Looking for Aventi charater building advice

[vulcan_idic]

Hey, just kicking around a couple of character concepts I was thinking about putting together and I thought I'd throw the concepts on the board and see what bounced back.

Basically I really like the concept of the Aventi (Stormwrack) - the whole Atlantean concept is cool to me. Two different possible characters appeal to me - a caster, building on the Water spells at caster level +1. I think for that I'd probably go with a Druid, maybe multiclassing to the Stormcaster PrC - not sure about that though. I had been thinking about arcane ones, but the druid strikes me as the better option, espicially since I want to use the +1 caster level, but not completely build around it...

The other is a melee type. This I had a hard time with due to the water thing. I eventually thought a monk with the Toothed Strike (I think that was the name of the feat) would be best, as most weapons/armor are aquatically cumbersome.

Neither of this characters is for a specifically aquatic themed campaign, but rather just sort of being better prepared than most for any aquatic type situations that normally crop up over the course of a campaign. As such I don't want to build them to be solely aquatic, but at the same time I want to make sure they can make the best of their advantages should the party come into an aquatic situation, especially since it's likely that the rest of the party will have their effectiveness reduced in such a situation, it's up to this character to have their backs and help them through it.

As you can tell the ideas are still pretty nebulous, and I'm at work (oooh, naughty use of internet!!) so I don't have my books, or too much attention, but I will have both once I arrive at home. Any thoughts you might have are appreciated as I really value the thoughts and opinions of folks here.

Thanks for your online time!!

 

[vulcan_idic]

Would the Monk speed enhancement, when I get it, apply to just the land speed, just the swim speed, or both?

I seem to recall reading somewhere something that led me to believe that RAW it would be both, but just land speed makes more sense to me...

 

[vulcan_idic]

OK, so I just got back from the gym - always a good time and place to kick around new ideas, and my concepts have gelled a bit more.

Caster: I've pretty much scrapped the idea of the druidic caster because I like the Sor/Wiz spell variety better, plus I've really been wanting to play a wizard lately. The only think that stinks about them is only being able to memorize four spells a level max, which isn't much. I would much rather have the potential to know a huge variety of spells I can prepare though than beable to have a limited repetoire more often, so wizard it is. I want to be able to cast as many spells with the [Water] descriptor as I can to make the best use of my racial tendency, but I also don't want to be a one trick pony. [Force] spells I've always liked, and I've recently realized the utility in the Color Spray, Prismatic Wall type series. Aside from that I'd rather have good multi purpose utility spells - i.e. Grease which can come in handy in any number of situations - than directly damaging spells. Questions though... I'd like to trade out my Familiar and the Scribe Scrolls feat (the ink runs badly in water) UA style - what do you think would be fair to get in return? As far as that goes, what does a wizard who spends a lot of time in and around water use as a spellbook to avoid running ink or water damaged pages?

Melee: This gentleman starts as a regular infantryman in the Aventi armed forces, but after proving his greater than average skills (Fighter levels (rather than Warrior levels) maybe like 4) and the direction of his aptitudes, they pick him for special ops training. He doesn't really have Imperial Guard/Knight of the Pearl type aptitudes, so he gets a different special ops training (i.e. Monk levels) that more suits his aptitudes.

The types of characters I prefer to play are the ones that don't neccesarily shine themselves dealing mad damage, but act as force multipliers enabling others to shine better - i.e. making sure the rogue gets to add SA damage as much as possible, helping the fighter make the most of his martial abilities (maybe by casting the aforementioned Grease behind the NPC he's about to bull rush), etc.

Thanks for listening!! Talking things out helps me refine my nebulous general ideas into a more concrete character that I really want to play.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The types of characters I prefer to play are the ones that don't neccesarily shine themselves dealing mad damage, but act as force multipliers enabling others to shine better - i.e. making sure the rogue gets to add SA damage as much as possible, helping the fighter make the most of his martial abilities (maybe by casting the aforementioned Grease behind the NPC he's about to bull rush), etc.

Try a Marshal/Wizard.

 

[vulcan_idic]

Try a Marshal/Wizard.

Oh... good call, I hadn't thought about that. Thanks so much for the comment - one of the reasons I love the forums is the collective memory is better than my own!

Forgot how much I like this class... I think it'll work better with the Fighter/Monk army man than the caster though - I think he'd loose to many caster levels multiclassing with this one.

 

[vulcan_idic]

For the caster I'm shying away from the Stormcaster a bit... I think I'll take as many Argent Savant levels as I can instead and then fill up anything remaining with Stormcaster levels - there's just too many fun things to do with Force spells - I just keep having the image of water rushing into a room and the caster throws a hasty Wall of Force up in the doorway to keep the water out long enough for the party to escape...