Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Somnio Jun 24, 2014 19:56:48	Hello everyone.  I got the thumbs up to use necropolitan template and thought it would be fun to make a bard who's obsessed with "living" to tell the tales that he underwent the ritual to be undead and "live" longer.  For more flavor, I really would like to run a tibbit as the race.  Given that you can't cast spells with verbal components, he'd have perform(dance).  So, what we have is an undead small tibbit that can turn into a fat undead kitty!  Horray!  I really love the flavor here.   For feats, I think the only MUST have is Requiem.  Without it, my own music will not affect me.  Next on the list is Words of Creation for obvious reasons.  As a bonus, the non-lethal damage it deals doesn't affect me(undead).     So from here, I'm not sure what else to do.  This campaign is going to have a lot of undead, making my choice very interesting for the party.  Our party also seems to be lacking melee damage.  Having all d12 HD with this template and no Con will allow me to dump my Con stat and still have great HP.  I'm reading that correctly, right?  Once you aquire Necropolitan, do your future HD on classes change to 12HD as well?   Having me as a source of melee damage would be nice, so I'm thinking of ways to have a decent melee damage output.  I've already spent 2 of my feats.  Snowflake Wardance with TWF seems like a solid choice.  The other option I'm guessing is the power attack route.  What do you guys think would be best considering my limited feats?   No flaws allowed so far.  No homebrew, all 3.5, some PF 3.0 allowed.  Anything else would have to be at DM discretion.   We start at level 5, but I think I can convince my DM to give me the template built into the storyline and allow me to be level 5 with the group.   Appreciate your thoughts!
#2 Tempest_Stormwind Jun 25, 2014 13:36:38	Somnio wrote:
#3 Andarious-Rosethorn Jun 25, 2014 13:14:43	Requim is amazing, can't believe I've never seen that Feat before. Use Haunting Melody if at all possible it'll help with almost every enemy you face thanks to Requium.
#4 Morty_Jhones Jun 26, 2014 2:07:13	intresting combo   should be easy to selll to your GM as you lose a leve to gaine it but you would be a feat ahead although you would not gain another fgor getting 6th (since you) already have it.       if your hart is set on being a melee Bard  i would recomend geting feats to improve your HP and Con save (yes i know youe undead) trust me you WILL need them. whill undead are immune to most CON spells such as posions and drains they are not imune to disintergations and materal shifts against both of wtich they have an abnormaly LOW saving throw.   also 1d12 may sound like alot of HP but rember living get +X to that as well and most Close combat PS will stack Con. realisticaly the only class that will on average benefite from undeath will be wizards (more hp) and sorc's (slightly more hp & good Cha mod.) nmot shure how your bard whill stack out       also what about the driuds old standby - Alternate spellcasting you do afteral have acess to an alternate form. bingo casting and 'singing' in cat form is now allowed.   since you have an alternate form  hwo about improved shapshift and partal shapeshift feats the 1st speeds up your shapshift to a free action and the 2nd alows you to chose a body part (hands feat, nose eyes etc) and then you can sape shift that part into a proper scaled for your current size veshion of any alternate form so whant cat claws as a human or human hands as a cat .........       also the race has rouge as a favored class why not multy class? bard rouge, cast support spell from behind, sneak past the combat as a cat then shapshift back and stab them in the back. theres a couple of rought feats such as undead hunter that requre spell levels as well (oh look bard) that allow there sneek attacks and such to work on undead. .     as for the sujestion of unholy toughness thats a is a speshal quality not a feat an so is not available unless he takes the evolved undead presteage class and ask's his GM to alow it as one of his options.. though it can easaly be replecated by taking the Toughness feat (+3 Hp) and that leads onto Improved Toughness (+1 Hp per HD) and the monster feats that impove DR         the only other feat i could find was unholy grace wich is a replacer for any paladin's or angles grace ability when transformed into an undead.
#5 Andarious-Rosethorn Jun 26, 2014 7:26:08	Tempest was suggesting a potential houserule rather than something normally part of the rules Marty_Jhones. Unholy Toughness would take the Necropolitan from being basically a D6 with a locked in +3 Con bonus (Average HP of 6.5/level) to someone that can compete with party members who will likely have D8 with +5 Con bonus (Average 9.5 Hp/level) by 20. I'd even suggest that with the Unholy toughness variant it makes sense to leave the class HD unaffected (as they should be, they're not racial HD). Without the Unholy Toughness trait you're better off playing a Gnome Bard and being able to get Con enhancement later (mechanically). Improved Toughness (first available to a Bard at 6) will go a fairly long way to get you HP. There are some great Bard spells to cover your Fort save at least a bit, Ruin Delver's Fortune and Ray Deflection (for Disintigrate).       Taking Rogue levels (not ROUGE which is a colour) is just a flat out bad idea sorry. Sneak attack doesn't add nearly as much damage as higher level Spells and Inspire Courage will be able to, which is what you're giving up for a bit of SA (Maybe +7 conditional damage for 3 character levels). Don't do this.
#6 Somnio Jun 26, 2014 18:04:13	Thanks you guys for all the replies.  I thought I had initially replied, but for some reason it didn't go through.   Tempest:  Thanks for all the effort you put in your post!  I'm not sure if they would homebrew a +cha to HP for undead as they're probably already weary that me being undead is strong as it is.  There is, however, a feat in a dragon magazine called faerie mysteries of the initiate that basically will give me +INT to hp each level instead.  What do you think?  The problem is, I'm incredibly feat starved as is already...   I would like my main focus to be bardic music.  I'm not worried too much about spells, but I do want to be able to perform as many varied musics as possible.  The reason I'm thinking melee combat is due to two others possibly taking casters(summoner wizard and cleric).  There are still two others up to decide, though.   Thanks for the build suggestions and the link.  There was some useful information found!  Unfortunately, my group doesn't even know about Tome of Battle and I doubt I could get them to go for it.  That would certainly change a lot of things for sure, but I'm not counting on it.  I kind of thought that eventually I would attain a crystal echoblade, be all bard for the added damage, and go to town with TWF+oversized for the extra echoblade.  Very feat intensive, though.   I may end up abandoning the idea of being a tibbit and take human for the extra feat.  I do like the tibbit flavor, but I also feel like I'm trying to smash two characters together with the tibbit and undead template.  My tibbit idea originally came from wanting to make a tibbit psychic rogue, which is the other option for this group.     Morty_Jhones:  I'm sorry but I simply cannot read your post.  The grammar and misspellings are driving me nuts.
#7 Andarious-Rosethorn Jun 26, 2014 21:09:27	Honestly your massive inspire courage bonus will make up for Oversized penalties (-4, over -2) don't worry about it, spend your feat on more important things. Also never go beyond 2 weapon fighting (and get Gloves of the Balanced Hand, super important). Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who had trouble with that post from Morty_Jhones, made my brain twitch.
#8 dippyblonde Jun 27, 2014 4:56:28	I think what Morty was trying to say was as follows, minus some spelling mistakes and grammer issues.    Interesting combination   It should be easy to selll to your GM as you lose a level to gaine the template, but you would be a feat ahead, although you would not gain another for getting 6th (since you already have it.)   If your heart is set on being a melee Bard, I would recomend geting feats to improve your HP and Fort save (yes, I know you're undead, but trust me, you WILL need them.) While undead are immune to most spells and effects that need Fort saves, such as posions and drains, they are not immune to disintegrates and material shifts, against both of which they have an abnormaly LOW saving throw.   Also 1d12 may sound like alot of HP, but remember,  the living get +Con mod to that as well and most Close combat PCs will stack Con.  Realistically, the only classes that will on average benefit from undeath will be wizards (more hp) and sorc's (slightly more hp & good Cha mod.) I'm not sure how your bard whill stack out   (since they got a summoner wizard, you might not need to worry too much about melee as the summoner can be providing a lot of melee combatants through his summons)     Another thing, what about the driud's old standby - Alternate spellcasting.  You do, after all, have acess to an alternate form.  Bingo, casting and 'singing' in cat form is now allowed.   Since you have an alternate form  how about improved shapshift and partial shapeshift feats.  The 1st speeds up your shapshift to a free action and the 2nd allows you to chose a body part (hands feet, nose eyes etc) and then you can shape shift that part into a approprially scaled for your current size version of any alternate form.  So want cat claws as a human or human hands as a cat .........   Yet another thing, the race has rogue as a favored class.  Why not multiclass? bard rogue.  Cast support spells from behind, sneak past the combat as a cat, then shapshift back and stab them in the back.  There's a couple of roguet feats, such as undead hunter, that require spell levels as well (oh look bard) that allow sneek attacks and such to work on undead. .     As for the suggestion of unholy toughness thats a is a special quality, not a feat, and so is not available unless he takes the evolved undead presteage class and ask's his GM to allow it as one of his options.. Though it can easaly be replicated by taking the Toughness feat (+3 Hp) and that leads onto Improved Toughness (+1 Hp per HD) and the monster feats that improve DR         The only other feat I could find was unholy grace wich is a replacer for any paladin's or angel's grace ability when transformed into an undead.
#9 Andarious-Rosethorn Jun 27, 2014 6:53:28	Can we keep you?
#10 StevenO Jun 27, 2014 8:57:51	Somnio wrote:
#11 Tempest_Stormwind Jun 27, 2014 10:09:17	Somnio wrote:
#12 StevenO Jun 27, 2014 12:39:12	Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
#13 Tempest_Stormwind Jun 27, 2014 13:52:24	...And that would be me going from memory on Necropolitan and forgetting about the 1000xp price after the revival. You're absolutely correct - the minimum XP needed to survive is 3000 (level 3); when you lose a level you fall to level 2 with halfway-there XP (2000XP), and then losing 1000xp from there (dropping to 1000xp, which is still barely enough for level 2, but it's enough to survive). This means that you're effectively 2000XP behind, not 500XP.   If you don't apply the XP river (the "one-level gravy train") to your starting XP - and I see no reason why a GM would allow this anyway - you're starting the game with 5th level teammates while you're at 8000xp (level 4). Assuming a party of four, if you defeat a CR 5 monster, your teammates would gain (1500/4) or 375 XP, while you would gain (1600/4) 400XP. Assuming the slow and boring "13.33 encounters of equal CR gives you one character level" approach and simplifying by saying all of those will be single-monster, you can easily figure out that you've levelled up to 5th level after 5 encounters, after which you gain XP at the same rate as your teammates. When they reach level 6, you'll be at level 5, but with 12500xp, and only 2500 to go.   It's not hard to continue this pattern and show when you'll "catch up" to your teammates: after the 5th encounter from (your) level 4 to 6, after the 4th encounter at level 7, after the 3rd encounter from 8-10, after the 2nd encounter from 11 to 18, and after the 1st encounter from 18 onward.    Figure out what your game's expected range is, and if being "that far behind" your team is worth the benefits of being necropolitan.