hahaha. Ok.

But seriously, I'm working on a rebuild of my Xendrik Expedition character. I'm kinda (in)famous in my circle of gamers for creating stupid character builds. I like to call them "interesting" builds, and sometimes "elaborate" builds, and they always have a few surprise schticks and a few achilles heels.

Xendrik is unique in that it is a 'managed' campaign. You can use all of the core stuff (races and classes), as well as the Eberron stuff. But you can also use any of the other books- provided you only unlock 1 item per level. (feats cost 2 slots, spells cost 1 slot. prestige classes cost 3 slots).

So the level kick for DDXP is 4th level, that's 4 expansion slots. Everything else has to be core. You will be maintaining this character (conceivably all the way to 20th level) so players are advised to have an idea in mind for the future of their character.

My idea was "I want to eventually get a dragon disciple". But after looking at it, I realized, hey, these guys aren't spellcasters at all, despite it being an arcane prestige class.

Nope. They get d12 hit dice, monk-style attack bonus, and over time they slowly gain draconic qualities like claws, breath weapon, and natural armor, until they eventually turn into a half-dragon.

Well thats kind of cool! It's like a lightly-armored meleeing monster-class once you get it rolling.

I just had to figure a way out to skate past the requirements (+8 Knowledge Arcana, speak Draconic, cast arcane spells without prep).

I also had some character-y ideas. I thought, this character should be a female half-orc. Named Brekke. I always liked that name. And she should be totally bad-ass. I pictured her as this fierce tall woman with a mohawk and a greatclub. She dresses in animal skins, and she already has a bit of dragon-ness to her- she would be savagely proud. She shouldn't be afraid to just wade into battle, swinging away with her greatclub. I could already kind of picture her.. anyhow. Saying stuff like "I'll knock" when they get to a door, and then smashing it open. And she'd have a weird love of gemstones (which she gets from her dragon heritage). But despite all of this tough demeanor, she'd be a sorcerer.

What follows is my build notes. Please feel free to comment or post your own improbably awesome character builds.

XE uses a 25 point build for character stats. Plus since this was a 4th level character, you end up with 1 bonus stat point.

After making the half-orc adjusts (+2 str, -2 Int, -2 cha)  I got this:

Str: 15 +2 (orig 13)
Dex: 10 +0
Con:12 +1
Int:12 +1 (orig 14)
Wis:10 +0
Cha:12 +1 (orig 14)

I threw the extra point in strength to make it an even 16 +3.

It was important to end up with a positive bonus in both Int and Cha. I needed the +1 mod in Int to pick up draconic at 1st level (ding! that's one requirement down). I needed the positive modifier in Charisma because I planned on taking sorcerer levels (ding! thats another requirement down. Now I just need to get Knowledge arcana +8).

Ok, so next up was figuring out the classes.

I wanted to take my first three levels as sorcerer to get the bulk of that knowledge skill outta the way. If I invest the maximum possible points I end up with +6 in Knowl: Arcana by 3rd level.

Sorcerer's only get 2+int bonus in skill points per level, but I had that +1 modifier I paid so heavily for.

So that was a total of 12+3+3=18 skill points as a sorcerer.

That left 12 over. In my idea, I would be actually melee-ing so I decided to also max out concentration (+6) and (after thinking about it) Bluff. Bluff has a combat application, and sorcerer's have access to this skill.

Ok, so far:
SKILLS
Knowledge: Arcana +6 (+1)
Concentration +6 (+1)
Bluff +6 (+1)

So far, so good. Then I needed two feats. One for my 1st level, and 1 for my 3rd level.

FEATS
I really agonized over taking Draconic Heritage. it's not a great feat in itself but it has some great feats that chain off of that and build. It's basicly flavor, and it would cost two expansion slots. Eventually I had to admit I would be getting most of the cool stuff from Draconic heritage anyway by hitting Draconic Disciple. I needed more stuff to buff my physical form.

So I settled for: Combat Casting and Lightning Reflexes.  So now my guy could cast while in melee (well, pretty much), and has a save bonus to cover up one of the gaping holes in this build: crappy reflex saves.

Combat Casting
Lightning Reflexes

Next up: the barabarian level!

So hey, not bad so far. (well, kinda) And I haven't even burned through any expansion slots yet.

But I still have basicaly a wimp. She has a nice 16 strength, so she can hit in melee, but she uses crap sorcerer weaponry. I can probably cover the armor deficiency with Mage armor, or a scroll or.. I dunno.. gear? Also sucky hit points. And not much BAB.

But then I thought, hey, let's chuck a barbarian level on there!

That 1 level of barbarian will make this very slick: It will give +10 movement speed which is going to make this character really take command of the battlefield, getting into and out of battle. It will give me a nice chunk of hit points. (XE uses 'hit dice average' for hit points beyond 1st, so I would get 8 hit points.) Also, it would give me the ability to rage, adding an additional +4 Str/+4 Con.

That amounts to an additional +2 to hit/damage and +8 hp. Nice.

Also, 5 more skill points.

I'd be sticking 1 of those points in Knowledge Arcana. That brings me up to +6.5 in Knowledge Arcana (At this rate, I'm looking at hitting Draconic Disciple by 8th level which is a bit slower than I had hoped, but I was on a roll).

The other 4 points I stuck in Jump. Like this character would just fricking jump into battle. That 40' move rate would also boost my jump. Also, my high strength.

So yeah, now I had my skills set:

Knowledge Arcana 6.5 (+1): +7
Concentration 6 (+1): +7
Bluff 6 (+1): +7
Jump 4 (+3) (+4 for speed 40): +11

and my feats:
Combat Casting
Lightning Reflexes

I would have 4+2+2+8+4 hp (20 hp)
AC: 10 (no armor)<-- need to plug that hole.
wielding a greatclub 2-handed (1d10+4) (+more when raging)

My melee to-hit looked pretty good: +5 (higher when raging)
my ranged looked crappy (+2), so I would avoid that.

Saves looked ok, once I plugged Lightning Reflexes in.
+4 Fortitude, +4 Reflex, +3 Will

and I still had all those expansion slots! plus 5000 gp worth of gear to buy.

Here's where I got my schticks together.

a 3rd level sorcerer only knows 3 spells! They can cast them 6 times, but they only know 3.

Well damn. Plus, I couldn't choose anything that had a saving throw. My charisma was so low, any enemy would probably just roll a saving throw right away. What I needed were spells that boosted my combat stats and helped me melee better.

The obvious 1st choice:

Mage Armor. +4 AC. Bam, it's up. For three hours.

Well, that's cool! However, I gave it some thought. Most dungeon forays don't last 3 hours, really. I should just get that on scroll. That's only 25 gp. I could get it on scroll x4 easily and have another spell. So I

So my idea is, "get something else".

The 2nd choice is True Strike. That's a spell that I could have Brekke cast to get a +20 to hit on her next melee roll. Well, that would be cool to be the character that can cast that, rage, charge into battle, and then lay a mutha out. And cast it at will? Yeah.

So I picked that one.

Then I started perusing the books and I turned up 'Fist of Stone' in Complete Arcane. This spell has a duration of 1 minute, and gives +6 strength enhancement bonus to strength (and a natural slam attack). Well, barbarian rage is a morale bonus, so they stack.

I could conceivably cast fist of stone, and rage, and have +10 strength. Doing two handed damage, I would be hitting at +8 and doing 1d10+9 damage. And if I raged the next round, it would go up to +10 to hit, 1d10+12 damage.

Pretty tough! I'll take that spell.

So far True Strike and Fist of Stone.

That's my first expansion slot. The third spell was one I picked because it just looked too good to be true: Power Word: Pain (Races of the Dragon). I won't go into the details, except to say, ity's a spell I could cast, and then wade into battle as it continues to damage my opponent for several rounds.

That leaves me with two free expansion slots, by the way.

Then I took a bunch of 0-level crap spells. Ok, last up is gear!

The gear limit for DDXP is 5000 gp.

Right away I knew I needed a crap-ton of Mage Armor.

I'd be using it throughout the adventures. "expendables" like scrolls cost 5x normal price in Xendrik because they reset each adventure. So a scroll of Mage Armor x4 costs a total of 500 gp (normally 25 gp each).

Next up: I need some other stuff that stacks with mage armor. Like.. an Amulet of Natural Armor +1. That's only 2000 gp.

so there's half my money gone! As they say, it's for a good cause. Even with all that stuff on, I go in fighting at AC:15. Better hope not to get full-attacked... I'm going to good damage with this character, I just need Brekke to lay out her enemies on the first round or have an exit plan, because when they return the favor, she may get really hit.  I need to start thinking like a rogue. Mobility is key.

With the rest of my cash (2500 gp) I'm torn whether to blow 2000 of it on a +1 ring of protection (for an additional point of AC) or spend it on getting the greatclub enchanted.    

I guess I'll figure this out by DDXP.

You're probably not going to meet things with DR beaten by magic weapons with any regularity for a few more levels. Or get some twilight (PHB2) or mithril armor to reduce spell failure. You could also switch over to a Battle Sorceror from Unearthed Arcana.

Maybe have a great-hammer instead of a great club...I can't remember what book that is from, however...

Yah, 4th level guy. I can't take Battle Sorcerer, because they aren't approved by the campaign standards.

One idea I had was to carry around an emergency scroll of magic weapon just for that one encounter when I need it.

Quote from: Abyssal MawYah, 4th level guy. I can't take Battle Sorcerer, because they aren't approved by the campaign standards.

One idea I had was to carry around an emergency scroll of magic weapon just for that one encounter when I need it.

Yeah, that should do the trick. I still think you'd be better off with a more painful weapon than the greatclub, unless you're looking for the discount.