Author Topic: Making a playable Merchant Prince  (Read 7707 times)

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Making a playable Merchant Prince
« on: June 17, 2011, 12:24:40 PM »
I found the Merchant Prince prestige class the other day, and I immediately felt an urge to build a character on it. I know, the class itself is not very strong, and there are probably easier money to be had by being a better adventurer rather than being a capable businessman, but I like the idea of a Scrooge McDuck style businessman/adventurer, so thats what Im making. On top of making money by the means of a rather optimized business, I want my character to contribute to the party by being a capable rogue and a passable sneak attacker, but as Merchant Prince costs no less than 4 useless feats, and because there are a lot of other feats that I 'need' to get to complete the businessman theme, I am left with a character that is somewhat lacking in the combat department.

I added Sublime Chord for good measure, in order to keep 9th level spells within reach by level 20, just in case.

Can you help optimize this?

Books allowed: All, minus incarnum, psychic and Ebberon stuff.

Race:
Human (LN)

Stats:
St: 8
Dx: 14
Co: 14
It: 16
Wi: 8
Cha: 14 (All bumps goes here)

Build:
-1: Rogue 1 Feat (Favored in Guild), bonus feats (Merchantile Background), SA +1d6
-2: Rogue 2
-3: Swashbuckler 1 Feat (Negotiator), bonus feat (Weapon Finesse)
-4: Bard 1
-5: Human Paragon 1 Adaptive Learning (*SC prereq skill*)
-6: Human Paragon 2 Feat (Profession (Merchant)), bonus feat (Business Savvy)
-7: Merchant Prince 1
-8: Merchant Prince 2
-9: Merchant Prince 3 Feat (Craven)
-10: Merchant Prince 4
-11: Merchant Prince 5
-12: Sublime Chord 1 Feat (Improved Initiative)
-13: Sublime Chord 2
-14: Human Paragon 3 Ability boost (+2 charisma)
-15: Unseen Seer 1 Feat (Two-Weapon Fighting), SA +2d6
-16: Unseen Seer 2 Bonus Feat (Silent Spell)
-17: Unseen Seer 3
-18: Unseen Seer 4 Feat (Leadership), SA +3d6
-19: Unseen Seer 5
-20: Unseen Seer 6

My friends usually make tier 3 characters, and I want to be able to at least keep up with them in power. Thoughts?

shandiris

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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2011, 02:31:52 PM »
Main problem with this is not the character, it's the bussiness rules in DMG II. Unless you use liberal use of magic and aid another it simply won't be enough of a profit. (To even earn your initial investment back)

Garryl

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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2011, 03:08:07 PM »
See if you can use the red wizard/enclave master adaptation. It adds "any item creation feat" and "member of the red wizards" to the Merchant Prince's prerequisites and lowers the BaB, but replaces the spellcasting with +1 of existing spellcasting class at each level. If nothing else, this lets you take it later on without interfering with your SC spellcasting, which opens up the build a bit. It also gives you an extra level of SC casting, since you can move up the first level to 11th, and then take the last MP level. This may be very difficult to do since your early feats are so tight.

If you replace the two levels of Rogue with the Feat Rogue variant in UA, and then replace the level of Swashbuckler with a level of Thug Sneak Attack Fighter, you'll have the same skills and Sneak Attack, but one extra Fighter feat to free up Imp Initiative or TWF.
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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2011, 05:36:36 PM »
Huh ... nice.

So take the Aristocrat 1 as being discussed over at the Adept/Monk thread.
Then go Wiz 19 as concept, but with this Merchant Prince adaptation.
Aristo 1 / "Wiz" 19 is almost a normal build,
and then you get way waayyy too much money to go with it.


I recall a WalMart-ish thread back at 339.
Landlord was in there with it. Idk the details.

dark_samuari

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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2011, 06:22:45 PM »
I think another approach might be Aristocrat 1/Wizard 4/'Enclave Master 4'/ Legacy Champion 10  to really pump that Master of Commerce ability. By 20th level you would be looking at something akin to a +22 insight bonus on your profit modifier and a 120% reduction in your capital costs per class level.

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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2011, 06:24:10 PM »
For sake of pure amusement, I have to recommend the Alliance Merchant from KoKPG.  It's not the best class overall, but the free assassin and fool's gold are nice.

Also, "Foolproof Pilfering (ex)".  Best. Class Feature. Ever.
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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2011, 06:56:31 PM »
Merchant prince can qualify for obtain familiar/improved familiar and has handle animal as a class skill. You could take the master of poisons feat and 'milk' your familiar or animals of their poisons and sell it to assassins and the like. Better yet go into the beast heart adept prc and get a wyvern monsterous companion and milk that for an easy 3000 gps a pop.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2011, 05:18:31 PM by ninjarabbit »

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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #7 on: June 19, 2011, 04:56:24 PM »
You have given me many options to consider. Excellent. I redo the build and post the results.

Also, regarding the wizard builds, I have to ask why you use Aristocrat? I thought that it was a super weak class, even for an NPC class?

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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2011, 12:02:55 PM »
I will have to ask you to search the boards for my Seto Kaiba Build.

500+(6d8*10) gp first level? Check.

Buy stuff for 3/4 cost and sell for 150% value? Yeppers.
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Sounds fine to me.
probably over on "Off-topic".
might want to put a little disclaimer in the first post.

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Re: Making a playable Merchant Prince
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2011, 01:16:34 PM »
Well, Kingdoms of Kalamar was banned months ago. I don't really remember why, but it had something to do with a wizard of mine. The DM now thinks that everything from KoK is broken to the point where it is a threat to his campaign :-(

Also, I found your Saito Kaiba