Post/Author/DateTime	Post
petalred 10-24-07, 06:39 PM	So, I'm just about to join my first ever D&D campaign, after several months of getting a handle on the rules and putting together a character, and I have just about everything organized and ready to play. My big hold-up? I can't decide on which feats I want to start with. Here's information about my character (important stuff in bold in case you don't feel like reading the crazy amount of information I typed out): My character is a chaotic-neutral human druid who's also a natural lycanthrope in the form of a wereape. This means I'm multi-classing in druid, wereape, and ape (lycanthrope), though I probably won't take very many levels with regard to my lycanthropy. The campaign takes place on a small city-island that--by some process unknown to almost all of its inhabitants--floats around hijacking ships, rather than staying put as one might expect an island to do. Anyway, my character is not native to the city, and hails from a continent modeled heavily after Africa, where he grew up in a matrilinear tribe, the son of a former chief who disappeared in the night--never to be seen again--after a seeming political battle with her cousin. As it turns out, the real reason she disappeared was that her cousin discovered she was a wereape, and threatened to reveal that information to the rest of the tribe if she didn't leave immediately. As far as my character knows he never saw her again, but he did spend most of his time from that point on exploring the wilderness instead of interacting with the rest of his tribe, where he befriended an ape who was in fact his mother, and eventually met a druid who took him under his wing. I don't mean to ramble about backstory, but I'm trying to relay ideas about my character's personality and motivation. The point is that my character is extremely anti-social, and has no idea he's a wereape, because he spent so little time with his tribe (or with other people at all) that if he was blacking-out and running off to do gorilla things, he was never close enough to society for it to get him into trouble. At some point my character began to have vaguely prophetic dreams and when he consulted his druid mentor about them, the man flew into a rage and disappeared forever. Years later, my character had another such dream in which he saw his druid mentor in an urban and completely unfamiliar setting. When he awoke from the dream he found himself in a cage on a ship, having been captured in ape form to be sold to an exotic animal zoo. The ship, of course, was intercepted by the city (who believed it a slave-ship, which I guess it was to an extent), and my character immediately realized that this was the city from his dreams and that his mentor must be here somewhere. For any Lost fans out there, my character's personality and physical appearance are loosely based on Mr. Eko. He's kind and well-meaning, but totally lacking in social nicety, as well as driven, unpredictable, and potentially quite brutal toward those who get in his way. He follows his dreams with an aggressive fervor, and relies heavily on his intuition to guide him. To add a more druidic spin to the character, he really, really doesn't value human or intelligent life any more highly than any other life, which accounts for his potential for extreme violence. My group includes 1) a shady halfling sorcerer con-man who believes his parents (who were working-class members of society) were worked to a premature death helping out with whatever process keeps the city moving, 2) an 11-year old orphan human hexblade/rogue raised in a brothel after her inherent evil killed her prostitute mother in childbirth, 3) a 16-year old orphan human spellthief/rogue who deals in the trading of knowledge and secrets, 4) a human who belongs to an order of monks who believe each of them represents part of God's body (he's God's smile), and that when one of those body parts dies its successor is born somewhere and must be located, and 5) a sorcerer (who belongs to some weird race that look kind of like sugar-gliders) in hiding, intent on killing his father for the repeated, secret raping and eventual killing of his sister. I'm the only non-native of the city, and there're lots of mommy and daddy issues in this group. I think only the monk is completely free from some sort of unfortunate tie to his parents. I don't know whether I want to play up melee combat or spell-casting more than the other. I guess if someone has any good recommendations for feats it might help steer me in one of those directions. My character is big and intimidating, and again, prone to violence if people get in his way, so playing up melee could be appropriate, but he's also highly driven by his dreams and druidic mysticism, so it might make sense to focus on at least some types of spell-casting (healing, shapechanging, etc.). If it helps at all, I get Alertness for free with my first level of wereape, and Toughness and Iron Will with my second level. My stats are: STR 13, DEX 12, CON 15, INT 15, WIS 17, CHA 16, AC 13, HP 10, but my first level of wereape also gives me +2 WIS and +2 natural armour. I carry a spear and heavy wooden shield, but wear no armour (it would just break every time I turned into a gorilla anyway). I have skill ranks in Concentration, Handle Animal, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), Listen, Spellcraft, Spot, and Survival. I also have a hawk for an animal companion. Anyway, thanks in advance for any suggestions! Sorry this is so long!
petalred 10-24-07, 11:31 PM	I guess in particular some feat qualities that interest me are allowing me to benefit more from having a high wisdom score, or making it easier for me to multi-class (ie. perhaps something that makes my Druid ECL equal to my actual ECL or something like that).