The guy who is DMing the current campaign I am playing in informed me that he has a new idea for his next campaign. Here is what he has told me so far:
-Almost no magic in the world; Very small scope (IE one country with a few cities)
-ALL full and half progression casters are banned (Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric/Magus/Summoner/Etc...)
-Quarter progression casters are allowed (Paladin/Ranger) but must take the ACF's that replace their spellcasting.
-15 point buy, can only buy down one stat.
-Mostly Masterwork items. Magic items will be very rare.
-Potions, and possibly wands will be available in limited supply; Craft Alchemy will be house ruled to allow for brewing certain potions and whatnot.
-Paladins MIGHT be required to take a mount as their divine bond, so as not to outshine others with their magic weapons.
Effectively, it's a challenging campaign that will be story driven rather than overloaded with combat, though I don't have any details on the plot or an overview. I get the idea that it's still very much in the planning stages.
Paladins, despite the limitations, will be EXTREMELY powerful in this campaign, but since I am playing a Paladin/Gunslinger right now, I want to avoid those classes. I also want to stay away from classes with too much multiple ability dependency.
Right now I am leaning toward a Dawnflower Dervish or other Dervish Dancing fighter type. I've built characters like that before as enemies and they seem interesting, so that's an option on the table, but I would like a few more ideas to roll with.
So, does anyone have any suggestions for fun and interesting characters to run in a low power campaign with very limited resources? If nothing else, it's a fun mental exercise!
Fighter. Too obvious?
what races?
I'm a big fan of Barbarians, truth be told. Can't go wrong with an Invulnerable Rager 2-Handed Weapon Wielding Barbarian that charges people and makes them explode while soaking up hits like it's no big deal.
Rangers have always seemed pretty cool, though I haven't built any before. I feel like they're pretty sweet just for the combat styles, and Animal Companion is added awesomeness. While spellcasting is nice, I don't think they'll suffer without it, and some of the replacements are pretty cool. You might want to check out the Skirmisher as the option of choice to drop spells. They instead get tricks to use for their companion, allies, or themselves.
Without casters and a campaign not "overloaded with combat" skill points may be the most important thing. This might push toward Rogue or at least some extra Intelligence.
If Craft Alchemy is houseruled to let you make, say, potions of Cure or (Lesser) Restoration, then having someone capable of that would be good.
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Sunderian Breaker Barbarian Half-Orc with the Gatecrasher alternate racial trait. Supplement with the Destroyer's Blessing feat.
Nab the Arms Master and Quick Learner traits, and no weapon, whether broken, improvised, or exotic, will impose a penalty upon you.
You will destroy your enemies, their weapons and armor, bust through any doors they hide behind, and just pretty much smash anything that gets in your way.
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Here are a few ideas.
Ranger, Rogue, Cavalier, Barbarian, Fighter (Lore Warden)
They all have moderate to high skill points. This is not something to over look as you will not have magic. Make sure at least one character is a linguist. They are all good to great at combat. Stay away from any thing with just 2 skill points a level. As this makes life hard when all you have are skills to complete none combat encounters.
i'd suggest ninja. you'd get same number of skill points as a rogue, plus the ki pool and access to Vanishing Trick. if the campaign is as low-magic as your DM suggests (read: threatens), then nothing should be able to see invisibility, and you shouldn't have to make many reflex saves. Few reflex saves = evasion is worthless, so you'd be dropping a pretty worthless ability for this campaign for the bonuses to acrobatics, the possibility of extra attacks per round, short term invisibility a few times per day, etc.
just my suggestion. if you want to be a combat wombat, fighter is a no-brainer. cool "weird" abilities like madmen barbarians can be nice, but having 6 feats at level 5 (seven feats if you're human) is pretty game changing. considering you're only getting a 15-point build, 6-7 extra feats early on would help balance out those paltry ability scores.
If combat is not the main focus. Then OP'ing combat builds would be a bad idea. If you play a fighter you don't need to max out str,con,ect. You can throw a couple of points into your int. Plus you can take a couple of non combat related feats to enhance you role playing.
I'd say go human rogue with the feat Fast Learner. Which gives you the extra hp and skill point. I would not max out dex because you don't need to. I'd spread my points out so i could good at a lot of things and not just really good a one thing.
When it does come time to fight, sneak attacks dmg and specail abilities can really add up.
I'd spread my points out so i could be good at a lot of things and not just really good a one thing.
There are a lot of cool suggestions here. I hadn't thought of many of those. To answer a few questions:
Races - I'm not sure which races will be allowed, but I'm assuming Aasimar and Teifling will be off the table, as will some of the more esoteric races, and the ones with Spell Like Abilities will probably have to replace them with other things if possible. All the core races should be available, but I would not expect to be able to play an Orc or something like it, as their stat bonuses will be more noticeably unbalanced in a campaign where stat boosting magic items are not available.
Monsters - I assume most of the things we will be fighting will either be NPC enemies of the DM's creation, or stuff from the Bestiaries that fit the setting. I don't have more information than that.
Alchemists - Definitely not allowed. They are lumped in with the half-progression casters because their potions basically emulate spells, and the idea is to not have access to spells.
Enemy Spellcasters - I expect this to be a bit of a theme, though I don't know how prevalent they will be early on. My friend hinted that the BBEG would be a spellcaster, so I assume he might have spellcasting henchmen. Our DM likes to use themes about world changing events, so it could be that powerful magic faded from the world long ago, and this BBEG rediscovered a powerful form of it, and is using it for nefarious purposes. Of course this is speculation, not fact.
Breaker Barbarian - I thought about it, and it still might happen, but it's one of those builds that I think might overshadow the rest of the party, so I won't commit to going down that road until I know what the others will be playing. We are not strangers to min/maxing, but it might be fun to avoid that in this situation.
I like the idea of a Lore Warden, or a Ninja. Something with reasonable combat abilities and a decent number of skill points is certainly a good option. The only real issue I see with a Ninja is that they are a bit more multiple-ability-dependent than some if built around Dex. If I go Dex based the best ability to tank is strength, but outside of Dervish Dance, there will be very little ability to add Dex to damage (Getting an Agile weapon is highly unlikely), so my flat damage would suffer. I'll have to mull that one over a bit more.
A ranger is going to probably be the best bet in this campaign. They are get full BAB, all martial weapons, good reflex saves for traps, more skills than anyone except a rogue. Bonus feats they do not have to meet the prerequisites for.
I would imagine that a campaign this low in magic humans will be a very common opponent. If that is the case favored enemy human is going to get a lot of mileage. Same thing if it is an city campaign with urban as your favored terrain. If you know what you are likely to be facing and where ranger becomes a lot more powerful.
The trapper archetype is normally pretty weak due to the low saves of its traps but this campaign will not have a lot of ways to boost saves so they just got a whole lot stronger.
Another option is monk. Normally a low point buy is going to be hell for the monk but here it is not as bad. Play a human with the dual talent with the following array STR 16, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 17, CHA 7. pickup crane style and by 12th level you can pump your AC to 29. This may not seem like a lot but keep in mind that without magic the Fighter is going to have a lot less. Also without magic his chance to hit is way lower. The save for your stunning blow is going to be a lot harder to make without magic boosting saving throws.
A Zen archer would also do pretty well in this campaign. The only problem may be carrying enough arrows since you will not have an efficient quiver.
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Ranger by far will be one of the most powerful options. As full BAB, animal companion, high skill ranks, bonus feet's, and evasion.
The combination makes them effective at multiple roles. I will suggest that you conceder making a switch hitter. As melee combat with out magic healing. Is a good way to spend days recovering.
I reccomend the Barbarian Tank, the original version of which is located here though I've tweaked it a bit since then. Its one of the most powerful, effective and enjoyable characters I've ever created.
Without using magic items he builds up a very high damage resistance (hitting DR 13/- at 12th level and topping out at DR 22), is a dangerous combatant in melee (with Pounce and Come and Get Me), has above average saving throws but becomes nearly immune to magic through Superstition and the drawback of Superstition shouldn't be as much of a liability in this particular campaign and has a broader array of skills than a Fighter.
I've continued to tweak the build a bit since that post and would want to for your specific campaign, but thge core concepts remain the same. Here are his combat stats without ANY magic items at 6th, 12th and 18th level:
6th level (Rage: 22 rounds)
HP 53 (1d10+5d12+12), AC 20, DR 4/-, Fort +8, Ref +3, Will +3 (+4 saves vs. Spells & Spell-like Abilities)
Attack: +9/+4
+6/+1 [BAB] +4 [Str] +2 [Rage] -1 [Expertise] -2 [PA]
Damage: 1d10+15
1d10 +6 [Str] +3 [Rage] +6 [PA]
Equipment:
Fullplate, Bardiche
12th level (Rage: 34 rounds)
HP 107 (1d10+11d12+24), AC 20, DR 13/-
Fort +11, Ref +5, Will +5 (+7 saves vs. Spells & Spell-like Abilities)
Attack: +16/+11/+6
+12/+7/+2 [BAB] +5 [Str] +3 [Rage] -3 [Expertise] -4 [PA] +3 [Reckless]
Damage: 1d10+24
1d10 +7.5 [Str] +4.5 [Rage] +12 [PA]
Equipment:
Fullplate, Bardiche
18th level (Rage: 44 rounds)
HP 161 (1d10 + 17d12+36), AC 20, DR 20/-
Fort +14, Ref +7, Will +7 (+11 saves vs. Spells & Spell-like Abilities, +4 saves vs. Enchantments)
Attack: +22/+17/+12/+7
+18/+13/+8/+3 [BAB] +5 [Str] +3 [Rage] -4 [Expertise] -5 [PA] +5 [Reckless]
Damage: 2d4+27
2d6 +7.5 [Str] +4.5 [Rage] +15 [PA]
Equipment:
Fullplate, Falchion
Monk of the healing hand, plus vow of poverty/vow of fasting? I doubt the GM will allow Qinggong monk, but he might allow healing hand. Although the fact that you get raise dead at 11th may put him off of it. If he does, you could go Master of many styles instead.
Another option is beastmaster with boon companion, plus skirmisher. Make use of getting a powerful animal companion or two.
I would pick up the feat godless healing. With that you can get healing abilities and not be dead.
+1 for skirmisher ranger. tons of skills, full BAB, two good saves, free feats (without needing the prerequisite, to reduce MAD), and some of the tricks are pretty decent. pick up Boon Companion and your animal companion will add quite a bit (the lower the point buy the better it is to have a pet, cause they're the same strength no matter how many/few points you have).
lore warden/maneuver master is a great combo, too. decent skill points, huge combat effectiveness, good saves, same or more feats than a base fighter (if you take like 4 or less monk levels)... they are more MAD than would be nice in a 15 point buy but dump Cha and take 10 Wis- wear light armor, it doesn't stop flurry of maneuvers or evasion, so all you'll lose is fast movement. take 13 int for the extra skill point and to qualify for the 'greater' combat maneuver feats. that leaves 14-16 points (plus a racial bonus) for physical stats. i use a reach weapon (and combat reflexes), but if you're worried about outshining others stick to a more typical one.
