Lynnalynna
2013-08-08, 04:59 PM
Ok, so here is the situation. I am currently playing a campaign that is more story driven than mechanic driven, so optimization is the last thing on my mind. But I don't want to completely turn away from the rules still. So here is the situation.
My Focused Transmuter comes from a tribe where magic is looked down upon (though not banned), her only reason for her seeking out the exiled mage was to find a way to compensate for her lack of strength (the tribe is a barbaric tribe mind you). Being blamed for a rash amount of deaths in the villages livestock (which was actually due to raiders who were weakening the town before an attack) she was imprisoned by her own people. Before her final trial, the raiders took her and the rest of the small village as slaves. Escaping once, she was recaptured only to be released at the beginning of the campaign (our campaign began on a slave ship)
Now due to the background and events within the campaign, she is going to be multiclassing. But how the events were, it leads to an interesting set of restricted events to her multiclass:
1) It can't be anything taught - She is out in the desert with the party, if something will appear it will be awakened in her or a divine calling of sorts, not something she has to learn at first
2) She is Devoted to Khord as is her whole tribe, and the awakening probably will be related to this fact - She seeks strength, the event that is leading to her second class is due to her being unable to protect everyone in the party against odds, even if she is just a lone mage (mind you, CG alignment)...aka, her strength alone wasn't enough. How the situation was portrayed, a spiritual strength is awakening in her.
3) She was showing the want to be more physical - Currently she is a Focused Transmuter (with a few alternate class features as well to make her seem more specialized), but the events shown her wanting to lead the charge to the point where she acted as bait to pull all the enemies off of her allies (leading to her dropping, though we did have a quasi-medic on the team to stabilize her). Her goal is to find strength enough to save the villagers, no matter what they did to her in the past. So her search is for strength.
Now the armor thing isn't a concern to me, because I am approaching the character out of the norm anyways (when the other players first met her she was wearing rags and broken shackles - beyond the slavers shackles - this was by design not due to the situation, she isn't the classic mage from the academy mage, but instead was trained by an exilee within the swamps of her homeland), and probably, if taking the most thought of route, would be the equivalent of a farmer taking up the holy call.
So that leads to the second class options, both pros and cons of them as well:
a) A Paladin of Khord: We would be using the Paladin of Freedom alternate class rules from UA with a few other possible alternate class features to make it more fit her character. This option right now is the most flavorful to what is going on, and fills in (kinda) a role we are missing (currently our party features a rogue focused on swindling, a half-elf ranger who is focused on the heal skill and manhunting, a Chaos Incarnate, a Lurk with amnesia, and this character), all of us are of a Chaotic alignment of one or another. My concern was with the Rogue, which is CE. The DM was saying he would allow me to remove the requirement to not party with an opposite alignment character as long as (not annoyingly) I was trying to convert him to the path of good (the rogue is the DM's side character that he uses to guide us when needed...a trick he learned from me way back in the day when we used to have rotating GM's every few weeks)
b) A divine based or exalted Barbarian: This option is secondary but just as thought out. The situation that lead to the possible multiclass would fit a barbarian with a divine call as well, this is more if I was focusing on the human aspect of it rather than the divine aspect. But if this option I would need some guidance to what alt features would make it more fit the character...but then again a Rage Mage would be fun to play.
c) Some Kind of Divine Caster: Probably not a cleric, but that is due to this would be a spontaneous learning, the character is trapped in the desert with her party, there is no way that she would gain religious teachings and studies immediately. I thought of Favored Soul, but it seems kind of convoluted with her race as is (she is using the Spartes race from RR:Olympus, but we changed the greek gods in that book to the dnd gods for simplicity sake - her homeland is more greek based than the main continent, each continent has a cultural feel to it in our campaign. One is arabic in feel, one is arthurian stylized, one is oriental, and one is germanic/nordic in feel)
-her stats aren't going to matter for story sake, I know mechanically it could cripple her, but story>mechanics in our campaigns, so even with her low strength, a melee option is plausible, though not as beneficial
Stats are Str:9, Dex:10, Con:16, Int:18, Wis:10, Cha:17. These were achieved by a strict straight 3D6 roll. In this group, experienced players have to take the blunt of the blow by doing straight rolls as the newbies get to use a grid system of rolling.
As said, all this is story based, so optimization isn't even a thought, Should I go with A or B? Or any suggestions for C? And if A, any suggestions? I've been playing since ADD and never once played a Paladin, always had kinda one planned, but never really leveled one, with this set up, what kind of feats should I take to soften the blow of a poor class combination?
My Focused Transmuter comes from a tribe where magic is looked down upon (though not banned), her only reason for her seeking out the exiled mage was to find a way to compensate for her lack of strength (the tribe is a barbaric tribe mind you). Being blamed for a rash amount of deaths in the villages livestock (which was actually due to raiders who were weakening the town before an attack) she was imprisoned by her own people. Before her final trial, the raiders took her and the rest of the small village as slaves. Escaping once, she was recaptured only to be released at the beginning of the campaign (our campaign began on a slave ship)
Now due to the background and events within the campaign, she is going to be multiclassing. But how the events were, it leads to an interesting set of restricted events to her multiclass:
1) It can't be anything taught - She is out in the desert with the party, if something will appear it will be awakened in her or a divine calling of sorts, not something she has to learn at first
2) She is Devoted to Khord as is her whole tribe, and the awakening probably will be related to this fact - She seeks strength, the event that is leading to her second class is due to her being unable to protect everyone in the party against odds, even if she is just a lone mage (mind you, CG alignment)...aka, her strength alone wasn't enough. How the situation was portrayed, a spiritual strength is awakening in her.
3) She was showing the want to be more physical - Currently she is a Focused Transmuter (with a few alternate class features as well to make her seem more specialized), but the events shown her wanting to lead the charge to the point where she acted as bait to pull all the enemies off of her allies (leading to her dropping, though we did have a quasi-medic on the team to stabilize her). Her goal is to find strength enough to save the villagers, no matter what they did to her in the past. So her search is for strength.
Now the armor thing isn't a concern to me, because I am approaching the character out of the norm anyways (when the other players first met her she was wearing rags and broken shackles - beyond the slavers shackles - this was by design not due to the situation, she isn't the classic mage from the academy mage, but instead was trained by an exilee within the swamps of her homeland), and probably, if taking the most thought of route, would be the equivalent of a farmer taking up the holy call.
So that leads to the second class options, both pros and cons of them as well:
a) A Paladin of Khord: We would be using the Paladin of Freedom alternate class rules from UA with a few other possible alternate class features to make it more fit her character. This option right now is the most flavorful to what is going on, and fills in (kinda) a role we are missing (currently our party features a rogue focused on swindling, a half-elf ranger who is focused on the heal skill and manhunting, a Chaos Incarnate, a Lurk with amnesia, and this character), all of us are of a Chaotic alignment of one or another. My concern was with the Rogue, which is CE. The DM was saying he would allow me to remove the requirement to not party with an opposite alignment character as long as (not annoyingly) I was trying to convert him to the path of good (the rogue is the DM's side character that he uses to guide us when needed...a trick he learned from me way back in the day when we used to have rotating GM's every few weeks)
b) A divine based or exalted Barbarian: This option is secondary but just as thought out. The situation that lead to the possible multiclass would fit a barbarian with a divine call as well, this is more if I was focusing on the human aspect of it rather than the divine aspect. But if this option I would need some guidance to what alt features would make it more fit the character...but then again a Rage Mage would be fun to play.
c) Some Kind of Divine Caster: Probably not a cleric, but that is due to this would be a spontaneous learning, the character is trapped in the desert with her party, there is no way that she would gain religious teachings and studies immediately. I thought of Favored Soul, but it seems kind of convoluted with her race as is (she is using the Spartes race from RR:Olympus, but we changed the greek gods in that book to the dnd gods for simplicity sake - her homeland is more greek based than the main continent, each continent has a cultural feel to it in our campaign. One is arabic in feel, one is arthurian stylized, one is oriental, and one is germanic/nordic in feel)
-her stats aren't going to matter for story sake, I know mechanically it could cripple her, but story>mechanics in our campaigns, so even with her low strength, a melee option is plausible, though not as beneficial
Stats are Str:9, Dex:10, Con:16, Int:18, Wis:10, Cha:17. These were achieved by a strict straight 3D6 roll. In this group, experienced players have to take the blunt of the blow by doing straight rolls as the newbies get to use a grid system of rolling.
As said, all this is story based, so optimization isn't even a thought, Should I go with A or B? Or any suggestions for C? And if A, any suggestions? I've been playing since ADD and never once played a Paladin, always had kinda one planned, but never really leveled one, with this set up, what kind of feats should I take to soften the blow of a poor class combination?