Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 freelancerbob Feb 17, 2009 8:46:57	My Oh-so angsty Bard 10/Sublime Chord 6 character will be losing the services of his Arcane Valet (think magic Butler, lots of fun, very sad to lose him) soon, and I will be needing a replacement cohort. Due to massive charisma and stacked up modifiers, I'll be eligible for a level 14 cohort. My DM allows a fair degree of autonomy regarding cohorts, so I can shape personality, gear, levels etc etc much to my own desire. I've always wanted to play a centaur, as they have a fairly strong background presence in the game world. I was planning to play a pure meleeist type, although I don't mind mixing up minor aspects of other roles, divine stuff often plays well with pure fighter-types. The plan is to go with a Large fullblade sort of thing and generally charge and smash the hell out of things, or get him moved directly into melee before his turn for full attack goodness. Enlarging the guy is possible, but dungeon environments mean I don't plan to make him any larger. Book of 9 swords CLASSES are out, but a few feats for stances and maneuveres might get by on a case by case basis. We've access to most books except sandstorm and probably not the MIC, although I can probably wrangle anything that isn't too cheesy. I don't need apocalypse level cheese, but I want moderate high damage output in a survivable package without too much complexity. If I get too fancy the dm will get twitchy. Flavour wise I want to go for a full-metal guy, literally heavy metal, I'm thining fullplate, mithral or adamantium depending on budget/optimization. I'm thinking brash, arrogant and confident in his abilities, but with enough common sense not to charge till the boss says to. I could start with a few levels of fighter/barbarian/ranger (ranger being favoured class for centaurs: would need some substitution, default weapon styles don't fit the flavour) into some hit-them-hard PRC. although frenzied berserker isn't cleared. Assume LA buyoff will be used, meaning we have 4 Centaur HD and 10 regular ones to work with. As an aside, I've been lurking on the forums for years. I kinda miss the heady days of Pun-pun, but 3.5 will be around for years yet, I'm sure there's lots of fun optimizing left to do. I did have a look, but the only previous centaur specific thread here was a very basic one explaining how a ecl worked for a new guy , a few years back. I'm also familar with the various charge-optimization threads, I was hoping we might be able to get something specific to this particular situation.
#2 heliomance Feb 17, 2009 8:56:26	You'll want to use a lance, rather than a fullblade, probably. That x3 modifier on a charge with Spirited Charge is the very backbone of uberchargers. Centaurs are fun in that (I think) they get to use the mounted combat chain of feats with Leap Attack.
#3 dawnmor Feb 17, 2009 22:06:18	I would say a Barbarian/FB, or a Barbarian 5, Warhulk 10, FB 5, OR! Barbarian 5, FB 10, Warhulk 5. Either way it works.
#4 atomickitkat Feb 17, 2009 22:55:57	Gussy him up so he looks like an Armanite(like Demon Centaurs, with a lot of metal). This helps make casters perhaps try Dispel Evil/Banishment to get rid of him, wasting slots. Alternately, well-crafted plates will make him look like a Zelekhut. Definitely go Lance, maybe with Cavalier.
#5 freelancerbob Feb 18, 2009 4:11:41	I did mention no Frenzied Beserker. Going along that line, I suspect the Gm will be leery of warhulk as well. Hmm, how much damage does a large creature's lance do? I suppose it might beat out the 4d6 from a large Fulblade on the charge, and if I grab quick draw I can switch out if I want. I'll run leap attack by my GM at some point, it plays pretty well with the concept and isn't what you'd call cheesy. I'm not sure what alignment I want him to go with, but if it's cleared Cavalier does have possibilities.
#6 PlzBreakMyCampaign Feb 18, 2009 8:31:52	Do you really want the answer to that question? I created one such build that maximizes weapon damage size and then stacks on as many multipliers as I could think of. Your DM would be silly to allow this, but there is a lot of good stuff there you can use - check the sig. You can reply if you want and I'll eye over it but I got a little tired of pointing out some of the remote possibilities the highly theoretical builds were relying on once I realized it was less a conversation and more ... well, ugliness