Post/Author/DateTime	Post
copperwyrmling 11-03-07, 09:01 PM	As promised in the sublime chord cohort thread... ;) My other PC who's considering taking Leadership is a falchion-wielding wood elf dervish. I'm probably going to take Leadership as his L15 feat: as he's currently L10, this is a long way off (Demonweb Pits should get him about half-way there), but no harm in planning ahead so I can watch out for interesting access for the cohort. You can assume I can get his Leadership score up to that required for a L13 cohort at L15 - I have a +2 reputation bonus already, if I don't get any more bonuses then I need to buy a magic item from Heroes of Battle (which I have Any access to) and get a charisma ioun stone (I have metaregional access, and discounted at that). If I get another random bonus I can save some money, but if not, no drama. It does however mean that the cohort has to be Neutral Good (barring another alignment change on the part of the PC). This is much more open-ended than the sorc thread. I don't actually have a build in mind yet, although it should be a spellcaster rather than another melee type or an archer. Some way to reliably grant the main PC flight or airwalk would be very nice. Freedom of Movement is less crucial, as I have metaregional access to a ring, and will probably buy it well before L15. I'll post the main PC's build below. In terms of access... he has access to all prestige classes from Heroes of Battle iirc, plus Ruathar. He's also met the special requirements for Contemplative and Church Inquisitor of Pelor, but I'm really not sure that those carry over to cohorts. He has regional access to a true holy symbol of Pelor (bonus on turning checks for Pelorites), a lesser choker of eloquence, the fortunate / precise / deadly precision / death ward upgrades, and other such random bits of access, but nothing that really screams out for a particular class. At the moment I'm leaning towards a cleric of Pelor, just because cleric buffs are nice (Zealot Pact... drool...) and he's a sworn undead-hunter for the church of Pelor. The only thing I'm sure of is that it should be a spellcaster, though ;) So yeah. If you have any ideas for builds that you'd like to share, please post them. I'm really just trawling for ideas right now, since I haven't come up with anything on my own that makes me think, "I really want to play my dervish with this cohort on the table" ;) Main PC's build: (currently up to L10) Starting stats Str 18 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 12 Wis 8 Cha 8 (wood elf) L4 bump to Int, other two to Str L1: Ranger - Track, Weapon Focus (Falchion) L2: Barbarian (fast movement +10ft) L3: Fighter - Expeditious Dodge, Mobility L4: Fighter - Combat Expertise L5: Barbarian (uncanny dodge) L6: Dervish - Power Attack L7: Dervish L8: Dervish - Spring Attack (bonus feat) L9: Dervish - Acrobatic Strike L10: Dervish L11: Dervish L12: Dervish - Improved Critical (Falchion) L13: Dervish L14: Dervish L15: Dervish - Leadership Significant current equipment: boots of speed, +4 belt of giant strength, I'm probably buying a +1 holy adamantine falchion after my next game Comments and stuff that may not be obvious from the raw build: - Yeah, I know Melee Weapon Mastery is great, but he was into dervish by the time it came out, past the pre-levels where I would've had to decide to take four fighter levels. I want A Thousand Cuts more than I want MWM, especially when the latter comes with an XP penalty. I recognize this is no longer quite the optimized dervish build, but it's still quite good enough for LG ;) - What this PC contributes to the table: tracking (I'm retraining ranks into survival), alertness skills (again, skill retraining helps), mobility skills (crazy jump and tumble), but primarily, MELEE DAMAGE. Lots of it, every round, starting from the first round when most fighters can't full attack. He is, by design, a complete noncaster. He doesn't have a lot of combat options other than "I hit them really hard". Against foes flying too high for him to jump up and smack them (which is not a given: his jump check is pretty crazy), or otherwise out of reach, he needs caster support to be useful (if the party's in trouble, he WILL burn expensive consumables, but he prefers not to). - His base damage isn't that stunning, but with even basic buffs from the party, he can often power attack for full and still connect: thus, warchanter is not as good for him as it is for melee PCs who have really high base damage but lower attack bonus (power attack is still capped by your BAB). In any fight where he can reach the bad guys, his damage is already very good and very consistent. - I tend to take several Back to the Wall cards and use them aggressively: it's usually pretty easy for a dervish to arrange to be flanked (momentarily) in any combat with multiple enemies, and that's enough to trigger the card. Thus his Strength and Dex are frequently 4 points higher than listed above. Given these points, you can probably see why he needs a spellcaster cohort - someone who brings utility magic and a different skill set to the party, who can stop him from being useless in combats where he can't reach the bad guys (or can't attack them for some other reason). I await your suggestions :)
Lomiat 11-04-07, 07:55 PM	If you want a cohort that's simply different from Azrien's eventual cohort -- and that's not just a base cleric X cohort -- you could build a Marshal/Favored Soul cohort. Then, at least, you'd get two classes triggering off the 15 CHA, and the cohort could take care of the Face role at your table (if no one else has got that covered) -- as well as casting a host of buffs, over and over again.
copperwyrmling 11-04-07, 09:19 PM	If you want a cohort that's simply different from Azrien's eventual cohort -- and that's not just a base cleric X cohort -- you could build a Marshal/Favored Soul cohort. Then, at least, you'd get two classes triggering off the 15 CHA, and the cohort could take care of the Face role at your table (if no one else has got that covered) -- as well as casting a host of buffs, over and over again. I don't think Azrien's eventual cohort is optimal for Liantir (the dervish): it doesn't have enough utility spells. It's fine for Az because she can cover all the heavy-duty spellcasting herself, and has capabilities that make me comfortable playing her at bizarrely unbalanced tables (by conventional standards), so it's great for her to have a cohort who doesn't fill a missing iconic role but instead makes everyone better at theirs. Liantir, however, has no casting at all and thus his combat abilities are very one-dimensional - it's quite easy for him to be rendered useless by the absence of an iconic role in the party. The missing roles that tend to be problematic at high levels are arcane and divine casting, arcane more than divine. Trapfinding is also sometimes an issue, and trapfinding is definitely a bonus for any potential cohort (and beguiler would be cool, because it'll be my only chance to ever play one), but I think the primary caster roles are generally more important. To put it another way, if you were unfortunate enough to sit down at an APL 14 table and find that everyone (including you) was playing a melee kill-things-dead type, with no spellcasting whatsoever, not even CLW wands... and you could bring one extra PC to the table, with any build you wanted provided it was legal (for LG), what would you pick? I bet a lot of people would pick a healing-focused cleric / radiant servant, but I'm not at all sure that's the best choice. A party like that isn't just lacking healing, they're lacking battlefield control, buffs, debuffs and (particularly) mobility magic that are just assumed at that APL. If I take a cleric, they'll probably have Domain Spontaneity at least once, and I'll look at gods other than Pelor to try to get some of the arcane mobility/utility capabilities from domains. If I take an arcanist, I've been looking at Arcane Disciple to add some divine-like capabilities (Zodal seems like a decent option, with Community for Heroes' Feast, Liberation for Freedom of Movement, and Healing for the obvious reason) - which basically rules out sorcerer, since the Arcane Disciple mechanics are so unfavorable to them, but beguiler or wizard could still work. Beguiler would be nice because it also fills the trapfinder role, but their spell list seems inferior at high levels. I guess a wizard could go the traps-mage route - if they're taking warweaver levels, they're already losing L7 spells. Anyway, still just looking for ideas ;) Favored soul / marshal is interesting - I wouldn't mind playing a favored soul before 3.5 goes away - but the lack of domains makes it harder to cover all the capabilities I'd like.
magebeast 11-04-07, 10:19 PM	Well, if you're looking to really cheese this out, a Neutral Good cleric can worship a neutral god for a Zealot Pact of your choice - your experience with your cleric can tell you better than any theorycrafting on my part can suggest how useful that really is.
copperwyrmling 11-04-07, 10:43 PM	Well, if you're looking to really cheese this out, a Neutral Good cleric can worship a neutral god for a Zealot Pact of your choice - your experience with your cleric can tell you better than any theorycrafting on my part can suggest how useful that really is. It's useful, especially when two of your Commune questions at the start of the mod are "Are we likely to encounter chaotic evil foes?" and "Are we likely to encounter lawful evil foes?" ;) (Some GMs don't like using alignment descriptors in-character, although there are spells that rely on them: in that case, change it to "demonic evil" vs "devilish evil", or "unharmed by unholy blight and chaos hammer" vs "unharmed by unholy blight and order's wrath".) That said... Zealot Pact is nice. Zealot Pact + A Thousand Cuts makes it entirely feasible to crack 1000 damage/round, which would be fun to do before retirement (although the chances of an appropriate Zealot Pact coinciding with an encounter with enough HP to make it not-overkill is probably pretty low). But honestly, it's stuff like mass fly / airwalk / heal / heroes' feast / teleport / wall of force / swim / silence / glitterdust / invis purge / true seeing / greater dispel that will be more important generally.
MwaO 11-05-07, 07:56 AM	What about a variation on my favored beguiler of pelor, just with Zodal instead? That gets you Freedom of Movement, Community gets you Heroes Feast(with a UMD'd scroll of Owl's Wisdom), and Healing is of course Healing. A Beguiler 11/Unseen Seer 2 can do all that. Kind of the point of my Favored Beguiler of Pelor, except he does Recitation, Sun, and Healing.
magebeast 11-05-07, 01:00 PM	It's useful, especially when two of your Commune questions at the start of the mod are "Are we likely to encounter chaotic evil foes?" and "Are we likely to encounter lawful evil foes?" ;) (Some GMs don't like using alignment descriptors in-character, although there are spells that rely on them: in that case, change it to "demonic evil" vs "devilish evil", or "unharmed by unholy blight and chaos hammer" vs "unharmed by unholy blight and order's wrath".) That said... Zealot Pact is nice. Zealot Pact + A Thousand Cuts makes it entirely feasible to crack 1000 damage/round, which would be fun to do before retirement (although the chances of an appropriate Zealot Pact coinciding with an encounter with enough HP to make it not-overkill is probably pretty low). But honestly, it's stuff like mass fly / airwalk / heal / heroes' feast / teleport / wall of force / swim / silence / glitterdust / invis purge / true seeing / greater dispel that will be more important generally. Work your way to the BK again near the end of the campaign, go to an interactive, and pick a fight with an untiered encounter?
GeorgeFHarris 11-07-07, 11:56 AM	Well, if you're looking to really cheese this out, a Neutral Good cleric can worship a neutral god for a Zealot Pact of your choice - your experience with your cleric can tell you better than any theorycrafting on my part can suggest how useful that really is. I'd probably go for a Cle6/RSoP6/Con1 of Pelor. Recitation will give you +3 to Attacks, AC, and Saves (compared to +2 for another god) Zealot Pact is still in play. Turning is very good Domains: Healing, Sun, Glory, Strength or Nobility If you want a little extra versatility, you could have the cleric be of Ehlonna Domains: Sun, Plant, Glory, Celerity Gets you some battlefield control (Wall of Thorns) and Haste. GH