Maybe Monk?

[theflyingkitty]

My roomate is letting me custom class for his upcomming campaign. It needs to be something balanced and work in with a full character concept.

"Present day" my character will be working part time as a cook in an inn, and the rest of his income will be through the occasional smuggeling and odd job.

Before this period of time, he was formaly trained at an acadamy somewhere for several years, but did not graduate.

I am wanting to place him in a position of the sort who would have hidden blades in the soles of his boots and tied to his arms for melee fighting, but be very good with small thrown things. He would be quite acrobatic, and have good balance.

Think Monk is a good base fit to work off of for the tweaking?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Why monk? Rogue fills the exact same role and is purely mundane, and besides, monks focus on unarmed.

Also, ever play Assassin's Creed?

[Oindoth]

Seems to me that a Rogue or a Swordsage fits this idea a bit better than Monk. Their more supernatural abilities (going ethereal, their dimension step thing) don't really fit a "normal" character, who isn't explicitly monk-ly.

[NecroRebel]

It sounds to me like you could do this character just fine with the Rogue. An eclectic skill set (Rogues start with 6 trained skills), capable of being a decent smuggler (Rogues get Stealth and Thievery and can learn Streetwise and Bluff), fights with small blades both in melee and at range (a Rogue's every power could be usable like this with throw-capable light blades, like daggers), be quite acrobatic (lots of Rogue powers that benefit acrobatics, especially in MP1)... These traits all point towards a Rogue to me, for the reasons mentioned.

The Monk... I guess it could do this, but they don't have many powers that let them attack at range, so you'd be limited to basic attacks for that or heavy modification. Monks also get fewer skills than a Rogue. I just don't see it.

So, again, I'd say artful dodger or cunning sneak Rogue, depending on whether you want to be more Cha- or Int-based (artful dodger is probably stronger), maybe but probably not with a couple homebrew powers. Take a background to add an appropriate knowledge skill to your class list for the academics in his past, take powers that have a "melee or ranged weapon" range, and wield wrist razors and shuriken or daggers (or just daggers; they're better, especially for a Rogue). No homebrew or tweaking beyond reflavoring necessary, with what you've mentioned so far.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Seems to me that a Rogue or a Swordsage fits this idea a bit better than Monk. Their more supernatural abilities (going ethereal, their dimension step thing) don't really fit a "normal" character, who isn't explicitly monk-ly.

This is 4e.

[theflyingkitty]

Will look into the rogue some more. I do know that whatever I base myself from, it'll have to be re-flavored. I will be telling the other characters that my class is a 'cook.'

Will also be asking my roomate if I can pick up some alchemy and perhaps proficiency with slight explosives.

[Adoendithas]

You could take Alchemy as one of your first-level feats if your race is Human, then buy some low-level alchemical recipes.

[Excession]

Ah, the Chef of Iron (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChefOfIron). Don't be put off by your concept being a trope btw, that just means it'll work.

Monk would fit with the many Kung-fu movie versions of this trope. Rogue would allow you to be more focused on the knives. The classes both fit the fluff well, so chose the mechanics you prefer.

[Akodo Makama]

Will look into the rogue some more. I do know that whatever I base myself from, it'll have to be re-flavored. I will be telling the other characters that my class is a 'cook.'

Why re-flavor anything? Characters have no concept of 'class' (Players might). So you can make a straight rogue and have him introduce himself as a "Cook", no problem. He's a guy that's good with knives, that you don't want to use his hard-earned knowledge of anatomy on your ribcage. He happens to know a few more tricks than the average cook, but he's an adventurer: he's just 'picked up a few things along the way'. He's made a few contacts of a shadier sort while working some of the less-reputable inns. He seems a bit nimble, but I know cooks that juggle their knives between orders.

Absolutely nothing that can't be built as a rogue, and absolutely no reason to tell the other characters he's anything but a cook.

[theflyingkitty]

Of course any word changing wouldn't be for the character's sake. It's to bug fellow players. As for flavor text, my group does tend to rely on it a good bit.

As for the other thing, he's not really a kung-fu chef. He was just trained at academy and is hiding from his past. The hope it to try and rework it a bit to be more a brawler, street savy dude, etc. He's scrappy. ;)

And I very much agree with the alchemy!

[Siegel]

You could still be a 4E Monk and use knives/daggers, nothing is stoping you from doing that...