Some thoughts:
If you stick with the halfling rogue, focus on his skillmonkeyness out of combat rather than trying to do damage in combat. In combat, either have him do ranged, or have him be defensive (he's going to be very hard to hit, especially if fighting defensively) and be a flanking buddy for the party tank to help him hit better (and if he does hit and get off sneak attack damage, yay).
If you like the halfling rolling around and doing some kind of melee, also put some thought into Duelist, maybe????
Gnome sorcerer: Good idea. My thought if you are sure you're going to get to play this character was to put him on the Draconic bloodline and then go for Dragon Disciple. You'll get some cool abilities and some stat boosts, including a Natural Armor bonus which will be very helpful. OTOH, I'm sure others will argue against this because Draconic bloodline/Dragon Disciple boosts a more melee caster build. I still think it could be both fun and useful.
Wizard: Stay in the back, cast, do AOE damage, buff the party, debuff the casters. The only trouble will be boosting your AC outside of spell buffs. You can play a SAD wizard easily enough.
Fighter: I'm probably crazy, but maybe a halfling with a ranged build could work pretty well. Bows or a halfling sling staff if you want flavor. Either pure dex, or put the 14 into Str (will drop to 12) and the 11 into Dex for Dex 13, which you'll raise as you level.
You could even try a melee build--won't be superpowerful but if you focus on raising your to hit with weapon focus, weapon training, etc. you could do alright.
These aren't necessarily ideal, optimized thoughts--just things off the top of my head I think might work and/or be fun. You're working with the equivalent of a 6 point buy character here. You may as well go with it and just play what you think would be the most fun.
If you give paladin a try, a feat to consider at some point later on is force of personality (if you are allowed 3.5 material). It allows you to use your charisma modifier on your will saves instead of wisdom. Once you do that, you don't suffer at all for making wisdom your dump stat.
If you give paladin a try, a feat to consider at some point later on is force of personality (if you are allowed 3.5 material). It allows you to use your charisma modifier on your will saves instead of wisdom. Once you do that, you don't suffer at all for making wisdom your dump stat.
There's a similar one in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting called Stoic.
I am going to take the devil's advocate on this one.
Let's roleplay. That's what we do in this game, right? Why not here on the forum too...
So imagine you're an adventurer. You start out in a town somewhere and, somehow, you meet other adventurers. You all agree to head off into untold danger so you can risk your lives repeatedly, facing dangers and horrors beyond imagination, staring into the face of death a dozen times before lunch...
You believe you can survive all this nightmarish risk because you form a cohesive team with your adventuring companions. You're all masters of your various trades, super-men and super-women, veritable demigods among common mankind (and otherkind). You have fighters who can hack dragons to bits, mages who can manipulate the very core of the world, and clearics who can rain down holy wrath from the heavens themselves. Nothing can stand in your way.
Well, except for this one dweeb who can barely stand on his own two feet. He might swing a sword, but it's almost too heavy for him to lift it. He is extremely unexceptional at everything he does. In his own words, he's barely better than a commoner.
Now, you wouldn't hire Farmer Jack to stand beside you facing all these untold dangers, would you? So why do you hire this dweeb? Let's face it, when the chips are down, when the vilest spawn from the darkest depths of the abyss are howling and clamoring for your very souls, when your survival hangs on every action taken by every one of your companions, are you going to want your life in the hands of this helpless dweeb?
Really?
So, from a roleplaying perspective, no adventuring group in the world would adventure with the character you're describing. At best, I might consider taking him on as a squire, or a henchman. Paying him a few gold a week to carry my stuff. But treat him as an equal? Give him equal responsibility and expect him to hold the line, to do his fair share to keep everyone else alive?
Not a chance.
He will be a liability. We'll all be in constant danger and one of our companions will be the constant weak link, who won't be dependable to save us from the danger. Even worse, we'll put ourselves at greater risk saving his sorry butt all the time.
Nope, I wouldn't adventure with him.
Disclaimers:
1. That's all RP, from the POV of an actual real adventurer in a world full of danger, who relies on having awesome companions to form a powerful team. Anything less is deliberately choosing to be a dead adventurer.
2. That all assumes that the rest of the group is more exceptional, on par with what most people assume to be plausible ability scores for an adventurer. Obviously, if you're playing a "comman man" group, and everyone is like this, then none of what I said applies.
3. A bunch of players sitting around a table, espcially if they're all friends with each other, generally think nothing like what I just described. My friend shows up at a game with some character, and I say "hey, that's my buddy there, let's group up with his character and get off into the adventure". We often allow for silly or nonsensical groups (paladins journeying with evil characters, for example) and sweep it under the rug because that's what our friends are playing. Which is perfectly fine. My rant was from a purely RP POV.
Given all the above, I am complled to ask, why not just reroll?
Sure, maybe by now you're excited about the "challenge" of playing a dweeb. Maybe even your friends at the table are exited to see you pull it off. But really, in the game mechanics, in the game world, and from a RP standpoint, this guy is doomed, and he threatens to bring his companions down with him. He should stay home and open a bakery in town somewhere, and his companions should find someone more capable for an adventuring ally.
So, what's the big deal? Why not just reroll?
|
You're not getting an argument from me, Mr. Tarrasque. I'm not the one who makes that call. I'm planning a character out based on this stat set. If I get to reroll and use better stats? I'll probably build a similar character and just shift feats around to make it better.
But on the off chance my GM decides to go "You rolled it, you play it" and force this character to play out this way, I want to be prepared. I fully intend to point at this thread if that happens.
I should note that the GM hasn't told me I can't reroll this. I just haven't asked yet. We rolled this up fast because I had to leave town to take care of some stuff a few hundred miles away from home related to college. I believe we're intending to start Kingmaker a week or so after I get back so people are rolling characters soon, likely before I get back.
You should play a commoner.
I solved my players issues with min-maxing, and calling players with lower rolls worthless, by going old school on them.
They rolled stats with 3d6, and had to assign them in order rolled.
Some one ended up with a 3.
To this day they call that game one of their favorites because they had to think beyond the numbers.
For you Quelian, play whatever you want.
|
|
I solved my players issues with min-maxing, and calling players with lower rolls worthless, by going old school on them.
They rolled stats with 3d6, and had to assign them in order rolled.
Some one ended up with a 3.
To this day they call that game one of their favorites because they had to think beyond the numbers.
For you Quelian, play whatever you want.
Yep. I'm perfectly capable of playing this character and wrecking with it. Hell if I really wanted to make it powerful I'd do what half the thread has said and go sorcerer. I just don't want to play a caster in this game.
The bard/pally/AA lets me play up the original character concept I had (Gnome Paladin / Gnome monk) in a different manner.
If 3.5 stuff is allowed, I'd suggest a warlock. They can dump all stats and still be pretty effective....I'd emphasize Constitution and then take it from there.
Gnome Warlock
Str 8 (10-2)
Dex 10
Con 16 (14+2)
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 12 (10+2)
Halfling Warlock
Str 8 (10-2)
Dex 12 (10+2)
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 12 (10+2)
With the right combination of invocations, you'll be making ranged touch attacks that only miss on a natural 1. (devil eyes + darkness = opponents in the dark (so denied Dex) AND you can see them, so you can hit them if you can hit AC 10 for most opponents (Medium size, no Dex, no Armor).
If you go Halfling, you can boost Dex at 4th and then qualify for those nifty archery feats to help with your eldritch blast. Or just begin with a Dex 16 (+4 to it with ranged touch at 1st level!).
|
I am going to take the devil's advocate on this one.
Let's roleplay. That's what we do in this game, right? Why not here on the forum too...
So imagine you're an adventurer. You start out in a town somewhere and, somehow, you meet other adventurers. You all agree to head off into untold danger so you can risk your lives repeatedly, facing dangers and horrors beyond imagination, staring into the face of death a dozen times before lunch...
You believe you can survive all this nightmarish risk because you form a cohesive team with your adventuring companions. You're all masters of your various trades, super-men and super-women, veritable demigods among common mankind (and otherkind). You have fighters who can hack dragons to bits, mages who can manipulate the very core of the world, and clearics who can rain down holy wrath from the heavens themselves. Nothing can stand in your way.
Well, except for this one dweeb who can barely stand on his own two feet. He might swing a sword, but it's almost too heavy for him to lift it. He is extremely unexceptional at everything he does. In his own words, he's barely better than a commoner.
Now, you wouldn't hire Farmer Jack to stand beside you facing all these untold dangers, would you? So why do you hire this dweeb? Let's face it, when the chips are down, when the vilest spawn from the darkest depths of the abyss are howling and clamoring for your very souls, when your survival hangs on every action taken by every one of your companions, are you going to want your life in the hands of this helpless dweeb?
Really?
So, from a roleplaying perspective, no adventuring group in the world would adventure with the character you're describing. At best, I might consider taking him on as a squire, or a henchman. Paying him a few gold a week to carry my stuff. But treat him as an equal? Give him equal responsibility and expect him to hold the line, to do his fair share to keep everyone else alive?
Not a chance.
First level characters with better than average stats =/= demigod. At the level the party is forming, your stats don't make you infinitely superior to farmer joe, you get in a fight with farmer joe and farmer joe gets lucky farmer joe can still kill you with his pitchfork.
So what you have is 4 nobodies, maybe they've shown some talent and proven themselves to be ahead of the pack in some ways, but they need to get something done and so they look for people with the skills to do so. Well this one guy has the skills we don't, so we hire him to come along.
After you fought the dreaded chicken of bristol, and almost ran away from the battle of badon hill you've realized that yeah he may not be as skilled as you are with a blade, but he's stayed by your side when you fought against almost impossible odds, he's always been a dependable and trustworthy companion when others (NPCs) you thought you could trust have turned out to really have been trying to get you killed. And you're just going to stand idly by while the others try to fire him and replace him with this new guy who may have better skills, but is probably gonna turn out to be working for invader zim who's already tried to infiltrate your group with a sleeper agent before.
I'll take reliable zosk even if he is weaker over Big Bad Joe who'll probably kill us in our sleep because he really works for Zim.
Disclaimers
1 That's actual roleplaying taken from situations I've encountered in game (granted the names have been changed for humorous pop culture refrences) in a world filled with deadly peril
2 My rant is just as likely and believable a roleplay perspective as yours, I understand you're taking the devils advocate role, but a roleplay perspective is incredibly situational.
I gotta say, this thread is awesomely full of ideas :)
And people were worried about 15 point-buy :)
So my gaming group is ramping up for kingmaker.
The GM throws the idea out there that we could run a full group of “demihumans” (i.e. Gnome/Halfling only). The rest of the group gives it the tentative “this could be entertaining”. Personally, I'm fine with the idea, though I think playing gnomes in a “Build a civilization” party would end badly.
Anyway, I had to leave town the next day so I started rolling stats early: Standard die roll, 4d6 drop lowest.
I generated one of the most mediocre stat sets I've ever had to play:
10, 10, 14, 11, 10, 10
...
These would be totally reasonable scores in my campaign.
If you're still interested in a non-caster because you've played them to death, I think a straight halfling rogue would be a lot of fun.
Str 8 (10-2)
Dex 13 (11+2)
Con 10
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 16 (14+2)
I'd focus on using alchemical items that have different effects so you're not relying on damage, and using touch attacks to contribute. Perhaps invest in the Craft (alchemy) skill to make your own particular items. Craft (trapmaking) would be a very interesting avenue to explore as well.
However, investing in Cha type skills will serve you very well in this particular adventure path, if your GM plays up all aspects of the game and not just hack n' slash. As you can imagine, with a name like "Kingmaker", diplomacy will get you just as far, if not farther, than solving everything at the end of a sword.
|
|
I'd focus on using alchemical items that have different effects so you're not relying on damage, and using touch attacks to contribute. Perhaps invest in the Craft (alchemy) skill to make your own particular items. Craft (trapmaking) would be a very interesting avenue to explore as well.However, investing in Cha type skills will serve you very well in this particular adventure path, if your GM plays up all aspects of the game and not just hack n' slash. As you can imagine, with a name like "Kingmaker", diplomacy will get you just as far, if not farther, than solving everything at the end of a sword.
I had thought about the craft stuff but you really want a higher int to build an alchemy-style rogue. A friend ran with one in a two year long custom back in 3.5. Granted he was running a factotum.
Currently I'm really liking the bard/paladin/AA though. It's really an archer. I haven't played a good archer in nearly 5 years, because I usually find them quite boring.
Additionally, the GM and I had been discussing how bards get overplayed as pansies who play music, and how paladins get played as boy scouts too often. Going bard paladin would let me play up some lesser explored personalities for those classes and show the group what I mean by them.
The bard also lets me go the "Leader of Men" route. Take leadership at 7th and so on.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No useful comment on your character build other than, "Good on you!"
Those stats look perfectly fine (one slightly below average and one above average). Very refreshing to see someone work with what they have rather than cry like a 2 year old that the DM won't let them have 18 (or greater) in every slot. Any idiot can make an awesome character when they aren't stat limited, you are doing the hard yards. A whole table of players such as yourself would be a DM's dream.
Highest regards,
S.
|
|
I DM a lot. I'm one of the local society DMs. The DM running this game and I rotate society weeks.
I know better than to think commoner level stats are unplayable. You just have to play better, and you can't be a frontline fighter.
Though if I had rolled 14/11/8/8/8/8 I'd have called reroll. Not gonna lie.
Mr. Fishy suggest mayhaps a goblin? If you have to go down, go in a screaming ball of fire. Alchemist fire is a touch attack just saying. Good Luck in any case. Plus the size to hit and AC, the 30 movement and the dex modifer might pull you out in a pinch.
|
|
Mr. Fishy suggest mayhaps a goblin? If you have to go down, go in a screaming ball of fire. Alchemist fire is a touch attack just saying. Good Luck in any case. Plus the size to hit and AC, the 30 movement and the dex modifer might pull you out in a pinch.
I could also play Deekin. These guys haven't played NWN.
Except the rest of the group would probably have an aneurism if I actually played Deekin, and then I can't do a leader-ish build. I might take Deekin as a cohort though!
(Not actually being serious. I couldn't do Deekin justice.)
|
|
You can't have played a summoner to death yet. Play a halfling, and you could even essentially have 2 good enough stats. 14 becomes a 16 dex and 10 becomes a 12 charisma.
They don't really have offensive spells, so a 12 charisma doesn't matter since you don't need high DC's. You continue to buff charisma before your spell progression hits that level anyway. At 16th level when you get your first 6th level spell surprise surprise you hit 16 charisma!
I've already stated that I would rather not play a summoner. My group is in basic agreement that no one wants to play at a table with one. Too many extra items in the initiative order just gums up the play whenever we have one in the party.
|
|
Sorry, must have missed that. Although, any of the other casters can be worse as far as volume of stuff. Druids for sure. Or an animal domain cleric. At least summoners can only have one set of monsters with their special summons at a time.
no worries. I couldn't really play any of the "snap fingers generate army" classes with this group. we've got 5-6 people and the GMs actually know how to build multimob encounters, which means a summoner really just makes initiative a b!!++. It also means one player is in the spotlight in combat an inordinate amount of time due to the number of actions they're taking. It's not really a balance thing so much as it's an unspoken agreement not to play combat pet classes. no one wants to do the paperwork and no one wants to wait for the summon bot to finish his 3 turns.
Hmmmm ... your rolls
10, 10, 14, 11, 10, 10
Possibly a Finesse-focus Fighter, Academy trained as in the Pathfinder Campaign Manual? Nets you 4 skill points per level, and some nice social skills, and all you sacrifice is your 1st fighter bonus feat.
Go Halfling
Str)8
Dex)13
Con)14
Int)10
Wis)10
Cha)10.
Put your ability points into Dexterity, grab two Short-Swords or Dog-slicers, grab some Charisma-enhancing items and go to town. Might be an interesting character actually. "My name is Mointquo Heyoyah. You killed my Gerbil. Prepare to die."
*explodes from the bad Karma*
Alternatively, a Gnome Fighter/Sorcerer/Eldritch Knight could be hilariously fun.
Str)8
Dex)14
Con)11
Int)10
Wis)10
Cha)12
Again, Weapon Finesse works for these stats, and putting some focus into Constitution (getting those bonus hit-points works) and then going berserk on Charisma and Dex/Con/Cha increasing items. You'd be surprised how often people will underestimate the carnage a Gnome can inflict.
Then again, have you asked the GM if it's not possible to re-roll? As a DM myself, I wouldn't accept such rolls, and make the player re-roll if they were that low, or re-roll if they were ludicrously high all across the board. These stats can work, yes, but at the same point the character really only has 1 good score and 5 neutral scores, which limits how effective the character will be.
On the other hand, a flawed character like this can be quite memorable in that they can succeed against nominally impossible odds because the player in charge is really burning some brain-matter on the character's tactics rather than just rolling into the enemy and trusting in high stats. While your Small-Sized character might not be winning any contests in the Power Contest, nothing is stopping you from going McGuyver on the DM with the character either.
no worries. I couldn't really play any of the "snap fingers generate army" classes with this group. we've got 5-6 people and the GMs actually know how to build multimob encounters, which means a summoner really just makes initiative a b!&*!.
We solved that one before it became a problem by just having all summons go on the same initiative as the summoner.
It also means one player is in the spotlight in combat an inordinate amount of time due to the number of actions they're taking. It's not really a balance thing so much as it's an unspoken agreement not to play combat pet classes. no one wants to do the paperwork and no one wants to wait for the summon bot to finish his 3 turns.
Does that mean a regular wizard of the Conjuration school is out, as well? Spell Focus (Conjuration) at 1st level, Agument Summoning at 3rd, and your own stats really matter a lot less. As a wizard, you'd have a lot of options besides just summoning, even with that school. Never underestimate the power of a well-placed Grease spell.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I give you a lot of credit for making this work. If you are going to take the character with a bunch of 17-18's, you should also take the one with a bunch of 10's.
With that said, I once tried to play a fighter/rogue who kept rolling bad for HP. It was almost a joke. We had the rule that 1's get rerolled, so what did I roll? 2. Then I took a fighter level... 3. I don't know if I had more then 20 HP by 4th level, and that includes toughness! Every encounter, I would take one or two hits, and go down. I think I spent more time in combat unconscious then fighting.
I can't say that I regret playing the character, but I feel like I missed out on the opportunity to do more interesting things then go down like a chump in round 1. All because of 3 or 4 die rolls.
My conclusion was that luck should affect what you are doing that attack, or round, maybe your characters success or failure for a day. But luck shouldn't brand your character for life. If you are rolling for ability scores, you may disagree.
|
|
Hmmmm ... your rolls
10, 10, 14, 11, 10, 10
Possibly a Finesse-focus Fighter, Academy trained as in the Pathfinder Campaign Manual? Nets you 4 skill points per level, and some nice social skills, and all you sacrifice is your 1st fighter bonus feat.
Go Halfling
Str)8
Dex)13
Con)14
Int)10
Wis)10
Cha)10.Put your ability points into Dexterity, grab two Short-Swords or Dog-slicers, grab some Charisma-enhancing items and go to town. Might be an interesting character actually. "My name is Mointquo Heyoyah. You killed my Gerbil. Prepare to die."
*explodes from the bad Karma*
Alternatively, a Gnome Fighter/Sorcerer/Eldritch Knight could be hilariously fun.
Str)8
Dex)14
Con)11
Int)10
Wis)10
Cha)12Again, Weapon Finesse works for these stats, and putting some focus into Constitution (getting those bonus hit-points works) and then going berserk on Charisma and Dex/Con/Cha increasing items. You'd be surprised how often people will underestimate the carnage a Gnome can inflict.
Then again, have you asked the GM if it's not possible to re-roll? As a DM myself, I wouldn't accept such rolls, and make the player re-roll if they were that low, or re-roll if they were ludicrously high all across the board. These stats can work, yes, but at the same point the character really only has 1 good score and 5 neutral scores, which limits how effective the character will be.
On the other hand, a flawed character like this can be quite memorable in that they can succeed against nominally impossible odds because the player in charge is really burning some brain-matter on the character's tactics rather than just rolling into the enemy and trusting in high stats. While your Small-Sized character might not be winning any contests in the Power Contest, nothing is stopping you from going McGuyver on the DM with the character either.
He'll need martial weapon prof to wield dogslicers, not that thats an issue since he was planning on using an exotic weapon.
I give you a lot of credit for making this work. If you are going to take the character with a bunch of 17-18's, you should also take the one with a bunch of 10's.
With that said, I once tried to play a fighter/rogue who kept rolling bad for HP. It was almost a joke. We had the rule that 1's get rerolled, so what did I roll? 2. Then I took a fighter level... 3. I don't know if I had more then 20 HP by 4th level, and that includes toughness! Every encounter, I would take one or two hits, and go down. I think I spent more time in combat unconscious then fighting.
I can't say that I regret playing the character, but I feel like I missed out on the opportunity to do more interesting things then go down like a chump in round 1. All because of 3 or 4 die rolls.
My conclusion was that luck should affect what you are doing that attack, or round, maybe your characters success or failure for a day. But luck shouldn't brand your character for life. If you are rolling for ability scores, you may disagree.
9th level character with 12 con who had 35 hp here.
I lived because the GM pitied me.
|
|
Talked with the GM. general consensus between us is "Let's see what the others roll". If we've got a party of characters with comprable stats the GM will tone down encounters as necessary and it'll all be good. Super stat disparity isn't fun for anyone.
Regardless, I got a go on the arcane archer. So I'm building the Leader of Men Bard -> archer.
Debating if I want to bother with paladin levels. Code of conduct and I really don't get along.
Talked with the GM. general consensus between us is "Let's see what the others roll". If we've got a party of characters with comprable stats the GM will tone down encounters as necessary and it'll all be good. Super stat disparity isn't fun for anyone.
Regardless, I got a go on the arcane archer. So I'm building the Leader of Men Bard -> archer.
Debating if I want to bother with paladin levels. Code of conduct and I really don't get along.
Good luck.
No, really. Good luck. God speed.
PS. Remember that a negative strength gives a negative to damage on all bows.
Talked with the GM. general consensus between us is "Let's see what the others roll". If we've got a party of characters with comprable stats the GM will tone down encounters as necessary and it'll all be good. Super stat disparity isn't fun for anyone.
Regardless, I got a go on the arcane archer. So I'm building the Leader of Men Bard -> archer.
Debating if I want to bother with paladin levels. Code of conduct and I really don't get along.
I cant beleive he wouldnt at least give you the elite array, we've found that rolling on average gives the equivalent to at least a 20+ point buy, so taking 15 shouldnt be an issue, as it stands right now you have a 6...but good on you for making those work, I played a Cleric in 2E whos highest stat was a 13 wis, I've felt your pain.
So my gaming group is ramping up for kingmaker.
The GM throws the idea out there that we could run a full group of “demihumans” (i.e. Gnome/Halfling only). The rest of the group gives it the tentative “this could be entertaining”. Personally, I'm fine with the idea, though I think playing gnomes in a “Build a civilization” party would end badly.
Anyway, I had to leave town the next day so I started rolling stats early: Standard die roll, 4d6 drop lowest.
I generated one of the most mediocre stat sets I've ever had to play:
10, 10, 14, 11, 10, 10
You can imagine my dismay. I don't even qualify for more than one of the feat trees.
Anyway, 10 minutes after rolling I finally stop looking up every 3 seconds at the GM with the "You've got to be kidding" look and decide to see if I can make this playable before I start session one with “Mark the Mediocre Midget accidentally commits suicide. Damn, I'll need to reroll.”
So I've come up with a 1-20 plan that I think can make me effective, if a bit pathetic compared to most other characters I expect to be generated. Normally I don't try to min/max this hard, but if I'm going to play a 6 point buy equivalent character then the GM gets to deal with the side of my brain that used to reverse engineer everquest mechanics. Only fair. (Hell, he might read this while I'm out of town. Who knows. Here's your fair warning sir.)
Anyway, I'd like any input people have. Let me know if you see flaws and especially if I'm missing something I should be getting. I present to you the Invisible Ball of Death. Also: I refuse to take heirloom weapon. I already have a character who has it in another game and I will not use a trait as a math patch here.
Invisible Ball of Death: This build doesn't really come together until level 8. Which is going to be pretty lame but such is having a singular stat over 13. Basically I'm abusing the bladed scarf (Cough... spiked chain flashbacks... cough) but with less combat wrecking via trip and more raw DPS. Part of the build requires...
To punish your DM for making you play this character you are going to play a level 1 commoner with the rich parents trait. Buy a herd of cattle, and teach them the stampede trick. Rinse and Repeat.