Post/Author/DateTime	Post
AngryMonkey 02-01-05, 05:31 AM	So, some time in the near future we are starting a series of games in the Ebberon setting with characters beginning at level 8. I've decided to run with a pirate character for sheer style purposes but require some fairly serious munching to make the character viable and not a drain on the party, with a few caveats: 1) 28 point buy. 2) Must be able to take more than token ranks in Swim, Profession(Sailer) and Appraise. 3) Must be made at 8th level. 4)Can use anything from the Complete Series as well as the Ebberon Campaign setting, and possibly other specific items from other books that are very generic. The build as it stands to date is a Human Rogue 3/Bard 2/Swashbuckler 2/Dread Pirate 1. I know that at first this combination seems wacky but I can assure you that there is method in my madness. Stats are: Str:12 Con:14 Dex:16 Int:14 Wis:10 Cha:12 (an honourable pirate *should* have a natural Cha bonus....) Feats are as follows: Weapon Finesse Two Weapon Fighting Combat Expertise Improved Disarm Improved Buckler Defense Quick Draw In explaination: The bard levels give me access to Inspire Courage and that will make a later ability of Dread Pirate slightly better. More importantly at the moment Bard also gives me buckler proficiency and whip proficiency, and I am not taking XP penalties now or later with two levels. I only have two Swashbuckler levels at the moment rather than three because I want to start out with two weapon fighting and at the moment one extra dice of sneak attack is more important than my (currently not extremely high) Int bonus to damage (at higher levels this balance will have shifted and I'll take the third level then). Rogue is just plain good for the skill points, sneak attack and evasion abilities. I intend to use the whip to disarm opponents while my friends are engaging in more conventional fighting (read: smacking the **** out of the bad guys) and tumbling in to help them when they need a little extra melee support. Because my AC will be quite low I can use the Improved Buckler Defence feat and a magic buckler to aid me a little. Combat Expertise can be used if I'm just trying to pin someone down and waste their attacks on me of a few rounds, and with Quick Draw I should be able to drop my whip and draw my rapier at a moments notice (It's also a pre-req for Dread Pirate) I am aware that a Sailing Ship will be a large chunk of my starting wealth. As I said earlier, I am trying to make an otherwise weak concept into something playable here and NOT trying to make the most powerfull character in the party. Im not completely sold on actually using the Dread Pirate as it is quite weak, and with the right skills any character can be a pirate even without class levels to say so. That being said, it is cool :) So, does anyone have any suggestions at all for alternative builds?
Hiei the Assassin 02-01-05, 01:27 PM	I have something to say. Because this is Eberron i'd recommend looking into something over the top. Talk with the DM and see if you could get around the ship and I'm thinking more along the lines of joint custody of an airship with other party members. The cost would be less taxing on you and you wouldn't be as limited as you would in a regular ship. I don't have Eberron on me right now, but if the airships are too expensive there are other possibilities. I can only offer help as far as the transportation, because that's all I can think of at the moment. There are the vehicles in the Arms and Equipment Guide too...
AngryMonkey 02-01-05, 01:41 PM	Because this is Eberron i'd recommend looking into something over the top. Talk with the DM and see if you could get around the ship and I'm thinking more along the lines of joint custody of an airship with other party members. The cost would be less taxing on you and you wouldn't be as limited as you would in a regular ship. I don't have Eberron on me right now, but if the airships are too expensive there are other possibilities. I had thought about that, but airships are in the vacinity of 90,000GP and thats just a tad too high for a party at 8th level. Besides that, they are all property of house Lyrandar and very rare so getting my hands one one would be difficult. They also require a Dragonmarked Heir of the house to reliably control - although I'm working on a way around that. I intend to steal one at higher levels :P Now, isn't there anyone with some alternative advice out there?
Aethamyr 02-01-05, 05:06 PM	Ninja 6/Dread Pirate X The ultimate combination...
allenchan 02-01-05, 05:21 PM	You could go with the swashbuckler/scout/dervish build. You can easily make it pirate with flavor. And an actual Dread Pirate needs good Cha, so i'd recommend maybe Bard. Or, a Paladin of Freedom / Dread Pirate. Think of the flavor, that'd be pretty sweet. CG Human Rogue 1/Paladin 4/Dread Pirate 10/XXX 5 Maybe finish up with a dip into Marshal or something.
Galbard 02-01-05, 06:32 PM	I wonder if going for a sailing ship is a good idea in Eberron. It doesn't seem to have much sea-based activity (after all, it's basically just one big continent). Further, at level 8 you're only one level away from teleport. Soon the party wizard will start wondering why he has to spend 2 weeks on board of your ship for something which costs him only 6 seconds. An airship is a different matter of course. It stays useful much longer and it has a huge coolness factor. So I suggest dropping your bard levels for Dragonmark Heir. If your GM is reasonably this should be enough to let you start as a captain of a (house owned) airship. I also suggest taking Leadership. This will give you a loyal crew to man your ship and a second in command to take over when you are off your ship (which will happen a lot).
AngryMonkey 02-02-05, 05:29 AM	I wonder if going for a sailing ship is a good idea in Eberron. It doesn't seem to have much sea-based activity (after all, it's basically just one big continent). Further, at level 8 you're only one level away from teleport. Soon the party wizard will start wondering why he has to spend 2 weeks on board of your ship for something which costs him only 6 seconds.You seem to be missing the point here. Every campaign setting I've ever seen is essentially just a big continent. In fact, the entire of both North and South America is essentially one big continent and there has been no shortage of pirate activity around these regions. Besides, when I look at the maps in the front of the Ebberon Campaign setting I see plenty of island chains that would be perfect for pirate activity. Now about the teleport issue: what makes you think I intend to use my ship to carry my party members from place to place? Its pretty difficult to sail the seven seas pillaging merchant vessels without, well, sailing the seven seas and having the cargo capacity to take all their merchandise. With no knowledge of the details or crew of a random ship in the ocean even a 9th level Wizard will have a hard time finding a good target, and using their precious teleport spells they risk landing in the ocean 25% of the times they travel the "convinient" way. An airship is a different matter of course. It stays useful much longer and it has a huge coolness factor. So I suggest dropping your bard levels for Dragonmark Heir. If your GM is reasonably this should be enough to let you start as a captain of a (house owned) airship.Again, missing the point. It's a bit difficult to be a pirate preying on the trade goods of House Lyrandar if I'm a Dragonmarked Heir of House Lyrandar in the first place. I also strongly suspect that I may well lose my Favoured in House feat if I did start stealing my own houses property, which would in turn cause my class features to cease functioning. Depending on your interpretation of class feature this may well include the ability to pilot an airship in the first place. It is also much more satisfying starting with a standard sailing ship and then upgrading during the course of adventuring anyway. If I started with a flying ship what would I have to look forward to. I also suggest taking Leadership. This will give you a loyal crew to man your ship and a second in command to take over when you are off your ship (which will happen a lot).Not at level 8 with a Cha bonus of +1 it won't. Even with a leadership score a few points higher I still won't have enough to crew a ship. Leadership is definitely on the list of things to take, but not right now. As to leaving the ship a lot; I fully expect that to happen, which is why I am interested in being reasonably effective in fairly generic combat situations. You could go with the swashbuckler/scout/dervish build. You can easily make it pirate with flavor.This is true, and not a bad idea :cool: . And an actual Dread Pirate needs good Cha, so i'd recommend maybe Bard. Or, a Paladin of Freedom / Dread Pirate. Think of the flavor, that'd be pretty sweet. CG Human Rogue 1/Paladin 4/Dread Pirate 10/XXX 5 Maybe finish up with a dip into Marshal or something. Now this I like, but unfortunately the Paladin variants are not one of the things my DM is allowing (that is what the PrC's are for...). Keep it coming guys, I'd love to see what some of the more devious or lateral thinkers out there can come up with :)
Galbard 02-02-05, 02:47 PM	From your mail it was not clear to me that you would be running a pirate CAMPAIGN, just that you wanted a pirate CHARACTER. That (apparently wrong) assumption caused the 'missed points'. But it is still no reason to become offensive. Perhaps that's not how your reaction was intended, but it is how I perceive it. You seem to be missing the point here. Every campaign setting I've ever seen is essentially just a big continent. In fact, the entire of both North and South America is essentially one big continent and there has been no shortage of pirate activity around these regions. Besides, when I look at the maps in the front of the Ebberon Campaign setting I see plenty of island chains that would be perfect for pirate activity. Most of the pirate activity in the America's has been in the Caribbean. That is not a big continent. Neither are the Mediterrean or the Indonesian archipel, other places notoriously for piracy. Eberron does not have regions like that, not even the Lazaar Principalities because they miss the rich neighbouring regions trading with each other.
AngryMonkey 02-03-05, 04:08 AM	From your mail it was not clear to me that you would be running a pirate CAMPAIGN, just that you wanted a pirate CHARACTER. That (apparently wrong) assumption caused the 'missed points'. But it is still no reason to become offensive. Perhaps that's not how your reaction was intended, but it is how I perceive it. No, you were right the first time. I am talking about a pirate character and not a campaign. But I did mean a *pirate* and not a trader. As to me getting offensive, I'm afraid you are misintertpriting my intentions. Most of the pirate activity in the America's has been in the Caribbean. That is not a big continent. Neither are the Mediterrean or the Indonesian archipel, other places notoriously for piracy. Eberron does not have regions like that, not even the Lazaar Principalities because they miss the rich neighbouring regions trading with each other. Sure, but the Carrabean is just a series of islands very close to the main continent and there are plenty of these in Ebberon as well. We also do not have very detailed information about trade roots in Ebberon anyway. Looking at a map of the real world and being asked to point out where all the major trade roots are would be pretty difficult if we only have the equivilent of the Real World Campaign Setting to use as a guide. On a side note, it is an interesting proposition to be a privateer in the employment of house Lyrandar and steel the cargos of other trading groups. It seems like the real pickings would be fewer and father between if I did operate that way but I may get an airship legitimately, but it just seems so much cooler having an adventure to steal one instead :)