PDA

View Full Version : Intense Builds (Almost Rulebreaking)



TelemontTanthul
2009-09-28, 06:02 PM
I hereby dedicate this thread to the sharing of stories associated with powerful builds for characters. Builds that *almost* broke game rules.

If you wish to contribute, be sure to explain what the build was, and why it was so powerful. Perhaps even share a particular story about that character that you enjoyed, or how it met it's unlikely end. I look forward to seeing how creative you all are.

Go to town!

Fluffles
2009-09-28, 06:39 PM
Wizard 20.

Oh wait, you said "Almost" my bad.

Korivan
2009-09-28, 06:51 PM
Gestalt Factotum20/Generalist Wizard 5-Incantitrix(the verson where you only lose one school and don't have to be specialized thus only losing one school total)10-Archmage 5.

Replace Scribe Scroll feat for something to help spell casting. Replace the Factotums spell casting, and cunning strike for Font of Inspiration(s). Pick up a Belt of Battle and Quicken Spell for at least 4 spells in one round without any infinit loop tricks. Proceed to pick up Arcane Thesis for something sweet like Exctract Water Elemental. Grab Augment Familier and Enhance Elemental if possible.

Use the combination of lower metamagic costs and the ability to apply metamagic on spells at a whims notice from the Incantrix, thus allowing you to Twin Spell two Chain Spell Extract Water Elementals for a 8th spell slot. Giving you potentially 4 kills and 4 new allies in one shot. Proceed to use your belt/Quicken/Surge to Mass Haste/Mass Slow/cut off escape routes.

Thank you and good night.

EDIT: Grab The Reserves of Strength and use the Twin/Chain combo at the end. Extra nasty if you use Craft Contingent Spell on a pebble or something to put you in a Invisible Spell: Prismatic Sphere while you recover.

The Glyphstone
2009-09-28, 07:20 PM
^...not the point of the thread. We're supposed to be discussing stories of actual played characters with almost-broken builds, not theoretical awesomeness.


I played in a game as a Shadowcraft Gnome. The Barbarian who joined had a longsword and shield, I explained to him the fail of Weapon Focus and the great fun of Power Attack and Shock Trooper. Our DM had to take a minute to recover the first time he charged and did 100+ damage with a crit at level 6.

Devilboy
2009-09-28, 07:27 PM
Leadership + Worm that walks ritual. Armies of worms. I actually took over the world with that char.:smalleek:

One char had +50 to diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, and intimidate. That one controlled the world in the end, too...but only because he could tell anyone what to do, and they did it. :smallcool:

For abuse of rules, though, I doubt you beat the Drunken master grappling build that was posted recently, where you use multigrab to use your opponents as improv weapons, and then if you roll a nat 1, they 'break and become useless'...nice when you have the Unlucky and Extremely Unlucky flaws, where nat 20s and nat 2-3s are treated as nat 1s. On top of that, your allies can try and sunder the people you're holding. Up to the DM to determine a person's hardness/HP for that, though :smalltongue:

Glimbur
2009-09-28, 07:27 PM
So my DM heard that I was going into Dragon Disciple as a Dungeoncrasher Fighter and decided to homebrew a martial dragon disciple. The main thing you need to know about it for this story is it let me grow by one size category at will, until the capstone anyway.

So I took Knockback and proceeded to Bull Rush with every attack. Then I realized I had a natural claw and bite attack that I could also use.

Then it got even sillier due to him not thinking through letting me grow two size categories and using size increase rules from the Monster Manual instead of as Enlarge Person, but the core of the idea was just Knockback + Dungeoncrasher.

Korivan
2009-09-28, 07:48 PM
^...not the point of the thread. We're supposed to be discussing stories of actual played characters with almost-broken builds, not theoretical awesomeness.


True. My bad. Let me clerify then. This was 1 of 3 combos with the character "Tassadar En Vec" that made the DM retire my character from his campaign. I'll give the setting. Pre level 20. We were ambushed outside a gate to one of the Nine Hells(had to retrive a phylactory a lich hid there). I used this Tact(minus the Researves of Strength and invisible Prismat Sphere) to target the guardion demons human wizards/fighters. Then the mass haste/mass slow helped make sure my team had the advantage. The battle the DM had taken over an hour to put together was over 18 seconds game time. (Of course with the help with the Duskblades/Fighter-Weapon Master with the crystal that let him crit outsiders)

I'll skip the sencond tactic cause we were reading a certain feat wrong. But the third was use of several spells that give you fighter feats (power attack, leap attack), buffs(haste, some stat buffs), a powerful enchanted quarterstaff (+5 that when it hit they had to make a save or be thrown back x feet) and Tensers Transformation. We were in the bottom of a massive temple that held the last Lich King (they were trying to use a epic spell or ritual or something that made every living thing on the entire continent make a fort save or be turned to undead). That tact as above was just to mimic the barbarion/frenzied beserker. We took turns seeing how far we would launch the liches skull...the DM made us stop:smallfrown:

woodenbandman
2009-09-28, 07:58 PM
I played an Archivist where the DM allowed Reach Spell to allow a spell to be Chained. Chained Greater Magic Weapon and Superior Resistances FTW.

I so wanted to go into War Weaver and Spellguard of the Silverymoon (and I would've if I had heard of them and could take Southern Magician).

Sploosh
2009-09-28, 08:09 PM
I'm playing a rogue2/swashbuckler3/assassin3/nightsongenforcer1/swordsage 1 who focuses on sneak attacking with feats like craven, daring shadowhand and the two weapon fighting line.

I use the roguesvest and the predator's cloak so I get 2d6+the int and dex to damage, along with 4 attacks not counting bracers that give me an extra attack at full bab and a total of 11d6+10 per hit from sneak attacks along with normal weapon damage.

It's fun to combine with greater invisibility and whatnot from our wizard and drop the monsters in the suprise round.

Korivan
2009-09-28, 08:12 PM
That is pretty, have you tacke on the precision enchanment form MIC to get another 1d6 sneack attack damage on each blade?

Sploosh
2009-09-28, 08:20 PM
That is pretty, have you tacke on the precision enchanment form MIC to get another 1d6 sneack attack damage on each blade?

Yup, I even abused the WBL by stealing the king's treasurary right down to his clothes. It makes good RP because we got demons chasing us, kings, merchants, an assassin guild, and a jester and they alll want their stuff back.

On the brightside, we almost killed a balor in a full attack before he kicked our butts and we amulet of the planesed away. Our GM got so worked up he even made a post about it here called Wanted: Bring them back alive or some nonesense.

I also get dex and int plus bab hit so I am rolling around 19 to hit counting the dual wield penalty.

Kyrthain
2009-09-28, 08:23 PM
I had a super assassin: ECL 15 Hellbred, rogue/assassin, dual wielding hombrewed armblades (they weren't the problem) He had an item that granted greater invisibility, and bracers of murder. The armblades were speed, wounding. Result: 8 attacks/round, each dealing 1 point of con and 9d6 sneak attack, rerolling 1's. Nothing survived a full attack.

Akal Saris
2009-09-28, 09:05 PM
One of my PCs had a Cleric 5/Radiant Servant of Pelor 3 in a game I was DMing, with nearly all feats and items chosen to improve turning and combat undead. Not so broken, except that it was a game based on the start of WC III, so the main bad guys (probably half the encounters) were undead.

So not rule-breaking, and the PrC made sense for the character and gameplay, but it was very tough to balance half the encounters knowing that he could destroy anything without extra Turn Resistance. And because he was a cleric, in any combat without undead he was still ambivalently awesome without giving up anything for it =P

HCL
2009-09-28, 09:06 PM
-Using Launch Bolt (SpC) with gargantuan bolts to hit for 3d6 with a 0 level spell. If you have eschew materials, you may not even need the bolts, just roll an attack roll and 3d6. Extra points if you have 20+ Dex at level 1 and can use Reduce Person to get down to tiny size or below to get a really high attack roll at level 1.

-The Raptoran Sorc Sub level gives you an air elemental familiar at level 1. CR 1, 2 HD Monster that flies at 100 ft (perfect). Spells affecting you can also be applied to the familiar. Mage armor is a no brainer. Then get Precocious Apprentice: Augment Familiar (again, spell compendium), or Mirror Image or something else that buffs up you or your familiar hardcore, along with Versatile Spellcaster so you can cast it a bunch of times per day. Now you have a familiar at level 1 that can solo CR 3 encounters. Add Dragonborn template and Loredrake for extra fun.

technophile
2009-09-28, 09:32 PM
Gestalt
You could have stopped there; gestalt builds are broken essentially by definition.

subject42
2009-09-28, 09:34 PM
-Using Launch Bolt (SpC) with gargantuan bolts to hit for 3d6 with a 0 level spell. If you have eschew materials, you may not even need the bolts, just roll an attack roll and 3d6. Extra points if you have 20+ Dex at level 1 and can use Reduce Person to get down to tiny size or below to get a really high attack roll at level 1.

How much does a gargantuan bolt cost? Is it less than 1gp?

Trodon
2009-09-28, 09:37 PM
Wizard 20.

Oh wait, you said "Almost" my bad.

Aw you beet me to it. :smalltongue:

DementedFellow
2009-09-28, 10:02 PM
How much does a gargantuan bolt cost? Is it less than 1gp?

Considering that the price for huge crossbow bolts is 10 for 2 gp, it would mean that you could divide the price by 10 and viola! less than 1 gp. Where can I find the damage output for a gargantuan bolt though?

Korivan
2009-09-28, 10:40 PM
You could have stopped there; gestalt builds are broken essentially by definition.

Not entirally, it depends on the player. I know at least one guy whos so bad at DnD, anything non-gestalt/non-cheese/non-uber optimised still has i'd say 90% chance of beating anything he made that was gestalt at any level.

Barring incompetence (see incompetent players thread), theres always people trying to do too much with two little. The first gestalt character I tried was a sorcerer/wizard. I had two 18's and a 16, 14 (we use the 5d6 minus 2 method), and I wasn't looking to pump charisma too far. The sorcerer side had all my most used buffs/debuffs/utility's/and some orbs or stuff that didn't allow savings throws. Sure, I could pretty much cast all day, almost never not have what I needed on hand. But like many have pointed out, I could only take one action at a time. I ended up just being a wizard with a few extra castings a day.

But yes, in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, gestalt=powerhouse characters. i.e., picking one class to enhance the other.

taltamir
2009-09-28, 10:44 PM
Wizard 20.

Oh wait, you said "Almost" my bad.

I was GOING to say the same, only use wizard 21 instead... any caster 21 actually... but that is completely breaking, not almost.

sonofzeal
2009-09-28, 11:26 PM
I played a Human Saint Divine Mind / Bard / Marshall that totally broke the CR system with passive buffs to everything and anything, plus huge Inspire Courage bonuses.

The idea was that most buffers rely on wasting rounds in combat putting a single good buff on a single character, or a weaker buff on a bunch of characters, but either way you're losing combat actions and can only do one thing at a time anyway. Each passive buff might be marginal, but they add up and act as a force multiplier on the whole team. The end result was that we could absolutely crush most encounters, and the DM had to start throwing masses of powerful enemies that could kill us pretty fast if they hit (which they rarely did, because defensive buffs helped and because we could kill them as fast as they came).

jiriku
2009-09-29, 12:09 AM
Cleric/Radiant Servant of Pelor with greater turning, glory domain, heighten turning, empower turning, synergy bonus from ranks in knowledge (religion). The DM once introduced a powerful vampire queen with spells and exotic daggers of evil awesomeness, one of those uber villains that DMs love to make. I poofed her into dust as a swift action. And this character was just my main character's cohort.

Fishy
2009-09-29, 12:15 AM
I'm playing what's essentially a gestalt Dungeoncrashing Fighter + Hulking Hurler//Master of the Unseen Hand.

Anything she can lift as a light load, she can use as an improvised throwing weapon. Anything she can use as a weapon, she can lift with her mind from 800' away. Hours of fun.

KellKheraptis
2009-09-29, 12:16 AM
Does a Primal Scholar with a recharge loop count? :)