Hello again, everyone. I hope your days are going well.
Lately, I've been flip-flopping like a madman between all my class ideas; a synthesist summoner with an angelic eidolon, a bard noble who is running away from home to avoid an assassination attempt, a monk who I couldn't decide would be a master of many forms, a drunken master, or martial artist... and then I stumbled upon the idea of being a Storm Druid/Storm Kindler (Master of Storms PrC). I REALLY like this idea and I love how the abilities of the Storm Kindler work later on, so I REALLY don't want to flip-flop away from this idea. Only thing is, I can't seem to come up with an ability score placement that I actually agree on.
Looking at the abilities of the Storm Kindler and whatnot, it seems I'll likely be some form of blasty-caster/controller mix. So Wisdom is a definite must. I kind of wanted a LITTLE bit of strength, just to make it so my carrying capacity wasn't cripplingly low, and maybe up the damage of the storm shape ability later on (Although minorly). Intelligence seems to be the least important for me. Dexterity, I figured, should be 14 or so, so I don't die terribly. A Con of 12 SHOULD work, and can be circumvented with favored class bonuses or toughness feat if need be. Was almost thinking of being the human type with different racial abilities to get rid of the bonus feat and skill point for an additional +2 to an ability score, but I don't know if the feat and skill loss would ruin me or not. I have played a character who used this racial ability before and it actually worked to great effect.
The campaign is using a 20-point buy system, core races only. (So no Advanced Race Guide ones). Anyone got any suggestions on how they would do it? I'm not meaning to be so... "Help! Help!" but I just really want to hear opinions on placements and such so I can kind of get an outside point of view on things.
Much appreciated :)
Good point. Not trying to fulfill any role like the face of the party as far as I can tell. The other characters in the party so far:
A ninja that is good with shortbows. Kind of just the skill-monkey for traps and the stealthy scouting stuff.
A wizard that is going to also be doing storm-based stuff. We're going to work as a team to cause severe storm-based things without the party being affected.
So far, seems to be no face of the party. But I was going to be a blaster caster, with control as well as some healing if need be.
If I calculate that properly... Especially PRE-race... That's ... 35 points. 15 points over the 20 point buy requirement I noted.
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I must not understand how 20pt buys work. How do you do one? My roommate is going to be mad that I'm on his account...
18- 17points
17- 13 points16- 10 points
15- 7 points
14- 5 points
13- 3 points
12- 2 points
11- 1 point
10- 0
9- -1 point
8- -2 points
7- -4 points
On to the thread. One thing I will add, if you're going a caster druid, get the menhir savant archetype. It sacrifices so little for so much.
EDIT: the storm druid archetype and menhir savant don't stack. You can still flavor the druid and go into the PrC. I see very little of actual value in the archetype, though the fog sight is nice. Another thing to look at is the Sky Druid archetype for Sylphs from the ARG.
I get:
Cost \ Ability (Before race mods)
5 \ Str 14
5 \ Dex 14
2 \ Con 12
0 \ Int 10
10 \ Wis 16
-2 \ Cha 8
Then play any race that can give you a bonus to wis.
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I would consider two options as a Dwarf (to go human just CON -2 and CHA +2):
No Drawbacks
STR: 16
DEX: 12
CON: 14
INT: 10
WIS: 16
CHA: 9
More Min-Maxed
STR: 16
DEX: 12
CON: 14
INT: 10
WIS: 18
CHA: 5
These two builds focus heavily around WIS and STR.
STR: A high STR gives you a great +hit and adds some nice +dmg to your melee attacks. In addition to adding damage to your PRC ability, it also increases the save which is key to it being able to do any damage at all. I would focus on belt increases here before DEX or CON.
DEX: You have the ability to wear medium armor, so I would get Lamellar (Horn) which is armor made from animal horns, so it does not cause you to lose your spellcasting and is the highest base AC you can get in armor outside of ironwood stuff. After adding your DEX, you would have a 16 AC which is respectable for a caster druid. Your moderate AC and good CON would allow you to use stuff like Shillelagh for your first few levels to get into melee and beat things up with the ninja.
CON: This is a great CON for a caster and an ok CON for a melee combatant. You will be able to take a few hits and your Fort save will have a nice bump.
INT: Nothing special
WIS: At 16 or 18, you are on par with most druid casters. You talk about wanting to be a storm-based blaster/controller and also having your wizard do the same. If you are going to do this, work out a schtick beforehand, otherwise you might make each other frustrated at trying to do the same thing. There are only so many storm-like abilities and if you both are stocking up, then you will likely overlap. Also, don't forget that you will have melee combatants. Try to figure out someway to do your storm-based activities without putting them smack in the middle of it. Obviously, headbands should be for Wisdom.
CHA: Your charisma is going to be low, but you aren't trying to win over the townsfolk. If you completely tank your CHA, then you can play that up in your roleplaying. To make up for an abysmal CHA, you can always sink skill points into Diplomacy if you feel the need to be the diplomat of the party, but you probably should worry about other skills first.
Damn. This really makes me have to think about a lot of stuff... A lot of you seemed to put quite a fair amount into strength as well. For some reason, I don't really enjoy playing Dwarves that much. XD As racist as that sounds, their character-type isn't my style at all.
I was fiddling around with ability point set-ups last night and kind of came up with:
Str 10 (0)
Dex 16 (10)
Con 13 (3)
Int 12 (2)
Wis 15 (7)
Cha 8 (-2)
Was contemplating going Half-Elf or Human to up my Wisdom to 17. I'd mostly specialize in the casting, possibly using a ranged weapon, and having lighter armor.
Everyone seems to agree on using Cha as a pure dump-stat. Which is fine with me. For some reason it always bugs me to be worse at using the Wild Empathy ability. But then again, my character isn't really going animal-based, but more weather-based. Though everyone seems to recommend lower dex, and higher strength.
Opinions on my set-up? Or is it inevitably going to be super-squishy and too specialized?
lol that's okay. Well, the casting stat was going to start out as a 15 because I was intending to use my racial adjustment to bring it up to 17, then at level 4 round it out to 18.
Yeah, I was just going over it in my head. I don't care as much for dex, I think it's just a habit of mine from playing too many dex-based characters. I'm thinking I'd prefer to have a 14 str and 14 dex rather than a 16 dex. Much better all around.
Oh, just because we already have an arcane caster. We need someone capable of casting healing spells. And I like druids in general. Kinda just fits my idea of the storm-based nature freak :)
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The reason that you need Strength is because the key ability of the prestige class that you are going for is based entirely on Strength.
With your build as posted, when you can first get Storm Shape, your save on Whirlwind will be 12. The average monster's Reflex save at level 8 is 9, which means that the monster only has to roll a 3 or higher to save against the whole reason for your build.
Your Whirlwind will have a Reflex save of 20 on Whirlwind at level 16 (upon reaching 10 levels of Master of Storms). The average monster's Reflex save at level 16 is 16.5. This means that with +0 to Str then your whirlwind will do nothing if the monsters roll a 4 or higher.
Now, if you start with my recommended build, put your level ups in Strength and get a belt of Strength you will raise these saves by approximately 6 at level 8 and by 8 at level 16. This will give you a ~50% chance to land your Whirlwind ability, compared to the 20% chance you have with 0 Strength.
Additionally, you will have (ideally) a 26 Strength at level 16 which translates to an additional 8 damage with every whirlwind hit.
If you don't want to be a Strength hitter, then I would not recommend the Master of Storms PrC.
I guess I'll lower the Dex to 14. So it seems my set-up will look somewhere around:
14 Str
14 Dex
12 Con
12 Int
16 Wis
7 Cha
Then will put the +2 into Wisdom, bringing it up to 18.
Seems like a pretty good set-up. I won't be the face of the party, so the lower Charisma isn't really that big a drawback. Works with my backstory too that I am VERY withdrawn from humanity. So I am ridiculous amounts of shy and socially retarded.
Question: When my whirlwind ability gets to the Huge phase, does that make my Strength go up as if my size went up as well or no?
*BUMP-DATE*
So, in the end, with stat adjustment due to racial, I came up with:
14 Str
14 Dex
12 Con
12 Int
18 Wis
7 Cha
Seems pretty legit to me. Gives me a pretty good balance. Took Rich Parents (Which my GM changed to "Great Find" to make sense) so I got Horn Lamellar Armor, and a Glider to do my plan of putting ranks in Fly at level 1.
Only weird thing is that I'm kinda thinking of using a Sickle and a Light Wooden Shield. I just... for some reason have a problem seeing a druid using a shield and sickle like that. But it's kinda better than the alternative of using a quarterstaff and getting 1d6 + 3 damage, as opposed to 1d6 + 2 damage, and +1 AC for the shield (that can be enchanted later on). It's kind of a funky idea though.
I think the buckler is metal (from what I read) so that one is out. Though maybe the light wooden shield and scimitar then.
Also kinda contemplating a scythe, because I never have any real convenient opportunities to use that too.