Min/Max Boards

haha, as do I, but this is only my second time making one and the first one was, while still being craft focused, meant to be noticeable in combat. The cost reduction definitely helps and I will be definitely be putting my feats towards crafting, decreasing cost, and decreasing exp cost wherever I can. I'll probably looking into using souls as exp off sets even with the chances of cursed weapons.

I had considered Hexblade, but the only things I really like about are the Dark Companion alternate class feature and the full BAB. It is looking my best option so far though as I want to be able to get to Blackguard as fast as possible.

OK, so, as some of you may have noticed by now I tend to do mostly 3.5e Gestalt campaigns. This is for multiple reasons the least of which not being that my group likes to run high powered games and is generally only 3 people. Since I don't post that much a little background for me GMs general rules.

• MOST Dragon Magazine is OK
• This is a Gestalt campaign
• Homebrew will be considered but anything that isn't incredibly clear on how it works will not be allowed
• 3.0 content and pathfinder content that don't have a 3.5 version can be used as their versions when equivalence is possible
• anti-magic = anti-psionic and vice versa. If one is nulled so is the other

Overall there aren't many restrictions and he will work to get most any concept to at least work somewhat.

For this campaign we will have a stealth based sneak attack fighter that is focused on mentally breaking "mary sue" characters. A psionic character with a deep crystal Greatsword that revolves around burst damage from gaining and releasing his psionic focus and nova'ing in dire situations. There there is my character which will be a Artificer/something with the something eventually becoming Blackguard. The campaign revolves around our 3 (evil aligned) characters gathering the things we need to spring up an evil castle overnight (so several earth elementals, binding storm elementals, the lyre of building (maybe) etc etc.) from then on it is just us trying to defend our new home from invading paladins and do-gooders.

My role:

Craft for the party. My DM knows that this will be a focus and doesn't really expect me to have much combat presence. I plan on having several dedicated wrights and any other construct or homunculus that will help me to build faster and more continually. That being said I'm probably looking at the buffificer build for any combat that I have to be a part of.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the base class to take into Blackguard and/or ways I can speed up/improve crafting? I'm looking at both mundane and magical items, but have been reassured I shouldn't have a shortage of magical gear to reclaim essence from.

Hello!,

So, it has been awhile since my last visit, but I've hit another bump in the road. I'm facing the potential of my small gaming group of about 4 people being split into two groups of 2 people roughly an hour and a half apart by car. Because of this we are looking into doing sessions via Skype or Google Hangout, but this leaves the problem of how to have a viewable editable map that everyone can see and use. I suppose a Google docs spreadsheet would work if you resize the cells but does anyone have any experience in this or better suggestions?

Have you considered Marshal? It isn't a caster but it could go into combat with the other 3 and buff everyone with their auras.

The NEED for a spellcaster is based off of the idea that Sorcerer/Wizard are the two best classes at higher levels due to epic level spellcraft and the ability to make your own spells. The nice thing about tome of battle classes is that your manuevers are basically magic that is made accessible through physical prowess/meditation.

Also, if the Swordsage PrCs into Shadowsun Ninja this is very over powered class (especially if the character doesn't  mind becoming a very strong vampire as a possible drawback from one of the class features)

your main problem without a caster would currently be healing. Crusader can do a bit of heeling through manuevers and as long as gold isn't short you can use potions in the like. Crusared is basically the ToB version of a cleric and fill most roles of a cleric

I know of both of those and they work fine, but as pointed out if the DM rules natural attack =/= to unarmed strike (which is correct) it still does me little good. INA can be taken multiple times but has to be applied to different natural attacks each time

Having your wild shape Ranger use creature cards (or additional character sheets even) for his most common wild shapes will help to simplify combat and keep it from being slowed that way. They may already be doing this but it is a suggestion worth noting.

Having the Psion know his powers or keep a list of what page each can be found on also helps to keep combat moving. As far as 'not hurting' goes. This guy should be pretty flexible as psionic powers can deal different types of energy damage.

The Artificer should also be able to make wands, scrolls, etc as well as magic arms and armor without much difficulty for himself and/or the party dependent on the maximization route he takes so, as a DM you could try throwing enemies out that this guy can work around the DR of. On a second note he can also be a pretty good party buffer.

The Crusader can be complicated if you aren't familiar with ToB. Just remember that his manuevers and initiator levels work like spells and caster levels. Have him keep a page list of where his manuevers can be found for quick reference and with his divine abilities maybe try to introduce magic weapons. This guy seems like he'll be the party meatshield.

As for the soulbow and the Pathfinder ranger those I'm not too familiar with. But you may want to make the Energy Bow accessible at least to the soulbow. If you feel it is too strong for the campaign at current then introduce as a stringed version. (When string it acts a +2 composite longbow and can fire normal and magical arrows, but doesn't add it's force damage.) Then when the campaign catches up you can roll out an event to reveal it's actual nature. This bow alone gives any archer a lot of versatility in damage types.

I just found this topic (after joining the forums last night) and I'm not nearly close enough for a regular meet up but am not too far away either living in Central PA. Penn State University main campus or the now slightly better well known Bellefonte thanks to the Jerry Sandusky trial.

The swordsage adaption is something I'll look into (albeit, most likely I'll completely ignore the ability to use martial manuevers if I do as druid spell list is enough for me I don't need to complicate and slow combat down more with those.) Totemist seems like a good idea but I'm not at all familiar with Magic of Incarnum so it's a bit confusing to look at.

Quote from: Llyendar on October 24, 2012, 10:22:20 AM

What I want from monk is the unarmed attack progression assuming my DM would rule the tigers natural attacks as unarmed attacks. Otherwise I'm stuck with 1d8 bite and 1d6 claw attacks through out the full progression

The monk's unarmed strikes don't replace your natural attacks, but you can make them in combination. So a tiger monk could make his flurry of blows with unarmed strikes, then add a bite-claw-claw routine on top of that. All of the natural attacks would be considered "secondary", though, and so would be at full bab-5 and half str mod to damage.

This was a ruling that I wasn't aware of and while it's still not quite what I was looking for the pure sheer number of attacks would likely make up for the lack of damage progression with the claws.

You could see if Were-tiger suits your fancy; alternatively, with this variant Druid, you could make your wild shape permanent by combining it with Wild Companion. 

Yet another option (with a lot of choices for boosting natural attacks) is Morphling, though that's much less likely to be approved by a homebrew-wary DM (not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's more "out there").

Either way, forget about monk.  What you want instead is a combination of Totemist and Swordsage.

I'm not quite sure how/what you would be combining Wild Companion with to achieve that effect. Would you be combining it with the Wild Shape ability or with the Drift Ability?

All in all this may be a viable option but I would prefer to be able to start play (at 9th level) as a tiger. Mainly for roleplay reasons and because according to back story he has been in his tiger form he's forgotten that he was ever human (perhaps Maenad) to start with.