Cheese Updates, 3.5

[Lago_AM3P]

Huh. 19-20x3 isn't big enough even for a weapon that doesn't get crazy-awesome special abilities like wounding and subdual?

How should I go about fixing this? Beg my DM to insert house rules let me use the item familiar feat on fists? Or since clerics are massively overpowered in the offensive department anyway (being immune to more stuff than any other class in the game + fighting better than most fighter-types), do you think I could get away with this line of attack?

I realize that I am intentionally taking a power hit just to play a concept that means a lot to me--a halfway competent unarmed fighter, and it means that the party is definitionally taking a bigger share of the slack. But. Considering crap like polymorph any object as a domain spell and persistent righteous might and all, could I still get away with these tactics without jacking everyone over?

[Username17]

1078887272[/unixtime]]Huh. 19-20x3 isn't big enough even for a weapon that doesn't get crazy-awesome special abilities like wounding and subdual?

At sixteenth level? Probably not. Most players who fight with weaponry are going to be using artifacts. Seriously. Sometimes we make up builds with bought weaponry, but that's just for show. In reality you are getting an artifact weapon in reverse proportional power to your character's dominance of the game. Really.

That being said, by the time the class comes through with a halfway nice chasis - the weapons users can and will be able to get weapons out of the D&D Joke Book. A +1 Ghost Touch Holy Ruin Bow costs less than 60 grand. Slap GMW on it and you have something which is severely superior to anything an unarmed combatant can ever do.

In the meantime, however, you are looking at doing a d4 damage at 9th level. That's.... retarded.

I'm honestly not sure how you intend this to function when layered on Dire Wolf or Octopus shape - and neither are the game designers as I read their contradictory responses on the subject - but when layered on the basic human form it's about as effective as fighting guns and blades with your fists actually is in the real world.

How should I go about fixing this? Beg my DM to insert house rules let me use the item familiar feat on fists? Or since clerics are massively overpowered in the offensive department anyway (being immune to more stuff than any other class in the game + fighting better than most fighter-types), do you think I could get away with this line of attack?

Well, it can certainly be very effective as a caster platform. Polymorph combat works really well once you've found out whether your DM is going for Octopus Fu or Direwolf Fu. That is, if you get the creature's attacks you can be effective with a creature with lots of attacks, and if you get your own unarmed attacks then becoming a reature with a really big attack is the shiznit. If you had access to PAO - you could basically be an Tiger Druid who got a wad of additional powers. However that's a long, long way away. Note that you get 8th level spells when your melee attacks finally get a better threat range than anything else in the game - so that's a very good level for you.

The levels until then, however, are not so hot. I strongly suggest giving them a much faster jacking up of their unarmed damage. This class just doesn't have any punch at lower levels.

I realize that I am intentionally taking a power hit just to play a concept that means a lot to me--a halfway competent unarmed fighter, and it means that the party is definitionally taking a bigger share of the slack. But. Considering crap like polymorph any object as a domain spell and persistent righteous might and all, could I still get away with these tactics without jacking everyone over?

When you get persistent Righteous Might - which will be at character level 18 - you'll be an awe inspiring engine of destruction.

But that's a long long way off, neh?

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

From now on, any build that benefits from polymorphing (like cleric archers and all druids) should always have the characters start in their geriatric years, as that means more power for nothing.

This I command.

[User3]

Correcting a statement from many pages back. Creatures without a CON score can indeed run. In fact, the SRD states that since they can't get tired, they can run constantly, unless the creature's description states that they cannot (as in the case of a golem).

Constitution: Any living creature has at least 1 point of Constitution. A creature with no Constitution has no body or no metabolism. It is immune to any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless the effect works on objects or is harmless. The creature is also immune to ability damage, ability drain, and energy drain, and automatically fails Constitution checks. A creature with no Constitution cannot tire and thus can run indefinitely without tiring (unless the creature’s description says it cannot run).

[User3]

[TGFBS]
Merged K's Cheesy Bard with the Main Cheese Thread.
[/TGFBS]


So, after being plain tired of fighting over design concepts, I present some new cheese:

Bard 9
Horizon Walker 1

Feats:
Arcane Strike(AS)
Snowflake Wardance(SW)

So, both AS and SW are activated as free actions. The Bard, at this level should have a Cha equal to a Fighter's Str(around 24), so using SW to burn a B. Music use he can add his Cha to his melee fighting stats(which will be around 14s or better; I assume 18s with magic items). His HorWal level will also prevent the fatigue from using Snowflake Wardance.

Arcane Strike is also activated as a free action, which stacks with itself, so he can burn his 3rd level slots for +3s, or his lower slots for +2s and +1s.

So, at 10th level he has nine BMs that he can burn for plus Cha to attacks with SW, and he has 3/5/5/4 to burn with AS.

So with SW he's got around a +18/+13, and can get a +3 each round that stacks with itself so on round 3 he can have a +9. Also, a 1d4 + spell level gets added to damage to all attacks, so on round 3 each attack is doing an extra 3d4 +9 assuming 3rd level slots.

Toss in Two-weapon fighting and Power Attack for flavor.

I don't have a copy of the AS with me, but I'm pretty sure that you could burn multiple slots in one turn, starting the combat with a +9.

[RandomCasualty]

Where is snowflake wardance from? I've never heard of it.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Probably from Freezer...I mean Frostburn.

-K

[User3]

Right. Its from Frostburn.

[Username17]

Arcane Strike does add to itself, but it is capped per turn by your BAB. That is, you can't sacrifice more spell levels per turn than you have BAB.

More importantly, if you are attempting to use melee weapon(s), you only add the bonus to a single melee weapon, not to all of your melee weapons. However, if you add it to your natural weapons, you add it to all of your natural weapons. So really, it's just one more reason to be transformed into an octopus, those 9 attacks plus grapples beat the crap out of trying to do this sort of thing with 2 rapier attacks.

Yeah. More polymorph cheese. Time to add it to the pile, I suppose.

-Username17

[Wrenfield]

K, I already have a build using Arcane Strike and Snowflake Wardance currently in play (its a replacement for my old 12th level cohort). The build?

Bard-16 / Soldier of Light-1 / Spellsword-3

The difference here is that in addition to AS and SW, Divine Might (due to SoL's turning ability) provides even more Charisma-based free-action activated damage.

Spellsword normally sucks for Bards, but it does 6 important things here:
1. Helps get BAB +16 with SoL level
2. Helps get Exotic Medium Armors for your Bard (using ASF reduction)
3. Gives 18 spellcaster levels
4. Gives a Fighter bonus feat
5. Gives 2 good saves (FORT and Will)
6. Gives proficiency with all martial weapons and all armors

This martial Bard build is intended to burn through its spells and bard song uses for damage additions.

SoL-2 is nice as well. It gives you Charisma Modifier-to-Saves. Although this drops your spellcaster level down to 17. Whatever you wish to prioritize is your own decision.

Soldier of Light PrC is located in Deities and Demigods book and has no feats for pre-req.'s. It's easy as hell for a Bard to enter it with minimal investment.

[User3]

Wren,

I'm pretty surprised by that build. Not having HorWal and taking fatigue is a pretty big downside.

Also, those Bard levels past 9 are basically 7 levels of crap. Considering that 9 levels of Bard gives you enough Bardic Music to fill out a day in SW-boosted combats, you are far better PrCing out.

A more martially inclined combat Bard is going to get two Paladin or Blackguard levels for the Cha boost to saves(+7s), then Eldritch Knight for the next 8 levels for a caster level of 16 as a Bard and a BAB of 17 at 20th level, all weapon and armor profs and a fighter bonus feat, and thats just using core PrCs.

A more spellheavy guy still takes HorWal and Pali/Blacky, but will leave Bard even earlier, probably around 7th level, then take a level of Sorc and use the Bard spell levels to qualify for Eldritch Knight and add its caster levels to Sorc for spellcasting as a 7th level Bard and 9th level Sorcerer and a total a BAB of 17 and getting tapped twice for bonus spells off your giant Cha(to burn in AS). Adding pure Bard is worth a BAB of 18 and a 16 level spellcasting as a Bard.

Basically, Bard spellcasting stops being remotely competitive when it gets 3rd level Charm Monster spells at 7th level at a time when single-class wizards are getting CM at 7th level as a 4th level spell.

Basically, your build may give you 18 caster levels of Bard, but that just means you get to cast the same 6th level spells as a 16th level Bard. The three spellcasting levels after 16 just give you some more castings of 6th level spells.

----------------------------------

Thats just using core PrCs. Some of the other published PrCs will let you do even crazier things. I'd be interested to see what Soldier of Light does.

Even if you PrC out to other spellcasting PrCs, you can get a load of power cheaply. Nar Demonbinder is a tasty way to get better spell lists and slots with a minimal investment.

[Wrenfield]

Also, those Bard levels past 9 are basically 7 levels of crap. Considering that 9 levels of Bard gives you enough Bardic Music to fill out a day in SW-boosted combats, you are far better PrCing out.

Not if you are actually using those excess Bard Music Uses for something - in my case, Heighten Spell/Talfirian Song. In addition, I actually use Bard Song *a lot*. Especially Fascinate/Suggest and Song of Freedom.

A more martially inclined combat Bard is going to get two Paladin or Blackguard levels for the Cha boost to saves(+7s), then Eldritch Knight for the next 8 levels for a caster level of 16 as a Bard and a BAB of 17 at 20th level, all weapon and armor profs and a fighter bonus feat, and thats just using core PrCs.

Not if your group does not dig planned alignment changes (regarding Pal). I don't have a problem with it, but many folks do. Besides, Eldritch Knight "Gishes", even in Spellsword builds tend to suck hardcore. With the Bard levels, you at least get a prodigious amount of skills and Bard Lore. All of which is immensely useful. My build allows you to be a party scout, and UMD like a high level spellcaster. I agree that non-minmaxed Bard "generalist" totally bite. But bards that get tweaked to be Damage Specialists or Demonbinder/Virtuosos can be a quite awesome while still maintaining a significant portion of their non-combat bard schtick.

A more spellheavy guy still takes HorWal and Pali/Blacky, but will leave Bard even earlier, probably around 7th level, then take a level of Sorc and use the Bard spell levels to qualify for Eldritch Knight and add its caster levels to Sorc for spellcasting as a 7th level Bard and 9th level Sorcerer and a total a BAB of 17 and getting tapped twice for bonus spells off your giant Cha(to burn in AS). Adding pure Bard is worth a BAB of 18 and a 16 level spellcasting as a Bard.

While you are accumulation Sorc levels in this build, your character is really sucking, K. I have extreme doubts about this character concept.

Basically, Bard spellcasting stops being remotely competitive when it gets 3rd level Charm Monster spells at 7th level at a time when single-class wizards are getting CM at 7th level as a 4th level spell.

Not if you want the 5th level Improvisation spell. Which is de rigeur for Martial Bards everywhere. It's a good reason why accumulating some 5th level slots is a good idea in lieu of using them as AS fodder.

Basically, your build may give you 18 caster levels of Bard, but that just means you get to cast the same 6th level spells as a 16th level Bard. The three spellcasting levels after 16 just give you some more castings of 6th level spells.

Again, I use Heighten Spell/Talfirian Song to compensate for that.

Thats just using core PrCs. Some of the other published PrCs will let you do even crazier things. I'd be interested to see what Soldier of Light does.

It's similar to the old 3.0 Holy Liberator. Undead Turning and HEaling Spell Spontaneity (for ALL your spellcasting classes) at 1st level. Divine Grace at 2nd. 3.0 HL spellcaster table similarities and progression. Full BAB, 1 good save. Nice. Just convert it to your campaign's appropriate deity. Gotta be NG though..

Even if you PrC out to other spellcasting PrCs, you can get a load of power cheaply. Nar Demonbinder is a tasty way to get better spell lists and slots with a minimal investment.

Aye, I love Bard Demonbinder Virtuosos.

[User3]

Not if your group does not dig planned alignment changes (regarding Pal). I don't have a problem with it, but many folks do. Besides, Eldritch Knight "Gishes", even in Spellsword builds tend to suck hardcore. With the Bard levels, you at least get a prodigious amount of skills and Bard Lore.

Bardic Lore and Bard skills really are like ketchup: they make things that are really bland taste a little better.

But I'll take actual class abilties any day.

If you are burning BS uses for Heighten spell, then I don't know what to tell you. The minimal DC increases you get from Heighten is not worth being stuck with Bard spellcasting. Even Sorcerer 9 gets you better spells than the entire spell list of 6th level Bard spells. Improvization may be a pimp spell, but being stuck with the Bard list for all your other spells just so you can take an action to get a big bonus to one check is not much of a trade-off. For that same action, a Sorcerer could Polymorph into an Annis for a 25 Str and 10 points of natural armor, or cast Solid Fog (no SR, no save) to save his whole party for three rounds, or get Stoneskin for DR 10/adamantine to really allow him to mix it up in combat.

If that Soldier of Light thing gives you 2 BAB, Cha to saves, and a spellcaster level for two levels, then use that instead of the Pali/blacky levels and you can get Sorc 10 for a 5th level spell which can be something truly pimp like Wall of Force, Major Creation, or Lesser Planar Binding to name a few.

Getting two sets of bonus spells off of the one stat that your are whoring out (Cha) is also really nice for AS.

As for using Bardic music for Fascinate suggestion, thats the worse idea I've ever heard. First, you have pour skills into Perform. Then, you have to take two rounds of not attacking to maintain concentration, which is dumb because as a combat Bard you want to be attacking. Then, on round two you make a Suggestion, which you could have just done in one round if you just used the spell.

And, since you are stuck using BM, stuff won't make its save but will kick your ass in SR and flat out immunity(undead and mindless stuff). Rather than Fascinate to neutralize large numbers of enemy, cast Solid Fog or Wall of Force for a zero chance of failure. Its not like the whole party is not going to be attacking people and breaking your Fascinate, or even waiting rounds while you finish off one guy or the other so that the party can group gangbang one guy at a time. That may work in FFXI, but tabletop gamers tend to wander off and watch anime when that kind of thing happens.

And you can't tell me that a little cross-classing of UMD is not possible. Even at double cost after 7th level, its the only useful skill on your list so there is no reason not to pour all of your points into it.

I dunno. For a combat Bard, I'd think that you'd want to be fighting every round and taking advantage of the class features the build so carefully focuses on rather than fruiting up the place with substandard Bard magic and music.

Doing everything poorly is worse than doing one thing really well.

[Username17]

I'm going to have to agree with Keith there. Heck, with Nar Demonbinder type-builds you are better off wasting two feats in order to get into Mage of the Arcane Order. Or just wasting feats on Extra Music, which completely obviates the whole "taking more Bard Levels" thing.

High level Bard music and high level Bard spells are a joke. If you can get out of there, you should. All of this fascinating tomfoolery about making a high level Bard simply serves to underscore the fact that there is no good god damned reason to be a high level Bard.

Listen to yourselves. The only good thing you are getting out of Bard is taking a variety of Prestige Classes and feats that allow you to trade your Bardness out for not being a Bard anymore. Whether by virtue of jumping to DemonBinder or Octopus Wardancing, you just aren't a Bard any more, and being at all effective at anything is essentially contingent on that fact.

High levels in Bard offer nothing except the fact that you could and should be using actual high level spells instead - which are better than anything the Bard ever gets. By the time the Bard finally gets his mitts on Mass Charm, the real spellcasters have been running around with Mind Rape for some time.

-Username17

[Wrenfield]

If you are burning BS uses for Heighten spell, then I don't know what to tell you.

Turning 1st through 5th level offensive spells into 6th level spells .. pretty much as many as you ever need (maybe all of them) ... gives you a lot more firepower than you think. And you are still using your primary spell slots, not the heightened level ones you augment them into. It's a good mechanic for breathing new life into your low level spells. And as Frank noted earlier, the Extra Bard Music feats are nice for cranking this ability up even higher.

While I agree that Bards suck, I still see lots of side niche Bard builds that actually motor in min/maxville. Sadly, you can't play a Bard that isn't min/maxed for any play value whatsoever.

[Username17]

OK, there's been a lot of talk about the "Hulking Hurler" from CW and Dragon Magazine; and its inherent brokenness with regards to throwing large heavy objects. Various people have posted some crazy builds that emphasize a single attack that does ricoculous amounts of damage with a single attack.

---

I'm not going to get into a complete refutation about why individual builds suck, but so far I haven't seen any that don't - mostly because they involve bad math or because they are unable to replicate their attack more than once (sometimes once per combat, often only once ever). So I submit the best Hulking Hurler. Not the most damage per attack, not the most crazy-go-nuts loop of punching yourself with Sadism, just the best character who happens to be based on the simple underlying cheese of the Hulking Hurler.

And what is that cheese? Simple: carrying capacity is exponential, and the damage inflicted by dropping heavy objects on people is linear. It's that simple, no more or less compicated than that. If you push your strength up, your carrying capacity doubles for every five points of strength you get. So that's 2.5 extra points with a dagger, but double damage on you just picking up the biggest thing you can lift and dumping it on some fool.

---

That's all well and good, but how do you maximize the amount of whupass available to you? Not, as some people have suggested, by attempting to convince your DM to allow you to have access to an osmium sphere enchanted as a weapon with the returning trait - that's just retarded. No DM will let you have one of those, they don't xist in the vast majority of campaign worlds. No, you do it by making sure that you always have access to the things you need. So, for comparison, here's the best Hulking Hurler:

Human Wizard 13 / Archmage 4/ Hulking Hurler 3. Yes, really.

High Arcana: Spell Power, Spell Power, Spell Power, Spell-like Ability: Major Creation
Throwing Tricks: Overburdened Heave, Area Toss.

You Polymorph Any Object yourself into something ginormous. Really ginormous. I suggest going through the D&D Joke Book and transforming into something like a Centimani or a Colossus. It's not important. The important part is where you have a strength of even 43 as a Titan does, your medium load (and thus the largest thing you can throw at people) is 3200 pounds. That's before you add in enlargement effects or strength enhancement, or any of that jazz. You're certainly going to.

Now, an object does a base of 5d6 damage for the first 400 pounds, and an additional d6 for every 200 pounds beyond that, and does half again that much if it is sharp (Complete Fiasco, page 159. So our unaugmented Titan Friend, for example, could pick up and throw a 1.6 tonne spiky ball for 28 dice of damage. And adding 5 strength to that raises the total to fifty two dice of damage.

That's great and all, I mean we can easily see that by wearing a girdle of strength and transforming into a Mountain Giant (which you can also do), you could quite easily peg people with spiky balls inflicting 1795 dice of damage. Or more. That's not really at issue, the question is actually acquiring and transporting the requisite ammunition.

That's where Major Creation, and Shrink Item come in. Shrink Item works on anything of up to 2 cubic feet per level. So you spend nearly half of your equipment on Orange Ioun Stones (getting like 15), and that all adds up to making items that are... 70 cubic feet into miniature replicas that weigh thousandths as much.

Major Creation creates non-magical materials, and while you might be able to swing Osmium (the densest substance available on earth at about 22 kg/L), the game will specifically allow you to create temporary precious metals - which you can then put into temporal stasis and prevent them from vanishing.

70 cubic feet of spiky gold weighs 85932 pounds, and when thrown comes in at a marginally respectable six hundred and fourtyeight dice of damage. Which is a lot less than some of the more absurd trick builds, but since you can carry literally thousands of these things and ready them for throwing as a free action, and then have an extremely good chance of actually landing one of these attacks - this build is far and away the best I've yet seen. More damage than that is just a stupid pet trick, and my Spell Dancer builds still do more just by chucking tea cozies at people.

Anyways, So you need to be able to throw something of about 86000 pounds at people. That's not a tall order for the polymorpher on the go at all. At Huge size, that's a strength of 52. And a Hecatonchieres has more than that with a Bull's strength. If you're larger, you don't even need that much, and if you are a centauroid, you cut your strength needs by five. So pick something and run with it.

-Username17

[Username17]

Thought: If you can get your strength all the way up to 62, you can do all this at medium size, which means that you can alter self yourself back into yourself after polymorphing yourself into something with all the strength.

So you can adventure in dungeons and stuff, and still inflict 2268 average damage per round.

W00t.

-Username17

[MrWaeseL]

I like it, but it all hinges on PoA, which is a broken spell in itself.

[Username17]

You can just as easily run it off of Shapechange, because you never need to throw anything that a Titan can't lift.

Of course, that's a broken spell as well.

Still, the thing that makes this build severely superior to the Half-Ogre type builds I've seen before is the fact that the character has Shrink Item and Major Creation - which form voltron in preventing them from ever running out of ammo.

-Username17

[Alansmithee]

Yeah, but can you destroy the earth in 4 rounds?

Honestly, that was always my problem with most of the hulking hurler builds-they required optional/situational/one-time bonuses to achieve rediculous overkill, as opposed to making something viable. Although, some of the later builds did start inplementing casters, and I think a couple also used the wizard base.

[Username17]

Yeah, but can you destroy the earth in 4 rounds?

*Yawn*. My Spelldancer build could do that at 7th level. Anything involving osmium spheres and getting spells cast at you from multiple allies of different traditions to destroy the earth is just an exercise in using extra words.

Once you have unlimited power, it just doesn't matter any more. Peoples' fascination with getting ricockulously large numbers is just puzzling, once you've achieved "infinity", you've already passed "a billion".

-Username17

[Alansmithee]

I was being sarcastic, I actually prefer your build. Because after the world is destroyed, yours can cast Genesis and make another. I as well share your wonder at peoples' facination with ginormous numbers. That's why I was so suprised at peoples' behaviour over Eberron's mark of Syblis (sp?). Yay, another way to get infinite money. I personally would have been more impressed if they could have fixed the current imbalances, not throw another on the list.

[RandomCasualty]

The thing is that infinity is boring. Once you're at infinity nobody can surpass it and nobody can try to make anything better.

So infinite builds don't have too much popularity for board based min/max contests, because they actually put an end to them. You can point to every build anyone comes up with ever and then say "but it still doesn't top my spelldancer build" and you'll be right.

So generally people like to ignore infinite stuff and prefer to create some kind of true benchmark that people can try to meet or exceed...

Not that I'm actually into that sort of thing, but that's my take on it.

[fbmf]

Would someone mind going over how the druid/elder treant/trampling thing works? We play a mostly 3.0 campaign, for the record.

Game On,
fbmf

[Username17]

In 3rd edition, you get all the extraordinary abilities and the type of a creature when you shapechanged into it, and keep any and all extraordinary abilities you already had lying around just before you did it. You could also shapechange into anything short of a deity. So you could go "all crazy" on people by Shapechanging into an Elder Treant just after you Elemental Wildshape into something crazy.

So then you have Elder Treant attack (trample) backed up by its normal strength + additional crazy abilities from your previous form + all your buff spells. The correct order to do this is:

1. Become an Animal with Shapechange (this changes Type).
2. Put all Animal-based buffs on yourself.
3. Wildshape into something crazy (I recommend an Earth Element Jarilith, but your mileage may vary).
4. Shapechange into something something big and nasty.

You end up pocketting all relevent abilities from the form in step 3 and the buffs in step 2 while using all the natural attacks and extraordinary abilities of he bruiser in step 4. The net result is that you hand out considerably more whupass than anything written in the Epic Level Handbook, because you are anything in the D&D Joke Book with extra buffs and stackable abilities layered on as a rich cream sauce.

It's even worse in 3.5, where the stackability between forms is explicit and no longer restricted to a single line of inheritance.

-Username17