Crowd-sourcing some ideas for a build.

[Hoshiaki]

Hey guys/gals, im new to the forums so excuse any noob mistakes :P. as for this post, me and my friends are currently underway in our D&D 3.5e campaign (our first 3.5e) and while we have made some pretty fast progression thanks to some awesome homebrew (nothing intrinsically broken just shenanigans to mix it up).

anyhoo long story short my dwarf has gained two size categories. so what was once a generic crossbow-wielding dwarf artificer is now far too big to function thanks to AC nerfs, reflex nerfs, poor initial fort and negatives to hit. from this i decided oh well i've allready gone big and i cant go home so i may as well run with it, and since the only thing you get worth much from 2 size categories is +8 to grapple, im now some sort of quasi-luchador. thanks to our party being a bit more gold-endowed then normal i made myself some titan's grip gloves and spent a large amount of time re-training my now useless ranged feats into improved unarmed and improved grapple for somewhere near a +23 to grapple, +24 thanks to our cleric.

but now im somewhat stumped. all i really have for a source material (we can use anything but its more a case of access) is the magic item compendium, some dungeon masters guides (1-3) and erberron (hence artificer) and now to the good bit

Q: is there any good items/feats from some obscure source book someone unknown hero can provide me with to assist my quest to grapple the world into submission?

[Telonius]

You'd typically get +16 Str, -4 Dex, +8 Con, +5 Natural Armor, and -2 to AC and Attack from going from Medium to Huge.

Advice would kind of depend on book availability. You could do something from Tome of Battle. A Huge Swordsage focusing on Setting Sun could be pretty fearsome.

I'd definitely look into the Mage Slayer line of feats, from Complete Arcane. With your size (and therefore reach) you'll be threatening a lot more of the battlefield. Being able to use an attack of opportunity against a caster (regardless of their concentration check) is a really nice thing to have.

Earth's Embrace from Complete Warrior is another interesting feat. Bonus damage when you pin.

Another possibility would be to let your Constitution score work for you. Magic of Incarnum has a class called Totemist that can get a crazy amount of natural attacks.


And ... I would treat this with extreme caution ... an Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) could round out your Luchador persona. Use something with the Face slot - maybe a Crystal Mask of Mindarmor? - as the familiar.

[Hoshiaki]

THANK YOU.

the resources we used to increase my size made no mention of the stat gains, but with some additional searching the DM found it under "improving monsters". this puts me WAY up in the tiering of strength within our party, not that its a competition but i was somewhat aware of my relative lack in combat value. now my newfound HP, AC and pure STRENGTH is going to make for amazing experiences.

ill definitely look into everything mentioned here and from cursory internet searching its going to be hilarious, case in point comet throw. with my mad grapple roll of something like +31 thats going to be mad distance.

im thinking if i can cobble the gold together for a Torc of the Titans it would make a suitable Item familiar, but its a bit soon for me to commit to decisions. as an artificer the number of appealing PrC classes were fairly sparse but this new statline and threat range opens up worlds of endgame. now i just gotta convince my party that my being cool is worth them not having access to cheap end-level gear :P

that being said i'l thank you again purely for the stats i have just gained, they have turned around this sunday's upcoming game in an instant lol

[Extra Anchovies]

First, a very important thing to keep in mind: you may be Huge-sized, but you're still a Humanoid-type creature. That means you can still have someone cast Enlarge Person on you to increase your size to Gargantuan. You can also make the spell permanent but I wouldn't recommend that; doorways are kind of a thing.

If you grab Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle) eventually, your Gargantuan unarmed strikes will by the higher levels be dealing 6d6 each (and I think there's another spell to increase effective size for determining unarmed damage, adding on another two dice).


You'd typically get +16 Str, -4 Dex, +8 Con, +5 Natural Armor, and -2 to AC and Attack from going from Medium to Huge.

Advice would kind of depend on book availability. You could do something from Tome of Battle. A Huge Swordsage focusing on Setting Sun could be pretty fearsome.

Seconding this. Setting Sun has quite a few good ways to turn successful combat maneuvers into lots of damage.


Another possibility would be to let your Constitution score work for you. Magic of Incarnum has a class called Totemist that can get a crazy amount of natural attacks.

Yeah, Totemist is probably the strongest option here, simply because of how much damage your natural attacks will deal. You've already picked up some unarmed feats, so you could grab Multiattack and Beast Strike to include iterative attacks (dealing unarmed strike + natural attack + Str damage) without penalizing your other attacks too much.


And ... I would treat this with extreme caution ... an Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) could round out your Luchador persona. Use something with the Face slot - maybe a Crystal Mask of Mindarmor? - as the familiar.

Oh geez, a luchador with an item familiar mask. I want to play that.

[Hoshiaki]

yea I've already run into the doorways problem. currently we've scaled up a bag of holding by extrapolating the pattern to an effective bag of holding type 6, which i dip into for brief periods while people drag it through doors.

currently my other size-abuse thing is I'm running strongarm bracers to swing a gargantuan adamantine dwarven waraxe +1. I'm not sure me currently having that impacts the worth of delving into totemist. i know its a bit early to be making comments, i've had a busy day and will likely be poring through a ToB if i can get my hands on one tomorrow. that being said the superior unarmed strike sounds like something i have seen monks do whereby thier punches count as if they are of larger size categories. just throwing it out there but would multiclassing monk capitalize on this any or would M.A.D. just ruin me?

setting sun is looking to be my favourite option atm, but my brain is shouting at me for looking at something called "swordsage" while swinging an axe. i tend to self-cripple my characters in small ways for RP reasons, for example im still in half-plate armor despite having the gold to go full, just because i cant imagine anyone in full plate having easy access to pockets and thats just rediculous if you want to be an artificer full of fun items.

on that topic, i may have overstated the luchadory-ness of my character despite the awesomeness of the idea of that familiar item mask. it was more something stuck in my head from an old thread about a half-orc monk called "los tiburon" who stacked grapple so hard he killed a dragon by pile drivering it out of the sky.

the way im going to play it is sort of quasi-OOC. when we started we saw a lot of generic enemies that were obviously there to be killed (bandits, goblins ect) so my catchphrase sort of became "roll initiative" as i would immediately end all unnecessary prattling by shooting someone, to the extent where i went to get "roll initiative" carved into my crossbow. but ofc i was pulled up on the fact thats OOC, so i came back with "it translates poorly from dwarven, what it means is closer to 'seize the day'" which im rolling over into a personal interpretation closer to "grapple the day". it might not be as awesome as a luchador with a sentient mask but you know how it goes with the lemons and the lemonade.

the more i read into item familiars the more i love them. i cant really see a cost for it since it dosent specify what "life essence" is other then the game equivalent of wishes and pixie dust, for a flat 10% xp (which is even more relevant when i spend all my XP on items as of late). im just currently thinking Torc of the Titans because it sounds like an item that would encourage its owner to grapple things but at the same time isnt something as break-worthy as a weapon. it might not benefit from the free bonuses but i think it will be worth it in the end :).

[Rebel7284]

Curiously, staying artificer will allow you to ultimately become the most powerful melee fighter possible.

- Your poor BAB can eventually be fixed with an item of Divine Power.
- Eternal Wand(s) of heroics can give you any fighter feat you need at a moment's notice (including Martial Study/Martial Stance to pick up those swordsage maneuvers!)
- Metamagic Item infusion allows you to apply Persistent Spell to many of your buffs making them last all day without needing actions in combat to activate.

Spells are king in this game, and using those spells to become a melee monster is perfectly valid.

Oh and you can buff your party in the process too.