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Collin152
2008-04-13, 06:34 PM
This is what you give me to work with?
Well, honey, I've seen worse,
We're going to turn this sow's ear,
Into a silk purse.

We'll have you,
Wrought with age,
Taught and educated like a sage,
Trust my recipe for instant mage,
You'll bring magic to us all.

So, after pondering over the Beguiler, I thought to myself, everything is better with magic.
And I pondered, if the rogue can be replaced with a full caster skill monkey (ignoring the fact that full casters can fill all roles anyways), what other hybrid classes exist to fill other roles?
Bring me them all, your hexblades and spellthieves and such, what they do and how their magic accentuates it.
If you please.

Solo
2008-04-13, 08:26 PM
Duskblade , Hexblade (with creator's fixes) > Fighter.

de-trick
2008-04-13, 08:29 PM
Tank
duskblade, its in the same book. Then theres warmage in one of the completes.

Skill
Beguiler, spell thief, gutter mage

FlyMolo
2008-04-13, 08:30 PM
Favoured/Favored Soul>Monk

Collin152
2008-04-13, 08:32 PM
Favoured/Favored Soul>Monk

Okay, that one merits explanation.
Everything is better than monk, but why specify favored soul?

FlyMolo
2008-04-13, 08:53 PM
Okay, that one merits explanation.
Everything is better than monk, but why specify favored soul?

Same flavor? I beat things up, but with magic instead of pity?

I dunno. Never looked at the Favo(u?)red soul class, really.

Maybe Unarmed Swordsage > Monk.

Warblade>Fighter
PsyWar>fighter
Wow, lots of stuff > fighter.

Collin152
2008-04-13, 08:57 PM
Maybe Unarmed Swordsage > Monk.

Warblade>Fighter
PsyWar>fighter
Wow, lots of stuff > fighter.

All very true, but not very magical...

Fpr the purposes of discussion, I don't consider Psionics magic.

FlyMolo
2008-04-13, 09:07 PM
Well, what we really need to do is draw up some non-magical classes.

rogue, fighter, barbarian, monk all spring to mind.

So the replacements are:
-Beguiler/Duskblade/Spellthief/whatever. There's lots, pick one.
-PsyWar is really exactly what we need here. Bonus feats, partial casting... Alternatively, pick one of them more martial ones on the line above.
-War Mind springs to mind. They have that psychic rage thingie going on. It's not called that, but that's what it is.
-Favored Soul seem to have the right flavor. Psionic fist? I know it's a PrC, but still. Unarmed Swordsage, even though that's not technically magic?

Really, psionic abilities seem the easiest to tack on arbitrarily without changing the flavor much. Then again, I'm biased.:smallredface:

EvilElitest
2008-04-13, 09:11 PM
Samurai>Cleric Druid and Wizard

I remember one person proved it:smallwink:
from
EE

FlyMolo
2008-04-13, 09:15 PM
Samurai>Cleric Druid and Wizard

I remember one person proved it:smallwink:
from
EE
ERROR: DIVIDE BY ZERO

Collin152
2008-04-13, 09:18 PM
Samurai>Cleric Druid and Wizard

I remember one person proved it:smallwink:
from
EE

All depends on how you rate it.
By bse attack bonus? Yeah, that's true.

Mewtarthio
2008-04-13, 10:21 PM
No, you see, you lure them into a false sense of security, and then...

Well, and then they kill you, because their sense of security was actually genuine. But you get points for trying!

Collin152
2008-04-13, 10:23 PM
No, you see, you lure them into a false sense of security, and then...

Well, and then they kill you, because their sense of security was actually genuine. But you get points for trying!

You use your one good class feature of having masterwork items to commit seppuku. In your will you leave these to the full caster so they don't torment your soul for fun.
They sell them to buy hookers.

Ascension
2008-04-13, 11:58 PM
Frankly it depresses me that everyone can be replaced with a full or nearly full caster. The beguiler particularly depresses me. I didn't realize when I first started sinking unreasonably large amounts of money into books that D&D is truly such a high-magic system that there is nothing that the mundane classes can do better. I sometimes wish now I hadn't bought into this so heavily.

I still take solace in the fact that I have friends who play monks and fighters... and have fun with it. As long as they still exist, there's hope left for non-casters. A tiny glimmer of hope.

Solo
2008-04-13, 11:59 PM
I still take solace in the fact that I have friends who play monks and fighters... and have fun with it. As long as they still exist, there's hope left for non-casters. A tiny glimmer of hope.

I cast Crushing Despair

Collin152
2008-04-13, 11:59 PM
Magic is more fun.
Once you accept it, you can grow.

Solo
2008-04-14, 12:03 AM
Magic is more fun.
Once you accept it, you can grow.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v422/toddsun/darkside_coockies.jpg

EvilElitest
2008-04-14, 12:04 AM
ERROR: DIVIDE BY ZERO

I counter with Chebacca logic


Somebody did do a great Samerai parody around here actually, i wonder where it is?
from
EE

The_Snark
2008-04-14, 02:30 AM
That'd be here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3660260#post3660260)

Tangent brought on by reading a Samurai thread: Is it strange that I found a feat that might make a samurai potentially quite strong, albeit a bit of a one-trick pony?

Said feat is Imperious Command, from Drow of the Underdark. For copyright reasons I won't go into great detail, but suffice to say it can't be taken before level 5 and improves your ability to demoralize opponents with Intimidate. Rather than making an opponent shaken for a round, which is fairly worthless, the enemy cowers (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#cowering) for one round and then is shaken the next round.

So, you can now sacrifice a standard action to deny an enemy within reach any actions, provided you can make the skill check. A decent trade-off, not terribly impressive.

It gets better if you have the ability to use Intimidate as a move action, because then you can beat the person to death while they cower. Fearsome armor, from the exact same book as the feat, is a cost-effective way to do this.

Now, observe the mass staredown ability of the samurai, available at 10th level. Combine with the feat. Watch as everything within 30 feet of you cowers in fear and your party members kill it? It's a funny reversal of roles to have a supposed melee specialist play debuffer/battlefield control while the spellcasters (and everyone else, really, but there's no reversal there) deal damage.

Like I said, it's a bit of a one-trick pony; anything immune to mind-affecting stuff or fear effects will laugh at you, it has a range of 30 feet, it requires a standard action (move action if you stick with samurai for 4 more levels or pick up another ability that reduces it to a move action and convince your DM that it works with the samurai special abilities), and it requires a skill check, although by 10th level a +10 item of Intimidate is well within your means and most enemies won't be able to make it. And of course, there's the difficulty that it's all-or-nothing; either the enemies aren't affected and you wasted 10-14 class levels, or they are affected and you win the battle. Meaning your DM will kinda have to start throwing situations where this tactic won't work at you.

Nevertheless. A use? For the samurai?

Also, favored soul is not really related to the monk at all. The favored soul is simply a spontaneous-casting cleric. They're not really similar mechanically, and flavor-wise favored souls are simply chosen out, rather than trained, and tend to be less disciplined than clerics.

The sacred fist is a spellcasting prestige class that replaces the monk, but I don't know that it counts since you pretty much need monk levels to take it.

Ascension
2008-04-14, 02:38 AM
Nevertheless. A use? For the samurai?

Oh no... please, please don't. The sort of people who want to play samurai in the first place are the same sort of people who will think that a build based entirely around anything and everything cowering in fear in response to their presence is an awesome idea. They will think this sounds badass.

They will not see the irony in the fact that what is quite possibly the weakest melee class in existence finds its only strength in intimidation.

Rutee
2008-04-14, 02:46 AM
Oh no... please, please don't. The sort of people who want to play samurai in the first place...

Ouch. Stereotype much dear?



Frankly it depresses me that everyone can be replaced with a full or nearly full caster. The beguiler particularly depresses me. I didn't realize when I first started sinking unreasonably large amounts of money into books that D&D is truly such a high-magic system that there is nothing that the mundane classes can do better. I sometimes wish now I hadn't bought into this so heavily.

Yeah... not sure I like that. It'd be a bit easier to swallow if Gishes and the like were on in a similar dimension as the full casters, but..t hey're not.

Admiral Squish
2008-04-14, 02:51 AM
This thread makes me sad. Because not only are wizards getting all the love, but now we're trying to ACTIVELY REPLACE everything that's not magic with something magic-based. Why not go the other way? Take out the magicians. Simply amputate this tumor of ridiculous power and be done with it.

Talic
2008-04-14, 02:56 AM
Rage Mage!!!!

Nebo_
2008-04-14, 02:58 AM
This thread makes me sad. Because not only are wizards getting all the love, but now we're trying to ACTIVELY REPLACE everything that's not magic with something magic-based. Why not go the other way? Take out the magicians. Simply amputate this tumor of ridiculous power and be done with it.

Because that would totally make D&D more fun.

I'm being sarcastic, for those of you who don't pick up on these things.

Admiral Squish
2008-04-14, 03:04 AM
Because that would totally make D&D more fun.

I'm being sarcastic, for those of you who don't pick up on these things.

It would be, for everyone who's not a caster themselves. I'm just sick of being consistently outclassed, in whatever I want to do, by a magician, and not having any fun playing them myself.

Something must be terribly wrong with me, because I can't seem to enjoy myself casting forcecage+cloudkill or clerity+timestop every battle. Maybe I should go see a doctor?
That was sarcastic, too.

Ascension
2008-04-14, 03:16 AM
Ouch. Stereotype much dear?

I didn't mean the people who want to play with samurai flavor. I mean people who don't recognize that the samurai class has incredibly weak abilities.

I almost edited that post to recommend that the intimidation abilities could be used as fighter substitution levels in exchange for a couple of bonus feats. Still weak, but not as bad as the CW samurai.

While we do seem to butt heads fairly often, I am, believe it or not, rather fond of Japanese culture myself. I just tend to view D&D as a system intended to model "western" fantasy (albeit only a vague generalization of it).

When I complain about "that sort of person," I'm referring not to those who want to play a samurai out of a genuine interest in Japanese culture, I'm referring to those who insist on dual-wielding bastard swords with every single character in every single game just because it's the only standard of cool they find themselves capable of envisioning. These people are drawn like flies to the CWar Samurai due to free TWF and EWP.

I really should have clarified my point in my original post, but, well, it is rather off topic.

I genuinely hope to find something we can emphatically agree on one of these days, just for a change of pace.

The_Snark
2008-04-14, 03:34 AM
Oh no... please, please don't. The sort of people who want to play samurai in the first place are the same sort of people who will think that a build based entirely around anything and everything cowering in fear in response to their presence is an awesome idea. They will think this sounds badass.

They will not see the irony in the fact that what is quite possibly the weakest melee class in existence finds its only strength in intimidation.

I do wince at that image, but really, I don't think it matters that much. Among other things, I hate to stereotype people that much... though there probably are more people who play characters like that then I'd like to think.

But conceding that there probably exists people who enjoy playing like that and don't bother to try anything different, it won't really affect how they play. They might be slightly more mechanically effective, but I think that sort of attitude would grate on me just as much no matter how powerful or pathetic the character was.

In any case. Tangent, and I think we are more or less agreeing.

Rutee
2008-04-14, 03:34 AM
It would be, for everyone who's not a caster themselves. I'm just sick of being consistently outclassed, in whatever I want to do, by a magician, and not having any fun playing them myself.

Honestly, I wish I had advice better then "Find a good point based system, or use ToB" (The latter of which is /still/ inferior to casters, but at least it doesn't /suck/), but I can't say as I do. Sorry =/

Ascension
2008-04-14, 03:50 AM
Honestly, I wish I had advice better then "Find a good point based system, or use ToB" (The latter of which is /still/ inferior to casters, but at least it doesn't /suck/), but I can't say as I do. Sorry =/

We need a skill monkey version of the ToB. We won't get it, but it's needed. I adore playing skill monkeys, but even they are rendered obsolete by many of the more creative applications of magic, and unless you count the Factotum, there's no "fix" for them. Thankfully I know only two people who own the PHB II, so I haven't been replaced by beguilers yet, but I know the day is coming.

It would be great to see an expanded list of skill tricks, perhaps even a book devoted solely to new uses for skills.