Pimp my Pirate

[Arabesu]

In the great tradition of the Pimp my Pixie and Pimp my Ass threads from this board (imitation is the sincerest for of flatery I suppose) I present:

Pimp my Pirate.

I am running a shifter pirate in our savage tide campaign and quite frankly I've stumbled upon too many good options to choose from and I was thinking I might ask for a little help with future character design. I understand that this campaign will go till 20th level, and having never run a rogueish type that far, I have no idea what options will be best at high level. The next 1 or 2 levels are clear: Scarlet Corsair; I qualify to take that prestige class next level. But where should I go after that? Are the third level and beyond corsair abilities that good? What items will I need and when? I see sooo many roads, I'm really at a loss for where to go next...

Yens Häfulfen
Male shifter, Rogue 4/ Swashbuckler 3
CN Medium Humanoid (Shapechanger)
Init +4 or +5 when shifting, Senses Listen -1, Spot -1 (Trapfinding, Low-light vision)
Languages Common, Elven
AC 21 (22 when shifting, plus melee dodge +1), touch 14 or 15, flat-footed 21 or 22
(Dex +4 or 5, armor +5, shield +2)
hp 54 (7 HD)
Resist Uncanny Dodge, Trap Sense +1, Evasion, Grace
Fort +8, Ref +11 or +12, Will +2
Action points 8
Speed 30 or 40 ft
Melee Valero’s rapier +11/+6 (1d6+3) or +12/7 when shifting
Ranged Skald’s longbow +11/6 (1d8+2) or Hand crossbow +11 (1d4 plus poison)
Base Atk +6; Grp +8
Atk Options Sneak Attack +4d6, Insightful Strike +1
SQ Shifting Longstrider traits 2/day, 9 rounds: +2 Dex and +10 movement
Combat Gear Potions of Cure Light Wounds (5), Cure Moderate Wounds (3), Expeditious Retreat, Jump
Abilities Str 15, Dex 18 or 20, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 9, Cha 7
Feats Shifter Acrobatics, Healing Factor, Daring Outlaw
Skill Tricks Nimble Stand, Quick Swim
Skills Balance +15 or +20, Bluff +9, Climb +11, Diplomacy +3, Disable Device +10, Intimidate +11, Jump +12 or +20, Knowledge (nature) +2, Open Lock +8 or 9, Profession (Sailor) +3, Search +16 (+21 versus traps), Sleight of Hand +7 or +8, Swim +12, Tumble +14 or +19, Use Magic Device +4.

 

[Arabesu]

Yen's Gear

Head: Circlet of Persuasion - +3 competence bonus to charisma-based checks, worn over a bright red dew rag.
Face: Goggles of Minute Seeing - +5 competence bonus on Search checks to find secret doors, traps, and concealed objects. Stollen from the Jade Raven rogue during the Bullywhig Gambit. Levinia knows.
Throat:
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +1 - +1 resistance bonus to all saves
Body: Mithril chain shirt +1
Torso:
Belt:
Feet:
Arms:
Hands:
Ring(L): Ring of swimming
Ring(R):
Shield: Darkwood Buckler +1
Clothing: Traveler’s outfit (typically sans boots, i.e. just the vest, shirt, pants, and sash) and an earring of unknown value.
Climber’s Kit - +2 circumstance bonus to climb checks
Efficient Quiver:
46 arrows
20 silvered arrows
MW Mighty Composite Longbow +2 str
MW Cutlass
MW Falchion
Club
Short Sword, cold iron
Spear, small sized
Ballista Bolts (12)
Quiver of Venom: 9 doses of black adder poison, 9 hand crossbow bolts
Shoulder bag:
Bat Statue: story item???
MW Thieves tools - +2 circumstance bonus: disable device and open lock checks
Lens of Detection - +5 bonus to search checks and to survival checks for tracking
Sea Urchin Poison – 28 doses
Elemental Gem – Large Earth Elemental
Flint and Steel
Bottle of Fine Whiskey – “The Green Man”
Swimming Goggles (swapped with other goggles when around the Jade Ravens, He he he).
Potions: Cure Light Wounds (5), Cure Moderate Wounds (3), Expeditious Retreat, Jump
Kigante Vellero’s Rapier - +1, rapier, worn through the sash
Concealed items (DC28 spot or DC 24 search to find): Hand Crossbow, MW; Sap

 

[Erywin]

Here is a question that I always ask my players when they run into a situation like this. What do you want him to be able to do/do well?

 

[Arabesu]

fight

Well he has only a smattering of roguish abilities and is clearly more outfitted for combat. So I'd say fighting, with a secondary goal of trap finder and possibly disarmer. Definitely NOT a scout. No scouting. Ever. Did I mention no scouting?

Next level will probably mean a +1 bump in charisma, 3 more ranks in bluff to max it out, and the skill trick Group Fake Out. Combined with the improved feint feat, I think that would be pretty cool. Unfortunately it looks like the disable device will be weak for many levels. Thats why one option I was toying with was Leadership at 9th with cloak o charisma and possibly modifiers for being a fearsome pirate to get a 7th level artificer cohort. Then Yens can find traps with his big search, and bring up the artificer to disarm them. Oh and the artificer could possibly provide the scout with one of them there homunculi.

The problem is that each cool feat I take weakens the character as shifter. Leadership and Deadly Precision would be nice, but so would Shifter Instincts and/or Extra Shifter Trait - Longtooth.

 

[Erywin]

Cool Shifter Type feats would be:
Longstrider Elite - +20' speed instead of 10'
Shifter Agility - +1 dodge bonus to AC and +1 Ref
Shifter Defense and Greater Shifter Defense for DR 4/Silver

What other classes are the other players playing?

 

[Arabesu]

other PCs:

Good Incarnate from Magic of Incarnum - Spits acid and shocks enemies and ussually has one variable by highly tricked-out skill at any given time, such as UMD or Prof (Sailor).

Aventi Wujen with potent water spells: steam and ice mastery.

Shifter Druid using the PHBII druid option to have the new wild shape: predator and bird forms.

No Fighter or Cleric. The druid functions as the healer while my PC functions in the role of fighter most of the time.

I find Longstrider Elite and Shifter Agility kind of crappy. They only function while shifting and provide a benefit that is only marginally better at this point than standard feats. Shifter defense is cool, but we're getting to the point were damage reduction providing items are viable, and dr2/silver is weak sauce relative to the amount of damage most of the monsters can put out with a single hit. I mean for god sakes we just fought a T-rex as sixth level PCs last time!!!!

Leadership is looking like an attractive option since I need to boost my charisma for other reasons anyway, and if I take an Artificer cohort, I can tailor my items more efficiently.

 

[Arkhandus]

You need to become..........a SWORDSAGE!

Not right away, necessarily, but it'd be appropriate enough I think. I know Keith Baker or someone else working on Eberron made an article, either in Dragon or Dungeon or on the Wizards of the Coast website, on using the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords in Eberron (heck the Bo9S has a few things already well suited or tailored for Eberron).

Some of the disciplines are suitable for a pirate-type, and it'll boost your combat ability as well as give you decent skills. You can develop in the roguish Shadow Hand discipline or the animalistic Tiger Claw discipline (maybe head into the Bloodclaw Master or whatever it's called, later; a PrC that focuses on Tiger Claw and shifting), or the zen-like, swift and precise, action-without-thought Diamond Mind discipline. Desert Wind is good for swashbuckler types, though its fire and wind themed (not water and wind themed), so some of its maneuvers may be unsuited to a pirate or swashbuckler. If you go into Warblade or an appropriate prestige class instead, you might develop some White Raven or Iron Heart maneuvers, which are sort of bardic (WR) and sort of fighter-ish (IH).

The swordsage gets a lot of maneuvers, so they can learn from multiple disciplines easily enough.

 

[Arabesu]

swordsage

I am seriously considering this, but I think that the multicass restrictions could get problematic. I'd have a window of three levels where I'd be at 80% experience with regard to the rest of the party. That could be painful. And I'd want to do it ASAP so as to lose the least amount of exp's. So perhaps two or three levels of scarlett corsair, then four of swordsage?

I thought about the bloodclaw, but I wasn't sure how I could get there efficiently. One possibility is two levels of ranger to get two weapon fighting. Also, bloodclaw is more "claw" oriented; Yens will be more bite oriented (eventually) hence the name Hafulfen/Halfwolfen. So I'm not certain it fits.

 

[Arabesu]

path options

OK I'll probably put up a poll to get a survey of which option people think is most interesting once I've five or so options. For now here are the three 20th level paths that I have come up with so far:

A) Rogue 8, Swashbuckler 9, Scarlett Corsair 3

i.e. the basic option, original design before Bo9s came out. +10d6 sneak attack and many options for getting sneaks thanks to skill tricks, feint, imp. flanking and items that let you sneak non-critables. With the right feats and items I think that Yens can do 300 dmg/rnd.

B) Rogue 4, Swash 3, Scarlett Corsair 2, Dread Pirate 3, Swordsage 4, Bloodclaw Master 4

Only 6 to 8d6 sneak attack, but 14th level initiator level = up to 7th level manuevers, with items, probably about 11 attacks for one round (about 300 to 350 dmg/rnd)

C) Rogue 4, Swash 5, Scarlett Corsair 3, Dread Pirate 3, Weretouched Master 5

+7d6 sneak (about 250 dmg/rnd)

I think that all three of these options compare favorably to power attacking 20th level fighters who seem to be doing about 300/rnd if they hit with everything. Particular if the swift action is left open (i.e. options A or C) for things like scolls of wraithstrike. By then the UMD check aught to be cake even with the 12 Cha. Options B and C have nice pounce options, for full attack as he is closing.

According to my GM, the pirate theme continues on through the end of the savage tide series. I have no idea how that is going to work since I always supposed that challenges at high levels seem to so heavily dependent upon monsters with lots o' spell like abilities and high level spells.