The Deadly Salesman (class help)

[big teej]

Greetings playgrounders,

since I've got a class starting in about 5 minutes, and I tend to be overly verbose, I'll get straight to the point.

I have introduced a character to my party last week, he may or may not turn into a recurring villian.

thankfully, no violence ensued, because none of the baddies had stats yet.


the character is Barnalbee The Magnificent! seller of the Best Backpacks in the World!!!

BELIEVE IT!

*ahem*

barnalbee's henchman are easily accounted for (2 dire wereboars and a handful of evil humanoids and demi-humanoids)

Barnalbee however....

I'm at a loss as to what to make him.


the character travels the world selling truly exquisite backpacks to people that are custom made to race.

he crafts these magnificent packs out of the flesh of those he intends to sell them too (i.e. will only sell elves backpacks made of elven flesh, will only sell humans packs made from human hide, etc.)

a few ideas have suggested themselves to me, but I can't quite pin down which would be the most appropriate.

Bard?
Beguiler?
Factotum?
Spellthief?
Rogue?
something else entirely?!

HALP!

tl;dr - what do you think is an appropriate class for a highly charaismatic salesman-villian who hunts down and kills those who don't purchase one of his products?


if it matters, here are his henchmen
two Dire-Were Boars: Skinner and Grinder (lvl 15)
1 10th level wizard, focused on supressing enemy mages
1 12th level Fighter (might end up being another class)
2 8th level half-orks (halfork/ork paragon => barbarians)
2 Dwarf Knights(or fighters) level 10
Barnalbee himself

[Urpriest]

You should probably ask for this to be moved to the 3.5 forum.

[Slipperychicken]

I could see an Artificer here, so he could make any damn backpack you can imagine, and cast spells through his own personal awesomesauce backpack which also has an extradimensional backpack-factory filled with Dedicated Wrights churning out human-skin backpacks. That way he can also peddle all kinds of backpack-accessories to fill your backpack with (Things like everfull mugs and rations, wands, scrolls, potions, extradimensional pouches, and other generically useful wondrous items). Might even sell a Deluxe Shax's Barnalbee's Indispensable Haversack Backpack.

Hell, if the PCs think his backpacks are awesome enough, he might even become a recurring merchant ally.

[big teej]

I could see an Artificer here, so he could make any damn backpack you can imagine, and cast spells through his own personal awesomesauce backpack which also has an extradimensional backpack-factory filled with Dedicated Wrights churning out human-skin backpacks. That way he can also peddle all kinds of backpack-accessories to fill your backpack with (Things like everfull mugs and rations, wands, scrolls, potions, extradimensional pouches, and other generically useful wondrous items). Might even sell a Deluxe Shax's Barnalbee's Indispensable Haversack Backpack.

Hell, if the PCs think his backpacks are awesome enough, he might even become a recurring merchant ally.

:smallconfused:

I'm going to ignore the greater implications of taht and simply reply with "we do not have access to the artificer"

[Uhtred]

You're the DM. Just because your players don't have access doesn't mean you suffer a similar restriction. I agree that Artificer fits the best, especially with ranks in Profession (Salesman/Merchant) and a bunch of henchbeasts/henchmen to hit with Infusions. Otherwise try Bard, maybe Beguiler. Something Cha dependent with the Profession and Craft skills enabled.

[Diovid]

Do you see him as the type to fight himself or as a salesman who lets others do the fighting for him? In the later case your prime choices are A) a social rogue, B) a bard or C) a beguiler.

A) The Social Rogue. Probably a Changeling (Races of Eberron), using the 1st and possibly 3rd Changeling Rogue sub levels and maybe use the Martial Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue) variant. A Marshal (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b) dip for Motivate Charisma is always great. A dip in the Mountebank prc (Complete Scoundrel) is also awesome. Probably finish with levels in the Exemplar prc (Complete Adventurer) or the Cabinet Trickster prc (Races of Eberron). He could pump disguise and pretend to be a different character to every community he comes to, in that case I think the Spymaster prc (Complete Adventurer) has some abilities which help with that.

For feats look at the Changeling racial feats (Races of Eberron), Force of Personality (Complete Adventurer), Rapscallion (Dragon Magazine #315), Wanderer's Diplomacy (PHB II), Master Manipulator (PHB II), Combat Panache (PHB II) and Fade into Violence (PHB II). Also consider using the interaction skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel.

The ultimate social rogue takes levels in the Charlatan prc (#335) but that probably doesn't fit the character.

B) The Bard. Go Bard 5 / Urban Savant 9 / anything. Urban Savant is from Cityscape, somewhat bound to being in cities but considering he's a trader that would make sense. Urban Savant is pretty awesome for a mastermind-like character. Invest in knowledge skills (a Marshal-dip and/or Dragonfire-adept dip could help here) and maybe Bardic Knowledge (using the Bardic Sage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantBardicSage) variant for example or by taking levels in the Paragnostic Apostle for example).

Since you already introduced him I guess making him a Gnome is not possible? Gnomes are awesome for the Trivial Knowledge feat (Races of Stone). Other possible feats for this character include Breadth of Knowledge (Unearthed Arcana), Obscure Lore (Complete Adventurer), Master of Knowledge (Heroes of Horror), Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic), Draconic Knowledge (Dragon Magic) and Force of Personality (Complete Adventurer).

C) Beguiler. I'll leave this for someone else.

[big teej]

Do you see him as the type to fight himself or as a salesman who lets others do the fighting for him? In the later case your prime choices are A) a social rogue, B) a bard or C) a beguiler.

A) The Social Rogue. Probably a Changeling (Races of Eberron), using the 1st and possibly 3rd Changeling Rogue sub levels and maybe use the Martial Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue) variant. A Marshal (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b) dip for Motivate Charisma is always great. A dip in the Mountebank prc (Complete Scoundrel) is also awesome. Probably finish with levels in the Exemplar prc (Complete Adventurer) or the Cabinet Trickster prc (Races of Eberron). He could pump disguise and pretend to be a different character to every community he comes to, in that case I think the Spymaster prc (Complete Adventurer) has some abilities which help with that.

For feats look at the Changeling racial feats (Races of Eberron), Force of Personality (Complete Adventurer), Rapscallion (Dragon Magazine #315), Wanderer's Diplomacy (PHB II), Master Manipulator (PHB II), Combat Panache (PHB II) and Fade into Violence (PHB II). Also consider using the interaction skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel.

The ultimate social rogue takes levels in the Charlatan prc (#335) but that probably doesn't fit the character.

B) The Bard. Go Bard 5 / Urban Savant 9 / anything. Urban Savant is from Cityscape, somewhat bound to being in cities but considering he's a trader that would make sense. Urban Savant is pretty awesome for a mastermind-like character. Invest in knowledge skills (a Marshal-dip and/or Dragonfire-adept dip could help here) and maybe Bardic Knowledge (using the Bardic Sage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantBardicSage) variant for example or by taking levels in the Paragnostic Apostle for example).

Since you already introduced him I guess making him a Gnome is not possible? Gnomes are awesome for the Trivial Knowledge feat (Races of Stone). Other possible feats for this character include Breadth of Knowledge (Unearthed Arcana), Obscure Lore (Complete Adventurer), Master of Knowledge (Heroes of Horror), Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic), Draconic Knowledge (Dragon Magic) and Force of Personality (Complete Adventurer).

C) Beguiler. I'll leave this for someone else.


in summary, barnalbee is a gnome.
thought I mentioned it in the original post.

in answer to your first question: both... he's meant to hold his own in a fight, but he prefers to let his henchmen handle it.

[falloutimperial]

I'd reccomend checking the variant rules class, expert. (not the NPC class of the same name.) It has versatility, and a proper skill set.

[God Imperror]

Merchant Prince page 71 from powers of faerun. :smallamused:

[Endarire]

What's your preferred combat style? A Factotum is about the Iaijutsu Focus and the spells and the tricksy uses of skills and stuff. A Bard... could sing his own advertisements while casting spells and hurting people. 'Sup to you.

[big teej]

I think for the sake of simplicity and speed that Barnalbee is going to be a bard.