Oddball d20 Modern or Grim Tales characters?

[takyris]

Was curious as to whether this was just me, or if others have tried to come up with oddball characters to take advantage of peculiarities of the rules. I'm actually doing this with a follower NPC going with the PCs (playing something that's d20 Past, roughly) into a war-zone. He's a berserker, but he doesn't have any particular advanced class. And, from a build-perspective, he's built to take advantage of one fun little rule: You always hit on a 20.

Without going completely into his stats, he's got a Strength 16, Dex 15. Con's decent, Wis and Cha are lousy. Int's decent in the hopes of getting Combat Expertise someday.

He's a Strong 6 hero, and the feats he's got include Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Exotic Weapon Proficiency:Bastard Sword. He has, of course, Advanced Melee Smash.

Generally, in any combat situation, he dual-wields bastard swords while Power Attacking to his full ability (+6 damage, -6 to hit). With a BAB of +6 and a Strength of 16, he has a +9 base, -10 for Power Attack +6 and Dual Wielding large weapons.

So essentially, he attacks at -1/-1/-6/-6, but does 1d10+12 (+3 Str +3 Smash +6 Power Attack), or +10 off-hand, every time he hits. In D&D, this character would be nigh-useless (at least, with this strategy -- the feats aren't bad if used properly in D&D). But with d20 Modern's massive damage rules, 1d10+12 damage stands a really good chance of forcing a save. So instead of whittling down enemies, this guy's entire combat strategy is "Attack a whole lot per round, assuming that eventually I'll roll a 20 and automatically hit for a crapload of damage."

What's your silly-but-still-effective d20 Modern or Past or Future or Grim Tales character? What rules oddities have you brought to life?

 

[elforcelf]

a FLUMPH!

 

[Roudi]

A modern Strong Hero who swings wildly but really SMACKS his foes around when he hits? I can buy that. Hell, I'd like that concept better than a similar D&D Barbarian build (which would likely have a higher attack bonus in the end).

I can't say I've made any characters to exploit rules quirks (hell, I rarely get to play at all these days), but I am particularly proud of Sean Vandergraaf, the NPC found in Ghost Panther. At 6th level (Smart Hero 4 / Mecha Jockey 2), with an Intelligence of 16, he managed to gain a Knowledge (tactics) modifier of +20. Hence his callsign, "Deep Blue".

 

[takyris]

Heh. Yeah, +20 ain't bad at all for a 6th level character.

For the record, a Strong9 Ordinary based on this same concept, who attacked at -2/-2/-7/-7 for 1d10+12(+10 offhand), got absolutely owned by a 12th-level martial artist PC. The PC specialized in disarms, and, knowing this, I jokingly gave the bad guy 8 bastard swords (2 wielded at a time, and 6 more sheathed all over his body). The hero took away four of the guy's swords before giving up and just clobbering him -- ironically, by forcing a massive damage save of his own, which the bad guy blew.

I suspect that the current game's Grappling Specialist would also take out this guy in a frustrating and humiliating manner.

 

[Roudi]

How many movies have I seen where the nimble martial artist defeats the big BEAR of an opponent by not allowing him to bring his strength to bear? Many, I say. Many.

... heh, I said "bear" twice.