Unconventional Melee characters? (Touch Attacks, etc.

[sarrsharo]

Up until last night, I was playing as a level 12 Binder in my current campaign. I simply adore the versatility of this class, but I was mainly interested in the unorthodox methods of melee attacks it provided.
As soon as I was able, I was binding Otiax around every corner, giving me ranged melee touch attacks, which I coupled with Neraph's Charge to deny the opponent both their Dex and AC bonus and deal Sneak Attack damage (Courtesy of the vestige Malphas) with every attack.

Sadly, my character was eaten by a hydra.

I've spent a few hours today searching through WoTC base classes and prestige classes to try and recreate the thrill of a melee character that doesn't actually have a melee weapon.

Does anyone have any ideas? My DM is allowing me to create a new character at level 13 to fit in with the rest of the campaign right now, and prestige classes are kosher as well. We've already got most every major point a good team needs, so I don't need to fill any specific roles.
Also, we already have a dedicated spellcaster, so I'd like to avoid that if possible.
I just can't seem to find any classes that are melee oriented, but don't use conventional melee weapons to deal damage.

[Donox]

Personally I have always liked the idea of a gish using weapon spells.

An example of this is the spell Blade of Pain and Fear (http://dndtools.eu/spells/libris-mortis-the-book-of-the-dead--71/blade-of-pain-and-fear--1465/). You then load that spell with metamagic and go to town. Use your favorite cost reducers (arcane thesis or Divine Metamagic) to run around with a fell drained, fell frightened, and fell animated Blade of Pain and Fear (persisted if you are a cleric or are willing to use shenanigans to do it with arcane casters).

You could use a Sorcadin chassis or your basic DMM cleric to pull that off.

Alternately you could approach it from a slightly more exotic fashion. Blade of Pain and Fear is also on the Blackguard and Assassin spelllists. The former can use DMM (and offers a semi-compelling argument to put BoPaF onto the Paladin of Slaughter spelllist) and offers further charisma based fear shenanigans.

Regardless you want power attack to make use of the sweet sweet touch attack that the spell offers.

Or...you know...you could figure out a way to persist Blood Wind and go to town.

[Kane0]

There are also the Clawlock and Glaivelock, as well as the Natural Weapon Totemist and Soulknife.

[Zombulian]

Bloodstorm Blade? I'm not a huge fan of ToB, but ranged melee attacks that you can power attack as they ricochet off your opponents and back into your hands is pretty dang cool.

[danzibr]

I know it's not... melee, like at all, but it sounds like you might (?) like a master thrower.

I agree with Kane0 on the Totemist.

[J-H]

If Psionics is allowed, the Pyrokineticist has a 15' ranged touch weapon. You can use it in 2 hands to get Power Attack damage, and you get iterative attacks. Problems:
-No threatened area.
-Sub-par BAB
-Fire damage. There are other versions of the same class for acid, cold, and sonic damage, which are essentially identical.
-Can't enhance the whip. On the other hand, more money for other things!

Probably best to enter through Psychic Warrior or Wilder for higher BAB. It does not progress manifesting.

[Madwand99]

A Tibbit Swordsage, optionally mixed with other classes, is a pretty awesome and unique meleer. Take Shadow Blade feat for Dex to damage while in cat form, optionally take levels of Psion for the Hammer power to really kick up the damage. Use maneuvers like Burning Blade to be a touch-attacking kitty-on-fire. You'll be doing lots of damage through all levels.

[sarrsharo]

Apologies for the gross overuse of quotes in this wall of text.. xD
I was so flattered by the amount of responses that I didn't want to be rude and miss replying to all of you.



Personally I have always liked the idea of a gish using weapon spells.

An example of this is the spell Blade of Pain and Fear (http://dndtools.eu/spells/libris-mortis-the-book-of-the-dead--71/blade-of-pain-and-fear--1465/). You then load that spell with metamagic and go to town. Use your favorite cost reducers (arcane thesis or Divine Metamagic) to run around with a fell drained, fell frightened, and fell animated Blade of Pain and Fear (persisted if you are a cleric or are willing to use shenanigans to do it with arcane casters).

You could use a Sorcadin chassis or your basic DMM cleric to pull that off.

Alternately you could approach it from a slightly more exotic fashion. Blade of Pain and Fear is also on the Blackguard and Assassin spelllists. The former can use DMM (and offers a semi-compelling argument to put BoPaF onto the Paladin of Slaughter spelllist) and offers further charisma based fear shenanigans.

Regardless you want power attack to make use of the sweet sweet touch attack that the spell offers.

Or...you know...you could figure out a way to persist Blood Wind and go to town.

Hmm. Blade of Pain and Fear is quite interesting. Though I have to admit I'm a little hesitant to try it out. I've never played any sort of spellcaster before. I've mainly stuck with straight PHB base classes because of my DMs. The furthest I've struck out was as a ToM Binder, and as you know, I just died. I'd have to learn a lot to make use of that.


There are also the Clawlock and Glaivelock, as well as the Natural Weapon Totemist and Soulknife.
Already looked into the Totemist a tad.
So Clawlock and Glaivelock are based off of the Eldritch Blast ability somehow?


Bloodstorm Blade? I'm not a huge fan of ToB, but ranged melee attacks that you can power attack as they ricochet off your opponents and back into your hands is pretty dang cool.
That is quite cool, actually! xD I'll talk to my DM and see what can happen concerning that.


I know it's not... melee, like at all, but it sounds like you might (?) like a master thrower.

I agree with Kane0 on the Totemist.
I've really got to look more into Totemist, don't I?
I was really liking the way Incarnates sounded, especially the lightnight gauntlets Soulmeld.


If Psionics is allowed, the Pyrokineticist has a 15' ranged touch weapon. You can use it in 2 hands to get Power Attack damage, and you get iterative attacks. Problems:
-No threatened area.
-Sub-par BAB
-Fire damage. There are other versions of the same class for acid, cold, and sonic damage, which are essentially identical.
-Can't enhance the whip. On the other hand, more money for other things!

Probably best to enter through Psychic Warrior or Wilder for higher BAB. It does not progress manifesting.
I was actually looking into Pyrokineticist earlier. I somehow missed the differentiated versions, though. I'll have to look back at that.
So Psychic Warrior can help with BAB, right?


A Tibbit Swordsage, optionally mixed with other classes, is a pretty awesome and unique meleer. Take Shadow Blade feat for Dex to damage while in cat form, optionally take levels of Psion for the Hammer power to really kick up the damage. Use maneuvers like Burning Blade to be a touch-attacking kitty-on-fire. You'll be doing lots of damage through all levels.
Ou. Now this I have to look at!

[J-H]

Psywar & Wilder both have 3/4 BAB, vs 1/2 for Psion. I believe the other elements are mostly in Mind's Eye web supplements.

You could also take the Searing Spell feat (or cold equivalent for a Cryokineticist) so that you can still do half damage against fire-resistant creatures. It may require a bit of DM leniency, but only as far as conflating SLAs/spells/psychic powers go. You could also try talking your DM into letting you enter through Soulknife and applying Soulknife powers to your whip for a bit more damage, plus letting you use Psychic Strike (first attack of the battle, at least) and benefiting from the free Weapon Focus.

[Zombulian]

Apologies for the gross overuse of quotes in this wall of text.. xD
I was so flattered by the amount of responses that I didn't want to be rude and miss replying to all of you.




Hmm. Blade of Pain and Fear is quite interesting. Though I have to admit I'm a little hesitant to try it out. I've never played any sort of spellcaster before. I've mainly stuck with straight PHB base classes because of my DMs. The furthest I've struck out was as a ToM Binder, and as you know, I just died. I'd have to learn a lot to make use of that.


Already looked into the Totemist a tad.
So Clawlock and Glaivelock are based off of the Eldritch Blast ability somehow?


That is quite cool, actually! xD I'll talk to my DM and see what can happen concerning that.


I've really got to look more into Totemist, don't I?
I was really liking the way Incarnates sounded, especially the lightnight gauntlets Soulmeld.


I was actually looking into Pyrokineticist earlier. I somehow missed the differentiated versions, though. I'll have to look back at that.
So Psychic Warrior can help with BAB, right?


Ou. Now this I have to look at!

Eldritch Glaive/Eldritch Claws do the same amount of damage as your eldritch blast, but on melee attacks with iteratives. The alternate Pyrokineticists aren't in the book but they were brought up online on the WoTC site. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625e)

[Kane0]

Already looked into the Totemist a tad.
So Clawlock and Glaivelock are based off of the Eldritch Blast ability somehow?


Incarnum as a whole is very flexible, you're sure to find something in there you like.

The Clawlock and Glaivelock are Warlock variants, yes. Clawlocks use the Dragon Magazine feat Eldritch Claw in order to get a pair of melee attacks that add eldritch blast damage when you hit. Glaivelocks use the Eldritch Glaive blast shape to get a full attack with EB as if it were a reach weapon. Both target touch AC so they hit often and neither sacrifices much in the way of standard blasting or use of other warlock invocations to work.
Other benefits include great UMD use, nice supporting invocations (if you've never played a full caster this is an excellent place to start) and any array of ability scores can work so long as your CON is decent.
Though if you go into hellfire warlock (99.95% of warlocks do) you will want to dip at least 1 level back into Binder to bind Naberius.

[sarrsharo]

Incarnum as a whole is very flexible, you're sure to find something in there you like.

The Clawlock and Glaivelock are Warlock variants, yes. Clawlocks use the Dragon Magazine feat Eldritch Claw in order to get a pair of melee attacks that add eldritch blast damage when you hit. Glaivelocks use the Eldritch Glaive blast shape to get a full attack with EB as if it were a reach weapon. Both target touch AC so they hit often and neither sacrifices much in the way of standard blasting or use of other warlock invocations to work.
Other benefits include great UMD use, nice supporting invocations (if you've never played a full caster this is an excellent place to start) and any array of ability scores can work so long as your CON is decent.
Though if you go into hellfire warlock (99.95% of warlocks do) you will want to dip at least 1 level back into Binder to bind Naberius.

I've got to say, I'm liking this idea the most out of all. I've never considered Warlock before, but after actually reading about it, I can see myself playing one.
So Invocations are just spell like abilities that change the way your EB behaves. Simple as that? I don't see the Glaive blast shape in Complete Arcane, but from what I've gathered, it just changes your EB shape, adds 10ft. range and allows a full attack, correct?
So you just take one to two levels of Warlock so you can create your EB weapon, and take the rest in other melee classes?

[Zombulian]

I've got to say, I'm liking this idea the most out of all. I've never considered Warlock before, but after actually reading about it, I can see myself playing one.
So Invocations are just spell like abilities that change the way your EB behaves. Simple as that? I don't see the Glaive blast shape in Complete Arcane, but from what I've gathered, it just changes your EB shape, adds 10ft. range and allows a full attack, correct?
So you just take one to two levels of Warlock so you can create your EB weapon, and take the rest in other melee classes?

Nah there are tons of Invocations for lots of different things, not just EB. Though none of them do all that much, since you can use them an infinite amount every day.

You want to put a good amount of Warlock in even after you get the glaive so you can keep putting out decent damage, as that progresses with Warlock level, and I'm pretty sure that you can't add your strength to the damage or anything. Though I may be wrong.

[sarrsharo]

Nah there are tons of Invocations for lots of different things, not just EB. Though none of them do all that much, since you can use them an infinite amount every day.

You want to put a good amount of Warlock in even after you get the glaive so you can keep putting out decent damage, as that progresses with Warlock level, and I'm pretty sure that you can't add your strength to the damage or anything. Though I may be wrong.
Still seems like a rather neat way of attacking, though. I'm quite interested in it.
The mere d6 HD is a little worrisome, though. Seems like an odd class.
The BAB for a pure Warlock looks a little sad when keeping in mind that ranged attacks have to be made to hit, albeit ranged /touch/.
Am I right in assuming that once a pure Warlock BAB allows two attacks, an Eldrich Blast can be used for both attacks?

[Urpriest]

Since it looks like nobody's linked this yet, here's a guide to melee warlocks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159708).

[Kane0]

I've got to say, I'm liking this idea the most out of all. I've never considered Warlock before, but after actually reading about it, I can see myself playing one.
So Invocations are just spell like abilities that change the way your EB behaves. Simple as that? I don't see the Glaive blast shape in Complete Arcane, but from what I've gathered, it just changes your EB shape, adds 10ft. range and allows a full attack, correct?
So you just take one to two levels of Warlock so you can create your EB weapon, and take the rest in other melee classes?

Invocations are Warlocks SLAs that are usable at will. Some change how his Eldritch Blast works, some are standalone. Among them he gets some good 24 hour buffs (flight, invisibilitiy, shot range teleports, etc) as well as some battlefield control and debuffs if you have the Charisma to boost the DCs.
Eldritch Glaive is a full round action that allows you to use your Eldritch Blast as a melee touch attack with reach that grants iteratives but does not add strength to damage. The higher your warlock level the more each hit does.
The downside is that you are slightly squishy. You get light armor, d6 HP/level and some small DR and Fast healing so you shouldnt be in the front line, more of a support melee like a rogue would be.

This handbook will explain better than me. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159708)

Edit: Swordsaged

[Urpriest]

Am I right in assuming that once a pure Warlock BAB allows two attacks, an Eldrich Blast can be used for both attacks?

Eldritch Blast, no. It takes a Standard Action to use.

That's where things like Eldtritch Glaive and Eldritch Claw come in.

[sarrsharo]

Oh my dear gorram gods.. How in the world is Hellfire Warlock allowed to exist?!
I never thought Naberius's ability would be that useful when playing a straight Binder.
What is this sorcery?

[lsfreak]

Am I right in assuming that once a pure Warlock BAB allows two attacks, an Eldrich Blast can be used for both attacks?

Not normally. Eldritch Glaive (Dragon Magic) allows you to make all your iteratives as a full-round action, though it's not quite as good as a real full attack (it's *always* a full-round action, no movement + glaiving or charge + glaiving, can't use with pounce, doesn't actually get bonus attacks via haste or similar, but you do threaten and can make AoOs - though personally, I'd houserule those limitations away). I don't use Dragon Magazine, so I don't know about how clawlocks work.

One thing you could potentially do is a lot of refluffing of something else, but the crunch won't be supporting it very well (power attack and the like).

You might be able to do something with a DMM:Persist cleric using the cloud of knives spell. But again, it's a spell, not something that benefits from power attack or sneak.

With the totemist route, something interesting you may look into - depending on what kinds of monsters you usually face and the levels/op-levels you usually play - would be playing a grappler with constrict and improved grab, allowing you to grapple multiple opponents and deal damage every time you win a grapple check (even not your turn, like if they're trying to escape). I'm pretty sure it can be done, though it's been years since I looked into it or how effective it actually is.

[Urpriest]

Not normally. Eldritch Glaive (Dragon Magic) allows you to make all your iteratives as a full-round action, though it's not quite as good as a real full attack (it's *always* a full-round action, no movement + glaiving or charge + glaiving, can't use with pounce, doesn't actually get bonus attacks via haste or similar, but you do threaten and can make AoOs - though personally, I'd houserule those limitations away). I don't use Dragon Magazine, so I don't know about how clawlocks work.

One thing you could potentially do is a lot of refluffing of something else, but the crunch won't be supporting it very well (power attack and the like).

You might be able to do something with a DMM:Persist cleric using the cloud of knives spell. But again, it's a spell, not something that benefits from power attack or sneak.


Most (weaponlike) spells can benefit from Sneak Attack, and it's reasonably clear that Eldritch Blast and the like function as weaponlike spells. The same is true for Power Attack, though since touch attacks are treated as light weapons getting any benefit out of it would require some amount of special pleading.

On the DMM Persist front, Ice Axe is a pretty nice spell for a melee cleric that fills this sort of role, with Thunderlance being the best arcane option. But both sound like an aside from what the OP is going for.

As for the claws, to give a bit of an explanation: there's a feat from Dragon Magazine that lets you make two claw attacks with damage equal to your Eldritch Blast. These being claw attacks, you can't make iteratives with them...but if you take the Beast Strike feat, from another Dragon Magazine, you can add your claw damage to your unarmed strike damage. So you end up making unarmed strikes, but adding your eldritch blast damage to them.

Hellfire Warlock may look really powerful, but for a normal warlock it's just bringing damage up to par. For a Glaive or Claw-lock, though, it can be quite powerful, yes.