I promised myself this blog wouldn’t turn into a bunch of ‘I built X character from Y!’ posts for cheap views. I’ve resisted temptation time and time again. Finally, however, a character has so appealed to me that I could not resist his emulation. I refer, of course, to Uncle.

Uncle is a skilled martial artist, and is in pretty good shape despite his advanced years. He’s nimble, an excellent researcher, and possessed of sagely wisdom. He can cast chi spells using a variety of focus tools to benefit his allies (mostly Jackie Chan) or even banish demons. He’s also incredibly surly and caustic, making new friends rarely.

Uncle, Human Unchained Monk (Perfect Scholar) 3, Occultist 8

STR 9

DEX 22 (16 starting +2 at 4/8, +4 from transmutation implement)

CON 10

INT 18 (16 starting, +2/+2 headband)

WIS 18 (16 starting +2/+2 headband)

CHA 7

Uncle will mostly be an unarmed fighter, using psychic spellcasting (chi spells) to buff himself/allies and widen his non-combat utility portfolio. He is not optimized, but should be a viable combatant, and quite good in terms of skill sections, particularly those focused on intelligence skills. This emulates his role in Jackie Chan adventures pretty closely.

Traits: Combat – Resilient (+1 Fort saves), Magical Knack (Occultist)

Human – Weapon Focus (unarmed strike)

1 – Weapon Finesse (unarmed strike)

[Monk – Catch Off Guard, flurry of blows, stunning fist] – This is mostly for fluff. Occasionally Uncle whaps people with a broom or book or something, tosses a vase at them. It never seems to do much damage, but he’s capable of doing it.

[2 Monk] Dodge and Evasion

3 – Piranha Strike

[Fast movement, ki pool, ki strike]

[4 – Here’s where we go Occultist. Mental Focus, transmutation implement and one more thing, the abjuration implement]

5 – Pummeling Style, One more thing! The divination implement.

[6 – Focus Power – Energy Shield]

7 – Combat Advice – mostly a fluff choice, he’s always telling Jackie what to do in fights. It wil be nice sometimes when casting a spell though, to use my move action effectively. (Watchful Eye focus power/Sheep Talisman)

9 – Extra Ki, One more thing! The conjuration implement.

11 – Extra Mental Focus, Mind Over Gravity focus power (Rooster Talisman)

FCB is gonna be 8 more HP, since our CON is low, and getting a really high AC isn’t the easiest for this character.

Basic stuff factored before items or spells

AC = 21, FF = 10, Touch = 21

Saves Fort 10 | Ref 12 | Will 11

Attacks: unarmed flurry of blows = +13/+13/+8 for 1d6+6

Items: 108k gp.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first.

Cloak of Resistance +2 – 4,000

ring of deflection +1 – 2,000

dusty rose ioun stone – 5,000

cracked dusty rose ioun stone – 500

pale green cracked ioun stone (saves) – 4,000

pale green cracked ioun stone (attacks) – 4,000

+2INT/+2WIS headband – 10,000

This brings even our lowest save into the green benchmark, gets a bit of help for our attack bonus and initiative, and gets us a bit of AC.

Uncle’s AC is still pretty low. However, his native ability to cast spells like blur, mirror image, mage armor, and shield will be leveraged along with Extend Spell to

protect Uncle. Mage Armor alone brings him to an AC of 27, which only gets hit by his AMCREL 40% of the time. Shield lowers his chance of getting hit to 20%, but lasts only minutes/level.

Still, I think it demonstrates that Uncle can defend himself.

Okay, 76.5k remaining.

Boots of Speed – 12,000

agile +2 amulet of the mighty fist – 36,000 (I hate spending this much, bet we need it)

Monk robes – 13,000

I’ll leave the rest of the money on the table.

AC = 10 + 6 Dex + 4 Wis +2 from Monk AC bonus effective level 8 with Monk’s Robe + 1 Deflection + 1 insight +4 mage armor = 28 = green benchmark, FF = 16 Touch = 24

Saves | Fort 13 | Ref 15 | Will 14 = lowest still hits green benchmark. Uncle is well defended.

Attacks – unbuffed flurry = +16/+16/+11 for 1d10+14 = here our EDV doesn’t quite hit green, but we aren’t near the bottom of orange either. Given that the character is

mostly a skill monkey with some other spell-utility, this isn’t terrible. However, we definitely want to use buffs and ki whenever possible. It should be noted that Pummeling Style will help Uncle match or even exceed other martials’ performances against DR that neither is overcoming.

haste ki flurry = +17/+17/+17/+12 for 1d10+14 = about halfway between green and blue EDV. This is a great place to be at, and requires use of daily resources that we should have a decent amount of. Haste is enough to get us to green EDV, and we’ve got 10 rounds a day of that. That’s not even considering casting the actual spell, which Uncle can do by level 11. This also is without abilities like legacy weapon, or any number

of spells he could use to further boost EDV. He’ll also have 7 ki points in his pool, which he’ll be using pretty much exclusively on ki strikes. However, he’ll only spend 6. Gotta keep one in the tank.

Still, 6 rounds of real fury in a day is all Uncle’s old bones can handle. That’s all he’ll need, though. Between rounds of move+stunning fist, casting spells, giving combat advice, or using his implements, he should always be able to use his action economy effectively.

Skills – Uncle will have 99 skill ranks. That’s a…healthy number. Since he has UMD as a class skill and a +4 bonus from being an Occultist, we don’t care much about our CHA penalty. With 11 ranks and a MW tool for scrolls,

we’re at a +20 modifier. Uncle will have many scrolls for divine effects that heal party members of nasty conditions, but will sometimes fail those checks. This is pretty much how it works out in Jackie Chan Adventures.

Uncle goes to do some research on chi spells, comes back with a cure, and it’s about a 50/50 shot whether or not it actually does anything beneficial. Roleplaying this ability both when it succeeds and fails will be fun, if expensive.

Uncle is pretty knowledgeable though, and can read many ancient languages. With our +4 INT modifier and all knowledge skills as class skills, it makes sense to split some invesment through most of them and get Linguistics as well. He’ll need Profession (merchant) as well, because Uncle is GOOD SALESMAN, despite his low CHA. Some of the obvious combat skills like Acrobatics, Climb, and Swim are smart too. Sense Motive and Perception will have some invesment.My guess is that he’ll have full ranks in UMD, Perception, Acrobatics, and Sense Motive, and a smattering of ranks in a lot of other things.

I think that about wraps it up. He’s built well enough to be useful without being anywhere near ‘optimal’, has a pretty wide utility portfolio both in and out of combat, and is capable of just about everything Uncle can do in the show. One notable exception: he can’t really banish demons. I suppose he could try to use scrolls of banish with his UMD though, and that’s as close as I’m likely to get.