Hi guys,
I want to make Gregor Clegane in Pathfinder, so I guess this only applies to people who are familiar with the character.
With special dispensation from the GM, I could make my character freakishly tall, as described by Martin: 'Well over 7 foot, closer to 8', so we'll say about 7'9. Now, would it make sense to classify him as a Large character, even though the perquisite is 8 feet? It seems to fit his fighting style, added strength while easier to hit and less mobile.
I was also thinking of making him an Orc, because of the stronger/dumber ability scores. This is the mind of stats I was thinking:
Medium Sized
Str:22 (18+4)
Dex:12
Con:16
Int:5 (7-2)
Wis:5 (7-2)
Cha:5 (7-2)
Large Sized
Str:22 (16+6)
Dex:12 (14-2)
Con:16
Int:7 (9-2)
Wis:7 (9-2)
Cha:5 (7-2)
Class is fighter with a dip in barbarian, greatsword as main weapon, eventually full plate for armour.
Tell me what you guys think and recommend, and if I need to give more information, I'm fairly new to Pathfinder so help is appreciated.
I think that if you try to make someone from a low magic setting in Pathfinder it usually works out poorly. That said the Mountain is really just an evil fighter who has a higher point buy than everyone else. The dude has maximum physical stats and average mental ones. I would put his first level stats at something like 20, 18, 18, 10, 10, 10 or 51 point buy to put it bluntly. All the normal characters are like no, I don't want to fight the 51 point buy fighter in a fair fight, are you crazy?
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Making him as an Ogrekin (with Oversized Limbs and Obese...both to reflect being huge...or maybe Light Sensitive to explain his headaches) would be how I'd do it, and fit well thematically, too, given that he's strongly implied to have giant ancestry somewhere in his bloodline.
That's +1 CR, though, so you'd definitely need GM permission (and to be starting in a 2nd level game, minimum). Barring that, your solution seems viable, though I probably wouldn't ditch his Int and Wis as far as the first version does, he doesn't seem that dumb. The Cha you should dump as far as possible, though.
I think powerful build would better represent Gregor than large sized. So with non-psionic half giant or goliath from 3.5. Half-giants are in the 3.5 srd and you could probably eliminate the level adjustment if you removed the psionic abilities given how all the races got buffed in pathfinder.
Alternatively if you want to stay completely pathfinder first party you could go ogre-kin with oversized limbs and weak mind as your two abilities. That being said the ogrekin stat changes are huge and your GM might want to adjustment them down.
With both oversized limbs and powerful build you'd be able to use a large sized greatsword which would deal 3d6 damage instead of 2d6.
As for actual build I'd say that most of Gregor's fighting style is just having a huge amount of strength and scaring the piss out of people. Barbarian would likely fit far more than vanilla fighter. However the best class choice is likely the two-handed fighter archtype for overhead chop. Two-handed fighter is in the advanced players guide.
For feats your three most important ones are power attack, furious focus, and Cornugon Smash. With those you deal a huge amount of damage and get to demoralize foes for free every time you hit someone. At higher levels you will want to add dazing assault to this. After that your feats are for the most part open to work however you want them to.
Here are some observations and suggestions, but nothing set in stone as with the three earlier feats you'll contribute just fine regardless of the rest of your build. Vital strike could be good given your large base weapon damage and help overcome your immobility problems. Felling Smash works flavorwise but there is no way for you to make the Int requirements and combat expertise as a prereq makes 0 sense for Ser Gregor. Blood Assault and th cleave line are both flavorful but add little to your normal combat effectiveness. The bullrush line and pushing assault help give you some battlefield control and would be fairly flavorful. The only thing I would weigh with them is looking into how they complement the rest of your party's fighting style and battlefield control abilities. For instance if you have a rogue flanking buddy who can make lots of AoOs then greater bullrush can really help him out, but if everyone else in the party are long range casters it's kind of a waste.
One last thing, make sure to remember that your fullplate comes with gauntlets that can deal lethal damage just in case you ever get disarmed. You know purely hypothetically. ;)
Making him as an Ogrekin (with Oversized Limbs and Obese...both to reflect being huge...or maybe Light Sensitive to explain his headaches) would be how I'd do it, and fit well thematically, too, given that he's strongly implied to have giant ancestry somewhere in his bloodline.
I don't think obese would work as he's also fairly manueverable for his size. Also it was Hodor who likely has giant ancestry. Given his constant headaches Gregor likely has a hyper active pituitary gland.
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I don't think obese would work as he's also fairly manueverable for his size.
A grand total of -2 Dex hardly prevents that...
Also it was Hodor who likely has giant ancestry. Given his constant headaches Gregor likely has a hyper active pituitary gland.
That's not the route the official RPG took with it...nor the impression I got from the books. Though it's possible, I suppose.
Dreadful Carnage would be a good feat to work towards, if he's a high enough level. Both effective and thematic. It works well with Cornugon Smash, and Intimidating Prowess if you're dumping his Charisma.
Shatter Defenses would work well against those nimble Dex types. A Fighter with two levels of Barbarian would work great for this character.
Clegane is a big guy, but certainly not large sized as Pathfinder classifies things. He has high strength, probably ok Con and Dex and not exceptional mental stats, except probably a very low Charisma. Basically he is a fairly typical power-attack fighter.
I think that if you try to make someone from a low magic setting in Pathfinder it usually works out poorly. That said the Mountain is really just an evil fighter who has a higher point buy than everyone else. The dude has maximum physical stats and average mental ones. I would put his first level stats at something like 20, 18, 18, 10, 10, 10 or 51 point buy to put it bluntly. All the normal characters are like no, I don't want to fight the 51 point buy fighter in a fair fight, are you crazy?
The Mountain does NOT have an 18 Dexterity. 14 tops I'd say. If I had to stat him out I'd put him at:
STR - 18 (+2 racial bonus)
CON - 18
DEX - 14
INT - 10
WIS - 8
CHA - 7
So closer to a 33 point buy and, to be honest, not terribly unlike most of the Fighters I see in PF.
A grand total of -2 Dex hardly prevents that...
Yeah it probably isn't that big of a deal now that I think about it and could help balance the huge stat imbalance of ogrekin.
That's not the route the official RPG took with it...nor the impression I got from the books. Though it's possible, I suppose.
I was unaware that the rpg line had anything to say regarding it. I was mostly just going off of a bunch of stuff in ASoIaF being real life medical conditions that aren't fully understood by the characters. The original Reek and Jon Arryn being the biggest examples that spring to mind. So when they mentioned that Gregor is abnormally large when no one else in his family really is and that he's on drugs to deal with persistent headaches I just assumed it was another one of those things, as it matches up with pituitary gland issues.
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Yeah it probably isn't that big of a deal now that I think about it and could help balance the huge stat imbalance of ogrekin.
Yeah, that'd work pretty well.
I was unaware that the rpg line had anything to say regarding it.
Well, in fairness it's the old d20 version, but it had a thing called Blood of Giants he was strongly implied (possibly stated, I'd have to look it up) to have...
I was mostly just going off of a bunch of stuff in ASoIaF being real life medical conditions that aren't fully understood by the characters. The original Reek and Jon Arryn being the biggest examples that spring to mind. So when they mentioned that Gregor is abnormally large when no one else in his family really is and that he's on drugs to deal with persistent headaches I just assumed it was another one of those things, as it matches up with pituitary gland issues.
That's possible...but the rest of his family aren't actually normal sized. The Hound is something over six-and-a-half feet tall, for example, which is quite large by most standards. They're not as big as The Mountain, of course, but they're not 'normal sized' either.
I don't remember if any other Cleganes are described (such as their father), but the Mountain's size could be a combination of hereditary large size on top of an overactive pituitary. He might otherwise have been the same size as the Hound.
Oh speaking of the headaches. If you want to replicate his inability to feel pain due to continuously taking milk of the poppy barbarian damage reduction might be the way to go, but I'm sure there is a better way to go about it.
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I don't remember if any other Cleganes are described (such as their father), but the Mountain's size could be a combination of hereditary large size on top of an overactive pituitary. He might otherwise have been the same size as the Hound.
Very possible. Giant's blood might also be involved though, especially if it's recessive.
Oh speaking of the headaches. If you want to replicate his inability to feel pain due to continuously taking milk of the poppy barbarian damage reduction might be the way to go, but I'm sure there is a better way to go about it.
Everyone in PF has Feel No Pain. HP > 0 = Good to go, baby!
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I would have to say He is probably a Samurai/Cavalier with a mix of Barbarian.
Remember he is the Mountain the RIDES your mother.
He competes in tournaments of Knights which means Lancing and other types of Knightly Warfare. He is just more about Brute strength then Style and Grace.
He is not Honorable at all...so Dirty Tricks and the like can be used. You will have to do more research on his battlefield style of Combat. But a dude that would hold his own brothers face in a fire will be doing some dirty tactics.
Intimation will be another tactic.
I would almost go as far as a ranger dip for Favored Enemy Human as he is typically called upon to exterminate clans/houses of people.
Thanks for all the fast responses.
I wasn't really sure on feats and the like, I wanted to get the premise first and build around that. I was mainly gonna go round the standard power attack fighter route with a bit of barbarian in there, but some of these ideas are really interesting.
Of course it doesn't have to be strictly following the character, like Gregory said about low fantasy conversions.
I understand that he wasn't exactly smart, but not thick either (his man needs no eyes line springs to mind), I just didn't know any other way I could replicate his immense physical stats, which is undoubtedly his main strength and the strength of the build, without dumping all the mental ones.
I like the Ogrekin idea, from a flavour and a gameplay point of view, especially with oversized limbs. Weak mind or light sensitivity would work best as the disadvantages I think.
As for a normal build, I could detach myself from the inspiration a bit and make it more loosely based off Ser Gregor and go down an intimidating two handed fighter with some barbarian.
The suggestion of cavalier also makes sense, he did fight on a horse several times after all, and is better as a shock trooper than a rank-and-file soldier. However, having never played or really explored cavalier, I don't know what I'd be losing or gaining, so I'll need to read up on cavalier vs fighter.
I really doubt he's a cavalier. Cavaliers aren't just cavalry, they're knightlike warriors with, among other things, codes of conduct. Just being able to ride a horse doesn't make Gregor a knight.
True, despite being a knight a big thing about him is that he doesn't adhere to rules. A while back I heard someone mention him as a flaming sword: is only there to kill, kills what his master strikes at, and sometimes other things get burnt.
I really doubt he's a cavalier. Cavaliers aren't just cavalry, they're knightlike warriors with, among other things, codes of conduct. Just being able to ride a horse doesn't make Gregor a knight.
Getting knighted by Prince Rhaegar makes Gregor a knight.
What makes a Knight? Killing. Either enough men, or the right man.
Barely a year after the Prince knighted him, Ser Gregor chivalrously sacked the Prince's city, brained the Prince's baby, and raped and murdered the Prince's wife, earning his family yet more "honor" from the new King and Queen.
I was kind of referencing Ned there, who refers to Gregor as a "false knight". He's technically a knight, but he doesn't act like one.
The issue with the cavalier class is that it's mechanics don't line up with how he fights. He never really fights better by focusing on a single enemy, doesn't use his own banner (the Clegane house banner is never is ever flown in the books), doesn't have any better than average horses, and doesn't seem to fight any better while on horseback than on foot. In fact the only time we see him in any sort of "challenge" scenario he kills multiple bystanders rather than actually hitting his target. He is a "knight" in terms of societal standing but that doesn't translate to the cavalier class.
edit: The reason I mention intimidation is that it seems like a lot of people when confronted by Gregor simply become terrified and unable to fight. The intimidate skill would represent less him directly talking to them and more them realizing this mountain of a man is going to crush them.
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Well I don't ready anywhere that the cavalier flys their OWN standard. If that info is added it is by the player and decides who or what to align himself with.
You don't need to focus on your mount...you just have one. Part of being a Knight.
The challenge happens when he is in Tourney fighting people like the Knight of Roses. In those instances he is fighting 1v1 and doing a "challenge".
And I'm laughing people Don't view him as a knight because of his actions. Not every Knight was a good guy. He is SIR Gregor Clegane. He is Knighted and is a Knight. He acts completely like a mercenary with no Honor but he defiantly has the title.
Edit: AND he commands a Battalion of his Own.
He is still a knight regardless of how he is acting.
Not by Ned's definition.
And I'm laughing people Don't view him as a knight because of his actions. Not every Knight was a good guy. He is SIR Gregor Clegane. He is Knighted and is a Knight. He acts completely like a mercenary with no Honor but he defiantly has the title.
No s!%!. We know the story, you know. I'm "laughing" (in the patronizing way where nobody's actually laughing but we claim to be to piss the other side off) that you can't seem to get that I was making a reference.
I'm not saying he's not a cavalier because he has no honor. That's a part of the whole story is that knighthood means nothing to someone's morality. This sort of like the Miko samurai thing or the Gandalf wizard argument. Just because the book calls him something that happens to be a class name or a synonym for a class name doesn't make that character automatically that class. Classes are tools to realize a character concept not in game constructs.
He does participate in tournies and own a horse, but there is nothing preventing other non-cavaliers from doing so as well. In most of those he also isn't particularly skilled. He's just freakishly strong and able to power through most more skill opponents. He's also notably more effect at fighting in armies or terrorizing the countryside than actually jousting or doing anything involving the cavalier's core skillset. I'd actually put Bronn as a cavalier or samurai before Gregor, if only because of his ability to focus on and properly fight a single target.
Also it's SER Gregor Clegane.
Also, even evil knights followed a code. When they didn't, they weren't "acting like knights". I could say Joffrey isn't "acting like a king". Am I saying all kings were good at their job? No. I'm saying he's not acting like a king is supposed to act.
He does participate in tournies and own a horse, but there is nothing preventing other non-cavaliers from doing so as well. In most of those he also isn't particularly skilled. He's just freakishly strong and able to power through most more skill opponents. He's also notably more effect at fighting in armies or terrorizing the countryside than actually jousting or doing anything involving the cavalier's core skillset. I'd actually put Bronn as a cavalier or samurai before Gregor, if only because of his ability to focus on and properly fight a single target.Also it's SER Gregor Clegane.
This is something else. The Mountain doesn't actually seem particularly good at mounted combat, he's just expected to take part because he's technically a knight. So, a few ranks in ride, probably, but Cavalier? Not so much.
Besides, cavaliers specialize in teamwork. The Mountain doesn't seem like the type to play well with others.
On a slightly humorous note I have a friend who insists Gregor is actually a wizard. His favorite spells are enlarge person, transformation, and permanency.
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Yeah, I can't really imagine Gregor as a cavalier. I wouldn't underestimate him in mounted combat though, he was able to find the exact spot above Ser Hugh's gorget to stab him in the neck. 'Gregor's lance goes where Gregor wants it to go'.
Gotta say Alex, though spells do fit quite well
It's mostly a humorous back and forth where we try to claim every fictional character is a wizard and build a spell list that could in theory make it possible.
Days late and many dollars short but if you wanted to use any Samurai/Cavalier you could go with the Ronin(Knight Errant) order.
On a slightly humorous note I have a friend who insists Gregor is actually a wizard. His favorite spells are enlarge person, transformation, and permanency.
Muscle Wizard
He might have a tumor so hopefully something will pop his his brain and he dies and takes out Littlefinger by falling on him.