Questions

[rogueblade0729]

5 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

He’s ok. I don’t see anything dire in need of fixing, but some smaller tweaks are possible.

I agree. Honestly this isn't a "fixing" thing as much as it is an "adjusting" thing, to better suit the character's narrative progression. Little tweaks here and there, like you said. I'm not so much looking to optimize as I am to make the mechanics of the character fit better to my image of him, as an older assassin and bearer of Nox's gift. Same approach to how I rebuilt Belregar.

11 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

1] Get to Swashbuckler 3, you are too smart not to have insightful strike.

2) You need the Daring Outlaw feat.

Solid points here, though I'm not sure how many levels of Swashbuckler beyond 3 I should take to make Daring Outlaw worth it. At a minimum, he gets the benefits of a level 8 rogue and swashbuckler; he only gets +1d6 extra sneak attack and a +1 Dodge bonus to AC against melee attacks from a specific opponent. Still, Insightful Strike is pretty useful.

19 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

3) Allegiance to Darkness could come from Dark template, Shadowdancer, the Shadow Hand discipline, or Telflammar Shadowlord.

What's Allegiance to Darkness? I tried looking it up but couldn't find anything.

21 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

4) AC and saves are honestly a touch low for your level. On the rare occassion when hiding fails, it’ll hurt.

Fair. I definitely could do to bump his AC and saves with better armor, rings of protection, and vests of resistance. I think he just has his WBL spread out too much, so that's a financial overhaul I'll need to work out when he's next out of a mission (assuming he survives the impending collapse of the demiplane!). The Rogue Blade is fantastic to have because of my username, buuut he doesn't really use the blink ability too much and could just wield the Light Swordbow in his main hand instead.

I could also leverage his superior intelligence with Combat Expertise, and all the stuff that comes with that.

24 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

5) Warblade just is superior to fighter, especially with a high INT.

True. I didn't know about Warblade when I was first making him, hence why I'm considering remastering him. But how many levels of Warblade should I take? I can see an argument for 2-3 levels, or I could see an argument for going all the way up to 7 levels for Battle Cunning, swapping out any other form of Uncanny Dodge / Improved Uncanny Dodge I get from other classes for ACFs. I could just take a 1-level Swordsage dip at the right level to get that, though.

[Rudolf]

You were the one who said your character had some kind of allegiance to darkness. I wasn’t there for that.
 

I believe there’s a feat that allows you to change the normal schools a class gets, so a Shadow Hand Warblade would be possible. More important is the Dex to damage feat. See if it combines with INT to damage or not. With both of those, you could fix your AC with a +2 mithril Buckler.
 

You -can- TWF, bUt it’s not an obligation. Keep the +2 to hit and +3 AC when you’re in motion, or using a maneuver, and save the TWF for the full attacks.

 

The -real- question here is: how much ranger do you need?

[Delia2531]

14 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

The -real- question here is: how much ranger do you need?

Cufwell has all the levels of Ranger (or will do soon), that's probably enough for anyone! 😉

[rogueblade0729]

54 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

You were the one who said your character had some kind of allegiance to darkness. I wasn’t there for that.

Oh, right! It was a mission from a long time ago, Tainted Forest, run by Blue Jay. As part of it, he was gifted the remaining life force of Nox, the goddess of night, which is how he got his Dark template. I've been playing on that plot thread by showcasing how he has made the most of that gift through spellcasting and other magic abilities.

 

56 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

I believe there’s a feat that allows you to change the normal schools a class gets, so a Shadow Hand Warblade would be possible. More important is the Dex to damage feat. See if it combines with INT to damage or not. With both of those, you could fix your AC with a +2 mithril Buckler.

I'm not sure what that feat would be. I know you can take feats to learn additional stances and maneuvers, regardless of class. As for the Dex to damage feat, that would be Shadow Blade. It requires one Shadow Hand maneuver to take, which should be simple enough with a 1-level Swordsage dip. If I'm wrong and you can find that feat, I'd be happy to look into it, but from my research I'm not sure it exists.

 

1 hour ago, Rudolf said:

You -can- TWF, bUt it’s not an obligation. Keep the +2 to hit and +3 AC when you’re in motion, or using a maneuver, and save the TWF for the full attacks.

Fair point. I will say that he has been dishing out some respectable damage with his TWF feats from Ranger (see below) and a 1-level dip into Barbarian for the Pounce ability, when he can't get sneak attack. I could be convinced to not go in for that, though.

 

46 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

The -real- question here is: how much ranger do you need?

The main benefits I get from Urban Ranger are the free Two-Weapon Fighting feats, Solitary Hunting, Urban Tracking, Favored Enemy (humans) [you'd be surprised how often he benefits from this], and Swift Tracker. Since Jarren is going to be taking at least 7 levels of PrCs on the left side of his gestalt, the right side will mostly be base classes.

I'd say I would stop at 6th level to get up to Improved Combat Style and a Champion of the Wild bonus feat. Alternatively, I could stop at 1st level just to get FE (humans), Solitary Hunting, Urban Tracking, and Voices of the City (replaces Wild Empathy).

The rest of the right side would probably include a 1 level of Swordsage (Shadow Hand stuff), 1-7 levels of Warblade (d12 HD, bonus feat, Int bonuses to Reflex / crit confirms / damage vs flat-footed or flanked), maybe 1 level of Barbarian (for pounce), and a whole bunch of Swashbuckler (Daring Outlaw).

A very thematic class I found was the Shadowblade PrC from Tome of Magic, where he gets a bunch of cool shadow powers, Sudden Strike, and bonuses to stealth skills and vision. Being able to permanently see perfectly in any kind of darkness (including deeper darkness) sounds really useful, but I won't be able to get to 10th level without sacrificing 2 Avenger levels (-2 Death Attack DC, no 4th level spells). I was planning on taking 7 levels in Shadowblade on the left side of the gestalt, before the rebuild was an option.

That being said, I can simply take 3 levels of Human Paragon to reach 4th level Avenger spells, which also nets me a bonus feat and a free +2 to Dexterity.

[Rudolf]

Ah, it’s from the Pathfinder version, not the 3.5. Sorry.

 

Looks like you’re ready to start a revision thread.

[rogueblade0729]

All good!

Jarren is currently in a mission right now, so none of these changes will be immediate. It's just been something I've dwelt on for a long while, so once he concludes Scythe and the Forge (assuming he survives), I'll more seriously consider seeking approval for the rebuild.

[darlis moonbeam]

So my new character is a Fireblood Dwarven Dragonfire Adept/Rogue. I want to do a different mount for him. Something like a dire ram or some such. I just do not know where I find prices for mounts that are not the typical horse, pony, mule, or riding dog. Anyone have any ideas?

[Rudolf]

Arms and Equipment guide.

[darlis moonbeam]

2 hours ago, Rudolf said:

Arms and Equipment guide.

I will need to look at that again. It did not seem to give some flat cost there, but I could have overlooked it.

[Faeryl_]

A quick look has the following list of animals/magical beasts in A&EG: Camel, Dire Badger, Dire Bat, Dire Boar, Elephant, Porpoise/Dolphin (if you happen to be in solely aquatic missions), Rhinoceros, Blink Dog (Riding), Deinonychus/Megaraptor, Riding Lizard, Owlbear, Triceratops, Worg, Axebeak (large flying mount), Hippocampus (aquatic magical beast), and then a number of actual monster and vermin mounts which I'll stop listing now because this is getting long already.

I've never actually seen a ram listed anywhere, but these are the ones the book mentioned.

[Delia2531]

57 minutes ago, Faeryl_ said:

A quick look has the following list of animals/magical beasts in A&EG: Camel, Dire Badger, Dire Bat, Dire Boar, Elephant, Porpoise/Dolphin (if you happen to be in solely aquatic missions), Rhinoceros, Blink Dog (Riding), Deinonychus/Megaraptor, Riding Lizard, Owlbear, Triceratops, Worg, Axebeak (large flying mount), Hippocampus (aquatic magical beast), and then a number of actual monster and vermin mounts which I'll stop listing now because this is getting long already.

I've never actually seen a ram listed anywhere, but these are the ones the book mentioned.

I'd be more than happy with a Dire Boar re-skinned as a Dire Ram. 😀

[Rudolf]

29 minutes ago, Delia2531 said:

I'd be more than happy with a Dire Boar re-skinned as a Dire Ram. 😀

Then go for it!

[Delia2531]

26 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

Then go for it!

Not me; it's @darlis moonbeam that's looking. 😃

[darlis moonbeam]

Yea still need to look through my copy of Arms and Equipment and see if I can figure out prices. I am thinking it's going to be way more than a horse or pony. Lol

 

Ok I assume I add the young price with training cost so a Dire Ram that is a reskinned Dire Boar would cost me 475 GP?

 

Meet Pyro

Edited June 11 by darlis moonbeam (see edit history)

[Dnd4life]

Very lovely looking Ram there. May it bring destruction to your enemies in many stories.

 

As for a questions.. Beast Strike is an approved third party feat. Adds Slam or Claw damage to your unarmed strike. Is that every unarmed strike? I know you don't get STR bonuses twice, doesn't multiple on a crit, and so forth.. But If I had 3 unarmed strikes and only one claw of 1d4 damage, does each attach gain the damage?

Do these attacks also count as a 'claw' for related purposes? I'm not sure how far this could go into broken and such, but on Yasei she had two claw attacks (I'd still only gain the damage bonus once and not two die worth) but she also has Rend. So if I land two Unarmed Strikes with claws in sets of two, would I get additional Rend procs? Or only a single Proc? Or none at all? It's two levels away but was wondering how that interaction would work.