Arrgh, Where be the Pirates?

[ExemplarofAvg]

So I was looking at all sorts of classes today and I want to make a Pirate NPC along the lines of Captain Jack Sparrow, Eberron rules will be used, because Action points are what he lives for, he needs extra time to make it up as he goes. I was wondering what classes, prestige classes or builds would you suggest? For classes I can think of Bard, Rogue, Swashbuckler or some combination (and possibly Paladin of Freedom for some reason) As for Prestige Classes I can think of a few that have some elements of what being a pirate means but there's: Duelist, Dread Pirate, Fortune's Friend, Legendary Captain, Scarlet Corsair and Extreme Explorer. Any help or builds you've come up with will be appreciated, even if you don't know about Action Points I'd be glad to hear your two cents.


Also if anyone knows of an existing "Improved" version of Animate Rope or some method to add some extra goodies to it, (I'm pondering about a weapon that will function like Blackbeards weapon from the new movie)

[BlueInc]

Consider looking at water and wind elemental casters like Shugenja. If he's supposed to be an enemy, a spellcasting pirate captain who uses waves and wind to knock the players about might be pretty sweet.

And if you don't want the captain to be that person, at least consider making the first mate a caster.

[Eldariel]

Warblade from Tome of Battle makes for the most appropriate swashbuckler (which is what you're probably looking for if you are making a Jack Sparrow-type), probably. Fortune's Friend helps too, but mostly I'd look at martial maneuvers, especially Diamond Mind, and stuff like Intimidate, Bluff and so on in combat context with feats.

[ExemplarofAvg]

I'm not looking so much for combat strength, more just basic mastery of the impossible. Fortune's Friend and Extreme Explorer would ensure lots of last minute escapes and amazing feats.

[Big Fau]

I'm not looking so much for combat strength, more just basic mastery of the impossible. Fortune's Friend and Extreme Explorer would ensure lots of last minute escapes and amazing feats.

Warblade it is!

[Lord Loss]

If you're willing to spend some money, Stormwrack is a supplement designed for nautical adventures, but the book is darn near impossible to find. There's also a chapter dedicated to Captain Gnash, a bugbear Pirate and his insane, eldtritch-abomination seeking crew in the book Exemplars of Evil. The book should be fairly easy to find online.

You probably have Stormwrack already, though. I wouldn't go rogue (too hidden) or bard (too stationary and singing's not his thing). I personally reccomend Scout (from Complete Adventurer) as main class and perhaps a multiclass into Fortune's Friend (from Complete Scoundrel) to represent his luck and... spontaniety. Skill Tricks (Complete Scoundrel) are also in character for him.

[ExemplarofAvg]

If you're willing to spend some money, Stormwrack is a supplement designed for nautical adventures, but the book is darn near impossible to find. There's also a chapter dedicated to Captain Gnash, a bugbear Pirate and his insane, eldtritch-abomination seeking crew in the book Exemplars of Evil. The book should be fairly easy to find online.

You probably have Stormwrack already, though. I wouldn't go rogue (too hidden) or bard (too stationary and singing's not his thing). I personally reccomend Scout (from Complete Adventurer) as main class and perhaps a multiclass into Fortune's Friend (from Complete Scoundrel) to represent his luck and... spontaniety. Skill Tricks (Complete Scoundrel) are also in character for him.

I do indeed already posses Stormwrack, in my group everyone has the PHB then there's one guy with the monster manuals, one with the complete series, one with the races of and I have I guess you could say the environment books, Sandstorm, Stormwrack and Frostburn. Hmm, Scout for what cause? just curious. And So that's three for Fortune's friend, and I forget what's the deal with Skill Tricks again? I forget how they're acquired and limited.

[Graha013]

If you're willing to spend some money, Stormwrack is a supplement designed for nautical adventures, but the book is darn near impossible to find. There's also a chapter dedicated to Captain Gnash, a bugbear Pirate and his insane, eldtritch-abomination seeking crew in the book Exemplars of Evil. The book should be fairly easy to find online.



Legally..perhaps. :smallamused:

[ExemplarofAvg]

Consider looking at water and wind elemental casters like Shugenja. If he's supposed to be an enemy, a spellcasting pirate captain who uses waves and wind to knock the players about might be pretty sweet.

And if you don't want the captain to be that person, at least consider making the first mate a caster.

I've used a casting captain before, A Necropolitan sorceror/seawitch with an undead monkey familiar, I wasn't intending to be creative with that one. lol.

[Eldariel]

I do indeed already posses Stormwrack, in my group everyone has the PHB then there's one guy with the monster manuals, one with the complete series, one with the races of and I have I guess you could say the environment books, Sandstorm, Stormwrack and Frostburn. Hmm, Scout for what cause? just curious. And So that's three for Fortune's friend, and I forget what's the deal with Skill Tricks again? I forget how they're acquired and limited.

Skill tricks: 2 skill points per trick, you can only learn one per level, at maximum you can have ½ your level of them.

And from the sound of it, you very probably want Warblade; Diamond Mind & Iron Heart have a few very appropriate maneuvers (Manticore Parry from Iron Heart basically screams "swashbuckler" and there's Iron Heart Focus which allows rerolling saves, some swift movement options in Quicksilver Motion/Sudden Leap [Tiger Claw 1] and stuff like Sapphire Nightmare Blade to make enemies flatfooted from Diamond Mind and such).

[ExemplarofAvg]

Skill tricks: 2 skill points per trick, you can only learn one per level, at maximum you can have ½ your level of them.

And from the sound of it, you very probably want Warblade; Diamond Mind & Iron Heart have a few very appropriate maneuvers (Manticore Parry from Iron Heart basically screams "swashbuckler" and there's Iron Heart Focus which allows rerolling saves, some swift movement options in Quicksilver Motion/Sudden Leap [Tiger Claw 1] and stuff like Sapphire Nightmare Blade to make enemies flatfooted from Diamond Mind and such).

Is there a non-ToB, non-Factotum way, there's so much cheese surrounding them that sometimes it makes me a little Ill when people suggest them. Plus they are suggested as being the solution in most of the threads I've come across, I know that they may have the solution, but just please, no.

[Veyr]

...those are both solid Tier-3 classes. A Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, or Wizard could wipe the floor with a Factotum//Warblade without terribly much effort, even. Both classes are superbly well balanced (as opposed to the four named). Factotum does do extremely well in Gestalt, but Factotum//Warblade is a great deal less powerful than a Factotum//Wizard, for instance.

[Slipperychicken]

I'm not looking so much for combat strength, more just basic mastery of the impossible.

Factotum (Dungeonscape pg. 17) could help you out there. It can rock all the skill checks needed to do what Sparrow does, but isn't seem to be too overpowering in combat. If you like action points, it has Inspiration Points, which are similar and refresh each encounter. For close-scrape-death-dodging flavor, it has Cunning Dodge, which can allow a Factotum to escape from a lethal attack. If you don't want him to have access to (already very limited) SLAs, just ignore that part; he'll do just fine otherwise.

EDIT: "non-factotum"... disregard that...

[Metahuman1]

A small dip into Witchhunter form Oriental Adventures, 1 lvl, to get Cha to all saves, and then a 2 lvl dip into Paladin of Liberty with a substitution level to get Cha to AC, would be helpful.

Luck feats and Fortunes friend would also be good, as would Diamond Mind Maneuvers being done with a Rapier for when you need to fight.

[Eldariel]

Is there a non-ToB, non-Factotum way, there's so much cheese surrounding them that sometimes it makes me a little Ill when people suggest them. Plus they are suggested as being the solution in most of the threads I've come across, I know that they may have the solution, but just please, no.

The reason they're suggested so commonly is because they're versatile classes that easily bend towards whatever character concept you desire and have a relatively constant power level; they tend against being overpowered but they'll do their job well regardless.

But the reason I mentioned Warblade is, I can't really think of another class to suit the job. Swashbuckler is a two-weapon fighting class 'cause of major stupidity, Duelist was designed to make it impossible to miss you for the first 6 levels of the class, Bard (and proxies like Dread Pirate)/etc. are really solid but act best as leader classes with underlings (something Warblades can also do), etc. Warblade, however, should be able to precisely what you want.

[ExemplarofAvg]

A small dip into Witchhunter form Oriental Adventures, 1 lvl, to get Cha to all saves, and then a 2 lvl dip into Paladin of Liberty with a substitution level to get Cha to AC, would be helpful.

Luck feats and Fortunes friend would also be good, as would Diamond Mind Maneuvers being done with a Rapier for when you need to fight.

Paladin of Liberty?


But the reason I mentioned Warblade is, I can't really think of another class to suit the job...Warblade, however, should be able to precisely what you want.

*sigh* alright, please learn me how...

[Amphetryon]

Windwright Captain, perhaps? This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=190607) was the Dread Pirate competition for Iron Chef on this forum. Perhaps one of the builds is similar to what you're after.

[Eldariel]

Paladin of Liberty?

Probably refers to Paladin of Freedom (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinofFreedomClassF eatures); basically Chaotic Good version of a Paladin.


*sigh* alright, please learn me how...

Well, it depends on exactly what you want. The cool thing about Warblades is that they do everything. You get a bunch of Intelligence-derived coolness (because let's face it, the character would have to have a pretty decent Intelligence, though probably a hopeless Wisdom). You get your Int to:
- Reflex-saves
- Critical Confirmation
- Damage Against Flat-Footed/Flanked (you can make enemies flat-footed with a maneuver)
- Against enemy Trips/Bull Rushes/Disarms/etc.
- Attacks of Opportunity

Then you get a bunch of bonus feats, which is of course good. You can derive your entire offense off Dexterity if you so want; pick up a Shadow Hand stance (either Martial Stance-feat or a level or two of Swordsage), Shadow Blade & Weapon Finesse and you're good to go. You now get Dex to both, To Hit and Damage (I can't imagine this kinda character being terribly strong but nimble is their middle name).

Then you get a bunch of maneuvers, which are of course the whole point. Maneuvers do stuff like allow you to make really impressive jumps, jump as a swift action and make actual telling blows as a standard action. You can also use maneuvers to disarm people, block blows or eventually, redirect their attacks to adjacent enemies, for example. You also get to remove effects on you, help allies act more effectively (give them extra movement or combat bonuses), make particularly telling blows against objects, etc. Of course, the kicker is that you pick which maneuvers you want. The book offers a massive variety of maneuvers and Warblade gets access to 5 out of the 9 disciplines; pick the ones that you feel suit the character idea the best.

If you don't have the book handy, you can browse the maneuver cards available online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a). They provide a quick explanation of what each maneuver does. You can also find the Warblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) online with its class features; it gets Diamond Mind (a very swashbucklery discipline, not to mention totally awesome), Iron Heart (basically Weapon Mastery and Being Badass-stuff), Stone Dragon (mostly not very fitting; stuff like DR, breaking objects, etc. BUT breaking objects can be useful for e.g. cutting the rope over the chandelier or such for those iconic film sequences so might want to pick up "Mountain Hammer"), Tiger Claw (various Jump attacks, improved Jumping and such; probably stuff you want for acrobatics) and White Raven (basically the Leader school; if you see yourself as battle leader of sorts á la Bard, this'll work) maneuvers.


Yeah, you'd have to decide the specifics yourself but I'm pretty sure if you just browse through the maneuvers you'll find the ones that fit your character exactly. Warblade also gets 4+Int skills and is Int-based which would probably help out a lot on that front. You could start off with 2-4 levels in Factotum, Bard or Rogue (Factotum offers all skills and more Int-synergies, Rogue gets more skill points and has Sneak Attack, Bard gets Inspire Courage for more Leader-type which can be stacked with Warblade levels with "Song of the White Raven"-feat) to get even more skill points to play around with though; a Jack Sparrow-type character definitely needs to have a ton of points in acrobatic skills and social skills, at the very least. Warblade gets those but he doesn't get all that many skill points so few levels of a more skill-rich class would get you to a more complete start on that front. Off the top of my head you'll prolly want:
- Balance
- Tumble
- Jump
- Climb
- Swim
- Diplomacy
- Bluff
- Intimidate

Then probably stuff like Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, Knowledge: Local, Knowledge: Nature, Profession: Sailor, Perform: Dance, etc.

[Draz74]

I've always said Factotum / Fortune's Friend is the best representation of dear Jack. And while Factotum is extremely flexible for varying character concepts, it's actually likely to be underpowered if you just play it "out of the box" with no crazy optimization tricks (like Font of Inspiration or Iaijutsu Focus, to name the most popular two).

Factotum does get a few spells, and Jack ain't a caster, but that's easy enough to re-fluff away. For example, a version of Jack with 5 Factotum levels could easily just prepare Heroics (gain a Fighter bonus feat for 10 min/level) and True Strike (hit the gunpowder in the kraken's tentacles with a perfect shot) each day. Then he won't look magical at all. Coincidentally, after 5 Factotum levels he can go into Fortune's Friend.

[Zonugal]

Are you wanting undead or mortal Jack Sparrow?

[ExemplarofAvg]

I've always said Factotum / Fortune's Friend is the best representation of dear Jack. And while Factotum is extremely flexible for varying character concepts, it's actually likely to be underpowered if you just play it "out of the box" with no crazy optimization tricks (like Font of Inspiration or Iaijutsu Focus, to name the most popular two).

Factotum does get a few spells, and Jack ain't a caster, but that's easy enough to re-fluff away. For example, a version of Jack with 5 Factotum levels could easily just prepare Heroics (gain a Fighter bonus feat for 10 min/level) and True Strike (hit the gunpowder in the kraken's tentacles with a perfect shot) each day. Then he won't look magical at all. Coincidentally, after 5 Factotum levels he can go into Fortune's Friend.

I'm just kind of sick of Factotums, my one buddy found that and now that's all he talks about DnD wise, I'm not the power builder check some of my stuff you'll find this to be true. I'm more of the storyteller, building pages of backstory. Same with the Tome of Battle my DM swears by it, and it's just boring now. I get good things are good, but there is too much of a good thing, too much ice cream makes people sick... same deal here.


Are you wanting undead or mortal Jack Sparrow?

Either or Works, all I really need to do is toss on the Necropolitan template and I'm gold, I think.

[Zonugal]

Why not just do a classic daring outlaw build? Maybe Rogue 2/Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 3/Fortune's Fiend 2/Legacy Champion 10?

[ExemplarofAvg]

Why not just do a classic daring outlaw build? Maybe Rogue 2/Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 3/Fortune's Fiend 2/Legacy Champion 10?

Yeah, right now I'm looking at a level 8 character... That's a little far, plus Legacy Champion requires a weapon that on a good day I can't get access to.

[Zonugal]

Yeah, right now I'm looking at a level 8 character... That's a little far, plus Legacy Champion requires a weapon that on a good day I can't get access to.

To be fair Legacy Champion only requires a magic item (like Sparrow's compass).

But 8 levels is much easier to do. How about Necropolitan Human Rogue 2/Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 3? Maybe fit in Fortunes Fiend somewhere, I'm away from my books so I can't speak to it.

[Big Fau]

To be fair Legacy Champion only requires a magic item (like Sparrow's compass).

But 8 levels is much easier to do. How about Necropolitan Human Rogue 2/Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 3? Maybe fit in Fortunes Fiend somewhere, I'm away from my books so I can't speak to it.

...Necropolitan would be appropriate if he were basing it on the first movie, but Jack's not undead in the next three.

[ExemplarofAvg]

To be fair Legacy Champion only requires a magic item (like Sparrow's compass).

But 8 levels is much easier to do. How about Necropolitan Human Rogue 2/Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 3? Maybe fit in Fortunes Fiend somewhere, I'm away from my books so I can't speak to it.

...Necropolitan would be appropriate if he were basing it on the first movie, but Jack's not undead in the next three.

Yeah, I'm looking more at some weird cross combination where Barbossa is still undead, Will and Elizabeth are no longer pirates, but Philip and Serena's half Mermaid son is kicking around. So Jack could really be either, but seeing as 3.8/4 movies have him alive in them.. I'd prefer to leave him that way. (The .20 comes from when he's cursed by the treasure and the time we see him in the locker)

[Thurbane]

Just to suggest a totally different approach, a Binder/KotSS with the right vestiges could do soomehting like the OP is after. Paimon covers a lot of your Swashbuckling needs, while Balam (with his "free" re-roll every 5 rounds) can help cover the whole "unbelievably lucky in combat" angle...

[ExemplarofAvg]

Just to suggest a totally different approach, a Binder/KotSS with the right vestiges could do soomehting like the OP is after. Paimon covers a lot of your Swashbuckling needs, while Balam (with his "free" re-roll every 5 rounds) can help cover the whole "unbelievably lucky in combat" angle...

I tried a Binder once, you draw one little circle in the dirt when you're bored and next thing you know your being rushed out of town, granted that's flavour as well but some of those peasants much have the Cheetah's Speed Wild Feat. But I will still look into it as with the others, I mean always look a gift horse in the mouth, right? Then something about feeding it grains and salt. :P

[Arbane]

I tried a Binder once, you draw one little circle in the dirt when you're bored and next thing you know your being rushed out of town, granted that's flavour as well but some of those peasants much have the Cheetah's Speed Wild Feat.

Being chased out of town by an angry mob is TOTALLY appropriate for Captain Jack Sparrow. :smallbiggrin:

[MeeposFire]

Being chased out of town by an angry mob is TOTALLY appropriate for Captain Jack Sparrow. :smallbiggrin:

Makes me think he would be a fun vestige. i will have to check to see if it has been done on the homebrew vestige thread.

[Draz74]

To be fair Legacy Champion only requires a magic item (like Sparrow's compass hat).
Fixed that for you.

Being chased out of town by an angry mob is TOTALLY appropriate for Captain Jack Sparrow. :smallbiggrin:

This man speaks wisdom. I cannot argue with him.