So, in my current Skull and Shackles game, we have captured and enslaved a few grindylows, using the old carrot-and-stick approach to train them to be effective crew members on our ship (essentially offering them the "feast" of every single dead body we create in ship-to-ship combat). A few have run away, but we've put enough fear into them by slaughtering their queen and love into 'em by gorging them on dead bodies to keep a handful living in the bilges and coming out to scuttle enemy ships or jam their rudders or other such things.
I off-handedly asked the GM today if my character died if my new character could be one of the grindylows, to which he replied, laughing and clearly pleased with the idea, yes.
Since we have had quite a few deaths of late, preparing with a backup character has been par for the course with this game.
Considering a single grindylow with no class levels managed to totally turn one our ship-to-ship combat around today by jetting to the enemy ship in a single round and jamming their rudder up with lucky rolls in an untrained disable device, I wanna design a bugger who is good at that kinda stuff. I also wanna take advantage of their natural abilities.
Let's look at what we've got...small size, +2 str, +4 dex, +2 con, -2 int, -2 cha, racial +4 stealth (not to mention size bonus), racial +8 swim, amphibious, and tangling tentacles. Overall it's pretty darn powerful.
I'm not interested in making a full-caster out of this. A full caster can be powerful regardless of race; it doesn't really seem to harness their abilities.
I think a ninja would be awesome mechanically, but outright silly flavor-wise, and I would rather not play a ninja and call it something else. Besides, the hit to cha would inhibit that a bit.
So, I'm thinking either rogue, inquisitor (maybe sanctified slayer?), slayer, or some other sneaky stabby guy. I have a leaning to inquisitor because 1. I've never played one, 2. my current character is an antipaladin of Besmara and training a glindylow to be an inquisitor of the pirate goddess would totally be in his M.O., and 3. I hear good things about the sanctified slayer archetype.
I'm not against other options, though, and would love to hear what you think a glindylow would be good at.
Also, I wonder about the direction to go with feats, etc. It seems it would be nice to somehow get improved/greater trip, but that would involve a 15 pre-racial adjustments, and we've only got a 15-point buy...
I think you have the right idea with the Slayer, sounds perfect to me. It's technically possible for you to pick up Improved and Greater Trip with a Ranger Combat Style at 6th and 10th level... but that's the one that requires you worship Calistria. Ask your GM if you can waive the deity requirement if you'd rather stick to Besmara with the new character.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I favor slayer over rogue or inquisitor. Mainly due to the higher BAB...makes tripping regularly a valid option.
Arachnofiend, what book has the deity-specific ranger combat styles? I definitely would like to be able to pick up improved and greater trip...though now that I think about it, I wonder if it's really worth dumping two feats into. I mean, I get swift action no-provoke tripping for free, so Imp. Trip is kinda a wasted feat when you think about it. Greater is pretty situational, isn't it?