The gosh darn Dervish delimma

[Jefe Bergenstein]

He's a fighter. ALL he does is fight. He SHOULD be dominating combats. He has no real utility magic, no social skills, no stealth or skullduggery etc. IMO, the fighter should be the undisputed king of combat at all levels of play, with 20th level wizards wetting themselves in the corner when their initiative comes up.

 

[Mavrik]

A little of topic... but I notice the Dervish has +3 dex gloves.... sure its been debated often but I thought you had to buy / make even numbered plus stat items... unless you have a hokey house rule

Mav

 

[Fenes]

I think it's important to know if the rest of the group cares about combat. If no one else cares about who kills the most stuff, and concentrates on non-combat stuff, then any build is ok for cmbat.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

A little of topic... but I notice the Dervish has +3 dex gloves.... sure its been debated often but I thought you had to buy / make even numbered plus stat items... unless you have a hokey house rule

Mav

The DMG lists price per bonus, and doesnt make mention that they have to be even numbered. So I'd say its a house rule to state that they HAVE to be even numbered.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The DMG lists price per bonus, and doesnt make mention that they have to be even numbered. So I'd say its a house rule to state that they HAVE to be even numbered.

Technically any new magic item is a house rule - there's a reason that all the items in the DMG are even bonuses; its to keep folks from overly exploiting having even ability scores.

 

[Anson Caralya]

Amusingly, the Dervish isn't even at the bleeding edge of twinkery. For that, he'd need a keen Falchion(or ImpCrit) so that he could two-handed power attack while dancing and crit on a 15-20.

This clearly shows where I fall on the twinkery scale when I make up experimental PC's, but my dervish was to use a double khopesh (1d6/1d6, 18-20, Sandstorm) -- use it with two-hands to Power Attack, use it as a double weapon to max out number of attacks while dancing.

 

[TheEvil]

A little of topic... but I notice the Dervish has +3 dex gloves.... sure its been debated often but I thought you had to buy / make even numbered plus stat items... unless you have a hokey house rule

Mav

My, aren't we the judgemental one. Come on, tell us how your REALLY feel.
In any case, as ehren said, the magic item creation rules don't say anything about requiring even numbers on stat boosters.

 

[ForceUser]

1) Even in a small party with only one melee person, is this Dervish over-powered?

Average damage per round: 50-80 points of damage on average (perspective: the top amount of damage possible is 172 in one round - not including any special damage from Sacred bonus on scimitar)

No. My core rules dwarf barbarian 1/fighter 11 could easily top this damage. In an average round he did about the same; in a good round in which he'd get a full attack against multiple foes, he'd easily top 200 damage. More if he got to cleave multiple opponents.

 

[pawsplay]

A dervish dance is not that different than a spellsword cutting loose with cone of cold or force missiles. It doesn't solve all problems, it's limited uses, and it works best in very specific situations on the board. And the dervish's abilities preclude whole groups of tactics, including heavy armor, actually getting use out of Whirlwind attack, trip attacks, and so forth. The dervish is a sweet class, but in my estimation, balanced.

 

[MerricB]

Okay… I know that 12th level makes for a pretty powerful group. This one in particular has only 4 characters. A sorcerer, a cleric, a rogue, and a fighter… a Dervish.

I know that the Dervish has been subject of some debate. In this party, the Dervish and the Rogue are the melee people. However, the Rogue is having a hard time keep all of her levels and is now quite a few levels behind… leaving the Dervish to provide main front line support (having the most hit points to do so anyway). Being only the four characters, I was thinking that a Dervish counter-balances the danger to the small size of the party with only one melee person.

Looks fine to me. With those stats, a fighter 12...
Str 24 (+7; 18+4 belt +2 stat increases).
Ft: Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, GWF, Melee Weapon Mastery, Improved Critical.
Base Atk +12 (+1 focus, +2 mwm, +1 GWF, +1 sword, +7 Str )
Melee +1 flaming greatsword +24/+19/+15 (2d6+12/17-20 plus 1d6 fire).
Average damage per round: 69ish. Max damage: 90. (Not counting power attack.)

Cheers!