Playable Drunken Master (Complete Warrior PrC)

[LordOfCain]

In order to negate the largest flaw of the drunken master, the 4 for 2 trade on the drink like a demon class ability, couldn't you use two feat, or a one/two level dip in an incarnum class in order to negate it. If you use the strongheart vest and invested 4 points of essentia, or even 2, it would at least be an even trade, or even free. However, it would still be capped. Opinions anybody?

[Darrin]

In order to negate the largest flaw of the drunken master, the 4 for 2 trade on the drink like a demon class ability, couldn't you use two feat, or a one/two level dip in an incarnum class in order to negate it. If you use the strongheart vest and invested 4 points of essentia, or even 2, it would at least be an even trade, or even free. However, it would still be capped. Opinions anybody?

First, this is not the largest flaw. By RAW, the Drunken Master still suffers a -4 non-proficiency penalty when attacking with improvised weapons, even though many of his class abilities involve attacking with these weapons.

Second, the Strongheart Vest only prevents ability damage, and Drink Like a Demon incurs a penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom rather than ability damage. So you'd have to rewrite the text or add a houserule to get these abilities to work with each other.

Third, assuming you can handwave the Int/Wis penalty into ability damage, it's not clear from the Strongheart Vest text what happens when you have ability damage happening to multiple abilities simultaneously. If you take 2 Int damage and 2 Wis damage from the same effect, does Strongheart Vest reduce the Int or the Wis damage? Both? If not, how do you choose which one to reduce?

[ExLibrisMortis]

The strongheart vest counters ability damage, not the Drink Like a Demon penalties. Typical immunities (to ability damage/drain) won't work either. Nothing short of immunity to intelligence reduction - like the Amnizu demon - will counter a penalty.

[Grod_The_Giant]

On that other hand, you can sidestep the worst of the penalties by, say, grabbing Force of Personality and Ascetic Mage (if entering as a Monk)

[LordOfCain]

On that other hand, you can sidestep the worst of the penalties by, say, grabbing Force of Personality and Ascetic Mage (if entering as a Monk)

Sourcebooks please?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Sourcebooks please?
Oh right, sorry. Both are from Complete Adventurer-- Force of Personality lets you use your Charisma modifier in Will saves against mind-affecting spells and abilities (usually the most dangerous) and Ascetic Mage lets you use your Charisma score instead of Wisdom for your Monk AC bonus-- but I... forgot which class it required a substantial investment in to obtain. (It needs 2nd level arcane spells). You could also use Steadfast Determination (Player's Handbook 2) to flat-out replace use Con instead of Wis for Will Saves.

...your best bet for avoiding the Wis-based penalty to AC is probably to just ditch the Monk features and wear armor. As far as I can tell, the PrC doesn't penalize you for doing so, and the improvised weapons don't work with your Flurry anyway. You could potentially take a few levels of Shou Disciple, which has many similar prerequisites and lets you do the Monk thing in light armor and Flurry with any weapon. Something like Human* Monk** 2/Barbarian*** 1/Fighter 2****/Shou Disciple 5/Drunken Master 10***** could be fun. You wind up with a ton of attacks, Pounce (presumably), and the Drunken Master's fancy Stagger-charge to go with it. Be a roaring drunk who Leap Attacks you, just, so many times. And whose Strength and Constitution are, just, so high.

*Take Able Learner (Races of Destiny) to advance Tumble easily. Alternately, use the Cityscape Web Enhancemet (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) to trade the common-but-useless Ride for Tumble.
**Cobra Style (Unearthed Arcana) for Dodge as a bonus feat
***Ideally using Spirit Lion Totem (Complete Champion) for Pounce and Whirling Frenzy (Unearthed Arcana) for alternate Rage. Alternately, Snow Tiger Berserker (Unapproachable East) is a first level feat that gives you Pounce with light weapons-- AKA the first thing Shou Disciple lets you flurry with.
****Used for bonus feats-- you could replace it easily enough though, depending on what kind of style you're going for.
*****Mix these up however you want, though you'll definitely want one level (to wear light armor and still flurry). I'd probably go Shou 1/Drunken Master 2-3/Shou +4/Drunken Master +8-9, though if you're sticking to a light weapon Flurry you could drop the last two levels of Shou

Oh! Or you could replace Shou with Fist of the Forest (Complete Champion) for more unarmed rage crossover-- Con to AC when unarmored, unarmored damage progression, and another stacking pseudo-rage.