Author Topic: [3.5] A lvl 10 campaign, a reptile, and a cheesey comrade.  (Read 2438 times)

Offline aran

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[3.5] A lvl 10 campaign, a reptile, and a cheesey comrade.
« on: February 06, 2020, 07:39:27 PM »
Greetings all,

My DM has proposed, at an unspecified time in the future, a 3.5 campaign with our PCs starting at 10th level. A concept that all involved were all very eager to get on board with! Despite it being a while off we were encouraged to roll up a character, get a rough idea of the builds we wanted, and come up with some lore for the land they hailed from (our DM is using a setting for a campaign we are currently playing where continents and landmass exist as large floating masses of rock, think "The Edge Chronicles" book series or Storm Hawks from Cartoon Network. Each "Shard" can have unique environments and characteristics, so we were encouraged to flesh out the worldbuilding ourselves a little).

I was SPOILED for possibilities  :love.  So I talked to the DM about playing a Lizardfolk as a character as per the detailing in the monster manual. He agreed, and to keep things simple with level adjustment (Lizardfolk have a level adjustment of +1), just counted the extra level toward the starting 10 character levels with no further XP adjustment (9 class levels to spare). I immediately dropped the crunch and dove into background lore! (txt file link if curious  :) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fF6a5Q4nokI7wv8zDM__CfWGinbEB_lN/view?usp=sharing )

After that I consulted with my fellow player who was most experienced out of all of us with 3.5 (from here on referred to as "James"), he STRONGLY reccomended I build a scaled horror class as detailed in the Monstrous Species book (it should be mentioned our DM has stated that all 3.x content from WotC is fair game, this will be important in a bit).
Seemed good so the initial build looked like this:


Lizardfolk 1, Ranger 6, Scaled Horror 3

STR 21 | +5
DEX 18 | +4
CON 20 | +5
INT 14 | +2
WIS 17 | +3
CHA 13 | +1

Important points:
The stats are totally OKAY, they were verified by the DM on the table when I rolled them (plus ability score increases from levels)
+4 Natural armour (seems a bit imba but its RAW so seemsgood)
116 HP (that con sure do stack up)
Saves; FORT 13, REF 13, WILL 6
Feats; (among others) improved MULTI-weapon Fighting, Mighty Leaping, Improved grab
Wields a tailblade bumping all two-weapon fighting feats to multi-weapon fighting feats
Ability; Jump 34 (5 STR + 13 ranks + 4 Racial + 2 Balance(Tumble?) synergy + 10 Mighty Leaping )



I held back from maxing levels in scaled horror from the get go since I wanted that free improved combat style from ranger 6, and  between everything above I was quite happy with what I had going. Until James found the cheesiest weapon combo that ever did cheese for his pc...

We will start the campaign with a minimum of 50k gold as is standard for 10th lvl characters, and James dreamed up a dreadful weapon...not much is known about his character so far, other than its going to be an Ashworm Dragoon and, he'll have improved critical as a feat, a scabbard of keen edges, and a Great Falchion made with Kaorti resin,

This combo effectively makes his weapon a 1d12 15-20/x4 , and three times a day 1d12 9-20/x4 , I've checked myself, most of this is in the Sandstorm book, it all stacks RAW, and our DM has approved it.

James is way more experienced than me, and I can only imagine what other cheesey features his character might have that might overshadow my Lizardfolk  :( .
I beseech you fellow players, how might I streamline my dear reptile to match him? And what equipment should I get for a mere 50k gp? Again, all 3.x WotC material is fair game.
keep in mind, I would rather keep the 6 ranger levels as the improved multiweapon fighting is fun and the preferred enemies ive thought up suits my lore nicely :cool , also theres a free animal companion in there that I can't figure out how to incorporate effectively, so any advice on that would be sweet  :???

Offline Keldar

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Re: [3.5] A lvl 10 campaign, a reptile, and a cheesey comrade.
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2020, 11:29:03 PM »
The only thing Scaled Horror does interesting is Improved Grab, which you don't seem to be building to use.  Two levels gets both of the most interesting features, and it competes with more Ranger levels for overlapping spellcasting.  Look into Improved Grab and grappling and decide if that's something you want to focus on.  If not there are other PrCs that Lizardfolk might be interested in, like Tribal Warrior from Miniatures Handbook for Team Rage.

If you do want to go with the Improved Grab, skip the Multiweapon fighting and go for Improved Multiattack (Which might make Ranger an unattractive base class).  Use your two claws and bite to grapple the bajeebus out of things and look to add more natural attacks.  Totemist from Magic of Incarnum comes to mind, and it works great with those stats, a Psychic Warrior or other King of Smack build could do too.  You can keep the tail blade to use so you have one attack that can bypass at least one material DR and get your iterative attacks with.

If you want to focus on Multiweapon fighting, look for sources of bonus damage like Favored Enemy, Power Attack, or Sneak Attack.  The Handbook section has good information.

As to the Animal Companion, if you can't think of anything else, get an owl and have put it on night watch.  Hoot.

Oh, and none of that is stopping you from having a Katori Resin Tail Blade too.  :smirk

Offline aran

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Re: [3.5] A lvl 10 campaign, a reptile, and a cheesey comrade.
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2020, 03:17:14 AM »
If not there are other PrCs that Lizardfolk might be interested in, like Tribal Warrior from Miniatures Handbook for Team Rage.

If you do want to go with the Improved Grab, skip the Multiweapon fighting and go for Improved Multiattack (Which might make Ranger an unattractive base class).  Use your two claws and bite to grapple the bajeebus out of things and look to add more natural attacks.  Totemist from Magic of Incarnum comes to mind, and it works great with those stats, a Psychic Warrior or other King of Smack build could do too. 

Looks like I've got some reading to do  :plotting , I'll check all these out and get back to this thread later. Thank You!

Offline aran

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Re: [3.5] A lvl 10 campaign, a reptile, and a cheesey comrade.
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2020, 05:41:07 AM »
If not there are other PrCs that Lizardfolk might be interested in, like Tribal Warrior from Miniatures Handbook for Team Rage.

Looked into this, are you referring to the Warchief class? Its intriguing, but damage per turn for +2 strength seems like a bit much of a tradeoff..plus in the fluff id have to welcome my party into my tribe somehow :lol , still thanks for the suggestion.

Totemist from Magic of Incarnum comes to mind, and it works great with those stats, a Psychic Warrior or other King of Smack build could do too. 
I've started looking into this actually and Ive got a nice alternate build coming together:

beast claws (monstrous species) 9.6k gold, If worn by a creature that already has a claw attack, beast claws have an enhancement bonus of +2 instead of +1. The creature does its normal claw damage while wearing beast claws plus an additional 1d6 points of damage. (1d4+1d6)
improved natural attack bumps claws up to (1d6+1d6)
Totem Avatar (Shoulder Chakra) bumps that up to 1d8+1d6 (and essentia in this souldmeld adds even MORE natural armour  :plotting )
Dread Carapace (arm chakra) doubles the threat range so 1d8 +1d6 19-20/x2
And I can still slap on 3 more soulmelds!


You can keep the tail blade to use so you have one attack that can bypass at least one material DR and get your iterative attacks with.

Right yea, you don't get iterative attacks with natural weapons right? So with multiattack as a feat a full attack(assuming an additional attack from BaB) would look like:
.Tail blade, highest BaB
.Tail blade, lower BaB
.Claw1 highest BaB -2
.Claw2 highest BaB -2
.Bite highest BaB -5

which seems pretty promising if im right  :o

Offline Keldar

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Re: [3.5] A lvl 10 campaign, a reptile, and a cheesey comrade.
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2020, 11:27:31 PM »
It would be :  Tail Blade= BAB and BAB-5, Bite= BAB-5, Claw= BAB-5, Claw= BAB-5.
Add Multiattack feat and the Claw and Bite drop to BAB-2,  Take Improved Multiattack too and they're at BAB.  And so are all the natural attacks you can pack on from soulmelds.

Totemist is a forgiving class to build, you can always change soulmelds if you need to do something other than beat face.  And if you take the Shape Soulmeld feat you can cherry pick a meld from another class, like Lightning Gauntlets.

Offline ClayQ

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Re: [3.5] A lvl 10 campaign, a reptile, and a cheesey comrade.
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2020, 01:55:35 PM »
Amulet of mighty fists... 3 weapons for the price of one...

If your goal is to outshine him. Expect he'll be doing the 4d12+40ish crits... Id focus on my natural attacks. Totemist to to get more, forget the tailblade/ranger and just use mutiattack to use them all at a flat -2.

With no books infront of me I like some variation of lion totem barbarian/totemist/scaled horror.  The visual of a raging lizard leap attacking onto the target with a pounce followed by the grapple is good.
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