Changing from 4e to 3.5e

[Lord Haart]

Good evening, everyone.
The player who insisted on playing fourth edition to begin with had quit, and our group realised that most of us would prefer to play 3.5. Only problem is, we want to continue the same campaign with same PCs so we have to re-generate them as 3.5 PCs with mostly same abilities. There are two cases that i'm not sure about:

1. My character, not quite competent evil overlord-wannabe in menacing scale armor (described in-character as poor man's plate) and helmet that he never removes. In 4e, he was hybrid warlord/sorcerer. Warlord part is one i can let go; however, he had been observed illuminating his way by spamming lightning strikes while in aforementioned armor (and with broadsword and heavy shield, but i can make him loss the later if the need arises). Therefore, i need to somehow make a caster (high charisma, mediocre int one, like sorcerer or warlock) that can spam weak spells in heavy armor (in fourth edition scale was heaviest armor second to plate; in 3.5e terms his armor will be half-plate) without or with little failure chances. All while being no higher than lvl 2.
Right now i'm considering making warlock 1 (with refluffing eldrich blast as lightning-like in appearance, to keep in consistency with previous lightning strike spam)/fighter 1 and convincing my GM to let me take Battle Caster feat twice. However, if there are more elegant/rule-happy/well-optimised solution, i'll be glad to hear it.

2. Among other PCs we have half-human, half-gelatinous cube girl (thanks to the rule of funny). Mechanically she was refluffed shardmind because of immortal+construct freedom to not breath or whatever and shardmind's racial ability that was very easy to refluff as girl losing her form, enveloping target, then reforming somewhere else. While race isn't very important and i think her player will be content with refluffed warforged, it would be nice to hear opinions on possible races here.

Grateful in advance,
Lord Haart.

[Deox]

1. My character, not quite competent evil overlord-wannabe in menacing scale armor (described in-character as poor man's plate) and helmet that he never removes. In 4e, he was hybrid warlord/sorcerer. Warlord part is one i can let go; however, he had been observed illuminating his way by spamming lightning strikes while in aforementioned armor (and with broadsword and heavy shield, but i can make him loss the later if the need arises). Therefore, i need to somehow make a caster (high charisma, mediocre int one, like sorcerer or warlock) that can spam weak spells in heavy armor (in fourth edition scale was heaviest armor second to plate; in 3.5e terms his armor will be half-plate) without or with little failure chances. All while being no higher than lvl 2.


I've got the impression of Duskblade here.

[hamishspence]

To keep the warlord flavour, swapping fighter 1 for crusader 1 (and focusing on both healing powers (Devoted Spirit) and ally-boosting powers (White Raven) would be a pretty good choice.

[Telonius]

Warmage would almost work for your guy, but Warlock sounds like a closer fit.

For the girl ... that's tough. Most of the things that are coming to mind would involve heavy level adjustments. The only other thing I can think of that could appear/disintegrate/reform at very low levels would be something out of Ghostwalk, and being undead might be a can of worms you don't want to open.

[Feralventas]

For the Warlord Sorcerer, I agree that Crusader (tome of battle) would work well, though I think you could probably stand to Multi-class it; this is a bit of a mess to do though, so if you're not familliar with 3.5 I'd advise against it. That said, the Eldritch Glaive invocation can make it very easy to hit with an attack that scales with your warlock levels, and your Initiator level for Crusader scales at 1/2 your non-crusader levels, so you could probably do one part Crusader to two parts Warlock and still do quite well for yourself mechanically speaking; lots of HP, plenty of combat options, and so forth.

For the ooze character, a friend of mine worked on something a little while back. Not sure if it'll work for what you have in mind, but it might be a start at least.
Exalted Slime Character (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1776.0)
Vile Slime Character. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3428.0)

Is it only a 2-person party, or are the rest easier to translate?

[Lord Haart]

I've got the impression of Duskblade here.Doesn't Duskblade depend on Int? My char's just smart enough to have Int 10.

Warmage would almost work for your guyI'm not sure. I don't need my character to be all gishy in melee (well, it would be cool and matching, but far from necessary); i will quite content with playing your typical caster that traded some optimisation for ability to show off in black spiked plate armor of doom. Warmage doesn't really work to that end (he gets medium armor only on lvl 8 and doesn't get heavy).

To keep the warlord flavour, swapping fighter 1 for crusader 1 (and focusing on both healing powers (Devoted Spirit) and ally-boosting powers (White Raven) would be a pretty good choice. Thanks, i'll take a look at that possibility.

P. S. I think i saw somewhere a feat that reduces spell failure chances in armor and can be taken multiple time. If someone could remind me where it is from, i guess it would be a nice RAW-obeying alternative to Battle Caster.

P. P. S.

though I think you could probably stand to Multi-class it; this is a bit of a mess to do thoughNo, it's okay, 3e multiclassing is much easier to understand than 4e hybridising. Thanks for a very nice optimising suggestion (i was almost sure i will have to suck mechanically).

Is it only a 2-person party, or are the rest easier to translate?Other two are just changeling (i'm sure there are either changelings or doppelgangers in 3.5e) bard and water genasi psion; i see no problem with them.

[Suddo]

Yeah you'd probably want to do Changling from Eberron campaign setting as its a no LA PC race.

But Psion, Bard, Crusader sounds like a really cool and pretty balanced group. The gelatinous cube girl is a little weird to balance.

[Zeb]

For your warlord/sorc you might want to look into the sorcerer with the stalwart and battle variants from Unearthed Arcana and Complete mage.

Add the battle caster feat from complete arcane for even heavier armor.

Pick up a lighting themed reserve feat and go to town.

If you want to continue the warlord lifestyle then Marshal from Heroes of Battle is a Cha focused leader you could multiclass with.

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

The first character can be a decently represented by a Spellsword.
There are many ways to reduce arcane spell failure, one of which is getting levels in the Spellsword PRC, but there are more and they usually stack.
So you can be a crusader/sorcerer, go Spellsword for 1 or more levels, then any full casting gish PrC. Sure, this is hardly top-level optimization, but doesn't suck either.

[MrLemon]

Going with Zeb here

The UA variant loses far more spells here (1 known at each level, as well as 1 spell per day at each level!), but is the one that can actually cast spells in light armor

The CM variant has more spellcasting, but does not gain armored mage.

Ask your DM if you could take the Armored Mage fighter ACF (CM) on your Crusader to be able to cast in light armor. You would lose medium and heavy armor however, but Mithril Scale Mail is light iirc and not that expensive.

For lightning themed reserve: Storm Bolt (CArc or CM i think)

[Andorax]

Another alternative is in Dragon 355 (Class Acts: Warrior) article.

Armored Savant ACF for 1st level fighters lets you, among other things, cut ASF of any armor you wear in half.

[Hunter Noventa]

I think there's actually a half-ooze template or something similar hanging around somewhere, for the second one. Some adjustments to that might make for your half gelatinous cube girl's delight.

[Suddo]

Going with Zeb here

The UA variant loses far more spells here (1 known at each level, as well as 1 spell per day at each level!), but is the one that can actually cast spells in light armor

The CM variant has more spellcasting, but does not gain armored mage.

Ask your DM if you could take the Armored Mage fighter ACF (CM) on your Crusader to be able to cast in light armor. You would lose medium and heavy armor however, but Mithril Scale Mail is light iirc and not that expensive.

For lightning themed reserve: Storm Bolt (CArc or CM i think)

1 level dip in Spellthief and master spellthief feat allows for casting in Light armor if that's the problem. Yes it may not be stylistically what you want but mechanically its fine. Also if you can dip PrCs Spellsword is a great 1 level dip.

[Larkas]

If you liked the Crusader idea, and like the Marshal's fluff, be sure to check this (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Marshal_%28Sublime_Way_variant%29) out.

[Gorfnod]

For the ooze-girl I remember an issue of Dragon Magazine that had 8 new races for extraplanar type characters, two had to do with law and chaos but the other 6 were from para-elemental planes, magma, dust, ooze, etc. I have a copy of it at home and can get the actual issue number for you if no one posts it before I get back there.

[Larkas]

Dragon Magazine #297, article "Children of the Cosmos" on para-genasi. DragonDex (http://www.aeolia.net/dragondex/articles-subject.html) for the win :smallcool:

[Randomguy]

1 level dip in Spellthief and master spellthief feat allows for casting in Light armor if that's the problem. Yes it may not be stylistically what you want but mechanically its fine. Also if you can dip PrCs Spellsword is a great 1 level dip.

This, and if you take the battle caster feat from complete arcane then you can cast in medium armour without chance of failure as well.

If you don't mind spending some money on this, then adding the "twilight" enhancement to your armour reduces spell failure chance by 10%.

[Tyndmyr]

Half plate is not usually a good choice in 3.5. I'd suggest either dialing it up to full plate, or going down to a chain shirt or something, depending on your dex score and plans for the char.

At level two, this can be easily pulled off by a warmage. Feats are available to boost armor usage should you focus on that, and special materials also exist. I'm a fan of the twilight mithril chain shirt.

[Larkas]

Half plate is not usually a good choice in 3.5. I'd suggest either dialing it up to full plate, or going down to a chain shirt or something, depending on your dex score and plans for the char.

Indeed, half-plate is fairly sub-optimal. If you want a heavy "poor man's full plate", I suggest going for banded mail. It is less than half the price of a half-plate and 1/6th the price of a full plate, it is +6/+1, has the same AP as the full plate (hence, 1 less than a half-plate) and weighs much less.

[Lord Haart]

Well, thank you all. I had decided to go with Fighter 1/Warlock 1 with Armored Savant for my character and Ooze Paragenasi should work well for slime girl (even if she'll have to learn how to breathe).

Armored Savant ACF for 1st level fighters lets you, among other things, cut ASF of any armor you wear in half.Thank you very much, that's exactly what i was looking for. With that ACF, spell failure chances will be quite acceptable for some time, and later i will probably dip into spellsword.

But Psion, Bard, Crusader sounds like a really cool and pretty balanced group. The gelatinous cube girl is a little weird to balance.Her class is sorcerer. I guess it will be fun.

For your warlord/sorc you might want to look into the sorcerer with the stalwart and battle variants from Unearthed Arcana and Complete mage.

For lightning themed reserve: Storm Bolt (CArc or CM i think
That would be the best solution, but our characters were lvl 1 in 4e so master said they should be regenerated as lvl 2. All reserve feats (as far as i have noticed) require more levels in sorcerer than i can have. So for now, i'll go with fighter 1/warlock 1 (aside from ever-spammable eldrich blast, warlock will give me Beguiling Influence so at least i'll be the best party face around) but i'll dip into sorcerer (probably with battle sorcerer and stalwart sorcerer class features; i've got an impression that they aren't incompatible), if only because so many prestige classes require ability to cast spells which warlock doesn't have.
I don't really know where i'll go from there (it partially depends on way the story will progress). Aside from going full-blown gish (most obvious, most reliable and already suggested option), there are two pure caster-ish prestiges that seem quite interesting to me. Eldrich teurge seems to be a nice way to… well, to blast and then blast some more. But being able to simultaneously progress in warlock (with his steadily increasing blasting power) and sorcerer seems interesting. Then, there's wild mage. Optimisation-wise it probably sucks (at least as far as i can tell), but roleplay-wise my character is stubborn, half-educated goon who's playing way out of his league, so being mechanically able to make stuff blow up with butterflies, or make threats to big bad guys by pointing wand of wonder at them and asking whether or not they feel lucky today, would be so very fitting.

Half plate is not usually a good choice in 3.5.Yeah, i'm going to change it to full plate as soon as it will be possible. However, when i was saying "poor man's full plate", i meant roleplaying side, not rollplaying. Right now, my PC only has armor that he threw together with a box of scraps and rusty junk, and i think that in 3.5e half-plate represents it best.

Dragon Magazine #297, article "Children of the Cosmos" on para-genasi.Thank you too, ooze paragenasi sounds like right stuff. I will learn to use DragonDex, i promise.

[Eldan]

If you want to insist on construct and not breathing, you could also use a heavily refluffed warforged.