Saturday, March 31, 2007

The Fighter

Let's try something new shall we?

In an effort to post more often, I'm committing to a series of posts that will be primarily my thoughts on the PHB base classes. These will be in no particular order, just what I feel like writing on at the time unless I get some requests for a certain class.

Today, we'll start with the fighter. How boring right? Wrong!

Ok, granted. The fighter is really only good for one thing... fighting. But, it does offer an incredible amount of variety within that role. Let's look at what we're dealing with here: max BAB, good fort save, d10 hit dice, few skill points, and 11 bonus feats.

Now, when one hears the word "fighter," you probably think high strength and constitution, grab a greatsword and power attack and get hackin'. That's definitely one way to go, but there are many other ways to build a fighter. Instead of strength and constitution, go with high dexterity and pick up weapon finesse and a rapier or even a whip. Sure, you won't do as much damage, but there's much more to fighting than beating your opponent to a pulp and it's much more stylish.

This brings me to my next point. You're a fighter. Fighting is all you know. So, know all about fighting. This means memorizing Chapter 8 in the PHB. Make use of all the tricks- tripping, disarming, sundering, bull-rushing, charging, mounted combat, overrunning, grappling, feinting, whatever. And don't worry that many of those provoke AoOs, you're a fighter! You're almost guaranteed a high AC either from armor or dex and enough HP to take some punishment. Besides, you've got enough feats to burn on things like improved (grapple, trip, disarm, whatever).

So next time you play a fighter, pick up improved grapple right off the bat and start tackling all your opponents or grab a couple whips (with all the two-weapon fighting feats) and trip 7 people a round. And then flail them all because you took Improved Trip and get an extra attack for all the successful trips. Sure that won't work against some creatures, but you did remember to pick up some back-up weapons right? RIGHT?!

Well, I think that's it for now. Next time we'll discuss... something else....


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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Backstabs and Backpacks

We've got a special two-for-one deal today only!

1-
My question is on a rogue special abilitiy: crippling stirke states that an opponent damaged by ONE of her sneak attacks takes two points of strength damage. Now let's assume my rogue is flanking a cleric, and I use a full-attack, and all three of my attacks hit. Does that mean the opponent gets -6 to his strength?

According to the RAW (and as far as I can tell there is nothing else that says otherwise), that's exactly what it means. The rogue's crippling strike ability applies to each sneak attack she deals and since it's strength damage and not a strength penalty it's cumulative. I happened to be going for this very strategy with a rogue I'm currently playing who dual-wields. Six successful sneak attacks per round = 12 points of strength damage. So, if your opponent is loaded with hp, you can just whittle his strength down to 0 and paralyze him (assuming it's also vulnerable to sneak attacks). Have fun with that. :)

2-
Hey, do you know by chance how much does a standard backpack hold?
Good question. I actually spent a large amount of time a while back asking other people that. The bottom line is, there are no rules in 3.5 about it. Back in 3.0, backpacks were given a capacity of 1 cubic foot.... Good luck trying to figure that out given all the awkward shapes items take in the game. And, is that backpack really strong enough to hold 1 cubic foot of lead or some other ridiculously dense material? I think that's why it was left out of the current rules. That, and it doesn't really matter so long as it's within reason. And what's within reason is up to the DM. I figure, as long as the character's encumberance is ok, he'll find some place to put it. That way, saying certain items are in the backpack or sack really has more to do with how long it takes to retrieve the items or what goes missing when your backpack gets stolen (which I figure is more important anyway). An easy way to get around this is to make sure the characters get some bags of holding or a handy haversack. They have stated capacities.

I think I need a shower, but I really want a beer.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Gestalt Characters Revisited

New question! Initiate!

If you take fighter/warlock to 6th Then take a prestige class that grants +1 arcane spell caster bonus/warlock for another 6 levels. Now does this character have 12th caster level or 18th arcane caster level?

Excellent question. Let me make sure I have it straight.

1. Attain fighter/warlock 6
2. Attain warlock/PrC 6 where PrC is a prestige class that grants "+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class"

The first thing that catches my eye is that the warlock is not an arcane spellcaster. They use spell-like abilities which function very similarly to spells and indeed have their own caster level, but the fact remains that they do not cast spells and usually do not qualify for PrCs that grant bonuses to existing spellcasting classes.

Ignoring that, this character would have a warlock caster level of 12 and an arcane caster level of 6. This works the same way with other classes. For example, a fighter/cleric 6//cleric/wizard 6 would have a divine caster level of 12 and an arcane caster level of 6. Likewise, a fighter/sorcerer 6//sorcerer/wizard 6 would have a caster level of 12 when casting spontaneous spells as a sorcerer and a caster level of 6 when casting memorized spells from his spellbook as a wizard.

He responds:
Let's simplify it more. Wizard/fighter for 5 levels. Then wiz/prc (that grants a +1 arcane level) for another 3 levels. Does he have a effective caster level 8 or 11?
Ah, now that changes things. In my opinion, the wizard's spell progression and caster level progression and the PrC's "+1 to previous arcane spellcasting class" features would be "aspects that overlap" according to the gestalt RAW. Therefore, you would only get them from one class or the other and this character's caster level would be 8. I feel this provides some balance as you could easily have a character who is fighter/wizard 10//wizard/PrC 10 who casts spells as a level 30 wizard. That seems like a little much to me, but your DM may disagree and that's up to him or her.

Thanks again for the question, I'm always open!

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