Hey forums,
A friend of mine has been running a gestalt game for a while now; and we're having a new player join. He's interested in playing a kitsune, and he wants to do something that incorporates the original legends from China and Korea (Huli jing and kuhiho). He's expressed interest in playing a ninja and adding some sorcerer to it. Are there any other classes that might fit those? There are also some other possibilities that I thought of like a ninja/dervish dancer bard (or a hungry ghost monk/dervish dancer bard....yeah MAD out the wahzoo, but still) or maybe a witch/magus. Any ideas would be helpful.
Thanks :)
There's been a recent development. Does anyone have any experiences with White-Haired Witch and Monk (Qinggong of course, but with maybe Hungry Ghost and maybe MoMS?)?
Thanks again.
Don't use MoMS except as a dip, which means if you want to be a monk don't use it at all. If you're not gestalting with a full or enhanced medium BAB class you need the pseudo-BAB that flurry offers unless all you're trying to do is toughen up a full caster, and if you want to be a monk you're presumably looking for more than that.
White Haired Witch is also a bad move. It's actually worse at hair than a normal witch at low levels and in return doesn't get hexes.
Then there's the lack of stat synergy. Monks use wisdom, witches intelligence, and kitsune offer charisma. It's not going to work well.
Why not just gestalt a sorcerer and a ninja? There's racial stat synergy, the Kitsune get access to an extremely powerful racial feat (Realistic Likeness) and a bonus to Enchantment spells. A Fey Sorcerer/Ninja gestalt would be quite powerful. Lots of Ki points, face skills, melee and ranged combat options, magical charms and disguises. You'd be able to charm, sneak, disguise, bluff, or murder your way past most challenges.
White haired witch/monk sounds like a mess. Having a natural attack doesn't work together with flurry of blows, you end up needing 5(!) good ability scores and the combat maneuver tricks with the hair are things a monk can probably do anyway. If you want a character focused on the witches hair, add something like a lore warden fighter or a barbarian instead of monk - something with full BAB that can actually make use of the natural attack.
A kitsune ninja/sorcerer sounds like an excellent character. Great stat synergy, thematically cool and probably lots of fun to play. Fey bloodline sounds like good advice if you want to really focus on the enchantments, otherwise shadow or the eternal standby arcae are good as well.
I know which one of the two I'd go for. ;)
Thanks, everyone, for focusing our thoughts. You know how overwhelming it can be when you bring in gestalting and find the various class combinations that will either be too powerful but not very thematic or mechanically unsound but interesting in some odd way and every degree in between.
One of my problems is sometimes getting caught up in details to where I get caught up, especially when making a character for someone else.
I think we'll go with the Ninja/Sorcerer (I could almost swear that one came up in our talk, but then Summoner, Monk, Bard and all this other stuff came up). The White-Haired Witch/Lore Warden sounds pretty fun, but honestly, the Ninja/Sorcerer sounds more true to the folklore and more his thing.
Thank you all again.
Sorry for the possible thread necromancy. I'm in need of opinions on another character build for this game. It's for a Bowadin (i.e. Archer Paladin). The first suspects that come to mind are Archer Fighter (however, the lack of skills and Acrobatics lower it on the list), Sniper Rogue, Ranger, and Zen Archer Monk. A magus that uses a bow, might be interesting, but I wouldn't know where to begin on that one. Does anyone have any opinions or advice on these or on some other class that I haven't mentioned?
Thank you
I'd strongly suggest gestalting Zen Archer Monk with an Inquisitor. ZAM takes care of everything an archer needs- feat, BAB, abilities- and you can use Infiltrator to first get Judgements for some extra damage and secondly to buff your social skills. There are inquisitions and archetypes that allow you to use/add your wisdom modifier to bluff, intimidate and diplomacy and since Wisdom is the primary stat for a ZAM you can make a wickedly effective party face out of your archer.
Odinic_Raiton wrote: Sorry for the possible thread necromancy. I'm in need of opinions on another character build for this game. It's for a Bowadin (i.e. Archer Paladin). The first suspects that come to mind are Archer Fighter (however, the lack of skills and Acrobatics lower it on the list), Sniper Rogue, Ranger, and Zen Archer Monk. A magus that uses a bow, might be interesting, but I wouldn't know where to begin on that one. Does anyone have any opinions or advice on these or on some other class that I haven't mentioned?
Thank you
Divine Hunter Paladin/Oracle. Combat monster keyed off Charisma. Oh yeah, it's a full caster, too.
Zen Archer/Empyreal Sorcerer. Stack as much Wisdom as you can. Pick up self-buffs and ray spells to take advantage of your ranged feats. ASF isn't an issue since you're unarmored anyways, with a decent AC, high mobility, consistent damage and the power of a full progression caster.
I think for an archer with a paladin feel, GM Arkwright has got the perfect build. If you're dead set on being an actual paladin, one of the nicest gestalt options is bard. It makes you skillful, gives you a range of excellent buff spells, and the performance ability is excellent. There's also a bunch of interesting bard archetypes you could consider if you want to change the flavor a bit. Oracle would work very well as well - again lots of nice buffs and a lot of interesting utility options.
I wouldn't go divine hunter paladin by the way, as I think the regular paladin is stronger in the long run. And if you're starting at level 8, you don't need to worry about the short run. If you play a human you can have point blank shot, precise shot, rapid shot, deadly aim and manyshot at level 8, and that's basically all you need.
SunsetPsychosis's build seems really awesome as well, but hasn't got much to do with a paladin, maybe apart from the fact that the Empyreal bloodline has a divine theme.
Odinic_Raiton wrote: He's interested in playing a kitsune, and he wants to do something that incorporates the original legends from China and Korea (Huli jing and kuhiho). From that, I kind of want to suggest two levels of a ranger with the natural attack style to grab a set of claws. Since kumiho in Korean myths are less "mischievous spirit" more "man eating monsters." Livers specifically. Ripped from a still living human. This common in the mythology due to the fact that predators go for the liver first since it is the most nutritious part of most animals.
Another suggestion would be to take a dip into MoMS in order to take boar style. It is the style for monstrous humanoids, and it basically turns your unarmed strike into claw like attacks. Bleed damage is always nice, and the second feat of the style allows a free intimidation when you hit twice in the same round. The advantage of both of these selections is also that the character could more easily act even when taking an inconspicuous form (since Realistic likeness is too good a feat for anyone to give up. Applying a disguise as a swift action? That means you can just round the corner and get away scot free)
I kind of want to play an evil kitsune now.
I don't think the Kitsune is going to work in this kind of game. I wasn't thinking of the type of DM that our DM is and the kind of games he runs. Suffice it to say, the kitsune is going to have to hold for a different kind of game. One with more intrigue and less action adventure. I built him a Kitsune ninja/Fey-blooded sorcerer. Pretty much a seducing, mind-bending, social assassin with decent equipment and relied alot on stealth, sneak-attacking, enchantment and her disguise ability.
Sadly, he had an awful introduction into the game.
I was sitting there mortified as a Calcifying Touch effect was placed on him after wandering into a clearing with humanoid statues. He figured a medusa or something went by, so he touched one. Roll a save, he failed it. He would have had to roll a 19 at least to make it. So he runs away into the woods, only to notice that these feral elf things called "Grimstalkers" are hunting him. So he uses Realistic Likeness and makes checks (without enchanting anyone) to pass himself as one of them and get them to go away. Well, we find the fine print in that ability, which held up the game so finally, the DM hand-waved it.
So after that paranoia run, he meets up with another player and they go into the main dungeon of this side-quest, and meet up with the rest of the party. The DM dumps a cloud kill on us and sends in these plant-wolf things (think "Lady in the Water") on us, and after checking the plant type rules, I was horrified to realize....they're immune to everything he had, pretty much. So, the only thing we could think to do was to throw shurikens. Luckily, we were going with a chop-salsa combat where two hits did them in, but it was pretty humiliating to see my friend who hasn't played DnD/Pathfinder in several years and who has horrible luck with games and gaming groups to have a pretty awful first time. I'm also pretty shocked that the DM did this, as well, because it's a tad out of character for him. I'm chalking it up to horrible, rotten luck and just not enough communicating. It's not the DM's fault, because he planned that encounter long before I told him what my friend was playing. So, I dunno.
He wants to go with the bowadin thing now. But, honestly, I really think he and the DM should message each other and talk about it.
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