Arak

I like monstrous races. I don't know why, I just do. I used to really love elves a lot. I mean, any time I made a Baldur's Gate character or just a pc I wanted to play someday, he was inevitably a Lucanesti elf (Krynn elves that have desert sand and opals stuck to their skin, they're extinct now) named Claudanthalas Baneblade. Eventually that just kind of faded away. Possibly because I stopped reading Dragonlance. I've never wanted to play a human, aside from the min/maxing standpoint of a bonus feat, extra skill points, and a +2 bonus to put to any ability score. My Gunslinger for Eric's campaign was a human, but that was in part because I know nothing of Golarion and I can play a human without too much research. Dwarves, halflings, etc, meh. Gnomes, once in a while I get the urge to play a gnome, but that's because they like badgers and I had an idea for a crazy Gnome Ranger with a dire wolverine animal companion. Actually, it was a herd of wolverines led by a dire wolverine.

I've always just liked the more monstrous, savage, humanoids. Orcs and goblins and gnolls and whatnot. Planar races are cool too. I especially like Pathfinder's Plane of Shadow dwelling Fetchlings. Anyways, yay monstrous races. I've always thought they're cool. So I decided to play a Hobgoblin in Jason's campaign. A Hobgoblin knife fighter named Arak.

I don't have too many details figured out at this time, beyond the fact that he'll be buddies with Eric's drunken rager Orc Barbarian. But I do like the idea of a knife fighter. He'll be a Fighter/Rogue and I'll be focusing on the Fighter more than the Rogue. Actually, I should end up as a Fighter 17/Rogue 3 at 20th level. So basically just a Fighter with a smidge more skill points and a bunch of sneak attack due to a feat Jason came up with that stacks Fighter and Rogue levels for determining sneak attack and qualifying for Fighter specific feats.

He'll be using a two-weapon fighting Fighter archetype and a knife fighter Rogue archetype. I was going to use kukris, but kukris can't be thrown (at least not any better than an improvised weapon) so I'll just be using daggers to keep myself versatile for range and melee. The sneak attack damage coupled with some handy feats and two-weapon fighting abilities (one of which allows me to attack once with both hands as a standard action instead of a full round action) should allow me to get sneak attack damage in on almost every successful hit, unless of course we are fighting something that is immune to precision damage.

This is not a skill use character. He'll have ranks in stuff like Bluff and Stealth, but only because I intend on using those skills. This is a kill shit character. His sole purpose is to end people. He doesn't even have trapfinding because the knife fighter trades it for one of his alternate abilities. My current build has ranks in Craft (Alchemy) because Jason says alchemy will be much more common in his campaign. And because poison is made with alchemy and slipping a few Constitution damage based poisons on knives could be super handy.

Oh my brain just exploded. Monk/Rogue focusing on stunning fist abilities and flurry attacks. Flurry somebody with stunning fists until they fail their save, every following attack is a sneak attack. There is a 3.5 Monk/Rogue combo feat, but it only stacks the levels for unarmed damage, not flurry of blows or sneak attack. It does increase the DC of a stunning fist dealt with a sneak attack though, but the whole point of such a build would be to stun to get a bunch of flurried sneak attacks. Though I suppose if you have a flanking buddy, you can sneak attack with a stun and just whittle an enemy away. That splits the focus though, you need Monk levels to keep the flurry of blows improving, but you also need the Rogue levels to keep the sneak attack improving. But a 3rd level Rogue has +2d6 for sneak attacks, which is basically a hit from a greatsword already, so I don't think you need to do a full 10/10 split of the levels, maybe 15/5. In theory you have six attacks with the potential for 5d6 damage each (2d6 unarmed plus 3d6 from sneak attack, plus Strength modifier) with that level split. 10/10 has four attacks of 1d10 + 5d6 (potentially) and if everything hits and sneak attacks has a damage potential of 24-140. The 10/5 has six attacks of 2d6 + 3d6 (potentially) and if everything hits and sneak attacks has a damage potential of 30-180, plus the flurry has better bonuses to hit. Again, this is all potential in a perfect theorized world of no critical failures and nothing ever being immune to precision damage. Heh. That math is off actually, I didn't calculate the unarmed strike damage based on Monk and Rogue levels adding up. Whoops. Regardless, this build has definite potential, but not what I am looking for. Potential potential potential. The word has lost all meaning to me.

Anyway, I don't have too much thought put into Arak's personality. He's a Hobgoblin Fighter/Rogue, and they are a highly disciplined race of slavers and warriors, so he is probable not a nice guy. I have no intention of R.A. Salvatoring it and making him a bleeding heart incapable of withstanding the cruelty of his race. I think I might just make him a slacker actually. He didn't like the discipline of Hobgoblin society so he loaded himself down with thirty or so daggers (seriously, mother fucker has about twenty or thirty pounds of dagger on him, imagine the scene in the second Batman film where commissioner Gordon is going through the Joker's jacket, it's like that) and peaced the fuck out. He's good at putting things in their grave, he's just a lazy little git.

I dunno, I guess more will develop as Jason's campaign world take a clearer form to me.