack as a natural weapon, and all your melee attacks (natural or not) gain the adamantine property for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. As a natural weapon, your slam attack does not provoke attacks of opportunity. It deals damage based on your size and character level, as given on the following table."

A big thanks for recommending the devotion feats on that note, because it made me see knowledge devotion. Firstly, it lets me pick another knowledge skill to be trained in, which will probably be the planes, dungeoneering is the only other candidate. My character will already have nature (wilderness rogue variant), geography (wilderness rogue variant), arcana (monk), religion (monk), and local (rogue) already. If I go Kensai I'll also get nobility too, but who cares. Anyway, I'll put a rank in each, and then take the collector of stories skill trick, which allows me to gain a +5 competence bonus on a knowledge roll about a monster if I'm trained in the relevant knowledge skill once per encounter. 1 rank, an int mod of 2, and the bonus of 5 means I'll get a minimum of 9 and max of 29 on my knowledge check, and I get an insight bonus to attack and damage rolls based on my result:
15 or below: +1
16-25: +2
26-30: +3
31-35: +4
36 or higher: +5
I haven't parsed out skills yet, but through synergies and other randomness I'll probably knock those rolls up a bit and hopefully make it so I can always avoid the minimum of 1. I might spare some more ranks for it. Maybe. Are there any good tricks I could use to this end?

For raising my leadership score, I'd start at 11 for my character level, and I think I can reasonably argue for the combined bonus of +6 from great renown, special power, fairness and generosity, and a base of operations, which puts me at 17. If I were to take might makes right, to get to 25 all I'd need to do is have a combined str and cha mod of 8, which would be simple thanks to my uldra druid's magic item making ability. Assuming I bought 14 str, goliaths have a racial bonus of +4 str, and then I would make a +6 str item and +2 cha item, I'd be there easily. The question becomes whether the level 4/5/6 followers are worth the feat slots for me, since I'll probably want the +6 str item anyway for melee attacks, and the +2 cha will cost only 2500.

Speaking of ability scores, I thought long and hard about not splitting them up as much as I did, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I had overlooked the ability to take so much reliance off of strength when making melee attacks, and I look forward to using weapon finesse with shadow blade on another character, that's really cool. However, it will be much easier for me to get a high strength than high dex, given my racial adjustments (+4str, -2 dex, +2 con). Plus the Kensai's 2nd level ability gives a +8 unnamed bonus to str at second level. Plus might makes right benefits from it too if I go that route. Of the remaining stats I'd probably only want to touch int or cha, but I just don't feel like I'd be gaining enough by doing that. Sacrificing the 2 cha points would let me go to 15 in another stat, and even it out at level 12, though.

After looking ahead a few levels I think it would be best to either get 2 or 5 levels of kensai. The first 2 levels definitely so I can get sizing and earthbound for my fists, a pair of +1 abilities. Earthbound gets me a +2 unnamed bonus on attack and damage rolls if my target and I are touching the ground, and sizing would let me make my unarmed strikes huge sized, for a meager -2 attack roll penalty to go up to 8d8+str for damage. Spontaneously enlarging my fists and feet is giving me flashbacks to Battletoads. :smallcool: Depending on the circumstances would I be able to make my my unarmed strikes colossal at a -6 penalty, even? If so, I probably won't get much use out of power attack, but I vaguely remember there being a cap on the size of weapons that you can wield. If I took another 3 level of kensai it would probably be to get the +3 speed (haste) ability for an extra attack. I'm rusty on magic weapon abilities though, so I'd love some alternatives to consider.

Regardless of where I hit eject on kensai, I'd love a list of PrCs to consider once I've exhausted it, since it won't be worth going on for the incremental enhancement bonuses to attack and damage from 6th level on since I'll be maxed on special abilities. As much as I love things that pile on damage, I also love cool abilities or features, even if their only real purpose is narrative. However, anything where narrative coolness and power come together always takes the cake. If one or the other though, once I've exhausted kensai coolness will probably trump power, unless something is overwhelmingly more powerful than cool. I’m going to play a persistently lawful good character, so sadly that throws a wrench in my ability to take class that have some sort of rage ability like barbarians or berserkers. I double majored in politics and philosophy in college, and in the process developed strong feelings about alignment requirements being BS too. I get the impression my DM won’t like the idea of a lawful barbarian, but when I see him next I’ll ask. If they’d be ok with it I’d definitely consider finding a way to working in a barbarian level for the ability to rage, especially since with a goliath’s racial substitution rage causes a size increase to large, and 10 foot reach is very nice. That might put thoughts in my head about taking the large and in charge feat from the Draconomicon, which would cause a successful AO to give me a chance to push a foe back outside my reach and stop their movement for a round. It also makes me think about the knockback feat from Races of Stone, but I’m probably trying to squeeze in too many feats here. Since a goliath’s favored class is barbarian I would probably only put in 1 level since I could get away with avoiding exp penalties, and it would probably be better to take the extra rage feat rather than continue advancing for more rages. The other barbarian abilities are way too far off to consider.

If I were able to take a barbarian level that would put me back to square 1 on a lot of things, since I’d need to find out where to fit it in. If I can make a barbarian lawful, perhaps I can also convince them to let me a be a lawful frenzied berserker, in which case I would definitely only take 2 levels of kensai because of the extra attack granted by frenzies that wouldn’t stack with haste-like things. If this becomes the case for this character, or another down the road, as a general question would it be reasonable to ask for the prereqs. to be any 2 rage feats, rather than the 2 useless ones Complete Warrior names as required to become a berserker? Figuring out how to fit cleave and 2 rage feats into my feat schedule will be difficult though. And then there’s a question of when to take this class, and how far into it to go, which I don’t have any strong feelings about. I’d probably only opt for 1 level, since with the extra rage feat I could rage/frenzy twice a day, which is typically plenty. Since I’d need to pick 1 other rage feat to become a berserker, if I could convince my DM to apply it to frenzies as well it would probably be righteous wrath from BoED in order to maintain my mental abilities during a rage. Otherwise reckless rage from Races of Stone would probably be my pick, for an additional +2 str and con, but an additional -2 AC.

Barring the unlikely above scenario where I get barbarian levels, I’m considering fortune's friend from Complete Scoundrel post-kensai. Since goliaths are daring almost to the point of foolhardiness, fortune's friend would actually make a lot of sense and would be fun and easy to adapt narratively. Its ability to add your class level to skill checks for a turn would work well with the knowledge devotion feat. Luck feats are stupidly fun in my experience, since I love raining on a DM’s excitement when you can reroll a nat. 1. Of course, a day will probably come when this causes me to roll a second nat. 1. The 4 luck feats I’d consider are good karma (redirect an attack from ally to you, to save followers), fortuitous strike (reroll damage or attack roll), unbelievable luck (+2 luck bonus to lowest save and extra luck reroll), survivor’s luck (reroll save), or make your own luck (reroll skill check). Fortuitous strike would have to come first since the other luck feats (and all good luck feats) have a prereq. of another luck feat. If I went to level 5 with this class and took the 4 named luck feats I’d get 8 luck rerolls a day, which would be very nice.

If I end up taking fortune’s favored I might try and talk the DM into giving it something else in lieu of it advancing spellcasting class. It’s a 5 level class that advances your spell casting by a level at 2nd and 4th level, its BAB only goes up every other level like a wizard, and it only has good reflex saves. Perhaps give it a better BAB and/or another good save? What would be fair?

Also, any general guidelines for creating cohorts and followers? My gut it to point buy and deck out my cohort as though it were a PC, and create my followers using the standard array. Followers get wealth per their level I imagine? Assuming I get 4 level 6 followers via might makes right and extra followers that means 4 people with 13k worth of items, which is nothing to sneeze at. They would all be other guardians of the white, and thus probably a mixture of arctic races and subraces, perhaps with a human or two. And since you’ve done me the wonderful service of telling me about artificers, a couple of those followers can be potion machines which no exp penalty. What are some useful things to do with followers? I imagine them being very useful for packing gear, meaning I could perhaps save some gold and not buy myself a bag of holding since followers could perform that function. Also, does anyone have any general tips for managing followers in and out of combat? Or any suggestions about roles they could fill, IE, what classes I should pick? I’m very tempted to spam summon spells from druids and wizards.

For making magic items with my cohort, since he’ll be burning through a considerable amount of exp making magic items ‘during the backstory’ what level will he start at? Do I subtract all the exp he burns from his base level 9 exp, which would put him somewhere in level 8 probably? There’s no way I could get him to start at level 9 right for having a high leadership score or something right?

Rhetorical question that I won't use for this character probably:
Can one take leadership and dragon cohort and get 2 cohorts? I've decided against it for this character (for now), since managing a dragon cohort would probably be a hassle on top of my uldra druid cohort, cohort's animal companion (probably a giant eagle, via BoED feat. Not optimal I know, but cool), and followers.

Also, any other good Crystal Keep-like compendium resources out there? It’s been extremely helpful during this process.

Keld Denar
2010-07-26, 01:52 PM
Just to address a couple things I pulled out of that massive wall of text...

Relevant snippet: "you gain a slam attack as a natural weapon, and all your melee attacks (natural or not) gain the adamantine property for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. As a natural weapon, your slam attack does not provoke attacks of opportunity. It deals damage based on your size and character level, as given on the following table."
Natural Attacks are allowed any time you full attack and aren't using the limb you are natural attacking with to hold a weapon. Since as a monk, you aren't really holding a weapon, that means you can generally get as many natural attacks as your can slap together. So yes, you'd get your full Flurry UAS routine, plus any natural attacks like the bite and slam tacked on with a -5 to hit from your highest attack bonus (plus any other relevant penalties, such as TWF or Flurry if you use them).


For raising my leadership score
Be really careful about using cohorts gained with Leadership to do much crafting. This can really break WBL, making it hard for your DM to appropriately challenge you. WBL is a gauge the DM should use to figure out how much more or less powerful you are with relation to a given power level. If you are ECL12 with the gear of an ECL15 character due to crafting abuse, then you'll trash encounters designed for ECL12 characters, but will probably get slaughtered by ECL15 approprate encounters because you'll lack the HD and abilities that come with that. As such, it makes it a REAL pain for your DM, so consult with him/her before you bring that kind of headache to the table.


After looking ahead a few levels I think it would be best to either get 2 or 5 levels of kensai. The first 2 levels definitely so I can get sizing and earthbound for my fists, a pair of +1 abilities. Earthbound gets me a +2 unnamed bonus on attack and damage rolls if my target and I are touching the ground, and sizing would let me make my unarmed strikes huge sized, for a meager -2 attack roll penalty to go up to 8d8+str for damage. Spontaneously enlarging my fists and feet is giving me flashbacks to Battletoads. :smallcool: Depending on the circumstances would I be able to make my my unarmed strikes colossal at a -6 penalty, even? If so, I probably won't get much use out of power attack, but I vaguely remember there being a cap on the size of weapons that you can wield. If I took another 3 level of kensai it would probably be to get the +3 speed (haste) ability for an extra attack. I'm rusty on magic weapon abilities though, so I'd love some alternatives to consider.
Speed is WAY overpriced. Its a Haste effect, and thus doesn't stack with any other Haste effects. You are far better off getting Boots of Speed for a flat 12,000g and getting better stuff on your weapons. The best enchants tend to be those that give you non-damage effects, and those that give you untyped or extremely versatile damage effects. As such, Wounding is pretty amazing. Collision (MIC) and Holy are both pretty good, since Collision is untyped (and also multiplies on crits) and Holy affects about 90% of the things you'll probably fight in a "good guys" game and allows you to bypass the 2nd most common DR type, DR/Good. A few others are decent as well, like Bane X (provided you are fighting a lot of X), Transmuting (MIC) if your DM likes oddball DRs, and things like Deadly Precision (CAdv/MIC) (+1 for +1d6 SA or +2 for +2d6 SA depending on which version you use) and Greater Dispelling (MIC).

Also, any other good Crystal Keep-like compendium resources out there? It’s been extremely helpful during this process.
Discussion of such sites is not allowed on this forum, due to the owner's position as a developer/artist and the fact that most of these websites are often a direct copyright infringements, whether they are prosecuted as such or not.

Hirax
2010-07-26, 02:17 PM
You make some great points, particularly about haste. Though I'm constrained by the fact that I won't be using any gloves or boots since feral trance destroys them. I'll have a look for some other sources of that effect and at the weapon abilities you mention.

edit: After looking at transmuting I think I'm sold on it being a great choice if I stick around as a kensai after level 2. I love 'be prepared' sort of things like that. When cracking open the MIC I also saw the brutal surge ability which brought to mind Battletoads again. What's more fun than booting an enemy into the distance with an oversized foot, literally. :smallbiggrin: I'm still open to new suggestions, especially since earthbound and brutal surge aren't that great mechanically, they've mostly got some awesome narrative flavor going for them. So far I've got:
Earthbound (+1 ability, +2 unnamed bonus on attack and damage rolls while you and foe are on ground)
Sizing (+1 ability, change weapon size at will)
Brutal surge (+1 ability, successful melee attack allows you to knock opponent back as bull rush, but you don't travel with them)
Transmuting (+2 ability, overcome any DR)
I'm iffy on sticking around for 5 levels as a kensai for all these abilities.

Keld Denar
2010-07-26, 03:01 PM
Call them Anklets of Speed then. The only relevant thing is that they take up your feet slot. Its not like you are wearing horse shoes or something. Foot slot is a foot slot.

Hirax
2010-07-26, 03:12 PM
Brilliant, I hadn't thought of that. Do you reckon there's a similar way to get around the same constraint for gloves? Wrists are a separate slot altogether unlike ankles. :smallmad:

Keld Denar
2010-07-26, 03:16 PM
Just make em fingerless, like the gloves you always see hobos wearing. I think there are already fingerless gloves in the game. That would allow you space for claws to extend from, and magical gloves already resize a small amount to fit the user.

What gloves do you want? If they are +dex gloves, you can reslot them using the Body Affinity rules in the back of the MIC for no difference in cost, and even stack them on top of an existing magic item. I don't remember what other slots have Dex afinity, but I'd imagine the feet slot does, which means you could make Anklets of Speed of +2 Dex for 12,000g + 4,000g = 16,000g.

Hirax
2010-07-26, 03:23 PM
Hm, that's reasonable, I had forgotten about magic items resizing, excellent. I wasn't really holding the slot for anything in particular, I'd just rather keep it open. Since my cohort will be making magic items for me I planned on taking advantage of body slot affinities like you mentioned to for instance make a shirt of +con. And maybe throwing on some cheap competence bonuses to skills onto more expensive magic items since the +50% cost increase isn't so bad for +5 on skill checks. It isn't really worth wasting a body slot on an item that only grants +5 to a skill check.

Keld Denar
2010-07-26, 03:31 PM
I'd SERIOUSLY talk to your DM before you abuse Leadership crafting rules. Thats not something you want to spring on him when you sit down at the table. If one of my players surprised me with such abuse, I'd make him sit out of the game and rebuild his character without it at the bare minimum, possibly docking him XP and cash (which he can make up later). Seriously, it really throws a monkey wrench into any attempts at game balance and makes it MUCH harder for your DM to come up with interesting and challenging obstacles.

Hirax
2010-07-26, 03:47 PM
Yeah, I don't expect everything I'm talking about doing in this thread to survive DM scrutiny. Their philosophy is something along the lines of munchkin yourself as much as you'd like, and I'll scale you down to the same level of munchkining as everyone else. They and the other players enjoy seeing such creations, and I enjoy making them too, and part of the fun is engineering them in such a way that you can comfortably scale them down. It's easy to overload a pizza with pepperoni and have the friends you're sharing it take some of the excess pepperoni off.