I May be Tiny but You're Dead (Redux) [3.5]

[Raiki]

Okay, a thread that I read a few months ago got me stuck on the idea posted in This Thread (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872846/I_May_Be_Tiny_But_Youre_Dead_the_other_melee_Kille r_Gnome_for_your_pleasure).

Basically, it's a build based on being small/tiny sized and using a combination of feats and PrC out of RoS and RotW to slaughter anything bigger than you while remaining nigh-untouchable. :smallcool:

Anyway, I'm going to be playing in a gestalt game here fairly soon, and this is the character I've come up with:

Race: Kobold (W/ Web enhancement)

Ability Scores (starting @ lvl 5, w/ +1 @ 4th +2 con bonus from Stoneblessed 3 already factored in)

Str: 9
Dex: 18
Con: 16
Int: 18
Wis: 14
Cha: 16
(Yeah, I rolled pretty well...)

Flaw 1: Shaky
Flaw 2: Murky-eyed

Bonus Feat 1: EWP (Gnomish Quickrazor)
Bonus Feat 2: Two Weapon Fighting

1 Swashbuckler1//Savant 1 (Weapon Finesse, Iajitsu Focus/appraise/craft (stoneworking) as class skills)
Feat: Weapon Focus (Rapier)

2 Swash 2// Monk 1 (Combat Expertise[Passive Way])

3 Swash 3// Stoneblessed 1 (Insightful strike) Feat: Carmendine Monk

4 R. Ninja 1//Stoneblessed 2 (N. Dodge +1, Sneak Attack +1d6, +4 dodge bonus vs. giants)

5 Fighter 1//Stoneblessed 3 (Titan Fighting as fighter feat, +2 con)

6: Blade Bravo 1//CA Ninja 1 (Flourish, Goad, Sudden Strike +1d6) Feat: Giantbane [cw]

7: Blade Bravo 2//Savant 2 (Bonus Feat: Underfoot Combat, Mobile Fighting)

8: Blade Bravo 3// CA Ninja 2 (Bonus Feat: Improved 2 Weapon Fighting, Ghost Step)

9: Blade Bravo 4//Rogue 1 (Melee Sneak Attack +1d6, Sneak Attack +1d6) Feat: Confound the Big Folk

10: Blade Bravo 5//Savant 3 (Size Advantage, Sneak Attack +1d6)

11: Blade Bravo 6//CA Ninja 3 (Bonus Feat: Greater Two Weapon Fighting, Sudden Strike +1d6, Poison Use)

12: Blade Bravo 7//Rogue 2 (Small but Deadly, Evasion) Feat: Weapon Focus (Quickrazor)

13: Blade Bravo 8//Rogue 3 (Melee Sneak Attack +1d6, Sneak Attack +1d6, ACF: Penetrating Strike)

14: Blade Bravo 9//Fighter 2 (Bonus Feat: Improved Initiative, Bonus Feat: Quick Draw)

15: Blade Bravo 10//Psychic Warrior 1 (Lethal Riposte, Bonus Feat: Mobility, Power: Compression) Feat: Elusive Target

16: Tempest 1 ???//Iajutsu Master 1 (Canny Defense)

17: Tempest 2 ???//Iajutsu Master 2 (Lightning Blade)

18: Tempest 3 ???//Iajutsu Master 3 Feat: Staggering Strike

19: Tempest 4 ???//Iajutsu Master 4 (Bonus Feat: Improved Trip)

20: Tempest 5 ???//Iajutsu Master 5 (Strike from the void)

A few things of note: We run Powerful/Sleight build as "You are treated as one size larger/smaller whenever beneficial" instead of the somewhat convoluted official rulings. Also, my DM has agreed to let me use WF: Quickrazor instead of WF: Katana to meet the pre-reqs for IM...mostly because this build is very feat-starved and she's nice.

Anyway, to get to the point, does anyone have any suggestions of ways to improve/further optimize the build?

(Oh, and we don't use ToB in my group, so please refrain from suggesting anything out of that particular book, any other 3.5 WotC material is OK.)

Edit: 18th level feat added. And I did forget to mention that this is a Ghostwalk game. Not a huge impact there, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Edit 2: PsyWar power added, Tempest abilities removed, Rogue ACF added.

[Duos Greanleef]

It appears to have everything needed for making big things fall down... and hard.
But the only real problem that I see is your race choice vs. your weapon of choice.
Would a kobold really use a weapon designed by gnomes?
sounds like bad RP juju to me.

[Raiki]

Actually, that's been taken into account. Notice the 3 levels of Stoneblessed. The background of the character involves being raised by gnomes as a kind of "experimental kobold giant-killing-machine" based on the assumption of "Hey, if it works, awesome. If it fails...meh, what's one more dead kobold?"

Besides, Kobold has always been my favorite race. Especially for making super-focused melee combatants...or necromancers that ride around inside hallowed out earth elementals. But that's another story.

~R~

[herrhauptmann]

Out of curiosity, why the one level in psychic warrior? Which powers are you planning to take with that? (I'd swear the pounce and expansion/shrink powers were all 2nd level)

[Grumman]

Actually, that's been taken into account. Notice the 3 levels of Stoneblessed. The background of the character involves being raised by gnomes as a kind of "experimental kobold giant-killing-machine" based on the assumption of "Hey, if it works, awesome. If it fails...meh, what's one more dead kobold?"
So it's a Voodoo Shark (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VoodooShark)? You fixed your bad RP juju by replacing it with more bad RP juju?

[Pluto]

A few things:

1. You have Prestige classes on two sides of the build. Tempest doesn't bring much to the table. Drop it.

2. That one level of Psychic Warrior bothers me. I like the idea of reducing yourself, but it would probably behoove you to do it well. One level means you need to spend combat rounds for this. I'd recommend slapping 20 levels of Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b) or Lurk onto the non-PrC side of the build for SA advancement and, more importantly, self-supplied casting abilities. Manifesting Compression for 2 size categories at 10 minutes/level seems much more useful than the extra couple damage dice you'll get out of the Rogue/Ninja thing you have going there. Also, Hustle is a very good thing for getting full attacks from within an enemy square.

3. Iajitsu Master is coming in way too late. Iajitsu Master 5 is huge.

4. I'm not seeing the benefit of Kobold over Whisper Gnome. Gnome saves a feat and 3 levels. One size category isn't that valuable.

5. Why fiddle with Carmendine Monk? It undermines the feat advantage you get from the Monk level in the first place. Unless you have a fetish for a high Int score, you have bigger things to worry about: It takes a lot of feats to pull this build together.

6. No level 18 feat?

7. I'm away from book, but I don't remember Underfoot Combat being on the Blade Bravo feat list.

8. I'd replace Spring Attack with Elusive Target. ET and a high Reflex save means never worrying about HP again.

I know you're absolutely starved for feats, but the standard sneak attack feats like Staggering Strike and Craven especially would be very useful here. If you can generate some feat slots, throw these in.

edit:
You're using the Rogue variant from Dungeonscape that adds half damage to crit-immune targets, right? If you aren't, you should.

And I don't know anything about Savant or R. Ninja, so I don't know how useful either will be here.

[Raiki]

1. You have Prestige classes on two sides of the build. Tempest doesn't bring much to the table. Drop it.

Actually, my DM is ok with 2 sided PrCing, so long as there aren't any theurge classes there. Those are just flat banned. As far as Tempest goes, I was just looking for something to pump TWF. It's not integral to the build and if you have a better suggestion I'd be glad to hear it. To be honest Melee characters aren't my forte.


2. That one level of Psychic Warrior bothers me. I like the idea of reducing yourself, but it would probably behoove you to do it well. One level means you need to spend combat rounds for this. I'd recommend slapping 20 levels of Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b) or Lurk onto the non-PrC side of the build for SA advancement and, more importantly, self-supplied casting abilities. Manifesting Compression for 2 size categories at 10 minutes/level seems much more useful than the extra couple damage dice you'll get out of the Rogue/Ninja thing you have going there. Also, Hustle is a very good thing for getting full attacks from within an enemy square.

Actually, the level of PsyWar wasn't for the powers. I was going for a cheap and easy bonus feat. The powers are just a bonus. As far as psychic rogue goes, I'm not sure. I did want to focus on as much precision damage as possible as early as possible, but the 5th level manifesting is tempting, I must say. I'll be seriously considering this.


3. Iajitsu Master is coming in way too late. Iajitsu Master 5 is huge. I could NOT agree with you more there. Unfortunately, due to the large number of feats required, to get into IM faster I'd have to delay entry into Blade Bravo, which is really this builds bread and butter. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. Feat wrangling...also not my specialty.


4. I'm not seeing the benefit of Kobold over Whisper Gnome. Gnome saves a feat and 3 levels. One size category isn't that valuable.

Actually the Kobold was mostly for style reasons. My DM has been convinced that dragonwrought sorcerors are the only kobolds worth playing. This build is partly to prove her wrong. Also, I think that being able to be tiny sized without relying on other party members or having to find a way to cast myself/invest alot of my WBL into wands is a definite plus.


5. Why fiddle with Carmendine Monk? It undermines the feat advantage you get from the Monk level in the first place. Unless you have a fetish for a high Int score, you have bigger things to worry about: It takes a lot of feats to pull this build together.

Well, the build, especially at earlier levels, does focus alot on having a ridiculously high AC. Adding my highest stat mod to AC is a definite win.


6. No level 18 feat?

Whoops, must have forgotten. When I get back to books I'll edit the post and add it.


7. I'm away from book, but I don't remember Underfoot Combat being on the Blade Bravo feat list.

Actually, that's a bonus feat from lvl 2 of Savant. I placed it there specifically to get that feat at the earliest possible level.


8. I'd replace Spring Attack with Elusive Target. ET and a high Reflex save means never worrying about HP again.

To be honest, Spring Attack was only to qualify for Tempest. If I can find (or someone can suggest) a better class for those levels, I'll almost definitely drop it. And as for Elusive Target...I'm not sure how I managed to forget that. It was in my original plan, but didn't seem to make it into the build. I'll rectify that as soon as I'm back with my books.


I know you're absolutely starved for feats, but the standard sneak attack feats like Staggering Strike and Craven especially would be very useful here. If you can generate some feat slots, throw these in.


edit:
You're using the Rogue variant from Dungeonscape that adds half damage to crit-immune targets, right? If you aren't, you should.

Staggering strike is probably going to make it into the final build, but my DM ruled that Craven doesn't fit for a character meant to run beneath the a dragon and stab him in the squicky bits. Damn anti-optimizer DMs. :smallyuk:

And as far as the variant...I'm using it now. I completely forgot about that. Thanks for catching that for me.

Anyway, thanks for all the comments and suggestions guys, you've been a great help so far. Keep'm coming!

~R~

[LemonSkye]

Reading through your response to the others who've posted here, I have to ask, if you're so out of your element with this build, why are you running this character? If it's just to "stick it to your DM", as you seem to insinuate, it doesn't seem to me like either one of you are going to enjoy this game in the long run. In my experience, pitting player vs. DM in that fashion never ends well.

Anyhow, you were looking for actual character advice, so here goes:

The "get under something and lie in wait" style you said you were going for doesn't jive with the Spring Attack chain. Drop Tempest, and find something to pump your AoO's instead. I'm away from my books at the moment, but I know one of the Dragon magazine had a whole bunch of feats that were specifically designed to increase the number of AoO's you got per round.

[erikun]

Doesn't the Complete Warrior Samurai class grant you +1 BAB and a free feat? It seems like it would be more useful than the 1 PP and single power from one level of Psychic Warrior.

[Person_Man]

I would cut out Tempest and Blade Bravo entirely. All you really need is Confound the Big Folk, Iajutso Focus (which anyone can do cross class, and then boost any number of ways), Gnomish Quickrazor, and some method of getting really small.

You really don't need any specific class to accomplish those things. So there's really no reason for you to not use a stronger choice, like pure Psychic Warrior, Totemist, Factotum (see my Haberdash (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88633) build), any ToB class, etc.

Also, here's my Fine But Deadly Knight (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109429) build, which includes a list of ways to get really small:

Brave, Brave, Sir Sparrow

The key to this build is a feat called Confound the Bigfolk from Races of the Wild. It has some very specific mechanics you have to follow, but basically if you're two sizes smaller then your enemy then you can move into his square, and the next round he’s Flat Footed against you, and when other enemies attack you they have a 50% chance of hitting the enemy in your square instead of you.

Now, there are a bunch of different methods for getting really small (preferably Fine, so you can effect anyone who is Tiny size or larger):

Reduce Person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ReducePerson.htm)
Compression (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/compression.htm)
Alter Self (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/alterSelf.htm)
Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorph.htm)
Polymorph Any Object (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorphAnyObject.htm)
Ring of Reduction (Lords of Madness pg. 130)
Divine Minion (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a) template (hawk or cat).
Tibbit (Polymorph into cat, Dragon Compendium).
Jermalaine (MMII)
Muckdweller (Serpent Kingdoms)
Master of Many Forms (Wildshape: Diminutive at 8th, Complete Adventurer)
Hengeyokai (Polymorph into sparrow, Oriental Adventures)


My suggestion is Hengeyokai because sparrows are Fine sized.

Once you’ve found a way to get really small, the tactics are pretty strait forward:

1) Move into an enemy's square and find something to do for one round.

2) Use Test of Mettle. Enemies attack you. They have a 50% chance of hitting their friend, and a 50% chance of hitting you (which should be very difficult, given your Size, Dex, armor, shield, Underfoot/Confound bonuses, Combat Expertise, etc). If they kill the enemy whose square you're in, move into another enemy's square.

3) If he’s still alive, attack the enemy whose square you are in. He’ll count as being Flat Footed, which opens him up to Sneak Attack, Sudden Strike, and Iaijutsu Focus.

Iaijutsu Focus (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/3.5_L5R_Skills) is a Skill from Oriental Adventures. (By RAW, 3.0 is grandfathered into 3.5, and the Samurai and Factotum both get it as class Skills). Whenever you are making an attack roll immediately after drawing a weapon and your target is Flat Footed you may make an Iaijutsu Focus check as a free action. You can gain massive damage to your attack, based on your check. And it goes without saying that Skills are quite easy to boost via feats, items, dips into Marshal, Item Familiars, and spells. You can use Quickdraw (Knight bonus feat) to draw a weapon every time you want to attack, or invest in Exotic Weapon Prof (Gnome Quickrazor, from Races of Stone), which is a free action to draw and sheath.

Of course, to use this last tactic successfully, you’ll need a modification on your Knight Code (which makes you lose a Knight Challenge every time you hit a Flat-Footed enemy) from your DM. Or you can use your actions to do other things - magic items, Demoralize, other class features, etc.

Special thanks to Darrin for suggesting most of the ways to get very small in various threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77831) on similar topics.

[gallagher]

i once thought to take tempest, but i found taking barbarian levels more fun. D12 HD, raging ability, full BAB, it was pretty fun with TWP

[Raiki]

I would cut out Tempest and Blade Bravo entirely.

I've actually decided that I am going to drop Tempest, but I do rather like Blade Bravo. As I've said before, I have to play this build starting at level 5, so the enhanced survivability offered by the AC jacking BB abilities will really help.

I know I'm going to replace the spring attack feat with Elusive Target from CW, but I'm still at a loss as to what to replace the 5 tempest levels with. I was briefly considering Occult Slayer since I could easily meet all the pre-reqs by that level, but then I looked at it and remembered how bad it is.

Any other suggestions?