Pleh
2016-11-23, 10:47 AM
First of all, some context.
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I've had this idea for a while to build a Barbarian/Paladin(Avenger variant) style gnoll character that builds into Champion of Gwynharwyf (or perhaps Ordained Champion alternatively to bulk up smite over ubercharge; I've been playing with the idea of houseruling the alignment restrictions away so that I can qualify for both to take a few key levels in each, but we don't need to get into that here....).
Let's get this out of the way: yes, I will probably be plagued with MAD and feat starvation at every turn. Probably not in a good position to reach any respectable levels of optimization. At this point, the character is less intended to be played in a campaign and is more of a roleplaying experiment for me, meaning the mechanics are less important than they usually are.
But I like to let mechanics inform my fluff (to an extent). The How informs the Why to my character concepts and I need to know what is possible before I can understand what limitations my character is experiencing (hence his unique solutions to overcoming his own limitations that he uses to get the job done).
My thought was for getting a solid mix of Smite (thus Ordained Champion), Fear Effects, and Ubercharger (champion of Gwynharwyf) to hopefully syngergize with each other to build a paladin who charges into combat, busts people up with a greataxe, demoralizes the crowd, and then either cleave to finish them as they quake in their boots, or rush back to cover so that they never know when or where I strike next. A bit of a Batman Brutalizer type thing if Batman didn't have to worry about not killing people and had a genetic predilection to hearing his victims scream their lungs out.
I probably would be better off to pick 2 of the 3 things to focus on (Smite, Fear, Ubercharge) and let the 3rd be a flavor rather than a mechanic
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But don't get confused. While I don't mind recommendations about building Dreadful Raging Smiters, it's not the essence of my question here.
You're probably wondering by now why I picked Gnoll? It's flavor over mechanics; I had pictured the character as a gnoll in his origin story (it's a tragic and beautiful story, but I'm trying to reconcile his fluff with his stats) before I had considered what kind of classes and mechanics I wanted to use. There's probably a number of better species to use for this kind of build, but I was thinking a racial feat to tie everything together synergistically might lend some justification.
As I do a quick google search for Gnoll racial feats I find..... Gnoll Ferocity. Gain a bite attack while raging. Well, raging isn't exactly out of the way for what I was going for, but it's not so synergistic by itself. It's a neat bonus gimmick that probably wouldn't change very much... UNLESS there's some feature out there somewhere in the Splatbook Nebula that makes Bite attacks more Fearful, or allow you to Bite as a Smite, or just about anything that lets a bite perform more functions than just gaining an extra attack.
Otherwise, the build may be telling me to look for another race that may substitute for Gnoll. I was rather unimpressed by their 2HD and +1 LA for... +1 Natural armor, Darkvision (which everyone and his cousin has), and a net +2 to attributes? It's almost like the game makers didn't want us to actually play a Gnoll or something....
---
I've had this idea for a while to build a Barbarian/Paladin(Avenger variant) style gnoll character that builds into Champion of Gwynharwyf (or perhaps Ordained Champion alternatively to bulk up smite over ubercharge; I've been playing with the idea of houseruling the alignment restrictions away so that I can qualify for both to take a few key levels in each, but we don't need to get into that here....).
Let's get this out of the way: yes, I will probably be plagued with MAD and feat starvation at every turn. Probably not in a good position to reach any respectable levels of optimization. At this point, the character is less intended to be played in a campaign and is more of a roleplaying experiment for me, meaning the mechanics are less important than they usually are.
But I like to let mechanics inform my fluff (to an extent). The How informs the Why to my character concepts and I need to know what is possible before I can understand what limitations my character is experiencing (hence his unique solutions to overcoming his own limitations that he uses to get the job done).
My thought was for getting a solid mix of Smite (thus Ordained Champion), Fear Effects, and Ubercharger (champion of Gwynharwyf) to hopefully syngergize with each other to build a paladin who charges into combat, busts people up with a greataxe, demoralizes the crowd, and then either cleave to finish them as they quake in their boots, or rush back to cover so that they never know when or where I strike next. A bit of a Batman Brutalizer type thing if Batman didn't have to worry about not killing people and had a genetic predilection to hearing his victims scream their lungs out.
I probably would be better off to pick 2 of the 3 things to focus on (Smite, Fear, Ubercharge) and let the 3rd be a flavor rather than a mechanic
---
But don't get confused. While I don't mind recommendations about building Dreadful Raging Smiters, it's not the essence of my question here.
You're probably wondering by now why I picked Gnoll? It's flavor over mechanics; I had pictured the character as a gnoll in his origin story (it's a tragic and beautiful story, but I'm trying to reconcile his fluff with his stats) before I had considered what kind of classes and mechanics I wanted to use. There's probably a number of better species to use for this kind of build, but I was thinking a racial feat to tie everything together synergistically might lend some justification.
As I do a quick google search for Gnoll racial feats I find..... Gnoll Ferocity. Gain a bite attack while raging. Well, raging isn't exactly out of the way for what I was going for, but it's not so synergistic by itself. It's a neat bonus gimmick that probably wouldn't change very much... UNLESS there's some feature out there somewhere in the Splatbook Nebula that makes Bite attacks more Fearful, or allow you to Bite as a Smite, or just about anything that lets a bite perform more functions than just gaining an extra attack.
Otherwise, the build may be telling me to look for another race that may substitute for Gnoll. I was rather unimpressed by their 2HD and +1 LA for... +1 Natural armor, Darkvision (which everyone and his cousin has), and a net +2 to attributes? It's almost like the game makers didn't want us to actually play a Gnoll or something....