Weapons enchanted with Mighty Wallop - or the bigger version

V.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThere's always the 'Throw Anything' feat.

FWW, I find the halfling axe-thrower build perfectly acceptable.

The concept's fine, but the build isn't. They are two distinct things.

QuoteThat's what gear is for, really. So if the problem is "You don't hit often enough", you need magical weapons. If the problem is "you don't do enough damage", you need to start stocking up on things like Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Belt of Giant Strength, potions of Bulls strength (in the short term, this is your best solution). As a monk, you should also look into amulets of natural armor and possible some bracers and rings of protection.

It's worth pointing out that none of those strength-boosting items stack with one another. They're all enhancement bonuses. You can get, at most, a +6 to your damage on each axe, which is pretty pitiful by the time you'd get a +6 Belt of Giant's Strength. 2d6 of skirmish or sneak attack, available to a 3rd level Rogue, deal an average of 7 additional points of damage, one more than your 36,000 gp magic item will give you. By 5th level, a sneak attacking Rogue leaves your inhumanly strong high level Fighter in the dust in damage production. The problem of a Fighter's low damage production in melee combat is what Complete Warrior, Tome of Battle and PHB II were intended to address by adding feats, classes and martial maneuvers. A core-only Fighter does have a one option to counteract this, by jacking the number of attacks he gets through reach and tripping and AoO exploits, but this option is not available to a thrower.

Back to the original topic, but interwoven with the whole suboptimal character debate. . .

I've made a couple of fun builds lately. . .but I'm feel like they're rather sub-optimal, ant it's either a case of not knowing how to realize my charactervision mechanically, or just a character vision that;s just plain impoossible under D&D3. I fully invite anyone interested to suggest tweaks and options. The chars are built under purely core book options (almost).

So:

Gerad, Dwarven Paladin

I was inspired by the PHB text, "Dwarves are sometimes Paladins, but becoming a paladin may be hard on a dwarf because it means putting the duties of the paladin's life before duties to family, clan,and king." Which I took as a challenge. I turned stateddifficulty in playing the race/class into the character's central theme. The concept is, he's seen so much corruption and greed in the church and in Dwarven society as a whole, that he takes an oath to set things straight and restore honor to the Dwarven people. So, sanctioned by the church yet greeted with defensiveness and distrust, he travels the Dwarven lands, rooting out injustice both between Dwarves and toward others, and upholding the positive and honorable values of his culture. Oh, and he's from a well-off Dwarven family, so it's kind of like a Rockefeller heir becoming a hippie activist. :keke:

So what I did with him is, high Str, con and Cha (natch), and a Feat progression of Negotiatior, Power Attack, Improved Overrun, Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, Endurance, Diehard.  Key skills are Diplomacy, Sense Motive and Knowledge: Religion. Intimidate too, but that's cross-class, so it's tough. For his primary weapon I concocted the "great Hammer," which is statwise a Greataxe except with Blugeoning damage. I was irked that there's no two-handed hammer in the book. so I made it so. My big inspiring image: imagine you're suddenly flat on your back, hardly aware of what hit you, and there's a thick, sinewy Dwarf towering above you (one of the only situations where they ever get to tower), hefting the hugest hammer you've ever seen and shouting "Stand down!"

Now, I think this build works pretty well, it's mainly skill points and the Improved Overrun. Negotiator I'm ambivalent on, on the one hand it fits the flavor of the character and it's nice to bump those two very key skills. On the other hand I'm wondering if I really need the bump, or if it'll do me enough good to justify it. It'd be nice to have Improved Disarm earlier. I'm really focussing on non-lethal ways of resolving conflicts (words if you'll listen, the hammer if you won't), and I'd really love to see how it works out.

Unfortunately the only DM I'm playing with that I'd consider running him under, is currently running a campaign that wouldn't really fit his backstory. :emot-sigh:

Frilii, Halfling Barbarian

This concept isn't nearly so involved at this point. I was futzing around in Heromachine the other day and ended up making a portrait of this little wild half-naked halfling girl. So the "must build female halfling barbarian!" urge was born,and would not rest until scores were rolled and feats assigned. I haven't decided if she's from a tribe of Feral halflings, or just "raised by wolves" (or goblins, or whatever) as it were. So, she's got a greataxe, and a feat progression of Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Combat Expertise, Whirlwind Attack. I wanted to fit Power Attack in there with the two-handed weapon and all, but it's tight as it is. There's a bit of a disconnect between concept and equipment, 'cause I had to give her Studded Leather for baseline survival purposes, when really she should have no armor. Ah well.

This one's more frustrating than the first; I have a distinct image of this plucky, brash, and fierce 3-foot-tall woman who's a dervish in battle, diving straight into the enemy horde in a heedless dance of battlelust, served by her very recklessness. Hence all the "run around in the midst of a lot of foes" feats. But it's a bit depressing that I have to get up to 9th level before I really start to cook, and the big money--Whirlwind Attack, ain't coming on 'till level 15. That's a frequent frustration for me with character builds--you often have to get halfway up the level scale before the character matches your concept.



Anyway. I don't own any non-core books, though I have access to friends whodo. Any propositions for pimping out this pair of persnickety protagonists? Is there a L33t Prestige Class just lurking about for either of these concepts? Any advice on how I could fine-tune even within the Core Book parameters? :emot-eng101:

Peace,
-Joel

You should concentrate on making the Dwarf Paladin a tank, and give him a weapon with the merciful special ability, rather than taking the improved disarm feat tree (which does nothing against humanoids with locked gauntlets or natural weapons, and requires you to put a 13+ in what should be a dump stat). You should try and convince your DM that your custom weapon is the holy weapon of a god that your paladin can worship, so that you can get into Pious Templar from Complete Divine. I'd go Paladin 6 / Pious Templar 10 / whatever 4

Featwise, I'd go:

Weapon Focus (Deity's Weapon) (1st)
Power Attack (3rd)
True Believer (6th)
Divine Vigor (9th) (Complete Warrior)
Weapon Specialisation (Deity's Weapon) (bonus Pious Templar feat 9th)
Improved Sunder (bonus Pious Templar feat 10th)
Combat Brute (12th) (Complete Warrior)

and so on.

A merciful weapon means all your damage is non-lethal if you want it to be, which means you can just pound your enemies into unconsciousness. Basically, this build is built around the idea of smashing into the enemy, banging them into unconsciousness, and soaking up hits. You want to use your (otherwise useless) turn attempts to power Divine Vigor for bonus HP and movement. You use that bonus movement to smash into the enemy and whomp them for tons of non-lethal. This build really comes together with Combat Brute, when you can smash enemy's weapons and then them, or Power Attack them for x3 damage.

Pious Templar gives you buffs that you can use to boost your combat performance, and basically lets you shrug off anything. At mid levels, you'll want Bless and Bull's Strength active, and later, Prayer and Holy Sword. If you're planning to play him after 12th, you'll want to continue to improve his damage dealing capabilities through feats, rather than adding more tactical options (you'll want magic items to do that).

Quote from: PseudoephedrineYou should concentrate on making the Dwarf Paladin a tank, and give him a weapon with the merciful special ability, rather than taking the improved disarm feat tree (which does nothing against humanoids with locked gauntlets or natural weapons, and requires you to put a 13+ in what should be a dump stat).

If you're still interested in taking a feat that deprives your opponent of his weapon, I'd suggest Improved Sunder rather than Improved Disarm.  The advantage is that the prereq of IS is Power Attack, which a Dwarven Paladin should take anyway, and you no longer need an Int of 13+ for the Combat Expertise that Improved Disarm requires.  A second benefit is that your two-handed hammer will give you a +4 to the sunder attack, on top of the +4 from the feat, making the success much more likely.

That said, later on gaining a merciful weapon is a great idea, and very much matches your character concept - being able to bludgeon someone into unconsiousness if they do not yield is a good one.

Thanks, guys. Improved Sunder: eeeeexcellent. Also, Merciful weapon sounds way cool. Actually, a blunt weapon is about the only case where I'd find Merciful anything but nonsensical (for the reasons I'm discussing in this thread). I mean, stabbing you nonlethally? Magical or no, that's just silly.

But a Merciful Warhammer, awesome for sure. I'm already drooling.

The Pious Templar sounds intriguing. I'll have to snaga friend's C. Divine and look it over. Prestige classes often seem too wierdly specific to fit a char when I have a very singular concept (in this I sympathize with Ian), but that one sounds pretty solid. The only thing is, my Dwarf's deal is more about justice, not so much blindly following a god. But that would probably only be a problem with certain DMs. And it depends on exactly how the Pious Templar is presented.

Also, I'll have to see how Holy Vigor works. Hell, extra movement's good for a Dwarf any which way. And you're damn right, I need some alternate use for those turn attempts, unless all the corruption Gerad roots out turns out to be caused by Dwarven Necromancers.



So, any thoughts on my cute li'l berzerker hobbit? My main gripe is feat slowness. . .I could always multi a couple levels in Fighter,but then there's the multiclass penalty. Though someone was just telling me they think there's a variant halfling out there (a "savage halfling" or some such, I'd imagine) whose favored class IS Barbarian. That true?

Thanks!

Peace,
-Joel