The Codfather

[Forumlurker]

So while I was lurking around the forums last night I had an idea for an... "interesting" character. Namely, a guy who fights by slapping people with a fish.

Of course, my tired brain immediately got to work thinking about how to make such a character viable. My first thought was to have something along the lines of a TWF sneak attacker, because why not? I also thought about throwing three levels of swashbuckler in somewhere. (mostly for the free weapon finesse and int to damage.) I didn't get very far on the idea, but I figured I may as well throw it out there.
So, what do you think, playground?

[Zaq]

It's a fine gag character concept, but I think we need to solve the problem of where you're getting these fish, and we also need to solve the problem of what the stats on "fish as weapon" are. Without some (obvious yet critical) homebrew, a fish will be, at best, an improvised weapon, and it's honestly pretty hard not to suck with improvised weapons. (Drunken Master gets bigger dice with them, at least, but they don't remove the nonproficiency penalty.) Are you comfortable for this character to be dealing with that sort of thing from the get-go, or do we need to look at some way of making a fish not be, y'know, a fish?

(Also, are you using the same fish every time, or will you get some kind of supply of them? By the rules, the fish should probably be dead first, since living creatures are creatures rather than objects, and you can't really use a creature as an improvised weapon. Fling Ally isn't especially helpful here. But of course, we then need some kind of magic to deal with the fact that dead fish get pretty gross pretty fast, at least if you're keeping it around for more than an encounter or so.)

. . . I do think it would be interesting to let a Commoner of some water-dwelling people (aventi, perhaps?) have Fish-Infested rather than Chicken-Infested.

[ShurikVch]

The ways which I can suggest (not all are equally good, but it's up to You):
1) Charge
2) Power Attack
3) Precision damage
4) Unarmed damage through the fish
5) Martial maneuvers
6) Poisons and poison-like things
7) Channeled spells

Which you will like more?

EDIT: what's the supposed size of the fish? Because slapping people with Megalodon is epic!

P.S. Aym, Queen Avarice - vestige from Tome of Magic - grant Ruinous Attack: double damage to objects, and, if binding level is 10+ - melee attacks count as adamantine vs. DR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryeygge9LRs

[Vizzerdrix]

What about going the fling ally route?

[Zaq]

What about going the fling ally route?

Fling Ally doesn't do damage. It just puts the ally somewhere where they wouldn't necessarily otherwise be.

You'd probably have better luck looking at Hulking Hurler, but even that has some issues.

[Vizzerdrix]

Effigy cod? In net cutter fish barding.

[flappeercraft]

Is it ok if you just use a fish that you used PAO into a weapon? I guess that would be viable, also if you want the actual fish to be the weapon you use then I reccomend using Gentle Repose on it to have it not expire and decay. Also if it's viable it would probably be a good idea to instead of using a dead fish just to get a live one, use Flesh to stone and then stone shape into a weapon or just the shape stone to make it sharper or something similar.

[IcarusWulfe]

Would it be possible for an Artificer's weapon augmentation infusions to affect an improvised weapon? If so, then one might get some decent effects out of that.

[ExLibrisMortis]

How about using Dual-Plane Summons to create poisonous piranhas with pounce? Stack on venomfire with Imbued Summoning, Fling Ally, and you've got yourself a piranha gun. It's not melee, per sé, though the fish are making melee attacks. You do have to be okay with the fish suffocating, but they're only summoned fish, so that's probably okay.

[tomandtish]

Just take exotic weapon proficiency sword...fish. :smalltongue:

[John Longarrow]

You are talking about a cleric...
Gentle repose on the fish so it doesn't go bad.
You get to wear full plate (after all, that's part of it, isn't it?)
You can cast sanctuary so you can walk up to a hostile person (or news caster, as may be) and hit them with said fish.

Note: The same applies if you are planning to use a plucked chicken.

[AvatarVecna]

"One time, I caught a fish that was--" *whacks dude with a ginormous fish* "--THIS BIG!!!"

Also, make sure to heavily enchant your armor (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?146113-Chainmail-Bikini-and-Codfish-Speedo), should the DM complain about realism.

[LordOfCain]

Perhaps... drunken master would be okay.... please don't hurt me....

[Flickerdart]

Telekinetic thrust (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/telekineticThrust.htm) can weaponize both objects (dead fish) and creatures (living fish). Fish probably fall under "less dangerous objects" and deal 1 point of damage per 25 pounds. This will allow the power to deal 10 damage per unaugmented manifestation, or 25 damage when augmented to ML20. You may hurl up to 15 fish at a time.

Because each fish gets a separate attack roll, you can proc sneak attack 15 times, as long as you make the casting a full-round action.

[Manyasone]

6) Poisons and poison-like things


Don't you mean poisson and poisson-like things 😉

[Forumlurker]

It's a fine gag character concept, but I think we need to solve the problem of where you're getting these fish, and we also need to solve the problem of what the stats on "fish as weapon" are. Without some (obvious yet critical) homebrew, a fish will be, at best, an improvised weapon, and it's honestly pretty hard not to suck with improvised weapons. (Drunken Master gets bigger dice with them, at least, but they don't remove the nonproficiency penalty.) Are you comfortable for this character to be dealing with that sort of thing from the get-go, or do we need to look at some way of making a fish not be, y'know, a fish?

(Also, are you using the same fish every time, or will you get some kind of supply of them? By the rules, the fish should probably be dead first, since living creatures are creatures rather than objects, and you can't really use a creature as an improvised weapon. Fling Ally isn't especially helpful here. But of course, we then need some kind of magic to deal with the fact that dead fish get pretty gross pretty fast, at least if you're keeping it around for more than an encounter or so.)
-snip-My first thought was actually to have something along the lines of a reskinned (and heavily enchanted, probably a custom magic item with gentle repose) sap, or possibly a more lethal bludgeoning weapon. Either way, it'd probably have to be a custom item of some kind.


The ways which I can suggest (not all are equally good, but it's up to You):
1) Charge
2) Power Attack
3) Precision damage
4) Unarmed damage through the fish
5) Martial maneuvers
6) Poisons and poison-like things
7) Channeled spells

Which you will like more?

EDIT: what's the supposed size of the fish? Because slapping people with Megalodon is epic!

-snip- I'm not terribly interested in the charge route, power attack could work if I built around it, precision damage was sorta what I was planning to do, unarmed damage is an idea (I'd have to look into how it could be built, however), I like the idea of martial maneuvers (could work with the previous idea, unarmed swordsage, anybody?), And I'm not too interested in poison or channeling spells.

As for the size, that depends on the build. Most likely it'd be something around the size of a shortsword or dagger :P


Would it be possible for an Artificer's weapon augmentation infusions to affect an improvised weapon? If so, then one might get some decent effects out of that.there's a thought.


"One time, I caught a fish that was--" *whacks dude with a ginormous fish* "--THIS BIG!!!"

Also, make sure to heavily enchant your armor, should the DM complain about realism....I need to read this now

Edit: I read it, and...

...Wat.