making the most of some poor stats

[chillwindhaven69]

helllo, i recently rolled stats for a 6th level character, with the following results:

16
14
12
11
10
6

the current party is:

human psychic warrior-kinda weird fighter type
human ranger-specialised in melee
svirfneblin ranger-specialised in ranged combat
human cleric-defensive spells
half-drow mage-offensive spells

as you will see, there is one main melee type with a kinda melee type, so we need help there, but there is o rogue so i have decided to go for that route.
so far i have the following:

name: please help with this
human rogue 5/fighter 1
Chaotic Good (member of the harpers)
str 14 +2
dex 16 +3
con 11 /
int 10 /
wis 6 -2
cha 12 +1

armour class:10+3(dex)+4(armour)+2(+1 buckler?????)=17/19?

intitative +7

fortitude: 4
reflex: 8
will: 0

melee:6
ranged:7

sneak attack:3d8

feats:

1st level human-alertness/spellfire wielder????
1st level-improved initiative
3rd level-weapon focus longsword
6th level fighter-improved sneak attack
6th level-quickstrike

improved sneak attack & quickstrike are both in traps and treachery by fantasy flight games.
ISA makes all sneak damage d8 rather than d6.
quickstrike mean syou get an extra melee attack immediately after a successful sneak attack, you do not add sneak attack damage to the second attack.



skills:79 points into bluff,hide,move silently,listen,spot,search,open lock,disable device and use magic device and others.

equipment:13000gp

+1 wounding longsword (8320gp)
+1 studded leather (1175gp) (9495gp)
+1 buckler?????? (1165gp) (10660gp)
the rings of the rogue (1000gp) (11660gp)
miscellaneous equipment
any comments???

the rings of the rogue are two rings which when worn together confer a +5 bonus to hide and move silently,the bonuses only apply when both rings are worn.

personality:A chaotic good wanna-be artemis entreri, he is a member of the harpers.

he has a background but it is too long to post here.

tactics:he will try to win the intitative, then he will go for sneak attack at +8 to hit, if he succeds he gets 4d8+3+bleeding damage, followed by another attack at +8 to hit which would do a further d8+3+bleeding damage.

so basically my questions are:

1.Can you help me improve the character?

2.Can you think of a great name (bear in mind i like the names jarlaxle and artemis entreri, so either of those flavours would be cool) ?

3.do you think i made the best character i could out of some bad stats?

 

[Strider The Ranger]

Help with character

YAY First to respond...at least, unless someone else responds before I can...
In any case, here's what I'd do. Look at the scores again and how you've assigned them. Then ask yourself, Why does ___ have this as a score? You said you had a background, but does it reflect the attributes as well? This helps too.
Here's what I'd insert into whatever background you have:
(Oh, and the name I'd pick would be Geoffroy [that's pronounced with that french-sounding J and ending with a "wah"] )

Geoffroy grew up as the youngest child of three boys to a fairly impoverished family. As the youngest, Geoffroy was constantly the butt of jokes and when there was a scuffle, he was almost always the loser since his two brothers inevitably allied against him. From his backyard brawling with his brothers, Geoffroy learned to be quicker than them to win. While he gained some strength from the years of wrestling, he found he was more agile and could often catch his brothers off their guard.
That was when he discovered that the combination of his agility and polite attitude could help his family eat and live healthily. At first he stole only when he had to; a loaf of bread here, a steak there. He always put on his most innocent expression and had a knack for convincing others he was "just distributing some uneven wealth". After years of acting as Robin Hood with quite the success, his parents began to look more favorably upon the former runt of the litter. They showered him with praise and elation, which brought to him more happiness than he had ever known. This praise made him think better of himself, but unfortunately, inflated his ego (possibly the reason behind the low wisdom score). He always was convinced he could succeed despite any and all odds. But he was a fairly bright fellow and understood he was no match against warrior-types: he had to be quick, nimble, and hit them hard and fast before they could fight back.

Now that's just the stuff I might want to incorporate into a character background. Sure you can min/max to compensate for a weak score, but with most DM's, if you have a strong point you can focus on when you roleplay, they will often "throw you a bone" (i.e. an XP bonus).

Now for the feats, skills, etc:
Under feats, I would get rid of alertness....to me, spending a feat to get +2 on a skill simply isn't worth the slot. I'd go for Lightning Reflexes, or one of the Bow feats (take advantage of that nice ranged atk modifier).
The skills seem to be nicely distributed and are practical. The Bluff score can also help with his roleplaying and is already incorporated into his background.
The magic weapons are also well-purchased. The only other suggestion I would make is that if you do purchase Bow feats, buy a +1 bow at the very least.
Now, off you go! Have some fun and I hope I helped

 

[VoodooGroves]

Well....

With one large deficit stat, I'd go one way or the other with it and I'm a fan of playing to your strengths and avoided your weaknesses, but if I have a choice I put my lowest values in my physical, not mental stats.

Here's what I would do...note that I haven't played either of these, but its just character types that leap to mind.

Option 1:

Swap your STR for WIS scores. Go lighter on the armor, pack a rapier maybe and turn out one of the feats for weapon finesse. If you work at it you can really work on making as many attacks as possible sneak attacks, and the finesse takes care of your to hit bonus problems. Still, you can't carry much but really, do you want to be the mule .

You are the small, weak but also quick and deadly opponent. A knife in the back kills more than a club to the head....

Option 2:

Swap your DEX and WIS scores. No kidding, I'm saying play a rogue and put DEX last. You've got alot of skill points to play around with, but you don't (really) need the DEX. I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't help - it does. However, maybe you're playing an extremely overweight rogue (or just plain clumsy) who makes up for it in mental ability and brawn. Your reflex save will start out sorta low but in all reality it will climb up as you gain levels. To make things fun, take the bluff skill and feint folks into loosing their DEX bonus (and get your sneak attacks) or the opportunist feat (from Sword and Fist I think).

You are the clumsy and therefore often overlooked rogue, but your skills, strength and common sense are strong enough to overcome (and even surprise) alot of foes.

Option 3:

Make CON 16, STR 11, WIS 10 and DEX 6 (I think I swapped these right). Pick up a level or two of fighter and wear full plate. Swear off the stealthy rogue skills and concentrate on the diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, or other communication and sensing skills. Pack a greatsword or greataxe, maybe even a polearm. Throw in some tumble skill just to be plain crazy and surprise the hell out of your opponents.

You are the fighter who really isn't a fighter. You're a veteran of many previous campaigns but when your leg was seriously injured in the Great War of XXXX, you've never been the same since. Decomissioned, you've had a second calling (rogue). You can tank up in armor like the front-liners and most folks think you're just another slow, dumb fighter. Your tumble skill - which you execute through sheer willpower and pratice - can surprise opponents greatly as you spin around them on your wooden leg and flank them with another party member, landing deadly sneak attacks.

 

[Valmur_Dwur]

I don't know how "set" you are to playing a Ftr/Rog, but VoodooGroves has some good ideas. If you switched the numbers you could play a Clr/Rog which would still allow for some backup frontlining and also some extra healing options. If the cleric goes down it's all over. The one thing your party doesn't need is another fighter type Take the War and trickery domains and you have most of your feats back. Go something like this:

str - 6 cast magic weapon/bull's str at 2nd level
dex- 16
con- 10
int - 11
wis - 14
chr- 12

Or what I like is the 6 in con, 10 str. The character above never developed his strength because he was always able to convince others to do those things asked of him (chores) If push came to shove moost found the little twerp hard to grab and he always seemed to make sure "payback" was hell Or you could use the second idea that makes him a Clr. Perhaps in his early days he nearly died and in response prayed to be healed and to live and a pact was made to him to become a man of the cloth. Some old tired ideas true but just want you to think about other options Monk is also a possiblity but thats another post

 

[chillwindhaven69]

The one thing your party doesn't need is another fighter type

erm........there is a melee ranger, a ranged ranger, a strange psychic warrior, a pacifist cleric and a mage.
believe me we need a melee type and a rogue at that.

 

[RogueJK]

chillwindhaven69...

Do you really think it's necessary to have 3 different threads going at the same time about the same topic?

It seems like it would probably be much more appropriate to simply add the new info and your question onto one of the other threads (most likely the original, which is found here, or this duplicate thread found in the D&D Rules forum.)

But maybe it's just me.

 

[chillwindhaven69]

lol. to be honest i always go by the saying :

"dont put all your eggs in one basket"

so i put them in the general RPG discussion basket and the d&d rules forum basket.

also since the first thread the character has changed 3 times, that is why i started a new thread, people mmay not have read all of the posts etc.

thank you for showing an interest but i would much rather that somebody showed an interest in my thread.

 

[Valmur_Dwur]

erm........there is a melee ranger, a ranged ranger, a strange psychic warrior, a pacifist cleric and a mage.
believe me we need a melee type and a rogue at that.

Must be quite the Dungeons and Dragons campaign

I just thought another healer would work