Someone tag team me with my Lizard-Tongued Initiate of Mystra / 3.5E Dweomerkeeper / 3.5E Incantatrix.
I admit ahead of time that I'm not even going to look at Savage Species or try to abuse infinite wealth. I will, however, do my best to make a mockery of the Relic creation rules.
The Contest Thread
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Username17
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Re: I will personally kill every one of you.
Yes. His line of reasoning is that the word "level" can refer to "class level" inside a clause referencing setting "caster level", but that the word "level" can't refer back to class level inside a clause referencing changing caster level. It's two potentially defensible readings, but it's the same wording so you have to pick one. His reading would mean that Wizards can't gain caster levels from Lore Master levels, for example.
In short, it's the sort of grasping at straws you get from people who are really desperate and/or don't have the slightest idea what they are talking about.
-Username17
In short, it's the sort of grasping at straws you get from people who are really desperate and/or don't have the slightest idea what they are talking about.
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Username17
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Re: I will personally kill every one of you.
So I was reading the Incantatrix again and I noticed something... adding "Divine Metamagic" that way doesn't cost a damned thing. So you can Persistent up Shapechange in all of your 9th level slots.
What does that mean? That means that you can have 6+ Shapechanges going at the same time and all the Supernatural abilities carry over between forms. So you could have the Chronotyrin's Dual Actions and the Choker's Quickness ability at the same time. And it can be a Golem and therefore immune to magic.
But it gets better. By having Shapechanges going constantly, you can have every Polymorph Any Object you ever cast on yourself be permanent. That means that you can, given time, pick up every single bonus feat that any creature has, as well as all of their extraordinary special attacks that don't require a specific body part. And every racial skill bonus in the game.
And the set of six creatures worth of supernatural abilities and special qualities can be changed every round. This protean flux allows for infinite actions if you are feeling generous, but in any case allows for infinite damage rather trivially.
All you really have to do is get your Caster Level up to 30 so that Greater Dispelling can't ruin your fun, and you are good to go. You have to have turning, but you can get that out of Sacred Exorcist. It's even flavorful for an Incantatrix to do that.
-Username17
What does that mean? That means that you can have 6+ Shapechanges going at the same time and all the Supernatural abilities carry over between forms. So you could have the Chronotyrin's Dual Actions and the Choker's Quickness ability at the same time. And it can be a Golem and therefore immune to magic.
But it gets better. By having Shapechanges going constantly, you can have every Polymorph Any Object you ever cast on yourself be permanent. That means that you can, given time, pick up every single bonus feat that any creature has, as well as all of their extraordinary special attacks that don't require a specific body part. And every racial skill bonus in the game.
And the set of six creatures worth of supernatural abilities and special qualities can be changed every round. This protean flux allows for infinite actions if you are feeling generous, but in any case allows for infinite damage rather trivially.
All you really have to do is get your Caster Level up to 30 so that Greater Dispelling can't ruin your fun, and you are good to go. You have to have turning, but you can get that out of Sacred Exorcist. It's even flavorful for an Incantatrix to do that.
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Username17
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Re: Last Call
Here's a ready-made context portion if anyone wants to join. Just write up a sister for Kailea the Blue Mage, and fill in the blanks. She's willing to make all of your spells Persistent for free. Also, you should have access to Divine Power, as it's another 10 points of to-hit and damage per attack on a pounce that she could have if her sister knew the spell for whatever reason.
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Kailea the Blue Mage
”I'm sure I've been something that can get us out of this!”
Poster Name: Frank Trollman (ftrollma@ucsc.edu)
System: Unless you feel the need to import the Incantatrix into other settings, she's from Faerun.
Short Description: Kailea has access to Polymorph Any Object as a Supernatural Ability. She has, over many months and years, layered on transformations into every single creature in all the monster manuals. As per the rules of polymorphing, this allows her to carry over all the bonus feats and type dependent feats of all the monsters, as well as all the extraordinary special attacks that are not based on a body part she no longer possesses, as well gaining the highest Intelligence of any creature ever printed
Ability Scores:
Str: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Dex:8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Con: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Int: 16 (43)
Wis: 16 (27)
Cha: 16 (27)
Character Sheet:
Kailea is a Blue Mage, and dresses in a blue robe with a turban when she feels the need to be something that wears clothes. In combat, she morphs into a variety of horrors, changing form every round.
Hit Points: 70 plus current con modifier times 19, Saves: Fort: +7 (plus bonuses), Will: +27 (plus magic), Ref: +5 (plus bonuses)
Progression:
Skills of note:
Concentration: 4
Knowledge: The Planes 10
Knowledge: Religion 7
Knowledge: Arcana 15
Spellcraft: 23 (total bonus: 44)
Spells of Note:
1st:
2nd
3rd
4th
5th Dismissal, Fabricate,
6th Eyebite,
7th Simulacrum, Force Cage
8th Polymorph Any Object, Mind Blank
9th All Shapechange All the Time! We have 6 Shapechanges a day, and they are all persistent. They are up all the time. Wish (never actually used except for item creation)
Here's the joy: when you transform into something you lose all your natural weapons, natural armor bonus, physical stats, and lose access to abilities based on gross physical qualities (you can't continue to rend unless you have claw attacks, and you can't shoot your adamantine feathers unless you have, well... adamantine feathers). But you gain the new form's physical qualities, physical stats, extraordinary special attacks, and bonus feats. So if you change into, for example, a Chronotyrin, you gain the bonus feats of Still Spell and Silent Spell, and then when you transform into a Gold Dragon your Intelligence is raised to 32 and you can no longer use the Chronotyrin's adamantine feather attack, but you keep the bonus feats. And when you become something like a slaughterstone behemoth, you pick up the ability to daze enemies with any of your attacks, while retaining the bonus feats and the Intelligence of 32. And so on.
Kailea the Blue Mage has access to a half dozen kinds of stacking rage, some of which don't cause fatigue. Her attacks daze, stun, wound, sicken, sneak attack for dozens of dice, trip, grab, and if currently possible in her final form – rend, rake, and swallow whole.
To be even more hilarious, Shapechange stacks even nicer, with each shapechange in the chain granting all the supernatural and extraordinary special qualities of the new form and allowing you to keep all the ones you've amassed. While shapechange doesn't last forever like her Supernatural PAOs do, it does last all day thanks to her ability to make a DC 45 Spellcraft check to add Divine Persistent to any spell currently active on herself without rolling dice. She prepares all of her 9th level slots as Shapechange, and while the top two forms vary depending upon what she wants to do at the moment (the top form determines her actual physical characteristics, natural attacks and mundane movement capabilties. Her bottom four forms are almost always Ocean Giant, Chronotyrin, Choker, and Clay Golem – this grants the ability to penetrate adamantine DR with natural weapons, but more importantly grants complete immunity to magic, piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing attacks, while also giving her four actions per round. The fifth form is often going to be a Blink Dog, as it allows her to dimension door as a free action at will and sets her teleporting movement rate to 2320 feet per round on top of whatever she feels like adding to that with flight, burrowing, swimming, or running from whatever form she feels like having.
To be even more amusing, she has an unlimited army of duplicates of herself used to make her magic items. When she makes a Simulacrum of herself, it has half of her castings of Simulacrum per day, so since she has the special ability to cast it twice per day, her simulacrum has the ability to cast it once per day, and therefore can make another simulacrum of her with the same ability. Since she can collaborate with Simulacrums, and they have 8,550 XP to play with, they can each make another copy of the original and still make 6650 XP worth of junk – which is enough to crank out a scroll of Wish.
Items of Note:
Kailea permanently became a Chronotyrin with a scroll at about 12th level, and this allowed her to qualify for Innate Spell at 15th level. She got +5 inherent bonuses to all stats by having her simulacrums make her scrolls of Wish. Then she picked up +6 items of every attribute. Nothing fancy. Just to be on the safe side, she puts up a Ring of Spell Storing and 11 Orange Ioun Stones, as that way she can borrow Divine Power and make that Persistent as well, and have her Shapechange of sufficiently high level to never be dispelled by greater dispelling (DC is 41, and GD can only make a 20).
What books are needed for this build?
Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual 3, Complete Warrior, Complete Divine, Player's Guide to Feyrun.
The Duo
Why are these characters the perfect duo?
Because they are invincible. In default adventuring mode, the sisters take no damage from blunt weapons, piercing weapons, or slashing weapons. They are also immune to magic, mind affecting effects, and the vast majority of non-magical energies. If an enemy has access to an energy type that they are not normally immune to, they can become immune to it as a free action.
Furthermore, their offensive output is staggering, as Kailea the Blue Mage alone can become, for example, a Yuan-Ti Anathema and rage herself up to 32 attacks per turn at +50 or more to-hit, inflicting an average of over 100 per swing that cause dozens of status effects per attack and which trigger up to 4 rends for comparably ridiculous damage.
How would the Duo kick ass against the following?
Aberrations/Magical Beasts etc:
Since the sisters have the feats, extraordinary special attacks, and skill bonuses of every single monster every written, there is no possible magical beast which is of much strain. Any magical beast they see can be forced to fight itself, twice, acting four times per round each, backed up with literally dozens of dice of sneak attack and complete immunity to all of its attack forms. Good luck with that.
Constructs:
A Construct's big advantage is usually magical resistance of some kind. That's great and all, but the sister's have that trick as well. And they are immune to physical damage. And they can each shred 2 adamantine golems per round, on average.
Dragons:
What exactly is a Dragon going to do? All of its offensive capabilities are useless, and any of the Sisters can punch one out in a round at the outside.
Elementals/Outsiders:
Outsiders almost always rely upon magic of some kind, which is entirely useless against the pair.
Undead:
The most powerful undead use huge amounts of negative energy, the Atropal and the Nightshade, for instance, are famous for it. The sisters can switch their terminal form to that of an undead and actually use the Atropal's field against it. Then they can beat it down in a round because it has less than 500 hit points and has no business trying to fight these two.
Traps:
They can simply walk through all traps. That is exactly what they would do, if hypothetically they weren't capable of simply burrowing around all meaningful traps, which of course they are. Traps cannot harm them in any meaningful degree.
Political Intrigue:
Diplomatic Maneuvers:
A BBEG/ Mastermind/ Warlord:
Mobs:
Overwhelming Odds:
The only thing that can even damage the pair walking around is Lantern Archons. And they can be dealt with using Deeper Darkness, which the sisters can even see through by having the terminal form be from Baator. Any number of enemies of any power level is simply an exercise in dice rolling.
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Kailea the Blue Mage
”I'm sure I've been something that can get us out of this!”
Poster Name: Frank Trollman (ftrollma@ucsc.edu)
System: Unless you feel the need to import the Incantatrix into other settings, she's from Faerun.
Short Description: Kailea has access to Polymorph Any Object as a Supernatural Ability. She has, over many months and years, layered on transformations into every single creature in all the monster manuals. As per the rules of polymorphing, this allows her to carry over all the bonus feats and type dependent feats of all the monsters, as well as all the extraordinary special attacks that are not based on a body part she no longer possesses, as well gaining the highest Intelligence of any creature ever printed
Ability Scores:
Str: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Dex:8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Con: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Int: 16 (43)
Wis: 16 (27)
Cha: 16 (27)
Character Sheet:
Kailea is a Blue Mage, and dresses in a blue robe with a turban when she feels the need to be something that wears clothes. In combat, she morphs into a variety of horrors, changing form every round.
Hit Points: 70 plus current con modifier times 19, Saves: Fort: +7 (plus bonuses), Will: +27 (plus magic), Ref: +5 (plus bonuses)
Progression:
Human.
1 Wizard 1 Magical Aptitude, Scribe Scroll, Iron Will
2 Wizard 2
3 Wizard 3 Skill Focus: Spellcraft
4 Wizard 4
5 Wizard 5 Extend Spell
6 Wizard 6 Spell Focus: Illusion
7 Incantatrix 1 Persistent Spell
8 Incantatrix 2
9 Incantatrix 3 Spell Focus: Transmutation
10 Sacred Exorcist 1
11 Sacred Exorcist 2
12 Sacred Exorcist 3, Divine Persistent Spell,
13 Sacred Exorcist 4
14 Archmage 1, Spell-like ability: Simulacrum 2/day
15 Incantatrix 4, Inate Spell: Polymorph Any Object, Supernatural Transformation: Polymorph Any Object
16 Archmage 2, Mastery of Shaping
17 Spell Sword 1
18 Incantatrix 5 Shock Trooper
19 Incantatrix 6
Skills of note:
Concentration: 4
Knowledge: The Planes 10
Knowledge: Religion 7
Knowledge: Arcana 15
Spellcraft: 23 (total bonus: 44)
Spells of Note:
1st:
2nd
3rd
4th
5th Dismissal, Fabricate,
6th Eyebite,
7th Simulacrum, Force Cage
8th Polymorph Any Object, Mind Blank
9th All Shapechange All the Time! We have 6 Shapechanges a day, and they are all persistent. They are up all the time. Wish (never actually used except for item creation)
Here's the joy: when you transform into something you lose all your natural weapons, natural armor bonus, physical stats, and lose access to abilities based on gross physical qualities (you can't continue to rend unless you have claw attacks, and you can't shoot your adamantine feathers unless you have, well... adamantine feathers). But you gain the new form's physical qualities, physical stats, extraordinary special attacks, and bonus feats. So if you change into, for example, a Chronotyrin, you gain the bonus feats of Still Spell and Silent Spell, and then when you transform into a Gold Dragon your Intelligence is raised to 32 and you can no longer use the Chronotyrin's adamantine feather attack, but you keep the bonus feats. And when you become something like a slaughterstone behemoth, you pick up the ability to daze enemies with any of your attacks, while retaining the bonus feats and the Intelligence of 32. And so on.
Kailea the Blue Mage has access to a half dozen kinds of stacking rage, some of which don't cause fatigue. Her attacks daze, stun, wound, sicken, sneak attack for dozens of dice, trip, grab, and if currently possible in her final form – rend, rake, and swallow whole.
To be even more hilarious, Shapechange stacks even nicer, with each shapechange in the chain granting all the supernatural and extraordinary special qualities of the new form and allowing you to keep all the ones you've amassed. While shapechange doesn't last forever like her Supernatural PAOs do, it does last all day thanks to her ability to make a DC 45 Spellcraft check to add Divine Persistent to any spell currently active on herself without rolling dice. She prepares all of her 9th level slots as Shapechange, and while the top two forms vary depending upon what she wants to do at the moment (the top form determines her actual physical characteristics, natural attacks and mundane movement capabilties. Her bottom four forms are almost always Ocean Giant, Chronotyrin, Choker, and Clay Golem – this grants the ability to penetrate adamantine DR with natural weapons, but more importantly grants complete immunity to magic, piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing attacks, while also giving her four actions per round. The fifth form is often going to be a Blink Dog, as it allows her to dimension door as a free action at will and sets her teleporting movement rate to 2320 feet per round on top of whatever she feels like adding to that with flight, burrowing, swimming, or running from whatever form she feels like having.
To be even more amusing, she has an unlimited army of duplicates of herself used to make her magic items. When she makes a Simulacrum of herself, it has half of her castings of Simulacrum per day, so since she has the special ability to cast it twice per day, her simulacrum has the ability to cast it once per day, and therefore can make another simulacrum of her with the same ability. Since she can collaborate with Simulacrums, and they have 8,550 XP to play with, they can each make another copy of the original and still make 6650 XP worth of junk – which is enough to crank out a scroll of Wish.
Items of Note:
Kailea permanently became a Chronotyrin with a scroll at about 12th level, and this allowed her to qualify for Innate Spell at 15th level. She got +5 inherent bonuses to all stats by having her simulacrums make her scrolls of Wish. Then she picked up +6 items of every attribute. Nothing fancy. Just to be on the safe side, she puts up a Ring of Spell Storing and 11 Orange Ioun Stones, as that way she can borrow Divine Power and make that Persistent as well, and have her Shapechange of sufficiently high level to never be dispelled by greater dispelling (DC is 41, and GD can only make a 20).
What books are needed for this build?
Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual 3, Complete Warrior, Complete Divine, Player's Guide to Feyrun.
The Duo
Why are these characters the perfect duo?
Because they are invincible. In default adventuring mode, the sisters take no damage from blunt weapons, piercing weapons, or slashing weapons. They are also immune to magic, mind affecting effects, and the vast majority of non-magical energies. If an enemy has access to an energy type that they are not normally immune to, they can become immune to it as a free action.
Furthermore, their offensive output is staggering, as Kailea the Blue Mage alone can become, for example, a Yuan-Ti Anathema and rage herself up to 32 attacks per turn at +50 or more to-hit, inflicting an average of over 100 per swing that cause dozens of status effects per attack and which trigger up to 4 rends for comparably ridiculous damage.
How would the Duo kick ass against the following?
Aberrations/Magical Beasts etc:
Since the sisters have the feats, extraordinary special attacks, and skill bonuses of every single monster every written, there is no possible magical beast which is of much strain. Any magical beast they see can be forced to fight itself, twice, acting four times per round each, backed up with literally dozens of dice of sneak attack and complete immunity to all of its attack forms. Good luck with that.
Constructs:
A Construct's big advantage is usually magical resistance of some kind. That's great and all, but the sister's have that trick as well. And they are immune to physical damage. And they can each shred 2 adamantine golems per round, on average.
Dragons:
What exactly is a Dragon going to do? All of its offensive capabilities are useless, and any of the Sisters can punch one out in a round at the outside.
Elementals/Outsiders:
Outsiders almost always rely upon magic of some kind, which is entirely useless against the pair.
Undead:
The most powerful undead use huge amounts of negative energy, the Atropal and the Nightshade, for instance, are famous for it. The sisters can switch their terminal form to that of an undead and actually use the Atropal's field against it. Then they can beat it down in a round because it has less than 500 hit points and has no business trying to fight these two.
Traps:
They can simply walk through all traps. That is exactly what they would do, if hypothetically they weren't capable of simply burrowing around all meaningful traps, which of course they are. Traps cannot harm them in any meaningful degree.
Political Intrigue:
Diplomatic Maneuvers:
A BBEG/ Mastermind/ Warlord:
Mobs:
Overwhelming Odds:
The only thing that can even damage the pair walking around is Lantern Archons. And they can be dealt with using Deeper Darkness, which the sisters can even see through by having the terminal form be from Baator. Any number of enemies of any power level is simply an exercise in dice rolling.
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The_Hanged_Man
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Re: I will personally kill every one of you.
Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1100908022[/unixtime]]The_Hanged_Man at [unixtime wrote:1100899235[/unixtime]]Ah, the fun of "immediately." Josh, could you get a similar result w/ only one Jovoc and Shield Other?
You only ever need one non-Tanari Jovoc at a time.
The problem is that they have to be vulnerable to their own infinite damage loop for it to even trigger and therefore you have to keep replacing whatever you have that you can Share Spells Shapechange on. The simple way to do this is to just call another animal companion tommorow. The more interesting way is to find the fastest, cheapest, most-multi-use ressurection effect in the game and keep an impossibly large number of previously slain animal companions on hand.
Right. I can't remember if Shield Other changes the damage source or not, so you could avoid using Shapechange and high-level characters and junk by finding a willing flunky cleric and a Jovoc. Dumbest monster ever.
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Username17
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Re: Last Call
So they've apparently extended last minute provisions to tomorrow in an attempt to get more people to enter.
I'll fix up this Blue Mage tonight, and make explicit all the numbers. I figured out how to get her going without using FRCS stuff, so I'm going to cut it down to just PHB, DMG, SS, the Monster Books, and Complete Divine. This way it is more insulting, because it's close to being straight core rules.
Anybody who wants can take the final, paste a character into the top, and then frighten people at WotC. Apparently The Wish and The Word have been used to justify the power levels of everything from Haste to Psionics to Shapechange. I want to make people retract that statement about Shapechange. If you know enough about Psionics to make people retract the statement about Psionics with the second sister, that would be good.
-Username17
I'll fix up this Blue Mage tonight, and make explicit all the numbers. I figured out how to get her going without using FRCS stuff, so I'm going to cut it down to just PHB, DMG, SS, the Monster Books, and Complete Divine. This way it is more insulting, because it's close to being straight core rules.
Anybody who wants can take the final, paste a character into the top, and then frighten people at WotC. Apparently The Wish and The Word have been used to justify the power levels of everything from Haste to Psionics to Shapechange. I want to make people retract that statement about Shapechange. If you know enough about Psionics to make people retract the statement about Psionics with the second sister, that would be good.
-Username17
Re: Last Call
God do I wish I had a copy of the XPH, 'cause that sounds like it would be fun. 
Does the Dissipating-Mind Feeder Mercurial Greatsword/Psychofeedback loop for infinite PP still work? Or the Body
Or the 2x Fission/2x Affinity Field/Far Punch infinite damage combo? Or the Body Feul/True Body Adjustment/having a stat above 28 infinite PP loop?
<sigh> Maybe next time...
Does the Dissipating-Mind Feeder Mercurial Greatsword/Psychofeedback loop for infinite PP still work? Or the Body
Or the 2x Fission/2x Affinity Field/Far Punch infinite damage combo? Or the Body Feul/True Body Adjustment/having a stat above 28 infinite PP loop?
<sigh> Maybe next time...
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Josh_Kablack
- King
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- Location: Online. duh
Re: Last Call
Essence at [unixtime wrote:1101185519[/unixtime]]God do I wish I had a copy of the XPH, 'cause that sounds like it would be fun.
I'm frantically tearing through a borrowed copy to see if anything carried over in a way that would let me cheese out within the remaining time.
So far the best loophole I have is the Dorje of Psychic Reformation combined with teh inifinitely abusable Thought Bottle to let you rewrite your skill point expenditure, feat selection and powers known up for each of your 20 levels as a standard action.
To get the free cohort loop out of Fission, you now need to let you duplicate kill you, and then raise you later, and you get only 1 cohort out of each Fission+rez cycle, instead of the multiples per cycle possible in the 3.0 PsiHB
Mindfeeder weapons get nerfed hard, now only working on critical hits and graninting temp PP with a 10 minute duration, and an explicit note that temp PP do not stack, so you can only ever "bank" one crit's worth of PP at a time. On the cheese side, the PP you gain are equal to total damage dealt without regard for the target's total HP - so Psi Whack a mole is still the way to go. And of course, you can use a solo Metaconcert to launder Temp PP into actual PP - and there's no longer any notation of what happens when you get back more PP than your normal maximum in the Metaconcert description - although there may be a mention of what happens above maximum elsewhere in the text.
Edit: Even better, you can sock PP out of your reserve/temp PP into "Cognizance Crystals" - thereby laundering Temp PP above both the 10 minute limit and the single crit limit at the same time without needing to manifest another power.
Body Fuel lets you take "special we can't balance Psi" ability damage to a *physical* ability score in order to regain Power Points. Mind Switch works roughly like Magic Jar, but with a 100 xp component.
This means that Psions are really mean to their animals, inflicting both nasty ability burn and actual critical hits on them to gain unlimited power points.
I'm not going to be able to build this into a coherent character by tommorow though
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
Re: Last Call
In the errata mindfeeder weapons got nerfed a bit more; you can only use them 1/day.
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The_Hanged_Man
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Re: Last Call
FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1101173663[/unixtime]]Apparently The Wish and The Word have been used to justify the power levels of everything from Haste to Psionics to Shapechange.
I thought the basic Wish and Word cheese has been discussed since, well, fbmf started these boards? I distinctly remember arguing about whether Efreet would just polymorph and grant themselves wishes to get out of having to wish away for you years ago.
Re: Last Call
Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1101188847[/unixtime]]Essence at [unixtime wrote:1101185519[/unixtime]]God do I wish I had a copy of the XPH, 'cause that sounds like it would be fun.
I'm frantically tearing through a borrowed copy to see if anything carried over in a way that would let me cheese out within the remaining time.
So far the best loophole I have is the Dorje of Psychic Reformation combined with teh inifinitely abusable Thought Bottle to let you rewrite your skill point expenditure, feat selection and powers known up for each of your 20 levels as a standard action.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that dumping 500 xp to regain 50xp per level reformed? Seems a bit... pointless.
Oh, and here is a background for an interesting little character. Nothing I could post for the contest, but fun none the less (more death, body switching, and thought bottle abuse):
This guy was once a perfectly sane human monk, but his abilities drew the attention of a group of illithids, who captured him and made him into a void mind. He served them for a number of years as a spy, but was freed when the mid flayers were ambushed by a group of dwarf illithid slayers. He had no desire to continue his servitude, and is now acting as a mercinary. However, his brain is still primarily composed of psychoactive goo, making him more then a little crazy.
He has no desire to regain his humanity, but has formulated an insane long-term plan: Firstly he will become a member of the race he once served (Wish or ritual), using a Thought bottle to store his experience. This will be followed by a session of energy draining, dropping him to 7 total HD (ECL reduction of 3), and then using the Thought bottle (105,500) to gain in Illithid savant.
After storing his experience in a Thought bottle, he will then use magic to become a ghoul spawn (under his own control, after using Psychic reformation to gain the following feats: Corpsecrafter, Bolster resistance, Hardened flesh, Nimble bones) and try to regain his memories as an Emancipated spawn (and by using the bottle).
Once that is done he will find a mind flayer or half-illithid with an acceptably healthy body, and True mind switch into it (and then kill his former body). In the mean time he will be PAO'ed as a mind flayer.
Now, if he wants to get really broken he'll just find a bunch of emancipated spawn and steal their "recall class features" ability, to regain all of the abilities from his levels of illithid savant as many times as he likes.
This character doesn't have any particularly broken abilities, although the d12 HD for everything in a living form is nice.
To get the broken abilities he has to find a few 20th level wizards, psions, and clerics. Oh, and he has to Gate a greater doppelganger (Monsters of Faerun) and steal "Consume identity."
Then he can make some ice assassins of himself and consume their identities. He can automatically make the will save to have more the 3 stored personalities, which means he basically can get an infinite number of his own abilities (or really anyone elses).
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Josh_Kablack
- King
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- Location: Online. duh
Re: Last Call
Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1101238202[/unixtime]]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that dumping 500 xp to regain 50xp per level reformed? Seems a bit... pointless.
Nope. It's dumping 500 xp to save the 50,000 xp you would otherwise need to make the item that lets you rewrite all your feats, powers and skills once every 10 minutes. Last night I was thinking that it worked like 3.0 wands and could be done as a standard action, but there's text to prevent that, so it's not as good as a thought. Plus there's no Master Dorje feat, so you're limited to 50 charges on that. On the plus side, it does combo really well with Psychic Chirugry to allow any two Psions who have both powers and the XP to ignore the usual powers known limitations.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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The_Hanged_Man
- Knight-Baron
- Posts: 636
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: Last Call
I would have added Joe, my favorite character ever. He wrecked one campaign using Frank's cleric cheese, which was then altered a lot. So I rebuilt him as Diplomatique. We argued over the synergy bonuses.
Party-Man Joe (Diplomatique)
”Hey, man, wazzup?”
Poster Name: Hanged Man
System: Core. Core only. No hunting through poorly-edited and tested sourcebooks and hordes of strange feats. All Core. That’s brokity enough.
Short Description: Joe worships Pelor. Or more accurately, Pelor worships Joe. Joe uses his good looks, charm, and the poorly-drafted Diplomacy rules and guidelines to get whatever he wants from whoever seems to have it at the moment, including whatever Pelor has. Although Joe often does things that annoy Pelor, like throwing wild parties filled w/ Succubi and Incubi mingling w/ the Planetars and Solars filling Pelor’s service, Pelor can never really stay annoyed at Joe for long. Although Joe worships Pelor, he also gets whatever he wants from any other gawds out there. The rumor that Joe started the Blood War by convincing Demogorgon that Asmodeus stole his teddy bears has never been either confirmed or denied.
Ability Scores:
Str: 8 (or whatever)
Dex:8 (or whatever)
Con: 8 (or whatever)
Int: 8 (17)
Wis: 18 (29)
Cha: 18 (34)
Character Sheet:
Joe wears glamoured mithral full plate almost all the time, mostly b/c he thinks it looks superkewl. You’d say he looks like a Calvin Klein model, or maybe a very masculine gay port star, except those guys look like unwashed pig-herders next to Joe. He usually has a flock of incredibly gorgeous creatures of all kinds around him.
Hit Points: a moderate amount
Saves: doesn’t really matter
Progression:
Cleric20
Skills of note:
Diplomacy: 64 (23 ranks, +17 ability, +2 Half-elf, +6 synergy, +2 Negotiator, +3 Skill Focus (Diplomacy), +10 Gold Tooth of Diplomacy, +1 Stone of Good Luck)
Bluff: 5
Knowledge (Nobility) 5
Sense Motive: 5
Spells of Note:
1st:
2nd
3rd
4th Tongues
5th
6th Antimagic Field
7th
8th
9th Gate, Miracle
Items of Note:
Gold Tooth of Diplomacy, +10
Helm of Telepahty
Books to give inherent bonuses to stuff
Various Greater metamagic rods
Anything The Wish or The Word have that Joe thinks is kewl. He keeps his eye on those jokers through various divinations, and asking the gods stuff. But they all get along.
Anything Pelor has that Joe needs
What books are needed for this build?
The SRD.
The Duo
Why are these characters the perfect duo?
Joe doesn’t much care for fighting and casting spells and junk. Whenever Bad Stuff happens, Joe just starts talking, usually about how much more fun it would be to do something besides hatin’ on Joe and his partner. He can take a “1” on his Diplomacy check, take a –10 to use quick Diplomacy, take a few negative modifiers (-2 per the DMG), and still change Hostile to Kissing My Ass.
He always has Tongues on to make sure whatever it is can understand him. He has a glamored Helm of Telepathy as well, but ya never know, so he uses the Tongues, too. If things go badly awry, it’s usually b/c somebody’s used some magical whup-ass so he cranks out an Anti-Magic Shell and starts a-pounding. Or just Gates in Pelor, says, “Pelor? Hey, man, it’s me, Joe. Little help?” and lets Pelor do a little butt-kicking for him.
So mindless things like Undead and Constructs are hecka annoying. Undead aren’t that big a deal, but the Constructs are a pain in the ass. He has a variety of tactics for them, though, usually involving Frank’s Cleric Archer cheese modified for melee.
As for Player v. Player, Diplomacy doesn’t work. But if the opposing player ignores a 74 on a Diplomacy check, Joe’s player just taunts the roleplaying ability of his opponent. This usually ends in either the opposing player licking Joe’s shoes, or the table going flying and ending the encounter. Either way, Joe doesn’t lose.
How would the Duo kick ass against the following?
Aberrations/Magical Beasts etc:
Always room in Joe’s menagerie for a few more pets.
Constructs:
Wackity-wackity. Either personally, or by gating in a Solar or 2.
Dragons:
They make really impressive gifts for a first date. And as a “Thanks, Babe” parting gift.
Elementals/Outsiders:
Invitation to Joe’s New-Eon’s Eve party in Arcadia. Demons and Devils welcome this night only. Show your card to the Solars at the door.
Undead:
Yeah, right.
Traps:
Now, Joe doesn’t like traps much. So what he does is find a guard or something and work his way up the chain of command to somebody who knows where all the traps are. And avoids them. If that doesn’t work, he just summons, gates, calls, or convinces somebody to go set the trap off. He can always just Ressurect them afterwards.
Political Intrigue, Diplomatic Maneuvers:
Yeah, like that’s a problem for Joe.
A BBEG/ Mastermind/ Warlord:
Joe’s new buddy and/or girlfriend.
Mobs:
Are always fighting for Joe.
Overwhelming Odds:
Like what? Joe’s already got Grummsh and the Elvish gawds playing pinochle. The Dwarf pantheon pitched in and got him a Mace of Uber Buttkicking for his last birthday.
Party-Man Joe (Diplomatique)
”Hey, man, wazzup?”
Poster Name: Hanged Man
System: Core. Core only. No hunting through poorly-edited and tested sourcebooks and hordes of strange feats. All Core. That’s brokity enough.
Short Description: Joe worships Pelor. Or more accurately, Pelor worships Joe. Joe uses his good looks, charm, and the poorly-drafted Diplomacy rules and guidelines to get whatever he wants from whoever seems to have it at the moment, including whatever Pelor has. Although Joe often does things that annoy Pelor, like throwing wild parties filled w/ Succubi and Incubi mingling w/ the Planetars and Solars filling Pelor’s service, Pelor can never really stay annoyed at Joe for long. Although Joe worships Pelor, he also gets whatever he wants from any other gawds out there. The rumor that Joe started the Blood War by convincing Demogorgon that Asmodeus stole his teddy bears has never been either confirmed or denied.
Ability Scores:
Str: 8 (or whatever)
Dex:8 (or whatever)
Con: 8 (or whatever)
Int: 8 (17)
Wis: 18 (29)
Cha: 18 (34)
Character Sheet:
Joe wears glamoured mithral full plate almost all the time, mostly b/c he thinks it looks superkewl. You’d say he looks like a Calvin Klein model, or maybe a very masculine gay port star, except those guys look like unwashed pig-herders next to Joe. He usually has a flock of incredibly gorgeous creatures of all kinds around him.
Hit Points: a moderate amount
Saves: doesn’t really matter
Progression:
Cleric20
Skills of note:
Diplomacy: 64 (23 ranks, +17 ability, +2 Half-elf, +6 synergy, +2 Negotiator, +3 Skill Focus (Diplomacy), +10 Gold Tooth of Diplomacy, +1 Stone of Good Luck)
Bluff: 5
Knowledge (Nobility) 5
Sense Motive: 5
Spells of Note:
1st:
2nd
3rd
4th Tongues
5th
6th Antimagic Field
7th
8th
9th Gate, Miracle
Items of Note:
Gold Tooth of Diplomacy, +10
Helm of Telepahty
Books to give inherent bonuses to stuff
Various Greater metamagic rods
Anything The Wish or The Word have that Joe thinks is kewl. He keeps his eye on those jokers through various divinations, and asking the gods stuff. But they all get along.
Anything Pelor has that Joe needs
What books are needed for this build?
The SRD.
The Duo
Why are these characters the perfect duo?
Joe doesn’t much care for fighting and casting spells and junk. Whenever Bad Stuff happens, Joe just starts talking, usually about how much more fun it would be to do something besides hatin’ on Joe and his partner. He can take a “1” on his Diplomacy check, take a –10 to use quick Diplomacy, take a few negative modifiers (-2 per the DMG), and still change Hostile to Kissing My Ass.
He always has Tongues on to make sure whatever it is can understand him. He has a glamored Helm of Telepathy as well, but ya never know, so he uses the Tongues, too. If things go badly awry, it’s usually b/c somebody’s used some magical whup-ass so he cranks out an Anti-Magic Shell and starts a-pounding. Or just Gates in Pelor, says, “Pelor? Hey, man, it’s me, Joe. Little help?” and lets Pelor do a little butt-kicking for him.
So mindless things like Undead and Constructs are hecka annoying. Undead aren’t that big a deal, but the Constructs are a pain in the ass. He has a variety of tactics for them, though, usually involving Frank’s Cleric Archer cheese modified for melee.
As for Player v. Player, Diplomacy doesn’t work. But if the opposing player ignores a 74 on a Diplomacy check, Joe’s player just taunts the roleplaying ability of his opponent. This usually ends in either the opposing player licking Joe’s shoes, or the table going flying and ending the encounter. Either way, Joe doesn’t lose.
How would the Duo kick ass against the following?
Aberrations/Magical Beasts etc:
Always room in Joe’s menagerie for a few more pets.
Constructs:
Wackity-wackity. Either personally, or by gating in a Solar or 2.
Dragons:
They make really impressive gifts for a first date. And as a “Thanks, Babe” parting gift.
Elementals/Outsiders:
Invitation to Joe’s New-Eon’s Eve party in Arcadia. Demons and Devils welcome this night only. Show your card to the Solars at the door.
Undead:
Yeah, right.
Traps:
Now, Joe doesn’t like traps much. So what he does is find a guard or something and work his way up the chain of command to somebody who knows where all the traps are. And avoids them. If that doesn’t work, he just summons, gates, calls, or convinces somebody to go set the trap off. He can always just Ressurect them afterwards.
Political Intrigue, Diplomatic Maneuvers:
Yeah, like that’s a problem for Joe.
A BBEG/ Mastermind/ Warlord:
Joe’s new buddy and/or girlfriend.
Mobs:
Are always fighting for Joe.
Overwhelming Odds:
Like what? Joe’s already got Grummsh and the Elvish gawds playing pinochle. The Dwarf pantheon pitched in and got him a Mace of Uber Buttkicking for his last birthday.
Re: Last Call
The other night, I wrote up a new and improved version of the Spelldancer.
Only it was called the Vermin Lord, and instead of merely having infinite stats and spell slots, it had infinite stats, skills, feats, caster levels, spell slots, and could easily throw out 2,400 spells a round.. And I didn't even do the obvious cheese, which was to just arbitrarily increase the size of your horde.
I call him Rat King Howard.
Only it was called the Vermin Lord, and instead of merely having infinite stats and spell slots, it had infinite stats, skills, feats, caster levels, spell slots, and could easily throw out 2,400 spells a round.. And I didn't even do the obvious cheese, which was to just arbitrarily increase the size of your horde.
I call him Rat King Howard.
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Count Arioch the 28th
- King
- Posts: 6172
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: Last Call
Hey, I pointed out the Vermin lord + swarm stats tjeese a long time ago.
I wish I had thought of it for the contest, because that would have been tits. Aah well.
I wish I had thought of it for the contest, because that would have been tits. Aah well.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
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Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: Last Call
Ugh... I'm slowing down. I only got through three monster books. Sigh. This is a good template for starting to abuse Polymorph, however, and should probably be added to by me in while...
Kailea the Blue Mage
”I'm sure I've been something that can get us out of this!”
Poster Name: Frank Trollman (ftrollma@ucsc.edu)
System: Blue Mages can be made in any setting, as no setting specific books are required for their creation.
Short Description: Kailea has access to Polymorph Any Object as a Supernatural Ability. She has, over many months and years, layered on transformations into every single creature in all the monster manuals. As per the rules of polymorphing, this allows her to carry over all the bonus feats and type dependent feats of all the monsters, as well as all the extraordinary special attacks that are not based on a body part she no longer possesses, as well gaining the highest Intelligence of any creature ever printed
Ability Scores:
Str: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Dex:8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Con: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Int: 16 (43)
Wis: 16 (27)
Cha: 16 (27)
Character Sheet:
Kailea's form is deliciously arbitrary, changing as often as once per second.
Hit Points: 70 plus current con modifier times 19, Saves: Fort: +7 (plus bonuses), Will: +27 (plus magic), Ref: +5 (plus bonuses)
Feats: Alertness (Durzagon), Brew Potion (Fensir), Cleave (Clockwork Horror), Combat Casting (Ethergaunt), Combat Expertise (Chain Golem), Combat Reflexes (Hydra), Craft Wand (Varrangoin), Deflect Arrows (Crypt Thing), Dodge (Chain Golem), Eschew Material Components (Couatl), EWP: Etherblade (Ethergaunt), EWP: Ribbon Dagger (Kaorti), EWP: Shard Dagger & Longsword (Nerra), Great Cleave (Clockwork Horror), EWP: Spiked Chain (Shadar-Kai), Flyby Attack (Shedu), Greater Spell Penetration (Cranium Rat), Improved Disarm (Chain Golem), Improved Initiative (Clockwork Horror), Improved Trip (Chain Golem), Iron Will (Sword Wraith), Mobility (Guard Bat), Multi Attack (Varrangoin), Multiweapon Fighting (Marilith), Point Blank Shot (Clockwork Horror), Power Attack (Clockwork Horror), Precise Shot (Clockwork Horror), Scribe Scroll (Wizard Level), Shot on the Run (Sarkrith), Silent Spell (Chronotyrin), Snatch (Chaos Roc), Spring Attack (Guard Bat), Still Spell (Chronotyrin), Sunder (Clockwork Horror), Track (Wendigo), Two-weapon Fighting (Desmodu), Weapon Finesse (Hunting Bat), Weapon Focus: Bite (Arrowhawk), Weapon Focus: Shard Longsword (Nerra)
Special Abilities: Air Mastery (Spirit of the Air), Animate Rope (Erinyes), Belittle (DC 27, Paeliryon), Berserk Rage (+4, Loxo), Chain Barrier (DC 19+ Str Mod, Chain Golem), Consume (Maurezhi), Crush (DC 19+Con, Hellfire Wyrm), Cursed Wounds (Clay Golem), Death Attack (DC 35, Shadow Giant), Double Damage on a charge (Fhorge), Earth Mastery (Elemental), Fear Aura (DC 27, Lupinal), Frenzied Charge (Maelephant), Ferocity (Dire Boar), Frightful Presence (DC 27, 30' radius on a charge, Jarilith; panic to line of sight on attack, Fihyr), Hive Mind (Formian Observer), Improved Grab (various), Keening (DC 38, deafens permanently, Century Worm), Moan (DC 27, Cloaker), Poison Breath (Vaporighu), Poison Use (Dark Stalker), Pounce (Jarilith), Power Sunder (Hook Horror), Push (Elemental) Rage (+4 when damaged, Fhorge), Rage (+4 Farastu), Rage (+4 at will, Varrangoin), Rend Fallen (Abyssal Maw), Snatch Item (Spellgaunt), Sneak Attack +d6 (8-Kelvezu, 5-Abyssal Ghoul, 2-Dark Creeper, 4-Kelubar, 4-Shadow Giant, 2-Necrophidius, 3-Cuprilach, 1-Shadar-Kai, 3-Spriggan, 2-Vorr, 1-Skeroloth, 2-Babau, 1-Derro), Sonic Shriek (DC 27, Pulverizer), Swallow Whole (Corpse Gatherer), Swift Strikes (Cuprilach), Trip, Water Mastery (Wastrilith)
Natural Weapon Specific Abilities:
Depending upon her current form, Kailea will have a variety of different natural weapons at her disposal. The following special abilities apply only to specific kinds of weaponry:
Beak: Threatens on a 19-20 (Abrian)
Beard: Automatically hits if two claws hit (Durzagon)
Bite: Threatens on a 17-20 (Formian Armadon), Automatically hits a grabbed foe (Hook Horror), Armor Damage (Rampager), +4 enhancement bonus (Spellgaunt), Wounding 1/round (Desmodu), Paralysis (4 rounds, DC 19 + Con Mod, Lucent Worm), Paralysis (d4+1 Rounds, DC 27, Ghast), free bite damage every round grapple is maintained (Fhorge), Double Damage against flat-footed opponents (Terlen)
Claws: Blinds on a critical (Ahuizotl), Demon Fever (DC 19+Con, Abyssal Ghoul), Paralysis (3d6 rounds, DC 27, Meenlock), Paralysis (d4+1 Rounds, DC 27, Ghast), Paralysis (d6+4 minutes, DC 19 + Con, Maurezhi), Rend (Blood Ape), Wounding 1/round (Blood Hawk), Rend Armor (Bebilith)
Engulf: Ability Drain: 1d6 Str, Dex, Con (Bone Ooze), Wounding: 5 points/round (Bone Ooze)
Gore Threatens on a 17-20 (Dire Rhino), double damage on charge (Kuldurath)
Pinchers Threatens on a 19-20 (Psicoloth), No -20 penalty for restricted grappling (Klurichir), Rend (Klurichir)
Rake Wounding 2 points/round (Chain Golem)
Slams: Ability Drain: 1d6 Str, Dex, Con (Bone Ooze), Wounding: 5 points/round (Bone Ooze), Stunning Strikes (d4 rounds, DC 19 + Str, Rukanyr)
Tail: Blinds on a critical (Ahuizotl), Stun (DC 19 + Con Mod, Catoblepas), Wounding 1/round (Skulvyn)
Tentacles: Paralysis (2d6 minutes, DC 27, Psicoloth) Wounding 3/round (Leech Walker), No grapple penalties (Hullathoin), Can hurl opponents into the ethereal plane (DC 19 + Str Mod, Maulgoth),
Skill Bonuses:
Appraise: +2 on stone or metal (Dwarf), Always a class Skill (Red Dragon)
Balance: +16 (Legendary Snake), Use Strength or Dexterity Modifier, whichever is better (Snake)
Bluff: +4 (Doppelganger), Always a Class Skill (Blue dragon)
Climb: 19 free ranks (sapphire dragon), +8 and can take 10 (blackstone gigant)
Craft: Metalworking +8 (Kyton); Alchemy +2 (Gnome)
Diplomacy: +4 against Red Dragons (Githyanki)
Disable Device: +4 (Spriggan)
Disguise: +4 (Doppelganger), Always a Class Skill (Bronze Dragon)
Ecape Artist: +10 racial (Boggle), +10 competence (avolokia)
Gather Information: Always a Class Skill (Brass Dargon)
Heal: +8 (Kaorti), Always a Class Skill (Gold dragon)
Hide: +15 (Skulk) +1 more in grass (Legendary Tiger), +20 unnamed while in water (mudmaw), +20 circumstance while in shadows (Shadow Spider), +4 unnamed while in Marshlands (Swamplight Lynx), +10 unnamed in forests (Ophidian), Always a Class Skill (Black dragon)
Intimidate: +4 (Dune Stalker)
Jump +8 (Keeper), +25 unnamed (gambol), Always a Class Skill (Copper Dragon)
Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering: +4 (Mechanatrix)
Listen +10 (Destrachan)
Move Silently: +8 (Kelvezu) +8 more in grass (Legendary Tiger), Always a Class Skill (Black Dragon)
Open Lock: +4 (Spriggan)
Perform: +8 (Sirine)
Ride: +4 (Goblin)
Search: +2 (Elf)
Sleight of Hand: +8 (Ethereal Filcher)
Spot: +12 (Spellgaunt)
Survival: +8 (Ti-Khana), Increases to +12 when tracking by scent (Ti-Khana), Always a Class Skill (Brass Dragon)
Swim: 19 free ranks (Topaz Dragon), +8 and take 10 (Skulvyn), Always a Class Skill (Black Dragon), Ignore all weight penalties for gear while swimming (Storm Giant)
Special Forms to usually have in the Shapechange queue:
Zodar: Immunity to all attacks except bludgeoning weapons, double strength score, Free Wishes as a Supernatural Ability.
Ocean Giant: Undispellable transformation, immune to bludegeoning weapons
Chronotyrin: Two rounds worth of actions per round.
Gambol: 3.0 Haste, evasion, masterful dodge
Progression:
Skills of note:
Concentration: +29
Disguise: +32
Hide: +22 + Dex Mod + Up to Seventy
Knowledge: The Planes +29
Knowledge: Religion +29
Knowledge: Arcana +29
Move Silently: +30 + Dex (Sometimes +8 more)
Spellcraft: +33
Spells of Note:
1st:
2nd
3rd
4th
5th Dismissal, Fabricate,
6th Eyebite,
7th Simulacrum, Force Cage
8th Polymorph Any Object, Mind Blank
9th All Shapechange All the Time! We have 6 Shapechanges a day, and they are all persistent. They are up all the time. Wish (never actually used except for item creation)
Here's the joy: when you transform into something you lose all your natural weapons, natural armor bonus, physical stats, and lose access to abilities based on gross physical qualities (you can't continue to rend unless you have claw attacks, and you can't shoot your adamantine feathers unless you have, well... adamantine feathers). But you gain the new form's physical qualities, physical stats, extraordinary special attacks, and bonus feats. So if you change into, for example, a Chronotyrin, you gain the bonus feats of Still Spell and Silent Spell, and then when you transform into a Gold Dragon your Intelligence is raised to 32 and you can no longer use the Chronotyrin's adamantine feather attack, but you keep the bonus feats. And when you become something like a slaughterstone behemoth, you pick up the ability to daze enemies with any of your attacks, while retaining the bonus feats and the Intelligence of 32. And so on.
Kailea the Blue Mage has access to a half dozen kinds of stacking rage, some of which don't cause fatigue. Her attacks daze, stun, wound, sicken, sneak attack for dozens of dice, trip, grab, and if currently possible in her final form – rend, rake, and swallow whole.
To be even more hilarious, Shapechange stacks even nicer, with each shapechange in the chain granting all the supernatural and extraordinary special qualities of the new form and allowing you to keep all the ones you've amassed. While shapechange doesn't last forever like her Supernatural PAOs do, it does last all day thanks to her ability to spend turning attempts to add Divine Persistent to any spell it can be applied to, and Shapechange's ability to give her new Turning attempts every round with the Hullathoin form. She prepares all of her 9th level slots as Shapechange, and while the top two forms vary depending upon what she wants to do at the moment (the top form determines her actual physical characteristics, natural attacks and mundane movement capabilties. Her bottom four forms are almost always Ocean Giant, Chronotyrin, Gambol, and Zodar – this grants the ability to dodge things, but more importantly grants complete immunity to all forms of attack except bludgeoning weapons, and bludgeoning weapons, while also giving her four actions per round. The fifth form is often going to be a Blink Dog, as it allows her to dimension door as a free action at will and sets her teleporting movement rate to 2320 feet per round on top of whatever she feels like adding to that with flight, burrowing, swimming, or running from whatever form she feels like having.
To be even more amusing, she has an unlimited army of duplicates of herself used to make her magic items. When she makes a Simulacrum of herself, it has half of her castings of Simulacrum per day, so since she has the special ability to cast it twice per day, her simulacrum has the ability to cast it once per day, and therefore can make another simulacrum of her with the same ability. Since she can collaborate with Simulacrums, and they have 8,550 XP to play with, they can each make another copy of the original and still make 6650 XP worth of junk – which is enough to crank out a scroll of Wish.
Items of Note:
Kailea permanently became a Chronotyrin with a scroll at about 12th level, and this allowed her to qualify for Innate Spell at 15th level. She got +5 inherent bonuses to all stats by having her simulacrums make her scrolls of Wish, or by emulating a Zodar every round for 30 subsequent rounds. Then she picked up +6 items of every attribute. Nothing fancy.
Just to be on the safe side, she puts up a Ring of Spell Storing and 11 Orange Ioun Stones, as that way she can have her Shapechange and Divine Power and such of sufficiently high level to never be dispelled by greater dispelling (DC is 41, and GD can only make a 20).
What books are needed for this build?
Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual 3, Complete Warrior, Complete Divine.
The Duo
Why are these characters the perfect duo?
Because they are invincible. In default adventuring mode, the sisters take no damage from blunt weapons, piercing weapons, or slashing weapons. They are also immune to magic, mind affecting effects, and the vast majority of non-magical energies. If an enemy has access to an energy type that they are not normally immune to, they can become immune to it as a free action.
Furthermore, their offensive output is staggering. The Blue Mage has 36 dice of sneak attack, double damage while charging, double bite damage against flat footed opponents, and a Hide bonus of up to 70 in addition
How would the Duo kick ass against the following?
Aberrations/Magical Beasts etc:
Since the sisters have the feats, extraordinary special attacks, and skill bonuses of every single monster every written, there is no possible magical beast which is of much strain. Any magical beast they see can be forced to fight itself, twice, acting four times per round each, backed up with literally dozens of dice of sneak attack and complete immunity to all of its attack forms. Good luck with that.
Constructs:
A Construct's big advantage is usually magical resistance of some kind. That's great and all, but the sister's have that trick as well. And they are immune to physical damage.
On the first round, Kailea becomes a sprinting 12 headed, raging hydra with a burst of strength. Her attacks can't inflict most of the status affects or the sneak attack, bu they can still do 6d8 plus 90 damage per attack and attack potentially as many as 72 times in one round at +47 to-hit. That'll kill as many Adamantine Golems as you care to throw down.
Dragons:
What exactly is a Dragon going to do? All of its offensive capabilities are useless, and any of the Sisters can punch one out in a round at the outside.
Elementals/Outsiders:
Undead:
The most powerful undead use huge amounts of negative energy, the Atropal and the Nightshade, for instance, are famous for it. The sisters can switch their terminal form to that of an undead and actually use the Atropal's field against it. Then they can beat it down in a round because it has less than 500 hit points and has no business trying to fight these two.
Traps:
They can simply walk through all traps. That is exactly what they would do, if hypothetically they weren't capable of simply burrowing around all meaningful traps, which of course they are. Traps cannot harm them in any meaningful degree.
Political Intrigue:
Kailea can become anyone and is more convincing than the original. The fact that her tongue is also made out of honey (often literally), is a side benefit.
Diplomatic Maneuvers:
A BBEG/ Mastermind/ Warlord:
Mobs:
Overwhelming Odds:
Kailea can take Phoenix as her penultimate form and Effigy as her terminal form. This allows her to enter the body of an enemy and blow it up in a 40 die explosion (instantly killing the enemy), and replacing it with a CR 24 Avatar of Virtue – a completely real Phoenix. Kailea can do this twice a round, so the hordes of evil are going to have to be staggering indeed. And of course, Kailea is immune to all forms of attack and can Alter Reality at will.
Kailea the Blue Mage
”I'm sure I've been something that can get us out of this!”
Poster Name: Frank Trollman (ftrollma@ucsc.edu)
System: Blue Mages can be made in any setting, as no setting specific books are required for their creation.
Short Description: Kailea has access to Polymorph Any Object as a Supernatural Ability. She has, over many months and years, layered on transformations into every single creature in all the monster manuals. As per the rules of polymorphing, this allows her to carry over all the bonus feats and type dependent feats of all the monsters, as well as all the extraordinary special attacks that are not based on a body part she no longer possesses, as well gaining the highest Intelligence of any creature ever printed
Ability Scores:
Str: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Dex:8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Con: 8 (whatever she feels like, seriously)
Int: 16 (43)
Wis: 16 (27)
Cha: 16 (27)
Character Sheet:
Kailea's form is deliciously arbitrary, changing as often as once per second.
Hit Points: 70 plus current con modifier times 19, Saves: Fort: +7 (plus bonuses), Will: +27 (plus magic), Ref: +5 (plus bonuses)
Feats: Alertness (Durzagon), Brew Potion (Fensir), Cleave (Clockwork Horror), Combat Casting (Ethergaunt), Combat Expertise (Chain Golem), Combat Reflexes (Hydra), Craft Wand (Varrangoin), Deflect Arrows (Crypt Thing), Dodge (Chain Golem), Eschew Material Components (Couatl), EWP: Etherblade (Ethergaunt), EWP: Ribbon Dagger (Kaorti), EWP: Shard Dagger & Longsword (Nerra), Great Cleave (Clockwork Horror), EWP: Spiked Chain (Shadar-Kai), Flyby Attack (Shedu), Greater Spell Penetration (Cranium Rat), Improved Disarm (Chain Golem), Improved Initiative (Clockwork Horror), Improved Trip (Chain Golem), Iron Will (Sword Wraith), Mobility (Guard Bat), Multi Attack (Varrangoin), Multiweapon Fighting (Marilith), Point Blank Shot (Clockwork Horror), Power Attack (Clockwork Horror), Precise Shot (Clockwork Horror), Scribe Scroll (Wizard Level), Shot on the Run (Sarkrith), Silent Spell (Chronotyrin), Snatch (Chaos Roc), Spring Attack (Guard Bat), Still Spell (Chronotyrin), Sunder (Clockwork Horror), Track (Wendigo), Two-weapon Fighting (Desmodu), Weapon Finesse (Hunting Bat), Weapon Focus: Bite (Arrowhawk), Weapon Focus: Shard Longsword (Nerra)
Special Abilities: Air Mastery (Spirit of the Air), Animate Rope (Erinyes), Belittle (DC 27, Paeliryon), Berserk Rage (+4, Loxo), Chain Barrier (DC 19+ Str Mod, Chain Golem), Consume (Maurezhi), Crush (DC 19+Con, Hellfire Wyrm), Cursed Wounds (Clay Golem), Death Attack (DC 35, Shadow Giant), Double Damage on a charge (Fhorge), Earth Mastery (Elemental), Fear Aura (DC 27, Lupinal), Frenzied Charge (Maelephant), Ferocity (Dire Boar), Frightful Presence (DC 27, 30' radius on a charge, Jarilith; panic to line of sight on attack, Fihyr), Hive Mind (Formian Observer), Improved Grab (various), Keening (DC 38, deafens permanently, Century Worm), Moan (DC 27, Cloaker), Poison Breath (Vaporighu), Poison Use (Dark Stalker), Pounce (Jarilith), Power Sunder (Hook Horror), Push (Elemental) Rage (+4 when damaged, Fhorge), Rage (+4 Farastu), Rage (+4 at will, Varrangoin), Rend Fallen (Abyssal Maw), Snatch Item (Spellgaunt), Sneak Attack +d6 (8-Kelvezu, 5-Abyssal Ghoul, 2-Dark Creeper, 4-Kelubar, 4-Shadow Giant, 2-Necrophidius, 3-Cuprilach, 1-Shadar-Kai, 3-Spriggan, 2-Vorr, 1-Skeroloth, 2-Babau, 1-Derro), Sonic Shriek (DC 27, Pulverizer), Swallow Whole (Corpse Gatherer), Swift Strikes (Cuprilach), Trip, Water Mastery (Wastrilith)
Natural Weapon Specific Abilities:
Depending upon her current form, Kailea will have a variety of different natural weapons at her disposal. The following special abilities apply only to specific kinds of weaponry:
Beak: Threatens on a 19-20 (Abrian)
Beard: Automatically hits if two claws hit (Durzagon)
Bite: Threatens on a 17-20 (Formian Armadon), Automatically hits a grabbed foe (Hook Horror), Armor Damage (Rampager), +4 enhancement bonus (Spellgaunt), Wounding 1/round (Desmodu), Paralysis (4 rounds, DC 19 + Con Mod, Lucent Worm), Paralysis (d4+1 Rounds, DC 27, Ghast), free bite damage every round grapple is maintained (Fhorge), Double Damage against flat-footed opponents (Terlen)
Claws: Blinds on a critical (Ahuizotl), Demon Fever (DC 19+Con, Abyssal Ghoul), Paralysis (3d6 rounds, DC 27, Meenlock), Paralysis (d4+1 Rounds, DC 27, Ghast), Paralysis (d6+4 minutes, DC 19 + Con, Maurezhi), Rend (Blood Ape), Wounding 1/round (Blood Hawk), Rend Armor (Bebilith)
Engulf: Ability Drain: 1d6 Str, Dex, Con (Bone Ooze), Wounding: 5 points/round (Bone Ooze)
Gore Threatens on a 17-20 (Dire Rhino), double damage on charge (Kuldurath)
Pinchers Threatens on a 19-20 (Psicoloth), No -20 penalty for restricted grappling (Klurichir), Rend (Klurichir)
Rake Wounding 2 points/round (Chain Golem)
Slams: Ability Drain: 1d6 Str, Dex, Con (Bone Ooze), Wounding: 5 points/round (Bone Ooze), Stunning Strikes (d4 rounds, DC 19 + Str, Rukanyr)
Tail: Blinds on a critical (Ahuizotl), Stun (DC 19 + Con Mod, Catoblepas), Wounding 1/round (Skulvyn)
Tentacles: Paralysis (2d6 minutes, DC 27, Psicoloth) Wounding 3/round (Leech Walker), No grapple penalties (Hullathoin), Can hurl opponents into the ethereal plane (DC 19 + Str Mod, Maulgoth),
Skill Bonuses:
Appraise: +2 on stone or metal (Dwarf), Always a class Skill (Red Dragon)
Balance: +16 (Legendary Snake), Use Strength or Dexterity Modifier, whichever is better (Snake)
Bluff: +4 (Doppelganger), Always a Class Skill (Blue dragon)
Climb: 19 free ranks (sapphire dragon), +8 and can take 10 (blackstone gigant)
Craft: Metalworking +8 (Kyton); Alchemy +2 (Gnome)
Diplomacy: +4 against Red Dragons (Githyanki)
Disable Device: +4 (Spriggan)
Disguise: +4 (Doppelganger), Always a Class Skill (Bronze Dragon)
Ecape Artist: +10 racial (Boggle), +10 competence (avolokia)
Gather Information: Always a Class Skill (Brass Dargon)
Heal: +8 (Kaorti), Always a Class Skill (Gold dragon)
Hide: +15 (Skulk) +1 more in grass (Legendary Tiger), +20 unnamed while in water (mudmaw), +20 circumstance while in shadows (Shadow Spider), +4 unnamed while in Marshlands (Swamplight Lynx), +10 unnamed in forests (Ophidian), Always a Class Skill (Black dragon)
Intimidate: +4 (Dune Stalker)
Jump +8 (Keeper), +25 unnamed (gambol), Always a Class Skill (Copper Dragon)
Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering: +4 (Mechanatrix)
Listen +10 (Destrachan)
Move Silently: +8 (Kelvezu) +8 more in grass (Legendary Tiger), Always a Class Skill (Black Dragon)
Open Lock: +4 (Spriggan)
Perform: +8 (Sirine)
Ride: +4 (Goblin)
Search: +2 (Elf)
Sleight of Hand: +8 (Ethereal Filcher)
Spot: +12 (Spellgaunt)
Survival: +8 (Ti-Khana), Increases to +12 when tracking by scent (Ti-Khana), Always a Class Skill (Brass Dragon)
Swim: 19 free ranks (Topaz Dragon), +8 and take 10 (Skulvyn), Always a Class Skill (Black Dragon), Ignore all weight penalties for gear while swimming (Storm Giant)
Special Forms to usually have in the Shapechange queue:
Zodar: Immunity to all attacks except bludgeoning weapons, double strength score, Free Wishes as a Supernatural Ability.
Ocean Giant: Undispellable transformation, immune to bludegeoning weapons
Chronotyrin: Two rounds worth of actions per round.
Gambol: 3.0 Haste, evasion, masterful dodge
Progression:
Human.
1 Wizard 1 Spell Focus: Illusion, Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus: Transmutation
2 Wizard 2
3 Wizard 3 Skill Focus: Spellcraft
In order to take her fourth level it is a requirement that she be able to cast 2nd level Arcane spells (which she can do natively), and 2nd level Divine Spells (which requires the casting of an Imbue with Spell Ability by a Cleric. This costs several hundred gold pieces, but is well within her expected wealth for 3rd level). She also needs 6 ranks in Knowledge Nature and Knowladge Arcana, both of which are class skills.
4 Geomancer 1/Wizard 3 – cosmetic alteration
5 Geomancer 2/Wizard 3 – cosmetic alteration
6 Geomancer 3/Wizard 3 – great beauty (+4 diplomacy) Extend Spell
7 Geomancer 4/Wizard 3 – Adaptive Skin (+4 Hide)
8 Geomancer 5/Wizard 3 – gills (breathe water and air)
9 Geomancer 6/Wizard 3 – Sap Blood (halve all progressive damage) Persistent Spell
10 Geomancer 7/Wizard 3 – Trip (Any natural attack comes with a free trip attempt)
11 Geomancer 8/Wizard 3 – Sensitive Sense of Smell (Scent out to 30 feet)
In order to get Sacred Exorcist you need 10 ranks in Knowledge: The Planes, and 7 ranks in Knowledge: Religion. No sweat.
12 Sacred Exorcist 1/Geomancer 8/Wizard 3 , Divine Persistent Spell,
13 Geomancer 9/Wizard 3/Sacred Exorcist 1 - Tremor Sense (30' tremor sense)
14 Geomancer 10/Wizard 3/Sacred Exorcist 1 – Cheetah's Sprint (once per hour, charge at 10 times movement rate)
In order to get Archamage you need 15 ranks of Knowledge Arcana, and 15 ranks of Spellcraft. You also need Spell Focus in two schools and Skill Focus: Spellcraft. Conveniently, we have that.
15 Archmage 1/Geomancer 10/Wizard 3/Sacred Exorcist 1 – High Arcana: Spell-like PAO Supernatural Transformation: Polymorph Any Object
16 Sacred Exorcist 2/Archmage 1/Geomancer 10/Wizard 3 -
17 Archmage 2/Geomancer 10/Wizard 3/Sacred Exorcist 2 - High Arcana: Spell-like Simulacrum
In order to take Spellsword, we need proficiency with all martial weapons. We have that from all the form shifting, so we can check that off.
18 Spell Sword 1/ Archmage 2/Geomancer 10/Wizard 3/Sacred Exorcist 2 Divine Disciple: War Domain
19 Sacred Exorcist 3/Spell Sword 1/ Archmage 2/Geomancer 10/Wizard 3
Skills of note:
Concentration: +29
Disguise: +32
Hide: +22 + Dex Mod + Up to Seventy
Knowledge: The Planes +29
Knowledge: Religion +29
Knowledge: Arcana +29
Move Silently: +30 + Dex (Sometimes +8 more)
Spellcraft: +33
Spells of Note:
1st:
2nd
3rd
4th
5th Dismissal, Fabricate,
6th Eyebite,
7th Simulacrum, Force Cage
8th Polymorph Any Object, Mind Blank
9th All Shapechange All the Time! We have 6 Shapechanges a day, and they are all persistent. They are up all the time. Wish (never actually used except for item creation)
Here's the joy: when you transform into something you lose all your natural weapons, natural armor bonus, physical stats, and lose access to abilities based on gross physical qualities (you can't continue to rend unless you have claw attacks, and you can't shoot your adamantine feathers unless you have, well... adamantine feathers). But you gain the new form's physical qualities, physical stats, extraordinary special attacks, and bonus feats. So if you change into, for example, a Chronotyrin, you gain the bonus feats of Still Spell and Silent Spell, and then when you transform into a Gold Dragon your Intelligence is raised to 32 and you can no longer use the Chronotyrin's adamantine feather attack, but you keep the bonus feats. And when you become something like a slaughterstone behemoth, you pick up the ability to daze enemies with any of your attacks, while retaining the bonus feats and the Intelligence of 32. And so on.
Kailea the Blue Mage has access to a half dozen kinds of stacking rage, some of which don't cause fatigue. Her attacks daze, stun, wound, sicken, sneak attack for dozens of dice, trip, grab, and if currently possible in her final form – rend, rake, and swallow whole.
To be even more hilarious, Shapechange stacks even nicer, with each shapechange in the chain granting all the supernatural and extraordinary special qualities of the new form and allowing you to keep all the ones you've amassed. While shapechange doesn't last forever like her Supernatural PAOs do, it does last all day thanks to her ability to spend turning attempts to add Divine Persistent to any spell it can be applied to, and Shapechange's ability to give her new Turning attempts every round with the Hullathoin form. She prepares all of her 9th level slots as Shapechange, and while the top two forms vary depending upon what she wants to do at the moment (the top form determines her actual physical characteristics, natural attacks and mundane movement capabilties. Her bottom four forms are almost always Ocean Giant, Chronotyrin, Gambol, and Zodar – this grants the ability to dodge things, but more importantly grants complete immunity to all forms of attack except bludgeoning weapons, and bludgeoning weapons, while also giving her four actions per round. The fifth form is often going to be a Blink Dog, as it allows her to dimension door as a free action at will and sets her teleporting movement rate to 2320 feet per round on top of whatever she feels like adding to that with flight, burrowing, swimming, or running from whatever form she feels like having.
To be even more amusing, she has an unlimited army of duplicates of herself used to make her magic items. When she makes a Simulacrum of herself, it has half of her castings of Simulacrum per day, so since she has the special ability to cast it twice per day, her simulacrum has the ability to cast it once per day, and therefore can make another simulacrum of her with the same ability. Since she can collaborate with Simulacrums, and they have 8,550 XP to play with, they can each make another copy of the original and still make 6650 XP worth of junk – which is enough to crank out a scroll of Wish.
Items of Note:
Kailea permanently became a Chronotyrin with a scroll at about 12th level, and this allowed her to qualify for Innate Spell at 15th level. She got +5 inherent bonuses to all stats by having her simulacrums make her scrolls of Wish, or by emulating a Zodar every round for 30 subsequent rounds. Then she picked up +6 items of every attribute. Nothing fancy.
Just to be on the safe side, she puts up a Ring of Spell Storing and 11 Orange Ioun Stones, as that way she can have her Shapechange and Divine Power and such of sufficiently high level to never be dispelled by greater dispelling (DC is 41, and GD can only make a 20).
What books are needed for this build?
Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual 3, Complete Warrior, Complete Divine.
The Duo
Why are these characters the perfect duo?
Because they are invincible. In default adventuring mode, the sisters take no damage from blunt weapons, piercing weapons, or slashing weapons. They are also immune to magic, mind affecting effects, and the vast majority of non-magical energies. If an enemy has access to an energy type that they are not normally immune to, they can become immune to it as a free action.
Furthermore, their offensive output is staggering. The Blue Mage has 36 dice of sneak attack, double damage while charging, double bite damage against flat footed opponents, and a Hide bonus of up to 70 in addition
How would the Duo kick ass against the following?
Aberrations/Magical Beasts etc:
Since the sisters have the feats, extraordinary special attacks, and skill bonuses of every single monster every written, there is no possible magical beast which is of much strain. Any magical beast they see can be forced to fight itself, twice, acting four times per round each, backed up with literally dozens of dice of sneak attack and complete immunity to all of its attack forms. Good luck with that.
Constructs:
A Construct's big advantage is usually magical resistance of some kind. That's great and all, but the sister's have that trick as well. And they are immune to physical damage.
On the first round, Kailea becomes a sprinting 12 headed, raging hydra with a burst of strength. Her attacks can't inflict most of the status affects or the sneak attack, bu they can still do 6d8 plus 90 damage per attack and attack potentially as many as 72 times in one round at +47 to-hit. That'll kill as many Adamantine Golems as you care to throw down.
Dragons:
What exactly is a Dragon going to do? All of its offensive capabilities are useless, and any of the Sisters can punch one out in a round at the outside.
Elementals/Outsiders:
Undead:
The most powerful undead use huge amounts of negative energy, the Atropal and the Nightshade, for instance, are famous for it. The sisters can switch their terminal form to that of an undead and actually use the Atropal's field against it. Then they can beat it down in a round because it has less than 500 hit points and has no business trying to fight these two.
Traps:
They can simply walk through all traps. That is exactly what they would do, if hypothetically they weren't capable of simply burrowing around all meaningful traps, which of course they are. Traps cannot harm them in any meaningful degree.
Political Intrigue:
Kailea can become anyone and is more convincing than the original. The fact that her tongue is also made out of honey (often literally), is a side benefit.
Diplomatic Maneuvers:
A BBEG/ Mastermind/ Warlord:
Mobs:
Overwhelming Odds:
Kailea can take Phoenix as her penultimate form and Effigy as her terminal form. This allows her to enter the body of an enemy and blow it up in a 40 die explosion (instantly killing the enemy), and replacing it with a CR 24 Avatar of Virtue – a completely real Phoenix. Kailea can do this twice a round, so the hordes of evil are going to have to be staggering indeed. And of course, Kailea is immune to all forms of attack and can Alter Reality at will.
Re: Last Call
I just realized something. Emancipated Spawn recalls class features....including monster class features. So, that's a way to take two monster classes and pocket the crazy stat bonuses(since they are monster class features) without paying for the messed up ECL.
Add in a new monster class after you finish your two levels of ES , and you can double dip the stat bonuses.
Add in a new monster class after you finish your two levels of ES , and you can double dip the stat bonuses.
Contest Thread
Re: Contest Thread
HOLY SHIT, it's That Man. I thought I killed him!
(People who were on Nifty threads will know what I'm talking about.)
HOLY SHIT, it's That Man. I thought I killed him!
(People who were on Nifty threads will know what I'm talking about.)
Re: Last Call
It's a little too late, but, I guess I'll try out a psion the next contest.
Or my forked-tongued Mystra's Dominatrix--combining Incantatrix, Dweomerkeeper, level loss, 3.5E PrC rules, and Tainted Spellcaster to keep Mystra as a harem slave--while not as game-stopping as the other guys (and has the distinct disadvantage of not automatically winning against deities), is at least sort of original.
I guess.
I really need to pick up the Players Guide to Faerun before I do, tho', since I don't have it on the USS John C. Stennis (it's in Bremerton).
Or my forked-tongued Mystra's Dominatrix--combining Incantatrix, Dweomerkeeper, level loss, 3.5E PrC rules, and Tainted Spellcaster to keep Mystra as a harem slave--while not as game-stopping as the other guys (and has the distinct disadvantage of not automatically winning against deities), is at least sort of original.
I guess.
I really need to pick up the Players Guide to Faerun before I do, tho', since I don't have it on the USS John C. Stennis (it's in Bremerton).
Re: I will personally kill every one of you.
Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1101421736[/unixtime]]
(People who were on Nifty threads will know what I'm talking about.)
Only if they're not oblivious - like me, for instance.
You can't fix stupid.
"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." ~ Jackie Robinson
"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." ~ Jackie Robinson
Re: I will personally kill every one of you.
I think he's talking about Stembolt. Either that guy or Iku Rex, since all the others are "too new".
-
Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: I will personally kill every one of you.
Iku Rex argued that the rules of polymorphing presented in Skip Hates Sorcerers were internally consistent and easy to parse.
This from a set of rules that included a statement that you did get the natural weapons but didn't get extra attacks; and a statement that you did get abilities like pounce and low-light vision (which are extraordinary), but didn't get any extraordinary abilities.
Basically it came down to "Obviously you get everything that Iku Rex wants you to get and not anything else, and if you think anything different you're an idiot!"
-Username17
This from a set of rules that included a statement that you did get the natural weapons but didn't get extra attacks; and a statement that you did get abilities like pounce and low-light vision (which are extraordinary), but didn't get any extraordinary abilities.
Basically it came down to "Obviously you get everything that Iku Rex wants you to get and not anything else, and if you think anything different you're an idiot!"
-Username17
Re: Last Call
So how is the Kailea angle working out?
Seems some of the CharOp regulars are claiming she is not within the framework of the rules.
If she is legal, she blows away the rest of the competition. If she isn't ... well, she isn't.
Seems some of the CharOp regulars are claiming she is not within the framework of the rules.
If she is legal, she blows away the rest of the competition. If she isn't ... well, she isn't.
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Username17
- Serious Badass
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- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: Last Call
Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1101547966[/unixtime]]So how is the Kailea angle working out?
Seems some of the CharOp regulars are claiming she is not within the framework of the rules.
If she is legal, she blows away the rest of the competition. If she isn't ... well, she isn't.
Well, since she didn't get posted to the contest thread within the allotted timeframe, she is not within theframework of the rules and cannot compete. As to being within the framework of the rules of the game, well, unfortunately, yes she is. Skip Williams was quite clear about what was gained and what was lost when you changed shape - and since those are not the same thing there is in fact the possibility of collecting all the powers in a pile and dancing around them.
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Of course, the luminaries of the CharOp board seem to be rather... dense... when it comes to interpretting the legality of edge cases. Against our entry of The Wish and The Word, they managed to form the following contest arguments:
Argument: The characters are obviously over-the-top powerful and insain (presumably "insane").
Answer: Actually, the contest said nothing baout making "reasonable" characters, quite the opposite! The criteria were:
Create 2 20th level build characters who create the "perfect" optimized duo. Together, this duo could adventure without anyone else and could face a plethora of challenges.
....
A poll will be created and you will be invited to vote for the characters you think:
1) Are the most versitile, effective duo
2) Are great builds and are very well optimized
3) Would be fun to play in a game
4) Would be fit to handle almost any encounter thrown at them.
At no time does the word "reasonable" enter into it. The goal was to design characters capable of handling any encounter thrown at them, not to design characters that could handle reasonable challenges of their level.
Argument: There are no custom items allowed.
Answer: That's puzzling, but completely false. In fact, the contest guidelines say:
No custom items unless you create them.
Argument: Fine, but you didn't create that item! An Efreet did!
Answer: While we could sit here and argue whether an effect generated by a creature generated by an effect generated by your own Use Magic Device skill and your own equipment right out of the book for quite a while - how about we cut the crap and point out that The Word has both Gate and Steal Spell-like Ability, and can jolly well just make the Ring for The Wish in three rounds whenever he wants.
Argument: You guys are losing and gaining levels, the contest says that you can only get 20!
Answer: Right. The contest actually says that you can only have enough XP to get to 20th level, and if you spend any XP it comes out of that total. While The Word does a lot of money laundering, at no time does he gain more than twenty levels worth of XP. The Thought Bottle lets you regain XP you've spent, so despite the impressive accounting tricks, he never ever gained more than 190,000 XP.
Argument: But even with the XP regained from the Thought Bottle, it still takes 500 XP to start the process, so you can't be 20th level!
Answer: Exactly. That's why The Word is 19th level.
And here are the Rules arguments:
Argument: You can't make a Ring of Infinite Wishes.
Answer: Yes you can, the XP cost of the item includes 50 expenditures of the spell, so it costs 262,960 XP to make a Ring of Infinite Wishes.
Argument: Wish has a maximum cost of item that it can make!
Answer: Not in 3.5 it doesn't. That's a 3rd edition rule, and it's a 3.5 contest. In 3.5 you can Wish for any item of any price, but the XP cost of the spell of any item over 15,000 gp is 5000 XP plus double the cost of the item. That means that the XP component of a Wish for a Ring of Infinite Wishes (CL 20) is 530,920 XP. That's pretty big, but you don't have to pay any of that if you use Wish as a Spell-like Ability.
Argument: Wish says that it can't produce a 9th level effect!
Answer: No it doesn't. It says it can duplicate an effect of up to 8th level. That's not the same thing. Wish allows you to perform any one action off a list. One of the things on that list is to gain a +1 inherent bonus to a stat, one is to replicate a spell of 8th level, one is to make any magic item, and one is to do anything more powerful than that, subject to DM approval. The one we are interested in is the magic item creation one, for which there are no prereqs. I would point out that Wish is always generating a 9th level effect - it's always a Wish. And Wish is, of course, a 9th level spell. So any effect it has is by definition a 9th level effect.
Argument: Well, Wish says that the DM can refuse any Wish.
Answer: Not exactly. It says that the DM is encouraged to opt to not grant a Wish that exceeds the guidelines, but creating a magic item is well within the guidelines of the 3.5 write-up.
Argument: Caster Levels from the Sublime Chord only add up the Sublime Chord and one other Arcane Class.
Answer: Right. We made an error about that in he first draft, but we fixed it.
Argument: But you are still adding the Sublime Chord and the Mage of the Arcane Order together. Mage of the Arcane Order is not a spellcasting class!
Answer: It sure isn't, but it counts as levels of Sublime Chord for the purposes of calculating Spellcaster Level, so we are good to go.
Argument: But the Ur Priest, unlike the Apostle of Peace, says "level in spellcasting class", not caster level. You can't add up the caster levels and have it spill over onto the Ur Priest.
Answer: Actually, yes we can. "Level of a spellcasting class" means "caster level". That's why the definition of "caster level" says that it is "equal to your level in a spellcasting class". If a calculation of caster level references the "level of a spellcasting class", that references items that modify caster level as well, because it's the same thing.
Argument: The Ritual of Vitality doesn't work like that, it screws you somehow. I just don't remember how.
Answer: Sigh. Here's how it works: You pay XP to perform the ritual. If you would spend so much XP that you would lose levels, you lose levels. Then you swap out your race and modify your ECL accordingly. Normally, this means that your ECL is now by definition very much higher than your XP total, so it's going to be a very, VERY long time before you get a new level. However, the Thought Bottle allows you to regain XP that has been lost or spent, so you can do the whole ritual and end up within 500 XP of where you started.
Argument: But the thought bottle uses up 500 XP, how come you haven't lost more levels?
Answer: The Thought Bottle uses 500 XP once, no matter how many times you use it. If you lose one XP from 20th level, you're 19th level. But until you lose over nineteen thousand XP, you're still 19th level. Since 500 is less than 19,000, we are good to go.
Argument: You lose feats when you lose levels.
Answer: You sure do, but the Emancipated Spawn's class feature "recall feats" gives you all the feats you had right before you died.
-Username17
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Basically, the arguments against range from "I'm incensed that you made a more powerful character than I did" all the way down to "I couldn't be bothered to actually read the book, so I'll just assume you cheated".
-Username17