Useful Character without magic items or spells

[Aharon]

Hi!

I've been a long time lurker on the wizards board, being again and again humbled by the resourcefulness of the members there, having ideas I would never have thought of...

Now I hear the Minmaxing goes on here, so here I am, with a question.

For Roleplaying Reasons, I want to try to play a character without magic items or spells. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be capable to help the party, so I won't take Skill Focus: Basketweaving  :wink

It helps that there's a plethora of allowed books, for races as well as classes and feats. 3.0 and 3.5 are allowed:
Races of Stone, Faerun, Dragon, Eberron, Wild, Destiny
Complete Scoundrel, Warrior, Arcane, Divine, 3.0 class books for classes that weren't updated
Tome of Battle

Attributes are
18, 18, 10, 7, 13, 12 (rolled them)

I don't have a complete build yet, just some unfinished ideas. I can use an item from a 3rd Party book that gives a nonmagical keen to a weapon (basically just really, really good sharpener), so I thought about a Cityscape-Full barbarian (for nonmagical Strength and Dex boni) using the tiger claw stance that gives you +1 on attacks and damage for each critical - in another 3rd Party book (3.0, Mystic Races or something), there is a 4-armed race with +1 LA, so with 4 arms, that would make a lot of hits, and some of them might be critical with the right weapon.

If there are any better (or more flavorful  ) ways to make an efficient character within these constraints, I would be thankful for your help.

Thanks a lot,

Aharon

[AfterCrescent]

If you don't want items, try to get the Book of Exalted Deeds allowed and grab the Vow of Poverty.

[ninjarabbit]

Assuming Unearthed Arcana/SRD are allowed then I'd recommend a wildshape ranger18/monk2 with the ascetic hunter, multiattack, and improved natural attack (unarmed attack). Leopard is a good form since it gets you pounce as a medium-sized animal.

Your stats should be
str 7
dex 10
con 18
int 13
wis 18
cha 12

[Stratovarius]

Take a look at the Forsaker, it's a PrC in Masters of the Wild that is designed not to use items at all.

[AfterCrescent]

Take a look at the Forsaker, it's a PrC in Masters of the Wild that is designed not to use items at all.

Ugh. But you have spend all your time finding and breaking them to be able to use the class abilities. Very subpar.

[Stratovarius]

Take a look at the Forsaker, it's a PrC in Masters of the Wild that is designed not to use items at all.

Ugh. But you have spend all your time finding and breaking them to be able to use the class abilities. Very subpar.

I would talk to the DM about it, as I've been able to talk one of my former ones into just not having to break items at all, as long as I was suitably adverse to them. Also, that doesn't affect all of his abilities, just the DR.

[ksbsnowowl]

Also, that doesn't affect all of his abilities, just the DR.

Exactly.  And I always thought the best way to deal with that was to make a Sunderer.  Get an adamantine weapon, and go sunder-happy.  Thus, you only initialize your DR when you need it.

I'd say go straight Crusader or Warblade, then maybe go into Forsaker if you feel you hate magic, rather than just not wanting to use any.

[Straw_Man]

Wildshape Ranger 6/ Totemist 2 (MoI)/ Primeval 10(FB)/ Swordsage 2.

Very primal shapechange and go to town like a beast build  Best choices for race Neaderthal (FB) or my preference, Azurin. Totemist can give your natural attacks bonuses to get through damage reduction and go well with the theme, but you can throw in barbarian if incarna seems to much like magic.

Vow of Poverty could synergise well with this build, but I'd like to hear more about what level your starting at and how long the campaign is expected to last.

[Slate]

You could try and see about getting the Disciple of Dispater PrC available to you from the Book of Vile Darkness. 

Although the class ability does not stack with Keen, it might stack with your non-magical sharpening stone effect.

At 4th level (earliest would be 10th character level) it doubles your weapon's threat range. At 8th level (earliest would be 14th character level) it triples your threat range.  With a pair of Kukris and 1 level of Warblade you could use Blood in the Water stance, the Feat Lightning Mace and pwn face. (use the Warblade Apptitude ability to make the feat apply to the Kukris).

Now you have (warning bad math ahead it's late) I believe weapons that threaten on a 9-20 and if you score a threat (note a THREAT) Lightning maces gives you another attack...which can score another threat and so on.
 
Additionally if you confirm your crit, Blood in the Water stance gives you another attack. Which can threaten/crit and so on. 

So with that combination you have something like infinite attacks, on average.

[Aharon]

Thank you for your answers so far.
@aftercrescent
Don't have that one, unfortunately, and it isn't detailed on realmshelp.dandello.net, where I get the information on feats I don't have directly available from books. It's more of a morally gray campaign anyway, with most players having neutral and some even evil characters, so the DM probably wouldn't allow a feat for which you have to be exalted. Plus, he just doesn't like BoED and BoVD

@Stratovarius
Thanks, but my DM probably wouldn't allow changing the Forsaker either - he is very strict regarding houserules that make the characters stronger - some people in my group (admittedly, including me) have had their munchkinny days in the past 

@ninjarabbit, Straw_man
Thank you, I like these builds. I think someone I know might have Frostburn, might have problems finding Magic of Incarnum, though.

@Slate
  Now that looks like something great. But I fear BoVD won't be allowed, as I stated above.

Thank you all again for your help!

[Radijs]

Its a nice trick Slate. There's only one problem. Warblade does not allow you to turn "lightning mace" into "Lightning Kukri". The warblade class ability says you can change out feats like weapon focus where you choose the weapon when you take the feat.

[Slate]

Two things to answer:

#1 I wasn't sure if BoVD was allowed or not.  You did say 3.0 class books that have classes that were not updated and I knew that was a class that was not updated and BoVD/BoED are both in a weird 3.0/3.5 hybrid state.

I figured mentioning it wouldn't be a bad idea since I wasn't sure as to its accessibility.

#2: Radjis are you really sure you cannot make Lightning Mace into Lightning Kukri?  Weapon Aptitude is pretty clear to me.  It says you spend 1 hour training with a weapon to change a feat that requires a specific weapon to apply to another weapon.  Lightning mace applies to a specific weapon - light maces.  I train with it for an hour to make it use Kukris.  Seems 100% RAW and RAI to me.

Aahron,  you could make a ridiculously good half-orc fighter 18/warblade 1/anything X using power attack/leap attack/headlong charge.  You would be doing something like 100s of damage by level 8-9.  Is that something you'd want to play/would be acceptable in the campaign?  Not gonna post a more complete build unless you want it.  Like you say in your initial post, you would not need magic items to make it work at all.

[Radijs]

My certainty comes two-fold.
First I have read a custserv ruling that said the same thing.
Second the text in the ToB says:

"Each morning you can spend 1 hour in weapon practise to change the designated weapon for any feat you have that applies only to a single weapon (Such as Weapon Focus).

Emphasis mine. The bold part states that its about a designated weapon. Lightning maces does not let you designate light maces as a possible option.
You could also say that two light maces isn't one weapon. But thats reaching.

[Slate]

Each morning you can spend 1 hour in weapon practice to change the designated weapon for any feat you have that applies only to a single weapon (Such as Weapon Focus).

Firstly, custserv has been quoted with giving completely different rulings for the same question time and time again.  Custserv=lol

Let me jumble up some of the words in the description with English synonyms.  "Each morning you can spend 1 hour in weapon practice to change the weapon designated by a feat you have that applies only to a single weapon."

Lightning maces does not let you designate light maces as a possible option.

Weapon Focus does not let you "DESIGNATE" a weapon. It says "choose". If you want to use synonyms then what I say stands really.

I do not see how it would not apply.  The real problem is the word "designated" as it has no rules value.  If it said something more like "You can only apply Weapon Aptitude to a feat that forces you to choose specifically at the time of taking the feat only one weapon to apply it to." then I would see your point.  But it falls very short of saying all that.

Personally I do not see how "designated" forces that conclusion.  It says a feat that names a single weapon.  Lightning mace is a feat that names a single weapon that it applies to.  Yet another reason for 4th edition.  Also, he can always ask his DM to simply rule on it - I know of no D&D groups that use 0 house rules or their own personal rulings.


And extra personally I do not care either way 

[wO-_-OdrOw]

Some things you might like:
Lightning Maces - Complete Warrior (extra attack each threat)
Kensei - Oriental Adventures (2 more threat range, but disgusting pre-reqs - viable when Gestalting with Fighter  )
Improved Critical: Light Mace (as opposed to you keen thing) - PHB
Thri-Keen - MM#, Expanded Psionics Handbook (4 arm race, makes sense with VoP)
Lion Totem - Complete Champion (Barbarian Variant, LVL 1)

and as much bludgeon boosting feats/extra attack feats as you can find...


edit: obviously didn't read any of the above debate before I posted. Still, Thri-Keen w/VoP seems good to me. Gets a decent AC (with Thri's Natural Armor) for being unarmored and you don't even need Monk.

[Straw_Man]

Its a nice trick Slate. There's only one problem. Warblade does not allow you to turn "lightning mace" into "Lightning Kukri". The warblade class ability says you can change out feats like weapon focus where you choose the weapon when you take the feat.

Wasn't this solved with the Aptitude Weapon Enchamntment?

[Shigunaru]

What about a Jordain Vizier (Shining South)? With a cohort Halruaan Wizard of course

Incarnum using classes can work quite well without items, and it gets scary when you have vow of poverty on a totemist...

Edit: nevermind, I didn't read the book restriction