IMHO: I don't know how to make the Gargoyle PC work w/out su

[Judging__Eagle]

In this thread (Power Level using Pies) we were talking about power progression and how to explain it in a relatively easy manner.

So, the 4 HD Gargoyle, with one added HD to 'be' CR 5 with PC gear and 1 lvl of a martial class is unlike the RoW write-up of the minotaur.

The gargoyle has some DR (10/Magic or Monsters don't have it); some pretty decent stat mods (big con boost, smaller dex and str boosts, int and cha penalties), some natural attacks, 5 levels of two good saves (and with it's high con, it's low base fort save is mitigated a pile), but it's also got flying.

The problem is that while he's relatively powerful when he flies up and falls onto things and he's got the DR to soak hits, I'm not too sure what to do to keep the character from going all sideways since he'll be level 5 gargoyle, level 1 or 2 PC class; and while the other PCs are unlocking their "oh shit" level 6 and 7 abilities, he's only tapping into his 1st lvl ones.

I know that he's got stuff that most PCs won't normally have, like combat flying and very noticable DR to start, but after seriously trying the Knight class (and giving him designate opponent damage equal to his HD) and then the Samurai class, trying out a bunch of existing feats and a couple of new feats; it all still seems lacklustre.

Me, Brobdingagian and the player talked about simply advancing the Gargoyle's Hit Dice in some sort of "Gargoyle" Paragon class or something, but it would need some wierd stuff.


As it stands the current ideas that I have are as follows:


1. Strip the Gargoyle race more, give it's abilities out (mostly flying, maybe DR) as levels progress. Flying would be spread out the way the Raptorian race has flying spread out so that only at level 10 you get your full flying (1st lvl gliding downwards; 5th limited flight 1 round per point of con mod per hour; 10th lvl whatever you would normally get).

2. Remove more HD or simply give some more class special abilities (count as a 3rd lvl Knight for special Knight class abilites, and as a 5th lvl knight for designate opponent damage; but only if you take at least one knight level).

3. Create a Gargoyle PrC-ish thing and don't use class levels? The class would be one that can be used by good or evil Gargoyles, something like this:

Basilica Gaurdian (or Fiendish Gatekeeper)

Pre-Reqs
Special: Must be any Good (or any Evil for the fiendish abilities isntead)
Special: Must be a Gargoyle
Special: Must decide to serve Celestials (or Fiends)

Skills: Same as the Gargoyle, plus: Knowledge (Religion)
Skill Points per level: 4 + Int Mod

BaB: Full (1/1)
Saves Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

1. 
   
2. Gain Meteoric Strike as a bonus feat; Celestial-Touched
   
3. Damage Reduction (Silver or Steel)
   
4. 
   
5. Celestial Creature
   
6. 
   
7. Damage Reduction (Lawful or Chaotic)
   
8. 
   
9. 
   
10. 
    
11. 
    

Celestial-Touched: Count as a Celestial when meeting with outsiders (two steps better when meeting with outsiders of good alignments for diplomacy purposes, two steps worse if meeting with outsiders of the evil alignment)

Damage Reduction: Gain DR 10/Silver if Lawful or 10/Steel if Chaotic; gain DR 15/Silver or Steel if Neutral*

[*:yes, it should be Stone or Wood for Neutral but whatever]

Celestial Creature: Gain the Celestial Creature template



Damage Reduction: Gain DR 10/Chaotic if Lawful or 10/Lawful if Chaotic; gain DR 15/Chaotic or Lawful if Neutral


Really, I don't know what a guardian of Celestial's basilica's would or should have as powers; it should be noted that you're level 5 when you enter so the 1st power is for a 6th lvl pc.

Anyway, ideas and comments would be appreciated.

I think that this race is harder to turn into a PC than, say a Minotaur is b/c of flying really.

[Arturian]

I don't think that the problem is the flying Eagle, I think the problem is the levels of "Gargoyle" instead of say "Knight". The problem as I see it (as the player), is that the character doesn't get the "cool" class abilities early enough to keep up with everyone else, and also doesn't get enough feats to make the class work as written. I mean...sure...doing 120 dmg/hit is cool and all (even though I can only do it once/fight). I wonder if it might be better just to say I was a "Gargoyle" and strip it of all it's abilities except flying and darkvision. Keep the plusses and minuses (even if you half the bonuses ie. +4 con instead of +8) to Strength and all that, then rebuild the character with "Knight" levels, hd, abilities and all that junk. Scrap the "Gargoyle" DR and progress that with the "Knight" DR. I dunno, this is all just off the top of my head...we'll work something out I'm sure.

[Judging__Eagle]

Yeah, that might be for the best; we can strip flying down to be your Con mod in rounds per hour (so, with a con mod of 7, you've got 7 rounds of flying per hour)l then give full flying at lvl 10.

So

1. 
   
2. Knight 1 + Gliding
   
3. Knight 2
   
4. Knight 3
   
5. Knight 4
   
6. Knight 5 + Flying Con Mod in rounds per Hour
   

...
10. Knight 10 + Flying ....


Shit, I think we should just dump the idea of being a Knight; take the Paladin that Iaimeki wrote up instead.

You're gargoyle doesn't need a mount; which is an other problem that we had in making your character.

We just 'call' your character a 'gargoyle'; and he's a gargoyle paladin from The Seven Mounting Heavens.

The noticable 'racial' modifiers:

Con +2
Gliding (1st lvl); partial flying (5th lvl); Full flying (10th lvl)
Darkvision

Keep all the other racial skill bonuses.

Keep the Freeze ability. However let's add that it let's you gain fast healing, scaled the way the barbarian gets it (1 at 1st lvl, 5 at 5th, 10 at 10th, 15 at 15th and 20 at 20th). You're helpless, since you're standing still.

So it's an "after combat" ability, which is mostly flavour, but could come in handy if you have to solo some stuff. So, once fighting is done, you sit on your ass and heal up, and leave the looting to the rest of the party, then shake off the stone shell that grew on you while you stodd still.... that or you turn to actual stone.

We are basing this character off of the cartoon show after all. Also, Bronx should seriously be a Medium to Large (not huge) intelligent Bullete, since he had one head.

Iaimeki's Kantian Paladin

On the upside, there's now a good reason to have you have a 'large' celesial bullete as a mount.



Huge bulette:
Size/Type: Huge Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 9d10+45 (94 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), burrow 10 ft.
Armor Class: 22 (-2 size, +2 Dex, +12 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 20
Base Attack/Grapple: +9/+25
Attack: Bite +16 melee (2d8+8)
Full Attack: Bite +16 melee (2d8+8) and 2 claws +10 melee (2d6+4)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Leap
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent, tremorsense 60 ft.
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +8, Will +6
Abilities: Str 27, Dex 15, Con 20, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6
Skills: Jump +18, Listen +9, Spot +3
Feats: Alertness, Iron Will, Track, Weapon Focus (bite)


Well, there are no real rules for making something smaller, but you can always work backwards based on the rules for advancing monsters

Large Bulette:

Since we're not advancing the Bulette and instead we are making it smaller we need to work a bit backwards, but whatever.

Removing HD:
Animal, magical beast, monstrous humanoid -1 per 3 HD removed

Making creature smaller:
Size increased to Large or larger -1 to CR (per size removed)
[since size increases from medium to large tend to add +8 str, -2 dex, +4 con, and some Natural armour and from large to huge adds +8 str -2 dex, +4 con, +3 Nat armour]

Now, with a stat line of:
Str 27, Dex 15, Con 20, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6
-16 str, +4 dex and -8 con is a bit much, since going from huge to medium has other downsides.

Instead if we simply do: -8 str (19 str remaining); +4 dex (19 dex) and -4 con (16 Con) we get something that resembles a powerful medium creature.

So, it would go from CR 7 to CR 6 (3 less HD) and then 5 (huge to large); we could make it medium for now, and then next level it would be large (just more reach really and you can ride it if you feel like).

So, 'bronx' would be more of your patrol dog at level 1-6; at level 7 you can ride him, b/c he got bigger. Now, you could continue to make him larger or add templates to make him smarter/tougher; whatever.


----------




It should be noted that the Kantian Pally has "designate oppenent"; except that it's able to be used every round on any one that's "evil".

It should be noted that killing evil doesn't make you evil; you're simply preventing them from commiting more evil here on the material plane; everyone benefits if you kill an evil creature, even the creature.

[Arturian]

I like the way you're thinking with a few exceptions.

Namely, you're killing my flying which is why I picked a Gargoyle. I know that it scales with level, but how would "Combat Flying" work as a feat? And I know that you said that the flying would be my Con mod/hour...but you gave the example where I still had a con of 24 which I won't have if we do what else you were talking about.

I like the idea of the freeze ability being my Fast Healing +Lvl.

Third, the whole Paladin thing isn't going to...pardon the pun...fly. It gets "smite evil" which is cool and all, but unlike the knight, it is only 1d6 every 2 lvls and can only be used on evil. Whereas the knight gets Designate Opponent which is 1d6 every level. Ok, so you have to spend a swift action and wait a round...but the payoff is larger and can be used on anyone. Besides, I like being able to spend a round and heal any of my stat dmg.

Now, are you also only going to give me +2 on my Con and nothing to Str and Dex when originally it was +4 str +4 dex and +8 con. I would've thought maybe +2 +2 +4 and I'll take the -2 Cha and -2 Int.

On the last thing, I would concede to have a Bullette as a mount...because...well...the Celestial 3 Headed Hydra may have been a bit much...I'm not entirely sure what you were babling on about with the scaling and all, but we'll cover that at a later time.

All in all, we may indeed be able to make this work...I'll give you a call later.

[Brobdingnagian]

You like high-power too much. +2 Con and no other bonuses or penalties is perfectly reasonable.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, he's getting all of his other Gargoyle crap.

Dr 5/Magic, which ups to DR 10/Magic (and Evil?) at 11 HD.

Darkvision.

Racial Bonuses to hide (which he'll almost never use).

Plus, other random racial crap, just less stats and slower fly progression.

[Brobdingnagian]

Of course he won't use hide; the Gargoyle was made to be an ambush monster. Of course, we could sub it out for something he will use that fits in with the Gargoyle theme... Intimidate, maybe?

[MrWaeseL]

So this is now basically your D&D group's meetup forum?

[Judging__Eagle]

Sort of. We discuss mechanics for characters here, story and other fluff is done in person most of the time.

Also, this forum, if anything, is where one should discuss the "being cool" aspect of a character. So, getting people here to hammer and reform what we come up with helps with making better material.

Plus, it's easier to get people to read Frank and K's stuff if I always keep sending them to a forum that has the stuff stickied and I use almost all of that stuff in my games now.

[Crissa]

Frank and K always used it that way, too.

-Crissa

[Judging__Eagle]

I feel justified now.

[Arturian]

Wow, it's only taken almost 500 posts and years of dedicated posting and you're now finally feeling justified. Well done. Oh, and BTW, I maxed out my ranks in hide just for fun...Ambush Pali here we come. Ahhh, as I said, not so much an Ambush Pali...more a Rogue Pali in as much as he likes to stay alive so he can do his good work. (especially when fighting Gatherers at lvl 6...even if they are somewhat broken to begin with)

[Brobdingnagian]

Retrievers, Arty. Retrievers.

[Judging__Eagle]

Actually, I registered here, uhm... 6 months ago. I registered on the WoTC boards a couple of years ago however, but the discussions here make me wish I was here earlier.

The retriever was actually broken, physically, making it's CR lower (3 less special abilities, drops it to... roughly CR 8; they're CR 11 normally).

Since it was a construct, your hiding worked really well.

[Arturian]

Gatherers...Retrievers...they pick crap up and return em to people...god you're picky.

Yeah, I'm just buggin you about the post thing Eagle

And as to the "CR" of the Retriever, the damn fire ray thing was still a pain in the back side...And the reach combined with crit for like 40hp hurt a little as well.

Anyways, back to the original thread question...I think we may have a working pc now...we'll see how it goes