(total frustration) There MUST be an Extra Feats Academy around somewhere here ...

[Geoff Watson]

What characters do you want to create?

What abilities are you having trouble with?

Of course, with any system you might have problems getting it exactly right, since authors aren't limited by rules, other than whatever they feel like.

Why do you need so many feats? There aren't that many feats that are essential, as many merely give bonuses (that could be simulated by high stats/level/skill points), or are for maneuvers that can be attempted (if riskily) without the feat.

Geoff.

 

[monboesen]

What I'm finding is, you can't create these storybook characters within the rules.
This is PROBABLY because I don't understand the rules well enough to do it.

No. It's because the authors did not sit down with the D&D 3.5ed books and cross referenced their heroes to keep them in order with the rules.

What you are attempting is (IMO) an exercise in futility. Any set of rules includes constraints of what's possible and what's not. A book character is only limited by the authors imagination and is capable of anything that is necessary for the story.

Even trying to convert characters from earlier editions can be exceedingly difficult. Transforming book characters is often downright impossible.

By making house rules you might as well say. "To heck with the rules, I'll just give Aragorn 15 extra feats and maximum hp. Cause he is a DUDE"

If you are still attempting to learn the game it is (again IMO) more rewarding to set up a table and a few simple lower level characters and play our mock battles with you controlling all pc's and enemies. It's sure faster than typing it up on the boards too.

Or simply by an adventure like "the sunless citadel", make up 4 standard (or use the iconic) characters of 1 level and play out the initial battles. Add a level and rinse and repeat. Occasionally try out some crazy or cinematastic moves (a.k.a. bull rushes, disarms etc.) and see how it goes. This will also be a great preparation to run it as a DM. Then you just need to find 4 players and you are set

 

[Shazman]

You could get close, but you'll never quite duplicate these characters because as others have pointed out, authors are not limited by rules. I think the only character that would be difficult to stat out with 3.5 rules would be Gandalf. He seems capable of some pretty powerful magic(but he uses it very sparingly) and can fight exceptionally well. He might work as a half-celestial figther/sorcerer/eldritch knight. It's quite clear that magic works quite differently in Middle Earth than in D&D. I guess that the uber balance checks that Legolas breaks out could be problematic as well. Aragorn is a mid to high level ranger/fighter (he's got a decent amount of feats,but not the 20 plus you think he needs). Gimli is a fighter. Legolas is a ranger/fighter/order of the bow initiate with the giant-killer tactical feat. The hobbits are low-level rogues maybe with some expert or commoner levels or a level of fighter if you are feeling generous. Boromir is a fighter with maybe a level of barbarian.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I'm not ignoring any posts above (as some of you think I am.)
I AM busy thinking, while reading posts, and conjecturing what kinds of characters are possible, and what this rule or that rule means, and not responding to all the posts directed at me.
I don't mean to insult anyone or upset anyone, here.

Edena_of_Neith

 

[William Ronald]

Perhaps one thing that can help is to create a small group of characters for a play by post game, or read some of the threads in the PBP forum.

I think that one thing to remember in designing characters is that individual characters will take different roles in a party. For example, I think one thing that you might consider, instead of focusing on feats, is to decide a character's role in a party. (You might want to cosider making Gwendilyn a fighter/ranger or a ranger/rogue who is going into the Order of the Bow.)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

MavrickWeirdo, I am intending to buy Arcana Unearthed. I will do it as soon as I regain the ability to buy things on amazon.com (because I am unable to find it locally at all.)
Thank you for the reference. Although I am very curious as to how this ritual warrior works, since he works very differently (it seems) from the PrCs I'm reading about in the WOTC books. (puzzled look) How does he work?

Some of you are asking: why is this guy not going and getting a group. Well, the answer is: I'm working on it, but it's a bit difficult. The nearest bookstore that carries anything D&D is 15 miles away (I measured it with my trip odometer!) The nearest hobby shop that carries D&D items is 40 miles away.
My local area in Southwest Florida caters to those who enjoy fishing, boating, relaxing away from the northern winter (snowbirds), and bingo.
I'm afraid it's just not a major metropolitan area with a large number of young people and places where gamers hang out. That's up in Sarasota or down in Fort Myers. Both are 40 miles away by the most direct route.
Thus, you see me here, on ENWorld.

William is right. I'm going to attempt a PBP game, or an online game if I can find one.

 

[Silveras]

You could get close, but you'll never quite duplicate these characters because as others have pointed out, authors are not limited by rules. I think the only character that would be difficult to stat out with 3.5 rules would be Gandalf. He seems capable of some pretty powerful magic(but he uses it very sparingly) and can fight exceptionally well. He might work as a half-celestial figther/sorcerer/eldritch knight. It's quite clear that magic works quite differently in Middle Earth than in D&D. I guess that the uber balance checks that Legolas breaks out could be problematic as well. Aragorn is a mid to high level ranger/fighter (he's got a decent amount of feats,but not the 20 plus you think he needs). Gimli is a fighter. Legolas is a ranger/fighter/order of the bow initiate with the giant-killer tactical feat. The hobbits are low-level rogues maybe with some expert or commoner levels or a level of fighter if you are feeling generous. Boromir is a fighter with maybe a level of barbarian.

Good points. A couple of others to bear in mind:

D&D 3.x is NOT designed to be a tool for creating an ongoing story. The designers have stated that Wizards' market research identified the most common play format to be a weekly game in which characters entered a dungeon, killed the monsters, took the treasure, and returned to town. The most desired pattern was for characters to advance from 1st to 20th level in about 9 months of play time (less if the players played twice per week). This is because, as I understand it, most games were/are played during the college school year.

As such, D&D 3.x's balance design is around:
a) creating a sense of advancement as the characters level up
b) providing roles for each character type to excel in, while also being sub-par performers in other roles
c) setting the pace of advancement so that characters advance often enough that the players are not frustrated
d) the applicability of all spells, feats, class abilities, and such is primarily judged by how it affects the "weekly dungeon crawl" campaign; likewise, the plausible impact of such on the greater campaign world is a secondary consideration

In short, while inspired by many pieces of fantasy literature, D&D "out of the box" is wholly faithful to none of them, and presents its own unique twist. Trying to accurately replicate characters out of one or another piece of the inspirational literature is almost guaranteed to require some amount of house rules to make D&D fit that specific model.

 

[William Ronald]

MavrickWeirdo, I am intending to buy Arcana Unearthed. I will do it as soon as I regain the ability to buy things on amazon.com (because I am unable to find it locally at all.)
Thank you for the reference. Although I am very curious as to how this ritual warrior works, since he works very differently (it seems) from the PrCs I'm reading about in the WOTC books. (puzzled look) How does he work?

Some of you are asking: why is this guy not going and getting a group. Well, the answer is: I'm working on it, but it's a bit difficult. The nearest bookstore that carries anything D&D is 15 miles away (I measured it with my trip odometer!) The nearest hobby shop that carries D&D items is 40 miles away.
My local area in Southwest Florida caters to those who enjoy fishing, boating, relaxing away from the northern winter (snowbirds), and bingo.
I'm afraid it's just not a major metropolitan area with a large number of young people and places where gamers hang out. That's up in Sarasota or down in Fort Myers. Both are 40 miles away by the most direct route.
Thus, you see me here, on ENWorld.

William is right. I'm going to attempt a PBP game, or an online game if I can find one.

I can give you some details on the ritual warrior, as I will be going offline very soon and headed to bed.

The ritual warrior is a fighter like class in Arcana Evolved. (Note that this is not Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved or the similarly named Unearthed Arcana from WotC which has optional rules. Ironically, Monte Cook asked for permission from WotC to use the name Arcana Unearthed as it is similarly to an old 1st edition product. So, WotC was able to keep the name Unearthed Arcana for later use.) It has no ability to cast spells, but relys on combat rites to gain several abilities. A 1st level ritual warrior can use upt o 3 1st level combat rites per day, plus any additonal ones based on the characters wisdom score. Using a combat rite is a free action. and only one combat rite can be activated in a given round As an example of rank 1 combat rites, speed of the wind gives a character a bonus of +10 feet to land or flylying speed, defensive bonus gives a +1 bonus to AC for the rest of the round, while mystic strike gives the characer the ability to treat any attacks in a round as if the character was using a magic weapon. Generally, combat rites are of very short duration. Ritual warriors also gain some bonus feats, improved ability scores, and other abilities. (Feel free to ask me more about this class, Edena. I am thinking of perhaps using it in a future adventure for an EN World Chicago Gameday.)

Perhaps one way to think of combat rites are that they are somewhat like the Quickened Metamagic feats in that they allow a feat like ability to be used for a short duration. Other AE fighting classes such as the oathsworn can gain combat rites. (Totem warriors don't gain combat rites but they already have magical class abilities.)

 

[WayneLigon]

Thank you for the reference. Although I am very curious as to how this ritual warrior works, since he works very differently (it seems) from the PrCs I'm reading about in the WOTC books. (puzzled look) How does he work?

All the classes in Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved are full classes, 1-20 (1-25th in Arcana Evolved), not PrCs. They are wholly new classes that are designed to work for that milleu, though many have reported success in using them instead/alongside of normal PHB core classes.

Same thing with Blue Rose or Midnight or Iron Heroes. Those all have additional full classes, as do all the WotC Complete XXX books.

 

[the Jester]

In my recent low-magic experimental campaign I turned up the rate of feat advancement to one at every odd level. It worked fine (so far; the party is 5th-6th level). But then I also had a list of feats and tweaked the rules pretty heavily.