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?

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?

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?

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

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.