Slain by Elf

My gaming group finished the adventure we were playing the last time we met. We have retired the characters for now and are starting on a new campaign, with new characters and a different player as the DM. The adventure is supposed to be an old-school dungeon crawl, so we were asked to create characters from the core classes, rather than the less-focussed classes like Bard and Druid. I have chosen to be the party's main Fighter, protecting the party shoulder-to-shoulder with the Paladin. Mind you, the Paladin is being played by the same player behind the Black Mage, which should be interesting.

For this adventure we have been given the opportunity to roll up some characters more powerful than normal, with overall starting ability modifiers not below +10. I managed to roll something pretty decent, and this is reflected in my abilities. Finding my previous character, Touched By Death, to be interesting in a fight, by tripping, disarming and grappling opponents, I decided to carry some of those abilities across to the Fighter, hoping to make him more effective in combat than merely standing toe-to-toe with the enemy and hitting away until one of us goes down. To this effect, I looked at what weapons were available and ended up choosing the Spiked Chain.

The Spiked Chain is interesting, as it offers a character 10' reach with the weapon. Unlike other reach weapons though, it also allows the character to threaten adjacent squares as well. The drawback is that it requires an Exotic Weapon Proficiency Feat, although Fighters get quite a few more Feats than other classes. It is a two-handed weapon, which deals more damage on a successful hit, 1.5 times Strength instead of just the character's Strength modifier, but doesn't allow the use of a shield. As for my armour, I have chosen to wear a Chain Shirt because of my high Dexterity ability score of 18, giving me a +4 ability modifier. The only suit of armour that would give me a better overall Armour Class is Full Plate Armour, and that is only by an extra one point. Other armours could give me a similar Armour Class as the Chain Shirt but at the cost of reducing my speed to 20', whereas the Chain Shirt keeps it at 30'.

Also, with the Combat Expertise and Improved Trip Feats I should be able to trip people up before they can get to me, because of the Spiked Chain's reach, and several times in a round because of my Dexterity of 18 and taking the Combat Reflexes Feat. I am hoping that this will make the slightly lower Armour Class less of a threat, particularly as being an Elf gives me a -2 Constitution penalty and the resulting reduction in Hit Points. The Spiked Chain can also be used to Disarm an opponent, which may come in useful even though I haven't taken the Improved Disarm Feat.

My Elf has two Longswords and a Shield to complement the Spiked Chain, with one Longsword made of Cold Iron and the other of Alchemical Silver to get past different Damage Reductions that some monsters have. The Spiked Chain is a +1 Magical Weapon partly to get past Magic Damage Reduction and partly because we are unlikely ever to find a Magically Enhanced Spiked Chain as loot. Just to complete my offensive capabilties, I have a Mighty Composite Longbow, with +4 Strength adjustment, for any ranged attacks I may need to do. I am a walking weapons locker.

Finally, I have given the character a few ranks in Craft (Weaponsmithing) and the Weapon Focus Feat for the Spiked Chain so that I can take the Exotic Weapon Master prestige class should I want to. And, yes, I made the character an Elf mostly so that this web site would be more 'on-topic'.

I present Dinendal the Elven Fighter.

This entry was posted on 17th January 2005 at 4.47 pm and is filed under Characters, D&D Characters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.