Help wanted: Assistance with character generation!

[Amra]

Hiya folks, long time no see!

It has been the longest time coming, but after nearly 6 years of drought, I'm actually getting to play in a role-playing game rather than running one and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Trouble is, I've pretty much forgotten how to create a useful character that's actually going to be playable level by level; when you're cooking up a batch of NPC's you rarely have to worry how they survived until they got there, just what they can do right *now*... so I'm looking for tips, or out-and-out builds if it comes to it. I find the rolling vistas of a million sourcebooks stretching out ahead of me and I'm damned if I can decide which direction to head in, although circumstances are dictating some constraints.

First, the campaign: D&D 3.5, Eberron, starting at 1st level (SUCK!)

Existing characters: Two melee monsters (a Shifter Druid with Shapeshifting alternate feature - yeah, I know - and a Shifter Barbarian), plus a doesn't-ever-go-into-combat Cloistered Cleric with an avowed intention of being the party healing battery and buff provider.

Main house rules to note: 1) Everyone gets a feat every level instead of every three, classes that get bonus feats still do; 2) Once a class skill, always a class skill; 3) You can qualify for a prestige class and take the class at the same time, provided your past and intended future class both provide the requisite skills and whatnot; in essence, you can count the first level of a prestige class towards the prerequisites for taking it, special class features like sneak attack and spellcasting aside.

Books: Most of them, including Tome of Battle but not including non-Eberron setting-specific stuff.

So... I have two characters to create and we're missing two obvious party roles: we have no rogue skills, we have no arcane magic. Likewise, we've got no significant ranged combat capability, although naturally the Barbarian isn't going to be too shabby if she decides to throw things rather than hitting them with an axe.

Being distinctly munchkinlike in our approach to gaming, we're using the 5d6-drop-two-lowest method of stat generation. For my two characters, I have the following somewhat startling numbers to work with:

1) 17, 17, 16, 16, 15, 8
2) 17, 17, 15,15, 14, 13

So that's the scene well and truly set. I'm not at all sure what to do and I'm looking for inspiration from one of the most creative bunches of people I know how to find

In case I've left any shadow of a doubt in your minds, I would indeed like to powergame the hell out of this but the DM's a novice so I don't want to completely break his campaign world with Aritificer Infinite Power Loops or anything.

My outline thoughts are that I'll create a ranged-attack-focussed rogue (maybe with a segue into arcane spellcasting later on), probably multi-classing early into Swordsage for Shadow Hand goodness. My BAB is going to suck ass but if I go down the route of mostly making touch attacks it ought not to be a problem. As we're getting a feat every level and I can afford to have a big Int bonus for the skill points, I'm not *so* bothered about being human. I thought a Changeling rogue might be a nice... er... change.

The arcane spellcaster character is trickier; for years I've only had to create one-trick ponies designed to challenge a party in a particular way and as such I haven't had to worry about a proper arcane support role since 2nd Edition!

Much that is nice can be achieved with Ultimate Magus and I'm seriously wondering whether to explore that route; particularly as the DM will allow the Precocious Apprentice fudge.

I'd quite like to map out the first five levels of each character and have an idea of where I'm going after that. I'm looking for suggestions on particular feat selections, spell choices, stat allocations... hell, pretty much everything! I'm even willing to throw away both character concepts if there's a consensus that there are better ways to complement the existing party members.

Anyway, any help or advice you can offer will be gratefully received.

Thanks!

[Cielingcat]

So your goal is to have a ranged attack rogue who gains arcane spellcasting? The only issue with that is that since you're playing a real campaign, you'll have trouble with being a multiclassed character early on-which is to say you'll suck significantly until you hit a certain point.

Since your party is a healer and two melee people, it might be beneficial to simply go the debuffer/controlled route and win by making every enemy you fight useless. To that end, Beguiler always works, and it has the advantages of being easy to build, incredibly powerful, and it also preserves the rogue/mage idea you had, though without the ability to do damage (unless you use some obscure build to add a bunch of sneak attack dice, which is likely doable.)

Sadly I can't help much more than that, as I haven't played D&D for at least a year and barely remember the details.

[Username17]

My suggestion is to keep things simple and do things that are easy to explain. Both for yourself and for your fellow players.

First character: Rogue X. Halfling Hurler. Start as a deep halfling, throw shit, and never ever look back.

Second character: Dread Necromancer 8 or Beguiler X. If you go Beguiler, just take levels in it until the game ends. If you go Dread Necromancer you'll bitch out after 8 levels because the class stops getting nice things.

Meh. Simple. Playable. Requires very few sourcebooks or in-game explanations.

-Username17

[Amra]

@Ceilingcat: adding sneak damage isn't hard with the extra feats due to the crazy-assed rules on Martial Study / Martial Stance. When you take those feats, your initiator level doesn't matter which means you can pick up Assassin's Stance for 2d6 sneak damage and qualify for prestige classes that require it.

@Frank: Whereabouts do I find the Deep Halfling / Halfling Hurler?

Many thanks both

EDIT: Abuse of the Diplomacy rules aside, why is the Beguiler so powerful? I think I've missed a trick here!

EDIT 2: Deep Halfling located... but what's the Halfling Hurler build?

[Username17]

The Beguiler just gets a huge pile of good spells. They don't really need to do anything funky, because they can already cast Sleep, Silent Image, and Color Spray spontaneously while still having access to long list of utility spells.

The Halfling Hurler is just a Halfling Rogue who throws shit. Whatever you can afford really, which eventually will be the various kinds of crazy bullshit acids. Remember that you can sneak attack with bottles of touch attack crap. You take the feats like Flick of the Wrist that give you extra bullshit sneak attacks, and you rapid fire it up to have a large number of attacks that do stupid damage. You'll keep UMD maxed and you'll invest in those dumb Swift Action Wands that let you sneak attack all the bullshit monsters. And as soon as you can afford it you'll get a Ring of Blink.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Beguilers mostly just get two schools of magic, but they are GOOD schools. They also get a lot of them, and Enchantments and Illusions really benefit from spontaneous casting (add to that the assorted utility ones). There are plenty of dirty things you can do with a lot of those spells - hell, at level 1 they have Colour Spray and Sleep, also known as "FINISH HIM! ...Flawless Victory"

The Cloaked Casting is just icing on the cake - pretty soon you can elect to make an enemy flat-footed with a Bluff check that you'll make easily, then gain bonuses (indeed, later on it's "No SR, +2 to the DC" - hit them with a touch attack no-SR Otto's Irresistible Dance (which doesn't even have a save) and watch as they have to prance about uselessly.

You ALSO get an assload of skill points and other random nice things, and you do it all in better armour if you care. You can't do all the broken tricks that Wizards can, but you can still do plenty of great things.

Also, if you care about dealing damage note: things immune to SA are immune to this), you can spam Whelm, Whelming Burst, Mass Whelm, Overwhelm etc. And that's Will 1/2, just to make Rogues sad.

[Amra]

Thanks for the advice guys, although I'm not sure I can overcome my deep-seated revulsion at the very existence of halflings well enough to actually play one. Three feet tall? Nooooooo! It's really difficult to imagine yourself as a stone-cold killer when you've got a horrible mental picture of a pint-sized Sam fvcking Gangee floating behind your eyes. Reduced movement isn't terribly attractive either, although of course that's far less concerning with a ranged combatant.

Hmnmm. I'm reading through the Beguiler spell list now. I do see what you mean in terms of a support caster, although there are a lot of arcane spells I'd really miss. They don't get Teleport, they don't get Dimension Door, they don't get Blink, they don't get most of the major buffs, summonings, big-ticket divinations or movement-enhancing capabilities (mount, flight, polymorphing)... As a secondary arcane caster in the party, they're gorgeous, but Advanced Learning doesn't crop up anywhere near often enough for me to like them overmuch as the main wizardly event.

Ring of Blink + Rogue = total devastation, I can quite see that. Totally worth saving the pennies for! The swift-action wands are a new one on me though; or if I have heard of them, I've since forgotten. Where do I find those?

Thanks again folks!

[Amra]

Also, if you care about dealing damage note: things immune to SA are immune to this), you can spam Whelm, Whelming Burst, Mass Whelm, Overwhelm etc. And that's Will 1/2, just to make Rogues sad.

Um, aren't the Whelm spells Will Negates?

[Murtak]

Straight Rogue or straight Beguiler. You don't need any fancy tricks. As a rogue, just start throwing flasks with both hands as soon as you can and back it up with UMD. As a Beguiler you can't even do anything wrong.

Careful choice of advanced study combined with that domain feat should get you most spells you want. Which ones do you particularly miss?

[Roy]

They do get Greater Mirror Image as will, aka fuck you targeted attacks.

[Amra]

Mirror Image et al are great, for sure... but what's the domain feat in question? Is that the Complete Divine one that lets arcane casters add cleric domain spells to their "known" list?

[Antumbra]

Well, it's out of reach for a while - but a custom Runestaff should cover what advanced study or all those feats can't.

But that PrC house rule is pretty interesting - I'd probably try to make the most of it (and, make a tortuous monstrosity of drafts and suchlike - more so than usual, even.)

[Gelare]

Where would one find these bullshit acids that Frank spoke of?

Edit: Also, following Google here, it mentions something about the halfling hurler taking perfect TWF at level 10? Surgo or anyone want to explain that? I thought it was an epic feat, which you can't take until level 21. (Besides which, I'm not sure how it's better than GTWF or, at that level, even ITWF anyway.)[/url]

[Leress]

Where would one find these bullshit acids that Frank spoke of?

Here

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goo ... s.htm#acid

Rogue get Perfect TWF because they can get a feat at tenth level without meeting the prerequisites for it.

[Amra]

Heh - we've been using the PrC house rule for years and it hasn't upset anything. It just lets people do their concept thing a level (or rarely two) earlier than they otherwise could.

I'm interested that the consensus seems to be that playing a Beguiler is even better than plain old "being a Wizard"... and I'm still thinking about taking an Ultimate Magus in the medium term. Abusing the hell out of our PrC rules, you can get in at 5th level. It makes a bit of sense from a character perspective to take a Beguiler/Wizard (Focussed Specialist), with the specialist class ditching Illusion, Enchantment and Evocation. You just end up with someone learning from books the magic they can't cast naturally, and an assload of spells... albeit trailing a little in getting higher-level mojo.

If I took Practised Spellcaster [Beguiler] at 1st level, I'd get my Wizard level bumped up for the first augment-lower-caster-level nonsense of Ultimate Magus.

For the proposed Halfling thrown-weapon/sneak attack specialist, I'm seriously considering starting with Swordsage. In the first two levels they get most of the Rogue skills, 6+Int skill points, good Ref and Will, Wisdom bonus to AC, Weapon Focus, a +1 bump to initiative, 7 maneuvers, 2 stances and more-or-less automatic qualification for the Shadow Blade feat, which will add your Dex bonus to damage for a discipline's favoured weapon in melee (as written, on top of any Strength damage). Overall I'll lose a point of BAB and 8 skill points vs. the Rogue. UMD I can catch up on and it won't be a lot of use at very low levels anyway. Follow up with Rogue, burn another feat to get Assassin's Stance for an extra 2d6 sneak attack... Doubtless there'll be a Fighter or Warblade level sometime soon thereafter to pick up the bonus feat and the improvement to Fortitude saves.

What do y'all think? It seems to have the edge over straight Rogue, particularly given that I never really expect this campaign to get much past 6th or 7th level.

[Judging__Eagle]

Thanks for the advice guys, although I'm not sure I can overcome my deep-seated revulsion at the very existence of halflings well enough to actually play one. Three feet tall? Nooooooo! It's really difficult to imagine yourself as a stone-cold killer when you've got a horrible mental picture of a pint-sized Sam fvcking Gangee floating behind your eyes. Reduced movement isn't terribly attractive either, although of course that's far less concerning with a ranged combatant.

Imagine a midget with grey skin and jet black eyes. Now imagine them licking their lips and teeth that were filed to points.

They crouch down and pull out a throwing knife out of the eye of someone that they just killed, and lick the blade clean before sheathing it.

You can't really get much creepier than that in a humanoid.

It's how you make the character act and think. Making them look like they have evil skin and monster teeth doesn't hurt. Nor does vaguely implied cannibalistic tendancies.

Really, that's the sort of stuff it take. You pick a theme, and start listing things that would fit the theme. In this case, a not funny at all murderer.

Hmnmm. I'm reading through the Beguiler spell list now. I do see what you mean in terms of a support caster, although there are a lot of arcane spells I'd really miss. They don't get Teleport, they don't get Dimension Door, they don't get Blink, they don't get most of the major buffs, summonings, big-ticket divinations or movement-enhancing capabilities (mount, flight, polymorphing)... As a secondary arcane caster in the party, they're gorgeous, but Advanced Learning doesn't crop up anywhere near often enough for me to like them overmuch as the main wizardly event.

Ring of Blink + Rogue = total devastation, I can quite see that. Totally worth saving the pennies for! The swift-action wands are a new one on me though; or if I have heard of them, I've since forgotten. Where do I find those?

Thanks again folks!

Beguiler's are cool too. Ring of Blink is wtfpwn, and always will be.

[Username17]

There is seriously no reason to take lvels in Swordsage or Warblade or Fighter or any of that crap. You are a Rogue. You full attack things. For sneak attack damage. All that other crap you're talking about is crap. It doesn't really matter what your maneuvers and crap do, because when you have Rapid Shot you can full attack for 2 acid flasks with sneak attack. It's so much better than any maneuver that it's not funny.

As for the Swift Action spells, the final word on activation times for wands is the DMG. And the DMG says that if a spell has a casting time other than 1 standard action that the action to activate the wand is the casting time of the spell. Which means that if you have a wand of gravestrike or critical strike you can use them as Swift Actions. And since you didn't have anything to do with your swift actions anyhow, that's wicked sweet.

-Username17

[Murtak]

I'm interested that the consensus seems to be that playing a Beguiler is even better than plain old "being a Wizard"...

It isn't. But it is close and it is a lot less work for the player. Also it is next to impossible to fuck up a straight Beguiler build. At worst you are still a full caster with a good spell selection and spontaneous casting.

You just end up with someone learning from books the magic they can't cast naturally, and an assload of spells... albeit trailing a little in getting higher-level mojo.

And even milking the system for all it's worth, just getting those high level spells is probably going to be a better deal. Seriously, what are you missing out on?

For the proposed Halfling thrown-weapon/sneak attack specialist, I'm seriously considering starting with Swordsage. In the first two levels they get most of the Rogue skills, 6+Int skill points, good Ref and Will, Wisdom bonus to AC, Weapon Focus, a +1 bump to initiative, 7 maneuvers, 2 stances and more-or-less automatic qualification for the Shadow Blade feat, which will add your Dex bonus to damage for a discipline's favoured weapon in melee (as written, on top of any Strength damage). Overall I'll lose a point of BAB and 8 skill points vs. the Rogue.

So you gain
- 2 Will
- 0 to AC (seriously, you weren't planning on pumping Wisdom, were you?)
- Some maneuvers and stances
- 4 damage on melee attacks
You lose
- 1 BAB
- some skill points
- 1 sneak attack die on all attacks

For a ranged fighter that looks like a decidedly bad idea to me. You can pick up Assassin's Stance anyways, you lose a BAB and you gain the benefits of a bad feat. Oh, and you get access to some maneuvers, which may actually be worth something .... to a melee fighter.

[Gelare]

Ah, so we are, in fact, talking about normal acid. Alright then. Hey, question, do things that get hit with the splash damage also take sneak attack damage? It sounds ridiculous, but we're always bending the rules over around here, so I thought there might be a way.

[Cielingcat]

If I remember correctly, because Sneak Attack applies to attacks unless otherwise specified, and grenade-like attacks are attacks that do not otherwise specify.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If your DM won't let you sneak attack with flasks of acid (and I know one or two who won't), you don't want to be a beguiler, and you're still trying to use as few books as possible you could always be a Warblade.

You will need those lame items from the back of the book to cherry pick powers that you want--for example, there's a Shadow Hand stance that gives you 2d6 sneak attack, no questions asked. There's also a Desert Wind strike that gives you an extra attack at -2 to attack, no questions asked.

I don't think it's as good as being a rogue or a beguiler but what you do is easily explained and doesn't need a lot of rules finagling or DM convincing. And if your DM is the kind of person who enjoys applying their subjective interpretation to what a character can do then playing an illusionist is going to be really fuckin tough anyway.

[Amra]

Thanks again folks, this is the sort of discussion I was hoping for to get me thinking the right way again

And Judging_Eagle, I very much appreciate that. Consider the Hobbits expunged from my brain and something approximating Chucky from Child's Play put into their place. Oh yeah!

And even milking the system for all it's worth, just getting those high level spells is probably going to be a better deal. Seriously, what are you missing out on?

Buffs. Rope trick. Blink. Dimension Door. Teleport. Lots of stuff that could well prove to be a barrier in a party that won't have another arcane caster.

Look at it another way. Going Beguiler 1 / Wizard (Focussed Specialist) 3 / Ultimate Magus X means that I'm forever 1 level behind in acquiring high-level spells compared to pure Wizard, just as I would have been as a straight Beguiler.

In exchange, if I pick the right feats along the way, I've got spells-per-day of a 9th-level Focussed Specialist Wizard but with a caster level of 12, plus the spells per day of a 4th-level Beguiler but with a caster level of 10, plus I can blow my 1st-and-2nd-level Beguiler spells to spontaneously apply metamagic feats with a level adjustment of 1 or 2 to my Wizard spells, plus a metric craptonne of useful skills.

All that said, straight Beguilers are indeed just too cool for school and it saves me brain-ache.

So you gain
- 2 Will
- 0 to AC (seriously, you weren't planning on pumping Wisdom, were you?)

You didn't read my first post on the thread; I'm absolutely going to have at least a +2 Wisdom bonus because there's no good reason not to with those stats.

- Some maneuvers and stances
- 4 damage on melee attacks

You lose
- 1 BAB
- some skill points
- 1 sneak attack die on all attacks

Y'see, I think this is where I'm stumbling somewhat. I Just Don't See how a low-level character is going to keep on keeping on sneak-attacking the bad guys at range. Ring of Blink? Yeah, that's fabulous but it costs 27,000gp and that's the total character wealth for an 8th-level character. I wouldn't expect to actually get a single item worth that much until 10th level; this DM is going to be sticking to the wealth-by-level guidelines. I'm not even going to be able to afford a Wand of Blinking until 8th level or so.

I am going to get one four-hour game session a week, using published adventures. Given the garrulous nature of the gaming group, we'll be lucky to get through two encounters on a good week. Let's generously say three encounters per two weeks, particularly given that we lose on average one week in six to players not being able to make it. At that rate I'm not going to see 10th level before Christmas and I'll be playing this character - assuming it lives so long - for all that time.

During that period, I think I can reasonably expect that I will end up in melee a fair bit. I'm probably missing something - I desperately want to be told that I am - but I don't see a way that a character *without* Blink more-or-less-at-will is going to be sneak attacking with thrown weapons more than they won't be, because the next-best way is to be flanking and you can't do that at range.

Therefore, best intentions of being a ranged combatant and all that taken into consideration, I'm distinctly nervous about putting all of my eggs into the sneak-attack basket.

For a ranged fighter that looks like a decidedly bad idea to me. You can pick up Assassin's Stance anyways, you lose a BAB and you gain the benefits of a bad feat. Oh, and you get access to some maneuvers, which may actually be worth something .... to a melee fighter.

But that's just it. I can't see how I'm going to stay out of melee all the time. I can't see how all my attacks, or even most of them, are going to be sneak attacks. I can't see how getting four points of damage per blow when I'm *in* melee is a bad feat; that +4 is the equivalent of 1d6-and-a-fraction anyway and it applies in melee whether or not you can get a sneak attack. Having the ability to switch between Island of Blades (which is going to up my sneak-attack count in melee considerably if I've only got a 20' move) and Assassin's Stance would give me further options.

A Rogue 5 has a BAB of +3. A Swordsage 2/Rogue 3 has a BAB of +3. Yes, I lose one sneak attack die across my career, but I gain Weapon Focus, have to burn one fewer feat to get Assassin's Stance, get a +2 bonus (at least) to AC, +1 to initiative and an improved Will save (admittedly offset by the Fortitude battering).

I'm not saying youse folks are wrong - fvck it, I wouldn't even be here asking if I thought that happened a lot - but I really am struggling to understand where my full-attack-sneak-attack is going to come from past the first round of each combat!

Thanks for listening and answering folks: it's all very helpful [/i]

[Lago PARANOIA]

Dammit, man, if you need spells as a beguiler then just grab Arcane Disciple a couple of times and snag some of those dumbass PrCs from Defender of the Faith/Complete Divine which hand out domains like candy.

In fact, I have a very hard time wondering why an arcane spellcaster WOULDN'T want to have a level in Divine Oracle.

[RandomCasualty2]

You'll keep UMD maxed and you'll invest in those dumb Swift Action Wands that let you sneak attack all the bullshit monsters.

It should be noted that most DMs will not allow that, given that the spell compendium actually says that wands of swift action spells still take standard actions.

[Roy]

You'll keep UMD maxed and you'll invest in those dumb Swift Action Wands that let you sneak attack all the bullshit monsters.

It should be noted that most DMs will not allow that, given that the spell compendium actually says that wands of swift action spells still take standard actions.

Rules Compendium. DMG. Next.