[RHoD 1-Shot] Building 2-4 PCs (CR7) for new players

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm going to be running part of my RHoD campaign as a one-shot with some friends in a couple of weeks; and I explained that I'm willing to include varying, and uncommon character concepts.

The most recent one:

I want to be Lancer Khan, first born of the great Mongol/ cockroach hybrids from the steppe plains. The art of combat was so meticulously crafted over the first century of Khan's life, that he gave it up to pursue musical craft. He is now an Indie Bard, specializing in blood shamanism. The race of roach-mongols were born when the great Mongol warlord, temujin khan, raped and pillaged his way through the mythological kingdom of roaches. Lancer Khan can live up to 30 nights without a head, but his singing ability is greatly restricted.

Has required me to think of how to handle the concept in a satisfying manner.

Martial: Either a Knight or Samurai

Spellcaster: Not sure what really fits with the "blood shamanism" bit (although the Con-damage option in Tome of Necromancy, combined with the 4th level Knight ability to regen Ability damage seems viable)

Cockroach-like creatures in (3.X) D&D: I' fine just 'saying' the character is a Mongolian half-cockroach, but I guess there might be some sort of "insectile" template in 3.X/Tome?

The rest of it is just fluff, or might be handled via magic items.

Possible build:

Knight 4/Spellcaster 3 (probably Cleric of Mask, Possibly Wizard to abuse Secret Page + Blood Painter + Knightly Spirit; for "all" 0-2nd level wizard spells).

Feats:
1 [Something?], Mounted Combat (Bonus)
3 Improved Caster Level
6 Blood Painter [with 'The Path Blood' removed as a pre-req]

Progression

1. Knight 1
2. Knight 2
3. Spellcaster 1
4. Knight 3
5. Knight 4
6. Spellcaster 2
7. Spellcaster 3
   
   Any other suggestions?

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'd just go with Frank's Marshall.

[spongeknight]

Uh, it sounds like he wants actual powers from his music, like he's a "blood shaman bard" or something. Has this guy ever played before? Have you maybe suggested that the early parts of his career could be backstory that he has retrained out of so he doesn't suck a barrel of cocks as a character?

[Judging__Eagle]

Character the second:

Born in the darkness, no care givers by my side, nothing but swarms of rats in what I later found was the bottom of a well. The rats have taken me as their own, letting me feast upon them without refrain, at first i didn't question it, as i lacked the capacity, however why they would do this was a question on my mind for the majority of time spent in the birth-pit. I spent 12 years in that pit, honing my ability to communicate with my family; learning their secrets, using them as my eye into the world, questioning what purpose i could possibly serve above. At 15 I had gained enough knowledge to be turned into confidence, and have used my abilities gained from the rats to escape the pit. I never really understood what happened, but it's almost as if i could envision where i wanted to be, and i'd feel my body floating there. On my exit i caught a glimpse of the most beautiful object, one that no matter how much i envisioned going there, i couldn't reach. My bretheren referred to it as "Night Mother", I stared at her for what felt like days, then looked at a nearby window and saw something imitating my movements, I came closer and realized it was an illusory wall, meant to show me to myself, i finally understood what i was; i didn't devour the rats, i was the rats.

Additional statements:

My prompting:
Do you want to be a wererat? or a spellcaster with a Rat familiar?

How would they:

-Fight a monster
-Talk with a farmer
-Travel the countryside
-Figure out a mystery

I am a hivemind of rats culminating together into a singular being. However, it's not that i control entirely, i merely suggest to them and they detach from my being. In order to kill me you must kill all the rats in my birth-pits brood. I can however attain additional rats but not simply, the must be a ritual that takes a week of game time for a 12 additional rats, increasing my mass and surveillance potential.

I'm not particularly social, as i never really attained social skills, I only answer when talked to, and prefer to spy on people using my "Brood Vision", which essentially is a state of meditative focus to see through the eyes of any given rat that i choose, even see an entire area at once but culminating the perceptions of the rats into a singular one

I wear a robe that conceals the facts that i am a swarm, and a mask that is puppeteered by rats on the other side to offer facial expressions. My ability to use facial expressions isnt perfect so a vigilante eye would be able to spot it easily.

Travelling the country side can be done in a multitude of ways, i can go in human form, as a swarm, or any shape the amount of rats i have can form into, so i could become just a pair of really long legs, traversing the country side in giant strides. (this can be increased with performing a brood ritual, increasing my party of rats)

After chatting more with the player, this will be handled by making the character; mechanically, a Phasm with 7 HD; and a Cohort to handle the madness that would be this character "splitting".

[erik]

Why not an Awakened Rat Swarm rogue with disguise ranks?

[Aryxbez]

It also really seems like the sentient Rat-swarm will be Anti-roleplaying to the one-shot experience. As in, just be some silent protagonist syndrome, till someone more outgoing involves them into the plot.

I do think its cool these players have out there character concepts however.

[Mask_De_H]

These character concepts...are not super conducive to D&D. They sound like people trying way the fuck too hard to be China Mielville, which would be better suited to something like a Heroquest or Fate adaptation of RHoD.

RHoD D&D does not seem like the place to get cute with characters, even with Tome backup. Have you made it clear to them the difficulty of the module?

[TiaC]

For the first, the Dragon Magazine Compendium had the Diopsid insectoid race. You could give it some sort of immunity to vorpal's instant death and toss the LA without much trouble.

[radthemad4]

Knight-caster multiclass seems like a bad idea. I suppose you could dip Prestige Bard and then take Sublime Chord to mitigate it somewhat.

Alternatively, consider the Tome Bard on dndwiki based on Frank's Bard.

[Judging__Eagle]

Uh, it sounds like he wants actual powers from his music, like he's a "blood shaman bard" or something. Has this guy ever played before? Have you maybe suggested that the early parts of his career could be backstory that he has retrained out of so he doesn't suck a barrel of cocks as a character?

Retraining is one way I might go about handing the whole "too many concepts in too few levels" aspect of the character's concept. However, I'm also I'm thinking that I might make them be some sort of Gish that uses the {hacked} Blood Painter feat to stack up a bunch of level 0-2 buffs on their arrows (e.g. bullshit that upgrades arrows like Flame Arrow; but also shit that upgrades wooden weapons like Brambles, and Spikes) so they are very lethal.

[Update]
I'm just going to make the character a level 7 Knight; and their 5th level bonus feat (Command) will be the means by which the PC has spellcasting. Specifically by means of an intelligent spellcasting composite longbow; with a deep-seated bloodthirst.

Bard. Just bard. The Knight stuff is backstory. I guess I'll look at Frank's Bard and see how it works at CR 7.

Why not an Awakened Rat Swarm rogue with disguise ranks?

You and me both. I had handled an Awakened Raccoon Druid in my original [Tome] campaign without problems, so I kept suggesting something similar to that.

However, they're pretty lateral in their thinking and wanted to be able to have the ability to change the shape of the swarm to accomplish varied actions. While they've played a lot of typical fantasy video games (e.g. Witcher 3), the suggestion of being "an awakened swarm of rats" in a set of robes wasn't what they were looking for.

[Judging__Eagle]

For the first, the Dragon Magazine Compendium had the Diopsid insectoid race. You could give it some sort of immunity to vorpal's instant death and toss the LA without much trouble.

Thanks a lot for the link. After Googling awakened cockroaches 3.5 D&D I found that FR Underdark had actual cockroach stats; also that there is a D&D template for Insectile werecreatures.

Giant Cockroach
http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/blo ... ach,_Giant

Entomanothropes (ugh, my head, Entomanothropes? Really? w/e)
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp? ... /20040621a

Radthemad4,

Thanks for linking the updates to Frank's Bard

These character concepts...are not super conducive to D&D. They sound like people trying way the fuck too hard to be China Mielville, which would be better suited to something like a Heroquest or Fate adaptation of RHoD.

RHoD D&D does not seem like the place to get cute with characters, even with Tome backup. Have you made it clear to them the difficulty of the module?

I really haven't emphasized "difficulty"... mostly because my main group has been facerolling not just encounters, but entire maps in single Major Image concealed assaults.

The battle for Vraath Keep (which should by all rights kill at least 1-2 PCs) fore example was a total monster stomp... they finished in 2 rounds by strategically stacking the 'empty duplicate spaces' Major Image overtop of where the PCs would actually be, making the fake "ghost" in the tower appear to turn into a river of ghosts which filled the courtyard, and covered the wall gap and entrance with walls of bone; then the two Silenced Desecrates that had been cast before the "undead" illusions showed up allowed the parties Clerics to Animate Dead two Forest Giant skeletons. At that point, it was so obvious that Koth & co. were so dead that I didn't even bother with the trash mobs and just said they surrendered to the "undead apocalpyse" that had shown up. The party Fighter (w/ PoFD, and Wings of Evil) spent the encounter flying overhead and acting like they were the necromancer creating all of this bullshit; with their AC (and height from flying), they had few worries.

Even then; it was well into the marches of overkill territory before any of that happened. The rogue on their own: A) Didn't bother hiding in the illusions and B) Pretty much "losered*" both Karkilan (the Minotaur) and Koth (the Bugbear sorceror) with their acid flask sneak attacks. If I hadn't lost and remade the character sheets for that session, they should have added their PBS bonus damage, and one-rounded both of them.

I'm going to help cover the parties bases with either a Cloistered Cleric/Archivist or Rogue/Monk/Bard/Fighter 4 build.

*:Some term I've heard from some Living Greyhawk DMs in Ontario over a decade ago; essentially when a Player's Character leaves enemies with 1 HP.

[hyzmarca]

I want to be Lancer Khan, first born of the great Mongol/ cockroach hybrids from the steppe plains. The art of combat was so meticulously crafted over the first century of Khan's life, that he gave it up to pursue musical craft. He is now an Indie Bard, specializing in blood shamanism. The race of roach-mongols were born when the great Mongol warlord, temujin khan, raped and pillaged his way through the mythological kingdom of roaches. Lancer Khan can live up to 30 nights without a head, but his singing ability is greatly restricted.

So wait....

A bunch of actual historical Mongols from Earth stumbled through a portal and raped a bunch of giant cockroaches, producing a race of human-cockroach-hybrid steppe nomad cavalrymen?

That's awesome.

[erik]

However, they're pretty lateral in their thinking and wanted to be able to have the ability to change the shape of the swarm to accomplish varied actions. While they've played a lot of typical fantasy video games (e.g. Witcher 3), the suggestion of being "an awakened swarm of rats" in a set of robes wasn't what they were looking for.

Hrm. You have to home brew that anyway, I just figured it could just as well be a homebrewed extension on the chassis of an awakened rat swarm.

[Mask_De_H]

Well then. Frank's Bard was never really finished and is on the fiddly side, design wise. I think it's still functional at CR 7, but don't quote me on that.

[Judging__Eagle]

However, they're pretty lateral in their thinking and wanted to be able to have the ability to change the shape of the swarm to accomplish varied actions. While they've played a lot of typical fantasy video games (e.g. Witcher 3), the suggestion of being "an awakened swarm of rats" in a set of robes wasn't what they were looking for.

Hrm. You have to home brew that anyway, I just figured it could just as well be a homebrewed extension on the chassis of an awakened rat swarm.

Yeah, the only reason that I'm fine homebrewing a Phasm, is that it would be the second time I've used on in a [Tome] game. However, Awakened animals have also worked fine in my games as well.

[Judging__Eagle]

In any case, thanks a lot to everyone who posted, I was able to concrete the characters down based on people's responses here.

A rough initial sketch I made a few days ago of two of the above characters (and one of the Clerics from my RHoD's normal group):

A more polished illustration of Lancer Khan by their player. Warning; huge

More character concepts being thrown my way:

what's the closest thing I can be to a mecha waifu

It has to be 2 dimensional because of reasons as well

3D is pig disgusting

Can I literally be a dakimakura?

My responses:
An awakened pillow. It uses a ring on one of its two arms to look like a 2D version of itsel (or any other illusion you want to look like, of your size)f. You have 5 more magic items.

What sort of character do you want it to be? Classwise?

Wizard with a spellbooks for every one of their spells?

http://alcyius.com/dndtools/spells/spel ... index.html

You're a cyborg pillow. But in 2D, b/c 3D is pig disgusting.

Holy fuck [JE] don't let this shit be possible. Give me a bit, I'll think of a character that isn't an animate pillow

I don't joke around when I say "almost anything is possible" when I make the pitch for [Tome] D&D.
[more text...]

As for a cyborged pillow; honestly, I think it's a pretty dark background (the Awaken Construct spell is pretty dark, requiring a brain that was removed from a body less than 8 hours dead), and the creature is low enough in power level that they can take levels in a "real" class, like Wizard.

At the point the game is in, your character can Polymorph; and the fact that their type is Construct unlocks Polymorph options not normally available at this low of a level of transmutation magic, like Constructs.

They'd also have as options :aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin.

But the idea of a Cyborg Pillow Wizard who can change into war robots is a pretty cool mix of dichotomies to have within a single character. They're a sentient version of a relatively harmless toy; who can change into a spell-spewing battle machine.

Of course, you could have an other idea you might want to go with.

Alright, damn you have me cornered. But instead of a pillow let's make it into something a little less entirely retarded.

The borged polymorphing wizard sounds pretty cool. What if we went something like a low level homunculus instead of a pillow as to still let me get away with becoming a spell spewing monster?

I just realized that you can cast Awaken Construct on already Intelligent Constructs.

Spell Compendium version: http://alcyius.com/.../awaken-construct ... index.html

On page 14 of this PDF is a list of Contruct type creatures; anything that is Challenge Rating (CR) 1 or less can be made into a Playable character who would be a good Wizard.

PDF:http://chet.kindredcircle.org/.../DnD3.5Index-Monsters...

An "other" option would be ... /any/ creatures on the above list that is CR<1 could be remade as an "Effigy" creature and then Awakened. So you could be a Wizard Robot Dog; or Bat, or Housecat. Who can change into a 9' tall war-bot from their study of wizardry.

Effigy template: http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/tem ... figy.shtml

Effigy template-stacking madness:
[aka "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto"]
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4540.0

===========

The other character concept: One Punch Man; and/or a Super Saiyan.

i want to be something a long the lines of a super saiyan god with a more powerful punch than one punch man. also i have color vision. i can shoot different colors of paint from my eyes.

Soulborn for Saiyan; One Punch Man is harder, but it's potentially possible, if not approachable.

You might need to use illusions and some sort of damage-loops in order to get "true" one-punch man.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50472

=======

Are there any suggestions for "small constructs" that are in the CR>2 range that are worth Awakening to be played as a Wizard.

Also, how would one go about building a really powerful "charger" build in [Tome] D&D? I'm sort of at a loss for how to do that to be honest, as I've never realy bothered or been interested in those sorts of builds.

[Mask_De_H]

I don't know about Constructs, but the daki guy could play a Spellstitched undead short race. If he wants to have interwoven spells, combine that with Eidetic Memory Wizard ACF and flavor getting high as tracing the internal spells.

OPM charge build I would imagine be the standard "Blitz+TWF+Combat School" Tome martial chain, but with Juggernaut/Horde Breaker and adjuncts for Leap Attack/Leap of the Heavens/Shock Trooper.

[Berkserker]

Dude I gotta be honest here. The animate dakimakura thing sounds like an awesome game. Seriously, putting together an entire party of waifu combat dakimakura. It's obviously not a 'SO SERIOUS' campaign but it's totally the thing I'd run as a short series. I imagine it'd play out kinda like MaidRPG. Or maybe the quest is to find a master. Whatever, it'd be hilarious. Now I'm tempted to put together plot hooks that are especially relevant to animate dakimakura and run this.

I guess I should try to say at least something on topic. Would an undead caster gain access to undead polymorph forms? Looking at the spell, it looks like he should. And there's all kinds of crazy stuff you can do with that. While having a base form that looks like Franken Fran. (Because Franken Fran a cute.)

[Judging__Eagle]

I don't know about Constructs, but the daki guy could play a Spellstitched undead short race. If he wants to have interwoven spells, combine that with Eidetic Memory Wizard ACF and flavor getting high as tracing the internal spells.

OPM charge build I would imagine be the standard "Blitz+TWF+Combat School" Tome martial chain, but with Juggernaut/Horde Breaker and adjuncts for Leap Attack/Leap of the Heavens/Shock Trooper.

The first PC will be a 5 HD Staned Glass Golem, with a Maximized, Enlarged, Awaken Construct (using a dead lvl 5 Wizard apprentice, daughter of the Wizard awakening the Golem, trying to preserve his daughter's psyche, as well as allowing her to live "like a 2D grl").