I'm trying to make a really scary scythe user 3.5

[DarkSonic1337]

Basically, I want him to be a PC killer. If someone in the group wants to play a new character for some reason, or has to quit, or maybe is just a jerkass, THIS will be the guy to kill them and hopefully slip out again alive. Of course he'll still be kill able, and I'd congratulate a party for doing so. I'm thinking of making him 12th-15th level. But I don't really know quite what to do with the build. Some options I'm considering are.

1. Some kind of Ruby Knight Vindicator build with divine metamagic (quicken). It would make use of quickened paralyze inducing spells and the Death Blow (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-adventurer--54/death-blow--533/) feat for a possible turn 1 coup de grace. What are some nice spells/powers/other stuff to paralyze characters or otherwise make them helpless so you can coup de grace them?

2. Expanding the crit range and getting a bunch of luck feats, including Better Lucky Than Good (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-scoundrel--60/better-lucky-than-good--205/) and Fortuitous Strike (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-scoundrel--60/fortuitous-strike--1188/). How should I go about increasing the threat range of the Scythe as much as possible? . This could maybe be a Disciple of Dispater build? He'd likely depend a lot more on items for escape.

3. Maybe make a trip build? It is a Scythe after all. Are there any feats besides combat expertise (prereq), improved trip, and knockdown that I should look at as the "tripping" part of a tripper build?.


Any items to allow critical hits against normally critical immune things (once or twice is good enough) would be helpful to know too for if everyone already has crit immunity by the time I even get the opportunity to throw this guy in.

[Azoth]

Spells to bypass crit immunity: grave strike, vine strike, golem strike.

PRC to make crit scary: Disciple of Dispatter (warning 3.0 But never converted over to 3.5)

Feats for a tripper: combat expertishe, improved trip, knock back, large and in charge, hold the line, combat reflexes, martial study (qualify maneuver), martial study (thicket of Blades).

Could always have fuin with an Archivist/sacred exorcist/bone knight build. You have access to EVERY divine spell in the game, DMM Persist shenanigans, and the creepy walking embodiment of death image with some good built in immunities to back up the fluff.

[Crake]

Cleric 11/Blackguard 1, divine power, surge of fortune, corrupt weapon and charge full power attack.

8d4+6xstr mod+96 damage from power attack, auto hit, auto crit. If he has at least +5 str after divine power, thats 8d4+126 damage.. add in greater magic weapon +3 for another 12 damage, 8d4+138

Edit1: Or just as above but with Archivist 12 and corrupt/bless weapon, depending on their MO

Edit2: Oh, and word of recall for escape.

So it'd pretty much go: Find party, identify offender (player who wants to reroll), precast buffs, Charge in, kill player, initiative, word of recall as soon as it's his turn.

[DarkSonic1337]

Disciple of Dispater was already on my list

vine strike, golem strike, and grave strike all specifically state they don't allow criticals, just sneak attacks.

Thank you for the list of feats. Those look really nice for locking down a group actually. Add enlarge self from a spell or item and it should certainly be a challenging fight.

Bone Knight is interesting, but not quite what I'm looking for. The lvl9 ability is cool, and don't get me wrong bone weapons and armor are neat...but idk it feels to much like it's going into necromancer territory. Animating and controlling undead and Riding an undead mount aren't really something I want him to do. I want him to feel more like a hunter than a necromancer.




Cleric/Blackguard seems interesting. Poison Use helps with the assassin feel, and Aura of Despair is just nice! And that much damage on the first round will bring a huge shock factor to everyone who lived (who knows maybe they'll just run away and he just won't follow them after killing his target :p)

edit: Word of Recall is PERFECT. I'm gonna put silent spell on it :P? Guy shows up, does over 100 damage in 1 hit, and just teleports out without any real indication of how he did it, and the rest of the party is speechless and now paranoid about an unknown assassin.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Go with a Kaorti Resin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a) Falchion instead, for a natural 18-20/x4. With Improved Crit or Keen it will be 15-20/x4. Better yet, use a Greathorn Minotaur Greathammer (MMIV, 19-20/x4) with Psychic Weapon Master (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040827d). Combined with Improved Crit and applying your own effects in the most beneficial order, you get a flat +2 threat range from Psychic Weapon Master for 17-20/x4, and then Improved Crit doubles that range of four numbers to 13-20/x4.

Psychic Warrior 7/ Psychic Weapon Master 7 is the minimum needed to do this. Get Expanded Knowledge: Share Pain and Psicrystal Affinity, keep Share Pain continually active on the psicrystal so he takes half damage from all sources. The psicrystal's Hardness 8 will reduce every instance of damage from Share Pain by that much regardless of the original attack's type. Keep the psicrystal in a compartment on his person so they'll never have line of sight/effect to it and cannot target it directly or hit it with area effects. Give the psicrystal a Healing Belt and it can use it on him during combat. He can also manifest Vigor for a nice HP cushion which can be shared with the psicrystal. Between that and various other psionic powers (Freedom of Movement, Dimension Door) he shouldn't have any problem surviving and escaping.

[DarkSonic1337]

I'm not really versed in Psionics and would rather not introduce it into the game. Sorry for not saying that in advance. Do you think just plain Weapon Master would suffice?

I'd rather keep it as a scythe for the visual effect. With someting/Weapon Master 7 I should be able to get 15-20/x4 right? And I could make it 15-20/x5 3/day.

[Sayt]

Might I suggest Wizard levels/UMD sufficient for a wand of Wraithstrike, get a wand slot for the Scythe, and go to town on Power attacks targetting touch AC?

[Diarmuid]

Death strike Bracers from MIC allow for criticals against those normally immune for a round at a time, 3/day.

[Infundibular]

For the Trip-Attack bit, I can recommend Curling Wave Strike (Stormwrack) and Knockdown (Sword and Fist).
CWS lets you trade in your free attack on a person you trip for a second trip attempt on anyone you threaten, useful for fighting many enemies.
Knockdown gives you a free trip attack every time you do more than ten points of damage. All of the prerequisites are things you should have anyway, like 15 STR, Improved Trip, and DEX 13.
When using trip attacks, remember that standing up is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity, and that any attack of opportunity that does more than ten damage is a free trip attempt.
Combat Reflexes should also be in a trip build, because you want as many free trip attacks as possible.
If you want Wraithstrike, the one-round duration makes it a suboptimal choice for a wand: use the item creation rules to create a continuously active ring of Wraithstrike. This will cost you 2*3*2000*4 for a total of 48,000 GP, since the ring costs nothing and Wraithstrike has no costly components. If you're playing in a cheesy campaign, make it only usable by characters with your alignment, your class, and one of your skills, for a final cost of 21,168 GP.

[icks]

What are some nice spells/powers/other stuff to paralyze characters or otherwise make them helpless so you can coup de grace them?

How should I go about increasing the threat range of the Scythe as much as possible?

Are there any feats besides combat expertise (prereq), improved trip, and knockdown that I should look at as the "tripping" part of a tripper build?.




You can get many option for what you want/need.

My favorite is the following fluff :

Vampire Bard/Dirgesinger with HUGE Charisma (& snowflake wardance), begin to sing his death complain (song of horror), paralyze the party with huge intimidation/terror presence, force his way through the party to chop the head of his chosen victim (coup de grace, vorpal, immobilized & vulnerable) and then flew away with the head as trophee with teleport (ring). Leaving the party in tears, helpless and shocked by the quickness of the murder.

The Scythe is very scary :smallbiggrin:

[SowZ]

I'm not really versed in Psionics and would rather not introduce it into the game. Sorry for not saying that in advance. Do you think just plain Weapon Master would suffice?

I'd rather keep it as a scythe for the visual effect. With someting/Weapon Master 7 I should be able to get 15-20/x4 right? And I could make it 15-20/x5 3/day.

Plain Weapon Master is fairly bad, though. I would recommend against it the vast majority of the time. Too much investment for too little return.

[Segev]

Dread Necromancer/Dread Witch.

...what? You said "scary!"

[Samalpetey]

You can get many option for what you want/need.

My favorite is the following fluff :

Vampire Bard/Dirgesinger with HUGE Charisma (& snowflake wardance), begin to sing his death complain (song of horror), paralyze the party with huge intimidation/terror presence, force his way through the party to chop the head of his chosen victim (coup de grace, vorpal, immobilized & vulnerable) and then flew away with the head as trophee with teleport (ring). Leaving the party in tears, helpless and shocked by the quickness of the murder.

The Scythe is very scary :smallbiggrin:

Snowflake Wardance adds your charisma mod to any attack rolls with a slashing melee weapon held in one hand. Isn't a scythe two-handed?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Dread Necromancer/Dread Witch.

...what? You said "scary!"

Don't forget Nightmare Spinner! Better yet, swap Dread Necro with Bard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252815#4).

[DarkSonic1337]

Oh my god Dread Witch 4 is PERFECT.

Taking a quick read of the fear handbook now

[Harrow]

For the Trip-Attack bit, I can recommend Curling Wave Strike (Stormwrack) and Knockdown (Sword and Fist).
CWS lets you trade in your free attack on a person you trip for a second trip attempt on anyone you threaten, useful for fighting many enemies.
Knockdown gives you a free trip attack every time you do more than ten points of damage. All of the prerequisites are things you should have anyway, like 15 STR, Improved Trip, and DEX 13.
When using trip attacks, remember that standing up is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity, and that any attack of opportunity that does more than ten damage is a free trip attempt.
Combat Reflexes should also be in a trip build, because you want as many free trip attacks as possible.
If you want Wraithstrike, the one-round duration makes it a suboptimal choice for a wand: use the item creation rules to create a continuously active ring of Wraithstrike. This will cost you 2*3*2000*4 for a total of 48,000 GP, since the ring costs nothing and Wraithstrike has no costly components. If you're playing in a cheesy campaign, make it only usable by characters with your alignment, your class, and one of your skills, for a final cost of 21,168 GP.

You can't trip people who are standing from prone. AoO's happen before the action that triggers them, so they are still prone when you hit them, and that makes them immune to all forms of tripping.

[Hytheter]

Go with a Kaorti Resin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a) Falchion instead, for a natural 18-20/x4.

The problem here is that Kaorti Resin Weapons requires Exotic Weapin Proficiency to use. Although, I'm not sure how it works with weapins which are already exotic weapons; a Kaorti Great Falchion (Does D12 instead of 2D4, but is exotic) could be pure critical devastation.

[Qwertystop]

Honestly, if you're good enough at descriptiveness, it'd almost be enough to just emphasize that this guy is swinging a farmer's scythe (as opposed to an actual-polearm scythe, which is nothing like the typical image you've probably got) at high speed and not stabbing himself. It's like using double-ended lightsabers or light-tonfa (http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/70723/Tonfa.1.jpg) (you hold it by the right-angle handle and spin it): you just know they're good, because they haven't self-amputated.

[Hytheter]

Honestly, if you're good enough at descriptiveness, it'd almost be enough to just emphasize that this guy is swinging a farmer's scythe (as opposed to an actual-polearm scythe, which is nothing like the typical image you've probably got) at high speed and not stabbing himself. It's like using double-ended lightsabers or light-tonfa (http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/70723/Tonfa.1.jpg) (you hold it by the right-angle handle and spin it): you just know they're good, because they haven't self-amputated.

How could you stab yourself with a scythe? The way its held and swung the blade is pretty much always pointing away from you. It'd be hard to stab yourself on purpose.
I mean, obviously holding and spinning like you've stated with the tonfa thing is retarded but... well, that's retarded.

Also, its worth mentioning that an "actual polearm" scythe is just a regular scythe with the blade rotated 90 degrees.

[ericgrau]

Ah good, seems like you're willing to kill PCs with this. I deleted my usual complaint.

The only issue remaining is that there is a lot of luck involved. Meaning he could never crit and fall flat, looking like a minor foe. But as long as the PC's know the potential for death, fear can still be there without actual death. Option 1 for paralysis is one method. Whether or not the coup de grace happens seeing paralysis next to a scythe wielder is itself scary to any veteran.

[Qwertystop]

How could you stab yourself with a scythe? The way its held and swung the blade is pretty much always pointing away from you. It'd be hard to stab yourself on purpose.
I mean, obviously holding and spinning like you've stated with the tonfa thing is retarded but... well, that's retarded.

Also, its worth mentioning that an "actual polearm" scythe is just a regular scythe with the blade rotated 90 degrees.

No, I wasn't thinking of using a scythe like a tonfa (though that is an actual wooden weapon - typically used with armguards, I believe.). I mostly think of it as described in Terry Pratchett's Mort:
"Once its owner gets it weaving and spinning no one - including the weilder - is quite certain where the blade is now and where it will be next."

Swing across-down to attack, swing around-up at the end of the first swing. and back across-up again for the iteratives, big infinity-loop swirl in front of you. Circles, arcs, turn behind if you're fighting while flanked. I don't know if it's the most realistic but it's dramatic and impressive and lethal-looking.

It's a weapon that has a low crit rate, high damage, high crit multiplier, and it's piercing. The blade's at the end, and it widens toward the base. You swing it, and if you hit right with the point, it'll drive in with a lot of speed and widen its own cut the deeper it goes.

And on that last note you made: Yeah. So not really the typical image - it looks more or less like other long-blade polearms.

[icks]

Snowflake Wardance adds your charisma mod to any attack rolls with a slashing melee weapon held in one hand. Isn't a scythe two-handed?

Indeed, my fault, but a sickle is a slashing 1 hand weapon.
Or larger character can use it with one-hand?

[Crake]

Ah good, seems like you're willing to kill PCs with this. I deleted my usual complaint.

The only issue remaining is that there is a lot of luck involved. Meaning he could never crit and fall flat, looking like a minor foe. But as long as the PC's know the potential for death, fear can still be there without actual death. Option 1 for paralysis is one method. Whether or not the coup de grace happens seeing paralysis next to a scythe wielder is itself scary to any veteran.

Surge of fortune throws luck out the window, at least for 1 attack.

[Pickford]

Basically, I want him to be a PC killer. If someone in the group wants to play a new character for some reason, or has to quit, or maybe is just a jerkass, THIS will be the guy to kill them and hopefully slip out again alive. Of course he'll still be kill able, and I'd congratulate a party for doing so. I'm thinking of making him 12th-15th level. But I don't really know quite what to do with the build. Some options I'm considering are.

1. Some kind of Ruby Knight Vindicator build with divine metamagic (quicken). It would make use of quickened paralyze inducing spells and the Death Blow (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-adventurer--54/death-blow--533/) feat for a possible turn 1 coup de grace. What are some nice spells/powers/other stuff to paralyze characters or otherwise make them helpless so you can coup de grace them?

2. Expanding the crit range and getting a bunch of luck feats, including Better Lucky Than Good (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-scoundrel--60/better-lucky-than-good--205/) and Fortuitous Strike (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-scoundrel--60/fortuitous-strike--1188/). How should I go about increasing the threat range of the Scythe as much as possible? . This could maybe be a Disciple of Dispater build? He'd likely depend a lot more on items for escape.

3. Maybe make a trip build? It is a Scythe after all. Are there any feats besides combat expertise (prereq), improved trip, and knockdown that I should look at as the "tripping" part of a tripper build?.


Any items to allow critical hits against normally critical immune things (once or twice is good enough) would be helpful to know too for if everyone already has crit immunity by the time I even get the opportunity to throw this guy in.

So...are we allowed shenanigans in terms of the weapon? (i.e. Could we make it vorpal 'and' Keen (a +7 weapon requirement, presumably !) perhaps have him/her dress like the grim reaper.

Give it a great move silently score, and you can beat the opposed check for a character to hear something while asleep (when they are helpless) and coup them.

[Infundibular]

Sorry about the misleading information about AoOs and trip attacks, you can't trip someone who is standing up from prone. However, you can get the Sand Snare (http://dndtools.eu/feats/sandstorm--85/sand-snare--2511/) feat from Sandstorm, making standing up a full round action, letting you prepare actions to "trip the first person to stand up". Alternatively, you can use Curling Wave Strike (http://dndtools.eu/feats/stormwrack--87/curling-wave-strike--498/) to get free trip attacks on people who have gotten up when other people provoke AoOs.

[hisnamehere]

What about that Specialist Wizard feat that grants...what was it...Abrupt Jaunt? The one that lets you dimension door your Int mod times per day. That way, you could be like the Final Fantasy 'Death' spells/summons where you appear before the target, swipe down your massive scythe, and disappear. Spooooookyyyy!

[SoraWolf7]

I just saw the most creepy thing I can imagine on a long-scythe user. "It's Harvest time..." He must say that before he cuts a head off.

[Platymus Pus]

Could always go anti-paladin.
Those are always scary to a group of heroes.

[ericgrau]

Smite also x4 multiplies well.