aboyd
Explorer
I have a friend who normally plays a paladin or a good ranger that acts like a paladin. She is in a new campaign with me, and is trying something outside of her comfort zone: she is playing a pure fighter, chaotic neutral.
She is upset with the paucity of skill points. I tried to explain: rogue = skill monkey, fighter = feat monkey. She's not impressed by that line of thinking, though, and constantly struggles against her skill limitations. She has gone this far: wearing only light armor to at least get rid of the huge skill penalties due to armor & weight. The DM just got her some mithral during the last session.
In addition, I helped build her original fighter with Monkey Grip & Power Attack -- a half-orc brute that stood nearly 7 feet tall, and when he hit with his greatsword, the enemy would be in pieces. If she rolled well, her character could do 23 points of damage in a single strike, at first level. She couldn't stand how low her to-hit bonus was. So she was allowed to re-build the character, and so she dropped feats in favor of weapon focus. She also changed her race from half-orc to human (I think), and took the hit to her strength score.
Now she wields a shield & longsword and, now that she has acquired Weapon Specialization, she does 13 HP damage on her best rolls. But she is thrilled because her attack bonus is very high.
And this is where my final problem lies. She is bored, but unwilling to stop trying the character out (and I kinda admire that, so I'm not talking her out of it). She swings, she hits, yay, next turn. She misses having Detect Evil and Smite and all those powers. She misses variety. She is frustrated that she can be hit so easily, and goes unconscious almost every fight. Normally I'd tell her, "Well, you made choices about your character, so suck it up." However, this DM will allow us to use any official WotC book, and the Dragon Compendium book. Some old 3.0 books such as Arms & Equipment Guide are also OK. Since, at level 4, we just came into about 7000 gold from a single mission, I would like to suggest some magic items that would help her to hit even more, stay up & fighting better, give her skill-ish abilities to use, and add variety to her actions. What do you think would be cool magical effects to add to her repertoire?
She will not be interested in managing any summoned critters, though. I know that. So any suggested magic should not involve extra things to position & manage on the battlefield.
She is upset with the paucity of skill points. I tried to explain: rogue = skill monkey, fighter = feat monkey. She's not impressed by that line of thinking, though, and constantly struggles against her skill limitations. She has gone this far: wearing only light armor to at least get rid of the huge skill penalties due to armor & weight. The DM just got her some mithral during the last session.
In addition, I helped build her original fighter with Monkey Grip & Power Attack -- a half-orc brute that stood nearly 7 feet tall, and when he hit with his greatsword, the enemy would be in pieces. If she rolled well, her character could do 23 points of damage in a single strike, at first level. She couldn't stand how low her to-hit bonus was. So she was allowed to re-build the character, and so she dropped feats in favor of weapon focus. She also changed her race from half-orc to human (I think), and took the hit to her strength score.
Now she wields a shield & longsword and, now that she has acquired Weapon Specialization, she does 13 HP damage on her best rolls. But she is thrilled because her attack bonus is very high.
And this is where my final problem lies. She is bored, but unwilling to stop trying the character out (and I kinda admire that, so I'm not talking her out of it). She swings, she hits, yay, next turn. She misses having Detect Evil and Smite and all those powers. She misses variety. She is frustrated that she can be hit so easily, and goes unconscious almost every fight. Normally I'd tell her, "Well, you made choices about your character, so suck it up." However, this DM will allow us to use any official WotC book, and the Dragon Compendium book. Some old 3.0 books such as Arms & Equipment Guide are also OK. Since, at level 4, we just came into about 7000 gold from a single mission, I would like to suggest some magic items that would help her to hit even more, stay up & fighting better, give her skill-ish abilities to use, and add variety to her actions. What do you think would be cool magical effects to add to her repertoire?
She will not be interested in managing any summoned critters, though. I know that. So any suggested magic should not involve extra things to position & manage on the battlefield.
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