OK, so I'm running a campaign where I am allowing each player a set number of character turnovers. My question specifically regards a player who has designed a character with 4 or 5 classes for the sole purpose of stacking the 1st level +2 to the respective saves from each one. The only classes remember of are Paladin, Rogue, and Monk, though I know that there were at least a couple more.
Now, I know that there was a sidebar in one of the 3.5 books limiting this, but cannot remember where and don't know if there is an equivalent rule clarification in PF.
& on a sidenote, my player has a record for breaking characters and hasn't actually used this character yet, so my questions here are more preemptive than anything.
Any advice/clarifications I can use?
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I agree. I don't think there is anything wrong with optimizing saves. The character will in turn be sub-optimal. His defense will be sound however. If I were to do this I believe the best progression is. Paladin 2, ranger 1, monk 1, Gunslinger 1. That gets you +9 +6 +5 +cha on all I beleive. You only loose 1 BAB but you are a paladin which can stink. stink like cheese.
yeh you're right. can always pick those up at level 6,7. For some reason i thought the op said something about level 5 characters.
The character in question will end up being fairly hard to mess with through spells. This can be easily bypassed the same way most PC's bypass super save monsters. Just use abilities that bypass saves. Considering the player has a record for 'breaking' characters, you may want to keep aware. I don't think there is any official ruling against this, though i know there was some alternate rules for stacking saves and bab. If you choose those rules the save bonus will be nerfed, but he can achieve better BAB with other tricks.
I would make the restriction that the character has to have a reason to be all those things...
Even going as is, without fractional saves and BAB, sure such a character will have awesome saves... but he'll have crap powers whilst a straight up fighter would start decimating, or a wizard would throw around fireballs.
A paladin/monk/rogue kind of wastes the advantages of every class. A paladin's strength is some decent magic and resistances whilst wearing armor. A monk's advantages require him to not wear armor, and the rogue's skills are ruined by armor check penalties. To get any use out of the monk or paladin he needs good wisdom and cha, but he'll need the dex because he can't wear armor and strength to actually hit and hurt.
While there's no real alignment restriction with rogue, doing anything rogue like will probably conflict with being a paladin.
Easy solution: Combine the tracks for each type of save.
There are 'good' saves (saves that start with +2) and 'poor' saves (saves that start with +0). If two classes give you the same track for one or more of the saves, add both the classes level when you determine the Base Save for that character.
Example: A barbarian 2/Fighter 2 would be treated as either a level 4 barbarian or fighter when determining their base save. Rather than simply adding both numbers together. (Instead of 6/0/0, the character would have a 4/1/1 for its base saves.) If a character has two different tracks for a save, or enters a presige class (as their saves work differently), simply add the saves like usual.
That was basically my solution when dithering with a personalized 3.75 before the Pathfinder play test. I went a step further and said the +2 was a one time bonus... much like how Pathfinder now does Class Skills with a free +3 the first time you put a Rank into it.
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eh, with such multiclassing, he isn't going to be as effective in the game. Instead of trying some ridiculous house-ruling to punish him for his silliness, just explain it to him. If he still wants to roll with it, let him do it. He will figure it all out by level 5.
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Easy solution: Combine the tracks for each type of save.
There are 'good' saves (saves that start with +2) and 'poor' saves (saves that start with +0). If two classes give you the same track for one or more of the saves, add both the classes level when you determine the Base Save for that character.
...
That's not the easy solution. The easy solution is to let him do it. His character will be less powerful than single-classed characters. But that's what he has chosen to do.
The kind solution would be to explain to him why that character is going to less effective. If he still wants to do it, so be it.
This. Tell him your not playing 3.5 anymore and what hes doing is hurting his character more than helping.
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I dunno, might be fun for the guy who plays broken classes :P You might try to talk him into saving all his money for a cloak of natural armor. I wouldn't be surprised if he grabbed that feat to allow half your non-monk levels to stack for unarmed damage, or picked up a bunch of natural weapons to offset the penalty for having a low bab.
Monk 4/Paladin 4 is really solid for saves.
I'd say Paladin 4/Bbn 4 with superstitious but the alignments are incompatible.
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Bleh, i was tired. I meant a cloak of resistance.
Paladin, rogue, monk... and a couple others...
Paladin one gives him bab, detect evil, and smite evil, as well as a good spell list to use spell-trigger items from.
Monk (probably a non-lawful variant)gives him flurry of blows, stunning fist, unarmed strike, and a feat.
Rogue gets him skills, sneak attack, and trapfinding.
Following this guys' pattern, I'd probably pick up a level of fighter for another bab and a bonus feat.
Then I'd grab a barbarian level for another bab, and some rage rounds to help offset the penalties to hit.
At 5th level, he'd have +3 bab, an additional attack with flurry, 1d6 sa when flurrying, and a bonus 2 to hit from rage, bringing him to an effective 5 bab. Remember, he can grab that barb variant that lets him rage for dex, if he wants to focus on that instead of str.
A level of ranger next would be nice for both the bab and the saves, favored enemy, track, and wild empathy.
A level of synthesist summoner could stat up his physical stats if he dumped them for cha and wisdom.
A level of gunslinger and he can make ranged attacks against touch ac, and nets another +1 bab. He might try to argue that a pistol, sword cane makes its melee attacks against touch ac as well. Or he might be going for the blunderbuss cone attack.
If he nabs a level of Magus, he might try to combine flurry and spell combat in a single round. But I think it's more likely he'd grab alchemist, and use it to boost his applicable combat stats even farther.
I could see a build like this grabbing pretty insane saves, having varied abilities for most situations, and still being able to remain combat effective *if not dealing very high amounts of damage*.
You know, I bet a detailed read of archetypes could put together some very effective combinations from all the different sources. Also, this effectively 9th level character would have base saves of:
fort +14
reflex +10
will +6
Plus the physical mods of the eidolon, the bonuses from rage and mutagen, cha to saves, wis to ac, *possibly the wisdom for attack rolls thing as well*, low level spells, one more level investment could net him evasion, flurry of blows, spell combat, ranged and possibly melee versus touch ac, a bab of +5 *though a slight modification could knock it up to +6.
Let's say he's str based for attack and damage. Barb grants +2 to hit and damage from rage, +2 to hit and damage from mutagen, synthesist form adds +3 hit/damage from it's 16 str for a grand total pre-feat, pre-magic gear of +12 to hit. Note that he could make all this dex instead, for use with the touch attack. In comparison, a fighter would have 9 (bab)+(weapon training) 2+ str modifier(probably a base str of 22 by now) +6 for a total of +17.
If he picks up another paladin level, he can pick up a feat to flurry with his deity's favored weapon. If he goes ninja instead of rogue, he could add poison to his unarmed strikes, and then add half his non-monk levels to his single level of monk to count the damage of his unarmed strike.
Monk archetype and he can run two styles at once..
Anyways, TLDR,I could see making something broken with 1-2 levels in a bunch of classes.
Why would he have a non-lawful variant of monk? :S AFAIK there is none, and it wouldn't match with paladin...
And how does he pick up Barbarian without falling as a paladin?
Nope, can't cheese it that much ;)
Well, I apreciate all the imput thus far, and you've even reminded me of a couple of things I think he'd mentioned.First off, I think Magicdealer has a prety good concept of what he's going for.
I am fairly certain he was planning at least 1-2 lvls of Synesthist and using his physical stats as dump stats. He is already playing a character which essentially does this and never unbonds with his eidelon.
I also believe he metioned something about being able to still have somewhere around 5+d6 Sneak attack, and we have another player who has already discovered Sap Adept and Sap Master, combined with Improved Feint. So what if it's nonleathal, that's what coup-de-grace is for.
I'm also fairly certain that he will be taking the "add 1/2 non monk lvls to unarmed dmg" feat, whatever that one's called, and I wouldn't be surprised if he took 4 levels of Druid and the feat which adds +4 to drd lvl for wildshape (Shaping Focus) 3 times just so he could go huge. Hell, if there are any feats left, he might just add in the one that lets him treat his wild shape as though it were one size larger (Powerful Shape I think)!
Now, with all that in mind, do you see the problem? No, he won't be particularly specialized, but he will have access to a large variety of abilities, and deal a significant amount of damage when he can use his "combo" (huge tree with 8d8 melee dmg [calculated] +10d6 sneak attack, avg dmg per hit=67).
Going from Barb to Paladin sucks because you can`t Rage:
Ex-Barbarians
A barbarian who becmes lawful loses the ability to rage and cannot gain
more levels as a barbarian. She retains all other benefits of the class.
Going from Monk to Barbarian is actually very do-able, and you retain all abilities.
(although you may miss out on WIS to AC if you wear physical armor)
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Well, the martial artist archetype for the monk allows you to be of any alignment, and is paizo material.
The antipaladin alternate class requires chaotic evil.
Together, you can get your goodies and still nab barbarian, since it's non-lawful. Of course, he'd have to stay CE or lose the antipaladin class features :p
Behold, the power of cheese! :D
FYI; I like my house-rule re: stacking Saves and BAB and it doesn`t just penalize people by stopping the stacking of +2`s, it also helps you: Stack all Classes that give you `Good Save X` together when looking up your Save (also stack all Bad Save X classes together, then add them together) - Net effect, you only get the 1st level bump once, just like Class Skill bonus. On the other hand, all your Bad Save X class levels now stack, so your weak Saves will now be higher. If you want, you can always count a Good Save class level as a Bad Save class level, if it would work out that that is helpful. The same principle goes for BAB - where it is more helpful (to the character) all around, basically. I just call it `Like Saves (or BAB) Stack`.
OK, so I'm running a campaign where I am allowing each player a set number of character turnovers. My question specifically regards a player who has designed a character with 4 or 5 classes for the sole purpose of stacking the 1st level +2 to the respective saves from each one. The only classes remember of are Paladin, Rogue, and Monk, though I know that there were at least a couple more.
Now, I know that there was a sidebar in one of the 3.5 books limiting this, but cannot remember where and don't know if there is an equivalent rule clarification in PF.
& on a sidenote, my player has a record for breaking characters and hasn't actually used this character yet, so my questions here are more preemptive than anything.
Any advice/clarifications I can use?
I would let him do it. He is only gimping himself.
To Master_Crafter: is that the build at 20th level? What level are starting your game at?
This is the important question. If the build is useless until level 15, and you start at level 5, I'd say "Go right ahead, try to survive." Conversely, if it was starting at level 15, I would expect this kind of ineffective-before-this build, since that's one of the benefits of starting at a high level.
You also need to compare it to what other characters can do. At 20th level, a sorcerer can just snap their fingers and do 200 damage to 20 creatures 7 or 8 times a day (wail of the banshee). If this guy is only good for his combo two or three times a day, it's not as bad as a spellcaster who can burst for more damage more often. If he can do it more often - to the point that he can pull it off in most combats (and remember the wasted rounds to activated it!), then a better comparison would be a 20th level fighter, who can also put out fairly absurd damage.
Why would he have a non-lawful variant of monk? :S AFAIK there is none, and it wouldn't match with paladin...
And how does he pick up Barbarian without falling as a paladin?Nope, can't cheese it that much ;)
Alignment: A martial artist may be of any alignment.
Though again jumping several classes is usually a bad idea.
Well, I apreciate all the imput thus far, and you've even reminded me of a couple of things I think he'd mentioned.First off, I think Magicdealer has a prety good concept of what he's going for.
I am fairly certain he was planning at least 1-2 lvls of Synesthist and using his physical stats as dump stats. He is already playing a character which essentially does this and never unbonds with his eidelon.
What a very bad idea. It gives the eidolon 2d10 hit dice plus its Con, sure, but his hit points will be staggeringly bad if he dumps Con as well.
I'm also fairly certain that he will be taking the "add 1/2 non monk lvls to unarmed dmg" feat, whatever that one's called, and I wouldn't be surprised if he took 4 levels of Druid and the feat which adds +4 to drd lvl for wildshape (Shaping Focus) 3 times just so he could go huge. Hell, if there are any feats left, he might just add in the one that lets him treat his wild shape as though it were one size larger (Powerful Shape I think)!
You can only take a feat once unless it specifically declares you can take a feat multiple times.
Powerful Shape isn't that great either. It raises your CMB and CMD and makes you able to grab and swallow whole etc. people larger than you. A slam isn't a "size-based special attack".
On top of that, the character wildshaping would immediately lose his synthesist eidolon. Your eidolon cannot be smaller than you are, and by shapeshifting to a huge animal, it becomes smaller than you, automatically removing itself.
So, if his stats were 7 7 7 16 16 18 or something, but he uses his eidolon to game the system up to the 17 13 13 - - -of the biped, when he wildshapes, he'll gain the effects of beast shape 3 and go to 13 3 7 16 16 18.
So, he will drop his AC from, assuming no magical items, 13/11/12 (+2 Natural, +1 Dex) to (+6 natural, -2 size, -4 Dex) 10/4/8.
I mean, assuming he's a level 8 character with 4 levels of druid and 2 of synth summoner, then 1 monk 1 paladin, he'll probably have a grand maximum of 4d8+2d8+1d8+1d10-16 hp.
Bring it on! I AM A LEVEL EIGHT CHARACTER WITH 7 HP AND I CHALLENGE YOU. I HAVE LESS HP THAN HIT DICE WHICH IS ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE. MY AC IS 10! YOU HIT IF YOUR DICE MAKES A SOUND WHEN IT TOUCHES THE TABLE! I AM HUGE SO THAT YOU MAY CHARGE INTO WHICHEVER SQUARE YOU DESIRE, HUMAN! I HAVE MAXIMIZED MY SPACE FOR MAXIMIZED KILLING RADIUS! WHO DARES CHALLENGE ME?
EDIT: To be fair, I didn't maximize his first hit die, which gives him 10 hp. Which is exactly how many hp my level one Magus for Jade Regent had before I took Toughness.
I mean, with that run, his saves would be like 2/2/2 and 2/2/2, 0/0/3 and 4/1/4. So, with his eidolon on, he'd have a nice and respectable 8/5/11. Then, adding Cha and stats, 12/9/15 and then 13/10/18. Dang, son.
Adding hp from the synth gives him more hp too. But I'm going to be unfair and pretend he wildshapes into like a huge bear again because it's funny that he has a chance of going into combat with 10 hp.
"COME HUMAN! DARE YOU FACE AMAZO IN THE RING OF HONOR? MY SAVES ARE GOD LIKE! I SHALL PASS THEM ALL! DO UNTO ME THINE WORST, PITIFUL MORTAL!"
HURK