Advice for Character Progression

[Sugashane]

Hello all,

I am playing in a solo PC campaign and was led to believe it would be a low optimization campaign. So I did a monk/paly build that focuses on damage, and to make the character more fun decided to go the Sword of the Arcan Order route. Nothing crazy or all that powerful, well below any straight caster. But the campaign is getting pretty high op for NPCs and enemies, with a strong focus on Yuan Ti with classes being primary villains for me.

As a Monk 2 (Passive Way)/Pal 4 (Mystic Fire Knight) I have focused on using decisive strike and increasing damage through my enlarge person ring, Superior Unarmed Strike and was going to just run the rest of the way with paladin using snap kick, superior unarmed strike, etc. To keep up though (his NPCs are cleric, a homebrew class where he absorbs souls and gets new powers and minions as he does) I think I'm going to have to adjust the build. I am about to go level 7 and was hoping to get some opinions on what to do to keep up.

- I've looked at Warblade and liked it's combat boost.
- I qualify for WarHulk if damage will remain the primary thing I can do at least well.
- Looked at taking one level of Wizard and then going Abjurant Champion so I can progress as a wizard in spellcasting rather than topping out at 4th level Wiz spells

What would you choose to do with this scenario?

[Gnaeus]

Warblade stacks well with mundane classes (although crusader is more Paladinish and Swordsage more monk like).

But if you are dipping you want to dip at 9th level (to get 3rd level maneuvers) rather than 7th (where you only get second level ones)

[Heavenblade]

Taking the serenity feat, kung fu genius feat, or both, will help reducing MAD.


Sacred fist (or if you can access it, fist of Raziel) are fun for this type of build.

Ascetic knight feat will boost your unarmed damage a bit.

[Remuko]

I believe theres a feat that lets you stack paladin levels for monk progression. theres also the sacred fist (iirc thats its name) prestige class to help your progression too if you wanna stick to the paly + monk theme you got going. its a fun concept.

[Sugashane]

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention I took Ascetic Knight (stack Monk and Paladin levels for unarmed strike damage) and Serenity my CHA and DEX are both 9s.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

So you're playing one PC but the DM is running two NPCs/DMPCs, and those characters are overshadowing yours and the enemies are tuned to their power level. The protagonist has become the sidekick, not because of your build, but because of what your DM is doing. The only solution is to discuss the issues with your DM and either update your character to be more appropriately powered, or tone down the DMPCs so they remain as backup for your character, not secondary protagonists.

There are a few ways to do a solo campaign, depending on preference. Sometimes there's a single PC going solo, sometimes the PC has a player-controlled animal companion or similar, sometimes there are player-controlled characters who are companions of the protagonist. All of those situations are fine. Sometimes one of those situations also includes one or more NPC companions controlled by the DM, in which case those DMPCs need to be significantly weaker than the PC in all areas except for one single area in which the PC is lacking, and should not be needed in that one area very often.

For example, an NPC that's mediocre in most roles of combat but who can talk to the dead can be tagging along to help move the story forward. For this type of character he could be good at a non-crucial role such as crowd controlling one or a few somewhat strong opponents or a group of weak opponents, but at great personal effort. He would be vulnerable when doing so (i.e. maintaining concentration on the effect) and entirely reliant on other characters to actually kill those enemies. Not something that's going to overshadow the main character.

A Cleric NPC should be buffing and healing the main character, possibly using Turn Undead to keep a specific type of enemy crowd controlled, but primarily making the main character more effective or fixing issues he has (think DMM: Persistent Healing Lorecall + Close Wounds or Cure Minor Wounds). Divine Defiance also gets an honorable mention here as a caster vs caster showdown during a big fight is good for cinematic effect, as long as there's still something important for the main character to do while that's going on. But this type of character should be more of a defender/protector than anything else in combat, not someone who's killing the enemies unless they're significantly weak, or turned/destroyed undead.

It looks to me like your game has reached at point at which you should just ditch the DMPCs in a way that makes sense and continue the story without them. Talk to the DM about doing that and replacing them with more appropriate sidekicks, either built/controlled by the player if they're significant, or extremely niche as above.

[nedz]

Warblade stacks well with mundane classes (although crusader is more Paladinish and Swordsage more monk like).

But if you are dipping you want to dip at 9th level (to get 3rd level maneuvers) rather than 7th (where you only get second level ones)

Swordsage at 7th, Warblade at 8th.
This gets you lots of level 1 and 2 Swordsage manoeuvres — which are great for utility — and level 3 manoeuvres at character level 8, with the Warblade refresh mechanic.
Grab a level 3 stance via a feat at 9th.

You could go Crusader, but it works better with a party

[GrayDeath]

Swordsage at 7th, Warblade at 8th.
This gets you lots of level 1 and 2 Swordsage manoeuvres — which are great for utility — and level 3 manoeuvres at character level 8, with the Warblade refresh mechanic.
Grab a level 3 stance via a feat at 9th.

You could go Crusader, but it works better with a party

This.

You might also spend a feat or 2 to get extra Maneuvers known, and if you get more than one Level Swordsage, dont forget to take Adaptive Style (which is always a good feat but a necessary one for Sword Sage dominated Character concepts).

[Sugashane]

Awesome guys, thank you for the advice.

I'll talk to my DM, he likely will get where I am coming from and adjust.

I'll also adjust my character like Nedz and GrayDeath said as well. At least if the enemies will remain a bit unbalanced I can match up better with this set up.

[Dekion]

It almost sounds like the DM is running this to showcase how awesome this homebrew class is, unless the DM has had this class in place for other games. If that is the case, then it should have been presented to you to showcase (unless it was and you turned the DM down.) But, I agree with the idea of talking to the DM to clarify your perception of the situation and your concerns regarding your character's viability.

I feel that the goal of a solo PC game is to run the hero/anti-hero/villain (PC) through an adventure where any NPCs that join only supplement or compliment the PC's abilities. I do not feel that the player should have to adjust what they want to play based upon the abilities of the accessory party members. That said, I would talk to your DM before you start rethinking any progression you want to take for your character in lieu of progression you feel you have to take to remain effective.

[H_H_F_F]

I think you got good suggestions here overall. Knowing your ability scores might help with other options.