Fun, silly character builds

Tonight my group was recovering from a near TPK, so most of us made new characters. We were all in a creative mood, so we ended up with some odd builds, and with my friends' aid I hit upon the following sweetness.

• Level 8 Ranger
• Trained in Thievery (background, or Eladrin) and Fast Hands skill power (lets you quickdraw/quicksheath/pick up an item as a free action once per round
• Twin Strike and various other fun powers
• Mark of Storm (hit with a lightning or thunder power and you can slide the target 1 square)
• +1 lightning bola.

Now, my main weapon is just a good old +2 duelist greatbow, so I can dish damage like the best of them. But with a bola I can choose to immobilize anyone I hit instead of dealing damage, and since it's lightning I can slide the person 1 square. Add to that a bevy of immediate interrupt and reaction powers (disrupting strike, fox's cunning, spitting cobra stance), and several times during combat I can quickdraw a bola and chuck it at someone, slide them away from my friends, and immobilize them.

Then, and this is the part that cracks me up, the bola flies back to me (it's magic, after all), but the person stays immobilized until the end of my next turn. At the start of my turn I can sheath it and make a normal attack (usually just twin strike, of course). And there's always the double bola twin strike to pin down two people, when holding people off is more important than damage.

I've basically turned my ranger into a mini-controller. Now I need to find some extra tricks, like alchemical items, magic arrows, and so on. I'd love an alchemist's spark arrow, so I can attack an area and mark of storm a cluster of enemies right where I want them. I figure I should milk this whole quickdraw thing for all the wacky possibilities it offers.


So what sorts of weird, not necessarily powerful, but necessarily fun character builds have you designed?

RangerWickett said:

Trained in Thievery (background, or Eladrin) and Fast Hands skill power (lets you quickdraw/quicksheath/pick up an item as a free action once per round

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Only because this sounds like an awesome build, wouldn't this also work if you took quick-draw feat instead of the fast hands power?

Second, this might also make a good rogue style character.

The only interesting type character I've worked on (and still haven't gotten right) is an Indiana Jones character who uses a whip and hand crossbow. I can't figure out what combination of classes that would effectively use both. So far all I've got is a fighter/rogue hybrid, but it doesn't seem to fit entirely well.

But good job on the bola-ranger; that's pretty awesome.

I made a high charisma halfling rogue (artful dodger) that had something like an additional +8 to AC versus opportunity attacks - basically the concept was that he could attack any enemy on the battlefield that he had combat advantage against, which due to distant advantage would include anyone his pals flanked.

He would need to be careful of opponents whose melee basic attack wasn't against AC, though...

Dr_Ruminahui said:

I made a high charisma halfling rogue (artful dodger) that had something like an additional +8 to AC versus opportunity attacks - basically the concept was that he could attack any enemy on the battlefield that he had combat advantage against, which due to distant advantage would include anyone his pals flanked.

He would need to be careful of opponents whose melee basic attack wasn't against AC, though...

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so your concept was artful dodger

I created a bunch of character for my players to use in a future game, and some of these were really fun to make:

- A dual-wielding fighter with a handaxe and a whip. He could mark anyone needed, sometime marking 2 or even 3 target at a time.
- A super lore wizard, MCed into bard for the Bardic Lore feat.
- An alchemical opportunist rogue with quick draw, who could throw gluepot as opportunity attack.
- A paladin with so much striking potential that the barbarian (thaneborn) would cry to sleep.

While creating this party, I found that thinking out-of-the-box was really fun and leaded to some crazy character, effective even if they were not as anchored in their usual role as normal.

you could make a warlord of any flavor

Cadavaranger. (Not my making, but highly entertaining)

Saagael said:

The only interesting type character I've worked on (and still haven't gotten right) is an Indiana Jones character who uses a whip and hand crossbow. I can't figure out what combination of classes that would effectively use both. So far all I've got is a fighter/rogue hybrid, but it doesn't seem to fit entirely well.

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Have you tried a Ranger/Rogue mix? Really you need Thievery, Athletics/acrobatics, History, and maybe Arcana to get rid of certain traps. Dexterity and Strength, and Wisdom for noticing stuff, but also Int (history/arcana/treasure hunter), and some effort put into Cha (streetwise). Not too much, though, as he tends to get into trouble when he opens his mouth.

I'd go Ranger or Rogue, just because he's so mobile, rough and tumble.
Eladrin have that skill training, so that would broaden your horizons. Backgrounds are another helpful option for skills. Human is for sure an option, and things like Action Surge and Adroit Explorer are exactly the sorts of things that reflect Indie for me: Action Points = Luck, right?



As for fun builds, on the CharOp boards I found a fun Swordmage build called the Feysword and Feyblade. The builds are designed to maximize teleporting, as the MC into Feypact Warlock for the Feypact PP Feytouched means doing Int damage to adjacent enemies whenever I teleport. Swordmages, especially Eladrin, teleport all the time, either due to Assault Aegis power or just from their class powers; add to that feats like Fey Death and Fey Escape, plus items, plus teleports on more than just immediate reactions. That means adding upwards of 7 or 8 damage per foe per round, plus any additional teleports multiplying that... and teleporting like a fancy pants with a sugar high.

I found the blind, incompetent perfect assassin (by Efinley) on the WotC CharOp boards. It looks fabulous