The Warming Hearth - Out of Character chatter

And not all that smart, to boot.

Nikita, if you're interested, one of the rogue variants on the SRD trades sneak attack damage for fighter bonus feats.

Yhea I've seen it, and considered it for a bit, but honestly, without sneak attack it's not really a rogue anymore, not in my opinion anyway. XD

And hey "smart" if for wizards, the rest of us just need to know how to stab people.

I think its what people see as most fitting in with the arctic setting. As soon as a harsh environment pops up, people want to play characters that make a living by surviving in that environment. I know I certainly did. The mystique of the brutal northerner is undeiable but, ah... Enshu stab people good.

lol, I was somewhat surprised at the amount of martial-type applications. Usually I see casters more often apply. Is it the rugged setting that attracts more martial types?

My friend had a pipe with everburning torch with it , would always light. now if you used never ending tobacco pouch (like never ending rations), or a pouch of eschew`s material. Maybe a never ending cigerette. You won`t have to worry

My character is more about magic then his martial skill, the only problem is he simply seems to hit hard and good xD
Didn't see to many mage-y applicants, or perhaps my brain is simply fizzing.

That would be my guess. Arcane casters and rogues (no offense Nikita) just don't seem cut out to survive up here. Although that's utterly false, there are certain archtypes most people cling to. Honestly, I thought we'd have seen a couple Scouts by now but maybe I'm the only one who actually like them, same goes for Wu Jen. I could definitely see one of them up here.

I like taking either a level of ranger or scout and then multiclassing to the other and taking the Swift Hunter feat. Having both classes stack for Skirmish and Favored Enemy is very nice. My favorite martial character was in a Forgotten Realms game...He was a ranger/scout and went into the Moonsea Skysentinel prestige class, which gave him a Dire Hawk steed and supernatural abilities of spell-turning and magic resistance. It was great fun flying around on my giant hawk with my bow turning the spells of evil Zhentarim Skymages back at them.

But I tend more toward wizards usually. Not because they're powerful necessarily but because there is a large array of options to customize them to fit a particular persona or theme.

Well, I've got lots of diverse applications covering all the party roles...so whomever I pick I'm sure it will be interesting.

Scouts can be fairly awesome, but the skirmish ability is kind of arbitrary. I move ten feet towards you, then ten feet away from you, improving my damage both times! Although there are stranger things, I suppose, and the idea that started it was a good one. Also, Killer, I've always liked taking the few levels of wild plains outrider for any mounted build.

Incidentally, I prefer the Shugenja to the Wu Jen. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it has to do with the implication that their magic actually draws on the elements, rather than using magic to control the elements, but that's just a guess and may well be wrong.

The most fun I ever had was with a Psionic Paladin. It may seem like a weird combination (and it really was) but it turned out to be absolute buckets of fun. We were running a feat heavy game and she had everything. Power Attack, Improved Smiting, Psionic Strike, Deep Impact, Leap Attack and the Charging Smite replacement feature. Anyways, she'd cast Rhino's Rush on herself (auto-double damage at the end of a charge) then Charging Smite AND Psionic Strike/Deep Impact with full points devoted to Power Attack and Doubled through Leap Attack. Since it was a touch attack AND a smite, it was pretty much guaranteed to hit and do absolutely ridiculous damage. Our dual bastard-sword wielding Ranger would take care of all the mundane enemies then my pally would bring the ruckus against the commanders. It was oodles of fun.