Nude Nonlethal Bard/Heartwarder Hippy (3.5e Optimized Character Build)

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Introduction

This is a build inspired by a woman I know named Jackie. She posted another form of it on a forum I frequented some time ago. This build is inspired by hers. This is possibly going to be Build 1 of 2, with a non-nonviolent version coming out some other time. Check the other one out when/if I write it to see a much easier playable character.

References

Player's Handbook (3.5e), Faiths and Pantheons, Book of Exalted Deeds, Complete Arcane

Game Rule Components

This build uses some unique combinations of feats and the magic gained from levels. As such, this character does not actually kill anything after a certain level. And hopefully, not before that as well. Players looking to play this character build should be aware of the limitations and difficulties that they will need to deal with. Most of all PAY ATTENTION. From the myriad of GMs I've played with. This build toes the line of allowable, not for any mechanic per se. But for the difficulty in designing campaigns that do not mess too much with the complications associated with deeds.

One seeking to play this character will also have to ask their GM, as you will be taking poverty at level 1 if you can eschew the necessity for the Exotic Weapon Proficiency - Whips for Heartwarder prerequisites. It would make sense plot wise as you cannot own a whip after character generation anyway.

It should be noted that Exalted Characters get bonus exalted feats every few levels, listed in the class progression with (Exalted) after the feat, just so you don't freak out about the prevalence of feats. This accelerates the utility of this build to the point where its more easily playable at earlier levels. Still, it's complicated, beware. (As a note, a @ symbol before a term means "Inherent to.")

Items

None needed! (Ever)

Progression

Starting Ability Scores (Before Racial Adjustments): (Assuming 40pt Buy)Str8, Dex14, Con14, Int14, Wis14, Cha18

Race (Templates):Human (Preferred for bonus feat)

Starting Racial Traits:Bonus Feat at Level 1

ECL	Class/HD/LA	Base Attack Bonus	Saving Throws			Feats	Class Features	Special
			Fort	Ref	Will
1st	Bard 1	+0	+0	+2	+2	Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty (Exalted), Nymph's Kiss (Exalted Bonus Feat)	Bardic Music, Countersong, Inspire Courage +1, Lore Song
2nd	Bard 2	+1	+0	+3	+3	Nimbus of Light (Exalted)
3rd	Bard 3	+2	+1	+3	+3	Dodge	Inspire Confidence
4th	Bard 4	+3	+1	+4	+4	Vow of Nudity [Exalted] (Homebrew)	+1 Cha (@LevelAttribute)
5th	Bard 5	+3	+1	+4	+4
6th	Bard 6	+4	+2	+5	+5	Spell Focus (Enchantment), Holy Radiance [Exalted]	Suggestion
7th	Bard 7	+5	+2	+5	+5		+2 Charisma (Vow of Poverty [Exalted])
8th	Bard 8	+6/+1	+2	+6	+6	Stigmata [Exalted]	Inspire Courage +2, +1 Cha (@LevelAttribute)
9th	Bard 9	+6/+1	+3	+6	+6	Mobility	Inspire Greatness
10th	Bard 10	+7/+2	+3	+7	+7	Vow of Nonviolence [Exalted]
11th	Heartwarder 1	+7/+2	+5	+7	+9		+2 Con, +2 Cha (@Vow of Poverty), +1 Cha (@Heartwarder)
12th	Heartwarder 2	+8/+3	+6	+7	+10	Nonlethal Substitution [Metamagic], Blessed of the Seven Sisters [Exalted]	Heart of Passion, +1 Cha (@LevelAttribute)
13th	Heartwarder 3	+9/+4	+6	+8	+10		+1 Cha (@Heartwarder)
14th	Heartwarder 4	+10/+5	+7	+8	+11	Vow of Peace [Exalted]	Lips of Rapture
15th	Heartwarder 5	+11/+6/+1	+7	+8	+11	Chaos Music	+2 Cha, +2 Con, +2 Dex (@Vow of Poverty), +1 Cha (@Heartwarder)
16th	Heartwarder 6	+12/+7/+2	+8	+9	+12	Gift of Faith [Exalted]	Voice of a Siren, +1 Cha (@LevelAttribute)
17th	Heartwarder 7	+13/+8/+3	+8	+9	+12		+1 Cha (@Heartwarder)
18th	Heartwarder 8	+14/+9/+4	+9	+9	+13	Enchanting Song, Vow of Purity [Exalted]	Tears of Evergold
19th	Heartwarder 9	+15/+10/+5	+9	+10	+13		+2 Cha, +2 Con, +2 Wis, +2 Dex (@Vow of Poverty), +1 Cha (@Heartwarder)
20th	Heartwarder 10	+16/+11/+6/+1	+10	+10	+14	Stunning Radiance [Exalted] (Homebrew)	+1 Cha (@LevelAttribute), Fey Metamorphosis

Hit Die: ((d6 + 2) * 10) + ((d4 + 3) * 4) + ((d4 + 4) * 4) ((d4 + 5) * 2) (Avg. 108hp) Final Stats: Str 8, Dex 18, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 36 BAB:+16 Ranged Touch: +20 Saves: Fort 18(5+3+10) Ref 17(4+3+10) Wil 20(3+3+14) Armor Class: 36 (Flatfooted: 32, touch: 19)

Additional Permanent Effects: Fey (cannot be considered human for spell effects), Spell Focus - Enchantment, and Spell Penetration for Verbal Spells, Freedom of Movement, Energy Resistance (All)/15, Regeneration, Greater Sustenance, Permenant Trueseeing, Endure Elements (Nudity no longer a problem), Manufactured Weapons Shatter when used on her, Calming Aura, Damage Reduction 10/Evil

Spell Effects: +17 for Spell DCs, Enchantments are +20, Spells from the Blessed of the Seven Sisters feat.

Skill Effects: Charisma based skills and checks get +17

Other Components

There are 2 Homebrew feats listed. They are mutually necessary it seems neither make her game breaking. They just make it easier to play. Not to build however. The Feats are thus:

Vow of Nudity You have taken a sacred vow never to withhold your beauty from the rest of the world. Prerequisites: Sacred Vow, Charisma 15 Benefit: You are constantly surrounded by an awe-inspiring aura to a radius of 50 feet. Creatures within the aura must make a successful Will save (DC 10 + one-half your character level + your Cha modifier) or be affected by a Fascination effect. A creature that makes a successful saving throw and remains in the aura is unaffected until it leaves the aura and reenters. The aura is a mind-affecting, extraordinary compulsion. Allies gain +2 to this saving throw per day that they travel/work alongside you. After 5 days, they only become shaken rather than fascinated if they fail their save. Special: To fullfill your vow, you must never willingly wear any item of clothing or armor that conceals your body. If you intentionally break your vow, you immediately and irrevocably lose the benefit of this feat. If you break your vow as a result of magical compulsion, or otherwise unintentionally (being forced into a straightjacket, for instance, a possible outcome of wandering city streets in the nude), you lose the benefit of this feat until you receive an atonement spell. Merely having a blanket thrown over you which you immediately attempt to remove will not cause this result.

Stunning Radiance [Exalted] Your Divine Radiance in addition to your peerless beauty allows your Holy Radiance to emit staggering effects to the undead instead of holy damage. Prerequisites: Holy Radiance [Exalted], Charisma 18 Benefit: The Holy Radiance ability can be augmented at will when activated, and at any time after as a free action, to treat the undead as if they did not have immunity to exhaustion and fatigue penalties, including speed reduction and Strength and Dexterity Penalties. The undead within the auras effect begin showing fatigue penalties after two rounds, and exhaustion penalties after four rounds. Intelligent undead (Vampires, Liches, etc..) can resist the effects for an extra round for both effects. Blindness does not nullify the effects as the radiance is supernatural in nature.

Highlights

This build is obviously somewhat complicated to be able to not only maintain the benefits of your several vows, but also to make all the added effects work. The homebrew feats are there to balance out the build so she is playable as a nonlethal character. She just walks through enemies, stuns them, or makes them fall for her (Love or Battle, either works.) She should focus on social skills and resistance to spell interruption skills.

Just in case you forget, the vow of Nudity should have no effect on party members after a few days. And if she can find a wizard with a high enough Fortitude save, she could potentially get polymorphed into a nymph for added fun. At that point, her Charisma score begins to encroach on that of several gods, so stay cool with Sune, if not for the Heartwarder bonuses, at least so she'll protect you from the ire of jealous gods.

Anyway, this girl has a VERY respectable diplomacy score and should with some leveling up, be able to take on Sune herself in a vogue-off.

Munchkin-Size Me

Could be min maxed a bit better, but its pretty solid as an archetypal build. But you could run homebrew rules for Nymph race, with an extra +8 to Charisma, but you get +7 Level Adjustment in return. I believe Star Elves get a sizable Cha bonus, and only get a +2 LA. Otherwise, this character could be played into sainthood, with the character becoming a Fey Native Outsider along with several other benefits, this causes another +2LA but you get a bunch of spell like abilities in trade, and a heap of plot potential. All in all, you couldnt really squeeze much more Charisma out of her unless you did some fancy character generation stuff like making her into a venerable mageborn star elf (48 Cha) or half-fey (41) to begin with. But you end up messing your LA, and if you start playing an epic level game at that point, you'll end up starting at level like 16 or so while everyone else is way ahead of you, especially if you decide to go saint.

Side Notes

Make sure you run ALL this by your GM. I specifically added where the rules were shaky so that you can just show your GM this page if he wants to know the ins and outs. Even without the homebrew elements, the exalted rules really complicate things. This is not a beginners character, use only with a group of people well versed in the subjects and ready to play and have fun with the concept instead of dreading adventuring with you because, "Oh no, the crazy tree hugging hippy nymph chick doesnt want to kill anything." Which is especially true, because due to the Vow of Purity, if she needed to eat, she would not be able to eat meat. How funny is that?

Limitations

Sorry... Invisibility would break the vow of Nudity.

Alternate Builds

You could ditch the nonviolence entirely and pick Cleric (Good, Charm)/Heartwarder, but you are going to lose out on Cha bonuses because you'll want to raise your Str more, or take a weapon finesse for whip and focus on dex, but then you're using up a feat, and a cleric will likely want to take other things as well.

DM Counters

Allow this build in a veteran group. Make sure you have some experience running epic level games, because this build really doesnt get going until around level 12-18 depending on your play style. I suggest holding this character to a different standard. Because battle will come far less than normal for this play style. Assign harder diplomacy tasks. Negotiate with bandits. Have the group have to parlay for their lives, and battle isnt an option because the Heartwarder swore an oath of peace with the pirates. Have them engage in more epic things involving gods and daeva. Have them head to the elemental plane of water to negotiate for a good rainy season. Be creative. But be careful, again I do not recommend this build for new players... Or young players. 17 and down, probably shouldn't play this one.

And as said, if you skipped straight down here, there are lines this character toes. Like eschewing whip proficiency as the character literally cannot own a whip. Allowing the homebrew feats as listed. Using a non-nonlethal cleric build significantly reduces the complication, so if you would like to give an inch. Try just allowing the cleric/heartwarder build suggested with other exalted feats. You arent going to see as much versatility in Cha bonuses because you're going to want to focus a bit more on combat, but if your player complains too much, just kill his character off. Works for me.

Miscellaneous

Thanks to Jackie the Sometimes Witch for her inspiration for this one, whereever you are. Kudos to ya!

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