Min/Max Boards

Theribault Haberdasher

So, one of my GMs decided to split his game time slot with another GM, giving me two games on Saturday. Yeah, for some reason most of the GMs I have been playing with all decided about the same time to do a new game, but for this new game, I decided to go down the lines of a new class, The Mesmerist.


I'm quite in love with this class already, as its allowing me to rather easily revive an old character I played in Call of Chuthulu who was one of the most powerful combatants I've played in CoC, without ever having a weapon. As it turned out, in CoC hypnotism was very effective for dealing with zombies or crazy people.

And now I get to play him here again! Much joy I feel!

But lets get down to brass tacks and pocket watches. What to really do with the character? We're starting at level 1, and after debate between human and unicorn, I have human winning out. Particularly because of Ready for Battle and a few of the stare feats.

The first trick I'm planning on is Shadow Splitter due to the trick's ability to make it so we don't die, as I do put a favor on not dieing.

At third level, I'm taking Disorientation for my Bold stare, as this one here also helps in us not dieing. At 7th level, Psychic Inception as then I should be running into more things immune to mental effects.

Beyond that, I'm not entirely sure where to go with it. I'm working to be a mitigation type supporter, who helps the entire party not die, and do want to take somethings to help heal after, as we currently don't have a more healy healer. (Treat Deadly Wounds and UMD are on my list of things to help with this. ) 

Some other ideas that have been floating around in my head is characters who have the ability to acquire some rather powerful immunities.

Following  Mettle, I'd use Steadfast Determination to follow it up, giving me a single stat for both, and the ability to ignore the rolls of 1s on fort saves.

So I'm wondering how good mettle is, as this is also on my list and much of the reason for this.  Clearly the Hexblade is the fastest way, but is it the best way?.

On Wednesdays I play a pathfinder game with a few people, where I've elected to play the martial guy, the fighter. But rather than go the typical "I like swords" route, I decided to focus him down the ways of dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

Therin Dasher

First a few questions about him -

Why did I not go cad or the new dirty fighter archetype for orcs in Advance race guide? Well, beyond the first most obvious thing, (That being the Martial Master Archetype is incompatable) the two archetypes do very little in all honesty.

Dirty fighter really just make it so you can do dirty tricks a little faster, and then impose an extra condition. Its.. okay. but due to Dirty Tactics, we've got a whole slew of new things for dirty tricks. Oh and speedy Tricks is easily replaced with Quick Dirty Trick.

Cad suffers from the same situation. At least they slowly get better at dirty trick maneuvers, along with disarm and Steal. But in reality, only dirty trick is useful for almost anything. If you're fighting a bear, it neither has something to disarm or steal.

Lore Warden on the other hand, is absolutely wonderful for any combat maneuver. Even resisting combat maneuvers. I mean, +8 on all maneuvers? Before my feats? Okay sure, its level 15 we get that full bonus. But still, We're talking 28 base CMB at level 20.

We get more skill points, resulting in more ability to do things, and all Int based skills are now class based skills. Oh did I mention that you can up that CMB even higher? With know thy enemy, we could add another +2 on the targets we need to take on.



The Skinny of the character

Martial Flexibility is just absolutely awesome to me. Being able to pick up any feat, at any time, for even just a minute, its perfect. That being said, the character's design started with the Dirty Tactics book and the Feat Dirty Fighting.  Here we've got the ability to pretend we have 13 in, 13 wis, improved unarmed strike and combat expertise. Thats great stuff there, even If I'm not really taking advantage of it. What I am taking advantage of is the flanking aspect of the feat.

Getting this, practically gives you improved (combat maneuver), but only if you're getting flanking bonuses and decide to sacrifice that. It gets even better when you do have it, as the feat doubles the flanking bonus. Plus you get the +2 from the ICM feat. The madness just keeps getting better, as I've found a few other feats that really help you a lot.

Namely Gang Up and Press to the Wall And suddenly the amount of opportunities to fight enemies with a flanking bonus increase. Fighting in a 5 foot wide hallway? Well, with Gang up and Press to the Wall, you now are flanking anyone who comes into melee with you.

With a stamina pool as well, could make single square taking up immobile objects into a proper flank buddy when needed, even if I can't get that angle just right.


I'm looking for some more ways of fighting dirty too. I've got all kinds of gear on the guy, arrow tubes to shoot the enemy from surprise, eventually going to get boot blades and other surprise weapons too.

I'm working on a character for mutants and masterminds who's suppose to be the party's tech guy.

Using a little inspiration from Heavenly Nostrils, I came up with the idea of a unicorn (humanoid) who has the ability to access wifi via his horn. He designed technology to create wifi in a technological format.

So he's got access to dozens of banks of information (Kinda like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes) that he can pull up rather rapidly.  He can also manipulate other computer systems, and the like. Combat, he's kinda lacking, not being too super hero there. But he's very much Mal or Han in that regard and would be using social skills in combat often.

The problem being of course the system is rather new to me, and I need help making sure I make an effective character. The one person in our group I talked to is far more a 'serious hero' type guy, and seems to be focused a lot more in how I can punch bad people, Or just assuming that I'm simply just a living hot spot. (Rather than the creator of wireless internet, or at least very close to that guy)

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=29130

Thats my sheet.

Carebear syndrome - This power is basically the thing that makes it so people don't freak out that I'm a walking talking unicorn man. Based off the Carebear movie where the bears go down to earth and talk to people and no one even so much bats an eye. Happens a lot of times in comics and movies and such where you have not-humans suddenly interacting with humans, and the humans just act as if its normal.

Okay, this is going to be a bit of complaining and weirdness. I'm not a guy who goes around correcting people on the correct pronunciation on Japanese words, nor do I give really too ships about what is real and what is myth. Until someone does it to me, then I awake and move.

Our DM is one of these people though, as talking to him about trying to play my character I'm constantly getting corrected.

Originally we were going to play an OA game, but we had a GM who was these guys who hates western ignorance when dealing with the orient, and has taken the PHBI (for 3.5 ) and OA book, and crossed out any class he didn't think was Japanese enough, or was too much of a western bastardization.

So we were left with Barbarian, Samurai, Shoei, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Ranger, Shaman, Divination Wizard (You have to take divination specialization to play wizard)

Apparently using magic from within can only come from the Shaman if you're one of the spirit types (Yokai/Hengeyokai) and that the central list is a representation of that, because if you're using magic from within as a spirit type, you are automatically using divine magic because spirits are divine or something. Also sorcerer isn't allowed because there is a stigmata against them.

Races we are only allowed to be Human, Yokai (spirit folk) or Hengeyokai. Everything else isn't allowed cause there isn't any stories in historic Japanese lit. Or like the  Korobokuru , isn't allowed to be played because of a heavy enforcement of folklore saying that they freak out when humans see them.


Now the kerfluffle comes from the character I chose to make after having all my more fun ideas shot down because they didn't follow folklore enough or something.

Basically, I say the Shaman is an Onmyoji, and I'm playing a character named Abe no Seimei. (Which I got corrected over and over and over again, laughed at the first time i said his name.) I've taken divination domain and knowledge domain. I've been doing lots of research and see one thing keep popping up over and over and over again.. Which is the use of spirits, something the shaman class uses a lot.

He however focused on Divination aspect, ignoring pretty much everything else and claiming that they are using real magic, and that detection magic is enough for the ability to see spirits.


So, What do you guys think on it? At this point I'm ready to just play a human fighter named Yamada and make him as generic as possible if I'm even going to play.

Working on a character as a silent protest to having the npc array as our stats. Fight the powa and all that. Character's name is Ted, and his absolutely pathetic. (Took the flaw )

Stat array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.
Level is 10
Currently assume all wizard of the coast books are available.

How can we max/min the character while not outright just gimping him?

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=838250

Thats what I have so far, nearly done with it all. I plan on going into Warshaper and the like, and am quite certain this group would develop into epic levels again.

We're using the UA defense bonus thing, that doesn't stack with armor bonus, but is used for touch attacks or some rather confusing things honestly.

I've got to build a level 25 character for a game this saturday.

So far the information I have is that we'll be on a pirate ship ran by a player's Dread Pirate. There is also a Monk, a necromancer (I think cleric) and some more clerics.

In the world there is only 10 dragons, and half-breeds are taboo (so forbidden )

Direct melee combat seems pretty take care of. Magic item creation and being a mother bucking sorcerer isn't. (Or wizard or warlock.)

The DM is somewhat open to things.. Possibly If I make a good argument for it, even if I can't play my favorite race, Lupin.

So basically how should I go about making this guy? I've never made anything past 12.

Oh, we have a stat array to begin with of 15, 14, 13,12, 10, 8


Ideas I've gotten so far..


Battle Sorcerer + Master of the Unseen Hand - Specs in the the use of a ring of Telekinesis to bash enemies to itty bitty bits. Could also be an artificer instead, possibly, to make the crafting so much easier and be able to enchant the weapons. If is a sorc, also uses whirling blade and a few others.

"God" wizard - I don't have the PrCs this guy would use if any. He's not a god because he can deal with everything, he's a god wizard because he creates his own race and plane and the like. Looking for more rules on how to create your own world.

Warlock - No PrCs on this guy yet either. Just 25 levels of pure warlock badassery, using the web supplement


I'd love to be able to do a shapeshifting mage of some kind, provided I could cast spell while shapeshifting.

I'm getting ready to do an Ironclaw campaign here soon on tuesdays, and as I'm a hardcore fan of making stuff up, I'm rejecting their realty and substituting my own. In otherwords I'm homebrewing a campaign myself.

The Idea is that its a steampunked world (well truthfully, more of an Arcanapunk as things are powered with magic, not steam) and the PCs are going for making an airship or something along those lines. Early on, I'm probably going to railroad a bit, as its a new system for me and for them, but later I want to give them nearly open freedom.

IS there anyone familiar with the system here? I could use some explanations of combat or any other homebrew stuff people might have come up with. (This is squaring the circle btw, or IC 2.0)

Or perhaps people who could come up with little tidbits for the city the PCs are in.. Ishanra. Basically its a port city with airships coming in and out and a huge criminal element. Pirates are very common and its one of the cities that celebrates pirates rather than runs them out. The Mayor (don't have a name or race for him yet) was a pirate before becoming the mayor.

A friend of mine is finally getting back to running his campaign... problem is I lost my character when my flash drive crashed and the papers went missing over the several months of hiatus. Fortantly I'm not the only one, and so several of us will be making new characters except for our kobold druid and our ??? bard ( I forget her race, probably human.)

So I'm looking for ideas of characters, not builds that are completely optimized into slaying everything.. but ones that are actually kinda fun to play.. We get to start at level 4.. So I'm trying to make the character fun at that level and progressivally get cooler.
Some ideas I have so far..

1. Jedi Knight
Monk, Battle Sorc, Enlightened Fist.
Has a Ki longsword.
Spell I know are Burning hands (If DM lets me, I will make it lighting elemental.) Hurl, Suggestion, Mage hand, greater mage hand, Jump.. etc.


2. Poltergeist Mage
Battle Sorc, Duskblade EK
Uses a number of magics to cause his weapons to "dance". (by dance, I mean like the enchantment. There is a number of spells that allow this, but some are weaker than others)

3. Illusion Knight
Battle Sorc? Duskblade? EK?
I'm not sure how to do this one, but uses things such as silent image, mirror image and the like to confuse his enemies, granting him flanking bonuses.

4. TECHNOVIKING!!!
Battle Dancer/Barbarian
I'm not sure where to go with this.. But I'd totally be punching people in the face while dancing to our bards music. (I actually don't see much of a reason to MC into barb though..)

Now, I typically only play humans or as allowed, Lupin (see dragon compendium for this humanish-dog race) and we are not allowed to do anything with LA. Could do Homebrew if I get the green light on it though for race.. not so much for classes.

Any ideas on mine, or new ones? I'm always looking for ways to play new PrCs i've never played before.

And Yes, I am open to new ideas.. I just don't want to play an elf and I can't play bard (as the player who is playing bard doesn't like people picking the same class as her too much.)