Character Help - Maritime Marauder

[findingpaths]

Hello,

My group is starting up a new campaign that will be nearly all maritime, essentially a low magic renaissance style setting. Primary books are the Swashbuckling Adventures stuff for 3.5. I want to make a character that would excel at diving, deploying underwater bombs to enemy ships to cause them to sink, and doing forced boarding and VBSS (visit, board, search & seizure) actions. Essentially, a frogman in the military sense of the term. Firearms are likely flint locks but I don't have that confirmed right now.

Thanks for any help!

[The Viscount]

In this context I would highly recommend a race with a natural swim speed, like Aventi or Darfellan. Both are humanoid (aquatic) so can qualify for scaled horror (Savage Species), which is a very useful class for when things are happening in the water. The biggests boosts are from the first two levels: improved grab (which makes Darfellan especially attractive), keen scent, and freedom of movement while in water. In terms of doing raiding and violent boardings, you might find Scarlet Corsair somewhat useful. Some levels in Wavekeeper might also interest you as it can do a variety of water things (most notably water breathing which benefits Darfellan), though use depends on how much you expect to do that sort of thing. Sabotaging enemy ships is a bit difficult, closest approximation I think of is Combat Trapsmith (Complete Scoundrel).