Lucky B*stard

[_flint_]

Hey, all.

I have had a character concept knocking around in my head for a couple weeks, and i'd like your help building it. The idea would be that he's the luckiest man in the world. He's rich, influential, and deadly, and he's never once had to lift a finger. Because of this, he's trapped in an existential crisis of self doubt.

Anyhow, he is currently a non-entity in my campaign because I can't come up with a luck-based build of any merit. Is it even possible?

If you all could help me out making an optimised build of a charisma/Luck bonus/Luck feat-based character, It would be much appreciated. I realize that fortune's friend is a dreadful PRC, but it would be extra great if you could find a way for me to use that it would be extra good.

Edit: Here, I wrote some fluff to give you guys a feel for what i'm getting at
Born into royalty, King Edmund has never had to do anything to get ahead in life. As a child, his father, a wealthy king, was killed by a rare breed of cockatrice that turned all of it’s victims into colossal piles of money, leaving him to inherit the throne. While ruling over his people, he has suffered many assasination attempts from various rulers of other kingdoms, but all have failed miserably (and usually quite embarassingly). His people have never been more prosperous-a recent worldwide combination water, iron, coal, and livestock shortage has left his kingdom untouched, making King Edmund the wealthiest, most influential man alive.

Yet, King Edmund grows weary of such good fortune. The fact that he hasn’t worked for any of his wealth causes him to doubt wheather or not he is a fit ruler. His days are spent composing melancholy elegies, moping about the castle, and generally being in a dreadful depression. Among the glorious halls of his palace, he watches his subjects go about their daily lives, lamenting his good fortune, and wishing he could, for once in his life, be unlucky

[eggs]

Just throwing some ideas around:
Easy version: Cleric 5/Mythic Exemplar of Imdastri (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070504a&page=3) 10/whatever 5 (Luck and Destiny domains)

More complicated version: Bard 5/Fortune's Friend 5/Sublime Chord 2/Luckstealer 4/Fatespinner 4

Serial Number filed off version: Wilder 20 with Forced Dream (note that Forced Dream is completely ridiculous and this may not be appropriate)

[limejuicepowder]

'Nother option might be to just play a spellcaster, and refluff well-chosen spells as getting lucky. The most obvious one would be grease, but you could get really ridicules with it. Summon monster = random animal just showing up and attacking his enemies. Blindness/deafness, glitterdust, charm person line, daze, tasha's hideous laughter (most of the enchantment spells really), they would all be easy to explain away as getting really lucky.

[_flint_]

Hey, thanks, Eggs! Bard was a base class I was thinking of. Cleric seemed a little too disciplined to me. I was also thinking of Rogue/Spellthief/Factotum

Also, Limejuicepowder, as a DM I always could do that, but my campaign is very RAW focused, and even though it would only be changing the fluff, it woulld irk me nontheless. Thanks for contributing, it's much apperciated:smallbiggrin:

Also, I really love the second build. The combination of luck points/spin points/luck feat uses/ etc. amuses me, but wouldn't the sublime chord be doing more harm than good? With the sublime chord, the build is short 6 caster levels with the ability to gain 4 caster levels. However, wouldn't it be better to take class levels that give you CL, giving you a flat rate of -4 total CL and some miscelanious abilities?

[demigodus]

I think there was a similar spell a while back.

That you could go with a spell caster with silent spell, easy metamagic: silent spell, still spell, easy metamagic: still spell, and eschew material components

Would still need to only pick spells that CAN be explained as random luck though.

[Feralventas]

Hey, thanks, Eggs! Bard was a base class I was thinking of. Cleric seemed a little too disciplined to me. I was also thinking of Rogue/Spellthief/Factotum

Also, Limejuicepowder, as a DM I always could do that, but my campaign is very RAW focused, and even though it would only be changing the fluff, it woulld irk me nontheless. Thanks for contributing, it's much apperciated:smallbiggrin:

I agree that Bard is probably the better way to go, but a Cleric of a deity of Luck and Fortune would actually have a very easy time of things as long as they didn't plan ahead, didn't act on much of anything but instinct and intuition, and generally left everything up to chance; the best way one can endear one's self to a benevolent patron is to gamble on every aspect of what you do.

Though I suppose that a more apathetic or ambivalent deity of luck might or might not even grant spells. Maybe write up a d20 chart to decide what domains you're granted on a given day.

Edit: forgot the actual contribution....

There's a bard-like class in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting called a Noble, which as the name ought to imply, is the sort of character that would would likely be well-off and have a difficult time getting to realy do anything of challenge due to over-protective guardians.

5 levels of that, or bard, or anything really would be an easy segue into
Noble Scion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/n-r/noble-scion).

[_flint_]

What about spells? Cheat immediately comes to mind, but do you guys know of any other luck-based spells?

What about some OP infinite combos to do with luck pools/luck feat uses?

I pretty much want this guy to be like the fortune's friend art; just walking along, drinkin', unwittingly stumbling out of harm's way-to the point at which he's untouchable.

Races? I was thinking tallfellow halfling for the luckstealer PRC and secret door detection, or human for the bonus feat.

[Fable Wright]

What about spells? Cheat immediately comes to mind, but do you guys know of any other luck-based spells?

What about some OP infinite combos to do with luck pools/luck feat uses?

I pretty much want this guy to be like the fortune's friend art; just walking along, drinkin', unwittingly stumbling out of harm's way-to the point at which he's untouchable.

Races? I was thinking tallfellow halfling for the luckstealer PRC and secret door detection, or human for the bonus feat.

Luckstealer seems pretty good. You're lucky, the other people are unlucky, etc.

Spells I would recommend... Ruin Delver's Fortune for one. It fits the feel perfectly. Invisible Spell'd Grease would do wonders, what with your opponents tripping all over themselves on what appears to be the clutter around them. Telekinesis, too, could be useful- Combat Maneuvers can do silly things, and doing things like tying shoelaces together with it would be great. Wings of Cover would cover just about all of the scenarios you can't account for- Sword swing about to hit you? No, you stumbled out of the way. Giant fireball? Good thing you had that fireproof cloak. And so on. The Friendly Fire spell, IIRC, causes people to miss you and hit one of their allies- seems like something that would happen to a lucky person. Backbiter causes the person to accidentally hit themselves instead of you- seems good.

Invisible spell is a must, of course. The effects of all of your spells seem like complete luck. It works well with Kelgore's Grave Mist, too- your opponents are suddenly very tired, and they don't know why...

Finally, Races of Stone has an additional use for Slight of Hand, wherein you can disguise your casting as something else, which seems invaluable for maintaining the cover of being just that lucky.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Unluck (on your opponent) seems like a good option. Your opponent rerolls all d20 rolls and takes the worst result. You sure are lucky that your opponents seem to be whiffing all over the place!

[_flint_]

If possible, I would like to try and stay on the path of a melee type with a slew of luck powers, rather than a caster who pretends to always be "just Lucky". It's unfortunate that all of the luck PRCs have some sort of casting element to them, so it looks like the character will have to be at least somewhat magical, but the intention is that his luck is inherent.

What do you think about hexblade? The emphasis is on bad luck, not good, but there might still be potential

[prufock]

If you DID want to go Cleric, you could use the spontaneous (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) version. Maybe combine with cloistered (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) variant for more skill points.

I agree that bard is a more thematically-appropriate option, though, and has many good luck-type spells.

[hex0]

Auspician from Faiths and Pantheons, I think.

[Lonely Tylenol]

If possible, I would like to try and stay on the path of a melee type with a slew of luck powers, rather than a caster who pretends to always be "just Lucky". It's unfortunate that all of the luck PRCs have some sort of casting element to them, so it looks like the character will have to be at least somewhat magical, but the intention is that his luck is inherent.

What do you think about hexblade? The emphasis is on bad luck, not good, but there might still be potential

The way I see it, you are lucky if your enemy is really unlucky (per my entry).

Most of the supplemental information on this is crap, but Complete Scoundrel is nevertheless chock full of information that might be useful to this concept (including luck feats and, I believe, PrCs). You've probably already visited it once or twice, but it bears mentioning regardless.

[sonofzeal]

What do you think about hexblade? The emphasis is on bad luck, not good, but there might still be potential
You might be interested in this "rebalanced" Hexblade fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153696). :smallwink:

[_flint_]

Nah, I want to do this strictly WOTC RAW. I enjoy rules.

[Fable Wright]

If you want to go with a melee-based Charisma focused build, the standard Sorcadin (Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist the rest) might work for you.

The Sorcadin, of course, would be one of the various alignment adaptations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinVariantsFreedom SlaughterAndTyranny) for them, and it could fit the concept well- really high saves, the ability to use Wings of Cover to get really lucky and have random super attacks just randomly miss you for some reason. You can also load up on lucky spells from the Sorcerer/Wizard list to boot. With the Divine Companion (Complete Champion), you can heal your own wounds ("It looks much worse than it is. He just grazed me.") and get potentially huge bonuses to armor class (Really, really lucky dodging all of the BBEG's attacks, there, eh?). Finally, if you're willing to let your BAB or Caster level suffer more, you can replace Sacred Exorcist with various luck-based PrCs such as Fortune Thief (Which I believe has a 3/4 BAB?) or Fatespinner (Which does have full casting for the first 4 levels).

[Serpentine]

'Nother option might be to just play a spellcaster, and refluff well-chosen spells as getting lucky. The most obvious one would be grease, but you could get really ridicules with it. Summon monster = random animal just showing up and attacking his enemies. Blindness/deafness, glitterdust, charm person line, daze, tasha's hideous laughter (most of the enchantment spells really), they would all be easy to explain away as getting really lucky.That's exactly what I was thinking. So, more specifically:

Cleric seemed a little too disciplined to me.He wouldn't know he's a Cleric, his god would just be hanging around casting spells on his behalf or casting through him without his knowledge, maybe even setting him up for some nefarious purpose (Redemption of Althalus, anyone?). I kinda think that unless you can find a stack of feats and stuff, or say he's unknowingly got some item or benefactor that casts Wish or Miracle a lot, this sort of refluffing (which is entirely RAW-compatible, by the way) is probably your best bet if you want unconscious, and even unwanted, good luck.
As that doesn't appear to be the sort of thing you want, though, I don't have anything else to offer. A question, though: is this intended as an NPC, DMPC or PC?

[gorfnab]

Also, I really love the second build. The combination of luck points/spin points/luck feat uses/ etc. amuses me, but wouldn't the sublime chord be doing more harm than good? With the sublime chord, the build is short 6 caster levels with the ability to gain 4 caster levels. However, wouldn't it be better to take class levels that give you CL, giving you a flat rate of -4 total CL and some miscelanious abilities?


A sublime chord's caster level for both her sublime chord spells and the spells she gains from other arcane spellcasting classes is determined by adding her sublime chord level to her level in another arcane class.

Bard and Sublime Chord CL: 5 (Bard) +2 (Fortunes Friend advancing Bard) + 2 (Sublime Chord) + 3 (Luckstealer advancing SC) + 4 (Fatespinner advancing SC) = CL16 (if you take the feat Practiced Spellcaster you can get this to CL20)

Spells per day
Bard 0th-3rd level spells: 3/3/2/0
Sublime Chord 4th-9th level spells: 4/4/4/3/2/1

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's not exactly optimal, but you could play a hexblade/ fortunes friend/ luckstealer/ fatespinner with a mess of luck feats.

Fatespinner isn't strictly necessary and couldn't be taken until the end-game anyway, but fortune's friend and luckstealer can make any halfling with caster levels a lucky SoB.

If hexblade is too weak for your taste, there's always duskblade. Duskblade is giving up a lot more for those PrC's even though he gets into them earlier, though.

[_flint_]

Nah, I want to do this strictly WOTC RAW. I enjoy rules.

[_flint_]

Don't know why that posted twice... anyway, I was thinking either a DMPC for my own campaign, or a PC in a friend's.

Thank you for explaining the CL thing to me, gorfnab

[Kelb_Panthera]

Nah, I want to do this strictly WOTC RAW. I enjoy rules.

If this was directed at my comment:

........... what? The advice in my last post is perfectly legal, just not particularly optimized. It puts a much heavier emphasis on the luck mechanics and combat skill, generally at the expense of casting ability.

If that comment wasn't directed at me, who was it meant for?

[_flint_]

If this was directed at my comment:

........... what? The advice in my last post is perfectly legal, just not particularly optimized. It puts a much heavier emphasis on the luck mechanics and combat skill, generally at the expense of casting ability.

If that comment wasn't directed at me, who was it meant for?

For some reason, a comment from earlier got reposted. Don't know why

[Kelb_Panthera]

For some reason, a comment from earlier got reposted. Don't know why

Okay, I see it now. Almost a day apart, weird. :smallconfused:

[_flint_]

Are there any combos out there that would give me infinite uses of fatespinner's "spin" or luck feats?

[eggs]

I'm AFB, but didn't Complete Scoundrel have a sidenote that allows Luckstealer's signature ability to recharge Luck feats?

As far as I'm aware the Fatespinner's spin uses are locked unless something strange like Unearthed Arcana Action Points are in play.

[lunar2]

if you don't mind 3rd party, the "Book of Roguish Luck" is exactly what it says on the tin, including a non casting luck PRC based on the included luck subsystem.

[_flint_]

if you don't mind 3rd party, the "Book of Roguish Luck" is exactly what it says on the tin, including a non casting luck PRC based on the included luck subsystem.

Unfortunately, I do mind 3rd party.:smallfrown:. It's sad, because i'd totally use it if WOTC had published it

However, I really appreciate the referance, thanks a whole bunch!


I'm AFB, but didn't Complete Scoundrel have a sidenote that allows Luckstealer's signature ability to recharge Luck feats?

As far as I'm aware the Fatespinner's spin uses are locked unless something strange like Unearthed Arcana Action Points are in play.

Cool, i'll look it up right now!

Edit:
The luckstealer prestige class (Races of the Wild) provides
another method of maximizing your own luck while simultaneously
minimizing the luck of your opponent. The luckstealer
has a pool of luck points stolen from other characters, which
he uses for various purposes. In addition to the options described
in the prestige class, a luckstealer with one or more luck
feats can spend 3 points from his luck pool as though making
a luck reroll, following all the normal rules for luck feats and
luck rerolls.

I Love it!, this seriously improves eggs' build

Oh, also, what about psionics?

[hex0]

If hexblade is too weak for your taste, there's always duskblade. Duskblade is giving up a lot more for those PrC's even though he gets into them earlier, though.

The author of Hexblade put a fix out there, which a lot of DMs do at least consider using. Duskblade does give up a bit, but does have a lot of good skills (like all Knowledge) as well as full BAB and d8 hit die.

I also like Spellthief and/or Factotum for this build as well.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Unfortunately, I do mind 3rd party.:smallfrown:. It's sad, because i'd totally use it if WOTC had published it

However, I really appreciate the referance, thanks a whole bunch!



Cool, i'll look it up right now!

Edit:

I Love it!, this seriously improves eggs' build

Oh, also, what about psionics?

FWIW, I'm pretty sure fatespinner had a similar sidebar about getting spin uses from luckstealer's ability.

Edit: well I can't be right all the time :smalltongue: I'm dead wrong on this, please disregard.