E6, Level 1, and You (and also me)

[Gnome Alone]

Beloved Playgroundhogs:

Soon I'll be playing in an E6 campaign, starting at the ever-forbidding first level. Because I love me some wide-ranging topics, digression being as ever the soul of wit, my question is two-pronged. Feel free to answer one or both... or post borscht recipes, whatev.

a) What do you tend to go with, or have you gone with, successfully or otherwise, when actually starting out at Level 1, 0 xp, nary a 10-foot pole to your name? Does/would it being E6 change this?

b) I rolled embarassingly well, with the generous rolling method of 4d6 best 3, but rerolling all 1's. (If any clever mathamancers wanna tell me what that averages out to, I, like a heavily mutated elf, am all ears. If not, math hard! Gnome Alone no like! so no big deal.) But anyway I got 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18. I was thinking of going with a Desert Half-Orc Druid, as discussed here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?387577-One-Shot-Level-One-One-Druid-One-ish-Weapon). But if anyone has any thoughts as to what they would do in my same situation, I'd find it interesting. It is probably a largely core-only (core-ish? core-esque?) environment cuz that's what everyone's familiar with, though one of the other players is playing a Gray Elf Scout. Another is intending to roll up a Fighter, though he may go Druid if I don't, as he's had fun playing them. There is a fourth potential player who would be a total newcomer to D&D and TTRPGs and I have no idea what he'd play.

We tend to be fairly low-op. I don't wanna snarf up the spotlight (hence my increasing reluctance to Druid it up) and in that vein, suggestions geared towards being a support character are particularly welcome. I'm thinking the big contenders are Transmuter, Bard and Cleric, though I'm not sure how useful any of those are at Level 1 or in E6 in general. Any thinkful thoughts? Thanks.

[Flickerdart]

Being E6 doesn't really change level 1 building for me - it'll take you several months of playing to hit the level cap, by which point the campaign is quite likely to end, and your character also quite likely to die. At this level, Tome of Battle characters are very potent, Incarnum is quite good, and druids dominate thanks to their beefy expendable pet. Fighters will cry. Don't be fighters.

[Gnome Alone]

I dunno, a first level human fighter can pull off Improved Trip and Combat Reflexes right off the bat. That's gotta count for something. I probably wouldn't advance any further in fighter than that though. I mean, hypothetically. I'm not gonna be a fighter either way, in the specific game I'm playing in.

[Jeff the Green]

If any clever mathamancers wanna tell me what that averages out to, I, like a heavily mutated elf, am all ears. If not, math hard! Gnome Alone no like! so no big deal.

I have no idea how one would calculate it short of simulations, but the AnyDice function is here (http://anydice.com/program/49e8). ("1d6, reroll 1s" is equivalent to "1d5+1" because in both you have a 20% chance of each number from 2-5.) Actually, it turns out that your rolls are pretty darn close to average for that method of rolling. The expected mean and standard deviation are 13.43 and 2.37, and the mean and standard deviation of your rolls are 13.83 and 2.79.

And while I've never made it, this recipe for borscht (http://andrewzimmern.com/2014/01/13/beef-beet-cabbage-borscht/) looks good, and I've generally been happy with the source's other recipes. It also has juniper berries, which I heartily approve of.

[Gnome Alone]

Huh. I hadn't realized it was close to the average like that. I just figured, "geez, an 18, a 16 and a 15, and nothing under 10 at all? The dice, they favor me." Looking up the expected lean of vanilla 4d6 best 3, it looks like the method I used is about 1ish points higher. But since STR, DEX and INT all have better feat options if you have a 13 or better, that could end up being mightily significant.

Thanks for a) the borscht recipe, and b) actually taking me up on that. I'm actually a vegetarian, but I've kinda always wanted to try borscht; it sounds amazing. I didn't realize most versions had meat in them for the longest time, but in any event I've never got around to trying it in any configuration.

[Jeff the Green]

From what I understand, only derivatives include meat. The original Ukrainian recipes are vegetarian. For recipes, This one (http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6909-vegetarian-borscht) looks decent, though I'd probably use some of the spices from the meat one.

[plastickle]

Huh. I hadn't realized it was close to the average like that. I just figured, "geez, an 18, a 16 and a 15, and nothing under 10 at all? The dice, they favor me."
The "very elite" array from "rerolling ones, drop lowest" would be between 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17 & 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17. So your rolls are still a bit lucky (44 point buy instead of the expected 37.4).

70% of characters rolled this way would have nothing lower than a 10.

[Talionis]

Fighter is really the worst for E6. They get feats for abilities and at level six everyone starts getting feats cheap.

Warlock is very good in E6 as is Incarnum and Tome of Battle. Shifters from Ebberron also are extra good since a lot of their feats work on how many of the shifter feats you pick up and you can pick up so many feats.

Something else to think about are the tactical feats that require BAB 6 to get. If you want those then you'll only be able to take full BAB classes, but I'd still stay away from fighter.

Here is a link to possible E6 prestige classes: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?204298-E6-Prestige-Class-Guide

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I dunno, a first level human fighter can pull off Improved Trip and Combat Reflexes right off the bat. That's gotta count for something.

As can a human in any Full BAB class or a non-human if flaws are allowed. in my experience even many anti-flaw DM's allow them in level 1 and level 0 games.


Fighter is really the worst for E6. They get feats for abilities and at level six everyone starts getting feats cheap.

If you use "lean up" Fighter 6 has a capstone of "+8 BAB for the purposes of feat prerequisites". This still leaves them as probably the worst class in deep epic 6, but they aren't a non-class.

Flickerdart covered a lot of the high points, I've played quite a bit of level 0, level 1 and level 1 with reduced gold. Anyone who can swing an animal companion is awesome as that companion may be the strongest party member. Reach and ranged are gold as a single low damage attack will often drop weak enemies and "strong" enemies will often be left standing with one or two hp, so the guy plinking away with a sling can be a hero.

Rogues and Wilders tend to one shot most things, but then again so does two-hander guy. Crusaders rock far too hard as does the the Fiery Burst Precocious Apprentice, though I've never actually seen that last one played. Ditto for Abrupt Jaunt, high dex, Mage Armor Wizard Tank.

Oh and one last shoutout to Tomb Tainted Soul Dread Necromancers for resource free self healing they might find themselves the primary or secondary tank and with the right "free" martial weapon they could dish out decent damage. You might even consider crossing this with a race with good weapon familiarities. I recommend grabbing Bone Armor from OA to save 5 gp vs. Studded Leather at the cost of some armor check penalty, in theory this advice could apply to anyone but Dread Necros are in a near unique position of being proficient in only light armor and mostly shrugging at ACP, also thematics.

I thought I was done, but this reminded me of another armor trick. Dress level 1 Psions and Wilders in Leather armor.

From SRD:
A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he or she is not proficient takes the armor’s (and/or shield’s) armor check penalty on attack rolls and on all Strength-based and Dexterity-based ability and skill checks.

This means that since it has no ACP and they aren't subject to Arcane spell failure there's no real reason for them not to wear it. The same applies to Commoners of course if you play at "0-level".

Oh, Pathfinder:
Witch the Healing Hex is awesome at level 1 if you have a big party or interact with lots of NPC's.

A level 1 Summoner is awesome. I prefer to ignore the things that are generally best at higher levels and grab a bipedal Eidolon with Reach and Grab on its claws.

[Gnome Alone]

As can a human in any Full BAB class or a non-human if flaws are allowed. in my experience even many anti-flaw DM's allow them in level 1 and level 0 games.

Flaws, bleh. Not a fan, myself. But whaddya mean "human in a Full BAB class"? You'd still need a flaw even then unless you go Fighter, cuz of that silly Combat Expertise prerequisite ("I'm sorry. Your character is too stupid to know that you can hit people after you trip them.")


Flickerdart covered a lot of the high points, I've played quite a bit of level 0, level 1 and level 1 with reduced gold.

And thank you all for the advice; those are indeed pretty solid suggestions. Me, I'm just gonna go with the druid after all, seeing as how I've never actually played one as a PC before. But I am curious about "Level 0" -- how has that been handled? Start as a commoner and replace it with a PC class at the end? Largely unstatted freeform with 1 HP?

[Coidzor]

And thank you all for the advice; those are indeed pretty solid suggestions. Me, I'm just gonna go with the druid after all, seeing as how I've never actually played one as a PC before. But I am curious about "Level 0" -- how has that been handled? Start as a commoner and replace it with a PC class at the end? Largely unstatted freeform with 1 HP?

One way I've seen is that you pick your class, have half your HD/HP and skill-points and skill-rank cap(so max of 2 ranks for class skills, 1 for cross-class), and don't have all of the class features of a first level X. I think spellcasters have their spells per day cut in half or may even not be able to use 1st level spells, can't recall that far.



I've toyed around with a variant where every character (or at least the PCs and notable NPCs) possess a virtual level 0 which doesn't actually have a HD but instead has their Constitution score, Constitution/2, or Con+1(minimum 1) in HP, their Intelligence score, Intelligence/2, or Int+1(minimum 1) in skillpoints, BAB=0, and being limited to a few choices out of limited list for weapons and armor proficiencies and their choice of 2 moderate saves(so +1 to 2 of their saves, basically). Maybe all skills are cross-class or maybe they have a limited number of class skills they can pick out of the ones they'll have if/when they reach 1st level.

Basically it'd make level 1 proper a little less vulnerable while having a clearly delineated and defined place below level 1 without doing something like having everyone start as NPC classes or having to determine exactly what class features a level 0 version of a PC class would get.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Flaws, bleh. Not a fan, myself.



Well that's you're opinion and you're entitled to it. Personaly I often find them distasteful on high level characters that are completely unaffected by them. At extremely low levels though they're important to making characters with mechanical depth and every flaw actually matters, except maybe Frail.


But I am curious about "Level 0" -- how has that been handled? Start as a commoner and replace it with a PC class at the end? Largely unstatted freeform with 1 HP?

There are a few ways to go about it. One is based on a rule from the 3.0 PHB that was sadly left out of 3.5. It was intended to allow you to play want amounted to a 0/0 to allow people to play multiclass concepts at level 1. Sadly I have a pdf of that book and it happens to be gliched on exactly the pages these rules are on 40-41.

Basically you got half hp from each class 0-level spells from full casters, a feat from fighter, music from bard, etc. It's relatively simple to just take one side. You can also just play Commoners and eventually progress sideways into normal classes.

My prefered method is run everyone as Commoners, but with whatever skills they want. From game to game I've varied wether people got a minor ability extra or not. We also favor allowing discounting gear you can craft yourself and a more unusual houserule of making the 0-levels proficient in any gear they manage to scrounge up with their 4d4 gp. I managed a Longsword and Hide Armor on a high roll once.

[Coidzor]

There are a few ways to go about it. One is based on a rule from the 3.0 PHB that was sadly left out of 3.5. It was intended to allow you to play want amounted to a 0/0 to allow people to play multiclass concepts at level 1. Sadly I have a pdf of that book and it happens to be gliched on exactly the pages these rules are on 40-41.

Basically you got half hp from each class 0-level spells from full casters, a feat from fighter, music from bard, etc. It's relatively simple to just take one side. You can also just play Commoners and eventually progress sideways into normal classes.

Oh, right, I completely forgot about that one. :smallredface:


My prefered method is run everyone as Commoners, but with whatever skills they want. From game to game I've varied wether people got a minor ability extra or not. We also favor allowing discounting gear you can craft yourself and a more unusual houserule of making the 0-levels proficient in any gear they manage to scrounge up with their 4d4 gp. I managed a Longsword and Hide Armor on a high roll once.

Well, color me intrigued. In fact, I think I rather like it.

[Gnome Alone]

Well that's you're opinion and you're entitled to it. Personaly I often find them distasteful on high level characters that are completely unaffected by them. At extremely low levels though they're important to making characters with mechanical depth and every flaw actually matters, except maybe Frail.Well yeah, I didn't mean it was the gospel truth or anything. I will say that I had not really thought about how being so low-level actually makes the Flaws count for something.


There are a few ways to go about it. One is based on a rule from the 3.0 PHB that was sadly left out of 3.5. It was intended to allow you to play want amounted to a 0/0 to allow people to play multiclass concepts at level 1. Sadly I have a pdf of that book and it happens to be gliched on exactly the pages these rules are on 40-41.

As fate would have it, my brother has a copy of the 3.0 PHB that he keeps at our mom's house, and I'll be there tomorrow (what with Decemberween and all.) I'll see if I can't look up and describe that rule in more detail.

[(Un)Inspired]

Druids are pretty fantastic in E6 (surprise!). If you're still interested in playing one, do you think there's any chance that you DM would allow the urban companion ACF? It swaps your animal companion for a high hp version of a familiar.

In my only E6 game I played a Druid with an urban companion that I improved familiared into a hellhound. Not the most optimized choice but it was quite fun.

[Gnome Alone]

Ordinarily that's the kind of thing I would jump on in a minute, but I already decided I want this character to be a former shepherdess, and her animal companion is her old sheepdog. :smallsmile:

[(Un)Inspired]

Ordinarily that's the kind of thing I would jump on in a minute, but I already decided I want this character to be a former shepherdess, and her animal companion is her old sheepdog. :smallsmile:

Hey man hellhounds are lawful. They make great sheepdogs. Additionally, on of the dragon mags offers dogs as a possible familiar choice. Just saying...

[Knaight]

Here's some anydice code for the total of all stats, with this method and the old one:
output 6d[highest 3 of 4d{2..6}]
output 6d[highest 3 of 4d6]

81 points total is expected (80.6 mean, 81 median), instead of 73 (73.47 mean, 74 median). Your total is 83. A full 37.97% of the time with this method, you roll that or better. With the default method, it's only 9.59% of the time you roll that or better.

On the game side of things: It could be fun to break of a really MAD class, as you actually have the stats for it and e6 doesn't bring in the stat boosters that favor SAD classes. Paladin could work well, and they aren't all that strong.

[Gnome Alone]

@(Un)Inspired:
Ma: Doncha think yer maybe goin' o'erboard, with, y'know...
Da: Summonin' a feckin' dog from hell to guard the bloody sheep?
Me: No. No I am not.

@Knaight:
I actually thought about going with paladin (let's see, S18 D11 C15 I10 W13 Ch16? maybe just WF (Greatsword) and Power Attack; one-shot everything) buuuut there is a chance that my 5 year old son will play in this game and I recently helped him roll up a spiked chain-wielding elf paladin that he's pretty excited about, so I don't wanna step on his toes. :smallamused:

[Knaight]

I actually thought about going with paladin (let's see, S18 D11 C15 I10 W13 Ch16? maybe just WF (Greatsword) and Power Attack; one-shot everything) buuuut there is a chance that my 5 year old son will play in this game and I recently helped him roll up a spiked chain-wielding elf paladin that he's pretty excited about, so I don't wanna step on his toes. :smallamused:

This actually makes it work better, not worse. Don't step on his toes - complement the character. Two different paladins from the same holy order, interpreting the same edicts, people, texts, etc. different ways, even stylistically different in how they fight. That makes characterization that much easier.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

As fate would have it, my brother has a copy of the 3.0 PHB that he keeps at our mom's house, and I'll be there tomorrow (what with Decemberween and all.) I'll see if I can't look up and describe that rule in more detail.

Apologies I meant DMG. Funny Coidzor also quoted it and didn't catch the error.

@Coidzor

Thank you,it does a decent job of differentiating characters. Otherwise if everyone optimizes their gear you have the whole party in leather armor and spending their single simple proficiency on dagger to cover both range and melee or spear if they have enough strengh to make two handing worthwhile, actually the d8 probably makes spear out and out better.

Dagger has one notable advantage in action economy. You can have two drawn and thow one saving a move action vs. a spear thrower. You also might have one longspear Combat Reflexes character.

The mediocre Monk Weapons are dirt cheap, which is fine because their flavorful and mechanically meh. Speaking of Monks, we assigned a arbitrary price to fist wraps that let player's "buy" Improved Unarmed Strike. I recommend it be low enough to be affordable, but expensive enough to keep it from being where everyone's extra 2gp goes.

Light Crossbow is potentially worrying, but even with a 50% discount (we give half off for backstory crafting rather than two thirds to represent Opportunity Cost) you need a lucky gp roll (18 on 4d4) and it will be a dedicated concept. On a roll of 20 they could pick up padded armor, wait no they can't, they need to buy bolts. Yep, this is probably balanced.

I would probably nix Spiked Chain. It's gp price is too low compared to it's mechanical effectivness and it's normal cost to characters. Whip has some potential, they're dirt cheap and they have some niche uses. Probably nothing to worry about, I'm just picturing a full party all saying "EWP:Whip for 1gp? I'm in!"

[Rakaydos]

Kobold Sorcerer into Dragon Disciple. with the Dragon Wings feat at level 1, so that at level 6 you have actual flight without magic items.

You are the dragons the legends tell of. Short? Have you SEEN that picture of St George and the Dragon? Dragons are tiny in legend!
https://sp.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HN.607992572936391076&pid=15.1&P=0

[Knaight]

You are the dragons the legends tell of. Short? Have you SEEN that picture of St George and the Dragon? Dragons are tiny in legend!
https://sp.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HN.607992572936391076&pid=15.1&P=0

That one is on the smaller side, other older works depict them as larger. And even that one is around the same size as St. George, if significantly smaller than the horse.

[Gnome Alone]

This actually makes it work better, not worse. Don't step on his toes - complement the character. Two different paladins from the same holy order, interpreting the same edicts, people, texts, etc. different ways, even stylistically different in how they fight. That makes characterization that much easier.

That does indeed sound awesome... I appreciate the suggestion. Weirdly enough, I don't think I've ever even heard of two paladins being in the same party, but it actually makes a ton of sense.

I am imagining my son "interpreting people" though... : "Are you a bad guy?" is about his level of roleplaying. Hey, what am I saying, he's got the paladin basics down.

I did already sent an email to the DM asking if a few non-core things were ok (desert half-orc, half-orc druid racial substitution level, Quick trait) and I don't really wanna compound how annoying that might be by going, "no wait! I got a different idea" the very next day.

If the game takes a while to get going I may actually end up doing that (making a paladin.) That's another class I've never actually played as. And I read somewhere that paladins are kinda nice in E6 cuz they get rather a lot of feat-based toys to play with (Law Devotion and Battle Blessing spring to mind.)

[Knaight]

I am imagining my son "interpreting people" though... : "Are you a bad guy?" is about his level of roleplaying. Hey, what am I saying, he's got the paladin basics down.

I'm not necessarily saying that this is at the level of role playing I've seen from many adults, but...this is at the level of role playing I've seen from many adults. Having two characters deliberately set up to play off each other does generally have more impressive results when one of the players isn't five, but it should still be a fun dynamic, and your son should have fun with it.

[Rakaydos]

That one is on the smaller side, other older works depict them as larger. And even that one is around the same size as St. George, if significantly smaller than the horse.

Looking at the Wiki page, most of the images tend to be about the same size, including the 1440 AD stain glass window, and the 4th century horus/set image. larger dragons seem to be a more modern conceit.

[Flickerdart]

Western dragons seem to be puny (St George's legend appears to originate from the humble crocodile), but Slavic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_dragon) dragons have always been appropriately massive. Like in this image (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Dobryna.jpg?uselang=ru) where the dragon's head is about half the size of the warrior.

[Rakaydos]

Western dragons seem to be puny (St George's legend appears to originate from the humble crocodile), but Slavic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_dragon) dragons have always been appropriately massive. Like in this image (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Dobryna.jpg?uselang=ru) where the dragon's head is about half the size of the warrior.

Isnt that a greek hydra? As a different species, I would not argue that the creature hercuies fought was much larger.

Regardless, I feel there is justification for an E6 winged kobold with dragon-related classes to call itself a real dragon in the context of an E6 world.

[Coidzor]

Apologies I meant DMG. Funny Coidzor also quoted it and didn't catch the error.

Well, y'know, it has been a while and I was just thinking more about it being 3.0 than where exactly it was in 3.0 XD I've only opened up a 3.0 DMG a couple of times in my life, as it is.

I don't think it's in the 3.0 version of the SRD though, but maybe. :smallconfused:


Thank you,it does a decent job of differentiating characters. Otherwise if everyone optimizes their gear you have the whole party in leather armor and spending their single simple proficiency on dagger to cover both range and melee or spear if they have enough strengh to make two handing worthwhile, actually the d8 probably makes spear out and out better.

Yeah, though you're almost certainly going to still see a fair amount of leather armor that way, but people clad from head to toe in nothing but leather and carrying enough rope to tie up an entire township is just classic D&D at the end of the day. :smallamused:


Dagger has one notable advantage in action economy. You can have two drawn and thow one saving a move action vs. a spear thrower. You also might have one longspear Combat Reflexes character.

All hail the dagger-wielding master race. :smallamused: I guess that's a bit of a reward for always having daggers on your character, too, figuring that out and taking advantage of it.


The mediocre Monk Weapons are dirt cheap, which is fine because their flavorful and mechanically meh. Speaking of Monks, we assigned a arbitrary price to fist wraps that let player's "buy" Improved Unarmed Strike. I recommend it be low enough to be affordable, but expensive enough to keep it from being where everyone's extra 2gp goes.

Oh, I didn't even stop to consider those. Neat. And fitting, because the majority of those are modified versions of peasant tools or just straight up peasant tools. :smallamused:

Hmm, be a bit futsy to have fist-wraps cost more than a cestus or gauntlet or brass knuckle, but I suppose that's something that could also be rejiggered or dealt with after further thought on the matter.


Light Crossbow is potentially worrying, but even with a 50% discount (we give half off for backstory crafting rather than two thirds to represent Opportunity Cost) you need a lucky gp roll (18 on 4d4) and it will be a dedicated concept. On a roll of 20 they could pick up padded armor, wait no they can't, they need to buy bolts. Yep, this is probably balanced.

Yeah, I'd definitely be counting every copper with something like that and not do my more usual handwave for some amount of ammunition as part of buying the weapon in the first place. And, sure, it means everyone is now proficient with clubs, quarterstaves, unarmed strikes, and slings, but then, something like 90% of characters would be anyway. It's also amusing to think of the Light Crossbow wielder as the Heavy Weapons Guy that is also a glass cannon.


I would probably nix Spiked Chain. It's gp price is too low compared to it's mechanical effectivness and it's normal cost to characters. Whip has some potential, they're dirt cheap and they have some niche uses. Probably nothing to worry about, I'm just picturing a full party all saying "EWP:Whip for 1gp? I'm in!"

Yeah, would probably have to double check a few weapons there, since Spiked Chains and maybe bolas/nets are the only worhwhile exotic weapons in core. I suppose if you rolled well enough a bastard sword might be of interest to anyone who eventually wanted to do some Oversized TWF with 'em. But I don't think that's much of a concern even if they do so, really, and a non-exotic Halberd would be better value for less with its ability to do piercing or slashing.

All of those whips would let you have a party of Indiana Joneses, I suppose. :smallamused: I think there's only a couple of feats and PrCs that really require EWP: Whip though, and it's not that integral to balancing those options, so I think that's more amusing than potentially problematic. Unless they forget about the AoOs and lack of threatening that whips have to deal with.


I'm not necessarily saying that this is at the level of role playing I've seen from many adults, but...this is at the level of role playing I've seen from many adults. Having two characters deliberately set up to play off each other does generally have more impressive results when one of the players isn't five, but it should still be a fun dynamic, and your son should have fun with it.

He may even learn a thing or two about Paladins so that he'll never have to ask "What's a Paladin? (http://i1321.photobucket.com/albums/u556/kotonemaki/For%20R%20Purposes/paladin2_zps19a27beb.jpg)"

Though, yeah, five year olds. I... honestly can't remember much about what those are like. :smalleek:

[Flickerdart]

Isnt that a greek hydra? As a different species, I would not argue that the creature hercuies fought was much larger.

Regardless, I feel there is justification for an E6 winged kobold with dragon-related classes to call itself a real dragon in the context of an E6 world.
You're a Greek hydra.

[(Un)Inspired]

You're a Greek hydra.

Whoa take it outside guys. Let's not say anything we can't take back.

[Gnome Alone]

"Classic D&D" is not how I would expect that sentence to end in any other context.

[QUOTE]He may even learn a thing or two about Paladins so that he'll never have to ask "What's a Paladin? (http://i1321.photobucket.com/albums/u556/kotonemaki/For%20R%20Purposes/paladin2_zps19a27beb.jpg)"

Though, yeah, five year olds. I... honestly can't remember much about what those are like. :smalleek:

Well, the one in question: thinks Legos are the coolest thing in the world, thinks farts are the funniest, has never found any stick to be too terrifyingly huge to be wielded against daddy as a sword, loves rolling for damage, tries to talk enemies out of fighting, and is currently changing the words of Jingle Bells to being about "singing a battle song tonight."


Whoa take it outside guys. Let's not say anything we can't take back.

I think I have successfully created a thread that is about like eight different things at once.

[(Un)Inspired]

Well, the one in question: thinks Legos are the coolest thing in the world, thinks farts are the funniest, has never found any stick to be too terrifyingly huge to be wielded against daddy as a sword, loves rolling for damage, tries to talk enemies out of fighting, and is currently changing the words of Jingle Bells to being about "singing a battle song tonight."


Congrats. The kid sounds rad.

[Gnome Alone]

Congrats. The kid sounds rad.

Yeah, he's alright I guess. :smallwink:

[Jeff the Green]

I actually thought about going with paladin (let's see, S18 D11 C15 I10 W13 Ch16? maybe just WF (Greatsword) and Power Attack; one-shot everything) buuuut there is a chance that my 5 year old son will play in this game and I recently helped him roll up a spiked chain-wielding elf paladin that he's pretty excited about, so I don't wanna step on his toes. :smallamused:

Huh. I'd always thought the Little Kid class required you to be CE. :smalltongue:

[JusticeZero]

Don't do a fighter in E6. Your class ability is access to more of something everyone will be drowning in soon. Make a Barbarian or something else so you can get more rage and rage abilities or similar with some other class ability. A PF Barbarian is surprisingly high op, for instance. But for a different example, if a Paladin gets turning by 6 (I haven't looked at any Paladins, let alone 3.x, in eons) they can start picking up extra turning and the feats that let you turn turning into other effects.

[JusticeZero]

But I am curious about "Level 0" -- how has that been handled? Start as a commoner and replace it with a PC class at the end? Largely unstatted freeform with 1 HP?
The way I ended up doing it results in a small change in hp but otherwise works fine. Level 0 is - 100 xp, d4 HD (d6 in PF) max at start, no good saves, 2+int skill points, no class skills. When you get level 1, add hp and convert things up.

[Gnome Alone]

Huh. I'd always thought the Little Kid class required you to be CE. :smalltongue:

He must have one of them fancy-pants ACFs.


Don't do a fighter in E6. Your class ability is access to more of something everyone will be drowning in soon. Make a Barbarian or something else so you can get more rage and rage abilities or similar with some other class ability. A PF Barbarian is surprisingly high op, for instance. But for a different example, if a Paladin gets turning by 6 (I haven't looked at any Paladins, let alone 3.x, in eons) they can start picking up extra turning and the feats that let you turn turning into other effects.

At no point in any of this was I gonna roll a fighter. Considering my own, uh... pool of people I play with's tendency to go months and months between sessions though, I see the value in getting whatever awesome feat combo you want now as opposed to two real-time years from now. Although the only such combo I can even think of at the moment, one that adds an actual new ability instead of improving something you can already do, is the tripping suite of feats.

3.5 paladin gets turning at 4th level, because that's totally not a really frustrating time to get it--I mean, phew, good thing we didn't just spend a feat that could've been used for the effects that make turning useful.

[DrKerosene]

When I think of actual Paladins in E6 I usually think of Half-Orcs with the Poison Healer feat (ale is really cheap), or the Elf ACF that gives you a Unicorn mount at level 5. Also, the Serenity feat will allow you to dump CHA.

The Half-Elf Bard racial sub level gives you "Monologue", which would be a nice follow-up if your kid's attempt to talk people out of combat fails.

Playing a Halfling in E6 might be better than usual if you can stack saves and focus on Ranged Smite.

Scratch all that.
Play a Jotunbrud Human (Druid?) with the Fling Ally feat and a lot of goats, then pretend to be Clanboss Goathucker from Dragon Age Inq. Is there an non-undead version of Spell Stitching?

http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/im-really-bad-at-fighting-dragons

It's just a shame I doubt Halfling will be able to do this.

[Belkarseviltwin]

Isnt that a greek hydra? As a different species, I would not argue that the creature hercuies fought was much larger.

That's not a hydra, it's a zmey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_dragon). You can tell it's not a hydra because its heads have been cut off and aren't regrowing even though he hasn't cauterised the stumps- though some Russian dragons can regrow their heads.

[DEMON]

Fighter is really the worst for E6.

But how about Sneak Attack Fighters? How about Hit-and-Run Tactics Fighters?

Not 100% sure about it, but by sacrificing a feat on Heavy Armor Proficiency, you should be able to combine the above ACFs with Thug ACF, too.

3 levels of SA Fighter + 3 levels of Swashbuckler + Daring Outlaw = 6 BAB, 4d6 SA and open route to feats like Staggering Strike (and many others that require BAB of 6+ of decent amount of SA dice).

[Knaight]

Looking at the Wiki page, most of the images tend to be about the same size, including the 1440 AD stain glass window, and the 4th century horus/set image. larger dragons seem to be a more modern conceit.
Textual depictions are where I've seen larger. For instance, Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur has a dragon explicitly described as substantially larger than a horse in some contexts.


That's not a hydra, it's a zmey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_dragon). You can tell it's not a hydra because its heads have been cut off and aren't regrowing even though he hasn't cauterised the stumps- though some Russian dragons can regrow their heads.
That and it's from the wrong part of the world to be a depiction of a hydra. It's not like sticking more heads on something is a trend unique to Greek legends.

[Coidzor]

"Classic D&D" is not how I would expect that sentence to end in any other context.

It's pretty great, no? :smallamused: And would you believe I originally came into contact with the general sentiment from a 15 year old girl?

Granted, this was back when I was also about that age myself and still fairly new to 3e...


Well, the one in question: thinks Legos are the coolest thing in the world, thinks farts are the funniest, has never found any stick to be too terrifyingly huge to be wielded against daddy as a sword, loves rolling for damage, tries to talk enemies out of fighting, and is currently changing the words of Jingle Bells to being about "singing a battle song tonight."

Sounds like he's already wanting to be an A-Game Paladin. :smallbiggrin:


I think I have successfully created a thread that is about like eight different things at once.

Always fun. :smallcool:


At no point in any of this was I gonna roll a fighter. Considering my own, uh... pool of people I play with's tendency to go months and months between sessions though, I see the value in getting whatever awesome feat combo you want now as opposed to two real-time years from now. Although the only such combo I can even think of at the moment, one that adds an actual new ability instead of improving something you can already do, is the tripping suite of feats.

3.5 paladin gets turning at 4th level, because that's totally not a really frustrating time to get it--I mean, phew, good thing we didn't just spend a feat that could've been used for the effects that make turning useful.

Y'know, there's an awful lot of things like that. Sword of the Arcane Order requires Ranger or Paladin 4 for some reason. Rangers get their Animal Companion at 4th level. That wouldn't be so bad if feats were at every even level, but waiting two levels for the relevant feat, yeah, that's rough.

I can't believe I'd forgotten that particular downside to Paladin Turning, though. :smalleek:

An A-Game Paladin and a more standard Pally might be interesting together, come to think of it. That or the one will overshadow the other.

As for feats and tripping, yeah, there's a reason the Horizon Tripper is a Tripper. Even with ToB it seems to be one of the gold standards of melee lockdown from what I've seen about Crusaders.

[Gnome Alone]

But how about Sneak Attack Fighters? How about Hit-and-Run Tactics Fighters?

Not 100% sure about it, but by sacrificing a feat on Heavy Armor Proficiency, you should be able to combine the above ACFs with Thug ACF, too.

3 levels of SA Fighter + 3 levels of Swashbuckler + Daring Outlaw = 6 BAB, 4d6 SA and open route to feats like Staggering Strike (and many others that require BAB of 6+ of decent amount of SA dice).

Yeah, there you go. I thought of the nice possibilities with the various Fighter ACFs, but decided to stick with (sorta) defending the vanilla Fighter because of the possible situational value of that one, and some nebulous logicky thing I can't remember the name of about defending the weakest position to strengthen the better ones. Maybe I made that thing up, I dunno.

Thug and Sneak Attack Fighter can be combined because the text explicitly says so. I don't they would otherwise since they both trade the 1st level bonus feat. Hit and Run Fighter still gets the feat (right?) and only trades out the proficiencies, so... I have no idea.



Sounds like he's already wanting to be an A-Game Paladin.
[…]

An A-Game Paladin and a more standard Pally might be interesting together, come to think of it. That or the one will overshadow the other.

Funny you should mention that, because I did roll up a paladin just in case my son ends up playing in this campaign whenever it does end up starting, and I didn't go all the way to A-Game Paladin (such as it is in E6) but I did trade out Detect Evil for Inspire Courage and the mount for Divine Spirit: Spirit of Healing just in the interest of... well, loving bards, for one, and making it distinct from the other paladin, for another. I am well aware that I may end up having to switch those around depending on how awesome my kiddo thinks each ability is. :smallbiggrin: I know he'll like "battle singing" but I also know he'll like the idea of actually being able to tell who's "a bad guy." Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure he'll go for "magic horse" over "healing spirit."

But left to my own devices, I'd take those two substitutions, plus Law Devotion at 3rd level since it'll still work 1/day before Turn Undead shows it late-ass face next level to power it. Then at 6th either Extra Smiting for, y'know, extra smiting, or Extra Turning for yet more Law Devotion uses. Although even without it, I'd have 3/day cuz I'm sticking the 16 in Charisma. And I'm gonna hope that and/or gently argue if necessary that the DM rule that the various Inspire Courage boosters work, even though, technically, it's not actually Bardic Music. But I'm sinking 3 skill points into Perform (Sing) even though I don't think it says you have to, so that oughtta bolster my wheedling.


As for feats and tripping, yeah, there's a reason the Horizon Tripper is a Tripper.Even with ToB it seems to be one of the gold standards of melee lockdown from what I've seen about Crusaders.

All this talk of paladins does kinda make me just wanna roll up a Crusader instead, but "hey guys this is Tome of Battle and it's awesome" is a conversation I'll have some other day. Be different if I had the physical book, but alas.

Y'know, between the Horizon Tripper and the Alex Verus novels, Saph has made some really freaking awesome contributions to the modern fantasy... uh, milieu? Yeah. Cool stuff.

[DEMON]

Yeah, there you go. I thought of the nice possibilities with the various Fighter ACFs, but decided to stick with (sorta) defending the vanilla Fighter because of the possible situational value of that one, and some nebulous logicky thing I can't remember the name of about defending the weakest position to strengthen the better ones. Maybe I made that thing up, I dunno.

Thug and Sneak Attack Fighter can be combined because the text explicitly says so. I don't they would otherwise since they both trade the 1st level bonus feat. Hit and Run Fighter still gets the feat (right?) and only trades out the proficiencies, so... I have no idea.

Oh yes, I was only unsure about the compatibility of Thug and HnR, since one only gives Light Armor Proficiency (therefore sacrificing Heavy and Medium Armor Proficiencies) and the other one sacrifices Heavy Armor Proficiency.

My "tricky solution" is to take Heavy Armor proficiency as your 1st level feat and then trade it for the ACF. But even if disallowed, a simple SA-HnR Fighter is a decent chassis for E6.

Anyways, my main point was to point out, that the "Fighter sucks for E6 (even more than usual) since E6 provides plenty of feats" thesis is only true if we disregard the ACF that trade feats for actual class features: Resolute, Armor of God, Dungeon Crasher 1&2... And you still qualify for the nice Fighter 6 feat.