Ever since the days of 3.0, I've continually found myself coming up with characters that I can't successfully make, at least by sticking to RAW. And I'm not very good at the "optimization" game. Can anyone help me here?
1. The first is a character who is good at fighting, but her main weapons are two long scarves that are either bladed or conceal swords. She can beguile her opponents with an intricate dance, essentially hypnotizing them as she grows closer for the attack. When fighting, it's hard to tell where her next strike might come from because of all the flowing cloth, which also conceals her form enough to make it harder to hit her.
(I was thinking of a bard/rogue, but I don't see this character using magic at all.)
2. A huge brute (human) with a low intelligence and high strength, who also never quite understands the seriousness of the situation and thinks everyone is his friend. However, he has a penchant for hugging people to death. His main attack would be a grapple that inflicts crushing damage. "Tell me about the rabbits, George..."
(A fighter, obviously, but are there any feats or character abilities that would ramp up grapple damage to competitive levels?)
And for the piéce de resistance...
3. Inspired by Reepacheep, from the Narnia books, a one-foot-tall intelligent mouse who is an honored and respected battlefield commander. He wears specially-tailored plate mail and wields a "longsword" (kitchen knife?) and commands enough respect that people actually rally around him.
(Here, class and race aren't as much of an issue -- I'd reskin a tiny fey or something -- but actually getting him to do any appreciable damage in combat is next to impossible. I suppose I could make a regular character and just "say" he's only a foot tall, but then it would be cheap (haha) if I had him crawl down small passages, etc.)
There's actually a fourth -- a lantern archon cleric -- but that one I know how to do. It just isn't "legal."
Help?
#1 is highly problematic. You are asking for a lot of really specific abilities which just don't exist in the exact way described. The weapon, for example, could be a Bladed Scarf. However, those are two-handed weapons, meaning you can only use one. You might also consider reskinning Fighting Fans, since the distracting ability fits what you are trying to do.
Bards can easily pull of the hypnotizing bit you want, but if you don't want magic that is right out. Feinting is an option, especially if you go Rogue, and I can give more thorough advice on that if you want to go that route.
You could look at the Wind Stance and Lightning Stance feats for the concealment you want, but they are feat intensive and requiring moving around. As are two-weapon fighting, exotic weapons, and feinting. If you identify the aspects that are most vital to the character, it would be easier to narrow down options.
#2 is easy. Tetori monks are amazing crushers. If you don't want to go monk, a fighter could also easily work. Look at the Ultimate Combat grappling feats, especially Pinning Knockout (which is, like, you entire combat style perfectly contained in a feat).
#3 is not as hard as you would think. Obviously, the foot tall mouse bits are homebrew territory. But as long as you have Power Attack and fight with a two-handed weapon, or even just Piranha Strike, you should still do passable damage. Going Cavalier fits your concept very well, while adding Challenge for even more (size irrelevant) damage. You will have tougher early levels, but as you progress the scaling damage will make up for your low strength and weapon damage die.
As for the mouse, I see Paladin. High Charisma does a Paladin good, and boosts attack rolls and damage when Smiting Evil.
Cavalier isn't bad either.
Also for the mouse, the duelist prestige class fits the concept and will provide a serious increase to damage to offset what is likely a low strength.
why does everbody say home brew for Reepacheep? they just added ratfolk in the bestairy 4.
Whoa, good suggestions! I'm checking these out. A lot of stuff here I've never heard of.
The 1st is very possible but it's not a first level character. Fighter/rogue + bard.
2nd is easy. Already described.
3rd is still possible. However, commanders aren't damage dealers. It sounds like you want both. If you want a mouse to bring down a full-grown man then give it a disease that does Con damage that it gives when it bites. However, it makes no sense that a mouse, through its own strength without magic, would be able to fell a man with a tiny sword. You could pin-prick him to death but it'll take a while. :)
The Noble Wild book/pdf can be found here on Paizo. It has the racial statistics for an intelligent mouse. Considering the size you're wanting though, the rat might be a better choice.
The book also has a mechanic similar to feat trees that let's weak Strength characters, like a mouse, to ignore their negative Str modifier to damage.
3. Ratfolk paladin, sohei monk. Go monk 1 paladin 4 your 5th level feat will be crusader's flurry and you want Iomedae for a goddess.
to be more in line with the inspiration, use the ratfolk and drop the size to tiny. Extra -2 str/+2 dex to make it a grand total of -4 str +4 dex +2 int
Shar Tahl beat me to saying it, but this. It's not too difficult to get a tiny sized PC if your GM is willing to bend a few normal starting rules. See if you can convince them to let you start as a ratfolk with a reduce person spell on them that's been hit with permanency magic.
I posted the following without reading anyone else's post as I wanted my own thoughts to be without outside influence. Sorry if it is redundant.
The first one is easy. It's a rogue (scout archetype)/red mantis assassin with the Wind Stance feat that also happens to dual wield a bladed scarf alongside the sabre-tooth sword. Alternatively, if you insist on two scarves, just use the stats for the sabre-tooth sword and re-flavor them as bladed scarf weapons. I'm sure your GM would allow for that.
The second one could easily be a barbarian or monk, or a barbarian/monk hybrid. I would recommend looking into the monk's tetori archetype.
The third one would be a ratfolk with a permanent reduce person spell cast upon himself. He would wield traditional weapons and armor sized to fit him. I would make him a bard so that he has a major impact on the party's success despite having such short reach.
@HawaiinWarrior
Off topic (thus the spoiler), but if you like Reepacheep, you might be interested in a series of graphic novels called Mouseguard. Look for more inspiration there for your #3 concept.
1) possible, 3.5 complete scoundrel had that quite exactly as a prestige class. Bard that glamours people with a dance and then uses sneak attack to kill them.
2) easy, brawler fighter archetype is a good hugger, but if you truly want constrict you can take alchemist, beastmorph. You need to phrase it yourself like you're not aware of what you're doing. Vivisectionist allows you to still shine with low int.
3) I would have said, close to impossible, as it ridiculous, but it is possible trough RAW, mouse=polymorph I guess, rapier weapon finesse, rogue. What are you missing?
Richard, in regards to #3, polymorphing into a mouse or rat doesn't give you thumbs with which to wield a weapon.
Better to use a reduced ratfolk.
Hmm...
#1: Playing off Mr. Leonhart's suggestion, If you're willing to open up the 3.5 backwards compatibility can, start at level 8+, an option I can visualize that might actually be workable with the right roleplay, magic items and feats is to mix Battledancer and Cloaked Dancer with a dip of assassin for death attack. The core class itself isn't that outstanding, but I think this is one of those places where flavor and roleplay will trump optimization.
Battledancer 6 -> Assassin 1 -> Cloaked Dancer 1~5 -> finish battledancer.
Benefits:
- Improved unarmed strike and monk style fist size scaling so you can use the entire unarmed combat feat list.
- AC bonus that functions like monk wis to AC, but Cha based.
- Perform (Dance) and a variety of acrobatics-check dances from Battledancer (useful) and x/day dances from Cloaked Dancer (iffy)
- Increased movement speed.
- Magic type unarmed fist damage.
- Death Attack and a dance that renders your opponent flatfoot vs your attacks if he's controlled by your dance and the luxury of waiting 3 turns.
- Take two weapon fighting. Battledancer is a full BAB class and you'd have 3d6 sneak* attack under most circumstances, you'll lose a little BAB from the medium class dips, but you would hit level 20 with 17 BAB. Flank your opponent for 8 attacks at 4d8 + 3d6 each. (I would personally convert cloaked dancer's "sudden strike" to sneak attack since PF doesn't do sudden strike, but that's up to you.)
- Wind Stance as a source of concealment has been mentioned already. With battledancer, you'd easily have the BAB to get it by level 7. Another alternative would be to find a magic item that gave you such concealment.
Some strategy thoughts:
Get a monk belt asap as it will stack with unarmed attacks and your DM will likely let it stack with Battledancer bonus AC as they are the same thing.
Next up, I seem to recall that there's a magic item for monk that changes your unarmed to slashing damage and provides enhancement bonuses, decorate them up as veils/ribbons and either RP that you're killing people with hidden weapons or Xena style pressure points.
Ask for 3.5 improved natural attack (+1 fist size).
Main problem: the will save DC of your Cloaked Dancer dances will be too low. The formula is 10 + cloaked dancer class level + cha mod. At level 8, that would be 11 + cha. It would cap out at 15 + cha because cloaked dancer only has 5 levels. I'd ask your DM if you could combine your ~dancer levels then divide by 2 so that you could at least get to 19 + cha. (This would be the same as PF bard mental save DCs)
Unfortunately, I'm not all that familiar with ways to increase the save DCs of SLAs. There's probably feats, buffs, items, etc. you can use to that end tho'.
Plan B:
As above, except
Battledancer 5, assassin 1, continue battledancer.
With 1d6 sneak, death attack, full two weapon fighting, and full monk unarmed attack damage progression, you'll actually hit 8 times at -2. Use feats and bluff to catch your opponent flatfoot instead of cloaked dancer class features. It'd actually probably work better than trying to work cloaked dancer in, it just doesn't have the enrapturing dance angle, but you could easily roleplay that in.
Plan C:
Effectively the same as above, but you could easily make a PF Monk archetype for battledancer.
Just swap wis to cha, add the dances in, and decide if you want to keep flurry or swap it for full BAB. That would basically be exactly the same as battledancer with pathfinder upgrades. Design a few Ki consuming abilities for hypnotic dancing and a way to make an opponent helpless vs you, possibly by failing progressive will saves or sense motive checks. Once helpless, coup de grace them.
#2: I can't add anything to this.
#3: For an undersized mouse leader, let's pop open the 3.5 miniatures handbook: The Marshal class, or it's Homebrew Tome of Battle upgrade are designed explicitly to provide strategy and leadership to a party, cohorts, and small army of level 1 followers.
Whichever version you invoke, it's actually very nice for your concept. The core mechanic is to provide leadership in the form of always on 60 foot auras, and can order specific units to move again. It's highly Cha driven, so if you take and optimize Leadership, you can get a cohort and a bunch of 1 HD minions that will benefit greatly from the auras.
I'd recommend both doing your homework and asking your DM first you touch/consider the Tome of battle homebrew... Tome of Battle was very poorly written and edited, and it's rules are easily misunderstood. As a consequence it's often banned. Just remember, if something sounds too awesome compared to an equal level wizard spell, you're probably reading it wrong.
If you do look into it, given your size limitations, I would look into either white raven for "leading the charge" (every ally within x ft of you gets a free move action right then and there and follows your charge. With a cohort and the right 1HD minions, you can easily contribute damage even though you yourself do none) or the homebrew school they added that gives you maneuvers for use with ranged weapons.
Speaking of range weapons, Probably not fitting the Narnia theme, but another option would be to make your cohort a bard, and your 1HD minions gunslingers with muskets for a Napoleonic flavor. I can just imagine the look on the DM's face when you go "Ready... Aim... FIRE!" with the Ranged accuracy aura up, Inspire courage, and 12+ lv 1 Gunslingers.
Isn't there an Inquisitor build that can grant it's allies teamwork feats? That'd also probably be a good second runner up to marshal. it could also be a cohort. There's also a "grants bane vs marked enemy" feature for inquisitor, giving a bunch of archers or gunslingers bane vs a target would be convenient.
Anyway, I think I've gone solidly into the realm of overkill here, Sorry if I got too carried away!