Optimizing a Housecat?

[altpersona]

also gonna need two dogs, two more mice and a housekeeper for the full Tom n Jerry

[bhu]

This  thread makes kitteh happy 

[brainpiercing]

Monsters come with a standard array of 3x10 and 3x11. If you use that you will be at a significant disadvantage compared to the other players, with only your Int score being the saving grace.

There are extra rules for working out the negative mods on monsters.  http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm#abilityScoresforMonsterPCs

Whether you need to use them depends on your GM I guess. Basically they work just like subtracting either 10 or 11 from the base value with the exception of Int, which is capped to never go below 3.

With a standard pointbuy I would now just stick with the 8 points in Int, and do the rest accordingly. You have effective racial mods of:

Str -8, Dex+4, Con +0, Wis +2, Int -8 (OR +12 with awaken) Cha -4. This comes out to a total of -14, which IS rather unbalanced compared to normal PCs. (LIke, WAY too low.) With awaken you can't really calculate this well anymore. Going by strict mechanics your Awaken gives you +12 to Int (23-11), which still comes out at -2 for the final character. Seeing as Int is not a primary stat due to RHD this isn't in the least unbalanced at this point.

As a GM, what I would do is just give you those racial mods + the awaken bonus + the mods from the templates (because those are paid for by the templates) and then make you buy all points, including Int, but impose an INT cap of 27. This is the fairest way of handling this.

[Demelain]

It doesn't matter if you're a cat. PCs roll for stats.
Your average human doesn't roll his stats, either. As mentioned above, he gets 10/10/10/11/11/11 to distribute. PCs roll stats because they're not average.
And there is nothing average about this cat.

[Thereddic]

Alright fine, I pointbuy, I now have 8 str (3 points) 26 Dex (16 points) 22 Con (13 points) 23 int (base) 12 wis (base) and 8 cha (base)

Boom. I am even more ridiculous, although a bit less sexy.

I'm leaning to a 16 scout/1 ranger setup for class levels before taking dips, prestige classes and such into the equation. A lot of what the Ranger gives me is tracking stuff, which isn't much of a concern, and combat mastery isn't all that helpful for a Cat, since I don't have thumbs. Also, Hide in Plain Sight is flat out superior to Camouflage. Beyond a Lion Totem barbarian dip for Pounce, any other ways to get full attack on movement so I can exploit my skirmish to the max?

[bhu]

The low cha just means you have one of four fabulous choices:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/princess-monster-truck

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/henri-le-chat-noir

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grumpy-cat

http://www.colonel-meow.com/

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Thereddic

It looks to me like brainpiercing is getting 3HD from Awaken + Warbeast
... all together , overwriting the cat 1/2 HD ...

Ok, strictly speaking I was supposing this. I don't see any precedent for what happens with half HD when you add more. I'm assuming it gets rounded down. And if it's just because we want go get a playable concept here, and not some brainfart. 4 HD would be be pushing the playable area, and we can't keep half HD. The closest we can get is deleting the half HD when we get the first class level.

edit/rephrased it.

idk what the exact rules are here.
We have this near-by example of 1/2 hd PC classes,
getting that 1/2 hd (or less) overwritten by the 1st level
of being a normal PC.  So I'm gonna go with this,
but I'm not 100% sure.  And it is playable, ~reasonable.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

cat:
S -8 , D +4 , C -- , I -8 , W +2 , Ch -4

warbeast:
S +3 , D -- , C +3 , I -- , W +2 , Ch --

feral:
S +4 , D -2 , C +2 , I -4* , W +2 , Ch --
* = min 2 , minor overwriting

equals:
S -1 , D +2 , C +5 , I -12* , W +4 , Ch -4

add in Awaken with Int overwriting a 2nd time:
S -1 , D +2 , C +5 , I = ~23 , W +4 , Ch ~+1

Stick an 8 in Int, a 9 or 11 in Str , and an 8 or 9 or 10 in Cha.
Dump the rest of the point buy into D C and/or W.

[Thereddic]

Alright, current level spread is as follows: Magical Beast 3/Barbarian (CC Lion totem variant) 1/Ranger 1/Swordsage 1/Scout 14.

This gets me 4d6/4ac Skirmish, Pounce, 4 Favoured enemies (meaning I can Skirmish basically anything), a couple maneuvers for utility (mainly looking at Child of Shadow stance, dat synergy) which allows me to qualify for Shadow Blade to get my dex to damage, mitigating the strength penalty (I'm fairly sure Natural Weapons count as unarmed strikes for those purposes, though I'm not sure.)

Now all thats left is to sort out feats. Any critiques for this level spread?

[brainpiercing]

Alright, current level spread is as follows: Magical Beast 3/Barbarian (CC Lion totem variant) 1/Ranger 1/Swordsage 1/Scout 14.

This gets me 4d6/4ac Skirmish, Pounce, 4 Favoured enemies (meaning I can Skirmish basically anything), a couple maneuvers for utility (mainly looking at Child of Shadow stance, dat synergy) which allows me to qualify for Shadow Blade to get my dex to damage, mitigating the strength penalty (I'm fairly sure Natural Weapons count as unarmed strikes for those purposes, though I'm not sure.)

Now all thats left is to sort out feats. Any critiques for this level spread?

Improved Skirmish should get you to 6D6 for a 20ft move.

If you can get Mystic Ranger from Dragon 336 by your GM then this beats Scout. The ranger spell list is actually quite appealing. However with basic ranger you don't nearly get enough spells. In any case if you advance Ranger then Moonwarded Ranger substitution level from Dragon 340 lets you add Wis to AC in light armour in exchange for Combat style.

I would strongly advocate the H&R Fighter Dip for Dex to damage vs. Flatfooted. That's easily worth losing a bit of skirmish. Also, you might need some more feats.

Indigo Strike (MoI) gives you 2 skirmish damage per essentia invested. Only worth it with more essentia...

If HIPS is worth it for you to not dip any more then do that, but it will come very late at a considerabel opportunity cost. You are tiny, a bit of grass can give you cover, a bit of shadow, the stump of a tree, anything. Also, if you don't take equipment you can probably just run about your german panzer crews for a good while and may even get a free meal in the process.... then get in the panzer with the crew and massacre them from inside. Granted, it will be a bit hard to get skirmish inside a tank.  (An astute rules lawyer might argue that the basic movement of the tank qualifies you for skirmish already, just like gliding, for instance. I personally don't think this counts, but... anyway, kill the driver last .

Other than that it looks viable right now.

[nijineko]

You are tiny, a bit of grass can give you cover, a bit of shadow, the stump of a tree, anything.Also, if you don't take equipment you can probably just run about your german panzer crews for a good while and may even get a free meal in the process....

"90% cover, nya!"






"Gentlemen, we of the panzer platoon are going to kick butt and take names... follow me to victory!"

[Thereddic]

Well, who am I to say no to another layer of Dex bonus on my attacks? Still keeping Shadowblade though. Hit&run is competence whereas Shadow Blade is unnamed, so I get get twice my dex to damage.

So determined feats so far are: Shadow Blade, Swift Hunter, Improved Skirmish, whatever that feat that lets me turn when I charge is called, and Don't Mind Me to avoid AoOs on the off chance I'm caught in the open. I don't have any Dragon supplements, so Mystic Ranger is off the table. Two of those feats can be chosen as Scout Bonus Feats, of which I have 3. So that still leaves me 5 feats to choose, + 1 for Scout Bonus, + 1 from the Hit/Run Fighter dip. Plus I still have HiPS, unless I need an extra fighter feat. Might also have to burn a pair of feats on Sacred Vow and Vow of Poverty though, although that tradeoff gets me a bunch MORE bonus feats if I take Poverty early.

EDIT: alright, updated the sheet with class levels, hp, class features and known feats. Now I need to pick my last few feats, my skills (won't that be fun) and items. Is there a way to still appear as an ordinary housecat while being loaded with magical items? I imagine I can make a Dex/Con/Natural Armor/Natural Attacks necklace if I'm reading the MiC correctly, and I can just design that as a collar to avoid suspicion, and +stat books can be read easily enough by a cat with 23 int, but other stuff is harder to hide, which is why I'm considering VoP in the first place. Any ideas?

[bhu]

If you're allowed homebrew I have magical items made for cats.

[Thereddic]

Probably not, unfortunately . Technically this isn't even for a campaign, but an exercise to see just how dangerous I can make a housecat to show my friends how hilarious 3.5 can be. So Homebrew's a no go, alas.

[altpersona]

Monster of Legend and Saint templates.

[Thereddic]

Monster of Legend and Saint templates.

Sweet jebus those look delicious. I'll have to completely revamp my levels if I want to take them though. Plus I'll have a total level adjustment of 7, which kinda bites, not to mention I'll probably miss 16BaB if I do that.

[nijineko]

i don't suppose that anyone's suggested making your cat a ghost (savage progression) and taking master of the unseen hand? as an added bonus, you can use psionics to enter the class as is due to some obscure rules, making for some fun options. claws of the vampire, strength of my enemy, bite of the tiger, psionic lion's charge, just to name a few.

if you want to take it in a silly direction, take the stygian bolt power, one of the jump powers, hustle, and squeeze in one level of the athas soulknife prestige...  glowing mind blade, giant jump, fast move, and black lightning = jedi kitty!

[Thereddic]

i don't suppose that anyone's suggested making your cat a ghost (savage progression) and taking master of the unseen hand? as an added bonus, you can use psionics to enter the class as is due to some obscure rules, making for some fun options. claws of the vampire, strength of my enemy, bite of the tiger, psionic lion's charge, just to name a few.

if you want to take it in a silly direction, take the stygian bolt power, one of the jump powers, hustle, and squeeze in one level of the athas soulknife prestige...  glowing mind blade, giant jump, fast move, and black lightning = jedi kitty!

Nobody has, but I'm trying to remain true to housecat flavour here. If I wanted to just build the strongest thing I could, I'd be doing something to exploit my Int score.

[Forumowicz]

Has anyone suggested Intensified Awaken? I mean automatic 36 base int would be pretty nice for little extra gold (assuming it's done by a 27th level Incantatrix).

[nijineko]

i don't suppose that anyone's suggested making your cat a ghost (savage progression) and taking master of the unseen hand? as an added bonus, you can use psionics to enter the class as is due to some obscure rules, making for some fun options. claws of the vampire, strength of my enemy, bite of the tiger, psionic lion's charge, just to name a few.

if you want to take it in a silly direction, take the stygian bolt power, one of the jump powers, hustle, and squeeze in one level of the athas soulknife prestige...  glowing mind blade, giant jump, fast move, and black lightning = jedi kitty!

Nobody has, but I'm trying to remain true to housecat flavour here. If I wanted to just build the strongest thing I could, I'd be doing something to exploit my Int score.

so show them your final optimized build as step one, then show them the ghost psion jedi housekitty for the step two: the cat comes back.

you know, you could always make your housekitty a monk with kung-fu genius for shifting all monk abilities to INT from WIS. can you imagine your stunning strike DC? followed by the coup-de-grace attack modified by that one feat that makes it a standard action instead of a full-round action and a "collar of battle".... boost that with some greater mighty wallop (claws are retractable, after all), bloodwind (SpC), superior unarmed strike and a "monk's collar". maybe split monk with psywar and tashalatora with expansion and other fun powers, and you'll be slaying them from 20' away sitting on the fence with the force of your melee attacks traveling through the air....

considering how hard my cats could hit me while we were playing, i'd say monk is within housecat flavor.

or you could just go with the obvious route and take levels of aristocrat. ^^