Group back together after a few years, party has some gaps

[Tindragon]

So after a few years hiatus, about 7, our group restarted recently, well by recently, I mean about a year ago. I have (re)taken the mantle of DM. Of the 6 of us, only 2 are DM capable for any number of reasons. We only play 1x a month, so slow going in the progression of things.

We are in a home brew world I have had for a while, a mod of an older one, that I revamped for 3.0, and rolled right to 3.5. Broad spectrum available races, classes, etc... (atm we are after the elven extinction, so no elves, in this area of the world for the time being, there is a long running back story to this) The big Green papa dragon has a thing against elves from his MUCH younger days when he was a dragon IN the Imperial Dragon rider core (now gone) and blamed elves for the fall of his rider and lover. He went mildly nuts (to put it mildly :smallbiggrin:, started killing other dragons, started a small kingdom of his own, waging war on elves for the last 2500 year or so. Finally killed off most of them with some serious epic magical disease that he spread through infecting other races, but only elves are stricken, and eventually, die from it. The elves that lived have removed themselves to a far away land they hold, and are working on a cure, and trying to not go extinct. Players and pretty much all the world think they are gone.

So, I have some questions about how to motivate some of them into more PrC style builds, oh, btw, D&D 3.5. We have all the books we need, and then some, so no reason to go to a newer version.

I allowed some +ECL character types, and started at level 5. We are all old school, back to AD&D, so we roll stats, I would like to break down the party, and ask for tips to pass along to them on how to further build and efficiently use their characters.

Party makeup:(all are currently level 7-9 including LA)

Human half celestial Bard (played by the other DM, very heavy ROLE player, not so much into twinking/minmaxn) Party spokesman and arss saver. Recently the party got intro'd to and were aided by the Imperial arch Wizard, due to awesome RolE play, the Wiz offered this character an open invite to THE imperial wiz school, so that door is open to him for multi/PrCn.

Human Cleric (St Cuthbert) She is new to cleric, but catching on quick, very low (I think 7) dex other than that good cleric, she did take improved initiative at Lev 1. Wasn't my 1st choice either. She plays cleric of St C well though. Always laying down the retribution when she can.

Human Monk, now with the half iron golem template (he died, was raised, they had to replace most of his right sides, arm to hip, including some torso. WF Grafter/artificer NPC took care of that, they were on a side quest for him at the time) Still Lawful Neutral, made his save to not go insane and NE align.
(this player has shown interest in the Tattooed Monk PrC, he is not great with casters, but didn't want to play a barb/ftr either, so went monk using the Spring attack tree. His half golem template has him slowed down though.)

Halfling Half Green dragon Paladin (this player is always begging for half dragon characters, I told him for this campaign, only way I would let it fly, was as a halfling pally, he actually took it.) He tends to play big dumb tanks, and doesn't rolE play much at all. I am pointing him toward the Ordained Champion PrC, and then maybe the Shining Blade of Herioneous. After doing some lurking round her last couple days, I have taken not that the Shining Blade isn't all that, however, straight pally isn't great past 6th either. I think he has mounted combat feats going atm. However, his character play is lukewarm at best, and he is riding the line of fallen paladin. In his order, with his parentage, this is a death sentence (again, campaign back story, his dragon papa is one of only 2 dragons in the known world for about 3K years now) {a red and a green, both are Epic, paragon, near demi god status} I don't stay rigid with alignments, just say without giving them away, they aren't good by any means, but the green has issues that keep him holding his own kingdom buffering the Imperium from the Red, and he likes to have half dragon progeny 1-2 times a century. His last true dragon heir was slain by the party (diff characters) about 1500 years back. They thought they had killed Papa green too, lol. They know better now.

Human Ranger, archery tree. Looking into a couple of archery PrCs, I think he can find his own fairly well.

We may have a newbie player coworker of the Pally join us, being a newbie, I will likely have him start Ftr or Barb to learn the system.

So we are caster light in the arcane dept. Most of the party is self sufficient in healing though. The Bard and cleric are learning how to buff the party.

As far as availability of magic, there aren't a bunch of magic shops, but there is the possibility of commissioning NPCs to craft things they would want. Given time and $ of course. I am fairly open to allowing Core and 3.5 expansion book PrCs. I don't necessarily find too much overpowering (I'd allow a DMM Persistent cleric build in my campaign if that tells you anything, although this party cleric, not built for it at all at this point).

So again, the question is, with this party makeup, and world of hurt coming their way if they keep up their course (they like to put themselves in the WORST situations, and then guide them down an even more painful course) what type of PrC could you all find yourselves trying to use to mesh the party and fill the gaps if you had a chance to guide their course? :smallwink:

[Kesnit]

Maybe I am missing something here, but... Why? Are the players complaining?

If not, why mess with them? You're the DM. Part of your job is to tailor the campaign to the players. If none of them want to play arcane casters, why do you want to force someone into that role?

What do you mean by "world of hurt coming their way if they keep up their course"?

[Tindragon]

Maybe I am missing something here, but... Why? Are the players complaining?


Nope. They are enjoying the campaign, or continuation or it.



If not, why mess with them?


I am not "messing with them" I am trying to find options outside of standard for them, to develop, that we aren't going to need to experiment with in game, and potential create a 404 error in a character.


You're the DM. Part of your job is to tailor the campaign to the players.

HUGE NEGATIVE there, we will agree to disagree on that one. In 3 decades, the best times playing are when the DM has a great story set up, that CAN involve the players, and allows for interaction in the story and is even mutable by them, but is NOT written FOR the characters. Every time as a player and DM I've been in the 'for the player' mode of story, it gets cruddy and has at times set players against each other and gone REAL south fast.

That is another thread however.


If none of them want to play arcane casters, why do you want to force someone into that role?


I don't, am not. I mentioned that from great role play, that opportunity is there for one of them specifically. If I wanted to pigeon whole someone, I'd have had one of them make an arcane. They can get along without it. Honestly, they've been through a couple campaigns without, this is nothing new.



What do you mean by "world of hurt coming their way if they keep up their course"?

The story arc is advancing, there is a paradigm change coming, they are at the edge of it, heading into it. I want them to be as optimized as they can be, to have the most fun being able to survive and affect it, as they are choosing to try!

I guess I was unclear, after nearly 7 years off, we're all a bit rusty, and the interweb is a great, but large, place to find builds and good use of PrC options. The players have expressed interest in PrCs and possible multi classes. We got the story part, the role play taken care of, that's easy for us. I figured some of the more current active folks around here, could point me to some things to put in front of them. Just trolling around I have found some options for the Pally, but the rest are a bit sketchy to me, especially the bard and cleric builds. I don't want to get them going in a direction, that is gonna end in a 404 for a character. That is no fun.

[Telonius]

Okay, biggest hole I see there is arcane casting. You do have a Bard; Sublime Chord would be my gut reaction.

You also seem to lack anything with Trapfinding. This is not a problem if you're not planning on having any traps; but if you are, you might want to address it, or encourage somebody to take a level in Rogue or Artificer or something.

Monk ... just to warn you, there will be tons of comments about how awful Monk is, etc. etc. I believe they're correct, but if your player is having fun, don't worry about it. I'd suggest having him PrC into something that gives full base attack bonus, but if Tattooed is what he wants, go for it. You might also want to look into the rules for Level Adjustment Buyoff (if you haven't already); that could bring him up to speed more quickly.

[Metahuman1]

Some thoughts:

For the Paladin and the Bard: Half Celestial and Half Dragon, in 3.5, are considered to generally be over priced on there LA. I'd look at Shaving an LA or Two off both templates as a house rule, that gives them a couple more levels to play with.

For the Bard: I'd seriously look at Sublime Cord for him. Unless someone can point you to another PrC that sups up the bards casting and doesn't tank music.

For the Monk: Ok, Monk, has balance issues. In fact, if you've not been making him take a -4 none proficiency penalty, you've already been doing a house rule to help him. (Seriously, this isn't a joke, monk class says it is specifically only proficient with the weapons on it's list, and does not list unarmed strikes, so Monks aren't proficient with them. ). If you want to keep him up and running, start by showing him the Level Adjustment Buyoff rules variant in Unearthed Arcana. Then, steer him toward one of the following.

Enlightened Fist: Complete Arcane. He can take a level in an arcane casting class and then advance both his magic and his monk powers while getting some special tricks for that combo that vary in usefulness. For a feat, he can also make his monk stuff run off Int or Cha, same stat he casts off of. For another, he can do the same with his Will Save, thus letting him dump Wis. If he does this, you might wanna let him reassign his mental scores.

Sacred Fist: It's the same as Enlightened Fist, but for Divine Casters. The biggest bonus here is most divine casters are Wis Based, and thus he doesn't get feat taxed or have to worry about tweaking his stats.

Psi-warrior: This one's a base class found in the SRD and the Expanded Psionics Handbook. If you take levels in it, you can also take a 2 feat chain, Monistic Training and Tashlorana (I probably spelled that second one wrong.), and the monk ability's will progress on Psi-warrior levels as though Psi-warrior levels were monk levels. This is one of the two most popular replacements for the Monk in the game.

Swordsage: This is the other of the two popular replacements. The class comes form Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords, and it's class entry has an unarmed variant. It get's a sub system called martial maneuvers, and it counts half your none swordsage levels as swordsage levels for your ability to use them, so it starts loads more useful then expected right off the bat. Some maneuvers require skill checks though, so, you might want to let him retrain skill ranks if he goes this way.

Ranger: Let him stumble across this in his treasure. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20061227a

Give him a couple of magic locations that give him Power Attack and True Believer as bonus feats. Do this as an end of quest reward.

Give him a bunch of Raptor Arrows with the Returning property already on them. You'll find them in the MiC.

That and letting him add enchantments to his bow and new arrows as he advances, along with pointing out good property's (distance, Exit Wound, ext. Come of the playground when you need help on what's good for the arrows and good for the Bow.) should be enough to make sure he doesn't drag too far behind. I know that sounds like a lot to do for one character when your only doing one thing of a list of suggestions for the others, but archers REALLY need the help.

Paladin: Once more, you want to look at tome of battle. There is a class in there called the Crusader and it's darn near fool proof. Grab something that looks cool, odds are it is cool. Though, he might not wanna focus too too much on Stone Dragon school for his known maneuvers. Other then that, consider giving him a really cool mount so that he's not stuck having to take more Paladin levels to advance his mount. Medium mounts and small riders with a lance, power attack and spirited charge are awesome.

New player: I know Barbarian and Fighter look good for new players. Don't. Either class makes one mistake, grabs the wrong feat or AFC, it's sunk and the character doesn't work. You want a class that either has a much higher optimization floor so that it's as close to fool proof as can be, or one where if you mess up you can change tactics the next day. I like Druid, Wizard, or Artificer here, made a mistake, just don't get anyone killed and tomorrow wild shape to/summon different animals and prepare different spells and infusions and make different gear. Just be advised these classes are very powerful if you take the right options. Your player being new, they probably won't find the best stuff for awhile, but it can happen, so, be ready to adapt with out cheating them of the win.


Lastly: Spell Compendium access for the Paladin, Ranger and Bard, and Magic Item Compendium access for everyone, if at all possible, is a good thing.

[Tindragon]

Thanks all,

couple things, the Half golem, I did not penalize him with the LA do to the need to make him whole again, and that was the only viable option at the time. He also came across a Kama +1, Wounding (really, I allow that, it's not so powerful in the wrong hands) My players aren't uber min/maxers or munchkin/tweekers, so most the time, they don't know what they have.

And when the hell did unarmed strike become NON prof for monks? Seriously?

Unarmed Strike
At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes.

right off the SRD and in the Players HB.

The ranger bow from the cartoon, is already a goal for the Ranger, he is looking to get one crafted ASAP. But, I gotta make em work for it.


I think he looking at the Deep Wood Sniper for PrC.

Thanks for the bard and pally tips! I shall pass them along!

[Metahuman1]

Well, here's the thing. Go to the same monk entry in the players handbook and the SRD. In the monk's proficiency's section, it specifically states that monks are only proficient with the weapons it lists, and unarmed strike, which is a weapon cause it has a weapons entry in the players handbook/SRD simple weapons table, is not listed in the monks proficiency list.

Thus, even though they get all kinds of unarmed related class features, they still can't use them per rules as written with out spending an extra feat first to get proficiency: Unarmed strikes. It's stupid, it was not intended, it fly's in the face of intuitiveness, but it's rules as written.



This is a thing you'll learn given time. Rules as Written do lots of really dumb stuff. And BTW, some rules are so bad it's almost universal to just alter/disregard them. This rule I'm mentioning is one of them.

Not penalizing him with LA is also reasonable.

As for the other monk suggestions, the list was just to give you different options. I promise steering him in those directions should help give him more options and make him better at the things he wants to be good at and you want him to be good at, but none of them should be over powering.


For the ranger:

Just don't forget to get him Power Attack and some nice to hit boosters along the way to the bow so that he can actually get good use out of PA. Do this and he should be ok. Though, just a thought, maybe look up the mystic ranger variant for him, between that and spell compendium access that should give him a few extra fun tricks to play with.


Your welcome on the bard and pally advice. =)

[Tindragon]

This is a thing you'll learn given time. Rules as Written do lots of really dumb stuff.

I think after 30 years, I got that part figured, I was there for the release of Skills and Powers (aka 2.5), before that, I saw the 1st generation of "broken" and "unbalanced" It was the original Unearthed Arcana Really, Barbarians were THE beast.

But yeah, I got that either way, and monks have enough short falls at low/mid range without giving them a -4 to hit with their prime attack mode.:smallwink: