A little help with my new character for a dragonlance setting... ?

[dehro]

Hi all..
I'm about to start playing a new campaign, so I've come up with a new character to play.
As always, I tend to start with a background (sometimes even an image) and take it from there...
I'll be playing the firstborn son of a nobleman who has squandered his family fortune in gambling and dissolution.
The character was slumming it with his fellow noble scions, in the dorms of one of those exclusive accademies where the ruling class is prepared to follow in the steps of generals, barons, princes and merchant kings alike... Until his dad decided to gamble away even his son's inheritance.
The scandal was shortlived and no amount of top marks in his classes could save him from being expelled from school and subsequently shunned by his peers.
Since then the character lives cultivating hatred for his now destitute father, the ambition to restore the family honour, prestige and fortune, and trying to make ends meet. Occasionally he works for his former friends whom however don't want to be seen with him anywhere public. He has formally inherited the title from his father who has relinquished it in order to save at least that from the pillaging of the family properties. Lands, castles, fiefs and other possessions have long gone.
He keeps the right to vote in plenary sessions of the parliament, to petition the Royal Court and other fringe benefits of being one of the nobles of the realm, but he does not exercise any of those rights for fear of losing the remnants of his title and position, should the king take exception to a working class/destitute noble.
Some of his former vassals and servants remember him fondly, for having raised him, others gloat in his now lowered status and will actually do him a bad turn out of spite.
His ambition is to work, possibly in secret, to acquire personal wealth and influence with which to restore the honour and status of his family. He will go to great lengths to do so, but his sense of honour and status does stop him from committing certain acts or compell him to perform other.
He will always chose to avoid bringing shame or undue publicity to his family name, sometimes hiding behind an assumed name to do so.
On rare occasions, he'll use his status and personal connections to either find a job or obtain a favour for old time's sake.

We're playing a Dragonlance setting, starting at level 3.
The first level has to be Noble, I'm thinking the race should be Human.
I got really lucky and rolled 16, 16, 15, 14, 14, 13.
I have 2000 GP budget most of which I'd invest in a family heirloom, a sword, bow or magic item... and am thinking I'd like to play an archer type warrior.
I would keep it very simple, build-wise.. either with a straight fighter build, or maybe an urban ranger of some kind, or a thief.. I'm not sure. Ranged is what I'm mainly looking at.
I'm NOT interested in playing more than 1, 2 classes tops.. and at most 1 prestige class later on. We are not even sure this will become a full blown campaign rather than a short number of sessions inbetween 2 campaigns. If that should be the case, I'd like to focus my later game (and therefore character development) on finances, wealth, investing and acquiring money-making venues such as real estate or investing in taverns, artisan shops and such... which is where I'd spend most of my loot.

any suggestions on how to make a decent archer and leave a door open for haggling and such is much appreciated.

[ATHATH]

You, uh, do realize that you don't have to take levels in the Noble class in order to be a noble, right?

[dehro]

You, uh, do realize that you don't have to take levels in the Noble class in order to be a noble, right?

yes... but I wanna.
Also, the 1 level just fits too nicely with the concept of the character to let it go

[AnimeTheCat]

We're playing a Dragonlance setting, starting at level 3.
The first level has to be Noble, I'm thinking the race should be Human.
I got really lucky and rolled 16, 16, 15, 14, 14, 13.
I have 2000 GP budget most of which I'd invest in a family heirloom, a sword, bow or magic item... and am thinking I'd like to play an archer type warrior.
I would keep it very simple, build-wise.. either with a straight fighter build, or maybe an urban ranger of some kind, or a thief.. I'm not sure. Ranged is what I'm mainly looking at.
I'm NOT interested in playing more than 1, 2 classes tops.. and at most 1 prestige class later on. We are not even sure this will become a full blown campaign rather than a short number of sessions inbetween 2 campaigns. If that should be the case, I'd like to focus my later game (and therefore character development) on finances, wealth, investing and acquiring money-making venues such as real estate or investing in taverns, artisan shops and such... which is where I'd spend most of my loot.

any suggestions on how to make a decent archer and leave a door open for haggling and such is much appreciated.

A Single class scout could do well. Assuming your party isn't overly optimized, scouts hold their own decently. Lots of skill points (enough that you can afford cross class ranks in diplomacy or bluff), speak language as a class skill (to reflect your noble birth, you know learning multiple languages as a young one), and bonus damage/AC just for moving and attacking (no need to flank like a rogue).

I would do your str/dex/con/int/wis/cha as 13/16/15/16/14/14. Dex is important and as many skill points as you can get the better. At level 4, put your point in con and call it art. If you get to level 8, round off your strength to 14. If you don't like shortbows, play some version of elf that gives you longbow proficiency (arctic elves replace the -2 con for a -2 str). If you don't mind shortbows, play a human and get more skill points.

I know there will be people who disagree with me, but this is the first thing that popped into my head when I read your character idea.

[dehro]

update: class selection is limited to the ones listed in the dragonlance campaign setting.. whether this remains true should we advance in the campaign is currently undetermined, but for now this is where it's at.

[zlefin]

I don't see a specification of which classes are in the dragonlance setting (as well as which class variants are allowed).
while not an explicit variant class; the variant class section in the srd lists some suggestions at the bottom of it, including one for a rogue that swaps sneak attack for fighter bonus feats.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Ranger/Horizon Walker is about as good a simple core build as you can get, if that's what you need. Favored Enemy is actually a nice social bump if you're dealing with mostly one or two races. You can splash in a few Rogue levels easily enough, to add a bit of bonus damage and skills. Avoid Fighter.

[dehro]

ranger doesn't mesh too well with my character concept, but I could get to horizon walker via my curret initial setup, noble/fighter.
would a "walker" still be viable if the horse was doing most of the walking?

[dehro]

I don't see a specification of which classes are in the dragonlance setting (as well as which class variants are allowed).
while not an explicit variant class; the variant class section in the srd lists some suggestions at the bottom of it, including one for a rogue that swaps sneak attack for fighter bonus feats.

our class selection is limited to core books as modified according to the dragonlance setting manual, meaning kender instead of halflings, knights instead of paladins and so on.