Magical Robin Hood - A Kender Rogue/Bard/Assassin for a Dragonlance adventure

[Bobur]

Hi everyone.

I would like some thoughts and feedback on the following character idea:

Dragonlance setting
Other character in the grp: Tank-Cleric, Monk, and 1 more still unknown.
Mostly core + Dragonlance books. Homebrewing is possible within limits and a few picks from other books if ok with the DM.

Concept: A rogue with some spells into a homebrew class that's based on the Assassin.

Mink - CG - a Robin hood like character, steals like a pro, but for his kin and the poor.
(Kender have -2STR/Wis and +2Dex)
(32PB) 8Str/18Dex/14Con/14Int/8Wis/14Cha >> I enjoy playing the CHA skills so 1 less INT for +2CHA sounds good.

1Rogue / 2Bard / 2Rogue (ACF for Lv3R) We start on Lv2
Lv1 Feat 2Wfighting > Not really a fan, the ACF for Kender doesnt really lend itself to full attacks anyway. And the mixed up SA progression with the bard Levels stalls my dmg for quite some time. So Craven if allowed.
Lv3 W finesse
Lv6 - likely Heroic surge (1 extra atk/move action/day for every 4 levels), but not sure.
Weapon: Shatak (A short bow, with a build in guitar as well as 1-2 short swords for all in one dual wielding or single weapon use - a Kender weapon ;))

Because I like to think about some unusual feats: (Dragonlance)
Lucky: +1 on all Saves
Light-fingered ( ~ Sleight of hand as a free action. Its a Kender feat, but I am not sure when this could be usefull at all. During a battle? The S.o.h. rules are very vague on battle uses if at all)
The bigger they are: BAB4, +1 dmg for each size difference to the enemy. Most of the time just 1-2 dmg I assume - Not great, but its free dmg.
Otherwise: Impr Ini is always good

The Rogue explains itself. max skills on Lv1.
The Bard is there for a good skill progression and to make more out of the otherwise weak Rogue Levels after 3 as well as the Cha, that I wanted for the skills. +The good saves.
We get a nice selection of Lv0 and Lv1 spells like read and detect magic, mage hand and Identify!
I have enough skill points to feed almost anything I want except maybe escape artist or gather info.

The Assassin has been changed a bit:
The Death attack is now the Kender-Rogue ACF (spring attack that lets you hide(conceal) without penalty or AOO afterwards if adj. cover)
The poison use is just gone
+1SV vs poison is now vs fear, because Kender

Bard spells: My Svs are bad and my Character history fits to work spells: (Lv0) Read magic, det. magic, mage hand, message, mending maybe light? (Lv1) Identify, compr languages are my likely picks.

Feedback welcome on the Feats and spells if something sticks out to you or you have a good idea.

[Bobur]

I made some changes.
Replaced 2Wf with craven - my DM should be fine with that since I will have less attacks and my spells are not battle oriented either. So this should improve my overall dmg nicely while keeping my ATK bonus higher. He wouldnt let me pick craven if I take 2WF I assume.
This is the part where I am still a bit uncertain. - 2WF only works on Full attacks and -2 on both also hurts.... but its still 1 extra attack...

Edit:Nevermin, he doesnt like Craven, so 2WF it is.

Other feats and the spells could also use some feedback

[el minster]

aren't kender immune to fear already?

[liquidformat]

Feats:

Its a shame he is putting the kibosh on craven it is a very nice feat...

With all those skill points and access to a large range of knowledge skills Knowledge Devotion from complete Champion is a great choice to add a boost to your combat power for melee or ranged. I would take it over Lucky, Light-Fingered or The Bigger they are.

Anyways, if you want to give a bit more power to yourself in a fight I would look at Snowflake wardance from Frostburn it allows you to apply cha mod to your attacks with any one handed melee weapon. It is a good choice for a third level feat. I would take it over Lucky, Light-Fingered or The Bigger they are.

Melodic Casting from complete mage would allow you to replace concentration with perform, it is a great feat that reduces the number of important skills you have. However, given your lack of combat oriented spells it might be a waste of time.

I haven't touched Kender in forever but I vaguely remember them having fey origins so you might be able to pull off Charming Arrow Feat (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a).

Martial Study/Martial Stance from Tomb of Battle is as strong as ever and there are lots of good choices, Shadow Blade is also a great choice to get dex to damage if martial study is allowed.

Further down the road Underfoot Combat and Confound the Big Folk from Races of the Wild are great feats for fighting people bigger than you. There is another in Complete Warrior but the name escapes me at the moment.

Sleight of Hand:
Sleight of hand is probably not worth it especially if you aren't focusing on using daggers. With that said there are some interesting feats like flick of the wrist allows you to make one sneak attack per round by drawing a weapon. Cut purse allows you to steal things from people in melee combat. And finally Mosquito's Bite lets you attack a flat-footed opponent without them realizing.

There are a number of skill tricks for sleight of hand in complete scoundrel if you want to go down that path: Concealed spell casting is a skill trick that lets you... conceal your spell casting works nicely to hide casting in social settings. False Theurgy is another skill trick letting you disguise one spell as another. Hidden Blade and Sudden Draw allow you to draw weapons rendering opponents flat footed to them.

Spells

0 level: Dancing Lights, Ghost Sounds, and Prestidigitation are iconic spells that can be used in very imaginative ways to great effect they should be on all bards' spell lists. Message, open/close, and summon instrument are also very useful but not super important.

1 Level: Grease is a great bfc that doesn't loose any steam throughout the game (well ignoring flying and swimming things anyways...), Improvisation, Hideous Laughter, Inspirational Boost, Swift Invisibility, Silent Image, and Summon Monster I are all very good spells that can be used in many different situations. I have always found it fun to use Silent/Minor/Major Image and False Theurgy to screw with people making them think you are casting all sorts of random spells!

[Psyren]

Well... Kender are great at appropriating property, but not so much at the "redistributing" end of things. They tend to outright forget what they have taken, and generally consider it extended borrowing rather than theft. I'm assuming you're handwaving that though.

On the class end of things I think that assassin (even the modified one you're using) is a bit brutal for this lighthearted concept. In addition, you didn't mention the requirements for assassin being waived but they would pretty much have to be, and the bonus vs. fear being redundant was previously mentioned. If your goal is simply to have some magical tricks to use in support of your thievery, I'd recommend Spellthief + Master Spellthief instead.

[Bobur]

@Psyren:
Kender are imune, but I play an afflicted Kender. He still gets +1 on Svs though
They are a bit more toned down and even aware that some of that is wrong. And yes, the assassin was changed a lot.

@liquidformat
Wow, thanks for all the ideas. Sadly my DM has a very strong aversion against anything non core, ever since a min maxer ruined a game. I can ask for things though.

As for the spells: Keep in mind that I only have 2CL, so some of the spells you mentioned, will only last for 1 round or so. And the others wont get a high enough SV to fool a lot of people.Underfoot Underfoot Combat and Confound the Big Folk look like fun though. - I will check for the one from compl. Warrior.

I know the s.o.h. skill isnt particularly great, neither is open lock, but I never tried it before and want to see what I can do with it.

[liquidformat]

@Psyren:
Kender are imune, but I play an afflicted Kender. He still gets +1 on Svs though
They are a bit more toned down and even aware that some of that is wrong. And yes, the assassin was changed a lot.

@liquidformat
Wow, thanks for all the ideas. Sadly my DM has a very strong aversion against anything non core, ever since a min maxer ruined a game. I can ask for things though.

As for the spells: Keep in mind that I only have 2CL, so some of the spells you mentioned, will only last for 1 round or so. And the others wont get a high enough SV to fool a lot of people.Underfoot Underfoot Combat and Confound the Big Folk look like fun though. - I will check for the one from compl. Warrior.

Yeah the spells are a tossup on spells for spontaneous casters, I normally look at it as what is somewhat useful now and will become more useful later vs what is useful now and become less useful later. Silent Image with False Theurgy let's you fake any spell you want that normally has no sound and is as effective now as it is in the future. It can easily be a powerful BFC spell using it to fake wall of stone/salt/fire, grease and so on so it is a pretty great choice. On the other hand Swift Invisibility is a mixed bag since it is a swift action it is very helpful in replacing hide in plane sight but it also only lasts a round which for all such 'swift' spells is a big downside. Something like cure light wounds can also be helpful but having a cleric in the party is probably not worth it, get a wand instead.

[Bobur]

The silent image is nice for sure. Enough as a distraction until interacted with. Unlike the sound version.
Not sure about the dancing lights, whats the point of the spell compared to light?

thanks

[liquidformat]

The silent image is nice for sure. Enough as a distraction until interacted with. Unlike the sound version.
Not sure about the dancing lights, whats the point of the spell compared to light?

thanks

So dancing lights can be moved remotely within a range which can be helpful to get light into places you couldn't otherwise reach or have a light source flicker on in the opposite direction as the group to distract enemies. Also the cleric doesn't have access to dancing lights but does have light, so from that point of view it is slightly better.

[Bobur]

So dancing lights can be moved remotely within a range which can be helpful to get light into places you couldn't otherwise reach or have a light source flicker on in the opposite direction as the group to distract enemies. Also the cleric doesn't have access to dancing lights but does have light, so from that point of view it is slightly better.

Ah ok, didnt read dancing lights correctly.
5x Lv0: Dancing lights/ Det Magic/ Mage Hand/ Read Magic/ Message --- Prestidigitation would be nice, not sure which one to kick though. Det magic, helps finding the good stuff, while read magic saves me 1 UMD check. - I would have to make another UMD check to CAST a scroll, but the SV for that is lower, I would need the synnergy-boni from decipher script and spellcraft to get this into range early. :( .... so "message" to go? Argh, but that one sounds nifty too. ^^ Whisper to anyone without a safe. XD

2x Lv1: Identify - s1 has to (maybe the DM gives it to me for free, so that we just have it) +Grease? Lasts only for 2 rounds and the balance check would be the save (dc10+1+2) or always the 10? Compr. language can be very usefull, but more situational. Silent image, has a low save if interacted, but otherwise a very flexible spell. Summon Monster: Great spell, but takes a while and lasts only 2 rounds.

[Psyren]

Dancing Lights is also useful for scouting. Because you can make patterns with them (i.e. anywhere from 1-4 individual lights), you can shoot them straight up in there in a predetermined configuration to warn or advise your group.

Best of all, when you use the full number, somebody in your group is bound to do their best Picard impression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moX3z2RJAV8) :smalltongue:

[Bobur]

Yea, I am just thinking what to kcik for the spells and what to pick.

Also I am trying to figure out what I want in terms of skills. We houseruled a couple of skills together anyway, but you never have enough. ^^
Sl.o.hand. is not a great skill, but I really want to try it - whats would be the point to play a kender ;)

Open Lock: Same again. You can even use it untrained. With tools, 4 Dex and racial you can do it at +8. Which has a chance of opening simple locks (DC20) but its not great.

Search/Dis dev seem more important and since we dont get racial/Dex on those its more important to keep them up too.
I always wondered why there is no synnergy between s.o.h., dis dev and open lock. All have to do with nimble fingers and working with small things.

UMD is great, but unless I drop the thieve skills completely, I wont have enough points to go for dec script/ spellcraft as well (for +4synnergy on scrolls, which would bring it down to Dc16+ to use) But that would cost 10 skill points to achieve.

And then there are basically all cha skills XD Gather info is at the bottom of those, although I can see the use of it.

Argh... I want it all!

[Bobur]

Some more thoughts on feats:
Light fingered - My DM said this would allow the use of slight of hand during battle, not to mention outside - just bumping into someone would be enough. The skill is vague, but using it while the enemy is aware of you is unlikely to work otherwise - Tempting even if its is more for fun. Stealing holy symbols, keys, or putting something into pouches?

Heroic surge: 1 more atk or move action a day per 4 Lvs - Actions are always good to have and does nothing pre Lv4 anyway.

I usually prefer options in feats.
Improved feint if it wasnt for Comb. Exp. - I max bluff anyway.

If it was just dmg then nothing beats Craven. 1 Sneak attack for 1 feat doesnt sound really great either (if the DM would allow the trade). The bigger they are is the closest I get in term of dmg bonus considering the limited books, but only +1 to +3 on average?

Skill Focus: UMD ? On Lv6 without items I would be at +11 incl. +2 CHA. +14 with Skillfocus.

In all honesty, even if I could homebrew my own feat, I wouldnt be sure as to what to pick right now. ^^

Edit: Dont know why I havent thought about it sooner, but I can easily outsource read magic and identify to wands/ scrolls. I will only use them out of combat anyway so a take 20UMD check is no problem.
Detect magic might be the only one that might be usefull to have on-hand in some situations.
2nd Edit: My DM will let my use Bardic Knowledge to identify items. So that problem is gone. ^^

More edits Hmm... Casting in battle will be a bit tricky since I am dual-wielding. Same goes for using wands and alike... thats is indeed annoying. Sleight of hand wont be easy to do either... darn it. I would actually have to pick quick draw or go for a 1 handed weapon instead, which isnt a particularly great choice either. :( And quick draw doesnt even cover seathing a weapon or retrieving items.