|
Actually the concept sounds pretty solid. I like it. The thing about not liking Halflings or Gnomes could be an issue if another party member decides to play one so that may be one thing to take into consideration. (If that does happen to be the case maybe you could slightly alter it a bit, to where instead of the dislike being a hatred it's that "they're just creepy... too much like little kids" or some such (yes I know a player who feels that way in real life so it's not out of the question)
A bardiche is a type of polearm (obviously) here's a link so you can see what they look like:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bardiche&id=0BB54F57FD27EF8C66C7AEE FF576FC4E53A0BD21&FORM=IQFRBA#a
All in all it sounds like a solid concept. What's the stat generation method?
Nice concept!
As for the 'cold rages/berserk button' part. Go for Urban Barbarian. They've got more versatile, more controlled rages that are less 'foaming mouth' and more 'ice cold'.
You can use the Dragon and/or Beast totems to represent the supernatural bloodline. You can then get claws and/or bite attacks when raging (bite attacks work brilliantly in concert with a reach weapon).
Chill out on the halfling/gnome racism, that might lead to several problems within the party dynamic, even if none of your fellow PCs take that race. Racism is kinda the berserk button of current RL society, so that might raise a lot of objections in and out of character.
As for the rage bonuses and buffs. I usually just make a table that separately gives the total for each combination of attacks.
Example:
Normal Greatsword attack: BAB +5, Str +4, magic weapon +1, focus +1 = +11
Normal Greatsword damage: 2d6, Str +6, magic weapon +1 = 2d6 +7
Power attack Greatsword attack: BAB +5, Str +4, magic weapon +1, focus +1, PA -2 = +9
Power attack Greatsword damage: 2d6, Str +6, magic weapon +1, PA +6 = 2d6 +13
Combat expertise Greatsword attack: ....
Combat expertise Greatsword damage: .....
Power attack + combat expertise: ....
|
|
I utterly despise rolling for ability scores (seriously quite possibly the single most broken game mechanic in the history of RPGs) and will insist on some kind of point buy but I don't know how many points we would have.
It's really just that he considers them to be "shifty thieving little backstabbers" and Gnomes are really into trickery, deception and illusions which he doesn't like. I'm sure that he could make exceptions or get over it to some extent.
Personally I can go either way when it comes to generating stats. I've done both and they're both alright depending on situation and what you're trying to do. With point buy you inevitably run into the problem of the "dump stat" where someone will pull there points from one stat, making it a single digit, and boosting one as high as they can while leaving the others middling; or with rolling you have the problem of one person rolling terrible while another may roll exceedingly well. (Though I have seen one rolling method I want to experiment with the next time I run, it looks mostly fair actually if everyone can agree to it)
The personality seems okay,any character can start one place and grow. Heck I've had my share that started one way and became something else. Like I said I like the overall concept, plus Richard Moll is awesome.
Heh... ever heard of FATAL? Supposedly everything in character creation was determined by dice. A character could literally be dead in character creation (not undead, actual dead-dead).
And that was reportedly the least of the problems of that system.
|
|
I don't like to put too much weight on the dice anyway but letting one roll define your character for his or her entire career? That's completely absurd. It's bad enough that one roll can outright kill your character- it's another for one roll to permanently debilitate that character in the first place. In a party of 6 there's always the player who gets a TREMENDOUS roll and the one who can't hardly do anything with a bad roll or whose perfectly good character concept gets trashed by the dice. And then there are MAD classes vs SAD classes- the dice can say "No Paladin for you!"
No. DECISIONS build characters, not dice. It absolutely should be in the hands of mostly the player and partly the DM.
Oh I totally understand and I agree for the most part. The method I was talking about is one where each member of the group rolls 4d6 drop the lowest (re-roll 1s) to create a set of six numbers. The group then looks at each set of numbers and everyone uses the best set. You get a stat array at that point, but one that's been roll by the players and the guy that got the best luck got it for the whole group. Everyone wins in that scenario.
About that book keeping- I have a Kindle Fire HD. Is there an app I can get on there that will manage the character sheet and ALL the math for me and let me switch the rage bonuses off/on on the fly? Bonus if it will also track all the copious buffs like Haste, Bull's Strength, etc. Also bonus if it doubles as a character builder or if you can steer me to a good one on the PC for that matter.
This is what Hero Lab is for. I used it for my 2-weapon fighting barbarian, and it keeps track of all the spell buffs, raging stats, Power Attack, fatigue, etc. And yes, it's also a character builder.
Downsides? While it's available for I-Pad, there's no version that works on the Kindle Fire afaik. Also, it gets expensive if you use options from several splat books, as each extra sourcebook beyond the Core Package is sold separately (though they do offer bundles).
i recently had a brand new player (no rp experience) who was playing a barbarian and worried about bookkeeping... the free (paper) character sheet has like 5-6 entries for attacks so we just filled out a different entry for each option (base attack, power attack, rage, raging power attack, etc) and it worked great! i gave her a 3x5 card and when anyone cast a buff on her she'd write it on the card (keeping a running total of the bonuses), that way she could roll the die, add the appropriate modifiers from the attack entry, add the bonuses from the card, and be all set- it went really smoothly.
as for a build... you do need to pick where on the spectrum from RPing that concept to totally optimized barbarian you want to be; personally my approach is 'most optimized version of my RP concept' which is sort of a middle of the road approach usually. and always remember rule #1: have fun (i never understood why someone would make a character they didn't want to play just because it was stronger). if nobody has pointed it out to you yet, you should bookmark d20pfsrd.com it has virtually every option available in pathfinder laid out in an easy to use way. go on there look through all the barbarian totems (listed under Rage Powers) and see if there's one that fits with your idea of a suernatural source of rage; if there is, take it- if not think about possibly taking Beast Totem (the strongest/best one), if it doesn't contradict your concept. barbarians are good damage dealers, so don't stress too much about dumping a stat for 1 extra point here or there (unless, like an 8 int, it goes with your concept)- having a decent Cha will help with intimidate, and a lot of other social situations... it may also open the door to the arcane heritage feats (listed under general feats on d20pfsrd) if you want to look into those as a possible supernatural power thing... and superstitious is a potent ability but it can backfire and isn't 'necessary' (despite what some might say). lots of people on here will have good advice for you, just think about where on the spectrum they are, where you want to be, and what from their advice will work for you.
also, there's going to be a playtest coming up pretty soon ("this fall" according to the paizo blog) of a new book called Advanced Class Guide- in it there are 10 new classes, including one that's sort of, roughly a barbarian/sorcerer hybrid... so if that sounds like it might be one route towards what you want (offensive magic will be as close to a plasma rifle as you'll get) you could talk to your GM now about either waiting til that's out or possibly switching/retraining when it does? just a thought.
hope there was something useful in there... have fun :)
If you are going for intimidate, consider the feat intimidating prowess. I personally think it is fun even if not super powered.
As nate said, even a halfway decent barbarian will do pretty fair damage so, you can take some non-optimal stuff just for the fun of it.
Also as he said a blasty sorcerer (scorching ray) is probably the closest you can get to a plasma rifle.
There is a heavy armor archtype of barbarian for you tank feeling.
Both Hero Lab and PC Gen will manage the PC as you want. However, I don't know if either works on the Kindle Fire. My guess would be no or very slow if it does. Both are kinda resource hogs considering they are in effect only moderately large database interfaces. I like Hero Lab better, some prefer PC Gen.
For you fiendish/draconic heritage. You could go with the rage totems.
Another option since you don't want to dump charisma is to actually raise it a bit. Multiclass into draconic bloodline sorc (or crossblooded draconic and abyssal) and then go into dragon disciple.
A middle option would be straight barbarian and raise cha enough to take eldritch heritage with either the draconic or abyssal bloodline.
Or you could do all three take some barbarian levels with the dragon or fiendish rage powers, take a level or dragon blooded sorc. Take the dragons disciple prestige class, and take eldritch heritage on the abyssal bloodline. Not sure how this would actually work out in play, but might be really fun to play. I may have to think about it myself.
If you don't pump wisdom. I would heartily recommend Iron Will and Improved Iron Will. There are very few things worse that having the groups supreme melee guinsu machine suddenly under a confusion or dominate and then attack the other members of the party by surprise from right next to them. (Almost had a TPK recently at a PFS event where the fighter and barbarian both failed their save vs confusion. First round both hit the cleric and took him to -9. There no other casters in the group that could to try and remove the confusion effect.)
I don't mind rolling stats as long as I'm not going to be stuck through a whole AP with the stats of commoner because of poor rolls.
The hating gnomes thing can be funny if done right. But some groups won't like it however it is handled. You have to know your group. One thing you could do get away from the 'racist' overtones. Is really dislike something else that is less emotional to people. "Freakin merchants always trying to scam me out of every kormack I earned by the sacrifice of my own life's blood. Can't stand them!" or "Why do that blasted alchemists have to keep setting fire to the whole district? The Prince should have stuck them out in the country after the first time!"
I once had a character that had 'thing' against lawyers. (Everybody hates lawyers, right?) So anytime our group did something less than popular he would try to get some lawyer blamed for it.
Or you can chose to get all emotional over something completely irrational. Like say the color blue. "Blue is a holy color. Look at the sky where the gods live. It is totally immoral that anyone should where the color blue. Well ok, maybe a priest at a religious ceremony. But that's it. No one else!" Then anytime some module write-up describes blue clothing or jewelry (don't start fights and ruin the adventure), but get all offended and try and talk the other person out of wearing blue by explaining how immoral it is. Shocks the heck out of people and gets a good laugh at the same time.
If you want to be an in character comedian, you might put a few ranks into a perform sub-skill.
It is often difficult to get people to give you build from a vague description. You would do better to propose an build (even if incomplete) and ask for opinions on it.
The above build is good, but if you want to avoid dumping charisma, you could drop the strength to 16 or 17 (still gives you good damage potential with rage) and bump charisma to 13. If your DM gives 25pb you're fine. higher charisma would let you take the Eldritch Heritage line of feats which fits the 'traces of a supernatural bloodline' part, especially if you take the same bloodline as your character's sister has, as previous posters have mentioned.
What level are you starting at? 1st?
... So if I take the Draconic bloodline from the Sorcerer via feats what would that look like? I could just stick with the red dragon from the original version. How many feats would I have to invest? Would I get claws and would that give me access to Pounce? How easily could I get the fire resistance from level 3? If I have to take Skill Focus I might as well take it in a useful skill like Perception right? ...
For the Eldritch Heritage line would look like:
Level 1 - Skill Focus: Perception (since you are human, consider Focused Study from the ARG for another free skill focus at level 8 and 16)Level 3+ and Charisma 13 - Eldritch Heritage Draconic (gives claws for 3+cha mod rounds each day) I do not know if this would give you access to pounce.
Level 11+ and Charisma 15 - Improved Eldritch Heritage Draconic (gives dragon resistance OR breath weapon)
Note: You could take Improved Eldritch Heritage again at level 13 or 15 for which ever one you didn't pick.
Level 17+ and Charisma 17 - Greater Eldritch Heritage (gives wings)
PCGen requires Java (or OpenJDK) so I'm fairly sure that the Fire would be out. But you could export to one of the many html, pdf or text files and open that on your Fire.