In response to a meat grinder: Let's build a Goblin

[Adrian King]

The last few months myself and a group of adventurers have been engaging in various side shenanigans in order to prepare for eventually getting into the Ravenloft campaign setting. Unfortunately, the idea that this game will eventually lead to a Ravenloft game has been dropped because our group has almost been destroyed a total of 4 times in four levels. Because of the way things have continued to progress I feel my current character, a monk is not long for this world. Incidents included two of party exploding in a warehouse fire (death #1) , Being eaten by a polar bear, near-death by cleric when he realized he couldn't in fact cast feather-fall after we all landed, being stabbed to death by children controlled by a demonic/bardic frosty the snowman (death #3), and being beaten to death by 10 goblin guards (Death #4).

With this track record, and the assurance that my next death will be my last. I have become taken with matching the ridiculous campaign with a ridiculous character. Enter one of the three goblins captured in the raid of my last death.
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The current party

One drow rogue: chaotic good. Running from criminal past.

One knight errant of hieroneous: Lawful good. Seeking vengence against a lawful knight of hextor that busted his sword.

One Cleric of Osiris: Alchemist that burned down his own lab twice. Killed almost the entire party in the feather fall incident. Glued the door of a warehouse shut that was on fire killing half the party. Desires to dethrone an "Unjust" Noble. Chaotic Neutral/ Evil?

One Swashbuckler: Chaotic/ ???. Just joined. Merc type, or blood for money. Technically hired by the cleric

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Build Rules

Characters are restricted to core books (Players handbooks, Unearthed Arcana, Complete Warrior, Adventurer, Scoundrel)
No Psionics or Dragon Magazine material. Unfortunately I have already been told that an air goblin will not be allowed.

Character was given three rolled stat blocks to assign as seen fit provided below. Roll 4 drop the lowest dice.
This goblin is traditional in the sense of thinking reading is evil. Therefore no wizardry

12, 13, 12, 12, 17, 9

18, 10, 11, 15, 11, 10

13, 14, 13, 8, 14, 18
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Thanks in advance for everyone's suggestions!

[Gildedragon]

Isn't Osiris LG?

Anyway:
My suggestion was going to be factotum but that's a no-go
so I say: NG Sorcerer or Druid or Bard; more for the first two tho...

Lets say Druid. How do you feel about a jungle goblin? arctic? nvm, plain goblin is better, unless you want to be climbing around, then go jungle...

Lets go for the 13, 14, 13, 8, 14, 18 stats...
18 to wis, lets dump str and cha (you have a pack animal for that)...

modified by the gobbo stats:
Str 11 Dex 15 Con 14 Int 14 Wis 18 Cha 6

What level are we building for?

[Adrian King]

I see that you have caught on to another issue with our Cleric. He recently began taking hits to his alignment and has fallen away from the power of his god. Thus he has fallen back on alchemy as his powers have forsaken him.

Currently the party is at level 6 so that is a good place to start. But long term we are looking at 20 levels.

[mabriss lethe]

It looks like your party definitely needs some arcane problem solving of some sort. Wizard would normally be ideal, but not in this case. All of the other arcane classes from your sources will cast off of Charisma, which is not a goblin's strong suit. It's still not insurmountable. If you want durability and overall versatility, Go with a bard. If you want greater magic power, go sorcerer.

I'm liking the idea of a goblin bard for some reason.

[Adrian King]

There's definitely some material to work with there as well. Our party has no arcane, or divine power anymore. The leader of the Goblin's former tribe was a bard with ten ranks in perform: eat butter. The only thing I worry about is the potential for my dm to replace the word Bardic in Bardic knowledge with the word Goblin. "What's that? You'd Like to roll goblin knowledge? Fire is painful, but useful in the cooking of longshanks." That definitely has the potential to be funny seeing as the only knowledge skill our group has anymore is Knowledge nobility.

[Gildedragon]

There's definitely some material to work with there as well. Our party has no arcane, or divine power anymore. The leader of the Goblin's former tribe was a bard with ten ranks in perform: eat butter. The only thing I worry about is the potential for my dm to replace the word Bardic in Bardic knowledge with the word Goblin. "What's that? You'd Like to roll goblin knowledge? Fire is painful, but useful in the cooking of longshanks." That definitely has the potential to be funny seeing as the only knowledge skill our group has anymore is Knowledge nobility.

That sounds delightful.

I feel that if you want to do that you ought go with Savage Bard. Lose literacy and a few people skills, gain naturey spells

[Adrian King]

I'm still unsure as to the direction that this character could take in the long run and am open to suggestions. The Druid offers a little spellcasting and the ability to wild shape. That could be a potential threat for those we encounter and provide a little magic on the side. The Bard offers the potential for knowledge skills, and a little flavor. Both seem to be solid choices. The only reason that the bard is a little harder of a sale for me is that I have played a vanilla bard once before. My first 3.5 character was a half elf (first issue) that ended up (literal) second fiddle to a sorcerer. Thematically it is quite solid and the savage variant intrigues me.

[Adrian King]

Sorry to drop this on people so late, but those rolls on stats were ones that I had done after the fact because I had rolled at the time of my death and didn't know where my others had gone. I'm sorry if it seems like a copout, but after cleaning my apartment I found the origninal stat array.

Stats can also be: 13, 15, 12, 14, 17, 14

It was to no end embarassing when my dm asked what I had rolled. He made me drop a few points at the time. It was embarrassing to roll a superior character as a joke to replace my monk.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Straight up goblin sorcerer, IMO. None of the listed sources has anything that jumps out at me in particular. There's plenty of flavor and quirky stuff there but your group looks to me like it needs some "OOMPH" that only an arcanist can provide and something you've said above makes me think your DM would look askance at a goblin wizard.

Take a look at this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394.20) guide for some really helpful tips but remember, you're a sorcerer. You'll want to pick spells that have broad useability and work well when spammed.

Edit: oh, and talk to your cleric about converting to a new god. I know that Complete Divine isn't on your book list there but it does include a little sidebar about ex-clerics converting at the cost of a minor side-quest and recieving an atonement spell. The resut is that the cleric gets his spellcasting back, has to choose new domains based on his new deity, and can resume being more than a stack of humanoid HD with slightly better skills.

[Gildedragon]

Sorry to drop this on people so late, but those rolls on stats were ones that I had done after the fact because I had rolled at the time of my death and didn't know where my others had gone. I'm sorry if it seems like a copout, but after cleaning my apartment I found the origninal stat array.

Stats can also be: 13, 15, 12, 14, 17, 14

It was to no end embarassing when my dm asked what I had rolled. He made me drop a few points at the time. It was embarrassing to roll a superior character as a joke to replace my monk.

that's aaight
For druid
11 Str 16 Dex 16 Con 15 Int 17 Wis 10 Cha

[Ywvbevlin]

This goblin is traditional in the sense of thinking reading is evil. Therefore no wizardry

Why is this traditional? Just curious.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Why is this traditional? Just curious.

I was going to say something similar. I don't understand why this is a limitation you're placing on the character. Goblins have no adjustment to their Intelligence score and are as equally intelligent as humans. The only mental modification they have is to Charisma. Further, if you read their description it goes out of the way to say they are ingenuitve and capable of complex planning.

Wizard is a perfectly viable option. Whether you want to role play it or not is up to you.

[Gildedragon]

If you do go wizard: ask about the eidetic spellcaster. Smoking herbs and goblinshrooms to get magic feels... Adequate for a half gag character

[Adrian King]

Why is this traditional? Just curious.

My Dm is fond of the Paizo interpretation that goblins believe that writing words down steals them from your head.

[Adrian King]

Sorry if not explicitly stated, but any complete books are fair game. It's just that dragon magazine and psionics books are not allowed.

[Gildedragon]

My Dm is fond of the Paizo interpretation that goblins believe that writing words down steals them from your head.

So no words. Diagrams. Drawings. Odd bone carvings.
The illiterate flaw (dragon) or trait (srd) helps protect against that badness.
Trade wizard feats for fighter feats?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Sorry if not explicitly stated, but any complete books are fair game. It's just that dragon magazine and psionics books are not allowed.

Well that changes things.

Sorcerer/warlock into eldritch theurge. Lean on warlock for offense and lean on sorcerer for utilities and problem solving. It's a much more flavorful setup than straight sorcerer and it could certainly fit a goblin easily enough.