Djinnistorm's page

Wow, a ton of responses, thanks for weighing in!

My original desire to try this out came from the Defender of the Weak section of Rogue Eidolon's fighter guide. I was skimming over how one might optimize a 2-hander fighter and I saw that section. The way he suggests "defending" your allies was interesting: being enough of a threat that enemies can't ignore you, preventing enemies already fighting you from escaping, and being somewhat tanky so that doing the above doesn't kill you.

I understand that this will do less damage than a 2 hander build would, and I'm fine with that. I was planning to maybe use Stand Still and Greater Bull Rushes to keep enemies under control (this is why I was considering Brawler for its synergies with such, using a heavy shield and a cestus or something) while still being threatening with TWF to deal damage (getting imp critical and staggering critical if I go scimitar or rapier). The brawler setup would also defend other melee near me with the reduced chance to hit...but I wonder if a heavy shield and cestus will kill damage too much compared to base fighter scimitar w/ light shield?

I see what people mean about shield master and slayer/ranger. Getting that at lv 6 vs lv 11 would be pretty nice...something to consider at least, along with urban ranger as was pointed out. I am worried about whether these classes get enough feats overall, as well as if they will end up tanky enough, but it is worth looking into for sure.

I...think that responds to most of what's been mentioned. Thanks again for all the advice so far!

Thanks for the replies thusfar. I was under the impression fighter was superior to ranger for this task due to the feat intensity of a sword and board build. I guess I need to take another look and plan it out perhaps.

Swashbuckler does look interesting, but I was kind of looking to use shield bashes (and Greater Bull Rushes) for enemy control and fun. I'm not sure what options a swashbuckler has to control enemies, but maybe control in itself isn't a good idea? I'll try and figure some of that out as well.

Thank you so far!

Hello!

My friends and I are about to start Hell's Rebels. My fellows have yet to decide exactly what they are playing, but my plan was to defend them from harm by way of a Sword Board build of some kind. I was originally planning to go Scimitar and Shield, but one of my friends asked me "Why not use a Heavy Shield with a cestus or punch dagger offhand instead?" After some googling (I see that shield bash doesn't need to be offhand now) I'm not sure anymore.

Has anyone experimented with a Heavy Shield/light weapon combo vs the usual 1 hand weapon / light shield setup? Maybe using the brawler archetype instead of base fighter? I've been trying to weigh pros and cons of each, but I'm getting lost in all the theory since I'm not a particularly experienced player.

Any advice on the question or the build idea in general is greatly appreciated, and let me know if I can clarify this in any way.

Thanks!

Huh...I never really noticed the age by class chart before. That's...huh. I guess 1d6 years is quite a bit of training, even for someone who is "talented."

I didn't really consider this character's age all that much to be honest. I should probably figure that out too.

And I need to tie him in to a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign trait, so that'll help.

Thanks again for all the tips. It's kind of nice to see how more established players approach character creation. My first character was built, then a character was made around it. I've been trying to improve since then, so this is all a wonderful reference!

Thanks for all the input so far! I'm not entirely sure where I'll be taking it still, but this at least gives me a bit to think on...

Ultra-Short version: How "strong" should a lv 1 adventurer be, roleplay wise? How would you make a character who enjoys combat/is proud of his skills at level 1? Does that even make sense?

I know that was probably worded poorly, so here's the background.

For an upcoming campaign with some friends, I wanted to make this Samurai character go down the dazzling display / deadly stroke route I've never tried. The idea was he would, mid combat, taunt his enemies before cutting them down, enjoying the fight and bloodshed. I was also considering picking up a bladed sheath, and have him use that unless an enemy's skilled proved worthy enough to fight seriously against, etc. Condescending, infuriating to his foes, and confident in his abilities. Sounded fun to roleplay, even in combat, and I want to improve my roleplaying ability instead of just power gaming.

Then I found out the campaign is a lv 1 campaign (Curse of the Crimson Thrones, a classic I've been told). As far as I can tell, a lv 1 adventurer is a random dude who decided to pick up a sword for some reason or another, maaaybe has basic training so as not to stab himself in the foot, and possibly has more potential than the average joe. A highly skilled warrior in the making perhaps, but not yet. Is this just an example of a flawed character idea that I should scrap, or is there some way to make the ends meet?

My apologies if this is a simple or stupid question, I'm kind of new to this and insecurity might as well be my middle name. :(

Alright, spoke with my GM, he wasn't a fan of the fluffed real weapon thing, so improvised weapon it is. He also pointed out something I didn't notice about fighter: improvised weapon is not in a weapons training group. Is Fighter worth it just for the bonus feats, or would something else like a barbarian be better? Or something I haven't thought of as far as a class. Or a multiclass set-up?

EDIT: Doesn't empty hand monk take the usual penalties to improvised weapons until lv 6? Unless he takes catch off guard...hmm, might still be better than fighter? Not sure.
EDIT2: Found the clarification about empty hand monk not taking the -4, so that could be a way to go.

Thanks for the replies!

@Experiment 626 I guess "Pattern" means ask the DM to have it mechanically be one thing, and just be an anchor for RP? I can run that by him later, but if I remember correctly he shot down something similar previously, so that may be a no-go.

@Hawktitan I didn't consider it that way, but now that you mention it, the weapon size section says that size refers to "the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed." Since it was not designed as a weapon at all, I move on to the next paragraph where it says that as a general rule "a two-handed weapon is an object of the same size category as the wielder" which matches my mental picture of someone wielding an anchor similar to their own size. Thanks for that!

@MeatyPulp Got it in one go...I'm not very good at being original. :( I'll see how my DM takes to the fluff/pattern idea later.

@nate lange Glad to see I'm not the only one to try this. When I tried to google or specifically site search, I couldn't really find anything between the many, many posts about dimensional anchors.

Thanks again!

Hello,

/small intro
I've been lurking about for a little now, since I started playing DnD with friends from college. After college, I realized that we can still play together despite being far apart physically (over skype), so we are starting a new campaign. I'm still relatively new, so I'm not too familiar with what can and can't be done, hence this post.
/end intro

*tl;dr version: Can I wield a Large Anchor on a medium character and not be a liability? If so, how? Thanks! X_X

We are running a Skull and Shackles campaign, 20 point buy. I can probably pull from anything not 3rd party, but anything 3rd party or too ridiculous would probably be subject to DM approval. While I was trying to think of a fun character to play out, I remembered a certain fighting game I had played, and decided it would be interesting to wield a Large Anchor as a weapon. The perfectionist side of me, however, is protesting. Between the improvised weapon penalties, oversized weapon penalties, and likely poor improvised weapon damage dice, I'm afraid I'd be useless to my fellow players. Anyone have suggestions on how I could pull this off? I don't need to be optimal (or I wouldn't be trying to hit people with an Anchor), but I don't want to drag my fellow PCs down by not pulling my own weight.

My thoughts so far: would fighter's BAB and extra feats be enough to offset this (allow me to get catch off-guard and imp weapon mastery without feat starving myself)? I've never built a multi-classed character before, could that somehow help?

Thanks, and sorry for the long post!

EDIT: Grammar fixes, and a thought: I can take one campaign trait, and I just saw Dockside Brawler in the player guide, that could probably help...