Of Drunken Masters and Great Survivors

[Gilbetron]

Hey gang, I have a couple of characters I'm working on for a friend's Planescape campaign and I seek the brainpower of enworld to help me out.

Both characters will be 12th level. One is basically a Drunken Master ass-kicker (and all around saucy wench ), she is probably the easiest, but I'm still looking for tips and making her fun to play and one tough chick. What's the best route to take? Monk or Fighter? Both? Something else?

Second is a bit more vague. I'm trying to make the "ultimate survivor", someone that can live thorugh almost any situation. He doesn't have to be particularly effective at anything else, although that would help. I'm most interested in creative ideas for a character with the best odds for surviving whatever the Planes (and DM!) throws at him. Rogue with those feats that bump up saving throws and HPs, maybe. High Con, Dex, and Wis for bonuses in such as well. Is that a good start? Or maybe Barbarian? Maybe there is a good prestige class out there I could use.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Scion]

I would suggest going for the survivor prc in savage species.

But give the class mettle and energy resistance as well. Maybe a couple of other minor bonuses.. it really is not good at much of anything besides not getting hurt. It is only 5 levels, but that is a big hit, especially with no BAB. I think it deserves more than it gives, even though it gives a lot

It sounds like it would work perfectly with some minor adjustments.

 

[blargney the second]

I'm trying to make the "ultimate survivor", someone that can live thorugh almost any situation. He doesn't have to be particularly effective at anything else, although that would help.

Off the top of my head:
Some monster that's particularly hard to pin down (ie flight, natural invisibility, incorporeal, etc.)
Horizon Walker
Shadowdancer
Monks are wicked for simple survival!

-blarg

 

[AuraSeer]

Second is a bit more vague. I'm trying to make the "ultimate survivor", someone that can live thorugh almost any situation.

My current character has the same general concept. I'm trying out a dwarven Monk/Ranger/Horizon Walker.

HW is the class designed for planar immunities. In 10 levels you can get: immunity to fatigue, 120' darkvision, tremorsense, fire and cold resistance 20, dimension door every 1d4 rounds, plus a very nice ability that minimizes most alignment-based effects.

You can't get in before level 5, so start with a Mnk2/Rgr3. Important things from the monk levels are unarmed strike, Improved Grapple, and Evasion. The ranger levels are there for the prereqs.

If we still had the Cosmopolitan feat that let you treat any skill as a class skill, it'd be even cooler, because you'd drop ranger entirely and take those three levels in Hexblade. That adds your charisma bonus to your saves, and also grants Mettle-- which works like Evasion, but on Fortitude and Will saves. (For this version I'd want to be human instead of dwarf, to avoid the charisma penalty, and to make up for spending two feats on Cosmopolitan and Endurance.)

 

[hong]

A PC in my game has gone for the "invulnerable tin can" schtick. Fighter type with maxed out full plate and shield. It works too; at 14th level, he has an AC of 34, and even dragons and giants have trouble hitting him. He also has fortification armour to protect against sneak attacks, and his Fort and Will saves are sky-high. His only real weakness is against area effects that have a Ref save, but now he's addressed even that by getting a ring of evasion.

The build is something like 4 levels of fighter, 10 levels of knight (a conversion of the OA samurai, gets good Fort and Will). If you'd rather keep things core, you could take cleric levels instead, or paladin for the Cha bonus to saves.

General hints for building a survivor:
- The easiest way to get high AC is to go the full plate + shield route, and max it out. You could be a monk, but you'll generally pay more for the equivalent AC. But that's just one aspect of being able to survive.

- Overall, the monk is probably the most survival-oriented class around. There's the Wis bonus to AC, good saves, SR, and poison and disease immunity, obviously. In addition you can also dim door and go ethereal to escape traps and grapples, and if the crap hits the fan, you can also outrun just about anything that isn't flying.

- You want fortification, not just to protect against sneak attack, but also crits. Heck, everyone wants fortification at high levels.

- If possible, stay out of prolonged melee combat. Even with super-high AC, the monsters will hit eventually, and many melee brutes are quite capable of taking down a PC in 1-2 rounds of full attacks. Either get Spring Attack (which means getting mithral full plate if you're going down that route) or concentrate on ranged combat.

The best way to survive that I've found, though, is to avoid attracting the monsters' attention. If you only dish out 10-20 points of damage a round while everyone else is doing 50-60, you'll be ignored while they get whacked. Your problem now will be handling the other players, so try to make sure you can contribute to the party in other ways besides combat.

 

[Oscar carramiñana]

Try a straight psichic warrior with xpanded knowledge (take metamorfosis power) and metamorfic transfer (you gain a supernatural ability of the creature you shape. with the new powers the PW are great.

 

[Oscar carramiñana]

Better try a monk4/psichic warrior8 take inertial armor, force screen expansion,bite of the wolf,grip of iron, metaphisical claw, animal afinity, hustle
when achieves level10 PW take xkowledge feat and choose metamorfosis no one can hit you your saves are good and in combat are better what a fighter.
trip all oponents with expansion

 

[Gilbetron]

Great ideas, everyone! Y'all have me scrambling through all my books madly looking up various classes and feats and armor and such. I'm starting to get a better feel for things now, thanks and keep the ideas coming!

 

[AuraSeer]

If you choose to go with heavy armor as hong suggests, make sure it has some form of magical or mechanical "quick release" ability. Trust me, it's awfully embarrassing to survive combat with ginormous dragons and monsters, only to accidentally drown in the first stream you fall into.

I'd also suggest either armor of Ease (which you can sleep in), or Called armor (which you can don in one round). A character whose survival depends on his +5 full plate is very unpleasantly vulnerable when ambushed at night.