mistformsquirrl
2013-12-18, 12:18 PM
Once again here I am, asking for help - and this time, I'm fairly certain there's just no way to pull this off, at least anyway close to what I'm envisioning. I'm asking on the off chance I'm wrong, but... I'm not holding out a great deal of hope.
Here's what I'm trying to do:
I want an elven paladin riding a wolf dual wielding, preferably a longsword and a shortsword.
This is a character I built way back in 3.0e, I really enjoyed her then, but unfortunately, she died. (You can probably already guess why.)
So, feeling nostalgic I decided to try playing her again... and I've run into a brick wall; one that I simply did not recognize as being there when I first built her way back when.
The problem:
This set up is utter MADness. You need str, dex, con, wis and cha by default. That's even worse than a Monk, and Monk's are notoriously bad about this kind of thing.
Worse still, the campaign I'm wanting to do this for is 15 point buy and starts at level 1. Starting at level 1 I can of course deal with, it just means I won't be dual wielding right away; but 15 point buy is trickier.
Now, I had a good long think about this and was able to reduce the MADness a bit; but it's still... difficult. In fact I still don't think it really works at all; before one even considers serious optimization of any sort.
Strength - I can drop this to a degree by using Weapon Finesse and (when gold allows) get some Agile weapons down the line. Obviously this means giving up the Longsword for something else - I'll live with that even though I don't like it; there's enough issues with this character that I'm going to have to sacrifice something to even try to make it work.
The problem of course is... you need Strength to carry your gear; and one thing I've learned over my years playing D&D, it's that gear is pretty darn heavy unless you're a wizard or monk. Even then it can weigh quite a bit.
There is a magic belt that might work to alleviate that problem; but there's no guarantee I'll ever get it, or if I do, that it won't just get destroyed or stolen or something.
Still, this is probably the second easiest problem to solve.
Dexterity - Need at least 15 to make it work. I know there's a magical glove that allows you to dual wield without the feat, but I hate the idea of relying on something like that for a central aspect of my character. (Besides, there's always the probability I simply won't ever get that item either by luck or purchase.)
If I go Finesse and Agile weapons, then this really needs to be as high as it can go anyway.
On the upside, as an elf there's +2 Dex, so I don't have to push this particularly hard to meet my minimum. So that's good.
Constitution - It's going to be low, there's just no two ways about it. I'm an elf, so -2 to start with, and I don't have a ton of points to throw at it to begin with, so it'll be no higher than 12, tops. Probably a 10. Don't like being that fragile, but I don't see an alternative.
Intelligence - Dump stat; but I can't stand playing 'stupid' characters, so I'm going with a 10 in it. That's easy enough since I've got a +2 to Int from being an Elf.
Wisdom - Dump stat thanks to Warrior of the Holy Light archetype. It's not so much that it's a great archetype; but it gets rid of Wisdom as an important stat for me, and that's gold.
Charisma - Another big big stat, probably even more important than Dex for this build since it powers so many Paladin abilities.
So this leaves me with something like -
Str - 12
Dex -16
Con - 12
Int - 10
Wis - 10
Cha - 15
At level 1 I figure I take Weapon Finesse right off the bat and wield a short sword and shield until 3rd level when I can take TWF.
So at 3rd level I'm basically where I wanted to start at; and I feel like I'm going to be behind the curve most of the rest of the way too, in part due to TWF's inadequacies and in part due to my choice of class not meshing especially well with it either.
----
Still, I feel like even with all that, this isn't going to work.
I don't suppose anyone has another way to make this work? Right now I don't feel like it's even worth submitting, which stinks because I really like the character.
Here's what I'm trying to do:
I want an elven paladin riding a wolf dual wielding, preferably a longsword and a shortsword.
This is a character I built way back in 3.0e, I really enjoyed her then, but unfortunately, she died. (You can probably already guess why.)
So, feeling nostalgic I decided to try playing her again... and I've run into a brick wall; one that I simply did not recognize as being there when I first built her way back when.
The problem:
This set up is utter MADness. You need str, dex, con, wis and cha by default. That's even worse than a Monk, and Monk's are notoriously bad about this kind of thing.
Worse still, the campaign I'm wanting to do this for is 15 point buy and starts at level 1. Starting at level 1 I can of course deal with, it just means I won't be dual wielding right away; but 15 point buy is trickier.
Now, I had a good long think about this and was able to reduce the MADness a bit; but it's still... difficult. In fact I still don't think it really works at all; before one even considers serious optimization of any sort.
Strength - I can drop this to a degree by using Weapon Finesse and (when gold allows) get some Agile weapons down the line. Obviously this means giving up the Longsword for something else - I'll live with that even though I don't like it; there's enough issues with this character that I'm going to have to sacrifice something to even try to make it work.
The problem of course is... you need Strength to carry your gear; and one thing I've learned over my years playing D&D, it's that gear is pretty darn heavy unless you're a wizard or monk. Even then it can weigh quite a bit.
There is a magic belt that might work to alleviate that problem; but there's no guarantee I'll ever get it, or if I do, that it won't just get destroyed or stolen or something.
Still, this is probably the second easiest problem to solve.
Dexterity - Need at least 15 to make it work. I know there's a magical glove that allows you to dual wield without the feat, but I hate the idea of relying on something like that for a central aspect of my character. (Besides, there's always the probability I simply won't ever get that item either by luck or purchase.)
If I go Finesse and Agile weapons, then this really needs to be as high as it can go anyway.
On the upside, as an elf there's +2 Dex, so I don't have to push this particularly hard to meet my minimum. So that's good.
Constitution - It's going to be low, there's just no two ways about it. I'm an elf, so -2 to start with, and I don't have a ton of points to throw at it to begin with, so it'll be no higher than 12, tops. Probably a 10. Don't like being that fragile, but I don't see an alternative.
Intelligence - Dump stat; but I can't stand playing 'stupid' characters, so I'm going with a 10 in it. That's easy enough since I've got a +2 to Int from being an Elf.
Wisdom - Dump stat thanks to Warrior of the Holy Light archetype. It's not so much that it's a great archetype; but it gets rid of Wisdom as an important stat for me, and that's gold.
Charisma - Another big big stat, probably even more important than Dex for this build since it powers so many Paladin abilities.
So this leaves me with something like -
Str - 12
Dex -16
Con - 12
Int - 10
Wis - 10
Cha - 15
At level 1 I figure I take Weapon Finesse right off the bat and wield a short sword and shield until 3rd level when I can take TWF.
So at 3rd level I'm basically where I wanted to start at; and I feel like I'm going to be behind the curve most of the rest of the way too, in part due to TWF's inadequacies and in part due to my choice of class not meshing especially well with it either.
----
Still, I feel like even with all that, this isn't going to work.
I don't suppose anyone has another way to make this work? Right now I don't feel like it's even worth submitting, which stinks because I really like the character.