Help choosing feats and Character building

[tennesay]

Hello, I am currently playing a 3.5 campaign where I am trying to work out a new character. My first one died because I felt that he was not exactly fair. He was a sword sage and I also remembered that I was playing his skills wrong, mostly preparing the skills ahead of time.
Any way my new character is probably a tad weaker than most of the party. The half-celestial paladin who is effectively level 11 takes the top, followed by a disturbingly powerful gnome battle sorcerer who recently discovered that basically all of her abilities have a range of roughly 180 feet.
My character is a human/half-celestial 4th level fighter, 3rd half-celestial transition class.
My stats by level 7 are 20 str, 17 dex, 15 con, 12 int, 13 wis, 15 cha.
I was not sure what feats to take currently my feats are: Nymph's kiss, able learner, item familar, quick draw, greater powerful charge, powerful charge, and nimbus of light (for character development). I probably want to drop the quick draw and maybe the able learner but I am not sure. My BAB is too low for any good feats.
His equipment includes bastard sword +1 (familiar for XP), and a Great Sword +1, a +2 breast plate and a ring of deflection.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks.

 

[Herobizkit]

My question to you is, are you trying to be the same character as the paladin?

Assuming I'm readng correctly, you're a half-celestial fighter with a nimbus of light (which makes you glow like you're Good's Champion). You've taken the Able Learner feat which allows you to learn cross-class skills more easily, but have taken a class with the fewest amount of available skill points. Nymph's kiss gives you +1 skill point/level and better CHA checks with Elves and Fey, but doesn't offer much else. Boosting CHA seems silly when you already have a Paladin with a high (likely maxed) CHA and a Sorcerer who will also likely have a high CHA.

It just seems to me that you don't have a focused character concept and you seem to be trying to emulate the Paladin because he's sh- er, white-hot and teh awesome.

What do you envision for your character?

Personally, I would try to create a character that makes up for the party weaknesses. A second meat-shield is helpful; just because the Battle Sorcerer has the word "Battle" in it doesn't mean he should be front-line infantry.

Is half-celestial the only template your DM will allow? I'd ask if Were-creature was an option.

 

[Thanee]

Feral Barbarian/Fighter FTW.

Bye
Thanee

 

[irdeggman]

I agree with Herobizkit - what role are you trying to fill?

You have 2 exalted feats in there. There are a lot things involved with being an exalted character. It is not supposed to merely a way to "power up". Just because you have the half-celestial template does not in and of itself make your PC an exalted one.

BoED requires a lot of role-playing to balance out the feats and abilities it presents.

If all of the PCs in your group are not good (and very good) then it should prove to be very difficult to play an exalted character. A paladin is close to exalted but not quite, it is considered basically 1 step lower than exalted but is still a good example of what to look at when playing such a character.

 

[tennesay]

I actually don't really know what kinda role I am trying to fill. Character wise, I guess I watched just a little too much Super robot wars and decided to base a character off Zenger Zombolt, who is basically a samurai on crack. My basic character design was to be a charger who evolves into a dive bomber, but I am limited by the number of actual levels I have. I did toy with the idea of being a paladin but the extra feats I get as a fighter seem to have outweighed the benefits of being a paladin.

The premise of my character is that he is a free celestial agent under the employ of his god and is occasionally loaned out for a while to work for other good gods. Our world is a blighted world with lots of undead. I do not really know why I went with the half-celestial template, but I think personally I kinda like having wings. If there was another way to get wings maybe I might drop the half celestial but also I kinda appeal to the WH40K zealot personality.

 

[Runestar]

Where can I find information regarding this half celestial transition class? It seems kinda funny that you have both it and the half-celestial template...???

If you want to be a flying charger, but don't want the burden of LA, I suggest you play an aasimar instead. See if your DM will allow the LA+0 lesser planetouched variant from Player's Guide to Faerun. Races of faerun has the outsider wings feat, which gives you wings.

This should give you 11 class lvs to play with. PHB2 has the charging paladin variant, which gives you a damage bonus if you smite on a charge, though I don't really recommend paladin beyond lv2-3. And this may make your own PC seem like a carbon copy of the half-celestial paladin.

Maybe crusader? He should have some charging-oriented maneuvers...

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If you want to do flying charger with no LA, another option is Raptoran from Races of the Wild. Normally I avoid them because flight magic is cheap after a while and the 40 ft speed is annoyingly limiting, but if you're making a dedicated flying charger, the race isn't bad. I believe it comes with a racial feature to deal double damage on a diving charge w/ a piercing weapon. There's also a racial prestige class to improve such tactics further. If you do take Raptoran, make sure to get the Improved Flight feat from C.Adventurer (it has no prerequisites other than flying ability). This boosts your maneuverability by one step, in this case average to good. Which is a HUGE difference, as w/ good maneuverability, you can stay in place and hover.

I wouldn't mind following Runestar's suggestion and making up a Raptoran Crusader build focused on White Raven (the main charging discipline) and Devoted Spirit, but not much point until you say if Tome of Battle is allowed / you'd want to play such a character. One quick piece of advice: Crusader only gets 3 disciplines and the third, Stone Dragon, should be avoided like the plague. Why? Because ALL of its abilities require that you be standing on the ground.

EDIT: Actually, Warblade might be better than Crusader for this. For one thing, it's less complicated if new to Tome of Battle. It also uses lighter armor (as any flier will be) and gets tumble (important since Flyby Attack still provokes). And if you can't get pounce from Barbarian, it's tempting just for Pouncing Charge. Bounding Assault might also be nice.

 

[Shin Okada]

If you can fly, why not use reach weapon. Even at that level range, you still meet something with 5-foot reach and no flight ability. At least, your comrade can often dispel opponent's fly spell or items.

Half-Celestial has good maneuverability and thus you can hover. When you can attack your enemy and the enemy can't reach you, you win.

Taking Improved Flight (Comp Ad) worth considering. Having perfect maneuverability is even better.

 

[irdeggman]

For an ECL 11 character other ways to get flight (wings optional):

Enlightened Spirit Prestige Class from Complete Arcane. At 3rd level you get Celestial Flight (an invocation that gives you flight with good maneuverabiity and speed equal to your land speed for 24 hrs). You also sprout shimmereing wings during this time.

Warlock level 5 should have you meet the prerequisities.

So Warlock 5, ES 6 might be good

Warlocks can be CG in alignment.

Go with human for the extra feet - no LA templates, it is just too messy.

Favored Soul gets them at 17th level (too late I know)

Raptorans (from races of the wild) get wings and average flight at 5 HD, up to 40 speed at 10 HD

 

[Shin Okada]

Some other ideas.

Be Dragonborn of Bahamut (Races of Dragon) of some LA+0 race. Then choose Wings aspect.

Make an ordinary human character and take Dragontouched feat (Dragon Magic) for gaining dragonblood subtype and then take Dragon Wing (Races of Dragon) at the 1st-level. Take Improved Dragon Wings at Level 6 and now you can fly.

Winged Creature Template (Savage Species) is only LA +2 and give you fly speed, +4 Dex and +2 wis. Maneuverability is based on your dex and with +4 racial adjustment, you can easily hit Dex 17 to gain perfect maneruvability.