Character Build: Poppy, Keeper of the Hammer

[LoyalPaladin]

Howdy, everyone!
I've been on a big ol' League of Legends kick here lately and I have played a lot of Poppy (https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/champion/poppy/). I've always wanted to build an "unstoppable knight" in D&D (3.5e). Someone who could take endless abuse and still deal decent damage. Poppy's backstory is basically what I love in character design and she's the unstoppable pint-sized force that I would love to play some day. Are there any fairly powerful character builds that could be used to be a small-sized bruiser in this game? Or am I just another one of those video game fanboys who is looking to simulate something that should stay in its own game?

tl;dr I want to build Poppy in D&D 3.5 and have her perform well. (I usually have a 36pb, 2 flaws, etc.)


https://thumbs.gfycat.com/GleamingSpeedyKronosaurus-size_restricted.gif

[flappeercraft]

A cleric might very well be able to do it. Go CoDzilla, get some fast healing buffs, temp HP buffs, etc. Also cast Delay Death.

If you rather a non caster the Knight class has its 20th level Capstone which is basically Delay Death but a bit crappier to be entirely honest.

I also think there was some stance in ToB that did something similar, although I don't remember the discipline.

[LoyalPaladin]

A cleric might very well be able to do it. Go CoDzilla, get some fast healing buffs, temp HP buffs, etc. Also cast Delay Death.

If you rather a non caster the Knight class has its 20th level Capstone which is basically Delay Death but a bit crappier to be entirely honest.

I also think there was some stance in ToB that did something similar, although I don't remember the discipline.
I generally prefer to go a non-casting route or at least an incredibly low casting route for melee characters. I'll admit I'm very shaky with Tome of Battle, because I don't love it. Crusader could be the best fit here though...

[Troacctid]

Dungeoncrasher Fighter + Shock Trooper seems like a great place to start. Crusader dip to pick up Charging Minotaur, Stone Vise, and Thicket of Blades. That should pretty much do it, tbh.

[ShurikVch]

Obligatory mention of Titan Bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm#titan) (for Use Oversized Weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/titan.htm) :smallwink:)

[gkathellar]

Crusader is hands-down the most straightforward way to do a heavily-armored warrior who keeps dishing out abuse and seemingly doesn't know how to die. You'll want to look into that.

Your biggest problem, really, will be going for Small size - most small races take a strength penalty, and smaller characters are worse at resisting a lot of the combat maneuvers that melee characters may have to stand up to. I'd suggest just playing a dwarf and calling it a day, on that count.

[bean illus]

I generally prefer to go a non-casting route or at least an incredibly low casting route for melee characters. ...

Clerics make great fighters. There's nothing that stops you from lowering your casting stat to 14 (for divine power) and bumping physical stats. Trade out spontaneous healing, and TU. Then fluff it so that you buff yourself, don't heal others, etc.

You can pick domains like war, strength, and travel. Look into prcs like Ordained Champion, and Paragnostic Apostle.

[Zaq]

Crusader is hands-down the most straightforward way to do a heavily-armored warrior who keeps dishing out abuse and seemingly doesn't know how to die. You'll want to look into that.

Your biggest problem, really, will be going for Small size - most small races take a strength penalty, and smaller characters are worse at resisting a lot of the combat maneuvers that melee characters may have to stand up to. I'd suggest just playing a dwarf and calling it a day, on that count.

I agree strongly that crusaders are the best choice for unkillable martial characters. I remember having one such character in the party long ago who routinely took so much damage (while remaining upright, mind you!) that we started tracking how much they took in total, separate from their actual HP. It was quite frequently noticeably higher than their max HP. I don’t recall the character ever going unconscious. Crusaders aren’t bad damage dealers, either.

gkathellar’s point about size has merit and is worth considering, but I wouldn’t worry about it if you’re really set on the image. You can work around a STR penalty or find a rare Small race without one, and if you find yourself on the receiving end of too many maneuvers, you might dip into swordsage and get some Setting Sun tricks to let you resist that sort of thing.

[Uncle Pine]

Obligatory mention of Titan Bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm#titan) (for Use Oversized Weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/titan.htm) :smallwink:)
Alternatively, getting a hold of a sizing weapon and a way to cast Enlarge Weapon can save you the hassle of introducing bloodlines in a build.

[Karl Aegis]

Is the entire character still "I cast haste" plus immunity to everything? Isn't that just gear?

[LoyalPaladin]

Dungeoncrasher Fighter + Shock Trooper seems like a great place to start. Crusader dip to pick up Charging Minotaur, Stone Vise, and Thicket of Blades. That should pretty much do it, tbh.
You know, I've never seen Stone Vise before. I generally avoid ToB because I like low OP classes, but Crusader interests me slightly. Is there a good Crusader handbook?


Obligatory mention of Titan Bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm#titan) (for Use Oversized Weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/titan.htm) :smallwink:)

Alternatively, getting a hold of a sizing weapon and a way to cast Enlarge Weapon can save you the hassle of introducing bloodlines in a build.
Alright, so I've never once used Bloodlines because I assumed they looked underpowered and took up class levels. They work with a pseudo-LA right?


Crusader is hands-down the most straightforward way to do a heavily-armored warrior who keeps dishing out abuse and seemingly doesn't know how to die. You'll want to look into that.
I love being tanky and immune in D&D. Is there something core to the crusader that makes them so?


Your biggest problem, really, will be going for Small size - most small races take a strength penalty, and smaller characters are worse at resisting a lot of the combat maneuvers that melee characters may have to stand up to. I'd suggest just playing a dwarf and calling it a day, on that count.
I considered a dwarf, but I was so-so on the image. I looked into Mongrelfolk, but -4 CHA is harsh for the little Popster. Are there any decent small races?


gkathellar’s point about size has merit and is worth considering, but I wouldn’t worry about it if you’re really set on the image. You can work around a STR penalty or find a rare Small race without one, and if you find yourself on the receiving end of too many maneuvers, you might dip into swordsage and get some Setting Sun tricks to let you resist that sort of thing.
I'm not too worried, since we also tend to play with a decent point-buy.


Is the entire character still "I cast haste" plus immunity to everything? Isn't that just gear?
Part of it is her own stubbornness (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/b/bd/Poppy.respawn01.ogg/revision/latest?cb=20151125180804) (RIP headphone users). I think she's innately good at getting up, but her hammer is definitely magical.

Are there any good hammer feats/enchantments? I imagine Collision is a must.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Hmm.

Immortal Fortitude is the crusader stance mentioned. It allows you to make Fortitude saves against your negative hit point total to be at 1 hp instead. As an 8th-level maneuver, there's no way to get it without dipping significantly into ToB.


A halfling can take the first Wary Swordknight substitution level (paladin 3), which gives you Powerful Build without the ability to use bigger weapons. You could take Monkey Grip in order to wield a Large warhammer two-handed at a -4 penalty.

A dungeonbred elan is a Small creature with +2 dex, +2 con, -2 cha, and Improved Natural Attack for all natural weapons. Which you don't have, but, DM permitting, you might be able to trade it for the ability to wield Medium weapons.

If you apply Anthropomorphic after Dungeonbred, you can turn a Small animal into a Tiny one, which then becomes Small with 1 HD, allowing you to trade it for a class level. It's a nice trick on smaller-than-Small creatures, too, since Anthropomorphic sets size to Small regardless, giving you some free Strength and Constitution.
Some animals would be nice if advanced in HD, if that's a legal application of the template (monkey, owl). For example, an Anthropomorpic Dungeonbred advanced (2 HD) owl is Small with 1 HD, +2/+4/+4/+0/+6/-2 ability scores, and INA for the talon attack (works out to 1d8 damage). The monkey would have -2 str/dex/wis compared to the owl, which could be annoying, but they do have the ability to move more than 20' in a round, which is neat.

At the extreme end of template-stacking, a dungeonbred spellwarped goliath is Small, has a lot of strength, Powerful Build, and a nice amount of other goodies. According to the LA assignment thread, this combination is at least LA +3, though.


Oriental Adventures' Hida Defender gets +1 critical multiplier with warhammers or greatclubs at level 1.
The Three Mountains combat style feat lets you nauseate targets with two greatclub attacks in one round (the save is Strength-based).
Both of these have Power Attack and Weapon Focus as prerequisites. Three Mountains also shares prerequisites with Shock Trooper.
Note that the Titan bloodline grants PA and Improved Sunder (for Combat Brute). Also, technically, it lets you wield a gargantuan weapon in two hands. Which is a bit silly, because a Gargantuan warhammer sits around 40 pounds and is probably twenty feet long (eight times longer than a Medium warhammer). Weight should really go up with the cube of the length--for a weight of just over 2500 pounds--but in D&D, weapons become thinner the bigger they are.


Psicrystal + share pain is a classic combo that can turn any psionic character into something very tough. Combines nicely with the dungeonbred elan. Or, if you want to play up the hammer, you could get an intelligent warhammer and cast share pain on that, treating it as a construct (like the psicrystal). Item Familiar is a good way to get extra power points and an intelligent item. Note that only a Large warhammer is big enough to fit Poppy's description (as a Medium warhammer is a Small object, which is not twice as big as a Small creature).

[tstewt1921]

As far as races, one place I always like to look is http://chet.kindredcircle.org/pdf/DnD3.5Index-Races.pdf

He compiled most of the races available, with and without level adjustment, the dungeon crasher variant would be really good and doing bull rush style build (playing off her charge), but again the small size may hurt you a bit unless you can find a way to give yourself some bonuses.

Personally though, I would just focus on the undying aspect of Poppy, which to agree with everyone, Crusader will do that. The ability within Crusader that makes them a bit harder to kill is Steely Resolve, basically letting them set aside a certain amount of damage until the next turn. Which there are probably ways to increase it that someone may know better.

[LoyalPaladin]

Immortal Fortitude is the crusader stance mentioned. It allows you to make Fortitude saves against your negative hit point total to be at 1 hp instead. As an 8th-level maneuver, there's no way to get it without dipping significantly into ToB.
I might be willing for that. You basically optimize your fortitude save so you never die, right?


At the extreme end of template-stacking, a dungeonbred spellwarped goliath is Small, has a lot of strength, Powerful Build, and a nice amount of other goodies. According to the LA assignment thread, this combination is at least LA +3, though.
Whoa whoa whoa. Okay, break this down for me. Where do I find Dungeonbred and Spellwarped? Small goliath sounds perfect.


Oriental Adventures' Hida Defender gets +1 critical multiplier with warhammers or greatclubs at level 1.
The Three Mountains combat style feat lets you daze targets with two greatclub attacks in one round (the save is Strength-based).
Both of these have Power Attack and Weapon Focus as prerequisites. Three Mountains also shares prerequisites with Shock Trooper.
I'll look at Hida Defender, I've never heard of it. I have heard of Three Mountains, so I'll see if maybe my GM would let me use a hammer instead.


Psicrystal + share pain is a classic combo that can turn any psionic character into something very tough. Combines nicely with the dungeonbred elan. Or, if you want to play up the hammer, you could get an intelligent warhammer and cast share pain on that, treating it as a construct (like the psicrystal). Item Familiar is a good way to get extra power points and an intelligent item. Note that only a Large warhammer is big enough to fit Poppy's description (as a Medium warhammer is a Small object, which is not twice as big as a Small creature).
So I've never understood the Psicrystal/Share Pain combo. What stops your psicrystal from blowing up?


As far as races, one place I always like to look is http://chet.kindredcircle.org/pdf/DnD3.5Index-Races.pdf

He compiled most of the races available, with and without level adjustment, the dungeon crasher variant would be really good and doing bull rush style build (playing off her charge), but again the small size may hurt you a bit unless you can find a way to give yourself some bonuses.
I'll look into this!


Personally though, I would just focus on the undying aspect of Poppy, which to agree with everyone, Crusader will do that. The ability within Crusader that makes them a bit harder to kill is Steely Resolve, basically letting them set aside a certain amount of damage until the next turn. Which there are probably ways to increase it that someone may know better.
I'm kind of digging the whole Crusader with a Psicrystal aspect here. That sounds awesome.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I edited that post a lot, it's a biggish info-dump now.


I might be willing for that. You basically optimize your fortitude save so you never die, right?
Yep, and you have Steadfast Determination to make sure you don't fail on a 1 (plus your Will save is con-based). Dungeonbred grants the prerequisite Endurance feat, too. Note that you can only make three saves before the stance ends; you can reactivate it on your turn (a swift action), but you're not totally beyond hit point damage a la delay death + beastland ferocity.


Whoa whoa whoa. Okay, break this down for me. Where do I find Dungeonbred and Spellwarped? Small goliath sounds perfect.
Dungeonbred is in Dungeonscape. It's one of the few templates that reduces size, but it can only be applied to an abberation, animal, magical beast, or vermin. Its basic purpose is to squeeze big monsters into small dungeons, by compensating for the size loss with stat boosts (+4 str/con) and a size increase for all natural weapons. Effectively, you get a smaller, more agile version of the same creature. It's LA +0, too. Generally speaking, that's pretty fair, because losing a size category might cost you 8 str/4 con, but if you use it before a template that sets size to a specific category (i.e. Anthropomorphic, Kaiju) the bonus is effectively free.
Goliath is one of the few creatures with Powerful Build (half-giant and redcap are the others--you don't want to be a redcap without some extremely major refluffing, trust me). It's not any of those types, so you can't have a Dungeonbred goliath (which would be perfect, and worth asking your DM about).
Spellwarped is a decently strong MMIII template that can turn a goliath into an abberation. The other option is Insectile, but that carries some undesirable fluff. Spellwarped is pretty mutable fluff-wise, and nothing says you can't have blue skin and hair like a shampoo commercial because of it (neither is a goliath trait by default). It also comes with SR and the ability to gain temporary hp whenever you resist a spell with your SR.


I'll look at Hida Defender, I've never heard of it. I have heard of Three Mountains, so I'll see if maybe my GM would let me use a hammer instead.
Considering that the fluff is "nauseated with pain", I'd say a Large warhammer is a thematically appropriate weapon to use with Three Mountains.


So I've never understood the Psicrystal/Share Pain combo. What stops your psicrystal from blowing up?
Two things:
(1) It has hardness 8, so if you take 50 damage, share 25 with the crystal, it only takes 17.
(2) You use vigor to turn power points into temporary hp at a 1:5 ratio. Psicrystals, like familiars, share the effects of your spells/powers for free if they are within 5'. Basically, you wear your crystal under your breastplate, burn 10 pp on temporary hp, and both you and your crystal have 50 temporary hp and share damage.


Other fun powers to use:
empathic feedback (melee reflect)
forced share pain (have a guess :smalltongue:)
hostile empathic transfer (donate your damage taken to an unwilling target)

[LoyalPaladin]

I edited that post a lot, it's a biggish info-dump now.
I just read it over. I'm liking how this is coming together...


Yep, and you have Steadfast Determination to make sure you don't fail on a 1 (plus your Will save is con-based). Dungeonbred grants the prerequisite Endurance feat, too. Note that you can only make three saves before the stance ends; you can reactivate it on your turn (a swift action), but you're not totally beyond hit point damage a la delay death + beastland ferocity.
I wonder. Is there a good way to reduce your steely resolve every round? I'm starting to see how this is unstoppable.


Dungeonbred is in Dungeonscape. It's one of the few templates that reduces size, but it can only be applied to an abberation, animal, magical beast, or vermin. Its basic purpose is to squeeze big monsters into small dungeons, by compensating for the size loss with stat boosts (+4 str/con) and a size increase for all natural weapons. Effectively, you get a smaller, more agile version of the same creature. It's LA +0, too. Generally speaking, that's pretty fair, because losing a size category might cost you 8 str/4 con, but if you use it before a template that sets size to a specific category (i.e. Anthropomorphic, Kaiju) the bonus is effectively free.
Oh, I see. Because Goliath would suffer -4 STR and -2 CON for dropping a size category, but with Powerful Build it could still count as a larger creature.


Goliath is one of the few creatures with Powerful Build (half-giant and redcap are the others--you don't want to be a redcap without some extremely major refluffing, trust me). It's not any of those types, so you can't have a Dungeonbred goliath (which would be perfect, and worth asking your DM about).
Spellwarped is a decently strong MMIII template that can turn a goliath into an abberation. The other option is Insectile, but that carries some undesirable fluff. Spellwarped is pretty mutable fluff-wise, and nothing says you can't have blue skin and hair like a shampoo commercial because of it (neither is a goliath trait by default). It also comes with SR and the ability to gain temporary hp whenever you resist a spell with your SR.
Oof. Spellwarped is awesome. I love that. I see that you're saying it's +3 LA in your previous post, but Goliath + Spellwarped looks like +4 LA, right?


Two things:
(1) It has hardness 8, so if you take 50 damage, share 25 with the crystal, it only takes 17.
(2) You use vigor to turn power points into temporary hp at a 1:5 ratio. Psicrystals, like familiars, share the effects of your spells/powers for free if they are within 5'. Basically, you wear your crystal under your breastplate, burn 10 pp on temporary hp, and both you and your crystal have 50 temporary hp and share damage.
I see. Is it possible to use the hammer as a Psicrystal and up this "DR" substantially by increasing its hardness?


Other fun powers to use:
empathic feedback (melee reflect)
forced share pain (have a guess :smalltongue:)
hostile empathic transfer (donate your damage taken to an unwilling target)
I'll look into those.

I'm wondering if maybe Crusader 13/Psychic Warrior 2/Crusader 2/X would be a good combination? That way I get some PP and delay that stance so I can get the 8th level one.

[liquidformat]

So here are my thoughts on things to look at:

- Great hammer from MMIV, best hammer in the game hands down.
- Underfoot Combat& Confound the big people from Races of the wild. If you are going to have tumble say from trading ride for tumble these two feats are gems! Also see Pebble Underfoot from dragon compendium if you are using tripping.
- A strange but interesting race would be whisper gnome with titan bloodline and Titan Fighting. This nets you quite a bit of fun stuff that could work very well with the build.
- Barbarian one or two level dip will give you a lot of nice things.

- On a side note I always love the Blade Bravo prc but it is a bit off for your build.

[Karl Aegis]

So just like be a Xeph, take Xeph Burst, Extra and Xeph Celerity, equip a suit of adamantine armor and have a magic maul. Add levels of Fighter for Weapon Specialization to taste. You shouldn't have to venture much father than 6th or 8th level to get what you want.

[Eldariel]

I definitely think Crusader/Master of the Nine is the way to go. Maybe 2-6 levels of Fighter for Dungeoncrasher, since it just seems way too appropriate (combine with Charging Minotaur, of course). Crusader Strikes do a good job of keeping you topped out and stopping in-coming damage. Master of the Nine is for the beautiful combination of Immortal Fortitude (level 8 Crusader stance) and Counter Stance. Immortal Fortitude turns off if you take lethal damage 3 times, but if you have Counter Stance available, you can then just initiate a Counter and reset the Immortal Fortitude. And then you can Dual Stance Stance of Alacrity + Immortal Fortitude to keep up a counter at all times (end Stance of Alacrity and then restart it as necessary) as long as you have counters available. Optionally dip 2 levels of Paladin for Cha to Fort-saves (which are pretty key for Immortal Fortitude). But yeah, Crusader's Delayed Damage Pool and the ability to heal the damage there is already very close to what Poppy does and then you have maneuvers that fairly closely mimic Poppy's abilities. And ToB maneuvers don't care about size (though you clearly want Bull Rushing, which is a bit tricky as a small character; Marshal would add Charisma to Strength-checks, which could allow cheating the numbers a bit).

If not using ToB, I can't but echo Cleric. Cleric already gets a spell called "Starmantle" (Joy-domain 7), which halves all incoming damage on a successful Raflex-save, and it's not very hard to rig your Reflex-save to "never fail" (it's only DC15 and Pride-domain allows rerolling 1s on saves). They also have Delay Death, which allows surviving as long as the duration of the spell lasts no matter your HP total. And a lot of buffs. Literally never cast anything but buffs and perhaps enhance your Hammer (I must point out that the Hammer-abilities are clearly magical) and you're pretty well off. The defining traits of Poppy are charging/stunning people to walls, knocking them the heck away and being very hard to kill with shield/temp HP, damage reduction and all that. To that end, spells are the only real way you can do those things outside ToB in 3.5 (well, yeah, Knight on level 20 and Frenzied Berserker on level 4, but Knight comes too late and Frenzied Berserker just doesn't feel appropriate).

[Troacctid]

The defining traits of Poppy are charging/stunning people to walls, knocking them the heck away and being very hard to kill with shield/temp HP, damage reduction and all that. To that end, spells are the only real way you can do those things outside ToB in 3.5 (well, yeah, Knight on level 20 and Frenzied Berserker on level 4, but Knight comes too late and Frenzied Berserker just doesn't feel appropriate).
That's not true. Dungeoncrasher into Hellreaver would be a fine approximation of Poppy without any ToB. I mean certainly it works better if you can use Stone Power instead of Power Attack, but still. I think you could even do it as a single-class fighter.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I wonder. Is there a good way to reduce your steely resolve every round? I'm starting to see how this is unstoppable.
Well, the usual way to do it is just to let the damage go to your hit points, where a fat stack of temp hp is absorbing it. Keeping your delayed damage pool full is a good way to get some extra attack and damage, via the Furious Counterstrike ability. Arguably, damage going from your pool into your hit points is subject to hardness and share pain, allowing you to feed all damage through hardness twice (once going into the pool, once going into your hp total). From a 50-point hit, you might ignore 10 points from hardness, send 20 points to your delayed damage pool (crusader 12), split the remainder 10/10 with your psicrystal (which only takes 2 damage thanks to its hardness), and then take the 20 damage next turn, split 10/10 with your psicrystal, of which you take no damage, and the psicrystal only 2. Net damage taken from a 50-point hit: 4 to the psicrystal. Note that the second hit would've dealt much more damage, because your delayed damage pool would be full.

The wording on Steely Resolve is simple "you take damage". Hardness will definitely stop that (it works on all damage), but DR only works against weapons and natural attacks, so the question is whether damage stored in the delayed damage pool retains any memory of its source and type. I would say it doesn't (it becomes damage dealt by Steely Resolve, which is not a weapon or natural attack), so simple DR won't work for this trick. That's also something of a balancing factor, because it's much harder to get hardness than DR. Animated objects and psicrystals are the main ones, really.


Oh, I see. Because Goliath would suffer -4 STR and -2 CON for dropping a size category, but with Powerful Build it could still count as a larger creature.
Yep, and with Dungeonbred on top, it's a +4/+0/+4 race in total. That's the same physical scores as an arctic water orc, but with much better mental ability scores (and a point of LA).


Oof. Spellwarped is awesome. I love that. I see that you're saying it's +3 LA in your previous post, but Goliath + Spellwarped looks like +4 LA, right?
Yes, I was talking about the reduced LA assigned by the relevant thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?518086-The-LA-assignment-archive&p=21798987). Spellwarped was assigned +2 to replace the vanilla +3.


I see. Is it possible to use the hammer as a Psicrystal and up this "DR" substantially by increasing its hardness?
Not usually, no. It's possible to have a crystal weapon that contains your psychic focus (psychic weapon master 1, takes a ton of feats to get in), and it can also be intelligent, but neither of those things make it a psicrystal. It is also possible to sovereign glue a psicrystal onto a weapon, but that doesn't particularly do anything. Metamorphosis, however, would allow your psicrystal (and yourself) to take the form of an object, including a hammer (maximum hardness 15), which could then be further reinforced with hardening, matter manipulation etcetera.


I'm wondering if maybe Crusader 13/Psychic Warrior 2/Crusader 2/X would be a good combination? That way I get some PP and delay that stance so I can get the 8th level one.
That would work, but it would be a bit short on power points, and you wouldn't get share pain until psywar level 7, because it's not on the psywar power list and thus requires Expanded Knowledge once you can manifest third-level powers. A better build would be the (theoretical) crusader 4/psion 1/psionic-and-initiating PrC 10/crusader +4, but there isn't one.

There is no psionic/Tome of Battle class, which is a shame, but you could take the Jade Phoenix Mage and make it a Jade Dragon Mage instead (gem dragons are psionic), advancing psionics at the levels JPM advances arcane casting. JPM lets you select Devoted Spirit maneuvers by default. You could replace the Desert Wind discipline with the Diamond Mind discipline to reflect the mental power aspect (Diamond Dragon Mage?), as well. The same thing works with the Ruby Knight Vindicator, or possibly with another casting-and-class-feature advancer (i.e. Swiftblade advancing maneuvers instead of skirmish/bonus feats/as few of the haste enhancements your DM lets you get away with as possible), although that does go quite far into homebrew.

[LoyalPaladin]

I definitely think Crusader/Master of the Nine is the way to go. Maybe 2-6 levels of Fighter for Dungeoncrasher, since it just seems way too appropriate (combine with Charging Minotaur, of course). Crusader Strikes do a good job of keeping you topped out and stopping in-coming damage. Master of the Nine is for the beautiful combination of Immortal Fortitude (level 8 Crusader stance) and Counter Stance. Immortal Fortitude turns off if you take lethal damage 3 times, but if you have Counter Stance available, you can then just initiate a Counter and reset the Immortal Fortitude. And then you can Dual Stance Stance of Alacrity + Immortal Fortitude to keep up a counter at all times (end Stance of Alacrity and then restart it as necessary) as long as you have counters available. Optionally dip 2 levels of Paladin for Cha to Fort-saves (which are pretty key for Immortal Fortitude). But yeah, Crusader's Delayed Damage Pool and the ability to heal the damage there is already very close to what Poppy does and then you have maneuvers that fairly closely mimic Poppy's abilities. And ToB maneuvers don't care about size (though you clearly want Bull Rushing, which is a bit tricky as a small character; Marshal would add Charisma to Strength-checks, which could allow cheating the numbers a bit).
I like this option a heck of a lot better. I'm assuming I need to go Warblade X/Crusader X/Master of Nine 4. I have a build for an upcoming game that I'm considering switching this out for. I like the idea of the invincible little one a lot. Not playing Poppy, but at least using this strange tiny goliath that is basically unkillable. We have a runecaster in that game too who could hook me up with some pretty nasty things.

If I had a starting level of 15, three flat LA reduction (so +1 LA from the Spellwarped, Dungeonbred Goliath) and two flaws available, what would be a good path to go down?

[tstewt1921]

That's not true. Dungeoncrasher into Hellreaver would be a fine approximation of Poppy without any ToB. I mean certainly it works better if you can use Stone Power instead of Power Attack, but still. I think you could even do it as a single-class fighter.

Off topic: I have never seen the Hellreaver class and I'm so happy it was brought up in here, that class is a wonderful Paladin prestige class!

[ShurikVch]

Note: Shrink Collar (Arms and Equipment Guide) sets size to Small, but keeps original Str; costs 10000 gp; how about it?.. :smallwink:

Also, about the AoE slowing effect - check the Copper Dragon Lineage (Dragon Magic). Yes, I know, you don't want to make her a caster, but she wouldn't actually need to cast any spells - just have spell slots.

[tstewt1921]

Note: Shrink Collar (Arms and Equipment Guide) sets size to Small, but keeps original Str; costs 10000 gp; how about it?.. :smallwink:

Also, about the AoE slowing effect - check the Copper Dragon Lineage (Dragon Magic). Yes, I know, you don't want to make her a caster, but she wouldn't actually need to cast any spells - just have spell slots.

Her AoE isn't really a slowing effect, it would need to be like an area of dimensional anchor plus rough terrain to prevent any charging effects or teleportation effects in or around it. I know a dip into knight would give you the rough terrain effect.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Note: Shrink Collar (Arms and Equipment Guide) sets size to Small, but keeps original Str; costs 10000 gp; how about it?.. :smallwink:
In the same vein, there's strength of the true form, which is a sorcerer 1 spell from Dragons of Eberron. It lets you use the highest ability score out of your base form and polymorphed form.

I hadn't thought of the Counter Stance/Immortal Fortitude synergy; that's a great trick. It's not easy to get into Mo9 (40 skill ranks and 4 feats), but it's probably worth it.

[Troacctid]

Her AoE isn't really a slowing effect, it would need to be like an area of dimensional anchor plus rough terrain to prevent any charging effects or teleportation effects in or around it. I know a dip into knight would give you the rough terrain effect.
That's part of why I suggested Hellreaver. It has the anchor effect.

[Maat Mons]

Are there any decent small races?

Wild Dwarves (Races of Faerun, p23) are small size, have no strength penalty, and keep the stability racial trait of standard dwarves, making them as good at resisting trips and things as a standard medium character.

Whisper Gnomes (Races of Stone, p96) are small, yet have a movement speed of 30, like most medium creatures.

Goblins are also small creatures with a movement speed of 30, but are arbitrarily given a net penalty to ability scores.

Strongheart Halflings (Forgotten Realms Capaign Setting, p18) are small and gain a human-style bonus feat of their choice.

Korobokurus (Oriental Adventures, p11) are small size, have no penalty to strength, and are eligible for the Titan Fighting feat, if you want to go that rout.

Vril (Drow of the Underdark, p123) are small size, have no strength penalty, but have light blindness.




Are there any good hammer feats/enchantments?

Getting someone to cast Greater Mighty Wallop (Races of the Dragon, p115) can eventually make your hammer deal damage as if it were colossal, even if it's actually small. If you can sweet-talk your DM into a custom magic item, the guidelines for items based on spells would suggest about 24,000 gp per damage size category boost.

[tstewt1921]

Getting someone to cast Greater Mighty Wallop (Races of the Dragon, p115) can eventually make your hammer deal damage as if it were colossal, even if it's actually small. If you can sweet-talk your DM into a custom magic item, the guidelines for items based on spells would suggest about 24,000 gp per damage size category boost.

It looks like it would be about 120,000gp for the full 5 increases from small size, if I'm doing it right. Spell level (3) x CL (20) x 2000 gold. That's at max though. The big thing that would differ would be the caster level and bonus you get from the caster level.

You are right, 24k per level.

[Thurbane]

Has anyone suggested Binder, to get Eurynom'es Maul (ToM p.31)? It's a relatively elegant solution for the weapon size issues for a smaller character.

A Binder/Kinight of the Sacred Seal build could be fairly effective...

[Troacctid]

Eurynome's other abilities aren't the best fit for Poppy, though, and neither is the rest of the binder class. It would also preclude enchanting the weapon normally, which I think is important—you want to get stuff like sudden stunning and brutal surge.

[Fuzzy McCoy]

It looks like it would be about 120,000gp for the full 5 increases from small size, if I'm doing it right. Spell level (3) x CL (20) x 2000 gold. That's at max though. The big thing that would differ would be the caster level and bonus you get from the caster level.

You are right, 24k per level.

At that point, why not go for command word activated 1/day at CL 24? That’s 3 x 24 x 1800 / 5, which is 25,920. Or if it must be continuous, make it cl 24 still, that’ll drop the price down to 72k.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Titan bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm) got mentioned earlier, but seems to have been forgotten and I think it's well worth another look. The major bloodline requires three levels, but each level counts fully for initiator level. With a major bloodline, those three levels get you a new feature every single level 1-20, and some of them are actually quite good.

The main benefit for this character is probably Oversized Weapon, which lets the character wield a Gargantuan two handed hammer, without penalty, regardless of the character's size.

[Eldariel]

I like this option a heck of a lot better. I'm assuming I need to go Warblade X/Crusader X/Master of Nine 4. I have a build for an upcoming game that I'm considering switching this out for. I like the idea of the invincible little one a lot. Not playing Poppy, but at least using this strange tiny goliath that is basically unkillable. We have a runecaster in that game too who could hook me up with some pretty nasty things.

If I had a starting level of 15, three flat LA reduction (so +1 LA from the Spellwarped, Dungeonbred Goliath) and two flaws available, what would be a good path to go down?

Hm, either Warblade or Swordsage dip works. Sadly, at character level 15, it's very resource intensive to both, get Immortal Fortitude and Master of the Nine. On character level 16 it would be no problem, but on level 15 you can lose no initiator levels (unless you get some from bloodline or racial HD or whatever), which means you'd have to qualify with Martial Study feats. 3 of them. To little gain. So, I'd say Crusader 10/Warblade-or-Swordsage 2/Master of Nine 3 intending to take Master of Nine 4 for Immortal Fortitude on the next level is the way to go. Alternatively you could just take Master of Nine 1 and go Mo9 2 for Immortal Fortitude and then, two levels later, Mo9 4 for Stance of Alacrity (the two stances you definitely want for Counter Stance and Dual Stance shenanigans).

The race seems fine. For feats, Stone Power & Extra Granted Maneuver seem like musts, and you are somewhat feat-starved for all the prerequisites of Mo9 anyways. That makes life a bit easier: your skills and feats are more or less decided for you. The recommended race seems great too, so you're pretty set.

[LoyalPaladin]

Master of Nine has some crazy pre-reqs. I'm starting to wonder if full Crusader or 2 Fighter into Crusader is a better option. I'd like to have plenty of DR and plenty of HP (if you guys have a good way to break HP, I'd love that). This is a very rough, possibly illegal build right now. (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html?fbclid=IwAR0AqvxUvJM1jeavunsJkkkbnSbz0m uQKnEbGt6nkEnDSPdxu-NqesiJ6L8#id=1837707) Any advice on hitting hard with a hammer and getting maximum tank?

[Karl Aegis]

I see what you're trying to do and I ask myself if you wouldn't be better served as a Dwarf Pious Templar of Moradin.

[LoyalPaladin]

I see what you're trying to do and I ask myself if you wouldn't be better served as a Dwarf Pious Templar of Moradin.
I can swing this race just fine and I don't want casting at all for this build.

[Troacctid]

Master of Nine has some crazy pre-reqs. I'm starting to wonder if full Crusader or 2 Fighter into Crusader is a better option. I'd like to have plenty of DR and plenty of HP (if you guys have a good way to break HP, I'd love that). This is a very rough, possibly illegal build right now. (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html?fbclid=IwAR0AqvxUvJM1jeavunsJkkkbnSbz0m uQKnEbGt6nkEnDSPdxu-NqesiJ6L8#id=1837707) Any advice on hitting hard with a hammer and getting maximum tank?
Confirmed illegal—you need to be Large or bigger in order to qualify for dungeonbred. You also don't qualify for Mark of Stars, or for Least Dragonmark for that matter.

You should have the heartening property on your shield, and you need the Dungeon Crasher ACF plus Improved Bull Rush + Shock Trooper. And I don't think Master of Nine is where you want to be. It's overcomplicating the build.

[LoyalPaladin]

Confirmed illegal—you need to be Large or bigger in order to qualify for dungeonbred. You also don't qualify for Mark of Stars, or for Least Dragonmark for that matter.

You should have the heartening property on your shield, and you need the Dungeon Crasher ACF plus Improved Bull Rush + Shock Trooper. And I don't think Master of Nine is where you want to be. It's overcomplicating the build.
Both the Least Dragonmark and Mark of Stars is pre-approved by my DM, as well as the race selection!

We've got someone who is cheesing a 100+ bull rush check, so in the interest of being original, I'm going to go full-tank with decent damage output. Considering 1 Fighter (maybe Knight) into 13 Crusader. Thoughts? I wish that Devoted Defender was good. I won't be playing Poppy in this game (taking a character from a video game just seems like bad manners to play in your buddy's world), but I'm going to play a small LG tanky powerhouse.

[Karl Aegis]

Wait, you have enough levels for adamantine heavy armor and boots of speed. Isn't that the entire character? You haven't really explained what abilities you want besides "Poppy" and, from what I know, Poppy just has normal D&D actions with a tiny bit of damage reduction, occasionally moves faster and occasionally gets an extra attack. That's.... Adamantine Armor and Boots of Speed.

[Troacctid]

Wait, you have enough levels for adamantine heavy armor and boots of speed. Isn't that the entire character? You haven't really explained what abilities you want besides "Poppy" and, from what I know, Poppy just has normal D&D actions with a tiny bit of damage reduction, occasionally moves faster and occasionally gets an extra attack. That's.... Adamantine Armor and Boots of Speed.
She can throw her shield and then gain temporary HP when she picks it up again. She can create a zone around herself that hinders special movement modes. She can dash at enemies to knock them back, with a bonus effect if they hit a wall. She can create difficult terrain by smashing the ground with her hammer. And her ultimate ability essentially hurls enemies into the sky a la Team Rocket.

[Anthrowhale]

If you are a strongheart halfling spontaneous cleric taking Versatile Spellcaster and Silent Spell at level 1 you can cast all spells in heavy armor without ever uttering a word. Taking the planning domain, you can qualify for DMM[Persist] at level 6 just before getting Divine Power. Taking the Spell Domain, you can cast Greater Mighty Wallop to do damage as a colossal weapon. Taking Surge of Fortune and Sense Weakness along with Power Attack, you can hit really hard in the opening round of combat. Using a Greathammer, you crank out (40+6d8)*4 ~= 268 damage against AC infinty in the first hit. Additional damage applies from magic, strength, etc...

[Ignimortis]

Is the entire character still "I cast haste" plus immunity to everything? Isn't that just gear?

Nah, she's been reworked ages ago. She's now basically an area denial specialist tank.

To be honest, Poppy is the Crusader from ToB personified. Thicket of Blades is her W active, Steely Resolve is her W passive, Q is Mountain Hammer with DR ignoring (max HP% damage), Charging Minotaur and other Stone Dragon rush-type maneuvers are good fits for her E (maybe do a dungeoncrasher fighter dip, it should actually give you the IL boost for your stance progression to be less borked), and while ToB doesn't really support throwing your shield, Devoted Spirit does have maneuvers that support hammer-and-shield setups. The ultimate can be Irresistible Mountain Strike.

Race should probably be some sort of Dwarf, since they count as Medium but look rather Small and thus you can get a greathammer or something, and just fluff it to be really big. If you want mechanical benefits, Crusader also gets Giant's Stance, which improves the damage dice by one size.