Salvaging a character made for a one-shot.

[Coidzor]

So, last fall, I put together a level 1 Ranger with the trapfinding ACF from Dungeonscape (with the addition of Open Lock added onto the skill list of Ranger) for a friend that wanted to throw together a one-shot to try out DMing and some stuff for a D&D 3.X game she was planning on running over the summer.

Fast forward to the end of this past summer and the rest of the group wanted to continue things into a proper game, so we go for a bit, and I've gotten permission to do a little bit of a rebuild, playing around with the ACFs/variants my Ranger took, but the way my stats are allocated, I'm not so sure of the value of the choices available to me relative to multiclassing out.

So, I've currently got a level 4 Ranger, leveling up to 5th level but haven't picked exactly what yet.

Tairvian (AKA Tarivan, Tarvien, Tarvan, Tarzan, Tiarian... Every time it gets spelled by someone it seems to be different, is what I'm getting at here.)
Strongheart Halfling

Stats go like this:
Str 16
Dex 19 (+2 item) = 21
Con 13
Int 14
Wis 13
Cha 11

Feats Racial: Wild Cohort
1: Mounted Combat
Ranger2: Combat Style: Two-Weapon Fighting
Ranger3: Endurance
3: Improved Unarmed Strike

Items:
+1 Executioner's Mace
Vest of Escape
Gloves of Dex +2
Mithril Chain Shirt +1
some miscellaneous potions
1 wand of CLW, 48 charges, IIRC.


So, unfortunately, I'm not so sure about whether I should really try for Wildshaping, and I'm not going to really be able to do the Mystic Ranger thing too well, either, as I've been focusing on melee combat on a Riding Dog.

Though I think I'm going to scrap that, as the places we've been going through and the way we deal with soft cover I can't really make use of reach around or through allies or charging either. I'd ended up grabbing IUS and TWF with a halberd or great club depending upon what kinda DR we were running up against, grabbing an executioner's mace when we were finally able to pony up the cash for magic weapons halfway through level 4.

So, probably going to trade out Mounted Combat, if I were to continue with the TWFing scheme, I'd probably grab Superior Unarmed Strike from ToB, since it's mostly just the maneuvers that are the tricky bit.

I'm kinda thinking of grabbing a level of Totemist and then another one for Ranger 4/Totemist 2.

Most notable houserule we've got in play for me, IIRC, is that I'm being allowed to stack my animal companion and wild cohort progression on my Riding Dog Mosley, so taking a Beastmaster dip ASAP occurred to me. Don't think Supermounting would fly with my DM, but it's got some level of potential, since they are all rather fond of my giant St. Bernard. I'm considering angling to get him in good with Mystra in order to make him a real Saint.

Not sure, but I'm currently in pseudo-FR/Planescape and started out worshiping Mielikki as an artifact of the one-shot nature of the game, initially. We are, however, traveling with a child-avatar of Mystra, so there's potential I might be able to RP a conversion in order to get Sword of the Arcane Order up... Or, since we're playing a "The Gods are Getting Punk'D" game, I might end up Faithless by virtue of my deity getting punk'd.

Right now, as far as I can recall, Dragon Magazine material is by permission, and the rest I just have to be able to show where it's published. The group as a whole hasn't ever played with ToB, so I'd have an uphill battle to take a dip of that but it could possibly be done if I'm persuasive, but I don't think I could swap into a Sublime Way Ranger variant.

Psionics could be done, but I think I have too many Ranger levels to really salvage a Psi-Gish build....

So, any thoughts about how I can salvage this?

As a random aside, do SLAs and PLAs function in the absence of the Weave? How would kludging together FR & Planescape likely alter what usually happens when Mystra dies/gets pregnant/has her period/goes shopping/takes a vacation/the edition changes?

[Hazzardevil]

As a random aside, do SLAs and PLAs function in the absence of the Weave? How would kludging together FR & Planescape likely alter what usually happens when Mystra dies/gets pregnant/has her period/goes shopping/takes a vacation/the edition changes?

The overall build looks good to me, you rolled well my apprentice.

With SLA's and PLA's, I'm presuming that SLA's still come from the weave, but Psionics having nothing to do with the weave at all.
(Unless you use subpsionics, but that's a variant system in a variant system.)

[Coidzor]

The overall build looks good to me, you rolled well my apprentice.

With SLA's and PLA's, I'm presuming that SLA's still come from the weave, but Psionics having nothing to do with the weave at all.
(Unless you use subpsionics, but that's a variant system in a variant system.)

Ok, so Demons's day would be ruined by the Weave being destroyed as well, got it. Emergency contingency plan locked in.

Really had no idea how the heck psionics interacted with FR, as it's not really the setting I prefer to play in.

[Coidzor]

Alright, so I can switch over to Wildshape right now, would have to go over some kind of subplot to do a rebuild to mystic though. Don't think I'd be able to do that anytime soon though.

Right now I'm going over what forms I can add to my arsenal and what I can expect to add over the next two or three levels.

Finding out if dinosrawrs are kosher or not as I type this, so, talons crossed there.

And contemplating investigating the urban companion and sacrificing progressing animal companion bonus HD and such for the familiar-like benefits there, since she's letting AC stack onto wild cohort anyway...

[hex0]

Since you are a trapfinding ranger, you can go into Trapsmith->Swiftblade. :smalltongue:

[Coidzor]

So now the main thing is feats, actually.

Thinking maybe go 1st level - IUS and 3rd level - Superior Unarmed Strike for when I'm in animal mode, but I'll need to doublecheck kungfu panda kosherness I reckon.