Min/Max Boards

The tutorial angle was actually the main reason I intended to start her off in a school. Something like a bard college, but a bit more broad in subject matter.  It would be a credible source of peers of similar level, as well as some higher-level NPCs that can help out but aren't available as adventuring companions, but the main point is to serve a tutorial function.  Why sit through a boring OOC explanation of stuff like high ground advantage, difficult terrain, balancing in combat, and cover bonuses to AC, when you could have a colourful lecture, participate in a practical demonstration, and pick up a little XP from a darkrunner guest professor teaching terrain advantage in Combat Tactics 101?

From what she's said to me on the subject, I think she wants to play a simple kick-in-the-door style game, at least at first. I think I'm going to build a war blade with her for her first PC. I thought about barbarian, but war blade scales up better and doesn't necessarily rely so much on charging.

I have already explained to her that fluff is mutable and sometimes lies. I've also told her any class undergoing major revision is NPC-only until I get its balance where I want it and can stop making adjustments. She seems OK with that.

I have someone here who doesn't play RPGs and would like to learn about D&D.  I don't know any other local players, so I'm thinking of running a solo D&D 3.5 campaign for her.  I've played plenty but not been in the DM seat before, and it's been a long time since I even played, so I've been second-guessing myself a lot.

I intend to implement some house rules. I want to provide her with a little more power and flexibility because she'll be the only PC, without increasing complexity too much; I also want to work in a couple of ideas I've often thought would be cool whether or not they're relevant to the newbie. I'd like to get the input of some more experienced players on these.

• Experience penalties for imbalanced multiclassing are out completely.
• The PC and important NPCs (anything that uses PC instead of NPC classes) take their first 3 levels as gestalt levels.  The gestalt levels must be used on their race's favored class or their racial paragon class (if any), and may be mixed and matched as the player desires.
• Class alignment and behavior restrictions are waived, for free gestalt levels only (e.g. an aasimar's first 3 paladin levels don't require lawful good alignment nor adherence to the class code of conduct, Paladin 4 and beyond do require appropriate paladin standards).
• Martial stances and maneuvers have no prerequisites except (indirectly) initiator level.
• The Artificer class does not exist.
• The PC and all suitable NPCs (students and staff of the school I'm going to use as the starting area and hub for early adventures) get the effect of the Education feat for free.  They don't get the feat itself, to avoid dark chaos feat shuffle exploits later on.
• Constitution has a slightly increased impact on remaining alive.  Death by hp damage occurs at negative hp equal to the dying character's Con score, not -10.  A character's Con mod (only if positive) applies to their rate of natural healing (e.g. a character with a Con score of 14 heals 1+2 hp/level with a full night's rest).
• Behaviour begets alignment, not the other way around.  This mainly to give undead and undead-using characters a greater range of possible alignments.
• Barbarians gain DR 1/-- at every class level.
• Fighters gain a bonus feat at every level, and are proficient with all exotic weapons, armor and shields.  Fighter bonus feats may be spent on directly combat-related feats even if they aren't tagged as fighter bonus feats (e.g. a razorclaw shifter fighter could take Improved Natural Weapon [Claws] with a fighter bonus feat).
• Dragon Shamans get a major overhaul, to be elaborated upon when I have time to write it up (gotta go to work now).

I've got a little time now.

What we already have, as the DM put it, is "a wizard, a druid, and a minigun."  Fairly decent potential for all of them, but both the spellcasters are very inexperienced, and the shooter is deliberately fairly one-dimensional so as not to step on other players' toes.  Another player was expected to serve as eyes and ears and front line warrior, but that didn't work out.

The wizard is clever enough to be flying and/or invisible for tough fights, but then he makes battlefield control decisions like placing stinking cloud as an instant barrier between the PCs and enemies who have already demonstrated a penchant for stealth, losing them for us.  He's only got so many spells per day to go around, anyway.  No significant lasting defensive options, so if he suffers a surprise round or loses initiative, he just plain loses.

The druid's animal companion (and to a lesser extent the druid) get smashed by ranged attacks before they can do much of anything, and then they're left too brittle to do much more than whimper after they or the enemies close to melee range.  Fortunately, the druid has some cure light and lesser vigor sticks, rather than wasting prepared spell slots on healing.  Unfortunately, the wands are typically in extradimensional space and wild shape melded out of availability like the rest of her crap when she needs 'em.

The minigun can take care of himself when opponents close with him.  He lacks the reach, special attack options, and infliction of status conditions to effectively restrain or otherwise delay enemies that would prefer to pass him by and go after the spellcasters.  He is so much more effective at medium to long range that melee combat is a reluctant last resort for him; martial maneuvers see very little use as a result.

Nobody has much in the way of ability to notice things at a distance (or even pretty nearby, if they're good at going unnoticed).  I think the best Spot and Listen modifiers in the gang are +6 each.  So far we've managed to find one invisible enemy through blind luck, noticing that weeds and vines from an entangle spell were wrapped around something that wasn't there.

We're playing Red Hand of Doom, and while we'd like to avoid spoilers, early indications are that we can safely assume nearly all of the region is behind enemy lines... I'd like to have sense options that are working all the time, not only when I know I need them and can spare limited resources such as spell slots or magic item uses.  I would prefer to not use a druid, or to use one so dramatically different from the one we already have that she won't feel redundant and become resentful.

Other criteria such as not passing through a space occupied by another creature?

No idea, but it sounds like yet another reason Mindsight is badass, and Scent is nice.

You can also just run with it when the players do something unexpected (even something minor), and people seem to react well to it.  Some of the best PC-initiated, long-term drama and motivation I've ever seen started with one PC becoming attached to a random expendable NPC, retrieving her corpse after her purpose was served and she was thrown away, and bullying the party divine caster to bring her back to life.  DM balked at first (divine caster was a NPC), but eventually decided to quit resisting and start incorporating.  He fleshed out the throwaway NPC, developed a more complete backstory and attitude for it, and found it a place in the world... that NPC wound up being good for three or four years of stories, plot twists and mind screws, serving duties as party member, surprise traitor, love interest, incitement for rivalry and riot*, quest macguffin, and supervillain.  Not bad for what started off as a joke by one player, and then him getting sulky and stubborn when his toy was broken.

*: BTW, if you need some terrain rearranged without heavy duty spells like move earth, provide an opportunity for a lycanthrope frenzied berserker and a roughly young adult true dragon to fight over a woman.  You might wind up with a crater where a town used to be.

So, you don't care about overall power, you don't care about balance, you care about "free" and you've already made up your mind, even when it's pointed out that your definition is warped at best.

What was the point of making this thread again?

Seems like it would be pointless to try to do it with Superior Unarmed Strike, since that feat just sets your damage to a specific value (well, range of values) within a progression, and one that's pretty crappy compared to the base damage the crossbow already has.  You might be able to get away with plugging in feats like Improved Natural Attack since that just kicks your damage up by one step regardless of what it currently is.  Hmmm... throwing in INA (bite) and Great Bite might be amusing, if it works.

Actually now I'm tempted to try to get my character killed and reincarnated as a shifter just to pick up Great Bite at 9th level.  Crit 15-20/x3 on a build like that would be nasty even staying with the 2d8 base damage.

No, single class only is a dealbreaker.  I'll put up with restrictions like that for something quick and simple like Arkham Horror, but not in a RPG.  It's too much time and effort to learn a new RPG system, to be putting up with nonsense like that.  Worse, it completely shatters my suspension of disbelief for a person to be locked into one path like that, not least because you couldn't make RL me without some heavy multiclassing.