Wokkin' the Wok

[Warlocknthewind]

A character concept I've been kind of kicking around is the idea of an entirely out of place, but still affective adventuring frycook with a deep love for his kitchen utensils that he utilizes as weaponry. Think of Sam flailing around in Moria, but with a skewer fork instead of a sword. He routinely batters, seasons, and fries the less humanoid of their conquered does if the time allows, and dreams of one day frying and eating a Dragon's heart.

Skill tax (Profession: Frycook), for obvious reasons. Probably a human to nullify the tax, and feats are good. Maybe a Dwarf so I could carry the kitchen with me. I also thought a Goblin named "Rag-Gob Box-Breeches" would tickle my funny-bone.

Based classes is the most difficult decision for the character, from Expert and Master(DLCS), to Factotum and DFA. I tend towards the lower tier to try and attempt to break their molds,which is hit and miss. I've considered using Improvised weapon focus, and it's improved version, (again, DCLS), and keep a table of improvised item stats tacked to my sheet. I could rule that knives are knives, and pans are clubs without throwing option, If you can swing it, it's not easy to miss with a big ol' wok, but that's homebrew, and I wanted him to use other assorted tools. Killing an orc with a spatula or ladel just seems like too much fun. But with two feats sunk just to get rid of the to-hit penalty I would be reliant on class abillties to contribute, and the more diverse and wonderful the class for a bit, the less likely they would be workin a wok, or dunkin fry-baskets. "Just play a wizard and get craft potion", wizards have better things to do than make magic noodles.

The closest thing I have is an idea of a cullinary culture junky Dragonfire Adept, famous for his "Dragon's Gold Chicken" and using dragonbreath to cook, but then it's more about him breathing fire, not so much ironic battle/fry-cook.

Anything anybody wants to bounce back on the idea? I'm sure somebody had a better idea than I had reading this post!

[TheifofZ]

Generic Fighter might be your answer, actually. Spend your level advancement on feats like Skill Focus (Profession) while using your Fighter feats to grab the feats to help your damage, like two weapon fighting, weapon focus (Wok), and so on.

[nedz]

Bard, Perform like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwg5ey6236o), or similar.

[Novawurmson]

Exemplar seems fun. Cook so well that you inspire people to fight for you.

[Zetapup]

Drunken Master would work for improvised weapons fairly well, but it's not too powerful and the weapon autobreaking on a 1 is kinda crappy and funky if you get creative with it (need an artifact destroyed? Just attack random stuff with the artifact until you roll a 1 and it breaks. Wield your enemies as weapons until you roll a 1 and they break. Don't ask me how that works). On the plus side, you can get quite a few damage bonuses to unarmed attacks (quori shard(s), battlefist, improved natural attack/fanged ring, monk's belt, size increases, (greater) mighty wallop, etc).

Alternatively, any class that gives you sneak attack/damage bonuses could also work well, and you're going to want the enemy to be flatfooted for those anyway, so the penalty to attack isn't quite as big a deal. Psychic Rogue seems like an interesting fit for the build- you get a few d6 of sneak attack damage for attacks and you also get some powers that you can use for the fry cook flavor.

Edit: If you have a bard in the party/get a bard cohort through leadership, convince them to use dragonfire inspiration so you can get a fire bonus to damage to represent the sizzling burn that your wok is going to inflict

[TheifofZ]

I honestly thought about throwing a mention of Drunken Master into my post, but I'm worried about the class flavor interactions with the Character, as it were.
The fact that you are required by the class to be a drunk imposes issues when it runs into a hard working chef.

Unless he wants to be a lush, I guess. That's up to the OP, but if he's cool with it, then yeah. Drunken Master is an awesome PrC for this.

[TheCrowing1432]

Maybe Rogue or Bard for the skill points in Profession and (Craft?)


Is cooking a crafting skill? I mean you are creating meals.


And they use their stealth skills to steal ingredients.

[smcmike]

You don't necessarily need to fight with cooking implements to be a chef/killer. You could be Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu, who was a mad murderer and gourmand of considerable bulk in Barry Highart's work.

[Psyren]

I honestly thought about throwing a mention of Drunken Master into my post, but I'm worried about the class flavor interactions with the Character, as it were.
The fact that you are required by the class to be a drunk imposes issues when it runs into a hard working chef.

Unless he wants to be a lush, I guess. That's up to the OP, but if he's cool with it, then yeah. Drunken Master is an awesome PrC for this.

I see no reason why a master chef couldn't also be drunk. Alcoholic beverages are a useful component of many dishes after all, and cooking is as much art as science so it doesn't necessarily require very precise technique - you can be messy and rely on intuition/instinct too.

But I have a slightly different approach to this - rather than an improvised weapon-based build, I would build a character who uses actual weapons that can double as cooking implements. Say for instance an itinerant warrior who cooks his meals in his shield - maybe a Shield Champion Brawler.

[TheifofZ]

There is that, too.
I tried a similar concept once, though the character was a sociopath butcher that used his overly-large meat-cleaver as his weapon of choice.
GM ruled it functioned like a hand-axe in terms of stats, but was just reskinned for flavor.

Which was great fun, though the party learned to steer clear of his kitchen when he was sharpening his knives.

[ben-zayb]

I had a similar idea (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html?id=396984) for a L1 Commoner PbP game, except he utilizes all four energy types of the Dragonborn breath weapon to cook. (ie. aside from fire, you have cold for freezing food, acid for tenderizing, and electricity for even preheating of saline meat)

[Maxrim]

Sounds like a fun idea! : D
Perhaps ask your DM if you can use this variant?

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Expanded_Skill:_Craft_Cooking_(3.5e_Variant_Rule)

[Razanir]

If homebrew is allowed, the Improviser (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255381-A-solution-for-every-situation!-(3-5-Baseclass-PEACH)) might also be good.

[ThinkMinty]

...Fighting Foodons campaign?