Rogue Drake's page

I have a bad habit of making spare characters. Every week or so I'll make a new one. Sometimes they're an optimized character, sometimes they're just for kicks and giggles. Below are some of them. Let me know what you think, or what ideas you've had.

Jayne: A switch hit human ranger (thank you treantmonk) uses a bow until the fight reaches charge distance, then wades in with a greatsword. Lawful neutral, but has a bit of a mean streak when it concerns criminals.

Methuselah: Halfling paladin. Rides around on a wolf stabbing things with a lance. I made this one up for a friend, and she does a really good job having a LG paladin despite that fact that in her view all halflings are chaotic.

Thibedaux: Human monk. This build goes for all out area control. He wields a longspear and uses combat reflexes. Havent gotten a chance to play him yet, but I imagine he'll be able to cover the casters fairly well.

Butler: Scot/Irish human paladin going around with a halberd. The most irreverent Paladin one will ever encounter. He drinks and plays pranks on just about anyone.

Tikki: Halfling Barbarian, raised by dwarves, thinks shes a dwarf. Will go into a rage and attack if you insist that she's a halfling. Uses a battle axe on her enemies, and merciful spiked gauntlets on bar patrons too drunk to take a hint.

Thrass: Half Orc Rogue, works as a bouncer in a bar. Uses his fists until things get ugly, then uses a falchion.

Tyran: Elf fighter rather optimized for using a Curveblade. I played this one for a while when I wasnt too interested in making any depth to the character. Has the best stats I've ever rolled with witnesses: 17, 17, 17, 16, 14, 11.

Valkarie: Halfling Ranger, uses a bow and rides around on a panther mount. CN at best, hates everybody, kills those who endanger her range.

Dakka: Havent played this guy yet, and he requires some DM permission to get the appropriate items, but he's a Human fighter optimized to dual wield hand crossbows. DM is required to allow autoloading hand crossbows.

Duelist: Concept in the works for an open hand fighter/duelist character. The abilities mesh very well and allows you to still have a decent capstone ability.

Mounted rogue: Concept for building a rogue using offensive defense, skirmisher alternate build, and mounted combat. I'm rather waiting to play this one until I can convince someone to play a Dragon Oath Cavalier at the same time.

Caster: Sorc/Dragon disciple build going for as much melee combat performance as possible. As soon as able, will cast Polymorph any object onto himself to apply the half dragon template to himself.

There is one fairly large drawback to anyone who isn't a ranger or paladin who wants to ride a mount into combat past level 5. It dies. Usually if anything so much as looks at it funny. Horses just dont have any type of staying power. If you shell out the several thousand gp to buy something more exotic, then congratulations, you can ride into combat for maybe another 3 levels before it becomes spellfodder. What I propose is a mundane mount advancement table.

Use the below chart for animal advancement. Allow evasion when the mount has medium armor and light load. When an animal dies, allow replacement of animals at 500gp per level. For advancement, use the same XP chart as the rider, and grant the same XP as the rider.

The below table is basically 15 levels of a druid's animal companion stretched over 20 levels. Rangers have a slight disadvantage at early levels if they are wanting to ride their animal companion, however as the stats for the companion go up faster, and mundane mounts don't get the level adjustment, the disadvantage for the mounted companion doesn't last very long.

Animals adjusted in this way should be able to survive combat handily without turning their riders into juggernauts and don't invalidate the special mounts and animal companions already in the rules.

For the above mentioned exotic animals, start them off at a level roughly equal to their CR.

         HD    BAB    FORT    REF    WIL    SKILLS    FEAT    NA    STR/DEX     TRICKS  SPEC
1st      2      +1      +1      +1      +0          2           1     +0         +0               1       —
2nd      3      +1      +2      +2      +0          3           2     +0         +0               1      —
3rd      4      +2      +2      +2      +1          3           2     +0         +0               2      —
4th      4      +2      +2      +2      +1          4           2     +2         +1               2      —
5th      5      +2      +3      +3      +1          4           3     +2         +1               2      —
6th      5      +2      +3      +3      +1          5           3     +2         +1               3      Ability score increase
7th      6      +3      +3      +3      +1          5           3     +4         +2               3      -
8th      6      +3      +4      +4      +2          6           3     +4         +2               3      —
9th      7      +3      +4      +4      +2          6           4     +4         +2               3      Evasion
10th     7      +3      +4      +4      +2          7           4     +6         +3               4      —
11th     8      +4      +5      +5      +2          7           4     +6         +3               4      —
12th     8      +4      +5      +5      +2          8           4     +6         +3               4      —
13th     9      +4      +5      +5      +3          8           5     +8         +4               4      Ability score increase
14th     9      +4      +6      +6      +3          9           5     +8         +4               5      —
15th     10     +5      +6      +6      +3          9           5     +8         +4               5      —
16th     10     +5      +6      +6      +3          10          5     +8         +4               5      —
17th     11     +5      +7      +7      +3          10          6     +10        +4              5      —
18th     11     +5      +7      +7      +4          11          6     +10         +5              5      —
19th     12     +6      +7      +7      +4          11          6     +10         +5             6      Improved evasion
20th     12     +6      +8      +8      +4          12          6     +10         +5             6      Ability score increase

What, if any, are the functional differences between a successful stealth check to hide and being invisible?

It seems to me that a successful stealth check to hide should result in the invisible condition.

Here's the wording of the invisible condition:

Invisible

Invisible creatures are visually undetectable. An invisible creature gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against sighted opponents, and ignores its opponents' Dexterity bonuses to AC (if any). See the invisibility special ability.