nicknarwhal's page

So I have yet to make an unchained monk, and my only experience with monk beforehand is I played a martial artist monk a few years ago. I THINK I get the new flurry of blows (it's just an extra attack at full BAB now). So, because it's not an approximation of TwF anymore, can you use it in CONJUNCTION with TwF? And how does this interact with things like double weapons? Ordinarily when you're using a double weapon, and you're using TwF to attack with both sides, it's treated as one-handed for damage calculation purposes. If you're making a regular attack, you can treat it as 2-handed to put all your power behind one end of the weapon.
Since the new flurry just gives you a free bonus attack, would you get to choose between using the double weapon as a two-hander OR for its intended double use? And if you also have TwF, could you stack the two abilities? What would all this mean for a TwF/ double weapon build?

i already have weapon focus, and i can't retrain heroic display because it's a prereq for performing combatant. (my only performance feat). took that particular feat chain because with shatter defenses, that means i can dish out a whole lot of shaken pretty reliably, and that also means a whole lot of flat-footed to me. plus, that condition helps my survivability a little by dishing out -2s to enemy attack rolls, though that's more of a perk and not the intent of the feat chain. intimidating prowess is important, too: ensures shaken goes off, and increases the odds of it lasting multiple turns, keeping the enemies locked down and susceptible to the sorcerer worsening their fear.

weapon specialization is a priority, but not an immediate one. i could be taking improved critical right now, and auto-critting every time i roll 17 or higher. no confirmation in this campaign (much to my chagrin, but also benefit in this case).

my money's on the character sheet: i'm pretty broke. i can just about afford to have the friendly party wondrous item crafter make me the jingasa, though, and every point helps. not like i'm using my head slot for anything.

i already pointed out mithril fullplate is my best bet for increasing my AC, but it's just not a financially possible option right now. or any time in the near future, really. even if i took proficiency now, it'd be about a level before i could pay for that.

the other combatants in the party are a gunslinger (pistolero, using revolvers for some pretty good damage) and i believe the other is a cleric, though he might be an oracle.

the problem with getting buffed is the sorcerer is really gung-ho on "i want to be an enchanter" and packs mostly social spells and blasts, much to my chagrin. they're a tattooed sorcerer, and they're passing out shield via that tattoo. the few buffs and battlefield control spells they have they took at my suggestion. i don't know if they have haste, but they did just take mirror image (because having mirror image available to me via his temporary tattoo ability is a great way to stay alive). they don't have any summons: they think summons are a waste of time.

every conjuration specialist i've ever played would beg to differ, but i digress.

So I have this character: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=1126513

I'm leveling up to 8, and the plan was to take heavy armor prof or SOMETHING to fix my absolutely horrible AC. I'm the only melee in the group aside from a monk, and I can't be getting smacked around as much as I do. I got really intensely unlucky on all my HD rolls: I only have as much HP as I do because we have a house rule where if you roll less than half your HD, you take half. So I'm at about half the HP I could've had (and meant to have making the character). I was never meant to be uber-tank, obviously, since I'm a silly performance combat fighter who passes out shaken like it's nothing, but this campaign is difficult and I'm pretty bad off with only a 22 AC.

So I have a really difficult choice right now. Improved Crit is available. I could be critting on 17s and we're auto-confirming crits in this game, so that's a WHOLE lot of damage output I stand to gain.

My AC is still only 22. I could take heavy armor proficiency, but full plate doesn't boost my AC. Mithral full plate (which is monetarily out of the question) only boosts it by 2 until I start getting it enchanted. Getting better rings and amulets is really all I can rely on and that's gonna be expensive and slow, because I'm either paying a lot more buying new ones or I'm paying less and waiting potentially long periods of time to have stuff improved. Better armor enchants on my current armor are possible too, but same problem, and no one in the party can do that, unlike the amulet (no rings though). Could also pick up a ring of force shield, but that's expensive too. And I plan on continuing to improve my physical perfection belt, which is pricey even though I have a buddy in the party who can enhance it for me for half price.

I could maybe just keep taking toughness, but even then, if I'm getting hit that often all that HP isn't gonna save me.

I could take Dodge, but lol.

My only other option is to tax the sorcerer by having them buff me all the time with mirror image and / or shield.

So, any suggestions to help me overcome my crappy HD rolling luck and make this character survivable? And improved crit now, or hold off a level?

Can you retro take an archetype? Shielded Fighter will give bonuses to AC, Unarmed Fighter + Claw/Claw + Agile AOMF will give many attacks and you can focus on a style, which will help greatly.

If you end up scrapping him and building again, you can go Brawler: Snakebite Striker, and take Improved Natural Attack to bump your claws to d8, Feral Combat Training to use claws with anything for unarmed strike, and basically be Sabretooth.

if i scrap him i'm gonna replace him with either my beast totem barbarian (pounce pounce pounce) or an old reach-and-performance fighter i have lying around that fits the party alignment and is a nice, fairly versatile character. Good all-around melee, with a little bit of face capability on the side for when the sorcerer isn't around. Which is a lot, lately.

I'm seconding the shadow clone thing. It ups your survivability a lot more than a few extra points of AC would. Heck, just ask if you can retrain to ninja and shift your points around a bit.

yeah, but that involves multiclassing again into ninja and waiting 2 levels, which is gonna tear my BAB another new a~@~&~%. at this rate i'm seriously considering pulling the character regardless of the other players liking him and just bringing him back for the next campaign, fully thought out and put together right. he's fun to roleplay, but mechanically he's a mess made from a messy situation. all ive been doing is damage control on him, and it's frustrating because this is my second character for this campaign. i busted out my magus early on, but had to have him leave because of alignment conflicts. (we were all stupid and didnt make clear what kinda game we wanted to do: half of us were good, and half were neutral-borderline evil. we all decided to stick with the neutral campaign and the good characters left).

If your DM allows you to rebuild again, go Slayer? It's basically a rogue/Fighter (well, rogue/ranger, but ranger is basically fighter++ anyway). If that's not allowed, at least switching to Mutation fighter would be great.

Most of the options you consider are really, really sub-optimal at the level you are at. Keeping up in AC is basically impossible, and also kinda pointless with feats; you can only do it with more and more money spent on gear.

You have really high DEX and your STR isn't terrible. I'd pick up a reach weapon and combat reflexes; that actually lets you control the battlefield around yourself a bit which is how you tank in PF.

rebuilding again isn't an option, the DM was kinda hesitant to give me the one i got. and i had to do it during a session, so it was really sudden and i didn't have a lot of time to think about what to do to make the character not suck. i probably wouldn't have taken reach anyway, though. i'm worn out on reach characters, id been playing one for a year and a half. im not trying to make this guy optimal: just functional. he's never gonna be anywhere near optimal.

(plus in this group's last campaign i played a fairly broken sorcerer and i'm trying to tone it down for this one so i'm not overshadowing anybody again. i came in in the middle of the campaign specced for battlefield control and diplomacy and basically started doing everything).

Here's my build advice:

1. Contrary to popular belief, Rogues have no use for Intelligence. As a Wizard/Bard, you can easily dump WIS a bit because you have good Will saves, right? Then why WOULDN'T a Rogue dump INT, since they already have good skills per level? Do you REALLY need the 8 points? That's why, when making Rogues, I tend to use my lowest roll on INT.

2. You spent a VERY valuable early feat and a Rogue Talent in Curved Blade proficiency and Finesse, when that doesn't give you more than a simple +1 to attack. With your fighter levels, you could have just picked up a Falchion, Greatsword, whatever, and taken Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, or some other thing that would helped your survivability.

I'm sorry if I sound like a douche, but Rogues are the weakest class and thus REALLY hard to optimize to make a good character. You can't waste any resources if you wanna keep up.

3. Furious Focus is something you want the moment you can get it. It's too good.

4. You don't want Spring Attack. You want to charge.

5. A +1 Full Plate will screw up your Stealth bonus. Stick with the Chain Shirt, sell the Full Plate for something Mithralish.

6. Toughness is okay but not something I'd recommend. What situation almost killed you?

7. You seriously built a Scout Rogue Catfolk and DIDN'T go with the Claw Pounce route?!?! That would have been an excellent way to go Finesse.

8. Scout was not a mistake. It's the strongest archetype for the Rogues, bar none. You had a ton of other issues in your build that overshadow your Rogue levels by a ton... Fast Stealth, for example, is nice, but as I said before... Rogues don't have enough Rogue talents to spend on cute stuff, you need to overcome your MAJOR combat weaknesses (low bonuses on important saves, low AC, low attack, difficulty to sneak attack...)

Anyway, if allowed, ask to redo your character. Take 4 levels Scout Rogue and the rest take Two-Handed Fighter, get high STR and good DEX, and just charge to your heart's...

like i said, this character was never meant to go fighter, and some of that strength is coming from a strength belt. i was only able to switch around some feats and archetypes when i rebuilt it, so the damage is more from my having to improvise as we went along. i've never heard of a claw pounce build, i don't ususally play catfolk. i made this character as a joke character, it's based on my actual cat. i'm only still playing him because the party loves him. XD

i took weapon master because with that, i'll eventually compensate for some of that lost BAB with extra accuracy, damage, and crit shenangians. this DM auto-confirms crits, so critting is extra viable here, hence the curveblade over the greatsword.

and we almost got killed because the party split in a den of some kinda demon that can go invisible to move around, and just had really high attack stats. the cleric and monk stopped while we were looking around to look at something and lagged behind, and the monsters capitalized on it. when i went back to save them i dueled 1, won barely, and got charged and critted by another when it critted on its perception check to spot me hiding behind a wall waiting for it to come out. 2 nat 20s in a row, mang.

The Character In Question: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=1090640

So I just hit lv7 with my rogue/fighter, and I'm having a bit of a feat dilemma. First thing I have to note is, I was never meant to multiclass. I did it when I realized "holy crap, our cleric didn't build to melee at all, and we don't have any other melee capable party members." I started building into weapon master fighter (elven curve blades, since we hang around a bunch of elves and it made sense for them to teach him how to use one at the time), and stopped taking rogue levels (the DM allowed me to rebuild myself from a knife master to a scout, so i can SA on charge). The only roguey feat I still have is Dodge, which I need, because at the moment my dex is high enough that a +1 full plate we found would only give me a slight AC bonus over getting a better chain shirt. (plan is to switch out my strength belt for a dex belt, and pump my strength to compensate for the damage that I'm losing). I'm really building by the seat of my pants here, because the only other melee is a magus/ monk that just joined (which makes me wonder, mage/ monk? What the hell is he doing? Can that work?)

In hindsight, scout may have been a mistake, I've rarely been set up for a charge, but we've only had one fight with the new melee so I may yet get to pull off a charge. So, my feat dilemma atm is between a LOT of different options.

1. My AC hurts, we keep going up against stuff with crazy attack bonuses. Last game I got 2hit KO'd, thanks to a lucky crit and a +14 attack bonus. I have a +1 mithral chain shirt so once i can afford a +4 dex belt (soon) I'll be packing one of those and my AC and accuracy will be a lot better for it. To help with my armor issues against stuff like this, I was thinking of picking up Shield of Swings. But that damage loss....

2. Cleave and its variants for dealing with crowds. My AC makes this questionable, atm, though. Cleaving Finish is always nice to have, regardless.

3. Furious Focus. I'm still waiting for another level for BAB 6, so I'm only ever getting off one attack. If I throw in Furious Focus, the benefits are twofold. My damage output for that last level I'm waiting is gonna get a nice big consistent boost. The second benefit is charging. Eventually I'll have hyper-accurate charges that dish out a TON of damage (1d10, 2handing, power attacking, likely critting, 3d6 sneak attack provided I don't add more sneak attack later. 3d6 is some pretty decent extra damage). Also compliments my next choice.

4. Finishing the Spring Attack chain. I was initially gonna take spring attack when I was single classes, but now it seems a bit less viable seeing as how I'm packing high acrobatics, jaunt boots, and nasty charges that are gonna hurt way more than just skirmishing with spring attack. Still, spring attack is a nice option for dealing with stuff that has reach.

5. Toughness, maybe. I DID just come off of getting 2-shotted, and in the same fight we lost the cleric and almost lost the monk/magus. The gunslinger saved the freaking day getting to me before I bled out. We have a sorcerer but he always focuses on enchantment so I don't think he really packs buffs like we kinda need him to. His computer is also fried so he's AWOL until he gets it fixed.

additional question: should i go for the dex belt and boost my strength over time with leveling bonuses? or should i start seriously spending some cash and going for belts of physical might to take choice out of the equation?

Brawler's flurry works like flurry of blows. You can make an extra attack with your two-handed weapon as if your were using twf, or you can make an unarmed strike. However, you can only make brawlers flurry attacks with weapons that are in the close or monk weapon groups, and you aren't proficient in all monk weapons by default.

The only two-handed (or one-handed you can two hand) weapons you can make a flurry with without spending a feat or multiclassing are the Quarterstaff and Heavy Shield.

mkay. also, how does all this sunder stuff i'm getting help against constructs? does sunder work in some special way against them?

Steel breaker brawler or martial artist monk. Exploit weakness allows you to ignore dr and hardness.

i'm liking this the best, so far. i'm having some trouble working out what i'd do for weapons, however. i initially wanted to swing something big and highly damaging around, but tearing robots apart with my BARE HANDS is still pretty freakin sweet. at the same time, i'm a little hazy on how brawler's flurry works. it mentions being able to use it with 2-handers, but the benefit seems to just be giving you TWF. so what does that mean? it's not giving me multiple attacks with my 2-hander is it? is it just letting me swing with the 2-hander and then add in an attack with something else? (for instance, a swing with a weapon and then an unarmed strike to follow it up?)

I love this idea. Just make something that does a ton of damage, like a barbarian, and use an adamantine weapon. If you've got other orcs with you, you could pick up horde charge and get +2 on attack and damage while charging.

idk how available adamantine is going to be for weapons. i'd rather not base my character solely around getting lucky enough to find an adamantine weapon. hmm. maybe a ranger, favored enemy constructs? idk.

Warpriest with Artifice blessing? Ignore DR and hardness of objects or constructs. Add power attack. Go nuts.

backstory makes him worship gorum and i'm pretty attached to it. only torag gives you artifice.

I'm trying to get into a construct-centric campaign set in Numeria, and I'm thinking of making a half-orc or orc character who's trying to prove to his tribe that these things aren't something to be feared, but are a gift in disguise from Gorum, who is allowing them to test their mettle against these overwhelming foes and obtain the metal from their bodies to create weapons with if they're victorious.

So I want to make a character who can get into melee with constructs and beat the crap out of them. Advice? Classes, archetypes, anything that will help me utterly annihilate robots in close quarters, because nothing is more metal that a fantasy character who runs into melee with robots and starts thrashing them. Even if it's not necessarily optimal, you KNOW the mental image is cool.

In my current campaign I'm in, I'm running a Phalanx Fighter 3/ Honor Guard Cavalier 3/ Paladin 5 and we're playing in a heavily demon / undead / aberration game. We're starting to get close to the climax of the game, DM says, and soon we're gonna stop always being one step behind the BBEGs (of which there are 3) and might actually get to start facing them. These guys are all casters, to our knowledge, with one focused on charm/ compulsion spells and necromancy, and another who seems to have a focus on necromancy and blasting (we're 99% sure this one is a sorcerer). We have yet to meet the 3rd, the one who's behind these 2.

Also, DM is a bit sadistic and likes throwing stuff at us at our absolute weakest, nonstop. I can't remember the last time we camped and weren't ambushed, then had to spend the whole session resolving a difficult night-time combat. I bought a ring of sustenance to minimize my sleep, and the DM waited until the 2 hours I actually DO sleep to ambush us. He's also pretty giggly lately when we're getting our asses kicked and seems to be intent on at least a few of us dying off before the campaign ends. So we're dealing with a mild case of killer DM here. Which worries me especially, since I'm the only surviving / remaining member of the original party left. (Character changes and dumb deaths).

Currently we're in Nirvana, having been brought there by Sarenrae because deus ex machina. We're about to leave (we're on a lot of time pressure to stop the BBEGs' plans) and have about a day to do all the shopping we want in Nirvana, where the DM has ruled we can find LITERALLY anything we'd want to buy and get it, provided it's not something evil that wouldn't make sense to find up here. He also gave us a generous 75% sale value on all our stuff, so we made a bunch of money, ESPECIALLY me, since I've been forgetting to sell off the contents of my bag of holding for MONTHS irl.

So, with all of that info, I'm linking my character sheet. I WOULD spend all this money on further enchanting my stuff, but we don't have the time, and this DM is really really bad at giving us any significant amount of downtime for that kind of thing. So any enchantments that take longer than the one day and aren't wondrous items a lv11 magus can make are out of the question. (Speaking of him, he's making me an inheritor's gauntlet). Ignore the mount and anything related to it: i don't really use it anymore for anything other than a ride and storage.

Suggest anything that you think would be helpful or invaluable. Keep in mind i CAN still sell off stuff for 75% base price. There's not really anything on my shopping list atm aside from some resist energy potions, and i'm HEAVILY debating a cap of the free thinker. Anything that's strange on my sheet can pretty much be chalked up to either A: houseruling or B: my obsessive need to list EVERY POSSIBLE PERMUTATION OF EVERY NUMERICAL VALUE. So try to just stick to the items instead of deciphering my attack rolls or whatever. Sheet's a mess, but it's my mess, and it's a mess a year and a half in the making.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=650164

let's keep in mind, this is ONLY PC kobolds that would be receiving any kind of buff. the reason i'm considering buffing them is that PCs are supposed to be exceptional among their race, and i'm pretty sure the stat block for them in the bestiary is meant for NPC kobolds. that being said, how about this:

The -4 to STR is too harsh. A -2 still makes sense, but doesn't gimp them anywhere NEAR as bad in melee. Eating a -4 basically means they'll always have to be ranged or take weapon finesse, and only use finessable weapons if they want to do much of anything in melee. Their carrying capacity will be shot to hell too. So how about reducing the STR penalty to -2?

This still leaves them behind the goblin, though.

So, how about a +2 in one of these stats:
DEX, to match the goblins.
CHA, because of their natural talent as sorcerers.
INT, to reflect their trapmaking ability.

Suggested bonus racial traits to balance out the Kobold (and stay thematically consistent):

Poison Use (1 RP) - No risk of poisoning self when applying poison to equipment (weapons and traps)
Swarming (1 RP) - Two creatures with this trait can share a single space, and are considered "flanking" adjacent opponents when so doing.

This brings them up to 7 RP, so you still have as much as 3 RP to play with, if you want to really even them out. However, I'd say they're now legitimately "competitive".

i don't have the ARG though. :c

Kobolds are smarter than goblins. It may not be evident in their stats, but look at the difference between kobold society (traditionally Lawful Evil) and goblin society (traditionally Neutral Evil). Goblins, while cruel and clever, are no match for a kobold's craftiness. Based on CR, the kobolds should also outnumber the goblins as well. A CR 2 encounter of kobold warriors would be six of them, while goblins are likely to only have four, maybe five.

Another thing that might favour the kobolds is one of the goblin's biggest weaknesses: fear of writing. Kobolds will have a lot more arcane power on their side, and frankly, I do not envy the goblins when a powerful kobold wizard shows up. Kobolds also have a strong affinity for draconic bloodline sorcerers, while with goblins you're likely to get only adepts, clerics, and the odd alchemist.

the writing thing is a good point. i'm not sure how to go about using that as a deterring factor for the players when making their choice.... i don't want to outright say NO to classes that rely on it, but that should be a thing that affects their decision.

I'm thinking about starting a campaign based around a war between goblin(oids) and kobolds (and other reptilian creatures who may be working under a dragon) where the PCs get to pick a side before the game starts, and they all play one of the two races. They would be limited to JUST goblins or kobolds, because the entire point would be that you're making these ordinarily laughable races into world-shattering badasses. Campaign's gonna be called War of the Weenies.
So, I was looking at the goblin and kobold PC stats, and I see NO reason to pick kobolds over goblins. Goblins are just... better. So here's my debate.
Should I:
A: Leave kobolds alone. The fact that they're working under the stronger overlord (a dragon) should be appealing enough to play a kobold. Also, regardless of whether or not I alter kobolds, they WILL be made to play kobolds LIKE kobolds. That is, they have traps, and they have numbers, and they'll be expected to think like a kobold and use them. The goblin side of the war will be more focused around hit-and-runs and more difficult straight combat (because the kobolds have stronger allies). Both sides will be fighting adventurers from time to time.

B: Buff kobolds to make the decision between the races harder. While I DO favor the party playing goblins, and so do the numbers, I still want it to be their choice, and I don't want them to pick goblins BECAUSE they're the stronger race.

Also, I have a pretty good idea of how the escalation in opponents will work for the kobold side. Initially goblins, then stuff like orcs and hobgoblins and various other goblinoids. The goblins may also employ non-goblinoids like gnolls and the like. But what about the kobold allies? Not sure what to do to make sure they scale up to the dragons and wyverns and such properly. I only have bestiary 1 to work off of, but I can use the SRD for other stuff. Also, it's likely that both sides will have commander creatures with PC class levels.

i'm interested in pretty much any online game atm, if you need more PC's i'm up for it and have all the books allowed for Monster Hill aside from Ultimate Magic and the ARG. (though i've played magus before going solely off the SRD). i'm available at any time, no matter how ridiculous, though saturdays are USUALLY when my erratic-as-hell RL group plays so any other day would be better. my time zone is CST, i'm in the US. i'm fairly experienced, and i don't have any particular preference for combat or roleplay: i like a balance, too much combat and it becomes 4e, too little and i get bored because i tend to play low-charisma, though that isn't definite. i'm willing to fill any party role, i'm pretty versatile. just don't expect novel-quality RP out of me. i'm also new to roll20, and may need help getting used to it.

are you trying to DM or are you trying to be a PC? i'm looking to be a PC and i'm just as clueless about how to do this online as you are.

I'd also tentaviely reccomend Silent Hill soundtracks, but a lot of that stuff is more industrial/discordant, and not great as ambient music.

i plan on using the silent hill music more for the encounters with the big 5. also, i had an idea earlier today that i'm thinking of using for ravengro's theme. how about tristram's theme from diablo? i'm worried it may be a little too much, but i'm not sure.