Sword? Looks more like a wall.

[Nicholas Vanderbilt]

Okay so here's my dilema. I'm looking to set up a character for a new campaign one of my rp'ing group members is gonna run. Our characters will be beginning as 1st lvl characters within the country's military force. My character is going to have been a childhood friend of one of the other players' character (Who plans to make his character a walking armor class) The concept behind their friendship was that when they were hitting the start of their teen years they decided to train to be part of the military, my character training by trying to use heavy weaponry and the friend trained by using a tower shield as a defensive and offensive item. Our characters are roughly age 16-17 by game start (primarily so the friend, Human, has less to worry about in the high probability of time leaps affecting physical stats.)

Now for a slight detail of my character's bio:

He was born Illumian, and as a small child he was given to his Human god-parents (since his parents died while on an expedition). He attempted to emulate his adopted caretakers by having his haired died black and continuously suppressing his Luminous Sigils. He didn't want to seem "different" so he only kept them visible when he was by himself in his room.
Eventually he and a friend decided they wanted to train to become part of the military so that they could travel and meet as many strong people as they could. In thier trainging my character trained in the desire to be able to be agile but wield a strong weapon as opposed to the stereotypical agile fighters (rogue's and the such) He had found a love for the use of the Greatsword and trained with one as often as he could borrow one from his veteran god-father. While entering the military he continued to train with the treasured greatsword in solitude, using daggers and shortswords as weapons in front of all but his childhood friend. He used smaller weapons as a tool to balance the "differences" between himself and his foes, feeling that unless an enemy was worthy of facing him he'd have no reason to use his true strength and, thusly, his true weapon. As he became ever more proficient with his greatsword he began to desire the challenge of wielding weaponry of greater size.

These things I plan to use as part of the flavor in building my character. I plan to have the Luminous Sigils of the Illumian race kept invisible around everyone, including his friend, only letting them out and into effect if facing an enemy where nobody else can view it, and, to almost the same degree, his greatsword usage in battle. As the character progresses I intend for the two things to be used in the open as though through showing pride with them. So far for the Luminous Sigils I hope to have them become noticed by his allies through some act of deperation or via the reaction Illumians have with "symbol" word spells. As for the greatsword I intend for it to more swiftly come into more constant use when being faced by a challenging enemy (i.e. an opponent/opponents of high enough CR to require him to step up his game.)

Here's some of what I've begun planning for my character as I try to adapt him into his flavor of how he aspires himself to be:
Ability Scores (28-pt buy is the dm's standard with 15 -> 16 and beyond costing 2 points per) Str 16 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 10 and Cha 8
(As a note to avoid confusion the dm also has characters in his games get Character Bonus Feats every odd level)
Level 1: Fighter1 Weapon Focus, Power Attack (I want to use ways of doing additional damage in single strikes as a way of showing his aptitude for powerful strikes)
Level 2: Fighter2 Improved Sigil Aesh (As per its description it's like getting Weapon Specialization without having to wait till Fighter4)
Level 3: Fighter3 Gigantic Weapon (I plan to move the size category of weapons he trains with/uses up and Gigantic Weapon seemed like a perfect way to portray his progressed training, also allowing me to use a Huge Greatsword with only a -2 penalty on attacks if I choose to go that high)
Level 4: Scout1 Skirmish+1d6 (Again for his style of doing more damage with a weapon on a single strike) Trapfinding
Level 5: Fighter4 Leap of the Heavens (To dumb down the DC of a jump so that I don't need to make a 20' move first) Leap Attack (Adds even more sac'd BAB additional damage. Plus the fact that you must jump 10' it couples well with Skirmish and on top of that I needn't worry much about the DC needed if I'm close to an enemy anyway since I also have Leap of the Heavens on this lvl)
Level 6: Scout2 Battle Fortitude+1, Uncanny Dodge
Level 7: Scout3 Fast Movement+10 Ft, Skirmish+1d6/+1AC (Scout begins showing his versatility of agility and powerful damage by granting the AC bonus) Trackless Step, Fleet of Foot (This feet grants me an additional +10 Ft for my movement speed which, since I'm going to use a chain shirt, means I'll have a movement speed of 50' which will help in setting me up for some options to later extensions on my Skirmish.)
Level 8: Scout 4 (I haven't decided for certain what I want to do with the Bonus Feat from being lvl 4 Scout)
Level 9: Scout 5 Evasion (Always nice to have just plain and simple) Skirmish+2d6/+1AC (Pre-req for taking the next one!) Improved Skirmish (Perfectly set up to get it at the same time that I get the requirement to it, giving me a bonus 2d6 damage and bonus 2AC.)

That's as far into the build I've gotten in terms of trying to match to flavor and style of this character. I tried to get as much of his style out in the Feats and Class Abilities as I could before level 10 in the chance of us not progressing the characters to much of a high level.

So I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on what kinds of things to look into trying to get as far as Feats and Items to bring out more of the flavor of my character.

As far as Items go I plan to get myself at bear minimum a Strength uping equip and a Rogue's Vest (Adds +2 to Reflex Saves and +1d6 to Skirmish which is simply awesome) I was also thinking of maybe looking into some boots that either add to jump scores or add to movement speed.

Thanks in advance for any ideas on how to help pull out the flavor of the character.

 

[irdeggman]

You can't take the "Improved Sigil Aesh" feat as a fighter bonus feat (despite how it's description seems to mesh with weapon specialization).

Feats eligible for fighter bonus feats must be specified as such - a lot of feats that have been added state that a fighter may choose this feat as one of his bonus feats. This one does not.

However, note that it provides an "insight bonus" to weapon damage - which means that it stacks with weapon specialization damage bonus. You might want to look at that one and taking weapon specialization once your fighter level reaches 4th.

What is this feat "Gigantic Weapon" and where is it from?

Basically you either need powerful build (or equivalent) or the Monkey Grip feat in order to use a larger size weapon. Since the Great sword is a 2handed weapon - you can't use a large great sword without one of those (and then it is used as a 2 handed weapon, Monkey Grip still gives you the -2 inappropriate size penalty)

There is another thread on using 2 - 2 handed weapons and it goes into great detail on the feat chains to use larger weapons. I don't think that a medium creature can ever use a huge 2 handed weapon without something else "special" that Illumins don't have (like powerful build).

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3r...how-can-i-make-fighter-wield-2-2-handers.html

 

[Runestar]

Can you use tome of battle's warblade? I think it can simulate the fast and agile fighter concept better than the fighter class.

 

[Nicholas Vanderbilt]

Gigantic Weapon [General, Fighter]

You are proficient at wielding extremely large weapons.
Prerequisite: Str 15, Base attack bonus +3
Benefit: You can use weapons that are larger than your size category as if you were one size larger, reducing any attack roll penalties by 2 and allowing you to use weapons one size category larger than normal.
Normal: A creature can’t make optimum use of a weapon that isn’t properly sized for it. A cumulative -2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. A weapon's designation is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder’s size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. If a weapon’s designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can’t wield the weapon at all.

As for the fighter feat issue, honestly it's doubtful to me that our dm cares about the fighter restriction but even if he did I'd simply swap out the Aesh Sigil one with Power Attack, giving me the benefits of +1 at 1st lvl and having it evolve to +2 by 2nd lvl. Also I'm aware of the stacking of Weapon Spec but +2 extra damage was nowhere near as important to me as getting Leap of the Heavens and Leap Attack together to represent my character's lunging-ish strike.



Yes all the Non-mongoose type books are available to us I simply keep skipping over my BoNS by accident when looking at options. I'll go glance through options there now.

 

[irdeggman]

Gigantic Weapon [General, Fighter]

You are proficient at wielding extremely large weapons.
Prerequisite: Str 15, Base attack bonus +3
Benefit: You can use weapons that are larger than your size category as if you were one size larger, reducing any attack roll penalties by 2 and allowing you to use weapons one size category larger than normal.
Normal: A creature can’t make optimum use of a weapon that isn’t properly sized for it. A cumulative -2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. A weapon's designation is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder’s size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. If a weapon’s designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can’t wield the weapon at all.

As for the fighter feat issue, honestly it's doubtful to me that our dm cares about the fighter restriction but even if he did I'd simply swap out the Aesh Sigil one with Power Attack, giving me the benefits of +1 at 1st lvl and having it evolve to +2 by 2nd lvl. Also I'm aware of the stacking of Weapon Spec but +2 extra damage was nowhere near as important to me as getting Leap of the Heavens and Leap Attack together to represent my character's lunging-ish strike.



Yes all the Non-mongoose type books are available to us I simply keep skipping over my BoNS by accident when looking at options. I'll go glance through options there now.

I found it - from a Mongoose Book Ultimate Book of Feats

It is a 3.0 feat too boot. Well that was where it seemed to first appear - what source is this from?

The rules for oversized weapons have changed drastically in 3.5 - this feat no longer works in that system (and it is specific contrast to the 3.5 version of Monkey Grip {which a lot of people hate by the way})

Complete Warrior pg 103 has the new and improved Monkey Grip.

Also the way the feat is stated it won't allow you to wield a huge 2 handed sword, although you could wield a huge one handed weapon as if it were a two handed one.