Help! A player wants to play "Captain America"

[Rechan]

I sat down with a new group, and one of the players (who hasn't played since 2e) looked at me and said "I really don't care what we do, as long as I can play this concept: I want to be able to use a shield and a leather glove, and just punch people. Maybe later on, throw my shield around."

How do I facilitate this with 4e? My biggest concern is, basically, the punching and granting magical bonuses and abilities. Letting it function serviceably like a fighter using a normal weapon looks challenging.

Furthermore, what class would work best with this? I'm sort of wary of the Warlord due to this thread, on the basis that the PC wouldn't be doing the shining; he's just assisting other PCs in the shininess.

 

[Arakim]

Let him play a Fighter. Allow a feat that lets him add damage to his punch attack (d4+1+ST i think). Allow a feat that lets him shield bash, and a feat that requires shield bash, and allows him to throw his shield (medium shield - 5 squares, heavy shield - 3 squares). Maybe one more to let him catch it after it is thrown, up to you.

A heavy, weighted gauntlet could conceivably do d6 base damage, but it would most likely be a specialty weapon.

Option 2: Let him play a melee Cleric. The flavor text for any ranged spell is he throws his shield, any melee attack he punches with his glove or shield. With this option he needs to learn shield, and needs good ST and Wisdom, just like Cap. His weapon damage could be based off any one-handed weapon, like war-hammer. His Gloves will cost as much as a War-hammer.

Remember that flavor text is just that. If Lance of faith becomes Flying Shield of Justice, few should complain. "Why does it do Radiant Damage?"

"Because he's Captain ****'ing America."

 

[Brian Gibbons]

He can do this concept in 4e, but being on par with other PCs will require you to add some feats and items of your own.

Make him a ranger. Fists are weapons, so can be used with any of the two-weapon powers. You might want to add a feat he can take that gives him a +2 proficiency bonus and makes the fists deal more damage (say, 1d6, if not 1d8). Allow gloves to be enchanted as magic weapons to give a attack/damage bonus to unarmed attacks.

Later on, he can take ranged weapon abilities, to use in throwing his shield. For this, you will need to give him a magical shield, with the property that it can be used as a thrown weapon (with properties like a throwing hammer). Magical thrown weapons automatically return, which also fits the flavor.

Warlord or paladin fits the archetype. He may want to multi-class with one of those later.

 

[Rechan]

He can do this concept in 4e, but being on par with other PCs will require you to add some feats and items of your own.

Make him a ranger. Fists are weapons, so can be used with any of the two-weapon powers. You might want to add a feat he can take that gives him a +2 proficiency bonus and makes the fists deal more damage (say, 1d6, if not 1d8). Allow gloves to be enchanted as magic weapons to give a attack/damage bonus to unarmed attacks.

I disagree that the Ranger is a good fit. The mold I see is more, well, defenderish, standing and keeping monsters at bay, or buffing/helping/inspiring allies, not "Run around and dish out buckets of damage".

However, I just want to point out that you're low-balling the options for unarmed attacking using the ranger. WotC actually did a conversion of a monk using the ranger base class.

At a glance, the player with a 3E monk might think that he’s out of luck until the 4E monk releases—there’s no unarmored, unarmed melee fighter option anywhere in the Player’s Handbook. However, with your DM’s permission you can create a martial-arts striker who captures much of the monk’s style by following this process:

1. Choose the two-blade ranger build (p104). (Don’t worry, this will make sense in a minute.)
2. Give up your leather and hide armor proficiencies, gaining a +3 bonus to AC when wearing no armor or cloth armor. You’re now only a point behind the normal ranger’s AC.
3. Gain a +2 bonus to Will defense (in addition to the ranger’s normal defense bonuses).
4. Replace Dungeoneering and Nature on your class skill list with Arcana, Diplomacy, Insight, and Religion. Choose five trained skills from your class list.
5. Give up your martial weapon proficiencies. Grant your unarmed strike a +3 proficiency bonus, increase the damage to 1d8, and add the off-hand property. Now you’re wielding two melee weapons that are as good as the martial melee options available to the ranger.
6. Rename Hunter’s Quarry as Monastic Battle Focus, and lose the Prime Shot class feature. (You thought you were getting that +2 bonus to Will for free, didn’t you?)
7. Focus on mobility-oriented powers, particularly those that reward a high Wisdom score (such as evasive strike, yield ground, and weave through the fray). As desired, you can rename those powers with a flavor that befits your monkish heritage (peerless balance of the crane instead of fox’s cunning, for example).
8. Pick up feats to recreate other 3E monk class features—Evasion, Fleet-Footed, Long Jumper—and use multiclass feats (p209) to replicate the supernatural features. For example, the warlock has several teleportation powers reminiscent of abundant step.

This doesn’t faithfully recreate every element of the 3E monk, but it’s definitely a reasonable stopgap if you’re really committed to sticking with the character. Feel free to experiment with additional tweaks, and by all means please share your results on the D&D message boards!

Arakim, thanks. I was thinking paladin could suffice, but I'm not sure. There are a lot of options that can do it, but I'm not sure 1) What's best, and 2) What would capture the feel best for the player.

 

[AtomicPope]

Your best bet would be to make a Ranger with TWF and take shield proficiencies. Make a "leather glove" or fist wraps that are magical weapons and allow him to punch people in the face with a magical bonus. Give them a good 1h rating like a long sword (+3 prof, 1D8 damage). Let him take a shield bash feat that improves the damage to 1D8, and a throw shield feat (for the obvious). That should be all of the kung foolery he'll ever need.

 

[Foxen]

Rechan, you have the most curiously interesting circumstances. More "scenarios!"

Anyhow...here's a few thoughts.

For a not-so-Captain America leader type, I think the player can make a "fighter" and focus in on shield related powers and feats...okay, there aren't that many. Here's a few feat suggestions....

Shield Weapon Feat - player may use shields as a "melee" attack. Perhaps Light Shields allow for d6 or d8 damage and Heavy Shields allow for d10 damage? Or just upgrade "unarmed" melee attacks one damage level, d6 for Light Shield and d8 for Heavy Shield.

Shield Throw Feat - Prerequisite: Shield Weapon Feat - Player may make ranged attacks with their shield (range 5/10 or perhaps 3/6 for Heavy Shield). Shields would be considered Heavy Thrown...and "maybe" a third feat to "allow a chance" shields to "boomerang" back when thrown...

These two Weapon Proficiency feats will eat away at a player's feats, but allows him to play the "Captain America" character. There are other feats that can add to a the fighter's arsenal of attacks...Distracting Shield, Far Throw, Shield Push, Weapon Focus Shield, etc.

Oops...someone else posted. I like his ideas about changing the flavor text for the Cleric.

Another thought is the kinda combat-gimped "leader" type that yells at everyone from the back. That would make an interesting Warlord build (granting solely him access to the shield weapon proficiency feats etc.). Commander's Strike has so much potential...heh.

Let us know how it goes?

Fox

 

[Arakim]

Arakim, thanks. I was thinking paladin could suffice, but I'm not sure. There are a lot of options that can do it, but I'm not sure 1) What's best, and 2) What would capture the feel best for the player.

Well, Cap is a Paladin in many ways. It fits his whole Charisma thing as well. MAD makes it hard to make a good CAP.

If you go Paladin, just forget the Wisdom stat, and power up ST and CHA.

 

[eamon]

I'd say the fist as a weapon really isn't a problem at all. Granting a d8 as class ability isn't a problem in the slightest, and you could even consider powers which allow dazing, based on other powers.

Whether you base the class abilities on fighter, ranger, warlord etc... mostly depends kind of character focus you want (i.e. your role).

 

[Rechan]

What about magic? How should that interact with this?

For instance, if he's attacking and throwing his shield around, how is this going to effect his AC? Should shields be able to be enchanted with offensive magic?

How about the gloves? An issue here is when it comes to treasure. It seriously impacts verisimilitude for him to find enchanted gauntlets in treasure, even on a semi-frequent basis.

 

[Arakim]

I disagree that the Ranger is a good fit. The mold I see is more, well, defenderish, standing and keeping monsters at bay, or buffing/helping/inspiring allies, not "Run around and dish out buckets of damage".

However, I just want to point out that you're low-balling the options for unarmed attacking using the ranger. WotC actually did a conversion of a monk using the ranger base class.
Arakim, thanks. I was thinking paladin could suffice, but I'm not sure. There are a lot of options that can do it, but I'm not sure 1) What's best, and 2) What would capture the feel best for the player.

What about magic? How should that interact with this?

For instance, if he's attacking and throwing his shield around, how is this going to effect his AC? Should shields be able to be enchanted with offensive magic?

How about the gloves? An issue here is when it comes to treasure. It seriously impacts verisimilitude for him to find enchanted gauntlets in treasure, even on a semi-frequent basis.

Well, if you go the Cleric or Paladin, "Spell = Shield Slinger," approach, AC won't be a factor. His shield returns to him when thrown. It's a flavor thing.

For his gloves, whatever you base his damage off of (something that no one else in the party is using would be a good idea) is what he gets for new magic items. "A Warham.... Gauntlets +3." The other idea is just to save up residium and have someone enchant his gloves. Call them War-Gauntlets or something similar so people won't mistake normal gloves for the Cap Specials.

The Reason I originally thought of Cleric was Cap's role in a party, the leader. I don't like the Warlord's At-Will powers for Cap, so I thought modifying the Cleric Flavor text would be better. Paladin seems to be a mix of Leader and Defender, and would make a good fit as well.

If you go Paladin it should be interesting around the Holy Avenger levels.