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[Rolan7]

It's two diagrams, and both of them are really neat.

[Tack]

Four arms would be fun on to treant.

[Jimmy]

Minmaxers... Unite?
Pathfinder players, I need help for my brother.
He's going to be playing a game (I'm not in) in which the DM is challenging players to create strange, wild, potentially OP characters using the Race Builder rules.
The idea is to go hog wild and find advantages.

As a starting point, he wants to play a strong character.  Probably a plant.  He considered minotaur, but it's a bit "overplayed".  So some manner of treant...  I assume with high reach, because apparently that's cheap as hell, but I don't know pathfinder at all.

He's also looking at Rock Throwing which seems pretty great for a strong slow character.

We were talking about Ent, but I think he was hoping for something even more unusual.  Remember, the DM is specifically looking for oddball stuff.

(thanks that update Sergius, how has it been going since then?  I hope it's working out)

How many racial points does he get? What class does he want to play? What level are we starting at? What amount of magical items does he have access to? Does it include custom items? Can't properly min-max without this info.

Personally I'd drop the Large size idea, since getting that is as simple as drinking a potion of Enlarge Person. You want to ideally pick stuff that isn't offered by any other easily accessed spell or ability, and will apply to almost all situations.

As an example, here's a compilation of stuff I'd put on my shortlist of must haves:

Lucky, Lesser (2 RP) - Flat +1 on all saves that stacks with everything and can't be bought
Spell-Like Ability, Lesser (1-2 RP) - Gain a 1/day spell from any first or second level list. Creativity is key here, but focus on stuff you can't get in potion form, like the Shield spell.
Spell-Like Ability, Greater (3-4 RP) - Gain a 1/day spell from any third or fourth level list. As above, but gets incredibly good when you consider options from the Paladin list like Greater Angelic Aspect or Holy Sword, as well as stuff like being able to cast Stoneskin or Restoration without a material component cost. Creativity is rewarded with this.
Flight (4 RP) - Having flight is an automatic win against some types of enemies, especially at low levels. Worth the cost, though not more than once.
See in Darkness (4 RP) - Screw light and concealment, this means you never have to worry about vision based troubles again, though watch out for invisibility.

Finally, all the stat increase options are good, but my favourites are Dexterity and Constitution, plus the caster stat if you're playing some form of spellcaster or Strength if you're playing a melee character. +2 Dexterity is equal to +1 initiative, +1 AC, +1 reflex saves and +1 on a bunch of skills, and so it's always a good investment. More Constitution is always a good thing, and then you put your final +2 into the stat that matters most to your character role, be it weapon damage or spell saving throw DC.

[Rolan7]

Argh sorry, I thought I said.  30 points.

I can probably convince him to take spell-like-abilities, but it'll be a bit tough.
Mostly I think he wants to play a strong melee character with long reach, but also some options, and probably he wants at least *some* ability to negotiate with people.  As a player he's damn good at that.

[Sergius]

It's two diagrams, and both of them are really neat.

Well, one of them is a map actually.
Unless a map counts as a diagram. No idea...

[Jimmy]

Argh sorry, I thought I said.  30 points.

I can probably convince him to take spell-like-abilities, but it'll be a bit tough.
Mostly I think he wants to play a strong melee character with long reach, but also some options, and probably he wants at least *some* ability to negotiate with people.  As a player he's damn good at that.

In that case, +2 Strength, Dexterity and Constitution for 12 points, Lesser Lucky, Flight and See in Darkness to take you up to 22 points, then a greater and a lesser spell-like ability and 2 RP to spend wherever you want, such as +1 natural armor or Shadow Resistance to gain cold and electricity resistance 5. Or swap the lesser SLA for a second greater instead. Seriously, what other thing can you take that equals gaining low-light vision, darkvision 60 feet, DR 10/evil, immunity to acid, cold, and petrification, resistance to electricity and fire 10, a +4 racial bonus on saves against poison, protective aura and truespeech as supernatural abilities, a +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus on saves against evil creatures, grant all your weapons the ability to bypass DR/good, and a fly speed of 60 feet with good maneuverability for one minute per level once per day? Or hell, just the ability to cast Teleport 1/day as a SLA (4th level Summoner spell) can save your damned bacon pretty often.

[MrWiggles]

Finally have access to Red Markets! YUS!


Also does anyone have a link to a digital copy of Eclipse Phase new book, X-Risk?

[RedWarrior0]

Argh sorry, I thought I said.  30 points.

I can probably convince him to take spell-like-abilities, but it'll be a bit tough.
Mostly I think he wants to play a strong melee character with long reach, but also some options, and probably he wants at least *some* ability to negotiate with people.  As a player he's damn good at that.

In that case, +2 Strength, Dexterity and Constitution for 12 points, Lesser Lucky, Flight and See in Darkness to take you up to 22 points, then a greater and a lesser spell-like ability and 2 RP to spend wherever you want, such as +1 natural armor or Shadow Resistance to gain cold and electricity resistance 5. Or swap the lesser SLA for a second greater instead. Seriously, what other thing can you take that equals gaining low-light vision, darkvision 60 feet, DR 10/evil, immunity to acid, cold, and petrification, resistance to electricity and fire 10, a +4 racial bonus on saves against poison, protective aura and truespeech as supernatural abilities, a +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus on saves against evil creatures, grant all your weapons the ability to bypass DR/good, and a fly speed of 60 feet with good maneuverability for one minute per level once per day? Or hell, just the ability to cast Teleport 1/day as a SLA (4th level Summoner spell) can save your damned bacon pretty often.

An at-will SLA of a low level might be nice, too. There's some good battlefield control and buff spells through the first three levels. Haste and Heroism are level 2 spells through Summoner and Bard; the former starts to pick up once it starts hitting a bunch of allies, and the latter is basically a permanent +2 morale bonus to attacks, saves, and skills, forever, for the entire party.

[Culise]

While I'm no char-op expert, one thing going Large does give you is that you can still use Enlarge Person on a Large species, which makes you Huge: 15' reach, ahoy.  If you combine it with some other non-magical, non-SLA method of increasing size further (since magical methods of increasing size do not stack, precisely to avoid these kinds of shenanigans), you can hit Gargantuan.  I don't think that the only methods of doing that jibe well with the character concept, but I mention it mostly for the sake of completeness.

[Spehss _]

How do you guys come up with names for player characters or NPCs? Like, say, for D&D or Pathfinder.

I'm kinda just throwing vowels and consonants together to see what works. Feel like they're all weird sounding names. (Im, Glod, Dulzen, Drer, Ztan, examples I just came up with on the spot). Also not sure what to do with last names. Using the same trick just seems like using gibberish for a full name.

[GiglameshDespair]

You could always use a random name generator for whatever it is you're making.

Foreign languages can be used to give a name related to the character.

Or just give them, well, names similiar to those that already exist, whether modern or historical.

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

I use rng for some. Others I take an appropriate sounding first name from somewhere, maybe tweak it slightly, the ndo a nounverb or nounnoun or similar last name

[penguinofhonor]

Lately I've been finding real names I've never heard of before. There's a chance they're common names elsewhere in the world and would sound boring to some people on the internet, but I find that possibility pretty funny.

[Tawa]

I use this website. In Tolkien-clone settings, I recommend Breton, Welsh, Celtic, and maybe Native American names for elves, Scandinavian or Germanic names for dwarves, and maybe try some Russian ones if you're feeling adventurous, and Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, possibly Norse, and maybe English names for humans, the last only if you're willing to sift through loads and loads of utterly mundane ones. If none of those strike your fancy, you could try the Dwarf Fortress languages. (I, myself, make an effort to include a dwarf named Libash somewhere in all of my games, as a little in-joke.)

I used to punch random words into Google Translate, but then I realized how silly I'd sound if any of my players spoke the relevant language and started using Behind the Name instead. Long before that, I would lightly mash keys on my keyboard until I found something I could corrupt into a name. I stopped doing this when I realized a week after coming up with a plot-important NPC that his name looked (although not sounded) like a double entendre.

Also, on last names; you can get away with using regular words in foreign languages here, and with some characters (e.g. warrior cultures, Britain analogues) you can manage just putting two English words together, Luke Skywalker-style.

[Spehss _]

I use this website.

Wow, great website.

In about 10 minutes I got a short list of names I could use, and with the help of google translate and some good old language corruption I managed to throw together a last name of Skjeggsbar, from Skjeggs (scandinavian for beard) and Barbar (scandinavian for barbarian according to google).

Arnborr Skjeggsbar sounds like a decent fantasy name for a dwarf barbarian, yeah?