I'm FollieOfMadness (or Archrast Blackblood, I'm not sure how Messageboard alias' are supposed to work), and I'm a newb, my experience capping at reaching level 2 after 6 adventures so far. And I have a dream.
To Make Issei Hyoudou from Highschool DxD.
I'm a major fan of the series, and I personally think making a Pathfinder character similar to him would be awesome. What I want my character to be is a hand-to-hand guy using full-plate, preferably made of Dragon-scale. I know I can't get Dragon-scale -too- early, but that's the end goal.
I haven't the faintest about how though, from magical items to get to feats to collect to anything really. As mentioned earlier, I'm pretty new to the game.
Looked for some examples of this person's (dude's?) fighting style... Instead I got a lot of boobs.
I'm just... Going to ignore the show you're drawing from. You're going to need to explain how he fights. If he's just someone who punches things, you're best bet is probably the Brawler. Get a pair of Cesti (singular Cestus) and go the Two Weapon Fighting route.
I took two years of Latin in High School so I'm pretty sure that's right. Of course, that was several years ago and I forgot about 95% of what I learned so I could still be wrong.
I don't really think PF is well suited to this. I suppose you could take something like the Psychic Warrior (or whatever it's called now) and refluff it a bit.
Or play a draconic bloodline sorceer/Dragon Disciple with some melee class splashed in. His boosting techs are basically spells in the game, even if they aren't in the story, he hits things hard, that armor thing of his is bascially Form of the Dragon, he hits things boosted up on his spells, etc.
Looked for some examples of this person's (dude's?) fighting style... Instead I got a lot of boobs.
I'm just... Going to ignore the show you're drawing from. You're going to need to explain how he fights. If he's just someone who punches things, you're best bet is probably the Brawler. Get a pair of Cesti (singular Cestus) and go the Two Weapon Fighting route.
Yeah...in the second volumne of Highschool DxD (the original Japanese Light Novel the anime and the manga are both based on), in the afterword, the author even admitted something along the lines of making the series 'embarrassing for people in middle school and high school to buy.'
I have peculiar interests I'll admit, but the general gist of Issei is that he:
-Has a magic gauntlet thing that doubles his power (strength, speed, reflexes, but not intelligence) every 10 seconds.
-Hits things really hard with that gauntlet.
-Dabbles in spells designed to remove the...armour of his opponent.
I'm unsure whether or not I could actually do the whole 'remove armour' from enemies, since it would be rather circumstantial (not all monsters wear armour) and kind of inappropriate (I'd rather not be the guy that strips his enemies naked).
I do think, however, at the least I can punch things. Really hard. Though going monk feels...contrary to the character (honestly, relating Issei to anything holy is actually quite ironic), so I'm glad you made a suggestion for a fighter arche-type.
However, reading over what a brawler is, I don't feel that it's what I want; I'd rather have armour training than menacing stance, though as I said, I'm still a noob at this so my opinion on the matter is a lot more uneducated than the average player, who has been doing this for longer.
Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
I don't really think PF is well suited to this. I suppose you could take something like the Psychic Warrior (or whatever it's called now) and refluff it a bit.
Or play a draconic bloodline sorceer/Dragon Disciple with some melee class splashed in. His boosting techs are basically spells in the game, even if they aren't in the story, he hits things hard, that armor thing of his is bascially Form of the Dragon, he hits things boosted up on his spells, etc.
Fair enough. Honestly, the ideas presented by you and Arachnofiend both sound promising, but I'm unsure. Issei isn't a spellcaster, but the duality of using spells and hitting things hard with my fist seems like an acceptable break from cannon for fun purposes. It isn't like I was going to RP as a lecherous 15 year-old anyway. It'd be pretty awkward, especially considering all the 'unfathomably beautiful' women running around in Fantasy universes.
Hm. I'm inclined to play Dragon Disciple I'll admit, but I kind of want to hear Arachnofiend's thoughts first, since you are more knowledgeable than me about this.
The closest I can think of is a Kensai Magus who uses a Gauntlet and makes liberal use of Arcane Strike. You still have spells, but you have less than a regular Magus and you're far more of a melee combatant than a caster. It's not perfect but I don't think you'll get perfect within the Pathfinder ruleset.
As for, err, removing opponents armor, you could go down the sunder route though that's very sub-optimal and a little creepy.
D&D is the least likely game to emulate Anime. An RPG like Big Eyes Small Mouth is more geared towards what you are looking for. The game Champions could do the kinds of things what you have described.
But if you are willing to come CLOSE then you might have a shot with pathfinder.
The easiest route I can see would be a dragon blooded bloodrager. Bloodrage to emulate the increasing in strength, you get some spells (although none to really rip off armor but lets say you just sunder things) and instead of a gauntlet you grow claws, close enough.
Issei isn't a spellcaster in his universe, but his boosting abilities can easily be represented by spells. Strength increase? Bull's Strength. Speed increase? Haste/Cat's Grace. Magic armor that shows up? Mage armor/Shield. I don't know what the PF psionics look like, but a Psychic Warrior in the XPH could do most of that, and the augmented nature of the powers works well for determining how much he can improve people with the same ability. Just refluff it a bit. As for the dressbreaker ability, just homebrew something and hope your DM allows it.
The closest I can think of is a Kensai Magus who uses a Gauntlet and makes liberal use of Arcane Strike. You still have spells, but you have less than a regular Magus and you're far more of a melee combatant than a caster. It's not perfect but I don't think you'll get perfect within the Pathfinder ruleset.
As for, err, removing opponents armor, you could go down the sunder route though that's very sub-optimal and a little creepy.
Kensai seems interesting, yeah; I think its also a worthy suggestion, looking at it online.
Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
Issei isn't a spellcaster in his universe, but his boosting abilities can easily be represented by spells. Strength increase? Bull's Strength. Speed increase? Haste/Cat's Grace. Magic armor that shows up? Mage armor/Shield. I don't know what the PF psionics look like, but a Psychic Warrior in the XPH could do most of that, and the augmented nature of the powers works well for determining how much he can improve people with the same ability. Just refluff it a bit. As for the dressbreaker ability, just homebrew something and hope your DM allows it.
Playing a Spellcaster fellow with self-buffs seems cool, but kind of impractical; I'd personally have my fist in my opponents fast during a surprise round rather than cast a buff, that would ultimately put me 3 whole rounds when buffing my strength then speed and then armour (as far as I'm aware, self-buff stuff works as a standard action, which is how you're meant to attack). Psychic seems...awesome, mostly since I haven't heard of it before, and playing a Psychic guy does feel cool, but it isn't -quite- what I was looking for. Good suggestion though. I just might make a Psychic-Rogue type character, as that seems pretty fun.
ngc7293 wrote:
D&D is the least likely game to emulate Anime. An RPG like Big Eyes Small Mouth is more geared towards what you are looking for. The game Champions could do the kinds of things what you have described.
But if you are willing to come CLOSE then you might have a shot with pathfinder.
I have never heard of either in my life, so I'll have to check those out. Of course, meanwhile, I'm playing Pathfinder, so while I thank you for telling me about something that would actually allow me to RP as an Anime character ish (Zero character here I come~), it unfortunately is not what I'm looking for.
Thanks though.
haruhiko88 wrote:
The easiest route I can see would be a dragon blooded bloodrager. Bloodrage to emulate the increasing in strength, you get some spells (although none to really rip off armor but lets say you just sunder things) and instead of a gauntlet you grow claws, close enough.
Unfortunately I can't seem to find a link to what being a Bloodrager is all about, badass name aside, so I can't really give you idea its due.
Alright, ladies and gentlemen; I think I've heard enough. Its time to start writing up the drawing board and see what sticks. I'll probably post in a few weeks my findings after writing up several sheets and seeing what works best (or is the closest).
Thanks. This has helped immensely; I don't know how long it would have taken me to research this all on my lonesome. Cheerio guys.
D&D is the least likely game to emulate Anime. An RPG like Big Eyes Small Mouth is more geared towards what you are looking for. The game Champions could do the kinds of things what you have described.
But if you are willing to come CLOSE then you might have a shot with pathfinder.
So long as we're talking about games that can emulate anime, I'll throw in a couple of suggestions. Even if OP is probably gone by now, someone else might be able to benefit from this.
Obviously, first on my list are Japanese TRPGs. Tenra Bansho Zero and Double Cross are both available in English, and Ryuutama's translation will be released real soon. I only just woke up, so I'm not really in the mind-space to do a breakdown of all three of them, but this is the information age and I'm pretty sure people can do their own research with a few minutes and a search engine.
As for the western front, I'd strongly recommend Mutants and Masterminds 2e. It's modular, point-buy and sufficiently effects-based that you can fluff any power as basically anything.
If anyone's got any other suggestions, feel free to throw them in.
For the Kensai magus idea, How about changing the weapon to a Knuckle Axe, which is a brass knuckles with axe blades mounted onto it? It's a slashing weapon, which makes it possible to combine it with the Bladebound archetype, making it intelligent.
While it's true that he mostly uses his gauntlet to just punch people, the gauntlet is also intelligent in the anime. So while the form of the weapon wouldn't be completely accurate, it does get you the intelligent weapon part.
Maybe a rope gauntlet would work as a black blade too, but that's probably stretching it a bit.
I'm with the 'other system' camp on this one. Either a more generic system (like Hero or GURPs) or one that is tailored towards the genre, such as BESM. Or Maid.
Otherwise I think you'll need a good dose of the Mythic rules if you have your heart set on doing this in Pathfinder.
A combat based Sythesist migth work..
have his normal combat stats (i.e. don't dump physical stuff jsut cause your probably gonna be in red dragon armour most of the time). So you have your normal combat, and then bust out hte syth w/ its various buffs to do it. Maybe mostly use the spell that summons your edoleon since he can't stay in his full mode long at all.
You get some magic ability 3/4th bab, a battle form thing, and later on Aspect which you could probably use someway to represent his gauntlet after that becomes his standard arm. it would take some fleshing out for it.
The psionic version of this class would do it MUCH better if your allowed to use the 3pp stuff.
-Has a magic gauntlet thing that doubles his power (strength, speed, reflexes, but not intelligence) every 10 seconds.
So every minute he is 64 times stronger than he was a minute ago? So after two minutes he is 3600 times stronger? Assuming he can lift 50 lbs at time 0, after 210 seconds he can lift the battleship Iowa?
Archrast Blackblood wrote:
-Hits things really hard with that gauntlet.
I bet, with that sort of growth curve.
Archrast Blackblood wrote:
-Dabbles in spells designed to remove the...armour of his opponent.
Where was this ability when I was in college? Why does he need this with all of that strength?
Basically he'll get that strong--if his actual body could hold up to that much. He's super upped but eventually his body can't take it. since he was just a normal highschool kid prior to events. Thoughe he trains and manages to hold it on longer and longer.
They never really said (that i can remember) if it's exponential or just double his base str every time and it just stacks and doesn't multiply into itself. They never really gave specific numbers of ability stuff.
haha, armour is a nice way of saying.. he likes to use a stripper beam...
Though in the scheme of the world it's from he isn't that powerful considering he can't walk arond with the gauntlet on and unless he knows a fight is coming and turns it on early most people just.. squish him before he gets rolling. and at some times it seems like he'll blow away all the stored power. and have to start over. It's a bit vague but it's been a while since i've had exposure to it.
I just remember him powering up during a group battle and using it all on a massive armour destruction blast. then having no power for a while, but being attacked right away and having a rather bad time.
It's entirely possible to recreate anime characters using pathfinder, but you will almost never get an exact representation.
Can you create a character that is Issei 100%? Absolutely not.
Can you create a character like Issei that has his silly perverted personality, uses an intelligent gauntlet, buffs himself and allies, and is able to strip defenses from enemies? Absolutely. It's just a matter of how.
Personality is simple enough, but you need to keep it in context of the campaign, otherwise it might cause unnecessary turbulence if you have a horny teenager punching the clothes off people.
Mechanically, the Bladebound Magus is probably your best bet, with the Knuckle Axe. You can gain proficiency however you choose, either through the half-elf alternate racial trait or with the Kensai Magus archetype. I would opt for half-elf which would allow you to wear dragon-plate armor and still cast spells, which you wouldn't be able to do as a Kensai Magus. Additionally, a STR build would fit Issei more than a DEX build, which also goes counter to the Kensai Magus a bit.
Need to BOOSTO? Buff spells. Issei takes time to BOOSTO up to more power; it takes time to apply all your buff spells. Mechanically it matches the aspect of taking time to power up before fighting like Issei does.
Need to strip enemies? Sunder and debuff spells. Sunder specifically lets you strip your enemies of weapons, armor, etc, which is close enough to Issei's more perverted application of defense stripping. Debuffs are also always useful to you and your allies.
Overall, your Issei pathfinder equivalent could be an Intelligent Knuckle Axe wielding Bladebound Magus who buffs himself with crazy strength and proceeds to sunder and dispel an enemies defenses until they are naked and defenseless.
Two things I completely forgot about were the Eldritch Heritage feat line with the Draconic Bloodline and the Dragon Disciple archetype if you wanted to go more dragon for Issei. The Eldritch Heritage route is much easier and allows you to remain a full Magus while still giving you some fun dragon stuff. The Dragon Disciple route gives you some other cool things, however you lose out on a lot of Magus stuff for a while. If I were to go the Dragon Disciple route, I would do it as follows :
Dragon Disciple Route:
Magus 5 / Sorcerer 1 / Magus 1 / Dragon Disciple 10 / Magus or Sorcerer
Using Bladebound Magus and Draconic Bloodline for Sorcerer
Now, why Magus 6 or 9 rather than Magus 4 prior to Dragon Disciple? A bladebound Magus doesn't get arcana until level 6, and the Broad Study arcana isn't available until level Magus 6 which will allow you to use spells that are on the Sorcerer list but not Magus list with Spell Combat and Spellstrike. If you go all the way to Magus 9 you get Improved Spell Combat, casting in Medium Armor (which lets you cast in mithril heavy), and access to other arcana.
You take 1 level of Sorcerer (draconic bloodline of course) prior to the 6th level of Magus, and then start taking levels in Dragon Disciple, putting the gained caster levels into sorcerer casting. If the spontaneous casting isn't your thing, you can focus on Magus spells instead. This will determine whether you want to focus on Int, Cha, or a balance of the two. Int powers your Magus stuff, but Cha powers your dragon stuff.
One thing to note is the Black Blade will be stuck at a +2 enhancement if you only go to Magus 6 (or +3 if 9). It's not possible to enhance it via crafting, but other ways to add enhancement bonuses to weapons should be able to raise the bonus (using your arcane pool can raise it up to a total of +4; +2 base and +2 using pool)
Another thing to note is you can take the Kensai archetype as well which will prevent any and all arcane spell failure chance for both spell lists. It will also give you proficiency in your Knuckle Axe, which opens up race options. The Broad Study arcana is still vital to this build.
For spells a Magus 4 / Sorc 1 / Magus 1 / DD 10 / (Magus or Sorc) will have a wide variety of mostly low level spells. If you go with Magus 6 and the rest for Sorc spell levels, you'll have 2nd level Magus spells and 5th level Sorcerer spells. If you go with Magus 9 and Sorc 1 / DD 10 towards sorcerer, you'll have 3rd level Magus spells and 4th level Sorcerer spells. If you dedicate the Dragon Disciple caster levels to magus, you'll have 6th level Magus spells and 1st level Sorcerer spells.
General 20 point buy I would go 16/14/12/14/8/14 with the +2 racial towards strength.
There are a lot of options in this route, but the key points are having 6 levels of Magus for Broad Study Arcana and Kensai preventing any arcane spell failure from either spell list. Outside this you can build however you wish to fit Issei.
Build Details
1 - Bladebound Magus 1 : Intensify Spell, (extra if human)
1 - if Kensai, Weapon Focus (Knuckle Axe); if not, half-elf for proficiency in (Knuckle Axe)
2 - Magus 2 :
3 - Magus 3 : Black Blade (Knuckle Axe), some feat you want
4 - Magus 4 :
5 - Magus 5 : Bonus feat, any other feat
6 - Sorcerer 1 : Draconic Bloodline, Eschew Materials (bonus feat), any other feat
7 - Magus 6 : Magus Arcana Broad Study, some feat
8 - Dragon Disciple 1 : dragon stuff
...etc
Full Bladebound Magus with the Eldritch Heritage feats is just as potent, and doesn't trade away any of the Magus's black blade strengths and progression.
Eldritch Heritage Route:
There are a couple options here, but it's mostly a straight magus build. A few things to note though is it requires a much higher Cha score to get all the Eldritch Heritage feats (17 Cha by level 17, 15 Cha by level 11, 13 Cha at level 3), which isn't a terrible problem. You need Skill Focus : Perception, which is useful in it's own right. As a half-elf you get it for free, or you can trade it for that exotic weapon proficiency you'll need for the Knuckle Axe.
In this route the Kensai build still lends itself very well, but functions better with a finesse build (which is doable but possibly not the way you'd want to go). You'll get the exotic weapon proficiency for free and weapon focus in it, but you will not be able to wear dragon-plate armor, which is a bummer. You'll also need to pump your Int to take advantage of the Canny Defense class feature, but that hurts your Cha towards the Eldritch Heritage feat line. Also, a finesse build won't function as well as a strength build if you want to go towards sundering things.
Another thing to note is the Hexcrafter archetype, which doesn't really take anything away, but gives you hexes, which can be incredibly useful. You trade out spell recall, but both options are great.
You could build as follows :
Same 20pb stat spread of 16/14/12/14/8/14
Half-elf Bladebound Magus (alternate racial trait for Knuckle Axe proficiency)
1 : Skill Focus (perception)
3 : Eldritch Heritage (draconic bloodline)
5 : Intensify Spell, Weapon Focus (Knuckle Axe) bonus feat
7 : Power Attack
9 : Improved Sunder
11 : Improved Eldritch Heritage (dragon resistances), Greater Sunder
13 : Improved Eldritch Heritage (breath weapon) or something else
15 :
17 : Greater Eldritch Heritage (wings), Greater Weapon Focus bonus feat
19 :
Again, lots of flexibility if you want, but the key being the Eldritch Heritage line for dragon stuff and the Knuckle Axe as your intelligent weapon.
Yeah, Dragonic Bloodline Bloodrager into Dragon Disciple would work for what he's going for. Maybe take the Eldritch Heritage feat for the Infernal or Abyssal bloodline.
Remember, Scale Mail already comes with Gauntlets included.
