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Wraithy
2007-09-06, 12:26 PM
I recently borrowed the complete warrior from a friend, after examining the dervish class again (I had borrowed the book in the past), it seemed to me that this class would work brilliantly with a character I start playing soon.
The character is a warforged scout (16str 14dex 14con 14int 6wis 8cha) that will use a heavy poleaxe.
skirmish seems to fit perfectly with the dervish dance ability, and the whole package seems rather nice mechanically, I probably would start taking dervish levels somewhere between levels 8 and 11.
has anyone made a character like this successfully? or is there a fatal flaw I have yet to discover?

Citizen Joe
2007-09-06, 12:41 PM
The fatal flaw with all optimizations is the escalation race with the DM. If you make a character that can easily handle the situation given an appropriate CR level, the DM will increase the CR until it becomes a suitable challenge. If you now remove your artificially strengthened optimized character, the rest of the group is suddenly wiped out by a way out of class CR encounter.

AKA_Bait
2007-09-06, 12:44 PM
The fatal flaw with all optimizations is the escalation race with the DM. If you make a character that can easily handle the situation given an appropriate CR level, the DM will increase the CR until it becomes a suitable challenge. If you now remove your artificially strengthened optimized character, the rest of the group is suddenly wiped out by a way out of class CR encounter.

Mechanically though, I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Karsh
2007-09-06, 02:36 PM
Only that by taking a class with Skirmish, you sacrifice BAB, pretty much. Since Scout is a 3/4ths BAB class, your to-hit will be slightly lower than if you took a few levels in, say, Warblade or Fighter.

Just be sure to have Greater Truedeath and Demolition crystals and +3 or higher weapons so that you can skirmish against undead and constructs.

Reel On, Love
2007-09-06, 02:40 PM
The fatal flaw with all optimizations is the escalation race with the DM. If you make a character that can easily handle the situation given an appropriate CR level, the DM will increase the CR until it becomes a suitable challenge. If you now remove your artificially strengthened optimized character, the rest of the group is suddenly wiped out by a way out of class CR encounter.

He's talking about a few Scout levels going into Dervish. That's not going to overpower anything, you can relax.

Darrin
2007-09-06, 02:54 PM
Only that by taking a class with Skirmish, you sacrifice BAB, pretty much. Since Scout is a 3/4ths BAB class, your to-hit will be slightly lower than if you took a few levels in, say, Warblade or Fighter.


Four levels of Scout only dings you once on BAB. If you need more than four levels of Scout, the Swift Hunter feat + Ranger levels saves most of your BAB, and leads nicely into the Highland Stalker PrC.

Dervish is a fairly strong PrC, although most folks go the TWF route with it (add armor spikes and you can keep the Heavy Poleaxe and TWF). If you find the fatigue after Dervish Dance to be bothersome, a 1-level dip into Horizon Walker will make you immume to fatigue.

Karsh
2007-09-06, 06:08 PM
Four levels of Scout only dings you once on BAB. If you need more than four levels of Scout, the Swift Hunter feat + Ranger levels saves most of your BAB, and leads nicely into the Highland Stalker PrC.

Dervish is a fairly strong PrC, although most folks go the TWF route with it (add armor spikes and you can keep the Heavy Poleaxe and TWF). If you find the fatigue after Dervish Dance to be bothersome, a 1-level dip into Horizon Walker will make you immune to fatigue.

That was my point. You stand to lose nearly nothing.

You can't use Armor spikes while dervish dancing; it has to be slashing weapons only. EDIT: I suppose you could dip a level into monk and take Versatile Unarmed Strike and use your slashing earlobes as offhand attacks, though.

KillianHawkeye
2007-09-07, 09:09 AM
Didn't they also have armor blades somewhere? Arms & Equipment Guide, maybe? I don't remember, but I'm sure I've seen it.

BCOVertigo
2007-09-07, 10:18 AM
If you find the fatigue after Dervish Dance to be bothersome, a 1-level dip into Horizon Walker will make you immume to fatigue.

The character is a warforged scout....
:smalltongue:

Rad
2007-09-07, 10:23 AM
I would recommend at most 4 levels in scout, then ranger with the swift hunter feat.
In the end you'll get full skirmish, plus you'll be able to do skirmish extra damage to your favored enemies even if they are immune (choose them accordingly; you're not getting huge bonuses there, so overcoming the immunity is, crunch-wise, the main point). This way you save BAB and get the 2WF feat to pair the armor blades (if they exist) with your polearm.

Wraithy
2007-09-07, 10:26 AM
hmm, I've never really liked TWF.. or rangers. I'm not really looking for optimisation, though if I did go ranger I'd probably find an alternate combat style based around polearms (there has to be one somewhere). where is this swift hunter feat?

Overlard
2007-09-07, 01:13 PM
hmm, I've never really liked TWF.. or rangers. I'm not really looking for optimisation, though if I did go ranger I'd probably find an alternate combat style based around polearms (there has to be one somewhere). where is this swift hunter feat?
Complete Scoundrel.

Lord Tataraus
2007-09-07, 01:39 PM
Well there is the Strong-Arm ranger style (DR326) which gives you Power Attack at 2nd, Improved Sunder at 6th, and Great Cleave at 11th. That's the closest for polearms. I guess you could homebrew a ranger style though. I would go with something like: Shield and Pike Style (DR338), Short Haft (PH2), and Pike Hedge (DR317). That lets you wield a polearm in two hands with a light shield (with no penalties, only benefits), reduce your reach by 5ft as a swift action (and return it afterwards) and deal x3 damage when readied against a charge.

Wraithy
2007-09-07, 04:55 PM
Another problem about the TWF route would be reach. as a polearm user, I want to make my attacks from afar, I think I'd need to be adjacent to someone to use a spiked shield/other TWF weapon.

Zincorium
2007-09-07, 05:10 PM
Another problem about the TWF route would be reach. as a polearm user, I want to make my attacks from afar, I think I'd need to be adjacent to someone to use a spiked shield/other TWF weapon.

Try getting the DM to allow you to use Kusari Gama from the DMG's section on odd weapons.

It's like two little light spiked chains!

Lord Tataraus
2007-09-07, 05:43 PM
Another problem about the TWF route would be reach. as a polearm user, I want to make my attacks from afar, I think I'd need to be adjacent to someone to use a spiked shield/other TWF weapon.

Actually, you can take the Haft Strike feat which makes any polearm a double weapon for purposes of two-weapon fighting with the off-hand side as a quarterstaff. However, an enchanted polearm's haft has all of the same enchantments and you keep the same range with the off-hand attack.

Also, polearms are actually very good defensive weapons for two-weapon/two-handed with the Shield and Pike Style feat (which lets you wield a two-handed polearm with a light shield at no penalty and you never lose the shield bonus). Then with Haft-Strike it becomes a double weapon. And if you are a monk you can take Pole Fighter to use a polearm as a monk weapon for flurry of blows.

Wraithy
2007-09-07, 06:02 PM
hmm, it still seems like most of the TWF options use non-slashing weapons (unusable for a dervish). the Strong-Arm ranger combat style looks interesting though, what book is DR? (I'm bad at abbreviations).

Lord Tataraus
2007-09-07, 06:12 PM
hmm, it still seems like most of the TWF options use non-slashing weapons (unusable for a dervish). the Strong-Arm ranger combat style looks interesting though, what book is DR? (I'm bad at abbreviations).

Dragon Magazine issue#XYZ
I don't have that issue, but it is in the crystalkeep indexes (http://crystalkeep.com/d20/index.php), an amazing resource (I have not found an error, in fact it fixes some errors in the books).