Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 smarttrigger Sep 29, 2009 22:20:38	Hey all, I'm trying to build up a character which is heavily based on his defense while not completely sucking at damage output. Therefore I made a few choices. I will go for a combination of Rogues and Swashbuckler classes. I'll go for Two-Weapon Defense to maximize my AC. As race I'll pick a Domovoi (I'll ignore the LA +2 as I'll trade it off by the Unearthed Arcana rules). We're playing in the Forgotten Realms and as a House Rule at 1st level we'll get a regional feat for free. Stats (1st level) (28pt PB) ST 10 DEX 20 CON 14 WIS 14 INT 20 CHA 14 I'll go for the following class build: Fey (2x), Rogue (3x), Swashbuckler (3x), Rogue (5x), Swashbuckler (7x) and end up with Fey (2 lvls), Rogue (8 lvls), Swashbuckler (10 lvls). I wanted to go for 8th level rogue to get uncanny dodge and after that I picked Swashbuckler for the better BAB gain. My feats are: Luck of Heroes (Regional bonus feat) Two-Weapon-Fighting (1st lvl) Two-Weapon-Defense (3rd lvl) Combat Expertise (6th lvl) Daring Outlaw (9th lvl) Improved Two-Weapon-Defense (12th lvl) Improved Combat Expertise (15th lvl) ??? (18th lvl) You can already see this is my first issue. What should be my last feat? Dodge would add up to the defensive power but only give me a bonus of 1 for a single enemy. Not good enough for the feat at lvl 18. My next issue would be the armor. What armor should I aim for? A Mithral Chainshirt will limit my dex bonus to +6 and even with nimbleness it will go up to not more then +7. That's not enough for such a character. At the moment I'm thinking about the nightscale armor. It only has a +2 on AC but allows up to +10 as a dex modifier. What would be good abilities for the armor? Exalted sounds fine as you can expect to mostly fight evil enemies. For my weapons I'd go for defense weapons and therefore boost my AC even more. Gloves of dexterity (for more AC of course) Amulet of natural armor Ring of protection Cloak of resistence Those would be my core items until now. As I am completely new to minmaxing I'd love to get some suggestions from you. We can even rearrange the character build but I do not want to give up my offensive power completely (in this case the sneak attack and insightful strike). I'll start at 9th level so which items to focus on first?   Thanks for your help. Please let me know if I forgot to mention something. Greets, SmartTrigger
#2 gorfnad_the_shiznit Sep 30, 2009 3:01:28	For more AC while dual wielding I would look into the following. Twin Sword Style (PGtF) - This may be an option instead of Luck of the Heroes. Actually either one would be okay in the long run Improved Buckler Defense (CW) - Lets see you could spend 3 feats (TWD, ITWD, GTWD) for +3 to AC (+6 when fighting defensively) or spend one feat and 25205gp for a Darkwood Buckler that will give you +6 AC and free up 2 feat slots. Unless you really want to do both and add in Combat Expertise/ Improved Combat Expertise for even more AC. If you want to deal more damage in combat you'll want to look into the feats Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Greater Two Weapon Fighting, Combat Reflexes, and Craven (CoR). Other more sneaky feats would be Darkstalker (LoM) and Elusive Target (CW). With the feats you have listed you're limiting your damage output in favor of a high AC. I would either go with Combat Expertise/Improved Combat Expertise or the Two Weapon Defense chain, one feat set or the other not both. This would leave you more open to other feat options. Normally I would say that Swashbuckler is only good for about 3 levels. So for a build something like Rogue 3/ Swashbuckler 4/ Rogue 13 might be a better option since it will give you BAB 16, 3 rogue special abilities, and more skill points to play with. Although there is one build I can think that would have some nice AC using Swash/Rogue Rogue 3/ Swashbuckler 3/ Cobra Strike (UA) Carmendine (CoV) Monk 2/ Master Thrower (CW) 2/ Invisible Blade (CW) 5/ Duelist 5 With a Dex score of 20 and Int of 20 you're looking at an AC of 30 before adding in magic items in addition to being able to throw 16 daggers a round. Other classes to look into would be Swordsage (ToB) and Warblade (ToB). Domovoi is a fairly weird race. I would suggest playing either Human or Whisper Gnome for race since neither of those have LA and it would free up two more class levels to play with. Although if you have the two LA to spend then a Shadow (LoM), Dark (ToM), or possibly Shadow Walker (UAE) Whisper Gnome (RoS) Rogue with the feats Magic in the Blood (PGtF) and Silencing Strike (RoS) can be quite amusing. For gear look into getting a Rogue's Vest (MIC), Deadly Precision (MIC) weapons, and a Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis (ToM). Also you might want to read through the 3.5 Rogue Handbook
#3 Maat_Mons Sep 30, 2009 8:24:00	Ultimately, your dex will be so high that any armor that allows you to use it fully will provide little armor bonus. You might consider one monk level and the carmendine monk feat so you add your int instead of wis to AC when unarmored. I suggest the sleeping tiger variant monk, which grants weapon finesse as its first level bonus feat. Remember, domovoi don't get weapon finesse as a bonus feat, it's just the first level feat the standard one takes. You should also consider two swordsage levels. That qualifies you for the shadow blade feat (dex to damage) and allows you to select assassin's stance (+2d6 sneak attack) as your second level stance if timed correctly.  You should ask your DM if carmandine monk can be adapted to work with a swordsage's AC bonus. You are considering taking combat expertise and improved combat expertise and using defending weapons. I really don't think trading a lot of attack bonus for AC is a good idea. If you aren't a credible threat, you may as well not be in the fight in the first place. Personally, I wouldn't use combat expertise or a defending weapon at all. Your starting gear is 36,000 gp. A +1 animated darkwood heavy shield costs 9,320 gp and provides a +3 shield bonus without requiring a single feat or using a hand.  This is mutually exclusive with gaining your int to AC.  If you go the monk route and you have a wizard in the party, try to beg a casting of mage armor off of him.  You can buy him a pearl of power to make up for it.  That gives you a +4 armor bonus without needing to buy bracers of armor.  Also, you can take the shield of blades variant of swashbuckler to gain a shield bonus to AC when two-weapon fighting.
#4 felgoroth Sep 30, 2009 8:52:08	I'd suggest dual wielding Broad Blade Short Swords (out of Complete Adventurer), you get a +1 dodge bonus to AC while in full defense or taking a -2 on attacks with combat expertise (the book says a +2 to defense but, it was changed to +1 in the errata).  Also taking Deadly Defense from Complete Adventurer might be beneficial you get a +1d6 to damage when in full defense or taking a -2 on attacks with Combat Expertise.  O! Also, if you go the thrower route don't forget to take farshot and pick up Bracers or Gauntlets (I can't remember which they are) of Extended Range, throwing a dagger 40ft. is fun.  Also if you take Throw Anything that build is even more fun because everyone loves throwing a Greatsword 40ft.
#5 Maat_Mons Sep 30, 2009 10:46:04	Domovoi have LA +4. You can buy off the first point of that when you have 12 class levels, which will put you at ECL 18. I'm not an expert on races, but one thing that would be better would be a dwarf were-dog with permanent reduce person. That has LA +2 and 1 HD. You can buy off the first point of this LA when your have 6 class levels, at ECL 9. With 28 point buy, your stats could be str 10, dex 26, con 20, int 16, wis 10, cha 6 in hybrid form with reduce person. Note that your con would only be 16 for determining hit points. You would also get +3 natural armor and DR 5/silver.
#6 snakeman830 Sep 30, 2009 20:14:52	Domovoi have LA +4. You can buy off the first point of that when you have 12 class levels, which will put you at ECL 18. I'm not an expert on races, but one thing that would be better would be a dwarf were-dog with permanent reduce person. That has LA +2 and 1 HD. You can buy off the first point of this LA when your have 6 class levels, at ECL 9. With 28 point buy, your stats could be str 10, dex 26, con 20, int 16, wis 10, cha 6 in hybrid form with reduce person. Note that your con would only be 16 for determining hit points. You would also get +3 natural armor and DR 5/silver. Except the one animal HD, that one gets 20 Con figured for hp.
#7 pyro_azer Sep 30, 2009 20:35:25	While doing the entire build will get the DM to throw books and other assorted heavy objects at you you might be able to draw some ideas from this thread: community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...
#8 smarttrigger Sep 30, 2009 22:17:43	Thanks for your answers. But I got soft again and agreed to resurrect my old character (well not really resurrect, but that does not belong here). Therefore I'll rebuild him. So maybe a few hints were to go with him. As he is a champion of his god he hast to be something related to a god. He is a half-celestial. His Charisma score will be extremly high so PrC that might depend on a high CH score would be great. He should have some healing potential. At the moment I'm thinking about starting with Paladin levels (relation to the god, lay of hands, cure spells). I'll start at ECL 10 (so 6 class levels + 4 LA from half-celestial). PB would be 28 once again ;). Besides the cure spells which should only be used for survivability (for healing up I want to use wands) I'd like to get a potent damage dealer that can take a few hits. Are there any possibilities to swap the palain mount for something else (A celestial "animal companion" would be cool or something similar). That is due to the wings ;). He does not need a heavy warhorse! Only prerequisites would be CH 20 Leadership feat The current items are also fix but you could give advices what to aim for. Currently I'm thinking about going ST 18 DEX 10 CON 18 INT 12 WIS 16 CH 20 Feats: Magic in the Blood (if my DM allows this, as a half-celestial I'm kind of planetouched ;) ). Extra Smiting Improved Smiting Spontaneaous Healer Leadership This will end up in 9 smitings per day which will do an addditional +6+1d6 of good damage. The spontaneaous healer is for that cure thing I mentioned. Although with magic in the blood I'd be able to get out 3 cure serious wounds per day + lay on hands with 36hp. So maybe I could even skip this feat and replace it with something else (maybe more smiting?) or take it at a later level because at lvl 6 I'll have 2 spells ^^. The items I'll start with: Mithral breatplate +3 (light armor for the wings) Mithral Heavy Steel Shield +1 Rod of Lathander (hehe no comments pls) Heavy Mace +1 Cloak of Charisma +2 Cloak of resistance +1 Gauntles of ogre power Amulet of natural armor +1 I guess one of the first things to do would be to go for a better weapon. But for this character there would also be an interesting bracelet the Armband of maximized healing. Well okay maybe this time opinions as well? =)
#9 Maat_Mons Oct 01, 2009 9:34:27	Are you sure you can't play something that's like a half celestial instead? For example a lesser aasimar (Player's Guide to Faerun) with the winged creature template (Savage Species). Or, better yet, ask your DM about a custom “lesser celestial” race derived from a cross of aasimar and raptoran (Races of the Wild). Really, anything to keep the flavor but avoid the +4 LA. How about a ruby knight vindicator? You've got two cloaks listed. Why not use a vest of resistance (Complete Arcane) instead?
#10 smarttrigger Oct 01, 2009 9:59:26	Yes that is fix. Half-Celestial can not be changed. It's already based on a story that happened in the past. Uhm yeah I don't have that resistance cloak. I was a bit tired ;).
#11 Endarire Oct 13, 2009 23:52:06	Hood says, "Sometimes the best defense is being out of enemy reach."