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[Kagus]

Ha, okay...  Think I just got lucky.  And, I've come up with a new special character type.

So anyways, on one of my many encounters I came across a kobold riding a giant dragonfly.  The idea of a kobold buglord struck me as so delightful that I couldn't help but want to make one.

Druids can ride, and they're also capable of summoning giant vermin at higher levels.  The problem is that druids need wooden or other natural equipment (not really a problem, but it can get annoying at times), they need to rely on more non-kobold spells and abilities early on, and the vermin summoning spell is a level four spell, so they can't access it until level seven.

I tried a few kobold druids, but they all ended up going splat for some reason or another.


I just recently tried a kobold ranger, however.  They're not spellcasters (which is a good thing, it was getting a little weird trying to set up a bug-loving spellcaster.  They do get some minor spells however, which is also a good thing), they're better at fighting, they don't have the wild shape ability (again, thematically strange, and the class gets balanced against that power), and one of the combat lines gives stealth bonuses (which are right up a kobold's alley).

So this guy is kinda cute (for being a kobold), and I start wandering around.  Now the only problem is finding a suitable bug to charm with my animal empathy skill.  After getting chased off by several different baddies, I realize I'm going to need a little help surviving.  I decide to summon my rangery animal companion.


Out of curiosity, I look to see if there are any interesting mountable critters in there.  I know I can't summon vermin, but there might be something else of interest.

There was.


Behold the night hunter, a nocturnal flying creature that I'm sure we've all seen at least once.  It has an innate spook aura, moves rather quickly, and can actually be remarkably annoying under the right circumstances.

It is also listed as being a large animal which can be used as a mount by humanoids.  Bingo.


So I summon my giant bat-like creature, hop on his back and am suddenly awarded with an insane view range provided by the hunter's 180ft of infravision (one and a half times that of a Drow), not to mention the increased speed and ability to fly over any kind of trap or dangerous terrain.

The only problem is that night hunters are naturally rather fragile.  Well, due to the fact that it's an animal companion, it naturally gets extra buffing and some insane regeneration in order to keep it alive.  And I can take a feat to make it even more powerful.

I'm currently wielding the whip I started out with.  It's a reach weapon, which means I can't attack anything that's directly adjacent to me.  Well, my mount can.  And he's damn good at it too, with three different attacks all coming in quick succession.  A bogwart decided to sneak his way inside of my whipping range, and was just about to try his luck at stealing some of my goodies when my night hunter obliterated him with a well-placed tail thwack.  This means I can attack a far-away enemy while my mount makes mincemeat of the guy next to me.

Furthermore, I move so fast that zombies don't even get a chance to touch me.  All I have to do is get within range of one, smack him twice, and move back.  Because of the speed differences, he will move at the same time I do, keeping him within range of my whip.  I just continue backtracking like this until he's dead(-er).  Doesn't even get a chance to touch me.


So let us usher in the glorious age of the kobold batriders!  Take animal bond and mounted combat as feats, and plug points into ride whenever you can.  Have fun.


Oh, one other thing...  I ran into a gremlin in my travels.  Out of curiosity, I asked him if he might be interested in adventuring with me for a while.  Due to the racial boost and a lucky roll, he said yes.

Here's the weird thing...  I was just wandering around in a little room when he decided to come in and see what all the fuss was about.  All four of him.

And then he did it again.  And then they did it again.  There are now fifteen gremlins in this room with me, and I think they're going to multiply again sometime soon.  They are all friendly, and they're all following me around.

Hooah.


EDIT:  Good thing there are so many of them, actually.  Apparently, gremlins turn to stone when presented with bright light.  Keep that in mind for next time you're assaulted by gremlins.

[chaoticag]

First crash, after being blasted by air into an oak door the second time. This game is a lot more stable than I thought it would be (maybe because I like playing melee). Poison in this game seems horribly unbalanced.

[BishopX]

No more unbalanced than ranged weapons...or Dire flails...

[Kagus]

I would say spiked chain more than dire flail, but I haven't used a dire flail yet so I wouldn't be able to say for sure.

[chaoticag]

I bumped into an inadvertantly funny situation.

Picture a Lawful good party of two priests and a paladin. Now picture them riding War Horses. Once you are done with that picture them queing up to get through a hallway. So far everything is perfect, until you notice that the mounts are hostile and beat the crap out of the priests at any chance they could. All of a sudden, there was an overabundance of horses and good eatin'. Too bad I never managed to recover from the poison that dropped my CON from a 15 to a 3.

[Mephisto]

That has to be some sort of bug. It happened to me once. The war pony I started with was hostile and I had to kill it.

[Kagus]

"Sorry ma'am, your warpony done gone hostile and started a-kickin' me.  Had to put 'er down."


I'm aiming for another diplomat character...  Halfling bards seem to get nice bonuses.  Rogues get more skill points, but bards get some extra special group powers (including bard songs), as well as a companion to help them out right from the beginning.

[Rooster]

Got "Error loading internal ASCII fonts"

Any idea how to get rid of this?

[Kagus]

Yay, first diplomat character to ever actually look promising and the game crashes every three steps.  First time I've ever had a game crash repeatedly like that.

And, it seems to forget that my character can actually ride.  That might actually be what's causing the crashes...  Hmm, lemme test something.

[Keiseth]

Rats. I imagine the best diplomat character to make would be female- as far as I can tell, every race with multiple genders is always generated male. What class is your diplomat, Kagus? Both Rogue and Bard seem to work, and I think you could even do Human and take the diplomacy skill. Cleric and Paladin might work too, with that, if they don't get diplomacy already.

[Another]

My last 2 characters were ruined by that counterspell bug. What was even worse is that some neutral mob across an ice wall was spamming bugged selfbuffs (including Command on himselsf) and I had a metamagic feat to shoot through walls and could had just obliterated him in 2-3 warped magic missles.
A diplomat of Mara seemed like a promising idea. I mean using undead meatshield in front of a physically fragile character. Getting to the Pantheon can be thought though.

[Kagus]

My dude's a bard, pure and simple.  The only problem is that he's also lawful good (wanted to be good since I was going to worship Hesani for the pacifist boosts, and lawful provides characters with an XP boost.  Since I wasn't going to be doing anything chaotic anyways, figured why the hell not?), which means that chaotic evil creatures are diametrically opposed to him.  I'd successfully quelled three or four groups of creatures only to have them turn on me as soon as I'd done so, and since I'd already quelled them I couldn't attempt it again.

This could've been prevented by a high rating in the bluff skill, but I didn't take bluff since I figured I wouldn't be needing it all that much (lying is evil, evil I say!).  Instead I put the points into ride, so that I could get some extra defense and speed (highly important for a character who won't be fighting, due to the constraints of Hesani's decidedly elven ways).  Speaking of which, I think this is the only character I have ever taken the spell expeditious retreat with.


Rogues could probably get away with plugging points into diplomacy, appraise, bluff and ride, but they don't get spells or bardic song (another thing I was putting points into was perform, which not only gives you ANOTHER boost to enlisting a unit but also makes training charisma faster).  Rogues aren't quite as good at being diplomats, but they do get the lockpicking and device handling skills, along with stronger boosts to stealth (all very important skills for keeping one's self alive).

Clerics and paladins both get diplomacy as a class skill, and both have some nice buffs for party members (of particular note is the paladin, who has an innate aura of fearlessness as well as some other handy party buffs.  And, his combat skills are actually increased by having a high CHA rating, thus helping to negate the lower combat skills taken by a diplomat).  Clerics of Hesani also get natural spells and abilities that help them out immensely, not least of which is the ability to turn undead creatures.  However, both turn undead and soothing word (another essential one for Hesani hippies) require large amounts of stamina to pull off, so you'll either be resting all the time or you'll be forced to take high CON scores and some stamina-boosting traits (dwarves are a little better off in this respect, but they get a small penalty to charisma).

I think bards are the best bet if you're keen on getting as many meatshields to follow you as possible.  Clerics and paladins are good if you want a few friends that you can lay the buffs on to keep them going (slightly less useful since NPC's in Incursion can't gain levels, so you'll have to switch them out after a while regardless of how well you take care of them).  Rogues are good if you want to be able to manipulate people into doing what you want, but also want the ability to bypass them entirely (or snatch them in traps).

A slight alternative would be Druids.  Give a rowdy "screw you" to the civilized races and go for the birds.  Most animals will start off neutral to you (which is really what the other choices need, since a bard can't talk to beasts.  This is exactly why Hesani clerics need that soothing word, and the stamina to use it very often).  You can't have a big party since converted animals will chew each other to bits, but if a big bad wolf tries to take a chunk out of you your empathic skills can convince him otherwise.  Furthermore, you can summon some rather nasty beasties of your own with the animal companion ability.  Since druids gain some special nature-specific buffs (I'm thinking specifically of magic fang here), they can pump up their already powerful companion and turn them into a veritable organic tank. 


I haven't yet tried converting anybody through intimidation, but since that is buffed by strength you could potentially make a powerful warrior with a sideline in cowing his enemies.  I've actually got a bare-bones orcish priest of Khasrach for just that purpose.  Haven't gotten a chance to try out his converting abilities yet though...

As for the femininity boost, I would indeed suggest doing that with a lizardfolk, since they can use that same boost when dealing with less-than-sapient reptilians.  Sure they get a charisma penalty, but the added versatility can be helpful.  Plus, lizardfolk are very keen on joining up with other lizardfolk (and they're almost all created neutral to you), and you gain telepathic awareness of all nearby reptiles.  If danger calls, jump in a lake.

[Tormy]

Yay, first diplomat character to ever actually look promising and the game crashes every three steps.  First time I've ever had a game crash repeatedly like that.

And, it seems to forget that my character can actually ride.  That might actually be what's causing the crashes...  Hmm, lemme test something.

I've had some crashes also. The game is very far from being completed. 

[Kagus]

A crash every now and then is no problem, but repeated crashing of a single game to the point where it becomes unplayable is highly annoying.

Anyways, just did some testing with the intimidate skill.  Apparently, you can only use intimidation to issue requests to other creatures, you can't enlist the aid of a creature through its use.  Well, at least not fully.

You can issue a request for an individual creature to follow you, causing them to trail after you and attack anything they would normally be hostile towards (you get half the experience for each kill they make, which I think is the same for kills made by enlisted party members).  If they're not hostile to something that's hostile to you, you can issue another request to make them attack your target.  Finally, should you want to rest, you can issue a request to make them share watches with you.  I believe it's possible to do this with multiple creatures at a time.

Pretty simple stuff, right?  Here's the kicker:  Every time you issue a request, for each type of request, you must make an intimidation check.  Every single time.

So you'd damn well better buff up your intimidation skill and take skill focus in it to get the extra roll, otherwise your lackeys will be turn on you at the first available chance.  Furthermore, creatures following you through the "follow me" request are treated as temporary allies, not permanent.  Go down (or up) a staircase and they won't follow you.  Also, they have a disconcerting habit of lagging behind and then disappearing when you're not looking...

Finally, trying to get the aid of a hostile creature is a bit tricky.  you first have to make a successful intimidate check in order to scare them, then make a diplomacy check (important!  This is *not* handled by intimidate! Generally the difficulty checks are rather low, but still...) in order to offer them terms of peace.  Then, once they're neutral (if the checks were successful), you can issue requests using intimidation.

The problem with this is that the creature will generally still be frightened when you get them to work for you, which makes them rather useless.  They won't attack enemies, and you'll have a hard time getting them to go where you want them to.


If you want to have a party of meatshields, intimidation is NOT the way to go...  Waaay too many actions you have to take, and it has to dip into a different skill if you want hostile creatures to become peaceful.

However, intimidation is not without its strong points...  Scaring off creatures is great fun, and actually trains strength (making you an even more powerful and intimidating warrior), and sometimes killing a creature when witnesses are nearby will train charisma (due to the "example" effect of intimidation.  Check the skill description for more info).  The mass of intimidation checks needed makes it feel thematically like you're trying to keep a bunch of goons in line, but it can get very tiresome if you have more than one or two people you want to boss around.


So, that's about that.  My orcish priest currently has 31 points of strength and can make just about any thinking beast cower in fear.  Great fun.  But again, it's tedious.  And early on (or if you don't specialize in it), you run the risk of losing control over your minions.


Think I'm going to roll up a human charlatan to see what all can be done with bluff checks...

EDIT:  Not very much it would seem.  The only big benefit it would provide would be the alignment concealment.  But even if that does work (and I'm not entirely sure it does, really), the benefit doesn't much exceed what can be achieved by picking true neutral as your alignment.  And then you don't feel guilty about consorting with people you normally would be opposed to (you can't bluff yourself).  Other than that, all you can do is buy yourself a turn with fast-talking (and that's only from one person) or cause people to look the other way long enough for you to slip into the shadows (or use it to issue requests if your diplomacy skill is too low).  Nice if you're a rogue, but not very helpful if you're trying to be diplomatic.


EDIT2:  Okay, I really have a thing for theme characters...  I am currently playing a dwarven detective.  Utterly useless, as disguise is a practically useless skill and the same could be said for his other skills.  I even took ranks in bluff instead of handle devices.  Also, he's a lawful rogue, rarely a good combination...

But hey, y'know?  Might make an interesting story.  I'll see if he lives.


EDIT3:  Nope.

[Sowelu]

Kagus, those edits were terribly amusing to read.