Author Topic: Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful  (Read 3048 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

atewi

  • Ring-Tailed Lemur
  • **
  • Posts: 17
    • Email
Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful
« on: May 30, 2010, 05:16:30 AM »
Hey everybody! I'm not in a rut yet, but I will be in a handful of levels, and I need some advice.  I'm in an Evil campaign, playing against the "good guys" and I'm a little worried about the dissonance between melee and Magic.  All in all I'd be happy to stay competitive.  The Game master has disallowed ToB, and the game takes place in Faerun with all books being allowed. My character is sort of a Dark Defender for a Necromancer/Red Wizard and I'd like to be able to keep up with him and do my job.

The character is a Human Hexblade 5/Thayan Knight 3, using the Dark Companion Variant. My current plan is to go Hexblade 7/Thayan Knight 5, so I get access to the Greater Hex, but after this I'm really clueless. I'm not interested in the spell casting side of the Hexblade, and I would like to stick to the role of a debuffer and defender. I was looking at the Occult Slayer, Death's Chosen, Kensai or Knight Protector (Good requirement removed). I am unsure if either of these would truly help my cause, so, I ask all the kind folks here to give me a hand.  I am also using the unofficial Hexblade fix.

Currently the Red Wizard/Necromancer and I are tossing around the idea of making my character an intelligent undead.  I have no idea what the best template to use would be, or if it would even be worth it.

Being Unsure on which way to go my feats are less than optimal, but my party is 2 wizards and another Knight so skills are needed.  My first two human feats are tied up in Iron Will and Weapon Focus Longsword.  Through a flaw I have Able Learner, at level 3 I took Open Minded, and at 6 I took Mage Slayer.  The Hexblade bonus feat I took was Combat Casting, the Thayan Knight bonus feat is Improved Initiative.

Any advice on what I should do or where I should go?  It's probably pretty obvious I'm without a clue so any help would be appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this, and double thanks if you can help me out.

Ivory Knight

  • Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 325
Re: Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2010, 08:39:27 AM »
Read the Handbook?

I've never played a Hexblade and only used a dip here, but a few random thoughts:
You know, you could have bought Iron Will(via Magic Location: Otyugh Hole)?
Also I'd rather not neglect the Spells, you get Alter Self & Polymorph with qualifies you for Minor Shapeshift(Reserve Feat, Complete Mage).

Cyrocloud

  • Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 333
    • Email
Re: Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2010, 02:11:41 PM »
If you want to be an intelligent undead and they allow the savage species style level progression snag a level of ghost for the incorporeality, or be a necropolitan due to its lack of LA

ninjarabbit

  • Hong Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 1442
    • Email
Re: Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2010, 06:10:33 PM »
So you're a hexblade in FR and you didn't take dreadful wrath at level 1? I'm also seeing a lack of power attack for a melee character. I really hope you maxed out intimidate. And please don't try to be a skill monkey, the wizards will have more skill points than you so they should be the ones carrying that load. I hope you DM allows retraining because that's the best advice I can give you.

Becoming an undead probably isn't worth it unless you completely dumped you con score.

McPoyo

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 3783
    • Email
Re: Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2010, 01:17:52 PM »
Becoming an undead probably isn't worth it unless you completely dumped you con score.
Unless he goes Necropolitan, and uses his Cha score (which should be good, for what he's mentioned doing with the character) to fix the lack of Con for his HP.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Mixster

  • Grape ape
  • *****
  • Posts: 1642
Re: Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2010, 04:52:53 PM »
Since you already have the pre-reqs, Occult Slayer could be a good idea, at high levels it is kindda good at hitting everything since almost everything will have spell-like abilities. Oh, and the immunities and rebound spell abilities are nice as well.

Becoming an intelligent undead is not always a good choice, most of all it depends on your con score and you HD. Since hexblade is D8 and thayan Knight is D10, I don't think it's the choice for you. You'd have to have less than 14 con for it to be choice at all, and still it would probably be worse than what you have now since as is you can boost your con with items to get more HP.
If you still wanna do it, Necropolitan is probably the way to go.

Your feat selection is frightening terrible though, and I'd beg and hope for you get a chance to retrain it.

Another option is to actually throw in Ur-Priest levels right away, if you have the wisdom for it, which you probably don't, but then you can take the Faerun feat that allows you to cast divine spells of your int. This might seem like a manic suggestion, but here is my reasoning: You only need one feat to fulfill the pre-reqs. You will be getting spells which your party desperately need, namely spells that heal, since you said you had 2 wizards and 2 thayan knights. No-one is gonna heal at all, Ur-priest will help you out massively here.
You will still be a modestly powerful combatant, ending up with a BAB of 17, and spells to boost your strength and similar stuff.

At the very least I'd like to advice against death's chosen if you want to keep up with a full caster. It's IMO a terrible prestige class, the offer little that can't be replicated with dead cheap magic items. Yes having your caster friend exclude you from the area of his spells can be good, but only if he uses loads of area spells. Which I find myself rarely doing, also it should be the caster's job, not yours, making sure you aren't hit by his spells.

So to sum up:
Go Ur-priest if you have the abilities for it, your party will love you, and you wont be too shabby either.
Go Occult Slayer or Kensai, for focusing on your fighting skills, they will get out-performed by your mage friends in a few levels time, but you will be doing more than most fighters.
Go Death's chosen or Knight protector only as your last option, especially knight protector has a huge problem with nothing actually attacking him.
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

JaronK

Meep Meep - Mixster out

Shadowhunter

  • Hong Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 1003
Re: Keeping a Hexblade/Thayan Knight useful
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2010, 11:44:32 PM »
Mr. Ego says that you need more (s)Laughter around here, it's too morose. ;)
Paladin of Slaughter/Tyranny.
Blackguard.

There should be some Aura of Despair or perhaps it's Sadness in those choices.
No, no, it's Despair. Sadness is Focalor and not nearly as good.
Some debuffing.

Your saves will also thank you very graciously.
[Spoiler]
Quote from: Runestar
the most effective optimization is the one you can actually get away with.  :smirk

Quote from: Vinom
(A group of nerds are called a murder because like crows we are anti-social, like shiny things, and often squack at each other over nothing for hours)

I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/quote]
[/spoiler]

Binder? You're Welcome

Zceryll makes Binders go from tier 3 to tier 2.
Cagemarrow is a Genius

Before giving the advice that build X would be better of with Fist of the Forest, take a long, good look at Primal Living. Twice.