How to make a Good Epic Melee

[AirGuitarGod32]

I know the title sounds crazy. But watch this:

Drow (or any race with a + to dex. I just like the flavor of a drow)

Swashbukler20//Fighter 10/Psi Warrior 10 Duelist 10

feats: Improved crit: Rapier, Weapon focus tree: rapier, improved feint, power attack (Not used, ever), Psychic Weapon tree, Bonded Weapon

weapon: a Mithril +5 Speed Keen Aptitude Elven Thinblade

Any comments/improvements are welcome

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Enlighten me. How is this build worth 50 levels? What makes it special? I currently see a build that, unless I'm missing something, doesn't hold a candle to about...oh...five melee builds off the top of my head, and hundreds more if I stopped to think for a minute. Swashbuckler 20 and Fighter 10 alone are sort of space wasters, as is Duelist 10, and Psychic Warrior isn't that potent if you don't follow through...

[Eldrys]

Well for one thing, if you want to keep it at level 20, you'll have to take 2 levels of one side to account for the drow LA.

EDIT: Is this supposed to be Gestalt? I thought that double slashes meant gestalt? Or it could just be a typo.

If it is a typo, what makes this build special?

[PinkysBrain]

It only really needs one magic item to really work well, a stone arch shrunk with shrink item ... before a fight throw it on the ground and fight under it.

[Narazil]

It's not a good Epic Melee build. It's a horrible Epic Melee build.

[BobVosh]

Also since it drow it should be an evil epic melee build.

[UglyPanda]

This is bloody horrible. This isn't a good epic character. It's not a good melee character. It's not a good any kind of character. Or even half-decent.

Guitar guy, you should read many many more threads before you can even think about giving optimization advice. You're obviously inexperienced.

[AirGuitarGod32]

Mabye I should explain..

The swashbuckler and fighter and psi war are there for their own respective reasons. If I am not mistaken, Improved Feint and Deep Impact stack. If that is so, then I just have to beat an AC of 10. My dex is used as the cornerstone of my BAB, and add in my Int and any monster is an easy stab. And yes, thats a gestalt. If it irks some of yall THAT badly, then change the fighter to psi war. and duelist is a 10 level prestige class.

[Narazil]

and any monster is an easy stab.
With 50 levels Gods should be an easy stab. But they're not, and do you know why?
Because they know Magic. As should you with 50 levels to play around with - you don't survive to level 50 (which is an absurd high number) without magic, really. I mean, how would you level up? Everyone else uses tons and tons of magic by now, and are all immune to Bluff and has DR through the roof / immunity to physical damage.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Mabye I should explain..

The swashbuckler and fighter and psi war are there for their own respective reasons. If I am not mistaken, Improved Feint and Deep Impact stack. If that is so, then I just have to beat an AC of 10. My dex is used as the cornerstone of my BAB, and add in my Int and any monster is an easy stab. And yes, thats a gestalt. If it irks some of yall THAT badly, then change the fighter to psi war. and duelist is a 10 level prestige class.

Alright...yes, you can do that: for 1 attack per round, as Improved Feint is a move action, and Deep Impact requires gaining Focus (another move action). Damage output = Rather pitiful.

For that price, I could just go Sorcerer 2/Warblade 18, stay at non-epic levels, and do a full-round attack with Avalanche of Blades for a host of whole swarm of melee touch attacks. And that's without any of the cheese that even higher level melee only characters are capable of.

Basically, if you haven't at least broken at least a couple of hundred damage per round, on average, your level 40+ melee character isn't good for much, unless you've got some serious lockdown potential. This build has neither.

[UglyPanda]

Dude, you cannot choose to be a gestalt character. It's a DM decision, not a player decision.

And your character is still bloody horrible. Have you even calculated how little damage you're dealing per turn?

[AslanCross]

A third level warblade with Emerald Razor can make a power attacking Greatsword touch attack every other turn. Assuming 18 strength and a regular greatsword, we end up with 2d6+6 at +7. Emerald Razor makes the attack target Touch AC, which is typically not much higher than 10 and often much worse in large creatures. A maxed-out Power Attack raises that to 2d6+12 at +4 vs Touch AC.

At Lv 3.

I'll raise you an Elf Swordsage 20/Dervish 10/Eternal Blade 10/Master of Nine 5. It will be 5 levels behind your guy, but will outdamage him by an immense margin.

Time Stands Still + Thousand Cuts + Island In Time.
EDIT: + Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip.

Assume:
-a very conservative (for Epic levels) strength of 20.
-The complete Two-Weapon Fighting tree
-Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting for longswords
-Two +5 longswords

Regular Melee: +46/+41/+36/+31 (1d8+10) // +46/+41/+36 (1d8+7).
Thousand Cuts: +46/+46/+41/+41/+36/+36/+31/+31 (1d8+10) // +46/+46/+41/+41/+36/+36 (1d8+7).

Double that for Time Stands Still, then add another Thousand Cuts' worth for the second turn granted by Island in Time.

Then add the +20d6 rend damage from Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip. (I'm sure at least 8 out of 42 attacks will hit.)

And that's just off the top of my head. This build is verging on cheese, but isn't quite there yet. Make the guy a Thri-keen and you're going to have a humanoid food processor.

EDIT2: That's not even counting the Wis-to-damage bonus he's going to get per hit for having Insightful Strike (Diamond Mind). We can even go a bit further and replace his weapons with daggers, give him Assassin's Stance and Shadow Blade for Dex-to-damage. He can sneak into kill range using Cloak of Shadows, and get an extra +2d6 sneak attack damage on each of those 42 attacks.

My friend, epic builds---or any optimized 3.5 builds for that matter---are about synergy, not just level stacking.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I know the title sounds crazy. But watch this:

Drow (or any race with a + to dex. I just like the flavor of a drow)

Swashbukler20//Fighter 10/Psi Warrior 10 Duelist 10

feats: Improved crit: Rapier, Weapon focus tree: rapier, improved feint, power attack (Not used, ever), Psychic Weapon tree, Bonded Weapon

weapon: a Mithril +5 Speed Keen Aptitude Elven Thinblade

Any comments/improvements are welcome

So you had to gestalt to do anything?

Oh, I have better btw.

Paladin2/Sorcerer4/Spellsword1/Abjurant Champion5/Sacred Exorcist8.

Continue on to epic with Spellsword.

[Grumman]

I'd probably go with Shadow Creature Lesser Drow Warblade 6 / Dread Fang of Lolth 10 / Eternal Blade 10 / Iaijutsu Master 5 and work from there. The goal is to front load as many attacks into the suprise round as possible and sneak attack yourself silly.

[Curmudgeon]

I'll raise you an Elf Swordsage 20/Dervish 10/Eternal Blade 10/Master of Nine 5. It will be 5 levels behind your guy, but will outdamage him by an immense margin.

Assume:
-a very conservative (for Epic levels) strength of 20.
-The complete Two-Weapon Fighting tree
-Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting for longswords
-Two +5 longswords

Regular Melee: +46/+41/+36/+31 (1d8+10) // +46/+41/+36 (1d8+7).

No, I don't think so.

Swordsage 20's BAB is +15. EAB for 25 Epic levels is +13. STR 20 adds +5 to your attacks, as does the +5 weapon enhancements. Two-Weapon Fighting applies a -2 penalty.

Make that +36/+31/+26 (main hand) // +36/+31/+26 (off hand).

Note that this character only gets 3 iterative attacks.
Epic Attack Bonus: Similarly, a character’s base attack bonus does not increase after his character level reaches 20th. However, he does receive a cumulative +1 epic bonus on all attack rolls every odd-numbered level after 20th If you changed the order of classes you could manage to squeak in with a 4th iterative attack and boost your AB by +1, but that's not what you presented here.

[AslanCross]

My bad; I was just adding the class BABs. Totally forgot about epic BAB. Still stands that it's much better than the OP's build.

[Schylerwalker]

I know the title sounds crazy. But watch this:

Drow (or any race with a + to dex. I just like the flavor of a drow)

Swashbukler20//Fighter 10/Psi Warrior 10 Duelist 10

feats: Improved crit: Rapier, Weapon focus tree: rapier, improved feint, power attack (Not used, ever), Psychic Weapon tree, Bonded Weapon

weapon: a Mithril +5 Speed Keen Aptitude Elven Thinblade

Any comments/improvements are welcome

My friend, a straight up 50th level fighter could probably beat the snot out of that. Or a 50th level barbarian. Or ranger. Or paladin.

I dare say, a 50th level monk would effortlessly snatch your thinblade outta your hand and then stunning fist you into the next millenia.

And let's not even get into ToB stuff.

[Mongoose87]

My friend, a straight up 50th level fighter could probably beat the snot out of that. Or a 50th level barbarian. Or ranger. Or paladin.

I dare say, a 50th level monk would effortlessly snatch your thinblade outta your hand and then stunning fist you into the next millenia.

And let's not even get into ToB stuff.

Let's not break out the ToB on the kid - this padawan has much to learn.

[AslanCross]

Let's not break out the ToB on the kid - this padawan has much to learn.

That's strange, because he does mention the Aptitude weapon property, which appears in ToB. He also mentions ToB in other threads. He does have knowledge of it.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I know the title sounds crazy. But watch this:

Drow (or any race with a + to dex. I just like the flavor of a drow)

Swashbukler20//Fighter 10/Psi Warrior 10 Duelist 10

feats: Improved crit: Rapier, Weapon focus tree: rapier, improved feint, power attack (Not used, ever), Psychic Weapon tree, Bonded Weapon

weapon: a Mithril +5 Speed Keen Aptitude Elven Thinblade

Any comments/improvements are welcome
I give up. What does it do?

[Mongoose87]

That's strange, because he does mention the Aptitude weapon property, which appears in ToB. He also mentions ToB in other threads. He does have knowledge of it.
{Scrubbed}

[Killer Angel]

That's strange, because he does mention the Aptitude weapon property, which appears in ToB. He also mentions ToB in other threads. He does have knowledge of it.

Nonetheless, having knowledge and correct application, are 2 different things.

[Wings of Peace]

Let me outline an *alright* epic melee that uses minimal spellcasting. And this is pretending there isn't another "melee" running around with Use Magic Device or Gishes that do everything you do but better.

Classes You Want:
-Lion Totem Barbarian 1
-Frenzied Berserserker 10
-Arcane Duelist 3 (For the extra AB. Not necessary but it'll help you keep pace with the monsters at least a little.)
-Disciple of Dispater 8 (May be wrong here)
-Psychic Weapon Master 7 (Spiked Chain)
-Weapon Master 7 (Spiked Chain) [May have the wrong level here]
-Stuff that gives you options. Options are good.


Feats you want:
-Combat Reflexes
-Epic Combat Reflexes
-Improved Trip
-Pierce Magical Concealment (If you don't have this people will laugh at you.)
-Knockdown
-ANYTHING THAT ALLOWS YOU TO MAKE AN ATTACK OF OPPORTUNITY
-Shock Trooper
-Lightning Maces
-Improved Critical (Spiked Chain)
-Combat Brute
-Inhuman Reach
-Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades

Weapon you want: A CHAIN, Aptitude Valorous +X Greater Dispelling Chain of every property your sweet EWBL can pump onto it

Some other but not all items you want:

-Pumped up armors because you can't buff your own ac
-Ring of Blinking
-Grafts that boost your reach for every sweet limb you can put them on.
-Wing grafts for flight or something cooler since you're epic
-Every contingent spell you can buy
-Items that give immunities

Other stuff:

-An already large race
-A Dweomerkeeper Caster to then supernaturally enlarge you permanently
-Your items are all crafted by an Artifact Lord


Notes: Still outpaced in epic pretty fast by casters, gishes, and some other things but this will at the least allow you to have your niche. That niche' is AoOs and PA and with it you will be able to kill things. Mind you this is in a universe where Epic Monsters are assumed to be fighting you to a reasonable extent of their abilities. In a casual (Relative term) D&D epic game I would expect this to be some to extreme overkill.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

{Scrubbed}

[term1nally s1ck]

Let me outline an *alright* epic melee that uses minimal spellcasting. And this is pretending there isn't another "melee" running around with Use Magic Device or Gishes that do everything you do but better.

Classes You Want:
-Lion Totem Barbarian 1
-Frenzied Berserserker 10
-Arcane Duelist 3 (For the extra AB. Not necessary but it'll help you keep pace with the monsters at least a little.)
-Disciple of Dispertar 7 (May be wrong here)
-Psychic Weapon Master 7 (Spiked Chain)
-Weapon Master 7 (Spiked Chain) [May have the wrong level here]
-Stuff that gives you options. Options are good.

Feats you want:
-Combat Reflexes
-Epic Combat Reflexes
-Improved Trip
-Pierce Magical Concealment (If you don't have this people will laugh at you.)
-Knockdown
-ANYTHING THAT ALLOWS YOU TO MAKE AN ATTACK OF OPPORTUNITY
-Shock Trooper
-Lightning Maces
-Improved Critical (Spiked Chain)
-Combat Brute
-Inhuman Reach
-Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades

Weapon you want: A CHAIN, Aptitude Valorous +X Greater Dispelling Chain of every property your sweet EWBL can pump onto it

Some other but not all items you want:

-Pumped up armors because you can't buff your own ac
-Ring of Blinking
-Grafts that boost your reach for every sweet limb you can put them on.
-Wing grafts for flight or something cooler since you're epic
-Every contingent spell you can buy
-Items that give immunities

Other stuff:

-An already large race
-A Dweomerkeeper Caster to then supernaturally enlarge you permanently
-Your items are all crafted by an Artifact Lord


Notes: Still outpaced in epic pretty fast by casters, gishes, and some other things but this will at the least allow you to have your niche. That niche' is AoOs and PA and with it you will be able to kill things. Mind you this is in a universe where Epic Monsters are assumed to be fighting you to a reasonable extent of their abilities. In a casual (Relative term) D&D epic game I would expect this to be some to extreme overkill.

+ Roundabout Kick, You need 8 levels of the Disciple for the x3, You are correct on the 7 weapon master though.

+ 1-dip in warblade, just for the blood in the water stance. Every time you crit, you get a +1 to attack and damage rolls for 1 minute, which stacks with everything, including itself. No cap.

This has been discussed before, use a weapon with an 18-20 crit range, and with both Roundabout kick and Lightning Mace, it has a significantly greater than half chance of keeping on hitting the enemy until it dies, doing gradually more and more damage with your billions of attacks thanks to blood in the water. Psychic weapon master needs a crystal weapon, while disciple needs an iron one, though, remember that, so unless you can find an iron crystal weapon, (???) you can't use both.

[Temet Nosce]

{Scrubbed}

No, really?

Honestly, he's got people believing that he thinks Soulknife is great because it can multiclass, that he thinks it's a good thing to be completely useless at epic, and that he can't comprehend the most basic concepts when explained to him.

Gotta admit, he's bloody funny though.

[Nai_Calus]

This thread is useful if only as a shining example of exactly what's wrong with 3.5.

[blackseven]

This thread is useful if only as a shining example of exactly what's wrong with 3.5.

A small segment of the playerbase?

[Kaiyanwang]

A small segment of the playerbase?

You are my hero.

[AirGuitarGod32]

{Scrubbed}

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

People like you make people like me commit suicide....

Anyways, I actually was high last night, so forgive me. Here's a REAL build...for 40 levels

Race: Paragon Insectoid Thri-Kreen
Classes: Gestalt Monk/Ninja or fighter 10, Initiate of Dragonic Secrets 10, Acolyte of the Fist 10

This plus Superior Unarmed, Astetic fighter or stalker, a Monk's Belt, snap kick, roundabout kick, Multiweapon tree and 8 kamas of the scorpion is a combo.

Because I get 8 flurry of blows, a full unarmed strike for each, kama damage, and either a butload of feats or a full Sudden Strike

Yes...adding the incredibly powerful Paragon template onto a non-standard (and powerful) race and then sticking another template onto it (without reading that template...Insectoid limbs can't wield weapons, IIRC) is likely to be decent at anything.

Still pretty weak though, comparatively. Not true level 40 material.

I think I'm done here.

[Narazil]

Yes...adding the incredibly powerful Paragon template onto a non-standard (and powerful) race and then sticking another template onto it (without reading that template...Insectoid limbs can't wield weapons, IIRC) is likely to be decent at anything.

Still pretty weak though, comparatively. Not true level 40 material.

I think I'm done here.
Agreed, signed and worshipped, or whatever you say.


AirGuitarGod, I think you just need to accept the fact, that you're not a very good optimizer. Stop hiding behind lame excuses of you being high.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

People like you make people like me commit suicide....

Anyways, I actually was high last night, so forgive me. Here's a REAL build...for 40 levels

Race: Paragon Insectoid Thri-Kreen
Classes: Gestalt Monk/Ninja or fighter 10, Initiate of Dragonic Secrets 10, Acolyte of the Fist 10

This plus Superior Unarmed, Astetic fighter or stalker, a Monk's Belt, snap kick, roundabout kick, Multiweapon tree and 8 kamas of the scorpion is a combo.

Because I get 8 flurry of blows, a full unarmed strike for each, kama damage, and either a butload of feats or a full Sudden Strike

You do not have reach. You do not have pounce. You do not have epic spells. Prepare to die when facing Epic level challenges.

[mostlyharmful]

How to make good epic Melee... (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm)

At this level people to hit things are a standerd action away at any CR you want pretty much..

[Tshern]

You do not have epic spells. Prepare to die when facing Epic level challenges.
Fixed. No need to thank me.

[ex cathedra]

The best way to build a good epic melee character?

A good gish build with epic spells.

The best way to play him?

Out of melee.

Take a Necropolitan Human conjurer/abjurer/transmuter 5. Dip him in spelldancer, tainted scholar, and take 5 levels of abjurant champion. fill in the excess levels however you like; mindbender, paragnostic apostle, archmage, spellsword, shadow adept, IotSV, incantatrix, whatever.

You have an absolutely absurd amount of spell slots, and you can persist every spell you know (excluding necromancy, technically) for free. Arcane Disciple/Extra Spell into Divine Power, and maybe do something like Ocular Spell so that you can persist spells that you really shouldn't be able to; let's say, Triple Strike. Pick a weapon, it doesn't really matter which; I'm fond of using Heroics, Master's Touch, or similar spells to proficiency with a greathorn minotaur greathammer and greater mighty walloping it to bad places. Persist yourself some Bite of the Werebear, Divine Power, etc.

Do you see what you've done? You've made a melee character, without polymorph, that's better than nearly everything that isn't ubercharging, abusing infinite loops, or similarly achieving utterly and arbitrarily high amounts of damage. You have all the miss chances that you want, an AC that is routinely thrice your level or higher, and immediate action defenses to the extent that you'll never get the chance to use them all. And in epic levels, it doesn't really matter, because nothing you do with it will replicate properly used Epic Spellcasting, or even most non-epic spellcasting.

[Tshern]

Disjunction.

The point is, be immune.

[Geddoe]

I always liked the idea of advancing Shadowlord casting with Improved Spell Capacity to qualify for Epic Spellcasting(after a nice multi-shadow pounce build in the first 20 levels). Problem is that I could never figure out a real way to get it to work.

[Wings of Peace]

+ Roundabout Kick, You need 8 levels of the Disciple for the x3, You are correct on the 7 weapon master though.

+ 1-dip in warblade, just for the blood in the water stance. Every time you crit, you get a +1 to attack and damage rolls for 1 minute, which stacks with everything, including itself. No cap.

This has been discussed before, use a weapon with an 18-20 crit range, and with both Roundabout kick and Lightning Mace, it has a significantly greater than half chance of keeping on hitting the enemy until it dies, doing gradually more and more damage with your billions of attacks thanks to blood in the water. Psychic weapon master needs a crystal weapon, while disciple needs an iron one, though, remember that, so unless you can find an iron crystal weapon, (???) you can't use both.

Isn't there a material in Eberron called Crysteel or something along those lines? I'm thinking someone posted about it in another thread. For the most part I was unsure about the necessity about Blood in the Water since the build can already deal an absurd amount of PA damage and use Arcane Duelist for a big AB boost. Lightning Maces is mostly there to be a little extra oomph not the main meal. Though the build could be converted to use levels of Necrocarnate 1/Binder X/Umbral Disciple 10 for reach with the Rapier....

[Sinfire Titan]

{Scrubbed}

[AslanCross]

People like you make people like me commit suicide....

Anyways, I actually was high last night, so forgive me. Here's a REAL build...for 40 levels

Race: Paragon Insectoid Thri-Kreen
Classes: Gestalt Monk/Ninja or fighter 10, Initiate of Dragonic Secrets 10, Acolyte of the Fist 10

This plus Superior Unarmed, Astetic fighter or stalker, a Monk's Belt, snap kick, roundabout kick, Multiweapon tree and 8 kamas of the scorpion is a combo.

Because I get 8 flurry of blows, a full unarmed strike for each, kama damage, and either a butload of feats or a full Sudden Strike

I still don't get why you keep referring to ToB material without actually using the ToB classes.

Even without the Thri-Keen (which I find incredibly cheesy), my build still makes far more attacks.

[Mongoose87]

I always liked the idea of advancing Shadowlord casting with Improved Spell Capacity to qualify for Epic Spellcasting(after a nice multi-shadow pounce build in the first 20 levels). Problem is that I could never figure out a real way to get it to work.

Easier way: One level dip of Bard, then take levels in Sublime Chord.

[Signmaker]

Weapon you want: A CHAIN, Aptitude Valorous +X Greater Dispelling Chain of every property your sweet EWBL can pump onto it


Missing Thinaun for soul-stealing shenanigans. :smallwink:

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Locked for review and probably for good.