Help me make a chef

[Rhun]

A chef that sings seems less absurd to me than a chef that sneak attacks, but both could be rationalized into a concept.

I don't know...in movies and such, you always see people sneak attacking with frying pans, knocking people silly.

 

[Rhun]

Why not be an entertaining chef? I know more then a few people that sing while they cook and you can make the cooking an event to be seen!! You can juggle ingredentents before they go in the pot, play pans and other tools like drums, and even set your recipies to song to make them easy to remember.

A la Benihana, eh? Nice idea!

 

[szilard]

Why not be an entertaining chef? I know more then a few people that sing while they cook and you can make the cooking an event to be seen!! You can juggle ingredentents before they go in the pot, play pans and other tools like drums, and even set your recipies to song to make them easy to remember.

I thought about it, but I sort of want this guy to be a cooking snob. It is about the food: its taste, texture, the techniques of preparation... anything that detracts from such things is mere fluff that doesn't belong in the kitchen. Cooking is the only true art for him.

Also, it bugs me that the class features/mechanics would be based off something that would be really tangential to the character rather than being based off his main focus.

-Stuart

 

[Crothian]

Also, it bugs me that the class features/mechanics would be based off something that would be really tangential to the character rather than being based off his main focus.

Then that leaves you with Expert. All the other base classes have a focus that is not cooking.

In the Quintessential Halfling (I think) there is a chef prestige class designed for halflings of course.

 

[szilard]

Then that leaves you with Expert. All the other base classes have a focus that is not cooking.

Well, yeah. There is that.

I think the thing that bugs me about Bard for this concept is that the class mechanics focus on an art form, but not one that is relevant to the way in which this character sees himself as an artist.

In the Quintessential Halfling (I think) there is a chef prestige class designed for halflings of course.

Really? Cool. I'll have to check that out.

-Stuart

 

[TracerBullet42]

I had a character in a pretty long-running campaign who aimed to be a master chef. He was a halfling rogue...

And then I discovered Mongoose's "Quinessential Halfling" book, which has a PrC in it called just that, Master Chef. Here's a little write-up from another thread:

The best of the chefs sometimes manage to rise to the rank of Master Chef. This takes more than merely honing one's cooking skills; the Master Chef must be ready to quest for the rarest ingredients, study the arts of alchemy and herbalism, and even master a little magic. A druid will willingly tell (or, more likely, lecture you at length) that every living thing contains within it a spark of divine life energy, and that consuming this spark in the feral rush of the hunt is a sacrament of life and an affirmation of the great cycle of nature; furthermore (quoth the druid) most civilised meals take too long and by the time the food is prepared, the divine spark of life it once contained has decayed and vanished, devoured by entropy and lost of the cycle forever. The Master Chef, then, must learn to nurture and preserve the little spark of life in his ingredients as he prepares the meal, coaxing it back into full bloom until a meal of venison and vegetables gives the diners a sense of crashing through the greenwood, heavy antlers weighing down their heads and hot blood rushing through their veins while simultaneously hurling their souls into the dark loam of the earth, there to slowly take root and grow and sprout, a long slow black green moment of constant life. The Master Chef stands between life and death, between hunter and hunted, and draws all the world in until the experiences of a hundred lifetimes explode out with every transcendent mouthful!

They also cook.

The other thread is found here.

 

[Deset Gled]

There actually is a chef PrC in an ebook called A Portable Hole Full of Beer. The book is mainly a spoof, but I have found most of the classes and feats to be pretty playable.

IIRC, the chef got abilities to make special dishes and poisons and the like from dead things and oozes.

 

[Angerland]

well obviously the character will be one that is highly skilled. To me that means Rogue, Expert, Bard, etc....Of these I think Bard would be the best fit even though it doesn't seem so right off the bat. The perform of the bard could be you telling your companions about the meal your going to cook for them when the battle is done (you said one was a kobold and one a half orc, they might be the type to think with their stomachs). Or it could be that in your effeort to create the perfect dining experience you have learned to play some music to aid digestion of course, until you found other uses for thsi ability. You can fight a little if you need to ... you learned how to wield a knife a culinary school, swords can't be THAT different right? You can sneak a little, and when the time is right have some spells to throw into the mix. I think the Rogue is also quite a good candidate for the high number of skills and the class abilities, just try to squeeze a chef type into one of those molds and I think you will have what your looking for. I think your making it harder than it is to fit.

 

[Sejs]

I'd also suggest ranks in Knowledge: Nature.

Knowing about plants, animals, etc, etc. All very chefly.

I thought about it, but I sort of want this guy to be a cooking snob. It is about the food: its taste, texture, the techniques of preparation... anything that detracts from such things is mere fluff that doesn't belong in the kitchen. Cooking is the only true art for him.

Also, it bugs me that the class features/mechanics would be based off something that would be really tangential to the character rather than being based off his main focus.

It'd require a slight alteration to the class skill list, but how about Rogue?

Even the Sneak Attack progression fits after a fashion, owing to your extensive knowledge of anatomy as it pertains to the culinary arts. Think of it as the practical application of the various cuts-of-meat charts.

Plus it also means you can be wicked dangerous with just a kitchen knife.

 

[Sejs]

Oh, and once you get past a certain level (9th, I believe)

Exemplar. Definitely.