Deus ex Machina- Redux

[Littha]

Well I liked the idea of being opposed to the tech, maybe not on such a large scale this time, but who knows.

Anyway, I was thinking of a pet based character. Something like 11 mana mage/4 beastmaster/5 beast heart adept, pick up wild companion as well.

If you like the character idea, I was wondering if you minded expanding Natural Bond to include wild cohorts and monstrous companions (assuming you require the taking of the feat for each type or even each beast).

On the topic of Natural Bond, will it grant higher level beast? (Level one druid takes the feat, gets a three level buffer, allowing the grabbing of an alternate companion, keeping its effective druid level equal to character level)

Are we keeping the player made fluff from the previous game?

Not sure what you mean by the fluff but ill have to look up the feat, bear with me a bit.

Littha, will homebrew Sublime Way disciplines be approved/denied on a case-by-case basis?

yes

[Nanshork]

For completeness's sake I'll include the one I mentioned earlier.  Here are the disciplines I'm interested in.

Black Rain

Coin's Edge

Solar Wind

Edit: I assume that nobody will be gaining proficiency with firearms automatically if they don't start out being proficient with all martial weapons?

[ShadowViper]

Sounds interesting, not sure which type of character I'd play though. What about other cities than those described? Dwarven Cities under the mountains? Elven cities in the forests? Gnomish cities in woodland hills and the like?

And as before, fractional BAB/Saves?

Additional rules: Fractional BAB/Saves and using the 3.0 weapon sizing, reflected in the components that specify size Storm/Tempestcannon. Stormcannon can be fired in one hand by a large creature same with the tempestcannon and a huge creature.

Gotta read through the whole thing, you can't just skim it.

I did read through the entire thing. So assuming we're not using the normal class tables, What are Fractional BAB/Saves exactly and where are they found(as are the usual questions when a new term is encountered though usually the term name and a question mark will suffice, but appearantly not in this case  )? That is what I was asking...

[Littha]

Fractional BAB and saves work as follows:

Good saves: 2.5 at level 1 and .5 every level after
Bad saves: 0.33 at level 1 and 0.33 ever level after

Full BAB: 1 per level
Medium BAB: .75 per level
Half BAB: .5 per level

If you only take one class nothing changes. Say you took wizard 5/fighter 5/Cleric 5 your base attack bonus would be (5*0.5)+(5*1)+(5*0.75)= 2.5+5+3.75= 11.25 which is treated as 11.

Another example would be Wizard 1/Sorcerer 1/Cleric 1. Using normal BAB this has a BAB of 0, with fractional it has a BAB of 0.5+0.5+0.75= 1.75 which is treated as 1.

[ShadowViper]

Thank you. 

[Nanshork]

Black Rain

Coin's Edge

Solar Wind

While you're looking over those, I'd also like you to look over a class.  The Warrior-Poet.  If you approve of the class, would you be willing to give it proficiency with firearms and let the third level Artistic Expertise ability apply to ranged attacks with a firearm?

[Littha]

You can play that if you want... it has a godawful recovery mechanism but you are welcome to it.

[VennDygrem]

@ShadowViper: Sorry, I had misunderstood you. I thought you had been asking if we were using those rules, as opposed to asking what they were. The question seemed a bit ambiguous to me.

[Nanshork]

You can play that if you want... it has a godawful recovery mechanism but you are welcome to it.

It's recovery mechanism is better than a Swordsage's.    

The only other ToB class that I found that looked interesting to me is this one here.  However, you'd have to look at the related homebrew disciplines it gets or change them to others you approve of.  Excellent recovery mechanism though.  

Edit: If anybody finds/knows of any good homebrew ToB classes that could be adjusted to work with a ranged gunslinger type character, please point me in their direction.

[ShadowViper]

@ShadowViper: Sorry, I had misunderstood you. I thought you had been asking if we were using those rules, as opposed to asking what they were. The question seemed a bit ambiguous to me.

Not a problem 

Sorry if I seemed a bit hostile.

[ShadowViper]

I'm interested in this campaign but at this point have no clue what character I'd play and also I don't consider myself a super optimizer.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

I'm interested; dunno if I'll remake Greed. I might make a swordsman, who is so badass that in a realm of guns and sorcery he still uses swords because he doesn't give a fuck! But we'll see  what homebrew/classicbrew I find I wanna build with.

[Nanshork]

Ignore any previous requests of mine, I've decided on what I want.  If it isn't approved, I'll decide on something else instead.

Littha, I'd like to play a Gunslinger.  The class directly references four disciplines, so I'd like those to be approved as well.  I'll take the class all the way to 20 probably, the only reason I'd want to PrC out is for more maneuvers and I don't know of any PrCs that will give me lots of maneuvers in the disciplines I want. 

Would this character be acceptable?

[VennDygrem]

I've been trying to scour the usual forums for homebrew ideas, but it's been tough. Dozens upon dozens of forum pages, some with gold and many with garbage, but nothing really decent yet. There is a homebrew monster class I've been wanting to play, but it doesn't fit with this campaign. Other than that, I also kinda like the idea of the PF Artificer (their Weird Science contraptions are nifty, but they're limited to a maximum of 4th level spells. Not a huge problem if you get a decently-scaling spell, and they get access to just about every spell list.), but again, might not fit well.

The only two concepts I've been thinking of otherwise have been of power-suited brute (whose strength lies almost entirely in the suit), or some kind of demolitions expert. I haven't found anything that truly fits either. I kind of wish there was maybe a homebrew Warlock with better damage potential (plenty of that) that could fit neatly into the latter archetype (not so much here). Like, maybe if there was a blast shape or essence that allowed the warlock to imbue their eldritch blast into a small item like a stone or flask, then toss it or drop it for an activated blast (like a splash weapon or AoE effect, but with decent damage) or delayed bomb (time-bomb or trigger-bomb, either way). Man, now I kinda wanna write this thing up (cross between Warlock and PF Alchemist, I guess?).

Anyway, back to scouring for character ideas and homebrew classes...

[Flay Crimsonwind]

Mine is either going for the literal melee beast; used to be a shifter/rager, but I always thought of it as a somewhat clunky build... screw X/day uses... Still, the monster classes are what I'm looking through for him. He's probably going to be a total tank, damage and magic and all.

The other will be the typical master swordsman, like a combination of D'Artagnan and any wuxia hero. He will probably be SAD int, or at least heavily reliant on just one stat. He might be able to do at least medium range and melee.

Right now, reading through all of Dumas' stuff, I'm leaning towards the second.

[Nanshork]

Venn, the Engineer I posted can do the power suit thing.  I'm not sure how good it will be at it though.

I think it's been determined that I'm our ranged expert.  

Edit: Anybody have any ideas as to what Gunstyle and Artful Adaptation I should choose?

Basically should I focus on using one gun or dual-wielding, and what official ToB discipline would be best?  I know I don't want White Raven.

[VennDygrem]

In that case, perhaps I should stick to stealth/scout/black-ops work, or otherwise magical/psionic/tech utility.
Hmm, so many options...

[Flay Crimsonwind]

You're our ranged expert? I have no problem with that.

I kind of like the dual wielding style, but that depends on if you wanna do a balls-to-the-wall gunman or an expert shot. As far as your artful adaptation, I'm assuming you use it for the aforementioned defensive properties, in which case stylistically, I'd go heavenly salvo for the John Woo gunner, or Sapphire Bullets for the more accurate one, stylistically. What this translates to is the stead shot having some nice saves-based maneuvers, allowing you to take that one shot, and the wild-gunner having some healing which is always nice. Those would be the ones I'd go for either way; shadow hand is nice for maneuvering, but in a ranged build I might not have as much use for it, and tiger blooded is a little too specific for what I'd be using a gunman for. My vote would be HS or SB, with shadow sniper taking a back seat if neither of those two appeals. Again though, it's mostly about style; what's your rule of cool say?

Hmmm, for the tank I'd like the Troll and Wartroll monster classes, probably, which gives me some nice scaling abilities in melee, and definitely gets the beastly feel. Later being weak only against acid would be lovely for the mid-levels when melee would be slowing down a bit. Hell, on that theme, if he were later made less of a beast and modernized, even that could be taken out as a weakness!

For a precision warrior, I'd probably go warblade, as it's got that int synergy I like..... but just a vanilla warblade/eternal blade could be boring. Anyone know of a good master swordsman/int-based sword class or prc (I'm not dipping swashbuckler just for the damn 3rd level...)? Otherwise, my preference might be shifting. A cyber-wartroll could be fun...

And Venn, can't see why explosives and stealth don't mix wonderfully... 

[VennDygrem]

Oh, they mix perfectly, but I don't know of any way to mix them mechanically. Certainly not well, anyhow.

[Nanshork]

Honestly, "balls-to-the-wall" sounds much more interesting to me except I'm worried about running out of shots in my guns. 

For some reason I thought Heavenly Salvo was White Raven.  Devoted Spirit is much nicer. 

If I went dual-wielding I would go DS or maybe TC.  I'd focus on Dex and take the Deadeye feat that's on the class page and focus on Dex.  If I go precision I'd be wisdom based, take the Zen Archery feat on that page which will let me use Wis to qualify for archery feats, and take the Deadeye feat focusing on Wis.

Do I want more damage per shot or more shots with less damage?  Spray them with lead or one shot one kill?  Hmmmmmmm.