[3.5] I need a build for Arthur at 15 and 20

[Frosty]

I like throw cameos into my DnD games from time to time. For anyone who has played the game Ghosts and Goblins, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, or Ultimate Ghouls 'n Ghosts, I need a bit of help coming up with a build to represent the knight Arthur at both level 15 and level 20, but I'm not quite sure how to do it. Assuming using a 36 pt buy (he is rather awesome), I need some suggestions for basic builds, feats, equipment, and skill selections for him. Of course, he does have different abilities in different games. He can use magic depending on which game you're talking about, but arguably that's a function of his Armor rather than his class levels (and in Ultimate Ghouls 'n Ghosts, he doesn't even need armor to cast).

I'm thinking to start for the level 15 version we can go with a Warblade5/Bloodstorm Blade10 and tweak from there. Not sure what to do with the rest of the levels though. More Warblade? Fighter? Should he only focus on Iron Heart, and then perhaps branch out to Tiger Claw later because he jumps so much?

[Kurald Galain]

He's probably a warlock with lots 'n lots of eldritch blasts (refluffed as those spear thingies he has an infinite amount of).

[elliott20]

I think warlock would be taking the game's core mechanic a little too literally.

Anyway, the core of Arthur's abilities are

- Double Jump
- Weapon Throwing (Though in the Sega version, one of the weapons is a sword that he can only swing and not throw. It also does more damage than any weapon in game except for the secret weapon)
- Magical Armor and Shield

the thing is, he's double jump while nifty, doesn't really power any special attacks out of it save one exception. in super ghosts and goblins, a shot fired right after a double jump does double damage. So, if you get that in there, a high jump rank, coupled with a maneuver or two where the jump will give your attack extra umph should more than suffice.

The weapon throwing part you of course can do with the bloodstorm blade PrC if you want. But some part of me thinks that it's not really a good fit, mostly because the stuff bloodstorm blade can do arthur has never been able to do in game. i.e. a shot that hits everyone, ricocheting off of one another, knocking down all of his foes within a 30 foot radius? yeah, not really done. Really, you could just handle it by giving him a couple feats to handle it. "Throw Anything" from CW will handle the penalty for throwing things don't even look like weapons. (A torch? really?) Far Shot will get you some decent range with it. That'll get you started. Really, after the jump skill and the throwing, that's all you really need to make a basic arthur.

The way I see it, I can see the arthur in the earlier games to be maybe a 5-10th level character at most. you can do the magic wielding one building him into a gish at later levels. Martial Adepts work amazingly well for this purpose. So just run with it if you really want.

But that means you need to really figure out what your vision for arthur's development would be after the games.

[Frosty]

Hmm another problem with Maneuvers is that most of them don't WORK with ranged weapons. For example Death from Above might've been very cool since you do extra damage if you make a Jump check, but it's melee only. Perhaps I need to just houserule some of his abilities in? But I wanna houserule as little as possible.

Far shot does make his weapons have a 20 ft increment, but which much better.

And yeah...a Torch. I like it better in Ultimate GnG where it's a flask of alchemical acid or something instead of just a torch.

[elliott20]

Oh I totally agree, the maneuvers themselves only work with melee, which can be a little problematic when you want to make a warrior that does anything OTHER than melee. i.e. I wanted to stat out a Zangief using ToB a while back. Turns out, you basically can't since all the maneuvers work on melee, not on grapples.

My solution? houserule a feat that allows you to use grapples with the maneuvers. Seeing as grappling is already not as easy as melee, such a feat makes it a little bit easier to fit in without much disruption.

But allowing all maneuvers to be initiated off of a thrown weapon can be problematic especially since it makes some maneuvers REALLY good.

I think you can handle this in two ways:

1. feat only functions with certain maneuvers. when picking this feat, the character selects a number of strike maneuvers that works with this feat. ONLY those maneuvers can work with this feat afterwards. It may be changed as old maneuvers get replaced, but you can never have more than say x number of maneuvers work with it.

2. ALL strike maneuvers can work with it. But the maneuver you use it with is treated as two initiator levels lower. Basically, it's like how we do metamagic feats but in reverse.

[Frosty]

Still, Bloodstorm Thrower 4 is too good to pass up. One weapon can be thrown multiple times so you can full-round attack (Arthur throws that Lance of his VERY VERY QUICKLY!!)

Maybe if we houserule that Ironheart *and* Tigerclaw maneuvers can be used with thrown weapons at like BT 3 or something?

[elliott20]

well, that's your call really. the precise method of implementation is up to you. My recommendation is still to go with option 2 in my post. It sort of adds a trade off to weapon throwing, but still makes it a viable option since it works with maneuvers. Of course, strictly speaking, if you just want vanilla arthur without fancy interpretation, you don't even need that, just some method for him to recover his weapons and throw it again constantly.

[Frosty]

well, that's your call really. the precise method of implementation is up to you. My recommendation is still to go with option 2 in my post. It sort of adds a trade off to weapon throwing, but still makes it a viable option since it works with maneuvers. Of course, strictly speaking, if you just want vanilla arthur without fancy interpretation, you don't even need that, just some method for him to recover his weapons and throw it again constantly.

Well yes but vanilla arthur is...boring in a DnD game :-p

[Flickerdart]

He must have a god-awful horrible CON score, and have armour made from scrolls of Stoneskin that only last for one round somehow.

[Frosty]

He must have a god-awful horrible CON score, and have armour made from scrolls of Stoneskin that only last for one round somehow.

Dude, have you seen how BUFF Arthur is? Check him out at the end of this short vid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsIqUt84SQk

but yes. He has no armor. He has a single Mirror Image

[elliott20]

well, yeah you certainly can give arthur a craptastic CON score and a one hit armor but then would the character even make sense after that?

[Frosty]

well, yeah you certainly can give arthur a craptastic CON score and a one hit armor but then would the character even make sense after that?

Then you might as well actually play GnG So yeah, definitely NOT a crap Con. AC should be high. It's just that enemies in GnG only use the Sunder action

[elliott20]

Let's not forget that in that video posted, we see Arthur actually attacking using a melee attack instead and he can in fact take quite a number of hits. so apparently his conceptualization is still supposed to be a fairly tough warrior.

[Frosty]

He probably has low agility though, given the fact that he can't change directions in midair like most other characters can in games

[elliott20]

that would be kind of jarring, considering that he's doing acrobatics in mid air in PLATE ARMOR and everything. :)

I wonder how the rest of the cast would stat out...

[Frosty]

Who? Princess Prin Prim? Or the bosses? Or are you talking about the rest of the Namco x Capcom game?

And yeah, Arthur spends a LOT of skill points on Jump, Tumble, Balance, Climb, etc.

[elliott20]

which, considering he's a warblade, is probably not the most optimal choice. He would either need INT coming out of the wazoo (which admittedly would be very helpful for a warblade anyway) or he's going to be very bad at actually jumping around until later levels. That and throw anything requires a 15+ dex. so, low dex is out of the question.

Anyway, here's how I see his stats (not doing point buy here, just throwing some numbers out there)

base stats

str 14
dex 15
con 14
int 16
wis 10
cha 14

NES Arthur
At this point, there is no double jump, no flashing special attack, and heck, he's not even that powerful. I'd say make him a level 5 character at this point.

Warblade 5 (or if you want, throw in some fighter levels to give him the feats he'll need to get your basic Arthur package)
At this point, he has the following maneuvers: throw anything (so he can make anything a throwing weapon), point blank shot (so that he can get far shot, but it doesn't hurt either), far shot (so he can throw at a respectable range), quick draw (so he can throw more than one weapon a round), and maybe rapid shot (optional) at this point. Between these, you should have a decent arthur with some additional things he can do via the maneuvers. I would recommend making these maneuvers mostly stances and counters instead of a lot of strikes, since most of his strikes in game are fairly mundane.

Sega and maybe SNES Arthur
Chronologically these come after the first game. Let's give him another 5 more levels to reflect his progress, bringing him up to a level 10 character.

By this point, the gold armor and bronze armor also makes an appearance and he's capable of doing magic when wearing it. Depending upon how you want to handle this, you can either let the "magic" be his now more powerful maneuvers, or it can actually be a magical armor with special powers attached to it.

At this point we can also bring the feat that allows him to put maneuvers together with throwing weapons. This kind of brings everything together. Also, he will start to load up on strike maneuvers to reflect all the new attacks he's acquired.

Post games Arthur
NOW that he's got his basic tricks in place, time to go bloodstorm thrower to make him even better. By this point, he's probably going to start kicking some butt with it. just go crazy with the BT PrC.

edit: I can't believe I completely forgot the Master Thrower PrC in there! must make changes for that.

[Frosty]

It's been a while...where is the Master Thrower PrC from and what can it do for Arthur?

[elliott20]

It's from Complete Warrior. You get 3 throw weapon tricks, critical throw, quick draw, and evasion. It's not really THAT impressive since most of them are things like "increase critical multiplier" or "trip shot" or some such. On second thought, a lot of these abilities are probably not necessarily the most optimal choice over just going Martial Adept.

[Frosty]

Some of those tricks can be replicated with Maneuvers anyways right? Although I guess dipping one level is ok since you get Quick draw for free *and* a weapon trick. I can throw without provoking, which is nice.

[elliott20]

well, you can throw without provoking with the precise shot feat. the one in master thrower still needs a concentration check, which is kind of another level of hassle.

[Frosty]

What are you talking about? Precise Shot is 1) a prerequisite to entering Master Thrower and 2) it allows you to throw/shoot into melee without taking a -4 penalty.

[elliott20]

this just in, in other news, Elliott doesn't read and apparently is on crack! I got that confused with initiate of the bow, I think. Anyway, that makes the class actually worth the one level dip then... two feats for one level is not bad.