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[Harbingerjm]

particularly with the right ACFs. Of course, to build one to be useful generally requires a good understanding of combat efficiency, a fair amount of creativity in out-of-combat situations

Well... bother - I don't really know what a wild shape ranger is, I don't know what the right ACFs are, and I can't say I have even a nearly good understanding of combat efficiency, either. Unfortunately I can't do anything about all this and read up, because it's too late for me to be up with work tomorrow.

Wild shape ranger is basically what it says on the tin; they trade out combat style for fast movement and wildshaping.

Oh, also, you can't actually ride the badger, since you're both the same size.

Arg. I am going off to bed to feel demoralised. I really want a badger rider.

If you seriously want a badger rider, and won't settle for a Dire Badger or waiting till you can enlarge it (note, rangers don't get the Animal Companion till level 4, so there's that), you could take a race that is small enough to ride one. Jermlaine, Muckdweller or Petal are all Tiny, and there may be others that have built in reduce person equivalents or whatever, or size-reducing templates.
Actually, depending on how Nerjin is handling RHD there are probably a bunch more you could take.

[Flying Dice]

It's a semi-viable solution for the size issue, but for something like a Petal rogue he'd probably be better off neglecting serious weapons and using a pair of daggers, since all of the finesseable weapons have negligible damage dice at that size compared to the sources of bonus damage he can get. Though honestly it would just be easier to get (as suggested) a Dire Badger instead.

Also also, I would not advise TWF with two rapiers; you need to use a light weapon for your off hand to cut down on your attack penalties, and your damage as a TWF isn't going to be coming from an extra average 1 or 2 points of damage a weapon, it'll be from various sources of bonus damage (sneak attack for a rogue).

Ah yes, thank you - I think this is a left over idea of what is best to do after Immaterial's houserule, forgot about it.

Alternatively, you can use a double weapon, which is treated as a mainhand weapon + a light offhand weapon if you use it for TWF; a small two-bladed sword would give you 1d6/1d6 and 19-20/x2 crit.

Though do keep in mind a couple other things: if you're going to invest in TWF, you almost certainly want to get Pounce one way or another, so that you can do your full attack even when you have to move to get to your target. There are a couple ways to do this, but the two easiest are to either take the Travel Devotion feat (CC p.62), which gives you 1/day full movement as a swift action, or by dipping one level of Barbarian in the spiritual totem variant from Complete Champion with the Lion Totem (CC p.47), which gives up Fast Movement in exchange for Pounce. If you don't know already, Pounce lets you full attack after a charge.

The rage is useless for you, but if you're thinking about also doing ranged stuff, you could see if our gracious DM will let you gestalt that with the variant from UA which trades rage for ranger class features; a 1-level dip would give you a favored enemy, which will help your damage, even if you also CC into ranger, since it'll essentially be an extra FE.

Likewise, if you're going to go into TWF with a rogue, one of the viable paths to go is a Cunning Outlaw Rogue/Swashbuckler; a lot of the typical builds are something like Rogue 3/Something Else 1/Swash 16, Rogue 4/Swash 16, so that you're getting the sneak attack damage from the rogue and all the other much nicer class features from the swashbuckler. As an added bonus, Rogue 3/Spiritual Totem Lion+UA-variant Barb 1/Swash 16 would give you three different sources of bonus damage: sneak attack, favored enemy, and the Insightful Strike bonus damage from INT (in addition to STR, rather than instead of) for finesseable weapons that you get at Swash 3.

It's actually rather unfortunate; Complete Scoundrel has feats to combine class levels for Rogue/Swashbuckler, Rogue/Scout, and Ranger/Scout, there's one in CA for Rogue/Monk, and IIRC even a dragon magazine with one for Rogue/Cleric, but no Rogue/Ranger that I'm aware of. Honestly, unless you're dead set on dealing with traps (and if you aren't, I've got that covered), a straight Ranger would probably be a better sneaky type for everything save sneak attack damage than a Rogue, which in and of itself is not overly attractive, given that one of the major factions here is composed entirely of undead. S'ultimately your decision, though.

[GiglameshDespair]

My favoured soul with her ridiculously large hammer would do well in this campaign... ah well.

[Flying Dice]

You could always reserve and toss the sheet up, ya never know, the other folks might not end up joining.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm interested to see how Nerjin starts this off, and how quickly it becomes about us rampaging around FOR CHAOS.

[TealNinja]

It's a semi-viable solution for the size issue, but for something like a Petal rogue he'd probably be better off neglecting serious weapons and using a pair of daggers, since all of the finesseable weapons have negligible damage dice at that size compared to the sources of bonus damage he can get. Though honestly it would just be easier to get (as suggested) a Dire Badger instead.

Also also, I would not advise TWF with two rapiers; you need to use a light weapon for your off hand to cut down on your attack penalties, and your damage as a TWF isn't going to be coming from an extra average 1 or 2 points of damage a weapon, it'll be from various sources of bonus damage (sneak attack for a rogue).

Ah yes, thank you - I think this is a left over idea of what is best to do after Immaterial's houserule, forgot about it.

Alternatively, you can use a double weapon, which is treated as a mainhand weapon + a light offhand weapon if you use it for TWF; a small two-bladed sword would give you 1d6/1d6 and 19-20/x2 crit.

Though do keep in mind a couple other things: if you're going to invest in TWF, you almost certainly want to get Pounce one way or another, so that you can do your full attack even when you have to move to get to your target. There are a couple ways to do this, but the two easiest are to either take the Travel Devotion feat (CC p.62), which gives you 1/day full movement as a swift action, or by dipping one level of Barbarian in the spiritual totem variant from Complete Champion with the Lion Totem (CC p.47), which gives up Fast Movement in exchange for Pounce. If you don't know already, Pounce lets you full attack after a charge.

The rage is useless for you, but if you're thinking about also doing ranged stuff, you could see if our gracious DM will let you gestalt that with the variant from UA which trades rage for ranger class features; a 1-level dip would give you a favored enemy, which will help your damage, even if you also CC into ranger, since it'll essentially be an extra FE.

Likewise, if you're going to go into TWF with a rogue, one of the viable paths to go is a Cunning Outlaw Rogue/Swashbuckler; a lot of the typical builds are something like Rogue 3/Something Else 1/Swash 16, Rogue 4/Swash 16, so that you're getting the sneak attack damage from the rogue and all the other much nicer class features from the swashbuckler. As an added bonus, Rogue 3/Spiritual Totem Lion+UA-variant Barb 1/Swash 16 would give you three different sources of bonus damage: sneak attack, favored enemy, and the Insightful Strike bonus damage from INT (in addition to STR, rather than instead of) for finesseable weapons that you get at Swash 3.

It's actually rather unfortunate; Complete Scoundrel has feats to combine class levels for Rogue/Swashbuckler, Rogue/Scout, and Ranger/Scout, there's one in CA for Rogue/Monk, and IIRC even a dragon magazine with one for Rogue/Cleric, but no Rogue/Ranger that I'm aware of. Honestly, unless you're dead set on dealing with traps (and if you aren't, I've got that covered), a straight Ranger would probably be a better sneaky type for everything save sneak attack damage than a Rogue, which in and of itself is not overly attractive, given that one of the major factions here is composed entirely of undead. S'ultimately your decision, though.

Uh...  Rogues can deal with Undead via two Alternate Class Features (both of which replace Trap Sense) : Death's Ruin applies half Sneak Attack dice versus Undead (and comes from Complete Champion) and the strictly superior version Penetrating Strike applies half Sneak Attack dice versus everything normally immune to Sneak Attack (and comes from Dungeonscape).

Swashbuckler, beyond 3, is inferior to Fighter in everything except skills.  Rogue is superior to Swashbuckler as well; the Rogue's Skill Mastery is generally strictly better than the Swashbuckler's (and the Rogue generally benefits from high intelligence too as it has a large number of skill options), not to mention the other options the Rogue get's (including Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Listen, and Use Magic Device) and superior scaling damage.  There's also the Unearthed Arcana class variant that gives the Rogue the Fighter's bonus feats in exchange for Sneak Attack dice.

Dodge is considered a bum Feat in general, and having a class feature focus entirely on it is not exactly the best class feature; especially since you can beat the AC boost from Dodge by wearing heavier armour and it only applies versus one target per round.  Reflex is nice, but a one level dip into Ranger beats it.  Acrobatic Charge can be replaced with more ranks in Balance, Improved Flanking is situational (Sneak Attack scaling is better than +2 to hit), Lucky can be duplicated by a feat (or a dip into Cleric and the Lucky domain), and Slippery Mind can be taken as a Rogue special ability.

[Flying Dice]

True enough on the first, but on the second, you're not paying attention. Obviously a fighter can be built better than a swashbuckler -- that's not the point. The point is that a rogue/swashbuckler lets you get full sneak attack dice while also having a moderately less-shit main class via Daring Outlaw.

If you take a couple levels in rogue and then go fighter, you might as well just build a fighter because you have terrible sneak attack damage (in which case you might as well build a warblade or a two-handed power-attacker or a charge monster or a tripper or... etc. because a TWF-focused fighter, while better than a straight TWF-focused swashbuckler, is mediocre in comparison to the other options). And at that point you're a mile away from the agile TWF character which it looks like lawa is going for (aka, consider roleplay as well as rollplay). Likewise, arguing that a straight rogue has better damage progression than a straight swashbuckler is irrelevant, because nobody is talking about that.

tl;dr: I know that a straight swashbuckler is shit. You know that a straight swashbuckler is shit. We all know that. The point is that thanks to the mercy of CS it's a useful class for giving a rogue better BAB, an extra damage source, and a grab bag of extras while keeping the sneak attack damage, which is better than a straight rogue or straight swashbuckler. I'm not debating that a swashbuckler is better than a rogue or a fighter, obviously.

RE: Rogue special abilities: Yes, they're very nice. Worth taking 11 levels in a class with poor BAB and saves progression, and nothing else of note except sneak attack dice and skill points, which you can easily get from other build paths? I don't think so.

That said, I'll repeat: a 1-level dip into barb variants for pounce and a favored enemy could be worthwhile, and in addition to Penetrating Strike there are a couple other things to look into, though I'll just mention one.

Sacred Strike (BoED p. 45) changes your sneak attack dice into d8s and types your sneak attack damage as Good when you sneak attack Evil creatures. The fluff suggests that you be a worshipper of a Good god, but the only actual requirement is having the ability to sneak attack. This is probably one of the big things to pick up, given what we're looking at.

[TealNinja]

True enough on the first, but on the second, you're not paying attention. Obviously a fighter can be built better than a swashbuckler -- that's not the point. The point is that a rogue/swashbuckler lets you get full sneak attack dice while also having a moderately less-shit main class via Daring Outlaw.

If you take a couple levels in rogue and then go fighter, you might as well just build a fighter because you have terrible sneak attack damage (in which case you might as well build a warblade or a two-handed power-attacker or a charge monster or a tripper or... etc. because a TWF-focused fighter, while better than a straight TWF-focused swashbuckler, is mediocre in comparison to the other options). And at that point you're a mile away from the agile TWF character which it looks like lawa is going for (though past evidence has pretty clearly indicated that you're only concerned with rollplay as opposed to roleplay, so I don't expect this to get any notice). Likewise, arguing that a straight rogue has better damage progression than a straight swashbuckler is irrelevant, because nobody is talking about that.

tl;dr: I know that a straight swashbuckler is shit. You know that a straight swashbuckler is shit. We all know that. The point is that thanks to the mercy of CS it's a useful class for giving a rogue better BAB, an extra damage source, and a grab bag of extras while keeping the sneak attack damage, which is better than a straight rogue or straight swashbuckler. I'm not debating that a swashbuckler is better than a rogue or a fighter, obviously.

That said, I'll repeat: a 1-level dip into barb variants for pounce and a favored enemy could be worthwhile, and in addition to Penetrating Strike there are a couple other things to look into, though I'll just mention one.

Sacred Strike (BoED p. 45) changes your sneak attack dice into d8s and types your sneak attack damage as Good when you sneak attack Evil creatures. The fluff suggests that you be a worshipper of a Good god, but the only actual requirement is having the ability to sneak attack. This is probably one of the big things to pick up, given what we're looking at.

You are suggesting that Swashbuckler is ever a good class beyond 3rd.  The loss of 5 to attack over 17 levels does not outweigh all the other benefits of being a Rogue, which don't suddenly stop being useful things just because you want to be a trashtalking, one-lining duelist.

With 3 levels of Swashbuckler and the one level of Barbarian (or the value level of Fighter, or any other full attack class, like perhaps a Prestige class; after all, with Travel Devotion, you have Full Attacking as a potential at least one fight per day), you've already guaranteed your 4 attacks per round full attack.  You can still roleplay the same character, except that you'll be better.  The extras that you get from Swashbuckler levels are atrocious, with the tiny exception of the two critical effects, one of which you miss and the other which you have to devote 14 levels to get.  If you stuck those levels in Rogue, you'd have the same character, but better.  Nevermind that going off of Swashbuckler does not give you the skill points or flexibility to cover all of your bases.  Would the same build you're suggesting be superior to a build using primarily Rogue instead of Swashbuckler?  Why?  What scenarios are you going to be able to cover that a Rogue-based duelist wouldn't?  Conversely, how many scenarios are you going to be inferior to the Rogue, simply because of the loss of options?

Also, Sacred Strike doesn't enable Sneak Attack versus things immune to it.  It's a useful feat, but limited.  It adds an average of 1 damage per 2 levels when it fires, but against undead it adds, with Penetrating Strike, 1 damage per 4 levels.

[Nerjin]

I've seen this group get into arguments before. Keep it civil or keep it elsewhere. So far it seems alright but I've seen this take a dive before so... Preemptive warning.

PS: I love all of you.

[Flying Dice]

No worries, I've reported him this time. It's pretty clear at this point, I think, that they're just trying to start fights by being as passive-aggressive as possible.

That aside, lawa, build your character however you like, and I think we're all willing to offer help if you ask for it, but otherwise I'll drop this line of discussion since it's just going to invite them to post more. 

[TealNinja]

No worries, I've reported him this time. It's pretty clear at this point, I think, that they're just trying to start fights by being as passive-aggressive as possible.

That aside, lawa, build your character however you like, and I think we're all willing to offer help if you ask for it, but otherwise I'll drop this line of discussion since it's just going to invite them to post more. 

Twice in this discussion you've directly insulted me, and yet I'm supposedly the one breaking the rules enough to be reported.

I hopped into this because A) I'm generally interested in D&D and was exploring to see if this would interest me; and B) because you were upselling a poor class to a newer player.  You specifically called the Swashbuckler's features "much nicer" than the Rogue's features.

[Nerjin]

@Lawa... Fun fact: Garl Glittergold is not a thing. Please change your God to one of the pantheon.

[lawastooshort]

I'll try and fix that at lunch today...

That was an interesting sleep. I'll happily ride a dire badger if the GM allows it.

I might well favour ranger, and will have a think about the above suggestions and also try to find time at lunch for this.

Rogue with TWF or Ranger without would both suit me and my badger rider, so I'll consider my options.

Edit: and thank you all for the advice, I may be back for more...

[Flying Dice]

No worries, I've reported him this time. It's pretty clear at this point, I think, that they're just trying to start fights by being as passive-aggressive as possible.

That aside, lawa, build your character however you like, and I think we're all willing to offer help if you ask for it, but otherwise I'll drop this line of discussion since it's just going to invite them to post more. 

Twice in this discussion you've directly insulted me, and yet I'm supposedly the one breaking the rules enough to be reported.

I hopped into this because A) I'm generally interested in D&D and was exploring to see if this would interest me; and B) because you were upselling a poor class to a newer player.  You specifically called the Swashbuckler's features "much nicer" than the Rogue's features.

Guy. This is the third (?) time now that you and your friend have come into threads for games you're not playing in, taken the opportunity to dogpile me, and tried to turn it around into being my fault. Maybe it's a flaw on my part, but I'm honestly trying to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion here. I don't know if it's a grudge or what, but it really needs to stop, because it's mucking up peoples' games and making them decidedly not fun.

I guess it's a fundamental divide? Here's my perspective on things: not everything has to be hyper-optimized, and no individual's idea of a perfectly optimal character is identical or even necessarily similar. Roleplay comes before rollplay; a character's stats should serve to reinforce a character's character, if you take my meaning.

I'm honestly trying for an open dialogue here, but it keeps turning into you accusing me of attacking you, apparently because you don't agree with the idea of two people having different, equally valid opinions, and discussing them to improve both. Please, talk to me here, not past me: what do you want, and what do we need to do for this to stop being a problem, or at least one which affects other people?

Actually, we should probably take it to PMs as well. Message me, civilly, and let's talk this through, okay?

[TealNinja]

No worries, I've reported him this time. It's pretty clear at this point, I think, that they're just trying to start fights by being as passive-aggressive as possible.

That aside, lawa, build your character however you like, and I think we're all willing to offer help if you ask for it, but otherwise I'll drop this line of discussion since it's just going to invite them to post more. 

Twice in this discussion you've directly insulted me, and yet I'm supposedly the one breaking the rules enough to be reported.

I hopped into this because A) I'm generally interested in D&D and was exploring to see if this would interest me; and B) because you were upselling a poor class to a newer player.  You specifically called the Swashbuckler's features "much nicer" than the Rogue's features.

Guy. This is the third (?) time now that you and your friend have come into threads for games you're not playing in, taken the opportunity to dogpile me, and tried to turn it around into being my fault. Maybe it's a flaw on my part, but I'm honestly trying to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion here. I don't know if it's a grudge or what, but it really needs to stop, because it's mucking up peoples' games and making them decidedly not fun.

I guess it's a fundamental divide? Here's my perspective on things: not everything has to be hyper-optimized, and no individual's idea of a perfectly optimal character is identical or even necessarily similar. Roleplay comes before rollplay; a character's stats should serve to reinforce a character's character, if you take my meaning.

I'm honestly trying for an open dialogue here, but it keeps turning into you accusing me of attacking you, apparently because you don't agree with the idea of two people having different, equally valid opinions, and discussing them to improve both. Please, talk to me here, not past me: what do you want, and what do we need to do for this to stop being a problem, or at least one which affects other people?

Actually, we should probably take it to PMs as well. Message me, civilly, and let's talk this through, okay?

That would be conceivably possible if you didn't block my PMs.

[lawastooshort]

Ok, so, to get back on track to the important business of helping me make a badger rider. Any friendly comments on the below and any help for progression would be welcome.

I think it would be best for me to pick a ranger, as it is naturally more outdoorsy and because I’m not sure the whole idea works so well with a sneaking-about-dungeons type of rogue. This is mostly because I’m not sure Feckle the Forest Gnome would leap into combat, but would prefer to shoot things. From the back of his Dire Badger.

So! I need Wild Cohort as my Level 1 feat, assuming Nerjin will let me take a Dire Badger (if I can’t I suppose I’ll have to rethink the whole thing a bit), and I think I should take Point Blank Shot to help negate the penalty to shooting whilst mounted without taking both Mounted Combat and Mounted Archery. (I think the Wild Cohort feat may be a waste once I get an Animal Companion, but I don’t know what to do about this.)

So I need a flaw; I think I should take Non-combatant for -2 to melee hitting. Don’t know of anything less bad.

I considered being a whisper gnome as they seem better at… most things that forest gnomes, but I’m quite keen on the idea of being a tiny green midget at the moment, so forest gnome it is.

I think these stats would be best (original 28 points / forest gnome adjustment / +3 ability scores for Tier 4):

STR 12 – 10 – 10
DEX 15 – 15 – 18
CON 12 – 14 – 14
INT 14 – 14 – 14
WIS 12 – 12 – 12
CHA 10 – 10 – 10

With the points at levels 4 and 8 going to WIS.

Jebeddi "Feckle" Fecklebinder


edit:
Also, I have chosen humans as the favoured enemy for now. Presumably Undead would be better, or... demons, but I'm not sure the character knows about all that yet, I'll have to work on the back story. But then since there are two human factions, perhaps we will fight some.

edit 2: Not sure I can afford a longbow yet unless I ride mostly naked.