CW: Dervish PrC..How is it?

[Darklone]

Dervish Dance, starting at level 1, gives +1 to attack and damage with slashing weapons while "in a dance" e.g. something like Rage... increases every 2 levels. So at level 10 a funny +5 to hit/damage stacking with everything.

And while in a dance, you can move your full movement while a full attack action, but you have to take a 5ft step between each attack.

Dervishs rock.

 

[The Souljourner]

A friend of mine played a swashbuckler 3 / fighter 2 / dervish 5 - he was awesome! You get the swashbuckler intelligence bonus to damage, plus in the dervish dance he was getting like +3 to hit and damage... and definitely don't underestimate the effect of being able to move while full attacking... a room full of baddies becomes a room full of bodies pretty quickly.

It's really an awesome class, well thought out, not overpowered, with several really neat abilities.

-The Souljourner

 

[Darklone]

Biggest problem of a dervish: You can't really use Power Attack with these twin scimitars anymore (really baaad given your nice bonuses to hit) and keen + imp crit has been nerfed officially.

 

[Jeremy]

RACE:	  Drow 
TYPE:	  Medium Humanoid (Elf) 
LEVEL:	 16 
CLASS:	 Fighter2/Ninja1/Barbarian1/Ranger2/Dervish10 
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good 
DEITY:	 Mielikki 

STATS: 
	 Net	  Base	 Race   Level	Other 
 STR 13 (+1)   13	   --	 --	  
 DEX 20 (+5)   18	   +2	 --	  
 CON 15 (+2)   17	   -2	 --	  
 INT 17 (+3)   15	   +2	 --	  
 WIS 17 (+3)   17	   --	 --		
 CHA 14 (+2)   08	   +2	 +4	  

INIT:		 +7 (+5 Dex, +2 Improved Reaction) 
HD:		   2d10+1d6+1d12+2d8+10d10+32 
HP:		   120 
AC:		   24 (+5 Dex, +6 Armor, +3 Dervish) 
 Touch:	   18 (+5 Dex, +3 Dervish) 
MOVE:		 55 
Arcane Fail%: --% 

SAVES: 
 Fortitude +13  (+3 fighter, +2 barbarian, +3 ranger, +3 dervish, +2 Con) 
 Reflex	+15  (+3 ranger, +7 dervish, +5 Dex) 
 Will	  +12  (+2 ninja, +7 dervish, +3 Wis) 
Modifiers: 
 +2 racial bonus on will saves vs. spells and spell-like abilities 
 Immunity to sleep spells and effects 
 +2 racial bonus on saves vs. enchantment spells and spell-like abilities 

ATTACK ROLLS: 
BAB:	+16 
Melee:  +17 
Ranged: +21 

WEAPONS: 
Weapon		To Hit	   Damage	   Critical	Special 
IcingDeath	23/18/13/8   1d6+4		18-20/x2	+1d6 cold, fire resist 10 
Twinkle	   22/17/12	 1d6+2		18-20/x2	defending weapon 

ARMOR 
  Type				 Bonus  Max DEX  Armor Check  Arcane Fail%	Special 
Mithral Chain Shirt +2 +6	 +6	   0			-- 

FEATS: 
1	 Twin Sword Style 
Ftr1  Combat Expertise 
Ftr2  Weapon Focus (Scimitar) 
Nnj1  Dodge 
3	 Mobility 
Rgr1  Track 
Rgr2  Two Weapon Fighting 
6	 Improved Two Weapon Fighting 
9	 Weapon Finesse 
Drv3  Spring Attack 
12	Improved Combat Expertise 
15	Greater Two Weapon Fighting 

RACIAL TRAITS: 
 Drow: 
  Elf Traits 
  +2 racial bonus on saves vs. spells and spell-like abilities 
  Spell Resistance 27 
  Dancing Lights, Darkness, and Faerie Fire 1/day 
  Light Blindness 

CLASS FEATURES: 
 Fighter: 
  Bonus Feats 
 Ninja: 
  Ninja Dodge 
  Sneak Attack +1d6 
 Barbarian: 
  Fast Movement 
  Rage 1/day 
 Ranger: 
  Track 
  Wild Empathy 
  Favored Enemy (Orcs) 
  Combat Style (Two Weapon Fighting) 
 Dervish: 
  Dervish Dance 5/day 
  Movement Mastery 
  Slashing Blades 
  AC Bonus 
  Fast Movement +15 
  Spring Attack 
  Dance of Death 
  Improved Reaction 
  Elaborate Parry 
  Tireless Dance 
  A Thousand Cuts 
  
SKILLS: (25 Fighter, 7 Ninja, 7 Barbarian, 18 Ranger, 70 Dervish) 
Balance +12, Climb +6, Hide +16, Jump +8, Listen +24, Move Silent +16, 
Perform (Blade Dance) +21, Spot +16, Survival +13, Tumble +14 

LANGUAGES: 
Drow, Drow Sign, Thorass, Illuskan, Goblin 

EQUIPMENT: 
HEAD	  -> 
LENSES	-> 
CLOAK	 -> 
NECK	  -> 
ARMOR	 ->Mithril Shirt +2 (5,250 gp) 
ROBE	  -> 
VEST	  -> 
BRACERS   -> 
GLOVES	-> 
RING 1	-> 
RING 2	-> 
BELT	  -> 
BOOTS	 ->Speed Bracers (as Boots of Speed) (12,000 gp) 
BACKPACK  -> 
WEAPON (R)->‘IcingDeath’ Frost Brand Scimitar (54,440 gp) 
WEAPON (L)->‘Twinkle’ +2 Defending Scimitar (18,315 gp) 

STORED EQUIPMENT: 
Figurine of Wondrous Power: Onyx Panther (10,250 gp)

Can get up to AC 49 thanks to Elaborate Parry and Improved Combat Expertise...

Or he can team up with the panther and flank something doing 3d6+9 on the primary hand and 2d6+7 on the offhand for 8 attacks with Guen's 3.

Or he can go into his corkscrew maneuver using a thousand cuts and go slicing and dicing through a thousand orcs using dance of death and get a 5' step every two attacks with great cleave built in attacking at:

+29/+29/+29/+28/+28/+24/+24/+23/+23/+19/+19/+18/+18/+14/+14 with however many cleaves he managed to get on the orcs while he is moving up to 85' in the round thanks to the boots of speed and his Mastery of Movement ability. That's 15 attacks + great cleaves on anything he can reach in that area.

Fun stuff. Few problems, but still fun.

Edit: Ug. Code works just fine on other boards, but this board just can't do unicode text. Ah well. It lines up good in notepad.. Sorry about the messy post.

 

[ForceUser]

Biggest problem of a dervish: You can't really use Power Attack with these twin scimitars anymore (really baaad given your nice bonuses to hit) and keen + imp crit has been nerfed officially.

Dude, imp crit + scimitar still has a 30% chance to threaten a crit on each roll! With a dervish dual-wielding scimitars that's a lot of crit opportunities, most of which he'll convert. The 3.0 crit stacking was way too good; this is balanced.

 

[Scion]

well, I tried to both pm and email you forceuser, but to no avail. here is what I was going to send:

I saw you post about this, so just wanted to drop you a note rather than clutter the thread.

These two put together wound up being slightly inferior most of the time to simply adding an extra +1. That is without including any percentage of creatures who are simply immune to crits.

The main problem came from 3rd party suppliments. It is most unfortunate that these are still allowed to stack under the 3.5 ruleset.

In other words, the change was useless to pretty much every degree possible.


As for the dervish though, I had an npc who tried to use it to some effect. It was interesting, but I didnt see enough of it in actual play to really comment too much.

Basically, since the character was created wholecloth the prereqs and such were able to make more sense for the end product. It was an enjoyable, though shortlived, encounter.

I'll have to try another one at some point

 

[Hammerhead]

I've seen it used with a Marilinth. Death of a Thousand Cuts combined with all the multiweapon fighting feats made for a nasty combination.

 

[Darklone]

Jeremy: Pretty much like Drizzel should look like. Only sad thing: Rage can not be combined with Dervish Dance (not that he'd need to use both).

 

[Jeremy]

DL: Very true. But since he tries to avoid rage it seemed appropriate. And the official build had it, and I needed the skill points. The movement doesn't hurt either.