Gnome Monk Ranger
Being sick with a cold is a good time for groggy thoughts, so I have been obsessing over min-maxing my Pathfinder (AKA Dungeons & Dragons 3.6) character. I am recovering now, though not before passing the cold to frostmuffin and xelona.
Remember my Livejournal post of May 24, 2010, Turtles and Pathfinder? I recorded the cliffhanger at the end of a module to prepare for the game resuming in the fall. Now you get to hear the end of it.
We ended the Pathfinder module having lost. The evil nonhuman wizardess had charmed Crystalline and Finch into serving her, Corvan was pretending to be charmed, and the rest of the party had run away before they got charmed.
The wizardess decided to use her enthralled heroes as scapegoats for her next scheme: killing the city's mayor in a magic ritual that would feed her immense amounts of magic. The Charm spell does not rob the enthralled people of their previous values, so she explained her scheme to Crystalline, Finch, and Corvan as a heroic plan to free the city from the mayor's corruption. A prestigious friend of the wizardess would invite the mayor to a fancy social dinner. The wizardess, in her disguise as a human socialite, would lure the mayor away to his doom.
Corvan passed a secret message to the uncharmed party members. Abu, Tierdh, and Volioker recruited a new party member, a druid big game hunter named Saxton Hale. Tierdh and Volioker snuck into the party through the back door, but Abu and Saxton Hale bribed their way in through the front door.
And thus, we all ended up confronting the wizardess in the basement of this house, with Finch and Crystalline taking whacks at the mayor, the mayor's bodyguard trying to kill them to save the mayor, and the wizardess screaming at them not to kill the mayor yet (she had not started the ritual) while fighting off Corvan, Tierdh, and Volioker. This time the wizardess did not have her armor and our party was not tired from battling through her minions. The fight was closer to fair. Unfortunately, with her magic weapon that let her hit three times a round and her natural abilities, she was still winning. And she had just charmed Volioker.
The game ended for the day, just as Abu and Saxton Hale reached the fight. When experience points were given out for the day, my gnome ranger character Abu reached sixth level. I had a chance to add abilities to Abu that could turn the battle. Which abilities?
None of the sixth level ranger abilities would help out. Pathfinder was short on prestige classes suitable for rangers. Therefore, Abu multiclassed to another core class. I chose monk, one of the most useless classes in Pathfinder that, nevertheless, had one ability that Abu needed.
I had created Abu in order to try out the Pathfinder gnomes. The only gnome community within two weeks of the starting point of the Pathfinder adventure arc was the mysterious Sanos Forest, so Abu came from Sanos Forest. For the source material to say that the gnomes of Sanos Forest guard their secrets closely is fine for flavor, but it left a big hole in the character background of my wide-eyed innocent young gnome from Sanos Forest. I declared that Abu had trained as part of the outer defense of Sanos Forest, rather than its inner secrets, and made him a ranger.
Hey, gnomes are eclectic, so in Abu's haphazard training, he might have picked up a little monk training too. Most monk abilities don't work if the monk is wearing armor, and Abu had been practically living in his armor for the last few months (the Endurance feat let him sleep soundly in studded leather armor). However, Abu had just joined a fight wearing only dinner clothes. Maybe he could suddenly use that monk training that he had neglected. Frostmuffin, our Game Master, thought that plausible enough that she let me multiclass Abu to monk in the middle of a fight. On one condition--Abu could not dip into monk for just one level. He had to keep it up.
The game resumed. Abu, newly arrived at the fight with the wizardess, and all too familiar with how deadly her weapon was, jumped up and grappled her (first level monk bonus feat: Improved Grapple). Caught in the grapple, she could not use her weapon as the party surrounded her. On her turn she broke the grapple by reverting to her natural large form. But this alerted the mayor's eighth-level bodyguard who the true adversary was. And he had Improved Sunder, the ability to break weapons. After getting attacked three times in one round by the wizardess's weapon, he swung at it with his axe and broke it. Meanwhile, our charmed party members were getting fresh saving throws to break out of their charm spells, and they succeeded.
The wizardess escaped through a dimension door before we could defeat her. But the party had thwarted her plans and saved the mayor.
The adventure continued. NPC character Volioker returned home. On a side quest to help the party level up, the party leader Crystalline died nobly defeating a spider god in a burning temple. Frostmuffin offered Kelly options of saving Crystalline in a deus ex machina or taking over an NPC druid named Aifa. Kelly chose the druid. Finch and Saxton Hale were expelled from the party for being idiots (guess who set the temple on fire?). We recruited a battle oracle named Anastasia, played by Xelona, and resumed the adventure arc.
And I am playing a gnome monk ranger. Who, due to the shortage of burly fighters in the party, fights on the front line. Who is now the party leader. The little gnome is feeling quite on the edge, which is a fun challenge to roleplay.
Sadly, however, his monkish combat abilities pale before the sneak attacks of rogue Tierdh, the magic powers of druid Aifa and sorcerer Corvan, and the battle magic of oracle Anastasia. And his ranger abilities are overshadowed by the four NPC rangers aiding the party. Though I prefer to roleplay for character development rather than powergame for character effectiveness, it has become the time to maximize Abu's effectiveness.
Min-maxing is natural to a mathematician, but I have been consulting sites such as Treantmonk's Lab and Brilliant Gameologists to get the information for min-maxing. Their advice offers ways I could maximize Abu as a striker, a character that deals damage quickly, but that is not what the party needs.
I have plenty of time to plan this, so reading the Pathfinder rules and daydreaming while resting up is a sufficiently good method.
Remember my Livejournal post of May 24, 2010, Turtles and Pathfinder? I recorded the cliffhanger at the end of a module to prepare for the game resuming in the fall. Now you get to hear the end of it.
We ended the Pathfinder module having lost. The evil nonhuman wizardess had charmed Crystalline and Finch into serving her, Corvan was pretending to be charmed, and the rest of the party had run away before they got charmed.
The wizardess decided to use her enthralled heroes as scapegoats for her next scheme: killing the city's mayor in a magic ritual that would feed her immense amounts of magic. The Charm spell does not rob the enthralled people of their previous values, so she explained her scheme to Crystalline, Finch, and Corvan as a heroic plan to free the city from the mayor's corruption. A prestigious friend of the wizardess would invite the mayor to a fancy social dinner. The wizardess, in her disguise as a human socialite, would lure the mayor away to his doom.
Corvan passed a secret message to the uncharmed party members. Abu, Tierdh, and Volioker recruited a new party member, a druid big game hunter named Saxton Hale. Tierdh and Volioker snuck into the party through the back door, but Abu and Saxton Hale bribed their way in through the front door.
And thus, we all ended up confronting the wizardess in the basement of this house, with Finch and Crystalline taking whacks at the mayor, the mayor's bodyguard trying to kill them to save the mayor, and the wizardess screaming at them not to kill the mayor yet (she had not started the ritual) while fighting off Corvan, Tierdh, and Volioker. This time the wizardess did not have her armor and our party was not tired from battling through her minions. The fight was closer to fair. Unfortunately, with her magic weapon that let her hit three times a round and her natural abilities, she was still winning. And she had just charmed Volioker.
The game ended for the day, just as Abu and Saxton Hale reached the fight. When experience points were given out for the day, my gnome ranger character Abu reached sixth level. I had a chance to add abilities to Abu that could turn the battle. Which abilities?
None of the sixth level ranger abilities would help out. Pathfinder was short on prestige classes suitable for rangers. Therefore, Abu multiclassed to another core class. I chose monk, one of the most useless classes in Pathfinder that, nevertheless, had one ability that Abu needed.
I had created Abu in order to try out the Pathfinder gnomes. The only gnome community within two weeks of the starting point of the Pathfinder adventure arc was the mysterious Sanos Forest, so Abu came from Sanos Forest. For the source material to say that the gnomes of Sanos Forest guard their secrets closely is fine for flavor, but it left a big hole in the character background of my wide-eyed innocent young gnome from Sanos Forest. I declared that Abu had trained as part of the outer defense of Sanos Forest, rather than its inner secrets, and made him a ranger.
Hey, gnomes are eclectic, so in Abu's haphazard training, he might have picked up a little monk training too. Most monk abilities don't work if the monk is wearing armor, and Abu had been practically living in his armor for the last few months (the Endurance feat let him sleep soundly in studded leather armor). However, Abu had just joined a fight wearing only dinner clothes. Maybe he could suddenly use that monk training that he had neglected. Frostmuffin, our Game Master, thought that plausible enough that she let me multiclass Abu to monk in the middle of a fight. On one condition--Abu could not dip into monk for just one level. He had to keep it up.
The game resumed. Abu, newly arrived at the fight with the wizardess, and all too familiar with how deadly her weapon was, jumped up and grappled her (first level monk bonus feat: Improved Grapple). Caught in the grapple, she could not use her weapon as the party surrounded her. On her turn she broke the grapple by reverting to her natural large form. But this alerted the mayor's eighth-level bodyguard who the true adversary was. And he had Improved Sunder, the ability to break weapons. After getting attacked three times in one round by the wizardess's weapon, he swung at it with his axe and broke it. Meanwhile, our charmed party members were getting fresh saving throws to break out of their charm spells, and they succeeded.
The wizardess escaped through a dimension door before we could defeat her. But the party had thwarted her plans and saved the mayor.
The adventure continued. NPC character Volioker returned home. On a side quest to help the party level up, the party leader Crystalline died nobly defeating a spider god in a burning temple. Frostmuffin offered Kelly options of saving Crystalline in a deus ex machina or taking over an NPC druid named Aifa. Kelly chose the druid. Finch and Saxton Hale were expelled from the party for being idiots (guess who set the temple on fire?). We recruited a battle oracle named Anastasia, played by Xelona, and resumed the adventure arc.
And I am playing a gnome monk ranger. Who, due to the shortage of burly fighters in the party, fights on the front line. Who is now the party leader. The little gnome is feeling quite on the edge, which is a fun challenge to roleplay.
Sadly, however, his monkish combat abilities pale before the sneak attacks of rogue Tierdh, the magic powers of druid Aifa and sorcerer Corvan, and the battle magic of oracle Anastasia. And his ranger abilities are overshadowed by the four NPC rangers aiding the party. Though I prefer to roleplay for character development rather than powergame for character effectiveness, it has become the time to maximize Abu's effectiveness.
Min-maxing is natural to a mathematician, but I have been consulting sites such as Treantmonk's Lab and Brilliant Gameologists to get the information for min-maxing. Their advice offers ways I could maximize Abu as a striker, a character that deals damage quickly, but that is not what the party needs.
I have plenty of time to plan this, so reading the Pathfinder rules and daydreaming while resting up is a sufficiently good method.