Character Builder Thread

[monty]

Archer is preferred. I can do TWF, if that really works, but I have a bastard sword as my main melee.

TWF with a bastard sword? Sounds like a job for the CW Samurai! Except not. Never use the CW samurai. Ever. Seriously.

[Telonius]

Not much time at the moment, but here's the idea off the top of my head - Four levels of Scout, take the Swift Hunter at third and the Improved Skirmish (Scout bonus feat) feat at fourth. Then take Ranger the rest of the way out. You can switch out a Ranger level for something more useful, since the last level would be dead.

[Arq Kujos]

That sounds good, but it really isn't the style of play I was going for. I'm not looking for optimization, but I don't want to be a failure, either. And I'm not going to respond to the comment about the CW samurai because that class doesn't exist. Not to me......not to me.:smallannoyed:

Anyway, anyone else?

Edit: I just realized how mean that might have sounded. I wasn't trying to say that your idea was a failure, I just wanted to say that my ideas have mostly turned up failures. Thank you for your time and effort.

But the CW Samurai is a failure. I make no apologies for that comment.

[Telonius]

All right, idea #2:
Ranger11 (or Ranger6/Fighter2/Scout3)/Horizon Walker9. It definitely has the world-traveller feel, it's wilderness-oriented, and in terms of power it's almost full-BAB.

[Arq Kujos]

Ranger6/Fighter2/Scout3/Horizon Walker9.

That sounds really cool. I hate to be a bother, but could you give me a more comprehensive build? Just to how me how to make it?

[Telonius]

No problem, I'll try to have it for you by the end of the day. (I made that one as I was walking out the door - work's always busiest on Mondays, and we're prepping for Thanksgiving at home).

[Telonius]

All right, here we go. First off, the first level will be in Scout. This is only for the purposes of getting you a few more skill points; if you want to switch the order for roleplay reasons, that won't be a problem.

{table] Level | Class | BAB| Fort| Ref| Will | Features| Feats
1 | Scout 1| 0| 0| 2| 0| Skirmish +1d6, Trapfinding| Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword), Power Attack
2 | Ranger 1| 1| 2|4|0|Favored Enemy, Track, Wild Empathy | |
3 | Ranger 2| 2|3|5|0|Combat Style (Archery) | Rapid Shot, Point Blank Shot
4 | Scout 2| 3|3|6|0|Battle Fortitude +1, Uncanny Dodge | |
5 | Scout 3| 4|4|6|1|Fast Movement +10, Skirmish +1AC, Trackless Step | |
6 | Ranger 3| 5|4|6|2|Endurance | Dodge
7 | Ranger 4| 6/1|5|7|2|Animal Companion, Spellcasting | |
8 | Ranger 5| 7/2|5|7|2|Second Favored Enemy | |
9 | Ranger 6| 8/3|6|8|3|Improved Combat Style (Archery) | Manyshot, Mobility
10 | Fighter 1| 9/4|8|8|3| |Spring Attack
11 | Fighter 2| 10/5|9|8|3| | Shot on the Run
12 | Horizon Walker 1| 11/6/1|11|8|3|Terrain Mastery (Desert) | Swift Hunter
13 | Horizon Walker 2| 12/7/2|12|8|3|Terrain Mastery (Marsh) | |
14 | Horizon Walker 3| 13/8/3|12|9|4|Terrain Mastery (Underground) | |
15 | Horizon Walker 4| 14/9/4|13|9|4|Terrain Mastery (Forest) | Improved Bull Rush
16 | Horizon Walker 5| 15/10/5|13|9|4|Terrain Mastery (Hills) | |
17 | Horizon Walker 6| 16/11/6/1|14|10|5|Planar Mastery (Shifting) | |
18 | Horizon Walker 7| 17/12/7/2|14|10|5|Planar Mastery (Cavernous) | Shock Trooper
19 | Horizon Walker 8| 18/13/8/3|15|10|5|Planar Mastery (Fiery) | |
20 | Horizon Walker 9| 19/14/9/4|15|11|6|Planar Mastery (Cold) | | [/table]

Skill requirements: 8 ranks in Know (Geography) by 11th level.

I would advise putting your bonus ability points all into Strength.

The general idea for combat is that the character moves 10' to within 30' of his enemy, shoots with Manyshot (doing a little bit of bonus skirmish damage), then drops the bow and draws his Bastard Sword as part of his move. I would strongly, strongly advise the Swift Hunter feat. It will really help you out on your damage. Shock Trooper will also give you some more options when you charge.

Some other options for the build: Take one more level of Ranger, and one fewer of Horizon Walker, to give you a slightly more powerful animal companion. Or, the Distracting Attack variant in the PHB 2. You'd give up an anmial companion, but any foe you hit will be considered flanked by you. (Your party Rogue might like that a lot!)

[Telonius]

Anyone have a prebuilt changeling rogue 5/monk 3 or half-giant fighter 4/psychic warrior 2? I'm looking to introduce Hope and Solarca from the City of Stormreach supplement. The changeling's build ought to focus on using her alter self ability.

That and a level 4 human rogue Bilge Rat dock enforcer and/or some CR 5-8 vampire spawn/vampire mooks.

Thanks in advance.

Changeling Rogue5/Monk3
Alignment: Any lawful
Rogue1 - Improved Initiative
Rogue1/Monk1 - Stunning Fist
Rogue1/Monk2 - Deflect Arrows, Ascetic Rogue
Rogue1/Monk3
Rogue2/Monk3
Rogue3/Monk3 - Weapon Finesse
Rogue4/Monk3
Rogue5/Monk3

Result: Sneak Attack +3d6, Unarmed damage 1d10, ability to flurry with shuriken.
For the stats, focus on Dex and Wisdom.

EDIT: Argh, forgot about that stupid +1 BAB requirement for Weapon Finesse. (I houserule it away so often I forget what the real requirement is ...) Fixed now.

[Nazde Bahatur]

I want to build a level 10 character, but i have a bit of a situation.
It has to be a druid with the Shapeshift class feature, for the swift-action transformations wiil be necessary in my campaign (he's going to be somewhat of a spiritual leader [you know, the wise old man] of a certain Lizardfolk tribe, their shaman or so).
BUT, i find it somewhat underbalanced or so. Same hit dies, lame damage..
No Wild Shape (ok, this was expected), no Animal Companion (wtf?!!!)
I do not think it's as powerless as it seems and i have absolutely no experience with druids, so i need your help!
(I forgot to mention that i do not want him to wear any armor, so that he can utilize his chameleon skin ability.)
Here's how it goes;

Race; Poison Dusk Lizardfolk (Monster Manual 3, p.96)
Class; Druid with Shapeshift class feature (Player's Handbook II, p.39)
Stats; (feel free to propose any changes)
STR: 14
DEX: 18
CON: 18
INT: 12
WIS: 16
CHA: 12
Weapons; Any, it's up to you. I'd prefer a spear or sth, he's small sized, after all..
Wealth; 45000 gp.
Books; Any 3.5 version, even Dragon Magazines.

It's the feat and spell selection that troubles me. A regular druid would be more effective, but i need to use the shapeshift class feature.
He's to use any spells or so, and then charge into melee (so i'm gonna need damage).

Feel free to ask any questions.
Thanks in advance!!!

[Telonius]

In general, Shapeshift allows you to turn on or off several combat abilities as a swift action. It's weaker than a regular Druid because it's meant to be weaker than a regular Druid (one of the Big Three core classes, and among the strongest in the game). It's much less SAD than Druid, since the general idea is that you'll be casting as well as in melee. Your feat selection will have a lot to say about how much of a melee combatant he is versus a caster - basically the same dilemma as any gish build. So the question for you is, would you like him to be CASTER/melee, caster/MELEE, or attempt to keep the abilities as equal as possible?

[Nazde Bahatur]

Ok, here's the thing;
I want him to be a spiritual leader among his people. Not the leader of the tribe, but the secret force behind the one.
The normal thing would be to make him a CASTER/melee, but i dislike casters.
Normal casters, that is. (i've never played a sorcerer or wizard or cleric or druid, but i HAVE enjoyed playing a Beguiler/Mindbender and an Illusionist/Nightmare Spinner).
He's supposed to be the only caster in his tribe, so even low on spells, he's to be revered.
So i'd prefer a caster/MELEE build. (yes, i'm a melee one, i've made some serious but-kicking melee builds but i suck at conventional spellcasting)
You know, the Lizards in the tribe are all a bunch o' hardened warriors, but he can cast spells too (as well as fight)!

If you think the caster/MELEE theme is too weak though, i shall go along with the CASTER/melee one..
Please, pretty please, help me out!

[enderrocksonall]

Cheese masters of the world unite!!!

I need to make a ridiculously overpowered BBEG for the no holds barred gestalt campaign I am running. The only restriction is that you cannot take two Dual-casting progression prestige classes at the same time. Here is the specs that I want for him:

Race:Rakshasha-Lich. The rakshasha racial HD are going to be one side of his progression for the first 7 levels.

Classes: Since Rakshasha's are natural sorcerors anyway I want to continue that progression. Also I would like to see if we could work in all 10 levels of Incantrix and all 7 levels of IotSV. Preferably this would be a base Wizard//Sorc, but if you can come up with a better way to do it be my guest.

Stats: Before racial adjustments (in any arrangement) 17,14,15,14,15,11
After racial adjustments you can subtract 3 points from any combination of stats to trade for a feat. You can do this no more than twice. The feat must be one that can be taken at first level. Assume that the jump to Lich is made at 20th level.

Books: Core+complete+BoED+BoVD+PHB2+UA+any 3.5 FR book. If you think of a book that I have left out and you want to use something I will be happy to clarify. Please no psionics unless its an awesome build and you just gotta share it.

Feats: You can take two flaws. So at first level you can have a maximum of 5 feats, unless you take a class with bonus feats. If you follow my idea of Wiz//Rakshasha/sorc, we play that sorcerors get eschew materials as a bonus feat at first level.

We have a house rule for turn undead. You make the turn check as normal, then any undead that you could affect with that turn take 1d6/level instead of being turned. Turn resistance increases the creatures effective HD against turns.

Money: This lich has been alive for millenia, and has built a dungeon that draws wealth from the adventurers who explore it, so take the level 20 WBL guidelines and feel free to use the whole thing. I will be rolling treasure for him separately as well.

Make sure to note and spell combo's you want to have persisted, or contingencied, or what-not. also if there are spells that the build absolutely has to have, then feel free to mention them.

I would like to have a few builds to choose from, so don't worry about it if your not the first one to post.

The name of this Lich is going to be Conrath...Have fun!!!

[Telonius]

From all of the fluff you're describing, it almost sounds like Spirit Shaman would be a better fit. But, if we're going for melee-focused Druid, here's what I'd do for feats.

1 Druid - Improved Initiative
3 Druid - Power Attack
6 Druid - Improved Natural Attack
9 Druid - Leap Attack

There are a couple of unfortunate things about the build. First, you're a Small Druid, so you can never* qualify for Powerful Charge or Greater Powerful Charge, which gives some nice bonus damage to Charge builds. Also, this would be a level 10 build - nine levels of Druid and a level adjustment from Lizardfolk. But if you put one more level on him, he gets the Ferocious Slayer form, which is where you'd like to be.

* - unless the DM rules that, by having the Ferocious Slayer etc. forms that make you effectively larger, you qualify as being Medium for the purposes of the feat.

[Nazde Bahatur]

Hehe, i'm the DM, and i'm trying to spice things up, here.
So it's 10 levels of druid.
Can you possibly remind me what book is Spirit Shaman in?
EDITED; Complete Divine, almost forgot!
I do not think Spirit Shaman will do the work, though..
It's all about spirits, and we do not have many of those.
He's a fairly good caster, but all the spirit fluff is no help, since we're not dealing with spirits here, but corporeal creatures.

Any other advice?

[Telonius]

An alternate progression. This will bump down his caster level - as well as negate his ability to shift into Ferocious form - but a couple of levels in Fighter would help make him a better charger.

Fighter 1 - Power Attack, Improved Initiative
Fighter 2 - Improved Bull Rush
Fighter 3 - Weapon Focus (natural attack)
Fighter 4 - Improved Natural Attack, Weapon Finesse
Ftr4/Drd2 - Leadership
Ftr4/Drd5 - Shock Trooper

Leadership inserted purely for roleplay purposes - the (lower-level) chief is his cohort.

[GrassyGnoll]

Changeling Rogue5/Monk3
Alignment: Any lawful
Rogue1 - Improved Initiative
Rogue1/Monk1 - Stunning Fist
Rogue1/Monk2 - Deflect Arrows, Ascetic Rogue
Rogue1/Monk3
Rogue2/Monk3
Rogue3/Monk3 - Weapon Finesse
Rogue4/Monk3
Rogue5/Monk3

Result: Sneak Attack +3d6, Unarmed damage 1d10, ability to flurry with shuriken.
For the stats, focus on Dex and Wisdom.

EDIT: Argh, forgot about that stupid +1 BAB requirement for Weapon Finesse. (I houserule it away so often I forget what the real requirement is ...) Fixed now.

Thank ya kindly.

[Arq Kujos]

All right, here we go. First off, the first level will be in Scout. This is only for the purposes of getting you a few more skill points; if you want to switch the order for roleplay reasons, that won't be a problem.

{table] Level | Class | BAB| Fort| Ref| Will | Features| Feats
1 | Scout 1| 0| 0| 2| 0| Skirmish +1d6, Trapfinding| Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword), Power Attack
2 | Ranger 1| 1| 2|4|0|Favored Enemy, Track, Wild Empathy | |
3 | Ranger 2| 2|3|5|0|Combat Style (Archery) | Rapid Shot, Point Blank Shot
4 | Scout 2| 3|3|6|0|Battle Fortitude +1, Uncanny Dodge | |
5 | Scout 3| 4|4|6|1|Fast Movement +10, Skirmish +1AC, Trackless Step | |
6 | Ranger 3| 5|4|6|2|Endurance | Dodge
7 | Ranger 4| 6/1|5|7|2|Animal Companion, Spellcasting | |
8 | Ranger 5| 7/2|5|7|2|Second Favored Enemy | |
9 | Ranger 6| 8/3|6|8|3|Improved Combat Style (Archery) | Manyshot, Mobility
10 | Fighter 1| 9/4|8|8|3| |Spring Attack
11 | Fighter 2| 10/5|9|8|3| | Shot on the Run
12 | Horizon Walker 1| 11/6/1|11|8|3|Terrain Mastery (Desert) | Swift Hunter
13 | Horizon Walker 2| 12/7/2|12|8|3|Terrain Mastery (Marsh) | |
14 | Horizon Walker 3| 13/8/3|12|9|4|Terrain Mastery (Underground) | |
15 | Horizon Walker 4| 14/9/4|13|9|4|Terrain Mastery (Forest) | Improved Bull Rush
16 | Horizon Walker 5| 15/10/5|13|9|4|Terrain Mastery (Hills) | |
17 | Horizon Walker 6| 16/11/6/1|14|10|5|Planar Mastery (Shifting) | |
18 | Horizon Walker 7| 17/12/7/2|14|10|5|Planar Mastery (Cavernous) | Shock Trooper
19 | Horizon Walker 8| 18/13/8/3|15|10|5|Planar Mastery (Fiery) | |
20 | Horizon Walker 9| 19/14/9/4|15|11|6|Planar Mastery (Cold) | | [/table]

Skill requirements: 8 ranks in Know (Geography) by 11th level.

I would advise putting your bonus ability points all into Strength.

The general idea for combat is that the character moves 10' to within 30' of his enemy, shoots with Manyshot (doing a little bit of bonus skirmish damage), then drops the bow and draws his Bastard Sword as part of his move. I would strongly, strongly advise the Swift Hunter feat. It will really help you out on your damage. Shock Trooper will also give you some more options when you charge.

Some other options for the build: Take one more level of Ranger, and one fewer of Horizon Walker, to give you a slightly more powerful animal companion. Or, the Distracting Attack variant in the PHB 2. You'd give up an anmial companion, but any foe you hit will be considered flanked by you. (Your party Rogue might like that a lot!)

You, my good sir, are both a scholar and a gentlemen. Thank you for all your help.

[Akennedy]

A character can be built:
From scratch to a certain level (showing the end result character at the level you specify)
Level by level (showing what you should take at each level)
Based on an existing character (taking a character you provide to the next level or whatever level you specify)

Asking for a Character (You may want to use the Sample below as a template for your request):
1. Level by Level, Please :D
2.
a. Any, so long as they're cited
b. Any Core preferably
c. You tell me!
d. N/A
e. Any
f. House Rules: Sudden Strike and sneak attack are the same thing.
g. Concept: what requirements or preferences do you have regarding concept?
h. Other: Guerrilla-type warfare. Maybe assassin-y, but very hit-and-runny.

I want to make a hit-and-run sort of character while remaining hidden, or at least running away really fast if/when I need to. I'm thinking a little ninja, rogue, assassin, but would really appreciate some input from someone else, Thank you for your time!
-Akennedy

[monty]

A character can be built:
From scratch to a certain level (showing the end result character at the level you specify)
Level by level (showing what you should take at each level)
Based on an existing character (taking a character you provide to the next level or whatever level you specify)

Asking for a Character (You may want to use the Sample below as a template for your request):
1. Level by Level, Please :D
2.
a. Any, so long as they're cited
b. Any Core preferably
c. You tell me!
d. N/A
e. Any
f. House Rules: Sudden Strike and sneak attack are the same thing.
g. Concept: what requirements or preferences do you have regarding concept?
h. Other: Guerrilla-type warfare. Maybe assassin-y, but very hit-and-runny.

I want to make a hit-and-run sort of character while remaining hidden, or at least running away really fast if/when I need to. I'm thinking a little ninja, rogue, assassin, but would really appreciate some input from someone else, Thank you for your time!
-Akennedy

First, could you actually list what those points are in the future? It inconvenience those trying to help you to have to go back to the first page to figure out what you're talking about.

Anyway, a build that I see a lot is Scout (Complete Adventurer) / Ranger with the Swift Hunter (Complete Scoundrel) feat. That basically gives you full progression for both skirmish and favored enemies, and Scout gives really good mobility for your hit-and-run tactics, as well as a truckload of skill points for Hide/Move Silently/whatever. Just make you take Scout at first level for the x4 points.

[Telonius]

Cheese masters of the world unite!!!

I need to make a ridiculously overpowered BBEG for the no holds barred gestalt campaign I am running. The only restriction is that you cannot take two Dual-casting progression prestige classes at the same time. Here is the specs that I want for him:

Race:Rakshasha-Lich. The rakshasha racial HD are going to be one side of his progression for the first 7 levels.

Classes: Since Rakshasha's are natural sorcerors anyway I want to continue that progression. Also I would like to see if we could work in all 10 levels of Incantrix and all 7 levels of IotSV. Preferably this would be a base Wizard//Sorc, but if you can come up with a better way to do it be my guest.

Stats: Before racial adjustments (in any arrangement) 17,14,15,14,15,11
After racial adjustments you can subtract 3 points from any combination of stats to trade for a feat. You can do this no more than twice. The feat must be one that can be taken at first level. Assume that the jump to Lich is made at 20th level.

Books: Core+complete+BoED+BoVD+PHB2+UA+any 3.5 FR book. If you think of a book that I have left out and you want to use something I will be happy to clarify. Please no psionics unless its an awesome build and you just gotta share it.

Feats: You can take two flaws. So at first level you can have a maximum of 5 feats, unless you take a class with bonus feats. If you follow my idea of Wiz//Rakshasha/sorc, we play that sorcerors get eschew materials as a bonus feat at first level.

We have a house rule for turn undead. You make the turn check as normal, then any undead that you could affect with that turn take 1d6/level instead of being turned. Turn resistance increases the creatures effective HD against turns.

Money: This lich has been alive for millenia, and has built a dungeon that draws wealth from the adventurers who explore it, so take the level 20 WBL guidelines and feel free to use the whole thing. I will be rolling treasure for him separately as well.

Make sure to note and spell combo's you want to have persisted, or contingencied, or what-not. also if there are spells that the build absolutely has to have, then feel free to mention them.

I would like to have a few builds to choose from, so don't worry about it if your not the first one to post.

The name of this Lich is going to be Conrath...Have fun!!!

I'll see what I can do for that - but I do have a problem. d20srd.org is down (again - wtf is going on over there?) and I'm away from my books. Could somebody confirm what the rule is on monster levels in gestalt? Does that Rakshasa have to take his 7hd of Outsider on both sides of the gestalt, or can he advance a class on one side? If it's both sides, you might be kind of hosed.

(EDIT: I'll ask the question over in rules questions as well).

[enderrocksonall]

Telonius: I am going to say that for this game the monster levels will only count for one side.

[Telonius]

Sounds good. So if somebody wanted to play him from where everybody else was level one? I think it would be something like Rakshasa7//whatever7, then wait until everybody else is level 8 to gain anything else; so the +7 level adjustment really wouldn't mean anything. (Note to self: play a Rakshasa if I ever go gestalt). All right, I think my brain is on straight for this now, I'll see what I can put together.

[theterran]

Rakshasa has 7 HD as well though...so would you need to burn 14 levels to get to play one?

[Telonius]

Okay, d20srd is back up again (finally) so I have my brain back. theterran's right. A regular old non-gestalt Rakshasa would start out the game at level 1, with seven levels of Rakshasa and one of (whatever class he takes). However, this means the character has an ECL of 15; 7 (Rakshasa) + 7 (LA) + 1 (class). You would need to get enough experience that (for example) a human would need to get to level 16, in order to get your class up to level 2. So at most you'd be able to get 13 levels by level 20. If you wanted him to have 20 character levels, it'd be like a regular race having 27 levels in the class.

[enderrocksonall]

I just think that the Rakshashas as characters entry is flawed. It seems that the book is forcing all rakshashas to take 7 levels of sorceror, in return for which they get better HD and BAB and skill points. So going off that interpretation, it makes sense to me that it would only be one side of a gestalted character.

BTW this is definitely not the accepted way to do this, I just want the players to shat themselves when they see what this guy can do. Also remember that these guys are really powerful themselves. They just took on an almost max hp kraken easily and they are only level 8. So by the time they meet this guy I expect them to be level 15-18.

[Telonius]

It's not the gestalt that's the problem at the moment, it's the level adjustment. But if you really want to throw the kitchen sink at them, I'll be happy to oblige with a Level20 (EffectiveCharacterLevel27) monstrosity. More in a bit...

[theterran]

I'd say go kitchen sink, and then he can parry it back to where he likes it. :smallbiggrin:

I'll try something too...though it probably won't be broke...:smallconfused:

[Telonius]

Since the Table maker seems to be out of commission, I'll have to spell this out...

1 - Wizard 1- Scribe Scroll, Iron Will // Rakshasa 1
2 - Wizard 2// Rakshasa 2
3 - Wizard 3 - Skill Focus (Spellcraft) //Rakshasa 3
4 - Wizard 4 - Extend Spell// Rakshasa 4
5 - Wizard 5 //Rakshasa 5
6 - Incanatrix1 - Spell Focus (Abjuration), prohibit Enchantment school, Persistent Spell //Rakshasa 6
7 - Incanatrix2// Rakshasa7
8 - Incanatrix3 - Quicken Spell// (effectively)Sorc8
9 - Incanatrix4 - Persistent Spell // IotSV1
(NOTE: Stop here if you want the finished product to be ECL20)
10 - Incanatrix5 - Split Ray//IotSV2
11 - Incanatrix6//IotSV3
12 - Incanatrix7 - Chain Spell, Enervate Spell//IotSV4
13 - Incanatrix8//IotSV5
(NOTE: Stop here if you want to keep this to ECL 20 prior to Lich template. With the template, the total ECL = 24)
14 - Incanatrix9/IotSV6
15 - Incanatrix10 - Spell Focus (Necromancy), Craft Wondrous Item//IotSV7
16 - Archmage1 - Arcane Reach//Fatespinner1
17 - Archmage2 - Mastery of Elements//Fatespinner2
18 - Archmage3 - Arcane Reach(2), Skill Focus (Knowledge: Arcana)//Loremaster1
19 - Archmage4 - Mastery of Shaping//Loremaster2
20 - Archmage5 - Spell-Like Ability//Loremaster3 - Black Lore of Moil (Applicable Knowledge)
20 - Acquire Lich template, LA+4. Total ECL = 31

Stats really don't matter for this one, but keep Int and Cha as high as you can. After level 16 it really doesn't matter which classes you take, so long as they advance full casting. Craft Wondrous is there as part of the Lich's requirement (you need it to craft your phylactery). For spell selection, you can stack up on Ray and touch spells on the Sorcerer side.

I'm not 100% sure on the bonus feats granted by Incanatrix. I'm away from my books, and the online sources I usually use don't have the full progression of that PrC.

[theterran]

With Gestalt, I thought you could only have 1 PrC at a time...:smallredface:

[Telonius]

I think that's more of a "caveat" than a requirement. Besides, the reason they give for it, is that it makes the character too powerful. If he's sending an ECL 31 full-caster Lich against 15th-level characters, I don't think that's really going to make that much of a difference.

If you really want to fix it, just make the other side full Sorcerer and move the IotSV levels down on the Incanatrix progression. Remove all of the Archmage, Loremaster, and Fatespinner levels, and take Arcane Reach as one of the feats. You'll only get 6 of the 7 IotSV levels. But really, at that point it's all just gravy.

[enderrocksonall]

got rid of that. the only restriction is that you can't have two dual-caster progression classes at the same time.

Since each class advances a different casting class, in this case the IoSV advances wizard and the Icantrix advances sorceror, it is fine.

[enderrocksonall]

It's not the gestalt that's the problem at the moment, it's the level adjustment. But if you really want to throw the kitchen sink at them, I'll be happy to oblige with a Level20 (EffectiveCharacterLevel27) monstrosity. More in a bit...

I like that idea...one of the items that the party finds will be a kitchen sink of endless water...hot and cold taps...he'll guiser them through his wards...hehehehe.....

[Telonius]

His last words must be, "I'm melting! Melting! Oh, what a world, what a world ..."

[Gerion]

C291

hey guys,
I've thougth a bit about my cleric and have this build now. (it's a bit more combat focused)

lvl1-4 cleric 5-9 ordained champion 10-20 cleric
domains trickery and war (+law at level 5)

lvl1 // cleric // turn undead // Tricker devotion, extend spell
lvl3 // cleric // - // persistend spell
lvl5 // ordained champion // Bonus domain, combat feat, continued advancement, modified spontaneous casting // power attack
lvl6 // ordained champion // diehard, smite // Divine metamagic (persitend spell)
lvl7 // ordained champion // channel spell, divine bulwark // -
lvl8 // ordained champion // Fist of the gods, rapid spontaneous casting
lvl9 // ordained champion // holly warrior, war caster // holly warrior
lvl12 // cleric // divine vigor
lvl15 // cleric //divine might
lvl18 // cleric // ?

with the Abilitys (at lvl 6)
str 13
dex 10
con 18
wis 17
int 10
cha 16

any comments or sugestions to improve it?

My problem is that acording to our DM nigthsticks must be hold in the hand to give the bonus turn atempts so I'm wondering if persistend spell is a good option.

[monty]

I'd certainly think twice about it. With your charisma and no Extra Turning, you're getting exactly zero persisted spells without a nightstick. With it, you get one. There's probably better things to do with your feats.

[Fortinbras]

I need help building a Dwarf Barbarian

lvl.4

starting ability scores are:
str:18
dex:14
con:18
int:12
wis:13
cha:10

any books work but i need a detailed explination of how anything from any books other than the core books and races of stone works.

thank you

[Gerion]

With it, you get one. There's probably better things to do with your feats.

any sugestions?

[Cheesegear]

any sugestions?

Extra Turning

[Rad]

any sugestions?

If you REALLY want to go the DMM route with those stats I'd rather invest in quicken than persist. Less cheesy, less turning checks required, more flexible.
Personally I think that DMM:Persist is really feat intensive and that it might not be that huge trick unless you get two of the feats by taking mismatched and obscure domains who happen to give them for free. Since that is not what you seem to be wanting to do, I'd just do something else with the feats.
Finally, Devotion feats and DMM do not mix well since they use up the same resources.

[Gerion]

Okay I think I won't use the dmm persisted spell, but again i'm unsure what feats to take instead, it's my first cleric..........

sugestions for feats to replace them?

[timtitan]

Hello, I'm a bit of a lurker looking for help.

I'd like some advice for making a player character up to level 15, probably a halfling, not sure as to type. I'm looking to create a scout/rogue/ninja/swordsage type thing, maybe swordsage is what i'm looking for. I'm looking for a good build for a character that uses throwing knives as a main attack method. Trapfinding would be good, a swordsage's utility/movement maneuvers would be great.

Books: 3.5 stuff, Main,+Completes,+Tome of Battle,+PHBII,

Stats: 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8

[playswithfire]

Hello, I'm a bit of a lurker looking for help.

I'd like some advice for making a player character up to level 15, probably a halfling, not sure as to type. I'm looking to create a scout/rogue/ninja/swordsage type thing, maybe swordsage is what i'm looking for. I'm looking for a good build for a character that uses throwing knives as a main attack method. Trapfinding would be good, a swordsage's utility/movement maneuvers would be great.

Books: 3.5 stuff, Main,+Completes,+Tome of Battle,+PHBII,

Stats: 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8

I went with Strongheart Halfling because I like their bonus feat:



rogue feat[Point Blank Shot]
strongheart[Far Shot]
flaw[Kung Fu Genius]
swashbuckler Weapon Finesse
rogue feat[Precise Shot]
swashbuckler
swordsage Weapon Focus(Shadow Hand weapons)
swashbuckler feat[Shadow Blade]
invisible blade
swordsage
master thrower feat[Daring Outlaw]
master thrower
master thrower
master thrower feat[open]
master thrower
invisible blade
invisible blade feat[open]

BAB 13 7d6 sneak attack while in assasin's stance
INT to AC in light armor
INT and DEX to damage with daggers(definitely melee; ranged with friendly DM; at least INT to damage when ranged)



Other options:
Change invisible blade to some other sneak attack granting prestige class
Couple of the feats may want to be changed based on your DM

[timtitan]

Looks interesting, wheres Kung Fu Genius from and what does it do?

[Cheesegear]

Looks interesting, wheres Kung Fu Genius from and what does it do?

Any Monk/Swordsage ability based on Wisdom (AC, for example. Stunning Fist is 'iffy', because it's a Feat, rather than a specific Monk ability, but you could convince your DM. Quivering Palm too.), is instead modified by Intelligence.

It's in a Dragon Mag, or on Crystal Keep.

Carmendine Monk does the same thing (and lets you count as two levels higher for certain abilities). And is in Champions of Valor. Much Better. Found here (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Carmendine_Monk,CV)

[monty]

Actually, that won't work. Kung Fu Genius specifically only applies to monk abilities, at least according to Crystal Keep.

[playswithfire]

Actually, that won't work. Kung Fu Genius specifically only applies to monk abilities, at least according to Crystal Keep.

True, but I think most DMs would let you do it; at least if you use the unarmed swordsage variant. The classes are similar enough. Or just homebrew a Carmendine Swordsage feat that works like Carmendine Monk but for swordsages.

[psychomech]

(Should I title this Q292? I'm confused by the numbering)

I'm looking for some guidance on building a very simple lvl 3 combat optimized Druid. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I want to focus on wildshaping, melee combat and basically being a tank and I just don't want to screw this up.

From scratch to Level 3 but any important Level by level milestones that would further improve the character afterwards would be lovely.
Ability scores have to be 16, 15, 12, 11, 11, 10 but can be placed anywhere.
So far the books are limited to 3.5 only PHB, DMG, MM and maybe Masters of the Wild.
Any 3.5 PHB core race.
I would like to be full druid, but multiclassing is fine.
Any druid alignment except evil (Neutral good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral)
Current house rules being used aren't set in stone yet, so by the book if fine.

The character is for a campaign in which I will likely end up protecting a party of frail arcane casters, so I want to be optimized for soaking up damage with dealing it as a second concern. Thank in advance.

[AdamSmasher]

Q923

I need to make a character specifically designed for PC versus PC combat. It's an arena campaign with a reward involved! The tournament starts at level 8 but should work it's way up to about level 12-14.

Here's the catch: I'm only allowed to use three sourcebooks outside of the core and SRD. NO dragon magazine, no flaws or traits. My three books are Spell Compendium, Complete Mage, and Eberron. Though it's not too late to change.


So far, I've got the idea for a Human Fighter 1/Artificer 7. The fighter level for Two Wapon Fighting to lead in to Dual Wand User. I figure this guy would use Metamagic Handgrips of Maximise (or Twin) and spam Seeking Rays and Rays of Enfeeblement/Exhaustion augmented with Split Ray and a variety of other goodies. Maybe a wand of Idiocy or two.... It'd have a wand of Girallon's Blessing to hold many different wands, a shield, and possibly a lesser metamagic rod (CAN an artificer transfer a rod's effects in to a wand through his class features?). Money is a bit of an issue, as chrged tems cost 5x what they normally do and I need to keep these wands going over time.

Anyone know how to make this character better?



Better yet, can anyone think of any better concepts?

[Gerion]

A923

a Friend of mine has told me about a very intresting build for an artificer.
Use the rod of many wands, you can place thre wands in it and fire them at the same time. With dual wand wield you could use two of them (if your dm allows it). There is one feat wich adds to a spell the ability to drain a level.
and you can now fire six spells a round, so there's a good chance to bestow 6 negativ levels per round.
Because the prime effect are the negativ levels you can use a wand thats cheap like ray of frost.

I'll call him tomorrow to get the name of the feat

hope this can help

(its kind of late around here so sorry if my post is a little confused)

[Suedars]

I need some help with a Shadowbane Inquisitor build. The campaign will start at 10th level and probably run to 14th or so. At the moment I'm thinking I'll go either Pal5/Rog2/Inq3 or Pal4/Rog2/Inq4 to start out, with the former giving a mount and an extra paladin smite, and the latter giving +1d6 sneak attack. A large portion of the combat will likely be taking place indoors in somewhat cramped quarters (the DM has been hinting that it'll be an urban campaign on top of that), so it looks like mounted combat isn't the way to go. Allowed books are Core+Completes, with a few other things here and there at DM discretion.

The party so far is a beguiler (who will be doing most of the rogue-type stuff), a cleric of some sort (though the player is somewhat inexperienced so a Clericzilla is unlikely), a sword and board lizardman fighter (the player is trying to see how high he can stack his AC), and two unknown characters. I'll probably end up being the party face to a degree with Gather Information, Sense Motive, and Intimidate (the DM has allowed me to take it as a class skill for both Paladin and Inquisitor levels at the cost of Diplomacy). Any other skill points I end up with are free to be used.

With how the party is shaping up I'm thinking I should be some sort of heavy physical damage dealer. I had hoped to combine Staggering Strike and Combat Brute, letting me do good damage from charging and have huge DCs for staggering strike, but they would both require me to be 9th level to take them, so the build wouldn't be fully fleshed out until 12th level. Any ideas as to how to work this?

[Cheesegear]

I want a Shadowbane Inquisitor

Hooray! My favourite class (next to Swfit Hunters)! First, be human. Does Core/Completes include the PHB II (I'm assuming it is, since you mentioned Brutal Strike)? If so, you can net Charging Smite at level 5 instead of a Paladin Mount. It's rather good if you don't plan on using a mount. Gray Guard (Complete Scoundrel) is also an option.

{TABLE]Level | Class | Feats
1 | Rogue | Power Attack, {Open Feat}
2 | Paladin |
3 | Paladin | {Open Feat - Extra Smiting?}
4 | Paladin |
5 | Paladin |
6 | Paladin | Divine Might, {ACF - Charging Smite}
7 | Inquisitor |
8 | Inquisitor |
9 | Inquisitor | Awesome Smite {Improved Sunder for Free}
10 | Inquisitor |
11 | Inquisitor |
12 | Inquisitor | Combat Brute[/TABLE]

Alternatively, you can swap Level 1 for a Paladin (and lose a whole lot of skill points!), and grab Extra Smiting right away. I wouldn't worry about Brutal Strike, since it only works with Bludge weapons, which makes it rather restrictive. You may want to pick up Extra Turning at some point (but you can't get it until Paladin 4, at least). For Open Feats, you might look at some of the Devotions from Complete Cheeseampion. Battle Blessing is also a nice feat (that you can't get until Paladin 4 - again), but, since you wont be casting too many spells I wouldn't worry about it too much. DEX is often a dump stat for Paladins, so you could pick up Improved Initiative. And by 3rd you can pick up a Weapon Focus feat - if that's what you're in to.
Improved Bull Rush/Overrun might also be nice, since you're charging a lot.

Since you're not casting spells a lot, you might be able to drop WIS a little bit (Keep it at least 11 though).

Other Builds;
Cleric 1 / Rogue 1 / Paladin 4 (or 5). That level of Cleric gets you Turn Undead right at level 1. Allowing you Extra Turning early.
Rogue 1 / Cleric 6 / Paladin 1. More spellcasting awesomeness for Cleric cheese. Be sure to pick up Extra Smiting, since that one level of Paladin wont get you many.

[Oniferous]

Human Druid 8/SwordSage 2/Cleric 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 9

Druid with shape shifting variant from PHB II.

Feats
1-Sacred Vow
1 Racial - Vow of Poverty
1 Exalted - Golden Ice
3- Augment Summoning
6- Shape Soulmeld Sphinx Claws
9- Open Least Chakra Hands

Combo
Sphinx claws at 9th level give pounce like ability, plus Girrilion's Blessing spell, plus druid's 8th level shapeshift for pounce for a claw,claw,claw,claw,bite attack every turn I attack (either 5 foot step and full attack or charge and full attack.)


What do you think? Any additional ideas?

[Telonius]

Q923

I need to make a character specifically designed for PC versus PC combat. It's an arena campaign with a reward involved! The tournament starts at level 8 but should work it's way up to about level 12-14.

Here's the catch: I'm only allowed to use three sourcebooks outside of the core and SRD. NO dragon magazine, no flaws or traits. My three books are Spell Compendium, Complete Mage, and Eberron. Though it's not too late to change.


So far, I've got the idea for a Human Fighter 1/Artificer 7. The fighter level for Two Wapon Fighting to lead in to Dual Wand User. I figure this guy would use Metamagic Handgrips of Maximise (or Twin) and spam Seeking Rays and Rays of Enfeeblement/Exhaustion augmented with Split Ray and a variety of other goodies. Maybe a wand of Idiocy or two.... It'd have a wand of Girallon's Blessing to hold many different wands, a shield, and possibly a lesser metamagic rod (CAN an artificer transfer a rod's effects in to a wand through his class features?). Money is a bit of an issue, as chrged tems cost 5x what they normally do and I need to keep these wands going over time.

Anyone know how to make this character better?



Better yet, can anyone think of any better concepts?

Is there any indication of the sorts of PC's you'll be facing? Will they be other players, or all generated by the DM?

[AdamSmasher]

They will ALL be generated by players, and I'm coming in late so there's already been significant darwining of the weaker builds. So far, there are a few wizards, a few people of various melee builds that use scrolls of shapechange, and then an assortment of other random builds. I'll be the first Artificer.


As for those rods of manywands, what book are they from?

[Xanos]

Could someone help me out with a 16th level marshal? He's an NPC for a campaign, and I don't have the Miniature Handbook. I need the abilities he would get up to and including 16th level, with saves and class abilities.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Rad]

Could someone help me out with a 16th level marshal? He's an NPC for a campaign, and I don't have the Miniature Handbook. I need the abilities he would get up to and including 16th level, with saves and class abilities.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What you ask is against both law and forum rules.
Why don't you just use another class for your NPC?

I stand corrected :smallredface: v v v

[monty]

Could someone help me out with a 16th level marshal? He's an NPC for a campaign, and I don't have the Miniature Handbook. I need the abilities he would get up to and including 16th level, with saves and class abilities.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here you go. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b) Perfectly legal.

[Gerion]

As for those rods of manywands, what book are they from?

Complete Mage page 128

but i have not found this stupid mmf, yet.

[Eloel]

I would like a level 1 core-human-monk build with 18-18-10-18-18-3 (in that order) stats. (I dumped CHA knowingly, useless for monks) Would anyone mind creating one for me? (our DM gives us an extra Feat too, that should help)

[Telonius]

Holy cow, that took way too long to get onto the boards! Anyway, here's what I'd do for that.

Human Feat - Power Attack
Standard Level 1 Feat - Weapon Proficiency (Guisarme) or (Spiked Chain)
DM's Extra Feat - Combat Reflexes
First Level Monk Feat - Stunning Fist

Any particular reason you put your 18 into INT rather than CON? CON will probably benefit you more in the long run. But if you keep it in INT, here's how I'd arrange the skills.

Max out: Balance, Climb, Jump, Listen, Move Silent, Spot, Tumble, and Diplomacy. I only include that last so you don't offend people just by existing, with that 3 CHA. If you don't care about that, put the ranks into Escape Artist instead.

If you move INT back down to 10, the skills you should max are: Tumble, Listen, Move Silent, and Spot.

[Coidzor]

3.5 DND, Core only. 1st level party of Cleric, Ranger, Monk, Wizard, and Paladin.

How should the monk and ranger allocate their skilpoints in order to pick up some of the slack of not having a rogue? Ranger is elf with 32 skillpoints, Monk is human with 24.

More personally, I'm going to be the Cleric of Pelor with domains in Sun and Strength and my stats are (point-buy, something like 42?)
STR 12
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 16
CHA 16

Should I dump some of the dexterity or strength into getting an 18 or two seventeens in Wis and Cha?

[Rad]

Human Druid 8/SwordSage 2/Cleric 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 9

Druid with shape shifting variant from PHB II.

Feats
1-Sacred Vow
1 Racial - Vow of Poverty
1 Exalted - Golden Ice
3- Augment Summoning
6- Shape Soulmeld Sphinx Claws
9- Open Least Chakra Hands

Combo
Sphinx claws at 9th level give pounce like ability, plus Girrilion's Blessing spell, plus druid's 8th level shapeshift for pounce for a claw,claw,claw,claw,bite attack every turn I attack (either 5 foot step and full attack or charge and full attack.)


What do you think? Any additional ideas?

IIRC Augment Summoning requires Spell Focus as a prerequisite. You should also have several exalted bonus feats.
I cannot evaluate your build because I'm not familiar with most of your other feats.
In some settings there could be no deities that accept both druids and clerics, so I'd suggest you check that with your DM too.

[Telonius]

First, I'd advise you to coordinate with your Paladin to split up Party Face duties. He takes Diplomacy, you take Sense Motive. His charisma is likely going to be higher than yours after all is said and done.

Nobody on the team has Trapfinding, unless the DM is nice and houserules it in. Nobody has Disable Device either, so even if you did find a trap you couldn't do much about it. You're kind of hosed there either way; search won't do you all that much good. Best bet is to send the Monk ahead with a ten-foot pole.

As for the Ranger and Monk, Monk should be your mobility guy. Climb, Balance, Tumble, Jump, Escape Artist, and Hide. (Possibly substitute Move Silent for Escape Artist). He's the one that climbs up the shear wall face to drop a rope down to the rest of you. The Ranger ought to be your scout. Hide, Search, Listen, Spot, Move Silent, Survival, Know (Nature), and maybe a couple in Ride, Handle Animal, or Heal.

You could probably take a couple points off of your Charisma. Without some of the Complete Divine feats, turning attempts aren't going to mean terribly much to you. (Unless it's a really undead-heavy campaign). I'd try to get that 18 in WIS. DEX is usually a secondary concern for Clerics; I'd switch the stats on DEX and STR. If you manage to get yourself some mithral fullplate, you can buy gloves of DEX to max out your AC that way, at only minor cost.

[23minds]

Please build me a 3rd level character?
Books: Any, but I may have to ask my DM for some of them.
Race: must be human.
Class: Anything without magic.
Ability Scores: 9, 11, 17, 13, 11, 7 in any order. (
House Rules: No magic, healing, etc. Trying to run a 'normal world' person.
Concept: Servant in a manor in Transylvania.... Yes, there's Dracula. I am really interested in using the ranged feats (trip, sunder, pin, etc)
Other: I'll be working with a combat rogue, so I'm trying to complement those skills. We're in a horror campaign, and our DM is throwing way overpowered enemies at us without healing or magic, so feel free to break the build. In fact, that's really our only hope.

[monty]

Please build me a 3rd level character?
Books: Any, but I may have to ask my DM for some of them.
Race: must be human.
Class: Anything without magic.
Ability Scores: 9, 11, 17, 13, 11, 7 in any order. (
House Rules: No magic, healing, etc. Trying to run a 'normal world' person.
Concept: Servant in a manor in Transylvania.... Yes, there's Dracula. I am really interested in using the ranged feats (trip, sunder, pin, etc)
Other: I'll be working with a combat rogue, so I'm trying to complement those skills. We're in a horror campaign, and our DM is throwing way overpowered enemies at us without healing or magic, so feel free to break the build. In fact, that's really our only hope.

Those look like amazing middle age stats (middle age gives +1 to all mental stats and -1 to all physical stats, and all your stats are all odd).

Anyway, if you can get Tome of Battle, you might want to try a warblade. For a ranged build, go 11 17 13 11 9 7 (those'll go to 10 16 12 12 10 8 with middle age) and go into Master Thrower (Complete Warrior) from levels six to ten, followed by four levels of Bloodstorm Blade (ToB). For the last six levels, you may want to either finish off Bloodstorm Blade or go into Invisible Blade (in which case, add Far Shot before Rapid Shot in the feat progression).

For feats, go (in this order) Weapon Finesse, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Focus (something thrown; I'd go with dagger), Ironheart Aura (ToB), Stormguard Warrior (ToB), Rapid Shot, other stuff.

For your weapon tricks from Master Thrower, you'll probably want Trip Shot, Palm Throw, and Weak Spot, in that order.

At level three, your character will look like this:
Middle Age Human Warblade 3
Str 10 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 12 Wis 10 Cha 8
Feats (assuming no flaws): Weapon Finesse, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot

[zerombr]

295 if we're keeping track

I realize there have been inventor type threads posted before, i've read them, what i'd like to see is a progression of artificer/Techsmith of Gond, playable at 15 for a human, halfling or gnome that is a fair if subtle representation of Lucca from Chrono Trigger.

the GM allows flaws, and any book published from WotC, including net material, he also allows, shockingly, feats to be bought for xp of an undetermined nature

the actual character would be a Hoardificer, with a gondsman, (maybe Golem later), focus on buffing ability and support for a party that has most of the archtypes supported except frontline fighter. i think the challenge for this build is to keep the Gondsman viable while progressing Artificer's Craft Reserve

I can see a level of Cleric of Gond in there, to gain 3 Domain's worth of abilities, especially the knowledge domain feat, but not to be considered a spell slinger, per se.

Many thanks for the consideration, and even more so to any who write any suggestions!

[Froogleyboy]

Hi i was wondering If I could get a level one drow cleric done. No big specifications just these:
Use 32 point buy system
Male drow
Loyal to Lolth.

be creative :smallwink: thx

[Telonius]

First, check with your DM to see whether male Drow will be allowed to be Clerics. Traditionally Clerics of Lolth are restricted to females.

Assuming the gender/class combination is allowed, this is what I'd do.

Domains: Trickery, Destruction

STR: 10
DEX: (10+2) = 12
CON: (14-2) = 12
INT: (10+2) = 12
WIS: 18
CHA: (10+2)=12

Bonus language: Drow Sign Language
Skills: Max out Know (Religion), Concentration, Bluff
Feat: If this is for a one-shot, choose between Skill Focus (Concentration) or Combat Casting. Many people prefer the somewhat greater versatility that skill focus gives, but others prefer the larger situational bonus that Combat Casting gives. If it's for a longer campaign, I'd need to know what sources were allowed or prohibited - and what level you expect to reach - before advising something.

[AgentPaper]

[3.5]
Could you please build me a 20th level rouge type for 1v1 arena battles?
Books: I can use Core + Any Complete book + PHBII + MM I-IV
Race: Rakshasa Naztharune (included in the 20th level, so 4 class levels)
Class: Sneaky is a must, but doesn't actually have to be a rouge.
Ability Scores: 22 point buy (ala 4E)
Alignment: Any
House Rules: None, sensible RAW, only explicit cheese is banned.
Other: This is for 1v1 arena battles, so effectiveness should be centered on being alone in a fight in a coliseum. This is actually for a friend of mine, not that it matters. Magic should be minimal, though.

[Cheesegear]

[3.5]
Could you please build me a 20th level rouge

A rouge? (Sorry couldn't resist). On a more serious note; I'll make a build later.

[AgentPaper]

rouge-type. class levels in rouge are completely optional.

[Cheesegear]

rouge-type. class levels in rouge are completely optional.

And there it is again. 'Rouge', twice in the same sentence.

I think the word you're looking for is Rogue. Not Rouge.

[AgentPaper]

:smalleek:

. . .

Quiet, you. :smallannoyed:

Edit: Also, that should say ECL 20. Which, if I understand HD and LA, leaves him with 4 levels to work with.

[AgentPaper]

I'd also like to add on an ECL 20 pure monk and an ECL 20 arcane caster. These are my DMPCs for the arena, the monk is the guy to beat to get into the arena, and the arcane caster is the arena champion. Feel free to use WBL and any specific preparations for the builds as well.

[AgentPaper]

Hate to triple-post, but there any chance of any of these 3 being made?

[Eloel]

I'd like to play in your arena :P

[Telonius]

Pure Monk, with only 22 point buy? :smalleek: This might be ugly, but let's give it a whirl.

Human

STR 16 (+4 stat bumps) = 20
DEX 12 (+1 stat bump) = 13
CON 10
INT 8
WIS 14
CHA 8

1 - Power Attack (normal first level), Improved Bull Rush (Human), Improved Unarmed Strike (Monk), Stunning Fist (Monk)
2 - Deflect Arrows (Monk)
3 - Improved Sunder (normal 3rd level)
6 - Improved Natural Attack (normal 6th level), Imrpoved Trip (Monk)
9 - Shock Trooper (Normal 9th level, CWar)
12 - Sun School (Normal 12th level, CWar)
15 - Flying Kick (Normal 15th level, CWar)
18 - Combat Brute (Normal 18th level, CWar)

The idea behind this guy is to completely screw with any melee-focused people who try to enter the arena. He's the gatekeeper; if anybody gets their weapons sundered by him, they're not worthy to enter.

The build is sunder-focused, with a bit of charging (Shock Trooper) and field control (Sun School, Combat Brute) added for other options. Remember that your Unarmed Strike is adamantine for the purposes of overcoming DR - it ignores the first 20 points of hardness, which should be plenty for most weapons. The Flash of Sunset tactic from Sun School might even be useful against some casters, if they're not careful with their contingencies. Key items should be strength-increasing items, AC-increasing items, and Size-enlarging items. For weapons, I'd suggest picking up a Quarterstaff for those occasions where you really need to win a Trip roll. Please note that I would never, ever use this guy as a PC in a normal campaign, since a good deal of the loot would end up sundered.

EDIT: As far as skills go, max out Tumble, Spot, Escape Artist. Possibly substitute UMD (depending on your items).

[jcsw]

Arcane Caster: Hard to deal with but not in the kill the PCs unsatisfactorily with insta-kill spells sense. And not overtly optimized so as to give PCs a chance.

Human Wizard(Abjurer) 3/Master Specialist 7/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7/Archmage 3
Banned: Evocation, Enchantment

Scribe Scroll (Bonus Feat from Wizard)
1]Improved Initiative
3]Spell Focus (Abjuration)
6]Spell Focus (Necromancy)
9]Split Ray [Complete Arcane]
12]Quicken Spell
15]Extend Spell
18]Metamagic School Focus (Abjuration)
Greater Spell Focus (Abjuration) (Bonus Feat from Master Specialist)
Skill Focus (Spellcraft) (Bonus Feat from Master Specialist)

Spells of note: Repelling Shield (Complete Mage), force reflex saves whenever melee folks try to hit him
Transmute Rock to Lava (Complete Arcane), combine with Archmage's Mastery of Shaping to surround yourself with lava
Prismatic Sphere (Annoy opponents to no end with yet more prismatic effects!)
Illusionary Pit (PHBII)

Strategy:
Prep Rounds, Quickened Greater Invisibility, Foresight
Try to win initiative with nerveskitter, but if not, foresight lets you place veils as needed.
Timestop, then surround yourself with as many AOE spells at once. Shapechange into a choker for extra actions if necessary.
Transmute Rock to Lava, Illusionary Pit, Prismatic Sphere, etc

[realbombchu]

Q.1. Could you help me build my first artificer at level 8 for an Eberron campaign (v3.5)? In particular, I would like help with feats and equipment, but I'm thankful for any and all help. Simple but effective builds would be best for me, thanks.
Books: I would like to use the core books, complete adventurer/arcane/divine/warrior, Eberron Campaign Setting, and/or Magic of Eberron. I think those are the only books I have that would be relevant to what I'm after.
Race: Plain human male, about 19 years old.
Class: Artificer, but I would like to take two levels of renegade mastermaker, so it would be more like Artificer 6/Renegade Mastermaker 2. Remember when you are choosing my equipment that the battlefist can be further enhanced, but this is not required.
Ability Scores: Modified Elite Array. 14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10
Alignment: Neutral Good is my favorite.
House Rules: None.
Concept: Aeron Tahnd is a young Cyran refugee who has settled in Breland. He lost the lower half of his left arm in an accident at a forgehold, and now bears a warforged forearm. He is quiet, kind, and does not like to talk about the arm. Unlike the other renegade mastermakers, he does not think the warforged are special or perfect, he just couldn't give up his trade (armorsmithing) and needed an arm.

Q.2. I would also like help choosing a homonculus (spelling) for this same character. I am thinking about an arbalester, an iron defender, or a persistent harrier. In other words, a combat homonculus.

[Malacode]

I'm entering a new campaign, limited magic setting (Magic items and enchantments cost twice as much, max of +11 between all gear if you have idea for items I could use), and was wondering what to do... I normally play Warlocks or Sorc's, see? So I figured I'd take a completely different tack and go Barbarian. So that's what I'm after, really.
Basically, I'd like to see how it's built level by level so I understand all the possible tricks or whatever.
Few restrictions:
Race: Wendigo race, from Bastards and Bloodlines (+2 LA, +4 to Str, +2 to Con, -2 to Int, +2 to Wis, -2 to Cha, Scent, Breath Weapon 15ft cone 1d6+(1/2 of levels)d6, Cold Subtype, etc...) and the Frostrager prestige class from Frostburn.
Concept: Pretty much a sweeper. Rage, pounce, attack, jump back out again, pounce someone else, etc. I know it isn't terribly effective, what with AoO's and stuff, but that's not so important with some of the abilities of the rest of the party. This means the Totem that grants you Pounce from CC is pretty much needed though. Anything that gets him a ridiculous number of dice on the table in a charge is good :smalltongue:. Also, the Deepwarden and Fist of the Forest abilities to add Con to AC instead of Dex would probably be pretty cool to work with
Abilities: I've already rolled up my stats (Heroic) and got three 18's, a 14, a 15and a 16 to distribute, before adjustment of course. Lucky, eh? That's why I'm keeping them
I'd like to avoid Psionics too, as the DM probably won't allow it.

So if you can stand to build a character with that many restrictions, please do. Thanks to whomever has a go.

[Sindark]

I am interested in building a new character Utilizing the Shadow Template Shadow Creature template: originally in the 3.0 Manual of the Planes
(p. 190), updated in Lords of Madness

So here is a little backround on my character. I am playing a human rogue who has fallen in with a group of Orcs on the plane of Asheron. I am starting at lvl 4. So here is how I am plaing to build the character.
1st Rogue
2nd Cleric Domains Trickery and Darkness Domains
3rd Cleric
4th Shadow Template 1st part. no shadow blend etc

I want to optimize this characater for sleight of hand, diplomacy, move silent, and pick pocketing.
my starting stats are 15 15 15 11 11 8

My plan is to really maximize his no magical equipment for stealing. In addition he will have the following:
ring of the filcher, masterwork thieves tools, hewards haversack, goggles of minute seeing, etc

I originally wanted to build him with dodge, mobility, spring attack...so he could pickpocket during combat, with tons of free actions. But due to the BAB I dont think I will be able to pull that off using the shadow template.
So I am planning on taking Deft Hands, Quick Draw for feats.

Any other suggestions on the build??

I am limited on which books I can use. Here is the list:
Manual of the Planes,3.5 Players, 3.5 Dmg, Bovd, Boed, Savage Species, Deities & Demigods, & Psionic handbook 3.0.

Anything else is not legal

thanks

[Telonius]

A couple problems with that ... if you're using the Lords of Madness version (and it is the 3.5 update of the template), the template gives a +2 LA. You'll be starting with two class levels rather than four, and wouldn't be able to buy off the levels until 6 and 9. Unless you're doing some kind of houserules, you don't get to pick and choose which parts of the template you get at which levels - you get everything at the start. (Though it is a little unclear whether the special ability per 4 HD rules for Shadow Template applies to the base creature's starting HD, or to HD gained by levels).

"Pickpocketing" is not a skill in 3.5. It's kind of rolled in with Sleight of Hand and Disarm. If you're planning on stealing things during combat, skills are not what you're going to need - you'll want to refer to the "Grabbing Items (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#grabbingItems)" section of the SRD. My advice is to build this guy around Disarming quickly (most likely tumble in, disarm, then use Spring Attack to tumble away). Weapon Finesse will also help you. Another option would be to go Arcane Trickster, but since you're angling towards Cleric that might not be a great idea. In either case, you wouldn't be able to get free actions for theft in combat.

[Telonius]

Q.1. Could you help me build my first artificer at level 8 for an Eberron campaign (v3.5)? In particular, I would like help with feats and equipment, but I'm thankful for any and all help. Simple but effective builds would be best for me, thanks.
Books: I would like to use the core books, complete adventurer/arcane/divine/warrior, Eberron Campaign Setting, and/or Magic of Eberron. I think those are the only books I have that would be relevant to what I'm after.
Race: Plain human male, about 19 years old.
Class: Artificer, but I would like to take two levels of renegade mastermaker, so it would be more like Artificer 6/Renegade Mastermaker 2. Remember when you are choosing my equipment that the battlefist can be further enhanced, but this is not required.
Ability Scores: Modified Elite Array. 14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10
Alignment: Neutral Good is my favorite.
House Rules: None.
Concept: Aeron Tahnd is a young Cyran refugee who has settled in Breland. He lost the lower half of his left arm in an accident at a forgehold, and now bears a warforged forearm. He is quiet, kind, and does not like to talk about the arm. Unlike the other renegade mastermakers, he does not think the warforged are special or perfect, he just couldn't give up his trade (armorsmithing) and needed an arm.

Q.2. I would also like help choosing a homonculus (spelling) for this same character. I am thinking about an arbalester, an iron defender, or a persistent harrier. In other words, a combat homonculus.


Sorry I haven't gotten to this yet. I'm away from my books at the moment, so can't help as much on the item selection (can't remember WBL offhand). But here's what I'd do.

STR 10
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 14 -> 16
WIS 13
CHA 13

Bump INT at 4th and 8th levels, for a total INT of 16.

Feats:
1 Scribe Scroll (Artificer), Legendary Artisan (Human), Extraordinary Artisan (normal 1st level)
2 Brew Potion
3 Craft Wondrous Item, Maximize Spell (Normal 3rd)
4 Craft Homunculus, Attune Magic Weapon
5 Craft Magic Arms and Armor
6 Metamagic Spell Trigger, Rapid Infusion (Normal 6th)

Skills:
Max out: Craft (your choice), Disable Device, Use Magic Device, Search, Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana), and Concentration. If your party has a Rogue who will be doing Search and Disable, substitute your choice of other skills; Tumble is usually a good one. Look for synergy opportunities; Decipher Script for UMD, etc.

For your Homunculus, I'd go with a Persistent Harrier. I'd also strongly recommend a Dedicated Wright. Put the little guy in a bag of holding/handy haversack, and let him work away. The Packmate is great if anybody in your group is into Discworld.

Items: Ring of Master Artifice (Least), any intelligence-increasing items, AC-increasing items, etc. Get the best medium armor you can afford. Remember, while you're better off than a Wizard, you're still pretty low on HP. I'd recommend a crossbow as a ranged weapon; try to stay out of melee if possible.

Moving forward from there, I'd really recommend you take few more levels in Artificer before continuing with Renegade Mastermaker. Artificer 11 gets you the most powerful artificer bonuses, but I would stay in until Artificer 9 at the very least, to get a free Craft Rod.

[Cyranojoe]

My apologies if this is a silly place to post this request. :smalltongue:

I need to upgrade my Commoner (squire) to what is essentially a 1st level Fighter, 3.5e. How does this normally work? He has all 8's as stats, and a pretty standard skill set for commoners. Does he get additional HP, etc, or do I start him from scratch as a Fighter?

I've asked my DM a few times to no avail, so I'm hoping you guys can get me started, and if he doesn't like what I've done he'll tell me the way he actually wants it done. :smallbiggrin:

Muchos gracias.

[Telonius]

To start out with, I'm guessing your guy is a Commoner 1. Normally one of three things would happen.

Number one, your DM allows you to retrain the class. Your ability scores would remain the same, but you erase "Commoner 1" on your character sheet and write down "Fighter 1" instead. Replace all of the commoner abilities, skills, Base Attack Bonus, etc., with Fighter abilities, skills, etc.

Number two, you gain experience as a Commoner 1 until you reach the next level. You take a level in Fighter instead of Commoner. Your ability scores remain the same.

Number three, your commoner falls on his sword, and you roll up a new character.

EDIT: Not sure why your DM wanted to start you out as a Commoner. It might be a preference of his for all characters to take one level of NPC - it's very unusual, but not unheard-of. Personally I'd allow you to reroll the character entirely, but he might have something else (maybe better, maybe worse) in mind.

[Cyranojoe]

Thanks, this helps. Commoner 1 is correct. I get that the BAB and abilities (zero) would be replaced -- are the skills *points* replaced as well?

Here's the sheet:
http://www.coyotecode.net/profiler/view.php?id=4797

He's actually the squire to my primary character (lvl 10 Cavalier), and will be upgrading to a level 1 Cavalier (homebrew, I think, but essentially a focused fighter). His main purpose so far is to lug the stuff I'm not putting on my steed, especially extra weaponry, and to avoid combat for a long long time. Good for RP, too.

So, going from Commoner to Cavalier, he'd lose class skills in Listen, Profession, Spot, and Use Rope, but gain it in whatever skills Cavaliers are trained in, right? That means he loses the skill points previously allocated, right? Obviously this is not a big deal, I just want to get it correct, and it's the part I'm fuzziest on.

[Pictogram]

Hi again, I need help once more with making a character.
I'm thinking of making an Archivist, but I'm not sure what race to be, and I'd also like to find a nice prestige class that I could look forward too.
Any suggestions? Oh, and any book is allowed.

[Telonius]

The full level rebuilding rules are in the PHB2 on pages 197-198. They give you several options there. The one they recommend is that if the new class has the same number of skill points as the old class, leave things as they are. If the new class has more skill points, you add them in one or more of the new class's class skills. If the new class has less skill points, you remove skill points.

In your case, none of the Commoner class skills would be class skills anymore; all of the Cavalier class skills would be class skills. You can't get any lower than 2 skill points per level, so you'd either leave your skills where they are, or get to add some skill points.

Cavalier is most likely a homebrew; I can't find any base class of that name in 3.5. There is a Prestige class from Complete Warrior, but I'm guessing that's not what he's talking about.

From that other piece of information (the fact that you have a level 10 character as well), I can kind of see why your DM might be a bit hesitant. Normally to get a second character with class levels, you would need to take the Leadership (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership) feat. The feat is from the DMG, and comes with several caveats about working with the DM and the DM being free do disallow it if it disrupts the campaign - one of the few, if not the only, feat in the game to have such cautions. Knowing nothing else about the situation, I suspect he was fine with a level 1 Commoner in the party, but not so sure about giving you a free character without taking the feat. If you really want that squire companion to have class levels, I'd suggest that you might ask him about taking Leadership at level 12. Your squire would be the cohort. I know two levels can be a long time, but it might smooth things over a bit.

[Cyranojoe]

The DM actually encouraged me to take the commoner/squire, and we discussed the Leadership feat as a separate issue. One of our other players actually took Leadership, too. :smallsmile:

I should point out that we're using the d20 SRD, in case that changes things.

I happened to put points into skills that will remain class skills -- figuring that's what a squire would do -- so I won't bother asking about how the upgrade changes the skill mods and whatnot. :smallsmile: In any case, your explanation is grade-A and a big help. Thank you.

[DemetriX]

Request: 3.5

I have a 7 level Rogue and I want to retrain him to something like a hybrid of Rogue, Monk and Warshaper with one level of Cleric if it offers much. My race is Changeling and my DM allows free multiclass (without penalty). Only 3.5 books.
My abilities are 10, 19, 14, 14, 18, 12. Thanks for helping.

[dspeyer]

Request: 3.5

I have a 7 level Rogue and I want to retrain him to something like a hybrid of Rogue, Monk and Warshaper with one level of Cleric if it offers much. My race is Changeling and my DM allows free multiclass (without penalty). Only 3.5 books.
My abilities are 10, 19, 14, 14, 18, 12. Thanks for helping.

How about a ninja 1 / cleric 3 / ninja 2 / warshaper 1? With the trickery domain, you'll be able to max out hide, move silently, spot, listen and disguise until that final warshaper level. You also get 2d6 sudden strike, 2nd level spells, wis to AC, and no need to carry weapons (since you just grow your own). For feats, weapon finesse is mandatory, and silent spell is probably wise. I can't think of a third feat that really fits, so maybe dmm(silent). Alternatively, take one of the fighter feats that's a prerequisite to a lot of others.

It's somewhat weak in combat, but makes a nicely versatile spy and occasional assassin (especially if you can afford poison), and is reasonably flavorful.

[playswithfire]

Request: 3.5

I have a 7 level Rogue and I want to retrain him to something like a hybrid of Rogue, Monk and Warshaper with one level of Cleric if it offers much. My race is Changeling and my DM allows free multiclass (without penalty). Only 3.5 books.
My abilities are 10, 19, 14, 14, 18, 12. Thanks for helping.

Not quite what you're looking for, particularly as it won't be as good as it can be til levels 8/9

rogue feat[Carmendine Monk]
Sneak Attack fighter variant
Swashbuckler finesse,feat
Swashbuckler
Swordsage improved unarmed strike, weapon focus(dagger,unarmed strike)
Swashbuckler feat[Shadow Blade]
warshaper
Swordsage
Swashbuckler feat[Daring Outlaw]
By level 9, BAB 6, INT to AC in light armor, INT and DEX to damage, 4d6 sneak attack and being considered flanking while you and an ally are adjacent or 6d6 sneak attack if you can get it otherwise (depends on swordsage stance)
Swordsage is the unarmed variant, obviously

To be more in line with what you specifically requested (sorry for the other; my standard rogue-but-not-quite build), drop the swordsage levels, replace the first one with a monk level, the second with swashbuckler, move shadow blade to the 6th level feat and you've got 9th open for whatever, probably Improved Natural Attack

[PurinaDragonCho]

Hi again, I need help once more with making a character.
I'm thinking of making an Archivist, but I'm not sure what race to be, and I'd also like to find a nice prestige class that I could look forward too.
Any suggestions? Oh, and any book is allowed.

Personally, I like humans for the extra bonus feat and extra skill points.

Archivists get very good class features, though, so prestige classes are less attractive for them. But you could go Sacred Exorcist to get turning - or Knight of the Raven from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft - IIRC, it's 9/10 casting and full BAB.

Since Archivists are INT based, they usually have lots of skill points. For that reason, I like to take my first level in rogue or factotum and take the Able Learner feat, so that all (or practically all) skills are class skills forever.

Archivist is really fun. My favorite class.

[Kris Strife]

Q1 I need help making a char
campaign: 3.5 exalted generic
Race: Half gold dragon human
Scores: 14 14 14 15 16 16 unmodified and unplaced
Party: Cleric/warlock, fighter, barbarian, druid and paladin
Special: modified lvl buy off, so no LA, 5th, 50k gp. I dont know what class, any book, like using bastard swords, lots of demons and some in the campaign so thinking sacred burst enchantment, I'm interested in warmage, maybe with some fighter levels for bonus feats, but not sold on it.

[Telonius]

Warmage to Exalted Arcanist might interest you. Five levels of ExArc gives you all of the Sanctified Spells as spells known.

[The Mormegil]

Exalted Arcanist is not that good, IMO.

You got, what, 4 hardcore front-liners and 1 that'll be a front-liner as soon as he reaches CL 7?
Good healing between Cleric / Druid / Paladin. Good damage output as there are many melee combatents... Warlock can get UMD and some social skills... but no arcvane caster.

Go for Battle Sorcerer (variant from Unearthed Arcana, drops some spells to gain 3/4 Bab), and use a Gish build. One of the best, since you're Exalted, is:

Paladin 2 / Battle Sorcerer 4 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Spellsword 1 / Sacred Exorcist 8

Abjurant Champion is from Complete Mage, Spellsword from Complete Warrior, Sacred Exorcist from Complete Divine.

[mangosta71]

What sort of equipment would people recommend for an unarmed swordsage with a 135k budget? Well, doesn't have to be unarmed. But it's a dex based build, and one of my requirements is that his weapon be on the favored weapons list for the Shadow Hand discipline.

[Kris Strife]

Warmage to Exalted Arcanist might interest you. Five levels of ExArc gives you all of the Sanctified Spells as spells known.

Ooh, Pheonix Fire. *drools*

I would actually prefer warmage, and I'd like advice on the starting build, I'll figure out PrCs and advancement later. How should I place my stats, what should I add my 4th level bonus point to, what feats and equipment, etc?

[Nazde Bahatur]

I'm trying to make a 7th level Human Warlock, but i can't make it work..
The concept is a Blaster, we're aiming for maximum damage here.
What would your selection of Invocations and feats be?

[Telonius]

Ooh, Pheonix Fire. *drools*

I would actually prefer warmage, and I'd like advice on the starting build, I'll figure out PrCs and advancement later. How should I place my stats, what should I add my 4th level bonus point to, what feats and equipment, etc?

Okay, 5th level, the stats you gave, aiming for Exalted Arcanist at seventh level.

STR 14+8(halfdragon) = 22
DEX 15
CON 16+2(halfdragon) = 18
INT 14+2(halfdragon) = 16
WIS 14
CHA 16+2(halfdragon)+1(at 4th level)= 19

For the feats, there is a particularly unfortunate part of what you want: Warmages are not proficient in Bastard Swords. I've assigned the feats to ignore this and focus on the spellcasting. If you really want to use a Bastard Sword, take a level in Fighter at first, and use your bonus fighter feat to get Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword. I would not recommend this at all from a power perspective. But if it's required for the flavor, Fighter is the best way to get it. (I am ignoring Samurai on principle).

1 Warmage1: Purify Spell (normal 1st level feat), Consecrate Spell (human feat), Armored Mage (light), Warmage Edge
2 Wmg2
3 Wmg3: Advanced Learning* (Warmage), Spell Penetration (Normal 3rd level feat)
4 Wmg4
5 Wmg5

* - I'd recommend Kelgore's Fire Bolt, a first-level spell from PHB2.

Skills: Max out Knowledge (arcana) and Knowledge (religion), prerequisites for Exalted Arcanist. You'll have three other skill points per level; I'd recommend Concentration, Spellcraft, and another of your choice.

Equipment at 5th level: +1 MW Chain Shirt, MW Light Steel Shield, MW Spear, 5 javelins (common), Everburning Torch, Silk Rope, Waterskin, Grappling Hook, 2 sets of caltrops, Cloak of Charisma +2, Handy Haversack, Ring of Protection +1, miscellaneous items totalling 160 gp or less.

Moving forward from there:
6 Wmg6 - Advanced Learning (Resonating Bolt - CArc), Greater Spell Penetration (normal 6th level)
7 Exalted Arcanist1 - Exalted Spell List, Spell Knowledge**
8 ExArc2 - Faster Consecrate
9 ExArc3 - Nimbus of Light (ExArc bonus), Energy Substitution (Acid) (normal 9th level)
10 ExArc4 - Faster Purify
11 ExArc5 - Sanctified Spells, Holy Radiance (ExArc bonus)
12 Wmg7 - Sudden Empower, Twin Spell (Normal 12th)
13 Wmg8 - Armored Mage (Medium)
14 Wmg9
15 Wmg10 - Sudden Enlarge, Sudden Maximize (Normal 15th)
16 Wmg11 - Advanced Learning (Forcecage)
17 Wmg12
18 Wmg13 - Chain Spell (Normal 18th)
19 Wmg14
20 Wmg15 - Sudden Widen

For the rest of your Stat bumps, bump Charisma at level 8, Dexterity at level 12, and Charisma for the last two. Get equipment that bumps up your spellcasting abilities (Charisma items, Rings of Wizardry, Metamagic Rods), bumps up your AC (amulets of natural armor, Gloves of Dex), gives you more mobility (Carpet of Flying, Wings of Flying, Broom of Flying, Boots of Striding and Springing), and better armor and shield (You should probably be wearing Mithral Fullplate after level 13).

** - Ask your DM how this will interact with the Warmage spell list. Exalted Arcanist was designed with Sorcerer in mind, who chooses spells known from a list. Warmage, while still a spontaneous caster, knows all the spells on his list. If your DM rules that the wording of the PrC means that all ExArc spells are known at the level you get the spell list, then no problem; you don't need to pick and choose. If the DM rules that you don't automatically get them on your spell list, take Searing Light and Consecrate.

[xanaphia]

Level: 5
Books: Core
Race: Any
Class: Any
Ability Scores: Elite Array
Alignment: Any
House Rules: None.
Concept: I need a character who is ridiculously powerful, but core. Can you please make it for me?

[Mando Knight]

Use a Druid with Natural Spell. Possibly Human for the extra feat...

Put your 15 into Wisdom, and use your 4th level stat boost for more Wisdom (and every level after... I am assuming you want to get 9th level spells eventually).

Once per day for five hours, you can be a panther (or other animal) and cast spells.

The druid wildshape gets the Con/Str/Dex scores of the chosen animal, while keeping the Int/Wis/Cha scores.

Not experienced enough in 3.5 power-cheesing to tell you anything else...

...unless you make Pun-Pun...

[monty]

You can't take Natural Spell until level 6, though.

[Ricky S]

Mousefolk, Force Missile Mage or wizard (or a combination, not sure if you need both)
Any rulebooks,
Level 6,
9000 starting gold,
Mousefol +4 dex -4 str, diminutive
25 point buy
house rules none
character to have character Ie not overpowered but not too weak either

[Mando Knight]

You can't take Natural Spell until level 6, though.

Not according to the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#naturalSpell)... according to that, the only requirements are a Wisdom of 13 and Wildshape... and wildshape comes at level 5.

[Adumbration]

Not according to the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#naturalSpell)... according to that, the only requirements are a Wisdom of 13 and Wildshape... and wildshape comes at level 5.

And you're getting a feat at level 5... how?

[dspeyer]

How about a barbarian 1 / cleric 4?
Take Kord as your deity and Strength and Luck as your domains.
Take Power Attack as your level 1 feat, then maybe improved sunder or cleave depending on what sort of opposition you expect to face.
Probably use dwarf as your race (against flavor? that's why you're filled with rage!). Half-orc isn't really better, since you need both str and con. Orc is an option, but skills will really hurt.

[monty]

Not according to the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#naturalSpell)... according to that, the only requirements are a Wisdom of 13 and Wildshape... and wildshape comes at level 5.

The only way I can think of to get a feat at Druid 5 is to take a level of something other than Druid, in which case he still wouldn't get the feat yet, since he's starting at level 5.

[Eloel]

The only way I can think of to get a feat at Druid 5 is to take a level of something other than Druid, in which case he still wouldn't get the feat yet, since he's starting at level 5.

The other way I can think is Gestalt, yet that's possibly not what he meant.

[monty]

The other way I can think is Gestalt, yet that's possibly not what he meant.

You still won't be getting a feat at level 5, though. Well, I suppose you could take a level of a class that gives bonus feats, but I don't know of any that give a general bonus feat that early.

[Mando Knight]

The only way I can think of to get a feat at Druid 5 is to take a level of something other than Druid, in which case he still wouldn't get the feat yet, since he's starting at level 5.

Ah. Right. Forgot about that...

Are there rules for retraining feats in 3.5? If so, then that would be probably the easiest way to get the feat...

[Rad]

Ah. Right. Forgot about that...

Are there rules for retraining feats in 3.5? If so, then that would be probably the easiest way to get the feat...
There are, and they say that you cannot take a replacement feat for which you wouldn't have qualified when you took the feat you're trading it with.

[dspeyer]

You still won't be getting a feat at level 5, though. Well, I suppose you could take a level of a class that gives bonus feats, but I don't know of any that give a general bonus feat that early.

Human Paragon.

I didn't say it was a good idea, or applicable to the request.

[Mando Knight]

There are, and they say that you cannot take a replacement feat for which you wouldn't have qualified when you took the feat you're trading it with.

Ah. Oh well. At least the character will be moderately balanced for the first five levels, and then the overpowered-brokenness that the poster wanted at the next level... :smallsigh:

[DaDude9211]

I've been messing around with making a Monk/Kensai build, and I was wondering what the Giant's Playground thinks of this. The fluff idea behind it is to pretty much knock off the Bagi from an mmorpg called 2moons. Pretty much, they were monks who were mutated by some serious curse/taint which tried to turn them into monsters. They managed to resist the curse partially so that they retained control over their body, but still got big and muscly from the curse. They generally use katars and heavy armor.

To mimic this, I figured I’d end up doing something with a Half-Giant and the Invisible Blade PrC, but while flipping through Complete Warrior to it I saw the Kensai, and realized it totally could fit the idea of the bagi, with it’s Ki usage and focus on using one weapon.

The main dilemma, if you would call it that, that I'm meeting in my decisions is Monk 10/Kensai 10 or Monk 15/Kensai 5. I’ve been slightly leaning towards Monk/Kensai over the other suggestions below because it’s fun specials.
Monk 10/Kensai 10 vs. Monk 15/Kensai 5

Main Kensai 10 advantages:
- The increased enchantments on my signature weapon of course
- Power Surge becomes far more practical for combat use
- Slightly better HD
- Will save is better by 1

Main Monk 15 advantages:
- Better unarmed damage, AC, and unarmored speed while still making full use of Monk's Belt
- Much better Flurry of Blows
- Immunity to poison
- 25 Spell resistance!

An alternative I've been looking at is losing the monk levels for barbarian, and changing the signature weapon to the punching dagger. The idea is focusing more on the use of Power Surge and Rage together to make up for lost damage against monk and do scary things; and using intimidation to make it seem doubly scary.

Barbarian 10/Kensai 10 vs Barbarian 12/Kensai 8

Main 10 Kensai advantages:
- Longer Power Surge
- Better Ki Projection and Instill
- Ki Warlord bonuses to party
- Better Will save

Main 12 Barbarian advantages:
- Better, and more Rage
- Better BAB
- Slightly better HD
- Better Fort save

I'm also considering throwing Fighter levels in for the beauty of the bonus feats. Specifically Fighter 4/Barbarian 11/Kensai 5 which grabs Greater Rage and Weapon Specialization, while still pulling 5 levels of Kensai.

Yet another variation I'm considering (don't worry, this is the last one, lol) is maybe throwing in Invisible blade for unfettered defense with the punching dagger. It is fickle though, because then I can't use armor, so you figure monk right? The monk uses fists better than punching daggers though (scary eh?). So as of yet, I've failed to see a successful way to employ that really.
As for the main builds, here's an advantage vs. thing.

Main Monk/Kensai advantages/disadvantages:
:smallsmile: Unarmed damage seems brutal compared to punching daggers, and allows grappling and such
:smallsmile: Movement speed bonus
:smallsmile: Great saves all around
:smallsmile: Wis bonus to AC and a straight up AC bonus
:smallsmile: Skill selection, particularly Concentration
:smallsmile: Fun monk specials like Ki Strike, Still Mind, etc.
:smallsmile: Improved Evasion, and a Kensai ability to make it shine.
:smallfrown: No armor
:smallfrown: Worst HD
:smallfrown: poor BAB

Main Barbarian/Kensai advantages/disadvantages:
:smallsmile: Armor
:smallsmile: Combining Power Surge and Rage makes this guy capable of doing some pretty gnarly things, from busting down effectively any door to tearing iron grates in half...
:smallsmile: Best HD
:smallsmile: DR
:smallfrown: Illiterate

Main Fighter/Barbarian/Kensai advantages/disadvantages
:smallsmile: Armor
:smallsmile: Feats to spread around
:smallsmile: Can still/still has: Rage-Power Surge combo/some DR, nice HD
:smallfrown: Buh, multiclassing exp penalties!
:smallfrown: Splits classes so neither is terribly effective.

Btw, sorry for mega post. If this was TL;DR then here's the Asking for a Character template from the first post.

1. I want to hear other peoples views on which build they think is best and why.
2.
a. Books: Any 3.5e, disregarding Psionics. Half-Giant's are from EPH, but you don't have to say 'power points' or 'manifester level' anywhere in their information so they're cool.
b. Race: Half-Giant (It's +1 LA) (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Half-Giants_(Race))
c. Class: As previously stated, Fighter, Barbarian, and Monk seem good, so classes like that are highly suggestible. I'd prefer at least 5 levels of Kensai in it somewhere though.
d. Ability Scores: I don't know yet, but since we're not directly building the character out in detail it shouldn't be a biggie, if you really want to get into it 32 point buy would work fine probably.
e. Alignment: Any, not that it matters for our purposes.
f. House Rules: Powerful Build may or may not affect a monk's unarmed damage, so consider both instances.
g. Concept: Think of a big quiet dude who meditates.
h. Other: I heard something about the idea of a monk using large gauntlets to make use of the powerful build. Don't you not get monk unarmed damage this way though?

Things to note:
Half-Giants are in the Expanded Psionics Handbook.
The Kensai PrC is in Complete Warrior.
Please feel free to give ANY suggestions, be it another class, a piece of equipment or feat you think would compliment one of the builds ,or an excel table showing the various builds' average damage per round in an overly complex and scary fashion (OH NOES, NUMBERS :smalleek: )

[Telonius]

This has become almost cliche on the boards when talking about potential Monk builds. But from what you've said you want in your character, it's actually very applicable: what you want is a Swordsage (unarmed variant). It's a base class from Tome of Battle, and gives you just about everything you want - Wis to AC, Monk's unarmed damage progression, 3/4 BAB, martial weapon proficiency, as many skill points as a Bard, Evasion (a little later on), big meditating dude fluff. Diplomacy isn't a class skill, so you'd have to either multiclass or wait till 7 to start taking Kensai levels. But everything else is there.

[playswithfire]

Btw, sorry for mega post. If this was TL;DR then here's the Asking for a Character template from the first post.
1. I want to hear other peoples views on which build they think is best and why.

Of the one's you've posted, I'd vote for Monk/Kensai, but only because kensai requires lawful alignment and a barbarian who becomes lawful can't rage. If your DM ignores this, then the barbarian option might be more fun. I'll add some general thoughts/alternative builds at the end.


2.
a. Books: Any 3.5e, disregarding Psionics. Half-Giant's are from EPH, but you don't have to say 'power points' or 'manifester level' anywhere in their information so they're cool.
b. Race: Half-Giant (It's +1 LA) (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Half-Giants_(Race))
c. Class: As previously stated, Fighter, Barbarian, and Monk seem good, so classes like that are highly suggestible. I'd prefer at least 5 levels of Kensai in it somewhere though.

b. If you're not going to be psionic, you might as well be a goliath (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040711b&page=5), instead of a Half-Giant. Basically, trade the power points for another +2 to Strength, favored class is barbarian and they have some decent racial substitution levels for barbarian (Races of Stone).
c. I'd use swordsage instead of monk. You can get the monk's unarmed damage by taking the unarmed variant; lose light armor proficiency, but you can get that back by multiclassing or just wear armor with no ACP. With swordsage, you also get Diamond Mind maneuvers that synergize well with the kensai's Concentration-based abilities. If you're willing to be something of a wildman/wilderness based character or if your DM lets you tweak fluff, you may also want to use Fist of the Forest.


d. Ability Scores: I don't know yet, but since we're not directly building the character out in detail it shouldn't be a biggie, if you really want to get into it 32 point buy would work fine probably.
e. Alignment: Any, not that it matters for our purposes.
f. House Rules: Powerful Build may or may not affect a monk's unarmed damage, so consider both instances.
g. Concept: Think of a big quiet dude who meditates.
h. Other: I heard something about the idea of a monk using large gauntlets to make use of the powerful build. Don't you not get monk unarmed damage this way though?

d.If you go (monk OR swordsage)/something/kensai, the primary stats are going to be STR,CON and WIS, some DEX, only enough int to meet pre-reqs if necessary and dump CHA.
If you go invisible blade, you'll be able to dump wis if you take the carmendine monk feat to get your monk AC to be INT-based and possibly also Keen Intellect (dragon mag) that makes your will save and WIS-based skills INT-based instead.
e. does that mean your DM waives alignment requirements?
f. my understanding is that it doesn't
h. I believe you do not get the unarmed damage that way. The only weapon that gives you unarmed strike damage is the Scorpion Kama from the MiC. You may be able to convince your DM to let you create a Scorpion Punching Dagger, adjusting the price of the punching dagger as they did for the kama.


Please feel free to give ANY suggestions, be it another class, a piece of equipment or feat you think would compliment one of the builds

A possible build, if you want to go Kensai.
Goliath.
Barbarian 2/Fighter 2/Swordsage/Fist of the forest 1/Barbarian +1/Swordsage +1/Kensai 5/Barbarian +7, though the order's not definite. If you can ignore the lawful alignment requirement or get to keep rage despite becoming lawful, you might also drop 2 barbarian levels for 2 paladin levels (of freedom if going to be chaotic) and take the Dragon Mag feat Serenity that makes the paladin saves bonus based on WIS rather than CHA. You can't wear armor, but you'll get CON to AC in addition to WIS.
Fist of the forest is from Complete Champion

In any build where you want unarmed strike damage to be high, you may also want Superior Unarmed Strike from ToB. Improved Unarmed Strike as a pre-req, but it gives anyone the unarmed strike damage of a small monk, so combined with powerful build, maybe it'd be the same as a normal monk.

Well, that's what I've got for now. Good lunk with the build.

[DaDude9211]

Telonius: An unarmed variant Swordsage is a brilliant idea... No bonus to movement speed, but for what it's getting in return I can't really complain; even then, playswithfire's suggestion of Fist of the Forest would make that point void with it's Fast Movement bonus.

playswithfire: Oi, I forgot the Kensai's alignment requirements and went on a tangent. >.< Bummer too, I was really beginning to like the Power Surge/Rage combo. Fist of the Forest looks like it has good potential though, although I don't know how the unarmed progression would go if I had Monk or unarmed Swordsage levels.

A Goliath would definitely fit better for both fluff and optimization :smallbiggrin:.

Back to everyone: So pretty much what I'm looking at now is a Goliath with Swordsage(unarmed) 16/Kensai 4 and picking up Superior Unarmed Strike to finish off the unarmed strike damage progression, or maybe something like Swordsage(unarmed) X/Fist of the Forest Y/Kensai Z, with the amounts depending on how Fist of the Forest's unarmed progression and Con bonus stack with the unarmed Swordsage levels.

A question I have about Swordsage(unarmed) though is it says I lose light armor proficiency. It doesn't directly say that the Wis bonus to AC while lightly armored changes to working while unarmored though. Does it? If it does, would it stack with the Con bonus to AC provided by the Fist of the Forest? If it doesn't, could I still end up taking Light Armor Proficiency as a feat and then obtain the Wis bonus to AC? Assuming that, would that even be efficient, or do you think it would be better to ignore Wis and focus on Con with the idea of using it's other ability features (bonus to Fort saves, more HP) and the benefit of the now-unused feat.

[Telonius]

It doesn't flat-out say that you lose the AC bonus if you wear light. So as written, an unarmed swordsage that wears a chain shirt would retain the Wisdom bonus to AC. He would still suffer the normal nonproficiency penalties from wearing light armor (armor check penalty applies to attack rolls, movement skills, and Ride). There's nothing stopping him from taking Armor Proficiency as a feat, though it's probably unnecessary. He can wear leather armor, masterwork studded leather, or a mithral chain shirt at no penalty, since those armors have no armor check penalty. The only reason to take proficiency would be to get a mithral breastplate, but the modest bump to AC probably would not be worth spending a feat to get. (Besides, why spend a feat when you could just multiclass to another martial class that does give you proficiency?)

The AC bonus would stack with FoF's CON to AC. In general, bonuses from different sources stack.

[DaDude9211]

Well, I suppose that leaves my entire build design now answered. :D Thanks for the help guys, you are awesome geniuses.

Final build idea: Goliath; Swordsage(unarmed) 15/Fist of the Forest 2/Kensai 3

Awesomeness:
-I'll get 8th level swordsage maneuvers
-Full unarmed strike progression
-Fast movement (to get the runners >:D )
-Power Surge plenty of times a day because all three classes have Concentration as a class skill.
-Thanks to FotF's full BAB, I also skim by with 4 attacks, +16/+11/+6/+1
-Fluffy like a pillow

Bummers:
-Uhm... uh... uh... I'll get back to you on this? Ya...

[LadyFae]

1. Here's the deal. I'm going to be in a 3.5 direct conflict game. That is to say, I and another 14th level PC are going to be going up against four 12th level PCs. Since I'm going to be fighting people who can optimize better than I can, I decided to turn to this board to help.
2.
a. Splat books are cool. Completes, Libris Mortis, whatever, but nothing too strange like Dragon Magazine or suchlike.
b. unimportant
c. Doesn't really matter, needs to be a necromancer of some skill, but it could be a holy or arcane caster.
d. Let's say it's normal point buy, they haven't said yet.
e. Does not necessarily have to be Evil
f. none
g. She's the last survivor of a culture that reveres the dead, to the point where they allow them to remain a part of society by raising them. When her people were wiped out by a well-meaning bunch of adventurers, she decided that it wouldn't happen again. Now she's got Leadership of some sort, with a cohort who is whichever kind of caster she isn't (arcane instead of divine or vice versa) and a lot of undead minions. Being able to buff/heal these minions and raise/create others of some kind would be nice, especially if dead PCs could be turned like this. Also must have really good Anti-PC stuff, especially focused on evasion. Teleport, scrying, sending, that sort of thing so that direct confrontation with the PCs happens as little as possible. Think cockroach, hard to kill, quick to escape. Live to fight another day.
h. It's a campaign that's going to be set in a frozen area.

Thanks in advance guys.

[Eloel]

I'm thinking Dread Necromancer for you, and Cleric for your cohort couldn't possibly go wrong. Share the Libris Mortis feats between the 2 of you, and you have a decently-buffed undead army. You could summon/raise undead, which means you don't need a dead body to get an undead (summon it! even if for limited times, summoned undead are exactly as powerful and as weak as raised ones), but having a dead body makes your undead permanent. If you have Frostburn the setting (note, it's not a campaign-based book, it's a setting-based book, and that setting happens to be your usual cold/snow/ice setting :smallwink:)

[DaDude9211]

While looking around I also found this build on D&Dwiki: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Undead_Controller_(DnD_Optimized_Character_Build)
A one-level dip into the Marshall class (Miniatures Handbook) for the Motivate Charisma aura (or maybe Determined Caster) would also be useful if you take this ultra-charisma route. That being said, you don't necessarily have to be human as it suggests since you'll be a higher level with more feats; personally I'd go with a Lesser Aasimar for the Cha bonus.
Additional feats to gain would be of course Leadership and Undead Leadership.
From my understanding many optimizers prefer clerics with some death god to dread necromancers, but I think for PvP combat and for the greater fluff accuracy of having tons of undead it makes a superior alternative.

Some extra reading material:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=759515&highlight=dread+necromancer
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=599129

Best wishes.

[MichielHagen]

For an upcomming adventure i can make a lvl 12 character. I have given this a lot of thought, but i would like to know if others may have suggestions i haven't thought of yet. I am not experienced in D&D (only about 15 sessions), but i have spent a lot of time reading the books. So if i mention something that is incorrect, please tell.

Race: Whisper Gnome
This gives +2 Con and +2 Dex, my most important stats, since i will not be Charisma-based (except for using UMD). Being small sized gives an extra bonus to AC and AB, however at the cost of some speed. The "silence" ability can be well used in combination with "Walk Unseen".
Human is the other option i am considering.

Class: Warlock 12
I plan to focus on Eldritch Blast and any other class will diminish it's potential (i think).
Another option i have considered is a Warlock 1/Cleric 3/Eldritch Disciple 8. The Disciple got my attention because of the "healing blast", but i wasn't sure what to do with all the cleric spells i was going to get, so i decided to take the easy way out. If you guys can convince me the Disciple is way more powerfull than the straigt Warlock i might change my mind.

Invocations
Entropic Warding (probably the only one up for discussion ;) )
See the Unseen
Eldritch Spear
Fell Flight
Walk Unseen
Chain Blast
Flee the Scene (Extra Invocation Feat)
Vitriolic Blast

Feats
[1] Mortalbane (BoVD)
[3] Mortalbane (BoVD)
[6] Maximized Spell-like ability (Eldritch Blast)
[9] Quicken Spell-like ability (BoVD)
[12] Extra Invocation (Flee the Scene)

Notice that i want to take the QSLA from Book of Vile Darkness. I haven't talked to the DM about using BoVD (it's 3.0 right?), but this QSLA let's me Quicken every SLA i have once per day. As far as i can tell that means all my invocations as well as my Eldritch Blast. This might be less powerfull than QSLA from the Monster Manual (Quicken Eldritch Blast 3x/day), but i can see me using Quicken Walk Unseen and Quicken Flee the Scene daily. And after a dispell being able to Quicken Fell Flight and such is handy too. Besides, this opens up the lvl 12 Feat (QSLA from MM must be taken at lvl 10+) for an extra invocation.

Skills

I haven't rolled for stats yet, but my Int will probably be 12-14. Leaving me with only 3 or 4 skills.

I plan to have Concentration, UMD and Spellcraft. As a possible fourth i have Knowledge Arcane in mind.

Items

I am allowed 88.000 gp in items, with a max of 44.000 gp per item.

Warlock Scepter 8.305 gp Held (MIC, p63)
Crystal of Life Drinking 6.000 gp (MIC)
Mithril Buckler +1 2.165 gp -
Crystal of Arrow Deflection 5.000 gp (MIC)
Mithralmist shirt 3.400 gp Body (MIC, p20)
Restful Crystal 500 gp -
Greater Chasuble of Fell Power 18.000 gp Throat
Anklet of Translocation and +2 Dex 5.400 gp Feet
Gloves of Eldritch Admixture 2.500 gp Hands (MIC, p105)
Piercer Cloak and +2 on all saves 4.900 gp Shoulders
Healing Belt 750 gp Waist
Horizon Goggles 8.000 gp Face
Ring of Avoidance 10.000 gp Finger (MIC, p122)
Ring of Spell-Battle 12.000 gp Finger (MIC, p127)
Ring of Four Winds 2.000 gp Finger (MIC, 124)
TOTAL 88.920 gp

I need to drop at least one of the rings, and i will buy at least a Wand of CLW and some scrolls.

Other Items i have on my list of items i considered

Healing Armor 8.000 gp (MIC, p12)
Headband of Conscious Effort 1.000 gp Head (MIC, p109)
Armband of Elusive Action 800 gp (MIC, p72)
+2 CON op Chasuble 4.000 gp
Orb of Mental Renewal 3.100 gp (MIC, p167)
Rod of Bodily Restoration 3.100 gp (MIC, p173)
Rod of Sure Striking 4.000 gp (MIC, p174)
Vest of the Master Evoker 10.000 gp Illegal?
Third Eye of Freedom 2.600 gp face
Crystal of Glancing Blows 5.000 gp
Crystal Energy Protection 3.000 gp - (MIC, p24)
Vest of Resistance +1 1.000 gp Torso (MIC, p147)
Hair Shirt of Suffering 3.400 gp Torso (MIC, p109)
Circlet of Persuasion 4.500 gp Head (DMG of zo)
Bracers of Accuracy 4.000 gp Arms (MIC, p79)
Ring of Protection +1 (of meer) 2.000 gp Finger
Belt of Magnificence +2 25.000 gp Waist
Survival Pouch 3.300 gp
Deep Red Ioun Stone 8.000 gp -
Belt of Battle
Robe of the Vagabond 6.000 gp Torso (Complete Champion)
Ring of Entropic Deflection 8.000 gp Finger (MIC, p123)

Sorry for the long post ;)

[Nazde Bahatur]

Hey people, how are you?
I'm not exactly posting here to get a character, i merely want some ideas because i'm stuck.
I am dying to play a Kenku ckaracter, but i grew tired of all the common classes...
Could you please give me some ideas as to what class should i make him?
I'm looking for exotic stuff, so forget about Player's Handbook.
Any other idea would be welcome, anything.
What class would you like to see a Kenku follow?

[Telonius]

Maybe not all that "exotic," but a Kenku's Mimicry could work very well with a Beguiler or a Warlock.

You might be able to get your DM to rule that a Kenku's Great Ally ability stacks with the Swashbuckler's Improved Flanking. Automatic Weapon Finesse at 1 will also mesh well with your Dexterity bonus.

[lilhowie624]

hmm i was thinking that this would a be a cool idea.
warlok / monk -ph2 variant

using hidious blow

i dont know if this will work but some people say yes others say no

[Telonius]

Huh, I'd never noticed that little item. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work with just those two things. The PHB2 Decisive Strike option is a special full-round attack, but Hideous Blow takes a standard action to activate. You couldn't activate them both in the same round.

However, if you're starting at higher level (12 or higher), this could be possible to pull off. Monk1/Warlock11, take Quicken Spell-Like Ability at 12. You can pull off the combination three times per day. Note that you will either have to be Lawful Evil, or start out Lawful something (for Monk) and switch alignments to one of the allowed Warlock alignments

Belt of Battle might also allow you to apply both in a single round a couple times a day.

I'll give you a few words of caution, though. Delivering this attack means one of two things happened. Either the monster just came up and attacked you; or you spent a turn getting next to the monster and then a turn delivering your attack. That means this is an extremely dangerous maneuver. You're mainly going to have Warlock levels in order to do this, Warlock has only d6 for hitpoints, and you have to go completely without armor for the Monk class feature to work. You can do it, but you probably shouldn't.

[Cheesegear]

I'm looking for a character that dual-wields Hand Crossbows. I can think of a few class combos that would 'work', but wouldn't necessarily be any good. One possibility I was considering was Rogue/Ranger, for the free proficiency in Hand Crossbow, and Ranger...For combat feats (dual wielding hand crossbows benefits from both two-weapon fighting and archery...). Rogue/Scout could also work. Since a scout gets bonus feats (and can pick from the Ranger's List anyway), and gets more skill points...
Ninja, could also work. But, I'm aiming for 'Gunslinger' (Wow...That probably should've been said earlier), not...Well, a ninja.

Ability Scores and Alignment aren't important. Unless required for a specific feat or PrC.
Any books. Except BoED/VD
Any LA 0 race.
Any class you want. You're not restricted to the ideas that I had. Try not to be too magic-heavy though. Although proficiency in Hand Crossbows and Two-Weapon fighting are a must.

Have fun.

[Telonius]

The biggest problem in this build will be the ability to reload. You can't reload if both your hands are occupied. There are a few ways of getting an extra hand - Extra Hand from Magic Item Compendium, playing a Thri-Keen, some of the Graft feats from Libris Mortis. Extra Hand sounds like the best option, considering what you're going for.

You might be to take Leadership and have a friend reload for you. Not sure how it would work, though.

In general, the idea sounds like it would be something covered in Deadlands, but I don't have that book.

[playswithfire]

Answer for the two-crossbow gunslinger

My version of the Tetragrammaton Cleric John Preston build (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=9469120&postcount=391); the original is probably better, but I like swordsages and don't have Unapproachable East

Some levels could probably be shifted around to improve playability at lower levels. Rogue (fighter feat variant) 3/Fighter 4/Swordsage 10/Exotic Weapon Master 2/Shiba Protector 1, obviously not in that order



Rogue1 feat[Alertness], human[Point-Blank Shot], rogue[Rapid Reload],flaw[Iron Will]
Rogue2 rogue[Weapon Focus (hand crossbow)]
Fighter1 feat[Crossbow Sniper], fighter[Precise Shot]
Fighter2 fighter[Two Weapon Fighting]
swordsage weapon focus(Shadow Hand)
Fighter3 feat[Weapon Specialization (Hand Crossbow)]
Fighter4 fighter[Quick Draw]
swordsage
Exotic Wep Mas feat[Combat Expertise], stunt[no AoOs when firing hand crossbows]
Exotic Wep Mas stunt[reduce twf penalty to -1]
swordsage
Rogue3 feat[Improved Two Weapon Fighting]
Shiba Protector No Thought(WIS to all attack and damage rolls)
Swordsage
Swordsage feat[Ranged Weapon Mastery (piercing)]
Swordsage
Swordsage
Swordsage feat[Greater Two-Weapon Fighting]
Swordsage
Swordsage



BAB: 15
Saves: 13/11/13 (including Iron Will)
Average Hit die: Around d8
Initiator level: 15; grab some Falling star or another archery discipline, mix in the Flaming, Burning and Inferno blades and the two Mongooses and have a good time

Necessary gear:
2 Hand Crossbows with feycraft bow blades
Extra Hand/Spare Hand/whatever that thing from MiC is called

[risquename]

Hey guys (and gals), I'm hoping somebody can help me build a 10th level barbarian. Somehow I've always avoided playing barbarians, so I'm not sure what multiclasses well.
Books: Anything published in book form (nothing from Dragon)
Race: goliath
Ability scores: str 18, dex 16, con 16, int 10, wis 9, cha, 8 (all before racial modifiers)
Alignment: CG
House rules: we are starting with 75000 gp and free +1 weapons and armor. We can't spend more than half our money on one item. I'm thinking of going with the greatsword (because exotic weapon proficiency seems a waste just for the goliath hammer).
We're starting a campaign built for 4, but there will only be two of us. I'm tanking, and the other player is an Ultimate Magus, so I'll need to be able to soak up and direct most (all) of the damage. Thanks bunches. Yeah. Bunches.

[dspeyer]

Consider starting with 4 levels in scout. You lose (expected) 15hp, 1 BAB and your 3rd rage/day. You gain 28 skill points, speed, skirmish, trackless step, trapfinding and a fighter feat. Since the party doesn't have a real rogue-type, you're going to get stuck in the role -- might as well be good at it. Consider Lion Totem from Complete Champion (not Unearthed Arcana) to make skirmish more effective.

Useful equipment: Mithril breastplate, +n greatsword or greataxe, quiver of javelins (or maybe a +1 sling) for when you can't close with the enemy, +4 items to each physical stat, an activatable item that makes you bigger...

For feats, there aren't many you need (apart from power attack). It's probably good to take something that makes it hard to run around you to hit the squishy guy. Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip and Improved Grapple could help, though they all have downsides.

And your partner should take Arcane Disciple(Healing) and carry lots of wands.

Hope this helps.

[Eloel]

I need a level 8 build to fight 1v1 battles in an arena. It will go further ahead, so I'd rather not have "this build is viable at 8, and not after it"

Sources: Any 3 D&D 3.5 sources on top of core, at least one needs to be a Complete book. (UA variant races/classes are considered core, flaws/traits are not, yet they can be reached with listing UA as a source)
Race: Can be any from the sources we've got
Class: Something with ridiculous AC and saves would help. I already have a sorcerer and a psion in the arena, so something out of that flavor would be nice. (Weird stuff like Truenamer [only here for the reference, not because it's good/bad] is appreciated, as it changes flavor alot too)
Ability Scores: 32 PB
Alignment: Any
House Rules: None
Concept: See "Class"

The arenas are ALL underground, so, no "I call a storm" stuff. Also, we have 30k gold to spend at start, and we can't go above +2 enchantments on weapons/items when we start. (so, I can have a "Gloves of Dexterity" +2, but not +4)

Would anyone be kind enough to make me a strong build?

[Atsu333]

Do you guys have any way to make a good druid/monk multiclass, I'm thinking about wildshape+flurry, and also a little spellcasting
No limits on books, core races only, I'll roll my stats(usually a good outcome) and alignment:LN, NG, or LG

The best I can come up with is Master of the North Wind, but I can't even find the class info anywhere.

[dspeyer]

First check with your DM about flurry, natural weapons and multiattack. RAW's pretty confusing, but as I strictly read it, you cannot mix them (but probably should be able to).

[Froogleyboy]

I would like a Lvl. 1 Half-dragon (golden) Kobold fighter

Specifications:
Use the 32 point buy sistem
male
use your best judgement

[monty]

First check with your DM about flurry, natural weapons and multiattack. RAW's pretty confusing, but as I strictly read it, you cannot mix them (but probably should be able to).

You can make unarmed attacks in any form using your normal BAB, and could make any natural attacks in addition to that at -5 (-2 with Multiattack).

[d13]

Hello guyz ~

I'm in need of a level-by-level progression of the "perfect" archer.

Already started as a Human Ranger, though, so I'll be glad if you can work it 'round.

Sources: Pretty much everything that could be found in Crystalkeep (http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/index.php) indexes, except for Unearthed Arcana, anything that has to do with psions, anything that has to do with gnomes, anything that has to do with ONLY the Dragon Magazine, and anything that would be non-consistent with the Forgotten Realms setting.

Race: Already started as a human.

Class: 2nd level Ranger, by the moment.

Ability Scores: 15 str, 18 dex, 17 con, 13 int, 18 wis, 12 cha (I was pretty DAMN lucky with those rolls, though the DM wouldn't let us swap scores xD)

Alignment: Chaotic Good

House Rules: Gnomes are extinct, Psions' head blows up when they're born, Dragon Magazine is completely banned, as well as anything non-consistent with Forgotten Realms setting. Warlocks even more nerfed, but nobody wanted to play one xD. Oh, and neither flaws nor traits.

Concept: I want to build a "perfect" archer. I already thought I had one (got to feed my own ego, sorry :smalltongue:), but it was core-only (core being DM1, PH1 and MM1) and I think it can be a lot more useful and optimized than... Rgr 15/ Ftr 2 / Rog 3 >_>
A character that HITS, HITS HARD, and it's HARD to HIT xD


What I was thinking: Something Ranger/Rogue-ish with level dips (or follow-ups) on whatever it is necessary to maximize the efficiency of her Comp. Long Bow. DESPERATELY needing some sort of darkvision (maybe a late level dip in Horizon Walker?). Maybe some sort of improvemente in her movement speed?

Would it be possible to get some sort of unarmored protection, just for pure cheese (and to take advantage of 18 dex AND 18 wis xD)? Monk belt (IIRC), bracers of armor, amulet of natural armor... Is all that worth it? xD


Thanks for everything, and just tell me if you need any more information =)


P.S: Atsu, you'll have to be LN, since Druids need to be Neutral, and Monks need to be lawful.

P.S 2:

Character-to-optimize:

Human Ranger 2
Deity: Mielikki
Str 15
Dex 18
Con 17
Int 13
Wis 18
Cha 12
Skills: Don't Remember ATM
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Track, Rapid Shot

[Cheesegear]

Hello guyz ~

I'm in need of a level-by-level progression of the "perfect" archer.

Already started as a Human Ranger, though, so I'll be glad if you can work it 'round.

I've posted this build twice now. Copy+Paste activate!

Sniper Build
I'd prefer human to minimise XP penalties (although some people don't play with these, so it might be okay), and a bonus feat.

Ranger 3
Fighter 2
Order of the Bow Initiate 4/X - Complete Warrior
Pious Templar 8/X - Complete Divine
Worship a deity whose favoured weapon is a (Composite) Longbow. Probably one of the elven ones.

Level | Class | Feats
1 | Ranger | Point Blank Shot, {Favoured Enemey, Track, Wild Empathy}
2 | Ranger | {Combat Style Archery: Rapid Shot}
3 | Fighter | Far Shot, Precise Shot
4 | Fighter | Weapon Focus (Deity's Weapon)
5 | Ranger | {Endurance}
6 | OotBI | True Believer {Precision Shot +1d8}
7 | OotBI | {Close Combat Shot}
8 | Pious Temp | {Mettle}
9 | Pious Temp | Manyshot {Smite 1/Day}
10 | Pious Temp | {Weapon Specialisation (Longbow), DR 1/-}
11 | Pious Temp | Improved Precise Shot
12 | OotBI | Improved Critical (Longbow) {Precision Shot +2d8}
13 | OotBI | {Greater Weapon Focus (Longbow)}
14 | Pious Temp |
15 | Pious Temp | Improved Initiative {Smite 2/Day}
16 | Pious Temp | {DR 2/-}
17 | Pious Temp | {Feat}

Skills Needed: Craft (Bowmaking) 5 Ranks, Knowledge (Relgion) 4 ranks.

You don't really need Improved Initiative, but, it's always good. There's a bit of Spellcasting in there, not too much though. You also might want to check if you can get Ranged Smiting, it doesn't break games, so it might be okay. Shot On The Run is a nice feat too. Greater Manyshot might be nice if the character finds him/herself needing to shoot into crowds a lot.
MAX DEX. Get a magic bow. That's about all you need. A bunch of special arrows might be good too.
Max SPOT. Nothing sucks more than a Sniper who can't see.

[d13]

I've posted this build twice now. Copy+Paste activate!

Sniper Build
I'd prefer human to minimise XP penalties (although some people don't play with these, so it might be okay), and a bonus feat.

Ranger 3
Fighter 2
Order of the Bow Initiate 4/X - Complete Warrior
Pious Templar 8/X - Complete Divine
Worship a deity whose favoured weapon is a (Composite) Longbow. Probably one of the elven ones.

Level | Class | Feats
1 | Ranger | Point Blank Shot, {Favoured Enemey, Track, Wild Empathy}
2 | Ranger | {Combat Style Archery: Rapid Shot}
3 | Fighter | Far Shot, Precise Shot
4 | Fighter | Weapon Focus (Deity's Weapon)
5 | Ranger | {Endurance}
6 | OotBI | True Believer {Precision Shot +1d8}
7 | OotBI | {Close Combat Shot}
8 | Pious Temp | {Mettle}
9 | Pious Temp | Manyshot {Smite 1/Day}
10 | Pious Temp | {Weapon Specialisation (Longbow), DR 1/-}
11 | Pious Temp | Improved Precise Shot
12 | OotBI | Improved Critical (Longbow) {Precision Shot +2d8}
13 | OotBI | {Greater Weapon Focus (Longbow)}
14 | Pious Temp |
15 | Pious Temp | Improved Initiative {Smite 2/Day}
16 | Pious Temp | {DR 2/-}
17 | Pious Temp | {Feat}

Skills Needed: Craft (Bowmaking) 5 Ranks, Knowledge (Relgion) 4 ranks.

You don't really need Improved Initiative, but, it's always good. There's a bit of Spellcasting in there, not too much though. You also might want to check if you can get Ranged Smiting, it doesn't break games, so it might be okay. Shot On The Run is a nice feat too. Greater Manyshot might be nice if the character finds him/herself needing to shoot into crowds a lot.
MAX DEX. Get a magic bow. That's about all you need. A bunch of special arrows might be good too.
Max SPOT. Nothing sucks more than a Sniper who can't see.

Thank you. Nice build overall, but Mielikki's favored weapon is a Scimitar, so it won't work... At least with the Pious Templar Thingie xD.


Any other opinions? xD

[Cheesegear]

Any other opinions? xD

RP-wise, you could have a crisis-of-faith and switch deities? It happens.

I'll post a second archery build when I get home from work. Markedly different from the 'Sniper' build posted above.

[d13]

RP-wise, you could have a crisis-of-faith and switch deities? It happens.


It would be quite WEIRD campaign-wise, since it's based in Mielikki HERSELF appearing to give us (the party xD) our assignments.

You know... DM likes to toy with the Gods... I wouldn't xD

[dspeyer]

Cheesegear: I may be missing something, but this build doesn't seem all that powerful. There's the standard feats, 2d8 precision damage that can't be combined with rapid shot, multishot or even successive attacks. There's paladinish spellcasting. There's also a dearth of skills. How do you play this to make it work together?

I don't have an alternative to suggest offhand. I keep looking at the 18 wis and straying toward full divine casters (if we were starting from scratch, I'd suggest fighter 1 / cleric 4 / prestige ranger 15, maybe with a level of ninja mixed in somewhere for AC -- but that's not really relevant here).

What I'd suggest in the short run is 3 levels in scout (for enough skirmish to go swift hunter), then 2 levels in swordsage (sudden leap and wis to ac in light armor), then back to ranger for at least 4 levels. Find out if your DM allows greater manyshot, and if so take it at twelfth level.

If you take another 3 levels of swordsage after that, you'll qualify for Hear the Air (blindsense) thanks to the way initiator level works, and you might keep a BAB of level-2 (depends on how you compute it). On the other hand, swordsage doesn't get you skirmish, there aren't all that many manuevers that apply to you, and you may start missing archery feats.

[Cheesegear]

then 2 levels in swordsage (sudden leap and wis to ac in light armor)...If you take another 3 levels of swordsage after that, you'll qualify for Hear the Air (blindsense) thanks to the way initiator level works, and you might keep a BAB of level-2 (depends on how you compute it). On the other hand, swordsage doesn't get you skirmish, there aren't all that many manuevers that apply to you, and you may start missing archery feats.

Except that ToB isn't available on Crystal Keep, and therefore he can't have Swordsage.

[d13]

My DM just told me that, besides everything I've already said (and with another bunch of stuff that makes no point at all here), that if I'm going to take a level in another class, and that level makes me take an XP Penalty because of multiclassing... Then I'm not allowed to do that >_>

So... If you could help me from there, I'd be grateful. Anyway, I'm taking some pieces of advices from here and there, and may come with a build of my own for you to "rate" xD

Still, It'd be great if you could help me with this xD

[Cheesegear]

Here's my Archery Build that I like.

I'm going to still go with dspeyer's Swift Hunter option. Because Ranger/Scouts are my favourite type of character. The Scout is a non-Core base-class. And therefore has no dead levels. And is useful all the way to 20. Don't bother with any other classes or PrCs. They just hurt your Swift Hunter progression.

Ranger 2 / Scout 18. Permananent Freedom of Movement. Sweet. Not a big deal since a Scout also gets bonus feats, and can choose the Ranger's Archery Feats (if he so wishes).
Ranger 3 / Scout 17. Gain Endurance as a bonus feat. Lose FoM. Not worth it. Don't do it.
Ranger 4 / Scout 16. Ranger 4 gives +1 BAB (which translates into an extra attack at level 20), (very weak) Animal Companion and limited spellcasting. 'Sort of' makes up for losing FoM.

Also see if you can nab Skilled City Dweller. Available in the CityScape web enhancemnt. It trades Ride for Tumble. Since your Animal Companion is very weak, you don't want Mounted Combat/Ride. So, now you can max Tumble. Go! Most Ranger and Scout skills stack. So that's handy. Don't forget the errata that says Disable Device is a class skill for a Scout. With Trapfinding and max ranks in DD, you'll be the party trapsmith too!
Scout also grabs Evasion and Uncanny Dodge. Who needs rogues?
Scout's Fast Movement also makes Expeditious Dodge a must.
By level 20, Swift Hunter gives you Skirmish as a 20th (technically 19th) level scout. And five favoured enemies and the bonuses to match, as if you were a 20th level ranger.

{TABLE]Level | Class | Feats {Bonus}
1 | Ranger 1 | Point Blank Shot, Expeditious Dodge {Favoured Enemy}
2 | Ranger 2 | {Combat Style - Rapid Shot}
3 | Scout 3 | Mobility {Skirmish, Trapfinding}
4 | Scout 4 | {Uncanny Dodge}
5 | Scout 5 | {Fast Movement, +Skirmish, Trackless Step}
6 | Scout 6 | Bonus Feat - Swift Hunter, Precise Shot
7 | Ranger 3 | {Endurance}
8 | Ranger 4 | {Animal Companaion, Spellcasting}
9 | Scout 7 | Shot on the Run
10 | Scout 8 | Bonus Feat (Spring Attack?) {Camoflauge}[/TABLE]

By now you have three favoured enemies (You count as Ranger 10) and +3d6/+2 AC Skirmish (You count as Scout 10). That's pretty awesome. You should be moving every round to take advantage of Expeditious Dodge and Skirmish. Get Manyshot / Greater Manyshot ASAP. And you should be golden.

[d13]

I'm giving up a whole bunch of save bonus and base attack bonus with that build.

I get like... Rogue +1 BAB (Instead of Fighter -1), a crappy save (Will), a lower than average one (Fort), and a good one (Ref), instead of a crappy one and 2 good saves...


Are Scout abilities really worth that much? (Never saw one in action xD)

[Cheesegear]

Are Scout abilities really worth that much? (Never saw one in action xD)

Yes. A Scout is the best choice for a 'rogue archer' character (Beguiler doesn't count), if you're non-core. It's on par with a Ranger if you're going TWF route though.

Scout. Same skill points and pretty much equal skills as a rogue.
Skirmish > Sneak Attack. Since you don't need flanking buddies. You just have to move at least 10ft every round (backwards...And your tumble skill should be maxed). Greater Manyshot makes you awesome.
Battle Fortitude gives you bonuses to your Fort and Initiative. For free.
Fast movement. More skirmish win. Grab the feat Improved Skirmish if you can.
Uncanny Dodge/Evasion. Same as rogue.
Camoflauge/Trackless Step/HiPS/Flawless Stride. Same as Ranger.
Blindsense, and Blindsight (level 20 though).
Permanant Freedom of Movement. Win.
A heap of bonus feats. That overlap with Ranger 'combat style' feats. And then some.
Like I said, it's a not-Core base class. It's useful all the way to 20. The Ranger level/s are only there for Swift Hunter requirement and +BAB.

Scout is the Rogue and Ranger combined into one class. You don't get rogue bonus feats. And you lose spellcasting and an Animal Companion. Meh.

[Eloel]

One way of being 'more golden' would involve 10ft steps. There was one somewhere, can anyone remember it?

[Cheesegear]

One way of being 'more golden' would involve 10ft steps. There was one somewhere, can anyone remember it?

Enlarge Person spells and such.

Items with a 'Teleport' property (Although some DMs could rule that you haven't actually 'moved') could work. Anything that gives you a bonus to speed is good. Although, those kinds of things are usually boots. Which doesn't leave you any space for Skirmisher Boots which gives you a bonus to AB, and gives you a free an extra attack every round.
Greater Manyshot for the win.

[Eloel]

There was a psionic class on wizards.com that allowed 10ft steps. That might be of help.

[Telonius]

There's the old Sparring Dummy of the Master, but it's 3.0 (Arms and Equipment Guide p.137), fairly expensive, and requires one level of Monk.

[d13]

Yes. A Scout is the best choice for a 'rogue archer' character (Beguiler doesn't count), if you're non-core. It's on par with a Ranger if you're going TWF route though.

Scout. Same skill points and pretty much equal skills as a rogue.
Skirmish > Sneak Attack. Since you don't need flanking buddies. You just have to move at least 10ft every round (backwards...And your tumble skill should be maxed). Greater Manyshot makes you awesome.
Battle Fortitude gives you bonuses to your Fort and Initiative. For free.
Fast movement. More skirmish win. Grab the feat Improved Skirmish if you can.
Uncanny Dodge/Evasion. Same as rogue.
Camoflauge/Trackless Step/HiPS/Flawless Stride. Same as Ranger.
Blindsense, and Blindsight (level 20 though).
Permanant Freedom of Movement. Win.
A heap of bonus feats. That overlap with Ranger 'combat style' feats. And then some.
Like I said, it's a not-Core base class. It's useful all the way to 20. The Ranger level/s are only there for Swift Hunter requirement and +BAB.

Scout is the Rogue and Ranger combined into one class. You don't get rogue bonus feats. And you lose spellcasting and an Animal Companion. Meh.

Gonna try that, then...

Thanks =)

[dspeyer]

Ranger's animal companion and spellcasting aren't completely useless, not is Ranger 2 / Scout 18 the only way to do a swift hunter build. Assuming no other classes and ignoring order, these are the other combinations that strike me as making sense:

Ranger 6 / Scout 14 -- lose FoM, gain +1 BAB -- animal companion, 1st level spells

Ranger 8 / Scout 12 -- lose Hide in Plain Sight -- gain +1 BAB

Ranger 14 / Scout 6 -- lose 10ft speed, 1 feat and blindsense -- gain +1 BAB, 4rd level spells

Ranger 17 / Scout 3 -- lose flawless stride, 1 feat -- gain +1 BAB, Hide in Plain Sight

This assumes that you would take multishot and improved precise shot with your scout bonus feat. Otherwise, put the option to not do so in the earlier listings. It also ignores fort save, incremental improvements in the animal companion, and the 2 extra skill points each level of scout gets.

So, which one should you pick? I think HiPS is too good to lose, so that knocks out rgr8 and rgr14. By the time Free Movement comes around, a ring of Freedom of Movement will be cheap for you, so I wouldn't bother with rgr2 unless you expect antimagic or need your ring slots. That leaves rgr6 and rgr17. That boils down to blindsense, trackless step, flawless stride, two fighter feats and 22 skill points against 4 BAB, half divine spellcasting (including darkvision as a 3rd level spell) and a decent animal companion. I'd recommend listing out skills in detail for the rgr17 build, and seeing if you really want more. If so, switch to rgr6. If not, stick with rgr17 and enjoy the spellcasting (to enjoy it more, take a look at spell compendium).

[The Neoclassic]

So, for the first time I am playing in a 4E campaign. I am playing in an interplanar campaign, and I am going for an unaligned tiefling warlock (Infernal Pact). So far this (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=102141) is all I have done. Could someone give me some pointers in how to fill out the rest of the crunch? What precisely goes where? Thanks in advance.

[Mando Knight]

You'll need to fill in your level: The Myth-Weavers sheet doesn't like an undefined level...

Your Armor bonus (from Hide, Leather, or whatever) goes in the "Armor Bonus" spot under the Quick-Reference slots. If you don't fill that out, then the sheet will not take your armor into account for your AC.

Powers can be detailed out in the handy little boxes down below, but most of the text isn't keyed to the sheet's macros. Put "Con" and "Cha" in the Ability entries in the Attack and Damage workspace, and it'll calculate your bonuses.

However, you do have a problem with your build. Unfortunately, all Infernal Pact powers key off of Constitution. For Half-Elves, Warforged, and Dwarves, this is a good thing. Somehow, Tieflings can't use their preferred pact as effectively as races that aren't supposed to have ancient deals with the devils. :smallconfused:

Either switch your Charisma and Constitution (possibly siphoning extra points off of your Dexterity and Strength... though that's not always a good idea... depends on your skills and intended feat selection), or switch your pact. Star pact is a weird one, requiring both good Constitution (for its at-will and some of its other powers) and good Charisma (the main attack stat), but Fey and Dark (Forgotten Realms Player's Guide) pacts both need Charisma. Keep your Intelligence high, regardless of your pact: it modifies both the secondary effects of your powers and your AC and Reflex defenses, and if you're going to make use of that Prime Shot class feature, you'll need plenty of AC.

[josh13905]

I Was wondering how to go about building a Swashbuckler then going into the duelist class

A few important things to be mentioned:
I'd like to be a swashbuckler and then go straight into a duelist with no other classes

I don't want to use "Cheese"

Instead of the grace i'm getting a spell like ability variant detail are these:
ARCANE STUNT: Swashbuckler, Level 1st, Knowledge (arcana) 1 rank, lose grace class feature; Choose blur, expeditious retreat, feather fall, jump, or spider climb. Can use it as spell-like ability as swift action, duration is 1 round and caster level is Swashbuckler level. Can choose a 2nd one at 11th and duration is 2 rounds for all chosen spells and a 3rd at 20th and duration is 3 rounds for all chosen spells, can use 1 + Intelligence mod per day

Other than that any ideas or builds would be helpful

[The Neoclassic]

First of all, I'd like to thank you very much, Mando_Knight. I went back and fixed/added most of what you pointed out. Your help is very much appreciated.

I'm now looking at feats and equipment. I feel really dumb, but I cannot find where it says with what armor I am proficient. Similarly, I'm not sure what sort of a weapon would be appropriate given my class.

So, where it shows "Quick Look-Up: Weapon/Power", I should fill in four of my warlock powers? Damage I think I can figure out, and attack is...? I know it uses my constitution modifier, but is there anything else involved in calculating that number?

[Mando Knight]

First of all, I'd like to thank you very much, Mando_Knight. I went back and fixed/added most of what you pointed out. Your help is very much appreciated.

I'm now looking at feats and equipment. I feel really dumb, but I cannot find where it says with what armor I am proficient. Similarly, I'm not sure what sort of a weapon would be appropriate given my class.

So, where it shows "Quick Look-Up: Weapon/Power", I should fill in four of my warlock powers? Damage I think I can figure out, and attack is...? I know it uses my constitution modifier, but is there anything else involved in calculating that number?

Yeah... some of the data is really scattered about in the 4E PHB. :smallsigh:

Your attack bonuses consist of
-1/2 your level (that's why there's no BAB anymore, since both attack and defense bonuses scale with level)
-the relevant ability score's modifier
-the weapon's proficiency bonus (doesn't apply if there isn't a weapon keyword in the power... and there aren't any weapon powers for Warlocks now...)
-the item's enhancement bonus if you're using a magic implement or weapon
-any other bonuses, like the Tiefling's Bloodhunt ability, or the Warlord's insane number of bonuses to ally attack rolls.
A more detailed list is on page 274 of the PHB. One handy feature of WotC's Character Builder (even though the free version is just the beta edition...) is that it automatically calculates your attack and damage bonuses, and then breaks it down for you so you can see for yourself.

The "Quick Look-Up" is there just as an aid: you can fill in basic attacks and powers there to keep track of the attacks that you use the most often. You don't have to use it if you don't want to...

Warlocks have leather armor proficiency, as well as +1 class bonuses to Reflex and Will defenses. The boxed text on the first page of a class's description (it's an odd-numbered page for Warlocks, so its really easy to miss it) gives you a quick run down on what weapons, armors, and implements you can use, as well as your class's HP, healing surges, and defenses.

At 4th level, you also gain a +1 bonus to two ability scores of your choice, as shown in the table on page 29 in the PHB. I'd recommend boosting Constitution and Intelligence.

Remember, if you're starting at a level greater than 1, you get an item of your level +1, an item of level -1, an item of your level, and gold equal to an item of your level -1. This means that at level 4, you should have items of level 3, 4, and 5, and 680 gp. Some DMs will allow you to have as much mundane equipment as you like when starting at higher levels. That frees up more gold for magic items, like hand, arm, or leg slot items. Choose a rod and armor for your level 4 and 5 items. I wouldn't recommend taking a wand for a warlock in the heroic tier unless you have access to the Adventurer's Vault. Here's some PHB item recommendations:

Level 5 items:
Rod of Reaving +1: This is weapon allows you to deal damage when you select the target of your Curse... it's only a 1 now, but that's enough to kill a minion. Without an attack roll. If you have one of these, you could even finish off an epic level minion without even resolving an attack. That's just silly. :smalltongue:
Deathcut armor +1: helps you resist necrotic and poison attacks... useful if you go up against undead or devils/demons frequently. Also lets you deal necrotic damage almost equal to your Eldritch Blast to someone stupid enough to try to attack you instead of the Fighter/Paladin/Swordmage.
Bloodthread clothing +1: not leather armor (it's cloth only :smallfrown:), but you get a +2 bonus to both AC and saving throws if you're bloodied. The saving throw bonus is nice... but you'll be bloodied.
Level 4 items:
Bloodcut armor +1: For the cost of a healing surge, you can gain Resist 10 to all damage... enough to keep most opponents from damaging you.
Darkleaf armor +1: An extra untyped bonus to any defense is good (+2 AC), but it only works against the first AC attack against you in the encounter.
There aren't any Rods, Wands, or Neck items at this level in the PHB. I'd use one of these armors rather than using a hand/foot item slot on this level. The only arms slot item at this level is a shield, which you can't use.
Level 3 items:
Sylvan armor +1: Not much to look at... unless you're going to be jumping, swimming, and/or sneaking about. Then it's useful, as an untyped bonus is, y'know, an untyped bonus.
Delver's armor +1: Not much. Just normal magic armor with a daily that lets you reroll a failed saving throw with a +2 bonus.
Pact Blade +1: This is pretty much the only weapon you should look into as a Warlock. Without many weapon powers, the weapon side won't do you much good, but it lets you treat the blade as a rod/wand... and is good for Infernal Warlocks, as their powers are often best used at melee range for the Prime Shot feature... and to take advantage of your higher-than-normal HP. This lets you punish the guy who ignores the Paladin even more than the Paladin already does.
Bracers of the Perfect Shot: This item is useful if you find yourself using your Eldritch Blast, which counts as a Ranged Basic Attack. Pair this with a Tactical Warlord, and you'll deal massive damage with his Commander's Strike.
Wand of (Arcane Encounter Power Level 1) +1: Useful for throwing out an extra power every once in a while... but I'd personally prefer something with a bonus property (like the Pact Blade) rather than a daily item power...
Rod of Corruption +1: Useful... especially if you dual-wield this with a Rod of Reaving. Call them "Cheddar" and "Gouda." Target a minion with your Warlock's Curse using your Rod of Reaving's property... and then cackle as all the opponents fall prey to your Warlock's Curse. DM may veto this.
Catstep Boots: If you find yourself falling over cliffs and such, this item allows you to pretend to be a kitty... :smalltongue:
Gloves of Piercing: Again, not much here... except for the fact that everything and its mother has Fire or Necrotic resistance. This lets you laugh at them as the firey beast burns to its death.
Safewing Amulet +1: Combined with the kitty-boots, you will definitely land on your feet when you fall, and you've got less damage for the Catstep Boots to halve. If you don't travel in a mountainous area, or other place with things to fall down, the bonus is useless.
Amulet of Health +1: If you've got Deathcut armor, this item's property is pointless... Resist 5 to poison. Useful otherwise.

[Delaney Gale]

I Was wondering how to go about building a Swashbuckler then going into the duelist class

A few important things to be mentioned:
I'd like to be a swashbuckler and then go straight into a duelist with no other classes

Honestly, you may want to go straight swashbuckler with possibly a dip in rogue. Duelist is a pretty poorly-balanced class, and you can get the same flavor from swashbuckler.

[Delaney Gale]

So, after a long and entertaining exchange involving our cleric's poker deck being replaced with a deck of many things, my character falling under a compulsion to draw a card, and judicious application of a handkerchief of flirting, I now have a cohort (a.k.a. the Knight of Cups). We've named him Mark.

Mark is a 4th level fighter/4th level cleric. I've never played a fighter/cleric. I need a good build for that level combination that can be a good utility sort of character. I'm playing a character with sneak attack, so I'll probably be using him as a flanker with some utility spells. There's a lot of undead in the setting, but due to some magic effects turning will be absolutely useless at his level. Our main party is currently at level 11/12, and we've done a fairly good job of not dying so far (with the exception of our paladin, who has mostly just failed really hard), so that's what we're balanced for. The current party has a hospitaler, a fighter/warlock, a warmage, a thief-acrobat, a barbarian, a paladin/greyguard, and a rogue/transmuter/arcane archer type.

Also, his holy symbol is evidently a chalice, so if you know of any god from any campaign setting with a chalice as a holy symbol, let me know- due to the setup of the situation, we can literally be from any campaign setting.

[Baltor]

My dm has decided to do a oneshot arena battle with characters created specificaly for saaid arena battle. I know two of the three opponents that I will be faceing will be arcain casters (a necromancer and a conjurer I believe) and I think the third will be a warlock. I have decided to be a monk due to the high amount of attacks and relativelly high saves.

The stipulations of the arena battle chatacters are as follows
20th level
all info to be pulled from core books+phbII and two official D&D books to be chosen by the player(upon dms aproval)

The two books I have chosen are races of stone and magic item compendium

here is the character so far

Race Goliath +1La
Class Monk 19

STR 40
DEX 22
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 22
CHA10

unarmed attack 29/24/19 damage 3d8+15
flurry of blows 29/29/29/24/19 damage 3d8+15


saves

Fort 19
Ref 19
will 24

AC33


Magic items

Manual of gainful exercize +4

manual of wis +4
pariapt of wis+6
gloves of dex +6
vest of the archmagi

What I realy need are feats, the DM is not requireing a level by level build so as long as the character currently qualifies that should be fine the feats must come only from the books listed above not as important is the 254,000 gold I still have to spend any suggestions for the gold would be appreciated but I can probably assign that myself.

thank you in advance
B

[Eloel]

Monk class is useless after level 11 due to 2 reasons.

1- All you're really going to gain is unarmed damage
2- Monk's Belt & Superior Unarmed Strike gives +9 levels of monk class for unarmed damage.

Start as Chaotic, take your 1st level as a Lion Totem Barbarian (the one that gives pounce, from CC), turn Lawful, take your levels in monk class. You have 7 levels to play around, possibly to gain more feats as a fighter.

Get Stunning Strike as a feat.
Get Ability Focus (Stunning Strike) and other things that would improve your SS DC.

MiC is not that useful for a monk, so scrap that.
Put your highest stat in Wis.
Charge the enemy, pounce for a flurry of stunning strikes. Stun, and it should be an easy win after it. (You're in melee range, it's your turn, and your enemy is an arcane caster. Need I say more?)

Also, you may want to scrap Races of Stone, you shouldn't waste a whole book to increase your Str, if you're really desperate, go Elf and get Weapon Finesse.

[playswithfire]

Baltor's Arena Question

An SRD + Tome of Battle + Magic Item Compendium alternative would be

Half-Giant LA 1/Unarmed Swordsage 13/War Mind 4/Swordsage +2

This option can spend the 200,000 vest of the archmagi costs a little differently:
+5 Mithril Chain Shirt
Cloak of Resistance +5
Ring of Protection +5
2 * +3 Martial Discipline(Stone Dragon) Scorpion Kamas
and you still save about 26,000 gp

Using the two free action buffs that war mind gives and while in a stone dragon stance (all the time; Strength of Stone, Giant's Stance, Crushing Weight of the Mountain), your stats become

STR 40
DEX 22
CON 18
INT 10
WIS 22
CHA10

Scorpion Kama 37/32/27 damage 3d8+18

saves
Fort 19
Ref 27
will 23
But, ready the three counters that replace each with a Concentration check (maxed, so can treat each save as 27+any custom item that ups the check) once and another that increases any save by 17

AC 41

Psychic Warrior Powers: Expansion,Grip of Iron, Concealing Amorpha
20 swordsage maneuvers, 10 of them readied; 5 stances
Sample selection of readied maneuvers: the 4 Diamond Mind save counters, Burning Blade, Searing and Inferno Blade, Dancing and Raging Mongoose and Time Stands Still

feats, TWF tree, Practiced Manifester, open feats at 3,6 and 12

[Malacode]

I'm planning on DMing a new campaign for my group, but there is one thing standing in my way. Lack of a BBEG. The plot is entirely set up, so he/she's pretty much gotta be an arcane Necromancer who becomes a lich fairly early on, and a demiliche soon after. I'm thinking specialist Wizard, but that's not set in stone or anything. Also, any unusual PrC's with a necromantic focus would be good, as I really want to mess with my players. They'll probably never fight, just leave the undead minions do it so combat prowess isn't important. So yeah, an evil necromantic BBEG. It's a Gestalt game, jsyk. ECL 10 for the first encounter while he's still living, then after that, ECL 20+ for the Liche and Demilich stages. Whether you put levels in as well as just the templates is entirely up to you.

[Myou]

Edit: Never mind, since no-one seemed interested. I'll just ask for a few specific points of advice in the forum.

[Piedmon_Sama]

So guys, I've had this character concept bouncing around in my skull for a long time, but I don't really have the rules-knowhow to make it work.

I was inspired by one of the background suggestions for Hexblades in PHBII to consider a monster-hunting character. Someone who was cursed with an intrinsic connection to dark magic at an early age, and became a hunter of the eldritch and horrific creatures that stalk mankind on the edges of civilization.

So I'm considering a Hexblade/Ranger crosslass with a focus on stealthy movement and archery sniping, using her magic to enchant or poison her arrows as debuffs, so her more physical partners can move in and finish the monster off (or she can do it herself after weakening the monster enough). Since the D&D rules really hamstring archery, are there any PrCs anyone could suggest that makes it more viable? (This is my chief concern), and also perhaps any spells or items people could suggest that make good enchantments for arrows/ranged attacks? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[dspeyer]

I realize this isn't where you were going, but to me the combination of "cursed with an intrinsic connection to dark magic" and "sniping" makes warlock, possibly with some rogue levels mixed in.

[The_South_Star]

My request should be fairly simple, as I only need pointed in the right direction. I'm looking for help finding a prestige class that deals with earth. I was hoping "Geaomancer" would be useful, but alas that seems more focused on turning your character into an animal hybrid than is does manipulating earth and plants.

Would anyone know of a class like this? Can be arcane, divine or anything else for that matter. I'm looking for somehting that gives bonuses or abilities related to spells like entangle, stone to mud, wall of earth, stuff like that. Thank you for the help, in advance.

(Also, if no one knows of such a class, I may be back needed help designing one.)

[playswithfire]

My request should be fairly simple, as I only need pointed in the right direction. I'm looking for help finding a prestige class that deals with earth. I was hoping "Geaomancer" would be useful, but alas that seems more focused on turning your character into an animal hybrid than is does manipulating earth and plants.

Would anyone know of a class like this? Can be arcane, divine or anything else for that matter. I'm looking for somehting that gives bonuses or abilities related to spells like entangle, stone to mud, wall of earth, stuff like that. Thank you for the help, in advance.

(Also, if no one knows of such a class, I may be back needed help designing one.)

You could probably turn Sand Shaper from Sandstorm into what you want.

[dspeyer]

My request should be fairly simple, as I only need pointed in the right direction. I'm looking for help finding a prestige class that deals with earth. I was hoping "Geaomancer" would be useful, but alas that seems more focused on turning your character into an animal hybrid than is does manipulating earth and plants.

Would anyone know of a class like this? Can be arcane, divine or anything else for that matter. I'm looking for somehting that gives bonuses or abilities related to spells like entangle, stone to mud, wall of earth, stuff like that. Thank you for the help, in advance.

(Also, if no one knows of such a class, I may be back needed help designing one.)

Pretty much every earth-related ability in the game is available to druids. You could use the spontaneous variant and take only earth-flavored spells. Then you'd just need to homebrew an aspect-of-earth replacement for wildshape modeled on the "aspect of nature" variant.

[Elena Hoyos]

I was wondering, for my D&D group, what is a good set of items that an Artificer of level 13 filling the role of mage and trapspringer. I figured there should be charisma boosters for the UMD, but I'm unsure of what will be the best selection for this mode of play.

The system is D&D 3.0 - 3.5 and sourcebooks that don't utterly break the game. The DM has last word on the matter, and would be very displeased if I were to give him a character that can fly and phase through walls. However, keeping in mind balance, I accidently made my Artificer too weak, and was barely effective at all. Could you help me with creative item combinations that can be used in a wide selection of uses, but don't break the game? Thank you.

[Mando Knight]

The DM has last word on the matter, and would be very displeased if I were to give him a character that can fly and phase through walls.

Hm... for a full caster, that's pretty much expected by 13th level... you can cast Phase Door (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/phaseDoor.htm), a 7th level Sor/Wiz spell (Wizards can cast it 1/day at level 13), and Fly (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fly.htm), a 3rd level Sor/Wiz spell. There's also the level 5 Overland Flight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/overlandFlight.htm). Not sure on the artificer spell list, but if the DM doesn't want characters that can't do those things, he shouldn't allow an arcane caster.

[monty]

I need to break a wizard. My current DM's friend is going to be running a game shortly, and I was asked to join. I haven't talked to him in person yet, so I don't know all the details, but I do know that the game is going to run 1-30, pretty much everything short of Pun-Pun goes, and he's going to be doing his best to kill us all. I'm planning to play a wizard, but I'm still expecting it to need to be above average to do well. I have experience with them, but I'm not very good at optimizing the early levels, or high-end optimization in general. For the epic levels, assume that Epic Spellcasting is available, but not unrestricted (so the build needs to be functional without it).

Level by Level 1-30
Books: All official sources
Race: any
Class: Wizard + appropriate prestige classes
Ability scores: TBD
Alignment: any
House rules: TBD; I'll adjust for any when they come up
Concept: A wizard. A powerful one. Details aren't very important.

[Katrascythe]

I'm gonna be DMing a game soon enough and I'm going to base it one the old movie, Flight of Dragons. Ommadon, the Red Wizard and BBEG of the film is who I'm going to have trouble working on. I would only really like a general idea of where I need to go with the class levels. I was pondering the Thrall of Demogorgon from the Book of Vile Darkness but I'm not really sure if that's the proper way to go or not. I would appreciate it if someone could maybe give me a point in the right direction.

Thanks

*edit*

I'm planning for this guy to be level 20 or close to it

[Elena Hoyos]

Hm... for a full caster, that's pretty much expected by 13th level... you can cast Phase Door (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/phaseDoor.htm), a 7th level Sor/Wiz spell (Wizards can cast it 1/day at level 13), and Fly (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fly.htm), a 3rd level Sor/Wiz spell. There's also the level 5 Overland Flight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/overlandFlight.htm). Not sure on the artificer spell list, but if the DM doesn't want characters that can't do those things, he shouldn't allow an arcane caster.

An artificer comes from the Ebberon Campaign setting, and isn't really an Arcane Spell caster. Instead of casting spells, the Artificer is well balanced and boosted by Magic items that he or she can make using skill checks. Depending upon the items at hand, the Artificer could make a nice back-up for some of the other classes.

The campaign is pretty horror based, and my DM usually goes by the format, "You are stuck on a [climate] [location] and [weird, unspeakable horrors] are attacking you."

I'd like to believe that I'm willing to put story and plot above the capabilities of my character, so that the DM doesn't do that for me. So, limits on flying and phasing are okay by me.

[monty]

An artificer comes from the Ebberon Campaign setting, and isn't really an Arcane Spell caster. Instead of casting spells, the Artificer is well balanced and boosted by Magic items that he or she can make using skill checks. Depending upon the items at hand, the Artificer could make a nice back-up for some of the other classes.

The campaign is pretty horror based, and my DM usually goes by the format, "You are stuck on a [climate] [location] and [weird, unspeakable horrors] are attacking you."

I'd like to believe that I'm willing to put story and plot above the capabilities of my character, so that the DM doesn't do that for me. So, limits on flying and phasing are okay by me.

I think what he was saying is that sort of thing is not at all overpowered for your level. And while an artificer is technically not an arcane caster, it is pretty much on par with them for power (you may hear people talking about the Big Five [or variations on that name] - Wizard, Archivist, Druid, Cleric, Artificer). If you really tried to break it, you'd be able to do far more than that.

[Tubercular Ox]

Please help me turn a thrown together character into something with more focus within 8 levels. I built this character in a very, very short amount of time with only the PHB, the Eberron Campaign Setting book, and the requirement to be "Healslave." And I'd never done Eberron before.

84 point build, no restriction on higher stats:
Human, Neutral Good
Str 10
Dex 12
Con 12
Int 14
Wis 19 (18 - +1 for 4th level)
Cha 18

Cleric 4, The Sovereign Host
Domains: Healing, Charm.

Combat Expertise
Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Augment Summoning.

Concentration 7
Diplomacy 7
Spellcraft 7
Heal 6
Know religion 5
Know planes 3

Filling out the questionnaire:
a. I can use the PHB, any Eberron campaign book, and Spell Compendium. The DM is accommodating, so I can probably sneak in something from another book, as long as I'm strictly limited in how much stuff I ask for and how game changing it is.
g. Concept: I have 18 Cha because I was told Undead would play a role. I started out with the domains Healing and Luck because Healing was an easy roleplaying decision for the Healslave, and at the time we didn't know I could worship The Sovereign Host as a whole, and Luck looked good from Olladra. Healing isn't exactly a strong decision but I'm going to stick with it. When I found out I could worship the host as a whole, I asked the DM to let me switch to Charm because a. I love Charm Person and b. it was another roleplaying decision based on my Cha score. So as far as I'm concerned I've spent my ability to ask the DM for favors at this level.

That means I'm stuck with my feats. They seemed good at the time, because Summon Monster is another fave spell of mine, and someone else had their mitts on the Eberron books so I was only leafing through the PHB and feeling time pressured. Plus, my domain at the time was Luck, else I'd've jumped on spell focus enchantment.

My high Cha makes me want to pimp Diplomacy. It would definitely serve a purpose in the campaign. Even though it will probably weaken the character over all, I am probably going to take a level in Rogue so I can get five ranks in Bluff and Sense Motive. I'm looking for another class to dip into to get five ranks of Know (nobility). I've actually considered Aristocrat (if I can get the DM to let me have it. That whole being born one thing) and/or Adept. If you have a better way to get any/all of these skills, I'm listening. Church Inquisitor is unfortunately the wrong alignment for me and I'd still need Know (nobility). I dunno, it feels wrong and expensive to buy any of it cross class. Along the way I'll probably pick up a few ranks in Gather Information. Intimidate would be out of character. Other skills: Only interested if you think it can buy me something.

Is spellcraft as important for Clerics as it is for Wizards?

I'm probably going to take Domain Spontaneity (Charm) as my next feat. Past that, the focus I want is charm/diplomacy first, buffing a close second. EDIT: Since I've already put two feats into it, I will also accept conjuring/summoning advice, but I've had a bit of a look around and there's not much for a divine caster to do after Augment Summoning. Or, I'm blind, a perfectly valid option.

I don't know how long this campaign will last. I say eight levels, but I'm seriously against sacrifices now for power later. Eight levels is just the optimistic horizon past which I see zero point in planning. I've considered Sovereign Speaker -- community and mind domains for the diplomacy bonus, knowledge domain to get my mitts on Know (nobility), other exciting options, but the Worldly Focus feat is actually a serious drawback in this campaign. I lose a lot of power in two levels in the hopes of the campaign lasting another 3 or 4 levels after that. Especially since the DM is very relaxed about material components in the first place; he doesn't like the paperwork.

Non sequitur: We don't appear to be using action points.

Other people in the party: Dragon Shaman/Barbarian (see what I mean about sneaking in stuff from other books?), Elven Ranger, Wizard, Warforged Fighter, and another NPC Warforged fighter. Yah, we have a lot of front line and we need a rogue, but we'll make do. The DM understands our lack of rogue so he may be gentle with us because of it. The Dragon Shaman is serious healing support, and with two warforged, so is the Wizard if he packs Repair spells. Which I will be suggesting. So, yeah, I'm healslave, but I don't need to focus on it, and I definitely don't need to be melee cleric, although I'm ready to plug holes and be a stalking horse if necessary.

Thank you for your patience, I know I've placed a lot of ridiculous restrictions on the parameters.

[Reegs]

I was hoping for help on making a melee rogue build from 1 to 10, level by level (or up to 20 if you're adventurous).
RACE
Because we will most likely start from 4th level in this upcoming campaign (it has been a habit of the DM so far), a character with a total level adjustment of no more than +1 is fine. In addition any template is fair game. I also am not very fond of small characters for this role since I don't like losing damage with small weapons.
ABILITIES
My scores (as I've assigned them presently) are:
STR: 18
DEX: 18
CON: 14
INT: 14
WIS: 12
CHA: 12
ALIGNMENT
From past experiences I'm most comfortable playing a chaotic good or chaotic neutral character.
HOUSE RULES
We have house ruled free multiclassing so that is not a problem and I am not opposed to dabbling in other classes as long as they are not purely arcane casters and as long as it won't hinder my rogue abilities too much.
BOOKS
All 3.5 books will most likely be fair game unless the build becomes completely broken
CONCEPT
I've played rogues in the past and really enjoyed the sneak attack aspect. The problem is that the other characters I play with don't tend to give me flanking all that often. Therefore going first should be important in order to catch enemies flatfooted. I then plan on "selectively" joining melee combat. My group tends to lack the classic tank so nobody can always be relied upon to absorb the damage. That needs to be taken into consideration. Also any ideas for items to buy at level 4 with 5400gp would be appreciated.

[dspeyer]

Probably the best feat for a dedicated healer is reach spell from complete divine, which means you only need to get within 30' of an injured ally instead of all the way, greatly reducing the AoOs you suffer and your vulnerability to obstacles. It combines well with Split Ray or Chain Spell from complete arcane, making the spell effect multiple targets, but the increased spell levels become painful. Divine metamagic can help here.

You might consider the Radiant Servant prestige class from CD. It boosts both healing and undead turning a lot. It'll need adapting to your setting, so talk to your DM (it's originally "Radiant Servant of Pelor", but can probably travel to a different deity).

[d13]

My high Cha makes me want to pimp Diplomacy. It would definitely serve a purpose in the campaign. Even though it will probably weaken the character over all, I am probably going to take a level in Rogue so I can get five ranks in Bluff and Sense Motive. I'm looking for another class to dip into to get five ranks of Know (nobility).


Take the first level in Bard instead of taking a later level dip in Rogue. Sense Motive, Bluff, Diplomacy, Perform (Oratory) [just plain flavor xD] and every Knowledge skill as class skill.
Also a ****load of skill points, to serve that xD.

It'd hurt your BAB at lower levels, and you have like... 1 less HP. But it MIGHT be worth it.



Is spellcraft as important for Clerics as it is for Wizards?


Clerics use Spellcraft to... Uh... Identify spells being casted? I don't know. I never put ranks in spellcrafts in my clerics. I rather get Concentration, you'll be healing at melee range.

Being Eberron, you could also consider playing a Halfling and take a look at the Dragonmark stuff


Keep in mind that I'm not an ace at optimizing (am I spelling it correctly? xD) so I could be REALLY wrong xD.

[DemetriX]

Hello there. I am creating a new character and I would really appreciate your help!

What Do I want: I would like my character to be a ranged dragon slayer, perfect at killing them from afar or while they sleep...

Ability Scores Used: Ability Scores are 20, 12, 14, 16, 16, 12.

Preffered Race/Class: I would prefer a race with +2 to Dex. I have been thinking about Strongheart Halfling. As for class, I want to take (full) Dragonstalker (Draconomicon) as prestige class and if I start as Halfling, maybe Rogue with Halfling Substitution levels for extra ranged damage with sneak attack. But, I also want to take Dragon Stalker early enough, like 6th level (3 Rogue / 3 Fighter etc.)

Concept: I want to be a dragon hunter using his sneak attack and his many feats so as to strike as much as possible in a full-round. Propably using a Longbow or a Light Crossbow in each hand with Two-Weapon Fighting for many attacks. So feats concentrate to give me many attacks or big attack roll bonuses (although I am thinking about Knowledge Devotion about that.

Extra Info: I maybe have an extra feat (DM's gift) and I have one Flaw. So +2 feats.

Also if you can, please suggest essential items for my character.

Thank you very much.

[Cheesegear]

Concept: I want to be a dragon hunter using his sneak attack and his many feats so as to strike as much as possible in a full-round. Propably using a Longbow or a Light Crossbow in each hand with Two-Weapon Fighting for many attacks. So feats concentrate to give me many attacks or big attack roll bonuses (although I am thinking about Knowledge Devotion about that.

What books can you/we use?

Wrong. This only works with Hand Crossbows. But, with a level of Rogue you have proficiency in those anyway. And the problem of that (that I found out a few posts back), that if you have a Crossbow in each hand, you have the problem of not being able to reload. Maybe you can convince your DM to let you have a Hand Crossbow that doesn't need ammo? No realoading neccessary.
Sneak Attack doesn't work if you're more than 30ft away! And that's why bows are next-to-useless for rogues. I'd go a Thrown Weapons guy. Daggers, so you can grab Invisible Blade (if you want it, which you should).

Rogue 3 / Ranger 3...Will give you a bunch of stuff, including free Track, Two-Weapon Fighting and Favoured Enemy (Dragons) obviously. I'd also strongly suggest - since you're Halfling - looking at the Whisperknife class (Races of the Wild). That class never goes wrong. Whisperknife's best friend Invisible Blade is also good, and Invisible Blade's best friend Master Thrower.

Darkstalker (Lords of Madness) is a must when dealing with Dragons, otherwise, you just trigger their Blindsense, and it's game over (providing the Dragons are played right). Nevermind, Dragonstalker 9 gets it anyway, essientially. Just watch out for Dragons with Tremorsense.

When I get to my books, I'll be able to write up a real class progression.

[d13]

Ok! Oh, great Cheezburger Masters! here's the deal!

I wanna make a Wizard 10/IotSV 7/Archmage 3 (or wizard 3+, not sure yet) (non-negotiable)

I get to Wizard 10 only because of the bonus feat. Feel free to use Wizard 9 if you need xD.


The thing is that my DM is a HEAVY optimizer (only when he plays), and hates optimization when he DMs, so I need a Camouflaged Cheezburgerish Batman Wizard...

From level 1 to... Maybe 10 or 15... If you get to 20, you have the coolness ensured ;).

Stats: To be rolled. Not likely to get anything below 11.

Party: 3 more people, I don't even know who they are.

Books: PHB I, PHB II, The Complete Series and anything related to Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

Race: Probably Gold Elf (+2 int, -2 con, fav class: wizard), but open to suggestions.

AL: Not sure if "the party" is gonna play good or evil yet xD.

Thanks to everyone!

[Xey42]

Been DMing for a while and a fellow player from our group has finally stepped up to take over the reigns for awhile.. now i'm at a loss for what i actually want to play. Looking for something different and exotic while still being playable. My Character will be starting at level 7 (where the rest of the party is at) and going (hopefully) through 20, and looking for a level by level build idea.

-Can use any books that are non-campaign setting material

-Looking for a non-standard race (part of the exotic idea), though no more than +2ecl.

-Already have a tank, a walking bandaid, a skill monkey rogue, and a artillary sorc. Looking for non-filled roll thats not ultra complicated (finally taking a break from all the work! :smallbiggrin:), so no batman wizards or CoDzilla's.. or any build that requires 20 pages of notes to play. Simple without being gimped, caster or non doesn't matter. glass cannon's ok, but not really deeply desired. Support class/build prefered.

-ability score generation is 4d6, drop the lowest.

-alignment, any non-lawful, non-evil.

-no house rules, but we do get a flaw for that extra 1st level feat :smallsmile:

-again, overall concept is exotic and different.. support preferable, simplistic, and not a gimp. i'm pretty much open to any idea not specifically said against above, and i'm actually hoping for something strange that i never would have tought of.

-just a note, the DM thats taking over has a tendency, in my small experience of his running of the game, to throw things at the party that are way out of our league by accident and inadvertently kill a character or two due to poorly planned DMing.. i don't want to be one of those characters, so survivability is necessary should the worst case scenario happen.. game style is, in theory, 50/50 hack and slash/diplomatic intrigue.

thanks in advance for any help! :smallbiggrin:

[dspeyer]

For exotic, simple and fun, I recommend a wyrmling brass dragon. It's LA2 and RHD4, but they're dragon rhd so they don't suck. All the movement modes and skills make for a great scout, and the sleep breath weapon is surprisingly effective. It's fun to play a character who for good reason has far more power than maturity but remains good at heart.

For classes, either go for pure skills (factotum, maybe into exemplar) or try to pick up enough bonus damage to be viable in melee (probably via ToB).

[DemetriX]

What books can you/we use?

Wrong. This only works with Hand Crossbows. But, with a level of Rogue you have proficiency in those anyway. And the problem of that (that I found out a few posts back), that if you have a Crossbow in each hand, you have the problem of not being able to reload. Maybe you can convince your DM to let you have a Hand Crossbow that doesn't need ammo? No realoading neccessary.
Sneak Attack doesn't work if you're more than 30ft away! And that's why bows are next-to-useless for rogues. I'd go a Thrown Weapons guy. Daggers, so you can grab Invisible Blade (if you want it, which you should).

Rogue 3 / Ranger 3...Will give you a bunch of stuff, including free Track, Two-Weapon Fighting and Favoured Enemy (Dragons) obviously. I'd also strongly suggest - since you're Halfling - looking at the Whisperknife class (Races of the Wild). That class never goes wrong. Whisperknife's best friend Invisible Blade is also good, and Invisible Blade's best friend Master Thrower.

Darkstalker (Lords of Madness) is a must when dealing with Dragons, otherwise, you just trigger their Blindsense, and it's game over (providing the Dragons are played right). Nevermind, Dragonstalker 9 gets it anyway, essientially. Just watch out for Dragons with Tremorsense.

When I get to my books, I'll be able to write up a real class progression.

I can use pretty much every book of 3.5 which is "official" (having the Wizards TM). Well, playing with Thrown Weapons would be nice, but I want to play something different from what I have played (A Master Thrower / Invisible Blade). Using Hand Crossbows seem like a good idea, but as I said before the main thing I want is attacking as much as possible in a single round. I just want to see how my feat progression will be and I want to have a lot of sneak attack damage against dragons. I also think there is a feat which lets you sneak attack from further away and one (I think it is called Craven) which adds additional damage to each sneak attack. Moreover, I will probably not be a good guy in-game. Thanks.

Edit: I would also like a build like Rogue 3/Ranger 2/Fighter 1 or instead of fighter, a prestige class with Full BAB and other goodies.

[Cheesegear]

The main thing I want is attacking as much as possible in a single round. I just want to see how my feat progression will be and I want to have a lot of sneak attack damage against dragons. I also think there is a feat which lets you sneak attack from further away and one (I think it is called Craven) which adds additional damage to each sneak attack. Moreover, I will probably not be a good guy in-game. Thanks.

Emphasis Mine. If that's the case, you want to have +20 BAB by level 20. Or having one of those crazy Monk builds. Which isn't happening if you take any levels of rogue. Since that's not happening, we can try for +16.
You can way more attacks as a melee build...Just saying.

Ranger 2, as I've said, gives you Favoured Enemy (Dragons), free Track (which you need for Dragonstalker), and free Rapid Shot. Rogue 5 then gives you the +5 BAB you need for Dragonstalker, as well as 3d6 SA. Enter DS at level 8.
(Taking 0 levels of rogue - and therefore no sneak attack - will get you there at level 6)
By Level 18; Ranger 2 / Rogue 5 / DS 10. You'll have BAB +15. Round out your two last levels with two levels of Shadowdancer (make sure you have Perform ranks) for HiPs. For Improved Uncanny Dodge and free Darkvision.
IIRC; Halflings don't have Darkvision. And viola! BAB +16.

I can't find the 'Ranged Sneak Attack' feat. I know there's a bunch of PrC abilities that let you do it, but, since you want Full Dragonstalker, it's kind of hard to get them, since they're all upper-end abilities.
Remember, again, Halfling Rogue sub-levels, their 'Ranged Sneak Attacks' only work on thrown weapons.

Crossbow Sniper lets you SA at 60ft range. But you have to use a Crossbow. In that case, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Repeater Crossbow), and Rapid Reload (depending on how your DM rules) is what you want. By now, you should've ditched both Ranger levels and all Rogue Levels, going Straight Fighter => Dragonstalker. Otherwise you're just not going to have the feats to pull it off, since you also have to burn on Track and Blind Fighting. Ditching all your Rogue-ness. You said 'grab Dragonstalker as early as possible'. You could go for it at level 11...But that changes the build entirely.

Deadeye Shot also works. Sort off. You get as many Sneak Attacks as your enemy has attacks. If the Dragon spends his round casting a spell, or flying, or just 'not attacking', you get no Sneak Attacks at all, and all your Readied Actions are wasted. Yeah. zero Sneak Attacks per round. Sweet.

Manyshot and Greater Manyshot are a must. As soon as you can, get them.
Deadly Precision is awesome. Get it. ASAP.
Foe Specialist, is also totally awesome. Especially for this kind of character.

Craven, I don't really like for this kind of character, since it also has that nice screw-you-over-ness of giving you penalties to your Fear Saves, which Dragons give out like marshmellows.
Getting this feat means you can never take any levels at all in Dragonslayer. Since Dragonslayer 1, gives immunity to fear. Which I would advise be your last two levels.

[DemetriX]

Thanks a lot man! I wanted to have one of the best Dragonslayers around and you helped me create him! The campaign is starting in a couple of weeks, by the way! See you

[Cheesegear]

Crossbow Sniper lets you SA at 60ft range. But you have to use a Crossbow. In that case, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Repeater Crossbow), and Rapid Reload (depending on how your DM rules) is what you want.

Bear in mind, that a Repeater 'Cartridge', has five bolts in it. BAB +16 only gives you four attacks. You'll have one bolt left over at the end of every round. With Rapid Reload (Light Crossbow), this shouldn't be a problem, as this changes Reload times to Free Actions. Heavy Repeater Crossbows would have reloading as a move action. And you only have one of those.

Another one that could work (yeah, you're burning feats like crazy), is Spring Attack plus Shot on the Run. Move. Shoot. Move. Shoot. Move. etc. Until you run out of attacks or movement (whichever is first). Although, that's rather feat intensive. And pretty much is only good for Scouts.
Just stick with Shot on the Run. Move, unload a cartridge on the dragon. And then move into a new position.

[Alaxi]

I have a question for a build. Before I start, I want it known I am not looking to build the most OP character ever. This guy is mainly RP fluff, but I want a little bang in him/her. I was thinking of beginning as a cleric (the cloistered variant) of Mystra (Boccob if I go core) and taking about 5 levels there, then taking 5 levels in wizard. Once those 10 levels are complete, prestige into Mystic Theurge. First question is, what will the spell list look like? Unless the DM homebrews it, will it be using the slots allotted for one class, or have two separate, full spell lists? Also, what feats would be good to take? I believe that I cannot get to max level spells until I hit epic levels, being as converted 15th level spellcasting is the max for a 20th level character of this build.


Also......I was wondering, again not looking for homebrew, would taking the prestige in the epic levels of Archmage be good? I don't think it can happen at all, but would their skill, Mastery of Shaping, work for divine magic? I don't believe it will, but hey, never hurts to ask right?


I have tried to build this character once before, and my DM made a few home rules for it, but I lost him from a Deck of Many Things, pulling the Jack of Clubs (Death or Skull for the other cards used) and being subsequently annhilated by the summoned dread wraith. Anyway, thanks in advance for the help and advice. :-)

[Telonius]

Mystic Theurge progresses both spellcasting classes. So, if you go Wiz5/Clr5/MT10, you'll end up with as many Wizard spells per day as a Wiz15 and as many Cleric spells per day as a Clr15. You fill your Wizard per-days with Wizard spells and your Cleric per-days with Cleric spells. As usual, there is no limit on the number of Cleric spells known - you know them all, and prepare a number of them in the morning. Wizard is a bit more ambiguous. If you get a real, real stickler of a DM, he may not give you the 2 free spells in your spellbook per level for any of your MT levels. But 99% of DMs will ignore that and give you the two free spells anyway. Again, as usual, the only limit on the total spells known for your Wizard is how much time and money you want to spend writing stuff into the spellbook.

Metamagic feats plus Divine Metamagic are even more beneficial than usual for a Cleric, since the Metamagic feats also work on your Wizard spells. Practiced Spellcaster can help bump up the Caster Level of your spells.

Mastery of Shaping ... Hm. Technically, the entry doesn't specify that the spell has to be an Arcane spell. So RAW, it would work on Divine spells too. However, that's a case where it would really depend on your DM's interpretation. Personally I'd call it that, RAI, Archmage is for Arcane casters, so Master of Shaping wouldn't work on Divine spells. Same way with Arcane Reach. The description doesn't specify whether the spell is Arcane or Divine, but come on, it has "Arcane" in the name.

[monty]

Also, I highly recommend going Wiz 3 / Clr 3 (mix and match as you wish) / MT 10 / whatever. You'll get your higher level spells a lot sooner than going 5 levels in each class first.

[Alaxi]

Thank you guys. That is about what I had expected, but wanted to make sure from the experts. :-)

[monty]

As another possible character for a campaign I'm participating in soon, I wanted to try a sorcerer. The DM's going to be putting us against relatively high-level encounters, so it needs to be a powerful character. I was planning to start with a dragonwrought kobold and Loredrake, and then go for Incantacheese, but I could certainly optimize it more.

Level-by-level 1-30
Any official 3.X source
Race: Kobold, unless you have a better suggestion.
Class: Sorcerer
Ability scores: Haven't heard about these yet, so I'm assuming either 28 point buy or 4d6 (we usually use one of those two)
Alignment: Any, but preferably good.
House rules: None of note
Other: I expect a significant part of the campaign to be dungeon crawls.

[PrismaticPIA]

Can anyone help me build a dam-the-torpedos melee character. If possible I'd like to see a 20-level progression with a focus on dealing as much damage as possible by ECL 9.

Books: 3.0/3.5 WoTC material only.

Race: I was thinking Half-Ogre Goliath. Yea it's LA +3, but my weapon will be friggin huge. I'm open to suggestions

Class: I was thinking straight Fighter or War Blade. I don't know a great deal about melee PrC's. Very much open to suggestions here.

Ability Scores: My DM uses a really strange 4d6 system that generally result in good-great stats. Assume I'll have stats ranging from 13-18 before applying racial bonuses.

Alignment: Most likely Chaotic Neutral. He fights anyone who looks remotely strong, and if he doesn't kill them immediately, he leaves them alive so he can fight them again later.

House Rules: WotC material only.

Concept: Melee fighter who doesn't care if he gets injured. As much damage as possible in a single swing. I was thinking maybe mad jumping skills to get into combat?



Go nuts.

[dspeyer]

If crystal keep has it right, half-ogre is brokenly overpowered. A half-ogre human is superior to an ogre in every way (except darkvision) at half the level adjust with no useless hit dice.

As for your build, I'd say either Warblade or Frenzied Berserker fits best. Warblade gives you all sorts of damage boosters, probably the biggest being the Nightmare Blade series. FB gives you massive strength bonuses and improved/supreme power attack. You can multiply in spirited charge as well, but that requires a mount, which is difficult as a large creature and probably doesn't fit fluff very well.

You can combine WB and FB, but only somewhat. Moment of Perfect Mind helps you not kill your friends over a stubbed toe, and supreme power attack stacks with ruby nightmare blade by actual multiplication, but you cannot use any diamond mind manuever while raging or frenzying. You can still use Tiger Claw and Stone Dragon.

A completely separate approach would be to be a cleric of Kord and prestige as soon as possible into a full-BAB class, then buff away.

[Cheesegear]

If crystal keep has it right, half-ogre is brokenly overpowered. A half-ogre human is superior to an ogre in every way (except darkvision) at half the level adjust with no useless hit dice.

Most LA'd races are broken. :smallwink:

[kyoten]

Q.? Could you please build me a level by level Necromancer (8th)?

Books: I can use Core + Any Complete book + PHBII + Spell Compendium

Race: Human

Class: Wizard

Ability Scores: Str - 12, Dex - 16, Con - 15, Int - 19, Wis - 15, Cha - 14 (includes level 4 and 8 stat points 4th - Int +1, 8th - Cha +1)

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

House Rules: None

Concept: I'm looking for a Necromancer who doesn't rely solely on undead legions.

Other: Current Feat selections: Human - Eschew Materials, 1st - Spell Mastery, 3rd - Armor Proficiency Light, 5th - Spell Focus(Necromancy), 6th - Combat Casting

I have 27,000 GP to purchase. Currently I have a Twilight Mithral Chain Shirt, Everlasting Rations, and a Hewards Handy Haversack.

Skill Ranks

Concentration - 11
Decipher Script - 11
Forgery - 1
Heal - 5
Knowledge Arcane - 4
Knowledge History - 4
Knowledge Nobility - 3
Knowledge Religion - 3
Move Silently - 1
Search - 1
Sleight of Hand - 1
Spellcraft - 11
Spot - 2
Use Magic Device - 5

[Telonius]

Kyoten, it looks like you already have your feats and skill selection out. What do you need help with? Spell selection, gear, critique of what you already have, or future directions/prcs?

Monty, unfortunately I don't have Dragons of Eberron, so I can't really flesh out the Loredrake idea.

[kyoten]

Kyoten, it looks like you already have your feats and skill selection out. What do you need help with? Spell selection, gear, critique of what you already have, or future directions/prcs?

Monty, unfortunately I don't have Dragons of Eberron, so I can't really flesh out the Loredrake idea.

Critique, Gear, and Spell Selection advice!

[Telonius]

Okay, first part of the critique: you don't need Armor Proficiency. The only penalty from wearing a piece of armor in which you aren't proficient is that you apply the Armor Check Penalty to attack rolls etc. The Armor Check Penalty for a twilight mithral chain shirt is zero. So it really doesn't matter whether or not you're proficient, there's no penalty for wearing it, and no need to waste a feat on proficiency.

Eschew Materials isn't one I'd spend a feat on, unless the DM is being a real stickler for keeping track of material components.

Here's how I'd arrange the feats.
Human - Eschew Materials (if you must)
1st - Spell Focus (Necro)
3rd - Spell Mastery
Fifth level bonus wizard spell, take Corrupt Spell (CDiv).
6th - Combat Casting OR Skill Focus (Concentration)*
9th - Black Lore of Moil (CArc).

* - Many folks on the boards favor Skill Focus, since even though it's a lower bonus, it works in more situations. Personally I prefer Combat Casting, but it's a quibble.

Now, for School Specialization. Necromancy is a tough one to specialize in - it's one of the schools that often gets cut. I'd suggest cutting Evocation and Conjuration - you can get reasonable facsimiles of both of those via Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration.

Got to go now, but hopefully I'll be back with some gear and spell selection advice later.

[monty]

Monty, unfortunately I don't have Dragons of Eberron, so I can't really flesh out the Loredrake idea.

Loredrake isn't particularly critical to the build; it's basically just two extra sorcerer levels. I was more interested in general sorcerer-breaking advice.

[The_Scourge]

I've got a deceptively simple build for you guys.
I need a level 21 sorcerer, a combination of blasting and utility. I've never played a caster before so I need full build, feats, spells, suggested equipment, prestige classes if you think it'd be a good idea. It's 32 point buy.
The catch is this: I want the character to be a rat. I've had it suggested to me to use awakened animal or a simple baleful polymorph (not exactly sure how that'd work but it's the one the DM is leaning towards). So if you can figure out an interesting build for me, fire away.
Oh, one more thing, this world is scaled up so sorcerers and wizards get the archmage abilities for free starting with one at8th level up to five at 20th
edit: any book except savage species and BoNS

[Kroy]

Q 2,162

Books: Core (by SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm)) Complete Warrior/Adventure, RoW, and FR campaign setting.
Race: A race with a good dex bonus (maybe catfolk or elf).
Class: At least 3 levels of Champion of Corellon, with some paladin to maximize the CoC Lay on Hands.
Ability Scores: 36 point buy
Alignment: Any Good
House Rules: For CoC, you do not have to be an elf or worship CL.
Concept: A dexterity based warrior with weapon focus at the very least. 13th level.
Other: I would like a final character, I don't need a level by level breakdown.

[Baltor]

Q2163
Hey guys I am taking another go at sorc, after a disasterous try early in my d&d playing tenure, I am strting out at third level. am not seeking a full build just your opinions on some ideas I have had. First of all the celestial and infernal heritage feats add some abilities that add interesting fluff and substance would you guys recomend or stay away from them, also I am thinking about taking the metamagic specialist alternative class feature (to get rid of that little fleshy ball of risk that is a familiar) will this do me any good if I do take the celestial/ infernal feat tree seeing as how I will also be trying to build twards a prc of some sort. Finally I have toyed with the idea of taking one or two levels of fighter to get the extra hp and feats is it worth the lost caster levels?

[Telonius]

As another possible character for a campaign I'm participating in soon, I wanted to try a sorcerer. The DM's going to be putting us against relatively high-level encounters, so it needs to be a powerful character. I was planning to start with a dragonwrought kobold and Loredrake, and then go for Incantacheese, but I could certainly optimize it more.

Level-by-level 1-30
Any official 3.X source
Race: Kobold, unless you have a better suggestion.
Class: Sorcerer
Ability scores: Haven't heard about these yet, so I'm assuming either 28 point buy or 4d6 (we usually use one of those two)
Alignment: Any, but preferably good.
House rules: None of note
Other: I expect a significant part of the campaign to be dungeon crawls.

Quick tip: Greater Draconic Rite of Passage (http://http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a).


Prerequisites: Only kobolds of 6 Hit Dice or more, sorcerer level 1st, who have successfully completed the Draconic Rite of Passage, and taken Draconic Reservoir (1) can undergo the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage. A kobold requires no one else to perform the rite; it is a solitary activity.

(1) See below for feat description.

Benefit: Upon completing this rite, a kobold gains new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known) as if also gaining one level in the sorcerer class. The kobold does not, however, gain any other benefit a sorcerer would have gained (familiar abilities, and so on).

The benefit of this ritual is automatically factored into the 15 minutes that a kobold sorcerer spends concentrating to ready their daily allotment of spells. No kobold can benefit from this rite more than once.

Time: A kobold who undergoes this rite must first endure nine days of fasting (the equivalent of three days for a kobold in a region above 40 degrees F). Immediately thereafter, the kobold must succeed on a DC 20 Concentration check to enter a deep trance that lasts for 24 hours. If the check fails, the rite must begin a new.

Cost: This rite requires sacrificing a gem of at least 1,000 gp in value. The kobold also permanently loses 3 hit points upon completion of the rite, the price of unlocking latent draconic energy within their soul.


Venerable Kobold (Dragonwrought don't incur aging penalties).
Total ability modifiers: -4 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con, +3 Int, +3 Wis, +3 Cha

Point buy 28. I hate encumbrance penalties, so Str might be above where you might like it.
Str 12-> 8
Dex 10-> 12
Con 12-> 10
Int 10->13
Wis 8->11
Cha 18->21

Suggested Feats
1 Dragonwrought
3 Draconic Reservoir
6 Extend Spell
9 Energy Substitution

I don't know what the prerequisites for Loredrake are, but take the prereqs before Extend/Substitution, then enough Loredrake levels to get you your +2 Sorcerer level. The upshot is that, combined with Greater Rite of Passage, you'll get your max number of (pre-epic) Sorcerer spells known by 17th level.

Assuming that Loredrake is a full-casting PrC, this means that - Shock! Horror! - Mystic Theurge is actually viable. At 20th level, you'll have lost nothing and gained 3+MT levels worth of Cleric spells.

Sorc4/Cleric3/MT X/Loredrake X

Pick a deity with the Spell domain. This gives you access to the Anyspell (and possibly Greater Anyspell, depending on how many levels of Loredrake you need). Pay a Wizard to write all of his Batman spells (level 5 and under) into a spellbook, and you should be good to go.

[Zantumall]

This is probably a little unorthodox for a character builder forum, but I'm making a campaign and need a final boss that I can't figure out how to make what I want. I need some kind of twisted maniac; he needs to be jester-themed, quite possibly using the jester class from Dragon Magazine Compendium. I'd appreciate psionics too, if you can get this much into a roughly-CR 20 NPC. I was thinking of making him a drow but really any race works. I have access to almost all Wizards of the Coast supplements, but please don't use alternate campaign settings such as Eberron / Forgotten Realms. Thanks, almost anything helps.:smallsmile:

I should probably clarify what I mean by jester-themed. What I'm aiming for here is something like Kefka from Final Fantasy..... 3? (not sure which number) He wears brightly colored clothing, has a downright creepy laugh, and is undeniably, ruthlessly, evil.

[Telonius]

Q2163
Hey guys I am taking another go at sorc, after a disasterous try early in my d&d playing tenure, I am strting out at third level. am not seeking a full build just your opinions on some ideas I have had. First of all the celestial and infernal heritage feats add some abilities that add interesting fluff and substance would you guys recomend or stay away from them, also I am thinking about taking the metamagic specialist alternative class feature (to get rid of that little fleshy ball of risk that is a familiar) will this do me any good if I do take the celestial/ infernal feat tree seeing as how I will also be trying to build twards a prc of some sort. Finally I have toyed with the idea of taking one or two levels of fighter to get the extra hp and feats is it worth the lost caster levels?

I would definitely recommend the metamagic specialist feature. Celestial Sorcerer Heritage is probably the best of the bunch of feats, since it gives you a bonus spell known (which is precious to sorcerers). Otherwise I'd avoid them, especially if you're moving towards a PrC. You don't have that many feats to throw around.

I would generally advise against any Fighter levels. The feats you would be getting are (usually) not that useful to casters, and you're only getting an average of 3 additional HP for a each level of Fighter (5.5 avg hp for Fighter, 2.5 for Sorc). It's almost never worth the loss of a caster level. The main exception is if you're going in for Eldritch Knight, a one-level dip in Spellsword, or both. If you want just Eldritch Knight (and not Spellsword), take your first level in Ranger. You'll meet the prerequisites, and have more skill points and higher saves (though an average of 1 fewer hp) than Fighter. If you're looking at Spellsword, then Paladin, Fighter, or Marshal are your options. Smite Evil would synergize nicely with the high Charisma you're probably going to have. If you take Marshal, take it at level 1, or you miss out on the extra skill points. Bear in mind that if you take Spellsword as a one-level dip, you only lose one caster level. If you use Eldritch Knight, you lose two. (Unless you play as a Dragonwrought Kobold and use the extra sorcerer levels trick I mentioned in the previous post).

[Telonius]

This is probably a little unorthodox for a character builder forum, but I'm making a campaign and need a final boss that I can't figure out how to make what I want. I need some kind of twisted maniac; he needs to be jester-themed, quite possibly using the jester class from Dragon Magazine Compendium. I'd appreciate psionics too, if you can get this much into a roughly-CR 20 NPC. I was thinking of making him a drow but really any race works. I have access to almost all Wizards of the Coast supplements, but please don't use alternate campaign settings such as Eberron / Forgotten Realms. Thanks, almost anything helps.:smallsmile:

I should probably clarify what I mean by jester-themed. What I'm aiming for here is something like Kefka from Final Fantasy..... 3? (not sure which number) He wears brightly colored clothing, has a downright creepy laugh, and is undeniably, ruthlessly, evil.

Just about any character race/class combination can be adapted into a Jester theme. All you have to do is give him a floppy hat and a Chaotic Loony alignment. What sorts of things do you want him to be able to do? Are you thinking of him as primarily a caster, a magically-enhanced acrobat fighter, a crazy Rogue, a mad scientist/artificer, or something else altogether?

[PrismaticPIA]

This is probably a little unorthodox for a character builder forum, but I'm making a campaign and need a final boss that I can't figure out how to make what I want. I need some kind of twisted maniac; he needs to be jester-themed, quite possibly using the jester class from Dragon Magazine Compendium. I'd appreciate psionics too, if you can get this much into a roughly-CR 20 NPC. I was thinking of making him a drow but really any race works. I have access to almost all Wizards of the Coast supplements, but please don't use alternate campaign settings such as Eberron / Forgotten Realms. Thanks, almost anything helps.:smallsmile:

I should probably clarify what I mean by jester-themed. What I'm aiming for here is something like Kefka from Final Fantasy..... 3? (not sure which number) He wears brightly colored clothing, has a downright creepy laugh, and is undeniably, ruthlessly, evil.

There's a prestige class this is jester-themed that gives you abilities based on preform (leading up to a 'killing joke'), but I can't seem to find it.

[Zantumall]

Just about any character race/class combination can be adapted into a Jester theme. All you have to do is give him a floppy hat and a Chaotic Loony alignment. What sorts of things do you want him to be able to do? Are you thinking of him as primarily a caster, a magically-enhanced acrobat fighter, a crazy Rogue, a mad scientist/artificer, or something else altogether?

I was thinking decent stealth / acrobatics skills, but primarily psionics or magic. I was looking at the lurk from Complete Psionics, but the power list doesn't work that well for me and I was looking for more of a focus on casting; probably something that goes all the way to 9th level.

[Telonius]

Well, unfortunately I have no experience with Psionics. The Shadowmind PrC from Complete Adventurer seems like it might fit your concept, but I'd rather give you no advice than bad advice as far as that goes. Lots of other people on the boards are good with Psionics though.

However, if you're going for the Arcane end of things, either Beguiler or Bard sounds like just what you want. Straight Beguiler 20 would work. Beguiler18/Master of Masks2 or Beguiler 15/Master of Masks2/Magical Trickster3 are others.

Recommended masks: Jester (obviously), Archmage, Angel

If you want your guy to be a Drow, you're going to have the LA to deal with. Still, I don't think it'd be too unreasonable to make the guy have 20 class levels. He's supposed to be the BBEG after all.

[monty]

Quick tip: Greater Draconic Rite of Passage (http://http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a).



Venerable Kobold (Dragonwrought don't incur aging penalties).
Total ability modifiers: -4 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con, +3 Int, +3 Wis, +3 Cha

Point buy 28. I hate encumbrance penalties, so Str might be above where you might like it.
Str 12-> 8
Dex 10-> 12
Con 12-> 10
Int 10->13
Wis 8->11
Cha 18->21

Suggested Feats
1 Dragonwrought
3 Draconic Reservoir
6 Extend Spell
9 Energy Substitution

I don't know what the prerequisites for Loredrake are, but take the prereqs before Extend/Substitution, then enough Loredrake levels to get you your +2 Sorcerer level. The upshot is that, combined with Greater Rite of Passage, you'll get your max number of (pre-epic) Sorcerer spells known by 17th level.

Assuming that Loredrake is a full-casting PrC, this means that - Shock! Horror! - Mystic Theurge is actually viable. At 20th level, you'll have lost nothing and gained 3+MT levels worth of Cleric spells.

Sorc4/Cleric3/MT X/Loredrake X

Pick a deity with the Spell domain. This gives you access to the Anyspell (and possibly Greater Anyspell, depending on how many levels of Loredrake you need). Pay a Wizard to write all of his Batman spells (level 5 and under) into a spellbook, and you should be good to go.

Although the idea of a viable MT is appealing, it seems like a waste of free class levels. I think I'd rather stick with full arcane and enjoy being a full spell level ahead of the wizard. Looking at it again, I'll probably just go Incantatrix for metamagic abuse. Thanks for the help anyway, though.

Also, wouldn't it be better to move a point from Int to Wis to get even ability scores? Since I'll be putting all my points into Cha, and will probably have better things to spend my money on than tomes for off-stats, I don't see much of a reason for odd stats.

And just for your information, Loredrake is sort of an alternate racial feature for dragons, not a class.

[Zantumall]

Thanks, Telonius, I didn't think of beguiler or using a psionic prestige class. I think I've got all the help I need now.:smallbiggrin:

[PrismaticPIA]

Wish I did (points to post #1447 that only got one useful response) ::sad face::

[Cloaknd]

Good evening everyone, this being my 1st post please be gentle.

I was thinking for an upcoming 3.5 campaign to roll a gish and after some research i came down to perhaps picking dwarf. Progression would be like Ftr1/wiz4/Runesmith3/abj champ5 and if i make it to 11th lvl I will be back with more feedback, probably will add more runesmith levels.

Essentially you lose 1 BAB early when going Runesmith for the ability to cast in heavy armor, and the whole idea was not to lose caster levels except the ftr1.

Any suggestions and constructive comments would be appreciated.

P.S : I ran a search and saw a build that was similar to this but w/o much feedback to it. The specialist abjurer idea is good, might go for it. What schools to ban tho? My guess would be evocation, enchantment and necromancy.

[Telonius]

One level of Spellsword would be very beneficial. You'll qualify as soon as you reach BAB +4. It (basically) doesn't cost you anything, and lets you ignore a portion of your spell failure.

I'd think very hard about that fifth level of Abjurant Champion. The Martial Arcanist ability wouldn't give you any CL bost, since your BAB would only be +9 by that point. You get +1 BAB, but no increase in saves. The only really nice thing about it is it allows you to cast Dispel Magic and the Magic Circle spells as a swift action, and gives you another +1 to Abjurant Armor. If you switch it out, switch it out to either that Spellsword level or another level in Runesmith.

For schools to ban, I'd go with Evocation and Enchantment.

[Myou]

Q. 2164 Could you please build me a 23rd level Barbarian X/Assassin X/Fighter 2? I'm thinking Barbarian 13, Assassin 9, but you might disagree. :3

Books: All books are allowed.

Race: Human

Ability Scores: 18, 16, 15, 13, 10, 8, to be arranged as desired.

Alignment: True Neutral

House Rules;
1. No massive damage.
2. No vorpal enhancements or effects.
3. No class alignment restrictions.
4. Max HP at each level.
5. You die when your negative HP surpasses the inverse of your HP.
6. When your Int mod increases you get extra skill points as if it had always been that high.
7. Able Learner makes all skills class skills for all your classes.

Concept: The characer is the head of a guild of assassins, a tall, heavily built man aged about 30. He's fairly charismatic and handsome, and look after all the members of his guild. He fights with a greataxe primarily. He's an NPC (occasional DMPC), but a major character and one we'll be using a lot.

He doesn't need to be heavily optimised, but he does need to have a lot of HP and endurance. The fighter levels can (and probably should) be dropped if it will help his build.

Other: The campaign has custom epic rules, but since none of his classes should go past 20 that shouldn't matter (ignore the official epic rules), please just leave his epic feat free.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Cheesegear]

House Rules;
5. You die when your negative HP surpasses the inverse of your HP.

Does that mean a person with 19 hit points dies at -91 and a person with 100 hit points dies at -001 (-1)?

Have you thought about Fighter (Thug (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighterVariantThug)) levels? Gets extra skill points and skills for the price of one feat and Medium/Heavy Amrour Proficiency?

Or a Sneak Attack Fighter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighter)? Who has Full BAB and all the other things Fighters get, but, trades all his Bonus Feats for Sneak Attack?
Or the Martial Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue) who trades his Sneak Attack for Bonus Feats?

[Myou]

Does that mean a person with 19 hit points dies at -91 and a person with 100 hit points dies at -001 (-1)?

Have you thought about Fighter (Thug (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighterVariantThug)) levels? Gets extra skill points and skills for the price of one feat and Medium/Heavy Amrour Proficiency?

Or a Sneak Attack Fighter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighter)? Who has Full BAB and all the other things Fighters get, but, trades all his Bonus Feats for Sneak Attack?
Or the Martial Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue) who trades his Sneak Attack for Bonus Feats?

No no, the additive inverse. If your HP is X you die at -X. Sorry, I should have been clearer on that. ^^;

He needs to be mostly barbarian and assassin, we don't want more than a few levels in fighter if any, so the thug variant wouldn't be as useful (as I understand it, feel free to correct me). Normal fighter might be more effective since one of the extra feats could offset the cost of taking Able Learner at level 1 to make all skills class skills for him.

The SA fighter would be great for a few levels to start with the assassin SA, yeah, if you use that there could be a few more levels of fighter to add to the sneak attacking, but we really want at least barbarian 11 so that he has Greater Rage.

The martial rogue is a bit too light on HP (we really want him to have high HP), but if it's only for a few levels that would be ok.

[dspeyer]

PrismaticPIA:

It turns out you can combine Warblade with Frenzied Berserker and have it work. It's hard to make everything fit, but I managed it using a human with two flaws (and the feats from flaws are both weak and flavorful):

{table]class|feat|manuever|stance
Barbarian|power attack, cleave(human), dodge(flaw), improved unarmed strike (flaw)|
Warblade||Moment of Perfect Mind, Sudden Leap, Charging Minitaur|Punishing Stance
Warblade|intimidating rage|douse the flames
Warblade||mountain hammer
Warblade|||Hunter's Stance
Warblade|destructive rage, blind fight|emerald razor(ihs)
Warblade||
Warblade||ruby nightmare blade(fdb)
Frenzied Berserker|leap attack|
Frenzied Berserker|supreme cleave (feature)|
Frenzied Berserker||
Frenzied Berserker|adaptive style|
Frenzied Berserker|improved power attack (feature)|
Warblade||Iron Heart Surge (er)|Hearing the air
Warblade|improved initiative (b), martial study|Rabid Bear Strike, shadow stride (ms)
Warblade|||Prey on the Weak
Warblade||Avalanche of Blades
Master of Nine|Great Cleave|earthquake strike, diamond nightmare blade
Master of Nine||ancient mountain hammer|wolf pack tactics
Master of Nine||time stands still, mountain tombstone strike, feral death blow (rnb)
[/table]

Max out jump and concentration. Take at least 10 levels in tumble and intimidate. Take other skills to flavor -- survival is probably a good one.

At level 9, if not frenzying, you can power attack x3 with leap attack for 27 damage and then double it with ruby nightmare blade. If you are frenzying, you can use mountain hammer and punishing stance for an extra 3d6 and ignore DR, or you can sudden leap around the battlefield and make full attacks with the extra frenzy attack.

At level 20, you can do the same non-frenzy trick only with x4 power attack for 76 and then quadruple it. In frenzy, you can use time stands still to make two full attacks a round. Or you can use feral death blow and just kill them.

[Telonius]

No no, the additive inverse. If your HP is X you die at -X. Sorry, I should have been clearer on that. ^^;

He needs to be mostly barbarian and assassin, we don't want more than a few levels in fighter if any, so the thug variant wouldn't be as useful (as I understand it, feel free to correct me). Normal fighter might be more effective since one of the extra feats could offset the cost of taking Able Learner at level 1 to make all skills class skills for him.

The SA fighter would be great for a few levels to start with the assassin SA, yeah, if you use that there could be a few more levels of fighter to add to the sneak attacking, but we really want at least barbarian 11 so that he has Greater Rage.

The martial rogue is a bit too light on HP (we really want him to have high HP), but if it's only for a few levels that would be ok.

Okay, my last two attempts at responding were wiped out by power outages, so I'll make this one quick.

Take the standard Leap Attack/Greater Powerful Charge/Shock Trooper feats, plus Weapon Focus (your choice of slashing) and Disemboweling Strike at level 21 (you'll have +5d6 sneak by then from Assassin). You should have room for Robilar's Gambit if you want it, as well.

[Myou]

Okay, my last two attempts at responding were wiped out by power outages, so I'll make this one quick.

Take the standard Leap Attack/Greater Powerful Charge/Shock Trooper feats, plus Weapon Focus (your choice of slashing) and Disemboweling Strike at level 21 (you'll have +5d6 sneak by then from Assassin). You should have room for Robilar's Gambit if you want it, as well.

Thank you for the advice, but I'm a little confused. ^^;

That's 6 feats, what about the other one (the 21st level slot isn't available, we have custom epic feats so we'll be picking one of them for him once we have the rest of his build decided on)?

What arrangement should his ability scores (and ability gains) be in?

Are there any particular items he should buy (he'll be weilding a greataxe)?

Are there any particular Assassin spells should he take?

Also, is this Barbarian13/Assassin 10?

Maybe you missed my original post? It's the last post on the previous page and has more details.

[Telonius]

Sorry for the confusing post - it's really frustrating to have a 23-level build go *poof* a second and a half before you're ready to click the "Submit" button. :smallwink:

Okay. The build was (generally) Barbarian12/Fighter2/Assassin9. I'd sugest regular Fighter levels rather than Sneak Attack fighter levels. Three levels of Fighter to get +2d6 sneak is not worth the tradeoff of two bonus feats, another rage, +1 to trap sense, 1hp, and two skill points.

Ability scores should be:
Str 18 -> 22
Dex 15 -> 16
Con 16
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 8

Too bad about the 21st slot not being available - Disembowling Strike deals 1d4 Con damage. On a good roll (and a 20-ish HD foe), that alone would take away 20% of the enemy's HP. Since you can't take that, I'd go for some other rage-related feats. Extra Rage or Intimidating Rage, maybe.

Have to go now, but hopefully I'll be back later with some equipment suggestions.

[Myou]

Sorry for the confusing post - it's really frustrating to have a 23-level build go *poof* a second and a half before you're ready to click the "Submit" button. :smallwink:

Okay. The build was (generally) Barbarian12/Fighter2/Assassin9. I'd sugest regular Fighter levels rather than Sneak Attack fighter levels. Three levels of Fighter to get +2d6 sneak is not worth the tradeoff of two bonus feats, another rage, +1 to trap sense, 1hp, and two skill points.

Ability scores should be:
Str 18 -> 22
Dex 15 -> 16
Con 16
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 8

Too bad about the 21st slot not being available - Disembowling Strike deals 1d4 Con damage. On a good roll (and a 20-ish HD foe), that alone would take away 20% of the enemy's HP. Since you can't take that, I'd go for some other rage-related feats. Extra Rage or Intimidating Rage, maybe.

Have to go now, but hopefully I'll be back later with some equipment suggestions.

Ohhh, that really sucks, I'm sorry to hear it. Dx
I really appreciate the help!

Couldn't he take his Assassin levels before he gets to level 18 and then take Disembowleing Strike as his 18th level feat?

Thank you very much for all the help so far! ^^

[Xey42]

Q-2165?

Starting a new campaign with a new group; they're usually heavy role players, low on optimization but asked me and two friends to challenge them to a difficult game. Thus far, the party consists (new group) of one player going swashbuckler 20 (:smallsigh:), one going fighter 5/wizard 5/spellsword 10, and another is going rogue skillmonkey 20. Obviously, they didn't change much for a DM (our group) thats going to throw truly difficult stuff out there from 100 different source books (they all had available to them). Me and another friend are trying to build characters to supplement them. Friend is making a heal/buff bot cleric. We have no tank and no party face, and i really don't want a character that will completely overshadow them in light of making up for their deficiencies.

Looking for a build, starting at level 5 and going through 20, that will focus on A) tanking (DM has assured me that if I build a tank, he will at least slightly nerf encounters and have monsters focus on me.) B)party face (diplomacy, sense motive, bluff) and C)support of allies.

All non-campaign books are fair game, eberron campaign is available however.

No incredibly strange and exotic races, +1la max.

I don't want to play a batman wizard, FBzerker, etc etc etc that will negate the encounters before the group takes part. I was thinking ToB class focused entirely on effects that benefit my party (white raven?) so as to avoid stealing their thunder while making sure we don't wipe the first encounter. Would really prefer not to be a caster if it can be avoided.

Alignment - any good or neutral, and ability score generation method used will result in pretty high stats.

Campaign will be an even mix of intrigue/combat, and i really want to stress that i want to be support.. i know batman wizard is the pinnacle of support/control, but casting glitterdust and letting the rest of the party mop up isn't what i'm looking for here.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice!:smallbiggrin:

[PrismaticPIA]

PrismaticPIA:

It turns out you can combine Warblade with Frenzied Berserker and have it work. It's hard to make everything fit, but I managed it using a human with two flaws (and the feats from flaws are both weak and flavorful):

{table]class|feat|manuever|stance
Barbarian|power attack, cleave(human), dodge(flaw), improved unarmed strike (flaw)|
Warblade||Moment of Perfect Mind, Sudden Leap, Charging Minitaur|Punishing Stance
Warblade|intimidating rage|douse the flames
Warblade||mountain hammer
Warblade|||Hunter's Stance
Warblade|destructive rage, blind fight|emerald razor(ihs)
Warblade||
Warblade||ruby nightmare blade(fdb)
Frenzied Berserker|leap attack|
Frenzied Berserker|supreme cleave (feature)|
Frenzied Berserker||
Frenzied Berserker|adaptive style|
Frenzied Berserker|improved power attack (feature)|
Warblade||Iron Heart Surge (er)|Hearing the air
Warblade|improved initiative (b), martial study|Rabid Bear Strike, shadow stride (ms)
Warblade|||Prey on the Weak
Warblade||Avalanche of Blades
Master of Nine|Great Cleave|earthquake strike, diamond nightmare blade
Master of Nine||ancient mountain hammer|wolf pack tactics
Master of Nine||time stands still, mountain tombstone strike, feral death blow (rnb)
[/table]

Max out jump and concentration. Take at least 10 levels in tumble and intimidate. Take other skills to flavor -- survival is probably a good one.

At level 9, if not frenzying, you can power attack x3 with leap attack for 27 damage and then double it with ruby nightmare blade. If you are frenzying, you can use mountain hammer and punishing stance for an extra 3d6 and ignore DR, or you can sudden leap around the battlefield and make full attacks with the extra frenzy attack.

At level 20, you can do the same non-frenzy trick only with x4 power attack for 76 and then quadruple it. In frenzy, you can use time stands still to make two full attacks a round. Or you can use feral death blow and just kill them.

Thanks dspeyer, that's what I was looking for.

[Telonius]

Ohhh, that really sucks, I'm sorry to hear it. Dx
I really appreciate the help!

Couldn't he take his Assassin levels before he gets to level 18 and then take Disembowleing Strike as his 18th level feat?

Thank you very much for all the help so far! ^^

Unfortunately, you would need to be level 13 before you start taking Assassin levels, because of the Hide and Move Silently skill requirements. Both of those skills are cross-class for Fighter and Barbarian. To qualify before 13, you would need at least one level in one of these classes: Rogue, Ranger, Monk, Bard, Scout, Ninja, Spellthief, or Beguiler. Ranger, Rogue, or (especially) Scout would probably be best, and any one of those would displace a level of Barbarian. If you do go that route, take it at first level to maximize the skill points gained from it.

(By the way - Lion Totem Barbarian from Complete Champion is an excellent idea).

Key items would be standard strength-boosting items, mithral breastplate, bonus as high as you can get it; Keen greatsword (as high of a bonus as you can afford), Belt of Battle, cloak of resistance, Winged Boots. Locking gauntlet is probably a good idea.

[dspeyer]

A-2165??

I would point out that you also lack an arcanist. At level 5, you have none at all, and at level 20 you have a level 10 wizard.

To me, the combination of party face, support and arcanist spells bard. Bards are generally regarded as underpowered, but there are ways to strengthen them. Bard 10 / Sublime Chord 10 is the simplest, and gives full casting, but kicks in a bit late. Bard 1 / Sorcerer 6 / Virtuoso 10 / <any-full-caster> 3 casts as a 18th level sorcerer and inspires courage like an 11th level bard, plus virtuoso music powers. It looks a little weird before virtuoso kicks in, but 4x all those skills may be worth a caster level on its own. A less arcane option would be Bard 4 / Warblade 3 (song of the white raven) / Jade Phoenix Mage 10 / Master of Nine 3.

[Myou]

Unfortunately, you would need to be level 13 before you start taking Assassin levels, because of the Hide and Move Silently skill requirements. Both of those skills are cross-class for Fighter and Barbarian. To qualify before 13, you would need at least one level in one of these classes: Rogue, Ranger, Monk, Bard, Scout, Ninja, Spellthief, or Beguiler. Ranger, Rogue, or (especially) Scout would probably be best, and any one of those would displace a level of Barbarian. If you do go that route, take it at first level to maximize the skill points gained from it.

(By the way - Lion Totem Barbarian from Complete Champion is an excellent idea).

Key items would be standard strength-boosting items, mithral breastplate, bonus as high as you can get it; Keen greatsword (as high of a bonus as you can afford), Belt of Battle, cloak of resistance, Winged Boots. Locking gauntlet is probably a good idea.

Well, our rule on Able Learner should get around that problem, and he does have a free feat anyway. :3

I don't have Complete Champion, what does that variant do?

Edit: My DM had a copy. So, we trade in Fast movement and the measly dr 1/- that he'd get for pounce and roar? That sounds good to me, because then he also has no reason not to wear heavy armour, right? That makes even better use of the fighter levels and really helps his endurance.

Ahh, great, I'll try to get those then. ^^
What about tomes to boost some of his other stats? Is it worth getting the inherent bonuses to his other abilities?

[Nazde Bahatur]

I was reading about Hozoin Kakuzenbo In'ei again when it stuck me.
I've never seen a character with a reach weapon...
I mean, i've seen characters use reach weapons, or carry them for the one special case, but it's never been the weapon of choice for any of the characters i've encountered in my various campaigns...

Is there somewhere around a build for a melee character who fights with a reach weapon? Do you have any ideas/suggestions? Has any of you played a reach-weapon master or something?
I know there's the "short haft" feat, but apart from that, i cannot think of a particular class, feat or combo that favors/ flavors reach weapons...

So please, throw in your ideas or link me in the right thread or page, if there is such, for i would be more than pleased to find out that there are people out there who share my own passion for reach weapons!

[Kroy]

Q 2,162

Books: Core (by SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm)) Complete Warrior/Adventure, RoW, and FR campaign setting.
Race: A race with a good dex bonus (maybe catfolk or elf).
Class: At least 3 levels of Champion of Corellon, with some paladin to maximize the CoC Lay on Hands.
Ability Scores: 36 point buy
Alignment: Any Good
House Rules: For CoC, you do not have to be an elf or worship CL.
Concept: A dexterity based warrior with weapon focus at the very least. 13th level.
Other: I would like a final character, I don't need a level by level breakdown.

Reposty Repost!!

[dspeyer]

A 2,162

What would you think of a
bard 1 / fighter 2 / paladin 3 / scout 1 / dervish 3 / CoC 3
with the feats
Combat Expertice, Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Focus, Devoted Performer, Mounted Combat, Weapon Finesse and Two Weapon Fighting
dual-wielding scimitars with 1d6 skirmish and moving 35ft while full-attacking and inspiring courage?

I'll admit it's a lot of classes and doesn't make a whole lot of flavor sense, but it meets all the prerequisites (which is difficult) and should be reasonably effective.

[d13]

A 2,162

What would you think of a
bard 1 / fighter 2 / paladin 3 / scout 1 / dervish 3 / CoC 3
with the feats
Combat Expertice, Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Focus, Devoted Performer, Mounted Combat, Weapon Finesse and Two Weapon Fighting
dual-wielding scimitars with 1d6 skirmish and moving 35ft while full-attacking and inspiring courage?

I'll admit it's a lot of classes and doesn't make a whole lot of flavor sense, but it meets all the prerequisites (which is difficult) and should be reasonably effective.

Try to make it a Paladin of Freedom (Unearthed Arcana), so you can cope with the Chaotic part of the Bard, without having to put up a cheesy backstory xD

[dspeyer]

Paladin of Freedom probably fits better (even with Devoted Performer allowing you to ignore alignment issues), but I suspect this build will require a cheesy backstory regardless. :-)

[Falgorn]

I am joining a D&D session (3.5 Edition) and they need a tank, or anyone that can take loads of damage and survive. I was deciding between a Paladin and a Fighter, so can you help me out? (Post better classes if neccesary.)

Specs for Fighter:Alignment: Chaotic Good. Races: Half Orc, Human, Half-Elf, Dwarf. Anything I miss? (Please choose a Race for me.)

Paladin specs: Chosen already. (Lawful good, Human.)

[playswithfire]

I am joining a D&D session (3.5 Edition) and they need a tank, or anyone that can take loads of damage and survive. I was deciding between a Paladin and a Fighter, so can you help me out? (Post better classes if neccesary.)

Specs for Fighter:Alignment: Chaotic Good. Races: Half Orc, Human, Half-Elf, Dwarf. Anything I miss? (Please choose a Race for me.)

Paladin specs: Chosen already. (Lawful good, Human.)

What books do you have available and what level will you be starting at?

Depending on what's available, I'd be inclined to suggest Crusader or Warblade. A (fun totem) Barbarian/Paladin of Freedom (UA Variant) might also work if you have the SRD

[Falgorn]

Books...3.5 Player's handbook...3.5 Hero Builder...and...3.5 DM guide. (Those are just my 3.5 books, I also have 4.0) Starting level is going to be ten...I think, I need to get back to DM on that one.

[Falgorn]

What books do you have available and what level will you be starting at?

Depending on what's available, I'd be inclined to suggest Crusader or Warblade. A (fun totem) Barbarian/Paladin of Freedom (UA Variant) might also work if you have the SRD

Crusader sounds about straight, starting level is 10.

[Shades of Gray]

Q: 2163

Can anyone build me a PL 8 M&M character? I have the following as his concepts:

Duplication: Should have three or four duplicates, all of which should be as real as possible.

Super Speed: Pretty fast. With the ability to throw my duplicates at high speeds at the enemy. Possible spinning whirlwind as well.

Stats: Average strength and charisma. High Int and Dex.

Skills: He's a high school senior going into tech, and he is a bit of a nerd so knowledge pop culture would be good too.

[Alaxi]

Question about archer builds. I have a Fighter 10/Order of the Bow Initiate 5.... My feats are centered around archery, but I have a few in melee (greatsword being as my weapon of choice is a great swordbow). After I finish the 10 in OotBI, I am a little clueless as to what I want to do next. Hell, I may not even finish OotBI. I thought about rogue for the sneak attack damage, but I didn't know if there were better classes/prestiges out there. I had also entertained the thought of Deepwood Sniper and Highland Stalker, but they seem more effective if using ranger as a base... Any suggestions and what sourcebooks are they from?

[Thespianus]

Q: 2164

Could anyone please help me out with ideas for this Barbarian? I made her a Charging Greataxe-wielding death-dealing rager, but I'm unsure where to go from here. We are currently at level 5, using almost all 3.5e books, but not ToB:


Human, CN
Str 16, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10

Barbarian 1 : Power Attack, Furious Charge (+4 to hit on charge, PGtF)
Barbarian 2 :
Fighter 1 : Cleave, Extra Rage
Barbarian 3 :
Barbarian 4 :


Also, our DM might be changing the Frenzied Berserker PrC to be more viable, the details are not yet worked out, but we might avoid the Attack EVERYONE feature of the class.

So, I've either considered focusing on charging: taking Improved Bull Rush and Shocktrooper for level 6 (Fighter level 2), then to get Leap Attack at level 9, or to go into Frenzied Berserker (I need other feats for that, none of which are fighter feats, so it'll cost me to get there, since I didn't use my early feats for Destructive Rage or Intimidating Rage)

Anyway, I'm thinking that the charger will be a one trick pony, which can be fun to use for a while, but the Frenzied Berserker will be able to be a better killer in general. Both paths work fine from an RP perspective, it's just that everything now hinges on the level 6 feat(s), it seems. They are pivotal for the character's future development.

Changing into a Bear (that shapechanging PrC för Barbarians) isn't going to fly, it doesn't fit very much.

I know I've missed out on Pounce-ability at level 1, and whatnot. We'll have to live with that ;)

Thanks for any help!

[Froogleyboy]

I need Lolth (yes the deity) one of my charcters is headed to the demonweb pits

[Genios]

I need one (or both) of these characters, built level by level up to twelfth ECL, made with only 3.5 player's handbook, DM's Guide, and Monster Manual. (along with anything you can dig up on the internet.

Masquar
Race:Lizardfolk (Level Adj. +1, 2 HD +5 Natural Armor, Multiattack Feat)
Class:Monk/Fighter, preferably monk 2-3, the rest fighter.
Scores:4d6, drop the lowest.
Alignment:LN
Concept: I see him as using a masterwork longsword, minimal armor, really mobile on the battlefield, interchanging unarmed strikes with longsword hits.

Manayn:
Race: Elf
Class: Wizard (Conjurer) Barred schools Illusion and Necromancy, but not set in stone. Unsure on Familiar.
Scores:4d6, drop the lowest.
Alignment:NG
Concept: He really likes the summon monster spells, as well as flashy spells like fireball and such. Very much a battle mage, but kinda squishy himself.

Other: These guys will be working as a team, along with a Good/Law cleric, as a strike team in a war campaign, I think the enemy nation is some kind of goblinoid...or dwarves. The DM is hinting both ways.

[loopy]

I need a level 10 human warlock, with build advice for the next 10 levels. Chaotic Neutral, former Zhentarim prisoner now semi-possessed escapee.

Feats, skill selection, items would all be great.

Unfortunately I don't know the method of stat generation yet, so leave that blank, but any ideas to further flavor my character would be appreciated, as I've never played a warlock before.

The party I'm joining consists of
Human Cleric
Human Bard
Halfling Rogue
However, I do like to keep my characters with a fairly high bluff/sense motive skill at least.

Books allowed
PHB/MM/DMG
PHB2
Complete Series
Spell Compendium
Further books allowed on DM review

Thanks in advance, all!

[dspeyer]

Warlocks tend to be somewhat limited. You might consider starting as something else, probably a skill-monkey, and then multiclassing. That fits the backstory too, if I understand it -- the character was worth taking as a slave, and then got the eldritch essence grafted onto him.

My first thought would be rogue 3 / warlock 7, which gives you 6d6 damage and plenty of skills (including the social ones) with a nice dex synergy. My next thought was a bard, going into eldritch theurge because you have nothing to lose by doing so. Then I realized you already have a rogue and a bard in the party. Beguiler is another option, but it's kind of similar to bard....

Do you have an overall vision for the character? Heavy damage dealer? Magical utility?

[Bhavacakra]

Alright, here is the plan. I am DMing a very enjoyable 1st level game. As gamers, we tend to powergame extensively, and rarely play a game with a starting lvl below 5. To set an example of what might be expected for progression of this game, though only time will tell, the last game we started, which is currently in session, I myself play: Ranger(variant, UA, wildshape)1,Divine Minion 1(+1 LA bought off with XP) MoMF4. For any of you unfamiliar with Divine Minion cheese, search Pun Pun. I dont want to spoil it for you. My close friend's are playing Warblade/Eternal Blade cheese, and Telepath/Thrallherd, with Linked power and sychronicity cheese. Anywho, I simply I mean to demonstrate, we both invent and use the various methods of optimization for character advancement. Now, the task at hand. I am currently designing a plot NPC who has great potential to become a villain, should the game steer that direction. I need help optimizing, or, help revealing that it is indeed suboptimal. My emphasis IS on optimization, HOWEVER, I do tend to choose roleplaying options over optimization, so long as they are not detrimental to playability. Here is the character, purely in need, without getting into the "meat" of the character. It is a Warlock/Psion combination in an attempt to better the sadly bad, but very interesting Eldritch Disciple. http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Eldritch_Mind_(DnD_Alternate_Class_Feature) presented here Instead uses Psionics in place of all instances of Arcane casting. What I need: I need roughly everything sans Race. 10th lvl ECL. Looking for several things: Feats used to maximize ability (Overchannel to supplement lower ML as an example). Any fear/class ft. etc that could Hurry entry into the PrC. In general...just any recommendations to make the class effective. there is so much source material to look at, that just for an NPC, important or not, Is far to time consuming t optimize. While the build WILL be suboptimal as opposed to Straight warlock or psion, It has a flavor that I enjoy for the setting. The NPC's base creature is Illumian (Sigil of Krau, I believe is the name...Id have to look it up). I am really tired...so...Can't think of what else to specify. Oh also. feel free to stat her up. Consider, Str and Con as stat dumps (She will be templated undead). Uhm....I'll think of more later . THanks!

Almost forgot: I have nearly everysource book exluding the majority of Faerun, though I can get my hands on it. so....go to town =p.

[Telonius]

Reposty Repost!!

Books: Core (by SRD) Complete Warrior/Adventure, RoW, and FR campaign setting.
Race: A race with a good dex bonus (maybe catfolk or elf).
Class: At least 3 levels of Champion of Corellon, with some paladin to maximize the CoC Lay on Hands.
Ability Scores: 36 point buy
Alignment: Any Good
House Rules: For CoC, you do not have to be an elf or worship CL.
Concept: A dexterity based warrior with weapon focus at the very least. 13th level.
Other: I would like a final character, I don't need a level by level breakdown.

Yikes, I leave for three days and the kitchen catches fire! :smallbiggrin: Let's see what we can do for you.

Wood Elf
STR 12 ->14
DEX 16 ->18 (race) -> 21 (stat bumps)
CON 12 ->10
INT 16 ->14
WIS 10
CHA 14

Swashbuckler1 - Weapon Finesse, Power Attack
Swash1/Ftr1 - Combat Expertise
Swash1/Ftr2 - Mounted Combat, Dodge
Swash1/Ftr3
Swash1/Ftr4 - EWP (Courtblade)
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal1 - Improved Bull Rush
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal2
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal3
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal4 - Shock Trooper
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal5
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal5/Champion of Corellon1
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal5/CoC2 - (Improved Disarm OR Improved Trip), Robilar's Gambit
Swash1/Ftr4/Pal5/CoC3

The idea here is that you have some of the standard charge build (Shock Trooper), but focused on a more dextrous assault. Paladin 5 gives you a nice shiny mount and lots of healing. If you're aboveground more often than below, you might consider some extra Mounted Combat feats (such as Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, or Trample) as you progress further.

One big reservation I have about the build is whether or not the Courtblade is eligible for x2 bonus on Power Attack (or if it's a racial Elf weapon). I'm away from my books at the moment and can't check.

The build doesn't have any Weapon Focus, but to be blunt, you have better things to spend your feats on than gaining a +1 to attack.