William Harris's page

So for the first time in my gaming career our party is actually taking on the tarrasque, instead of just talking about how nasty he is.

The party is an average of 18th level, Includes a half ogre barbarian, a dwarven defender, a radiant servant of pelor, a rogue, and my character, a wizard/beguiler/ultimate magus/archmage.

I'm thinking even with the barbarian swinging a great hammer (50ish damage on a normal hit and 170 or so on a crit) trying to match damage output with the big guy is not a good idea. I'm wondering if anyone has gone through this scenario, and what tactics you used.

The factotum seems to be able to do a little bit of every in limted doses, except be a decent combatant. I know I can us Iajitus to get around that, but I wanted to add a class feature. My idea was to give an ability to give them the best BAB for 1 or 2 encounters a day at certain levels. If anyone has another idea let me know.

The other idea was to have them spend X/inspiration points to gain the best BAB for that round. I am arbitrarily looking at 4 inspiration points.

It depends on whether you have access to the "Font of Inspiration" feat from the Wizards website. It takes factotum from an average to slightly above average class to an over the top class.

Chameleon (Races of Destiny) has a nice synergy with the entire factotum package and makes you the defacto magic item craftsman (just hope your DM allows the "share XP" concept for paying for crafting) look past the basic stat chart, the bonuses you gain through the levels are WORTH IT.

The "knowledge devotion" feat and "collector of stories" skill trick work very well with the "skill monkey" application, and can get you a +3 to +5 for attack/damage (which even applies to ranged attacks).

At higher levels, you get to add your INT to the damage done with individual shots from scorching ray, or even nastier stuff from the character optimization boards.

So here's a startup to a controversial topic. I'd like to ask why folks see the need to min-max. Is it a power trip? Is your DM a dick? Come here with your stories of daring-do. Feel free to note a few things:

Not so much a power trip.

I'm an engineer, I constantly focus on optimizing my designs. I break a problem into its component parts, define each part's biggest drawback and fix it.

When I make a character, I pick a theme like any other, but then I look for ways of mastering that theme, and map the character out through 20th level before I ever play it.

I wanted to play around with the spiked chain and a combination of trip attacks and combat reflexes. so I made a half-giant psychic warrior/psychic weapon master and could threaten a 75foot wide area with 11 attacks of opportunity, potentially tripping anything 2 size categories larger than huge.

The DM specifically mentioned he would allow a Factotum in a Scarred lands campaign, so I read it and found it was a perfect Jack of all trades. With the Font of insipiration feat, and the chameleon prestige class, this character could likely handle a few encounters solo, and still be a viable role playing option, even though our party prefers roll-playing.

My latest concept has been flatly denied by my entire play group. In order to break out of the role of party powerhouse, I wanted to play a monk/cleric with vow of poverty/vow of peace, moving toward apostle of peace. Everyone was pretty much put off by the fact that by 2nd level, anyone within 20' of me would have to make a DC17 Will save to get angry, and therefore partipate in combat.

I point out 3 examples to defend my position about it not being a power trip. I try to break out of the "min-max power gamer" mold only to be told that my ability as a power gamer is what keeps the group alive in many combats.

So, I am risking the complete explosion of my demented inner collector by looking into getting some Dwarven Forge stuff.

-----snip-----

What sort of outlay are we talking to have a reasonable AP-size underground complex of rooms and corridors set out at once? $1000? More?

Also, what are people's favored storage methods for this stuff? I am pretty sure my wife was desperate to get more bookshelves for my office for her birthday...

Not to derail your thread, but have you ever seen the Hirst arts molds?

http://www.hirstarts.com/

They are certainly more flexible, but the main constraint here would be time. If you've ever enjoyed Legos, the idea will really grab you, but I can put in this warning, I have 5 molds sitting here for a few years (most of the field stone set) and have yet to do anything significant with them.

Might be worth checking out though.

In 3.5 a two handed weapon added +4 to disarm attempts, while certain weapons like a Flail/Spiked Chain added +2 to disarm.

Two handed weapons also prevented AoO's when usign either Trip/Disarm. I didn't find or couldn't find references to these two things in the Beta.
Have these two things been removed?

If you mean "In 3.5 2-handed weapons prevented AOO's when disarming or tripping..." I believe you are mistaken. A trip attempt only provokes an AOO when you attempt to do it unarmed (without the unarmed strike feat) a disarm attempt always provokes unless you have the improved disarm feat.

Also, not all 2-handed weapons can be used for trips, in general it is the weapons that have a chainlike element (flails, spiked chain, etc.) each is listed as such in thier equipment description in the 3.5 PHB.

If you mean the Beta rules, or some other pathfinder reference for this topic, You may be right, but I am not familiar enough with the rules to tell you.

We're playing in a campaign where everyone is a +1 ECL race or template, and we might be getting fresh blood...er, I mean, players, and I wonder what y'all think of the various templates and/or races out there. We're 5th level (4th +1).

Main PCs:
catfolk swashbuckler/ranger
chaos gnome dragon shaman

Auxillary PCs:
feral kobold battle sorcerer (tank)
tiefling wizard/rogue
aasimar paladin
homebrew raven-folk warlock
dark whisper gnome ninja (my emergency 2nd PC)

I just started playing a Half ogre Fighter. I'm almost scared to look up any savage species errata to see if they fixed it. (+6 to strength, +4 natural armor, and large size for LA 1)

Ok, this probably doesn't exist, but I want one. (Two, actually....)

Making a new heavily anime-inspired Oriental adventures campaign, and I keep seeing (inside my head) this ninja with baggy elbow length sleeves, and out of each sleeve bursts a short heavy blade on the end of a chain. He then proceeds to whip each chain around, and manages to look really cool doing it. >:)
So obviously, I'm looking for any splatbook, etc. that has a one-handed light weapon that can be used for TWF AND has reach. Anybody know of any, or have any ideas? Do you think it would be too powerful, even if it required the exotic weapon proficiency feat to use? I was thinking of a kyoketsu-shogi or some variant thereof, since I don't know of any in any books. Plus, the ring on one end of a kyoketsu-shogi could be wrapped around the ninja's upper arm and provide an "anchor" of sorts for the two weapon fighting aspect of the weapon....

I'm not familiar with the weapon you mentioned, but you can use the spiked chain one handed if your medium character wields a small one, (might even go to a light weapons if you drop a second size) and I've found nowhere in the rules where a reach weapon loses it's reach because of a size category change, only specific mention of a larger reach weapon gaining no extra reach just because it is bigger than the intended user. Note, the 2d4 damage would go down to 1d6 for a small spiked chain. I would recommend maybe picking up oversized two weapon fighting to use two of those, because dropping it another size brings it down to 1d4, and doesn't allow you to get full strength bonuses, or power attack with them.