How to get a Hellfire Dervish? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

How to get a Hellfire Dervish?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
nurlithion
Mar 21, 2008 10:32:51 Hello ladies and gents. I have recently thumbed through "Wizards Presents: Races and Classes", and came upon the following interesting sentence in the swordmage description: "He might be [...] a sly tiefling dervish who whirls through the thick of battle, guarded by wards of infernal fire". That got my attention, as it's a pretty cool concept, and I've got a campaign coming up.

Now, I don't need it to be a tiefling, since level adjustment is bad and I don't like the lesser version a lot, and besides, losing charisma is a bad idea for all of the options I thought out. I definitely do want a kind of "bad boy" race, though, or at least some heritage feats/PrCs/other.

Okay, down to the crunch: I of course started with the basics and thought of some way to combine dervish with decent spellcasting, but you either get too little dervish or too little spellcasting, and too late to boot, since I don't expect to go farther than level 13 or so.

I then remembered that I could get something decent with a binder bound to Paimon, which also has the advantage of letting me bind possibly one more vestige to get other cool abilities, and maybe going into Knight of the Sacred Seal to get better BAB and some nice abilities.

Now, this goes much better with some spellcasting. The obvious fit for the concept is a Hellfire Warlock, but it doesn't work so well with a non-glaivelock melee guy. Fire Devotion would fit both in flavour and in mechanics, since Cleric is usually a good idea, so I'll keep that in mind. An Anima Mage could have worked if it was a higher level game, where the loss of caster levels from KotSS wouldn't eliminate Polymoprh and other combat spells.

So, if anyone has some ideas of things I can try to incorporate in my build (or really, your own concepts of what a dervish with infernal fire would be like), please share. I have a lot of books, and can borrow those I don't, so feel free to suggest things for any book.

Thanks in advance.
#2
llochlyn
Mar 21, 2008 11:39:23 When reading that description, I thought of a Shadow Hand and Desert Wind focused swordsage... Probably biased by the name, but one maneuver is quite close to Païmon's dance...

Depending on levels, actually, some levels of binder stacked on swordsage *might* be decent, especially due to improved binding and the way multiclassing an initiator works.
#3
paradox-of-life
Mar 21, 2008 14:40:29 Kenku? Nothing says badboy like "WTF?!?"

It does have a Cha penalty.
#4
nurlithion
Mar 22, 2008 13:40:03 @Llochlyn
Thanks for the suggestions, but may I ask why you thought of Shadow Hand? Doesn't quite fit the concept, since I wasn't thinking of teleporting, and getting shadowpounce would lose too many CLs. Also, the swordsage wouldn't give me a large enough variety of fire effects to avoid becoming a couple-trick-poney. I'd prefer a spellcaster, or possibly incarnum-dipper, but keep coming with the suggestions.

@Paradox-of-Life
Sorry, I don't quite understand the reason for using Kenku (though I do like them).

Anyone else have ideas?
#5
heffroncm
Mar 22, 2008 15:10:23 Anima Mage deserves another look. Arcane Disciple: Pride gets you potentially Persistent Divine Power by level 7. You'd need an understanding DM to pull it off, but it's technically possible with Precocious Apprentice, Improved Binding, and feat retraining. You'd need to be Human, but you'd get your 'demonic' flair by showing various Signs (Amon comes to mind) and worshiping a Demon Lord as a god.

Anyway, not a perfect fit, but certainly possible. I had a lot of fun in a campaign with this exact character, until a bad Binding roll led her to an ignoble end.
#6
eldritch_lord
Mar 22, 2008 18:25:23
lso, the swordsage wouldn't give me a large enough variety of fire effects to avoid becoming a couple-trick-poney. I'd prefer a spellcaster, or possibly incarnum-dipper, but keep coming with the suggestions.

[...]

Anyone else have ideas?

I'd say to pick up a single swordsage level for some Desert Wind maneuvers later in your career, say level 7ish. It wouldn't be your main focus, as you're right about the few-trick-pony part at lower levels, but it could give you good stances or a few movement-based maneuvers that would synergize well with Paimon's dance.
#7
x-codes
Mar 22, 2008 23:16:02 Isn't there a feat somewhere that turns Fire damage to Hellfire damage? Throw that on a Desert Wind-focused JPM and thats basically it. Theres even a Desert Wind maneuver that duplicates the Dervish Dance ability.
#8
stickboy2323
Mar 23, 2008 2:24:58 It's not a dervish at all but I made a build once that used Eldritch Disciple, Hellfire Warlock, VoP, and about four or five Abyssal Heritor feats. The idea was that the guy would look all demonic from the AH feats and be using hellfire but at the same time 100% exalted. The Nimbus of Light feat instead of giving him a halo or otherworldly glow gave him a flamey aura.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 nurlithion Mar 21, 2008 10:32:51	Hello ladies and gents. I have recently thumbed through "Wizards Presents: Races and Classes", and came upon the following interesting sentence in the swordmage description: "He might be [...] a sly tiefling dervish who whirls through the thick of battle, guarded by wards of infernal fire". That got my attention, as it's a pretty cool concept, and I've got a campaign coming up. Now, I don't need it to be a tiefling, since level adjustment is bad and I don't like the lesser version a lot, and besides, losing charisma is a bad idea for all of the options I thought out. I definitely do want a kind of "bad boy" race, though, or at least some heritage feats/PrCs/other. Okay, down to the crunch: I of course started with the basics and thought of some way to combine dervish with decent spellcasting, but you either get too little dervish or too little spellcasting, and too late to boot, since I don't expect to go farther than level 13 or so. I then remembered that I could get something decent with a binder bound to Paimon, which also has the advantage of letting me bind possibly one more vestige to get other cool abilities, and maybe going into Knight of the Sacred Seal to get better BAB and some nice abilities. Now, this goes much better with some spellcasting. The obvious fit for the concept is a Hellfire Warlock, but it doesn't work so well with a non-glaivelock melee guy. Fire Devotion would fit both in flavour and in mechanics, since Cleric is usually a good idea, so I'll keep that in mind. An Anima Mage could have worked if it was a higher level game, where the loss of caster levels from KotSS wouldn't eliminate Polymoprh and other combat spells. So, if anyone has some ideas of things I can try to incorporate in my build (or really, your own concepts of what a dervish with infernal fire would be like), please share. I have a lot of books, and can borrow those I don't, so feel free to suggest things for any book. Thanks in advance.
#2 llochlyn Mar 21, 2008 11:39:23	When reading that description, I thought of a Shadow Hand and Desert Wind focused swordsage... Probably biased by the name, but one maneuver is quite close to Païmon's dance... Depending on levels, actually, some levels of binder stacked on swordsage might be decent, especially due to improved binding and the way multiclassing an initiator works.
#3 paradox-of-life Mar 21, 2008 14:40:29	Kenku? Nothing says badboy like "WTF?!?" It does have a Cha penalty.
#4 nurlithion Mar 22, 2008 13:40:03	@Llochlyn Thanks for the suggestions, but may I ask why you thought of Shadow Hand? Doesn't quite fit the concept, since I wasn't thinking of teleporting, and getting shadowpounce would lose too many CLs. Also, the swordsage wouldn't give me a large enough variety of fire effects to avoid becoming a couple-trick-poney. I'd prefer a spellcaster, or possibly incarnum-dipper, but keep coming with the suggestions. @Paradox-of-Life Sorry, I don't quite understand the reason for using Kenku (though I do like them). Anyone else have ideas?
#5 heffroncm Mar 22, 2008 15:10:23	Anima Mage deserves another look. Arcane Disciple: Pride gets you potentially Persistent Divine Power by level 7. You'd need an understanding DM to pull it off, but it's technically possible with Precocious Apprentice, Improved Binding, and feat retraining. You'd need to be Human, but you'd get your 'demonic' flair by showing various Signs (Amon comes to mind) and worshiping a Demon Lord as a god. Anyway, not a perfect fit, but certainly possible. I had a lot of fun in a campaign with this exact character, until a bad Binding roll led her to an ignoble end.
#6 eldritch_lord Mar 22, 2008 18:25:23	lso, the swordsage wouldn't give me a large enough variety of fire effects to avoid becoming a couple-trick-poney. I'd prefer a spellcaster, or possibly incarnum-dipper, but keep coming with the suggestions. [...] Anyone else have ideas? I'd say to pick up a single swordsage level for some Desert Wind maneuvers later in your career, say level 7ish. It wouldn't be your main focus, as you're right about the few-trick-pony part at lower levels, but it could give you good stances or a few movement-based maneuvers that would synergize well with Paimon's dance.
#7 x-codes Mar 22, 2008 23:16:02	Isn't there a feat somewhere that turns Fire damage to Hellfire damage? Throw that on a Desert Wind-focused JPM and thats basically it. Theres even a Desert Wind maneuver that duplicates the Dervish Dance ability.
#8 stickboy2323 Mar 23, 2008 2:24:58	It's not a dervish at all but I made a build once that used Eldritch Disciple, Hellfire Warlock, VoP, and about four or five Abyssal Heritor feats. The idea was that the guy would look all demonic from the AH feats and be using hellfire but at the same time 100% exalted. The Nimbus of Light feat instead of giving him a halo or otherworldly glow gave him a flamey aura.