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PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-02-19, 12:23 AM
Revised from my/the last record-holder (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3084.0)

Interpretation Warnings:
This build uses the interpretation that the Special Mount ability and a paladin's mount are interchangeable. The rationale is that because no other class in core has a special mount besides the paladin class, any abilities/feats/items,etc mentioning special mounts are in fact referencing all paladin-like Special Mount abilities.

It also uses the interpretation that non-LG paladin-like special mount classes (including Paladin of Freedom, Tyranny, etc) should select appropriately aligned dragon mounts, instead of "only a lawful good dragon should be allowed to serve as a paladin's special mount" (Drac 139).

It is clear from Table 3-13 that mounts may gain age categories in lieu of HD and from the advanced dragons rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/dragonAdvanced.htm) that age categories depend on HD whilst time is the usual corollary. I am also going with the conservative estimates on an advanced dragon mounts stats, since I would think the statistics for a great wyrm however are not bonuses.

I also do not play semantics about abilities as class features versus abilities as well I don't know what. Basically abilities that are only available as class features in core are refered to as "the class feature X" or "X class feature" for prerequisites in order to help the player know where to find these abilities. This is basically the same logical as the Special Mount part above.

These are more than reasonable interpretations, I trust. If you disagree, please do not post your reasons as I do not want to derail the thread. I will be more than happy to respond to these by PM and update the opening post if necessary.

Cheese Warning:
This build makes heavy use of my Prestige Class Prerequisite Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7061.0) and assumes a 'helping' character to make this build possible with no base classes. The character should be a CG warforged x / Warchanter 10 / Heartfire Fanner 1 / x with Words of Creation who follows the character around until just after level 5. After this point the build is self-sufficient. For extra cheese this character could know psychic reformation and save you some money, but my build has assumed this isn't the case. Note that this slipping, Belkar-like character shouldn't do anything very evil in the presence of his helper.

Oh yea I also assume I don't lose benefits from Animal lord by changing alignment on 1 axis. I don't put this under interpretations because we all know penalizing character evolution is not cool, but abuse it is cheesy. I just would think keeping the PrC's benefits is acceptable cheese.

The Build: CN->CE LA bought off Amphibious Draconic Celestial Spiritfolk (bamboo) with a custom Major Bloodline similar to demon or titan

Animal Lord (Bear) 1 / Waverider 1 / Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Baphomet 1 / Beast Master 1 / Arcane Heirophant 10 / Legacy Champion 6

First 5 levels extremely cramped feats (assumes WBL):
1) Magical Training, Endurance (flaw), Skill Knowledge[Handle Animal&Intimidate->Knowledge(Arcana)*] (flaw)
1) Enter 2 Pacts Insidious for Precocious Apprentice & Mounted Combat
1) Serving an Elder Evil gives a vile feat -> Mounted Archery {@ level 2}

1-3, but HD3 feat) Skill Focus (Handle Animal) from Inspire Greatness HD

2) Power Attack Bloodline Feat
{2} Become Necropolitan right before 3 then Psychic Reformation a moderate taint feat 1 into Great Fortitude by paying a Psion 14 for a manifesting and some PP
{2} Psychic Reformation a severe taint feat 2 into Improved Bullrush

3) Thrall to Demon
{3} The Frog God's Fane location Skill Focus feat -> Skill Focus (Handle Animal) [removed for possible TO]

4) Eschew Materials Bloodline Feat
{4} Ritual of Prophecy's Dragon Prophecier feat -> Santuary Spell

{5} Otyugh's Hole's locations' Ironwill feat -> Practiced Caster
{5} Elder Evil vile feat -> Obtain Familiar

{}= use one of three ML1 Psychic Reformations from one of two ML1 Soul Crystals from a twice-paid Psion 14 (70+40*4gp each)

*Just before taking the level of Arcane Hierophant this character will Psychic Reformation the skill knowledge feat to work with Knowledge Arcana instead of Intimidate.

Note that Bamboo Spiritfolk cast speak with animals as a divine spell (the default is druid in this case) which is bumped by santuary spell. Unfortunately the divine casting for Arcane Hierophant advances nothing and the arcane casting only adds for familiar levels via the obtain familiar feat.

The rest of the feats in no particular order:
6 Theurgic Mount
9 Theurgic Bond
{10} Natural Bond (buy a Psychic Reformation even without Soul Crystal)
12 Dragon Steed
15 Holy Mount
{15} Devoted Tracker
18 Winter's Mount (the +2con is already added to the stats below)
{20} any

Note: When the helper character ditches, bump each feat up so Winter's Mount is the level 20 reformatted feat and take Skill Focus (Handle Animal) as your current feat.

Why each class level is optimal:
0-1 The animal lord buffs Effect Druid Level if you have an animal companion (later) and can be entered at ECL1 (this is very, very hard!)

1-2 Waverider advances an aqautic( = must have swim speed and breathe water) Special Mount by ECL not by class level

2-3 Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Baphomet gives a unique, fiendish animal companion with effective druid level doubled
Note: animal lord and natural bond don't advance the animal companion-giving class, they seperately advance effective druid level - great for rangers, not as good for us.

3-4 Beast Master gives a unique, hefty animal companion buff to our animal companion giving class

4 -14 Arcane Heirophant gives divine and arcane bumps to our Special mount thanks to Holy Mount and Theurgic Mount, gives familiar bonuses which we double dip on our animal companion thanks to the wording of Obtain Familiar combined with Theurgic Bond, and full advances our animal companion-granting class which is doubled because of Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Baphomet. Whoa

14 - 20 Legacy Champion continues 5 more shadow levels of Arcane Hierophant

Critter tracking, or you got a 99HD dragon how?:
First the silly animal lord animal thing is opted out of / goes away upon gaining our animal companion

Second our normal-ish aquatic animal companion can die / get rechosen into a dragonel thanks to the Dragon Steed feat. Then once we have enough mount boosts use the Special Mount rules to gain a Young then Juvenile Black dragon as per DracoNOMicon's Table 3-17 (since we are CE, not LG)


We gain a familiar via the Obtain Familiar feat. Since we count as a Wizard 1 from Magical Training we then advance the caster level necessary for the feat through Practiced caster. Our familiar level bumps are based on the sum of our arcane caster level, which gets adding into our animal companion bumps thanks to Theurgic Bond.

Note: I assume that this feat stack twice by first taking the feat for a Familiar/Animal Companion by dumping all the bonuses from the Animal Companion/Familiar into the Familiar/Animal Companion and then get them back again on the Animal Companion/Familiar upon retaking the feat with the Animal Companion/Familiar in mind. It cries unnamed bonus foul. See? I really do take the reasonable interpretation...


Upon taking Arcane Heirophant levels we ditch our Familiar to give its bump gains apply to our Animal Companion. Pretty standard.

Then upon taking the devoted tracker feat we ditch our Animal Companion to give its bump gains apply to our Special Mount. "The mount gains all the benefits of being both your special mount and your animal companion." Since being my animal companion also gave it those lovely familiar bonuses, those carry over too. Pretty standard. Except remember that special mount is a dragon :smallbiggrin:

Total stats of the still aquatic black dragon Special Mount counting as Animal Companion with heavy Familiar bonuses:

Arcane Hierophant Gains including Legacy Weapon bumps
15*2+(4+1)*2 AC via familiar from casting
15*2 AC via straight familiar
15*2+3*1 straight AC
15+15mount via feats

Animal Lord = 1*1 AC
demoNOMicon of Iggwilv: Baphomet = 1*2 AC
Waverider = 20 mount (calculated by ECL)
Beast Master = 4*2 AC
3*2 AC from major bloodline


AC = 40+30+33+11 = 120 -> +70HD, +70nat, +35str, +35dex, 36bonus tricks

mount = -17+30 = +13 -> +6HD, +6nat, +3str, above ECL20WR (-17 for black juvenile dragon as mount)

Waverider = +10HD, +8Nat, +7Str

45th level familiar gains = +22nat, 15+12int, 50SR, familiar spell feat
----
+86HD, +119nat, +45Str, +35Dex, 36bonus tricks

What does this make our beefed up dragon look like?:
Black dragon juvenile:13HD requires 24hd to be great wyrm (62/3->20 age categories)

20 x Advanced Colossal++ Great wyrm Black dragon 99d12+(643+*99hp) with 15/epic DR and 11 bonus improved spell capacity's

120Str, 45dex, 69con, 47int, 41wis, 40cha, +99BAB/+170Grapple, +154Attack, +80Fort, +68Refl, +66Will, 64d4BW (DC88), 74Fightful Presence

70'land, fly 300'(clumsy), swim 60' +17initiative, 223 201AC (-8 size, +217 195 natural, +17dex), touch 19, flat-footed 206 184, CL 55th, 90SR

Note: I did remember the familiar 50SR, and 27int and +10'. The up to great wyrm additions don't stack for me because I am (again) taking the conservative position, but the advanced bonuses after that do add to this from the familiar gains.

Animal Companion special qualities:Link (unneeded), share spells, Evasion, Devotion, Multiattack, Improved evasion.

Special Mount: Improved Evasion, Share Spells, Empathic Link, share saving throws (uneeded), speak with animals of its kind (uneeded), Fast Movement, Spell Resistance (not as good as familiar's).

Familiar special qualities: Alertness, improved evasion (already has), share spells (already has), empathic link (already has), Deliver touch spells, speak with master & animals of its kind (already has), Spell resistance (stackage mentioned), Scry on familiar.

Final "You missed one!" note:
Sadly in order to maximize HD, I did not include either the mildly questionable but totally awesome fleshgrafter PrC to perhaps gain Colossal++ size

I also know that I did not make the dragon my Cohort so it counts as a "Cohort Aquatic Special Mount Familiar Companion 1337 Rolf Rolf" build through use of the Dragonrider PrC (Dragonlance campaign Setting). Sorry.

Finally I have now 4 versions of this build. The one I haven't mentioned anything about so far was a slightly less HD version which tried Windrider, Dragonrider, Ranger Knight, and Uncanny Tricksterx3 instead of Legacy Champion. Neither that nor Prestigious Paladin were optimal.


Finally if this offends your sense of decency (whilst it should - it has nearly sold its soul and serves an elder evil!) be nice. I revised this a few times and I might have missed something that I did not mention. The parts I did mention (mechanically, the numbers might be off) I trust are correct.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-02-19, 10:17 PM
I suspected so. There was a small mistake on the familiar level (45 not 70). I adjusted the black dragon's stats (-13nat, -13int, -25SR).

I'm glad for the PMs. I am sad to see that the person who requested this build (which took 3 days) and post hasn't commented...

I suppose I'll add the special qualities while I'm at it.

Pluto
2010-02-19, 11:01 PM
Ha Ha :smallbiggrin:
Very nice.


I like the way you packaged this too (Interpretations/Reasonings/etc). Digging up books to recheck exactly which wordings allow the combinations to work is a bitch.

Zeta Kai
2010-02-20, 12:48 AM
You should stop posting, Pluto.

Not because you don't have things of value to say. But because you are currently a Dwarf, just like your planetary namesake. :smalltongue:

[/off-topic]

FishAreWet
2010-02-20, 01:10 AM
:smallbiggrin:

It's nice to see things like this.
I'm usually not comfortable with this amount of cheese in character building but it's still a great theoretical exercise.

I ask you think because you're familiar with the classes, what is a build based off this concept capable of if it doesn't use that amount of early entry cheese?

Gan The Grey
2010-02-20, 03:53 AM
I am pretty sure that when you ditch a familiar upon gaining your first level of arcane hierophant, the natural AC bonus of the familiar does NOT get applied to the animal companion. It leaves that part out in the 'Companion Familiar' description.


In addition, your animal companion (if any) gains many of the abilities that a familiar would normally possess. You add your arcane hierophant class level to your arcane spellcasting class level, and determine the Intelligence bonus and special abilities of your animal companion accordingly ...

Special abilities gained would be the ones in the far right column, such as Improved Evasion and Spell resistance. So this specifically excludes the natural armor increases.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-02-20, 03:41 PM
:smallbiggrin:

It's nice to see things like this.
I'm usually not comfortable with this amount of cheese in character building but it's still a great theoretical exercise.

I ask you think because you're familiar with the classes, what is a build based off this concept capable of if it doesn't use that amount of early entry cheese?I posted the previous record at the top. Pillage what you want.

Basically do X 5 / DemoNOM... 1 / AH 10 / LC 4 for less win :smallwink:


this specifically excludes the natural armor increases.It seems you are right RAW. Thanks for the heads up. It would seem it should, but oh well :smallsmile:

Atleast the SR mostly works. Familiars don't get jack. :smallannoyed:

Volthawk
2010-02-20, 03:42 PM
I suspected so. There was a small mistake on the familiar level (45 not 70). I adjusted the black dragon's stats (-13nat, -13int, -25SR).

I'm glad for the PMs. I am sad to see that the person who requested this build (which took 3 days) and post hasn't commented...

Sorry, I did read it as soon as you poted it , I just didn't post.

Secondly, how are you not taking base class levels again? I didn't quite understand that part.

sofawall
2010-02-20, 03:59 PM
Hmm. This build works, but I instinctively dislike any build that needs some sort of backstory fulfilled. I prefer builds that are doable at character creation, and don't have to evolve into the build.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-02-20, 04:06 PM
needs some sort of backstory fulfilled.If your talking about the helper from levels 0-5 then guilty as charged. Otherwise this build is self-sufficient.


how are you not taking base class levels again? I didn't quite understand that part.It uses a second character to achieve maximal early entry.

Warchanters give BaB. Inspire Greatness gives skills while words of creation boosts it

Technically it should give a feat also. I didn't add in this 'free feat' because it felt cheap, goes away (and matters) if the helper goes away, and could move around which level it occurs at if the singing starts and stops.

On second thought I think I like that feat better than the Frog God's Fane in case the Knowledge check isn't made (no retry and this character can't auto-succeed). I prefer to stay out of TO territory even considering the level of cheese I use. :smallwink:

sofawall
2010-02-20, 04:22 PM
If your talking about the helper from levels 0-5 then guilty as charged. Otherwise this build is self-sufficient.

That is what I am talking about. I mean, it's a damn good piece of optimization, but it's not what I look for.

Soranar
2010-02-20, 04:49 PM
You stack holy mount with theurgic mount using the same class. I know you warned against cheese but I like to argue cheese.

There is a problem with your interpretation. If both feats do the same action (add your Paladin to your divine spellcasting, add your Paladin to you Arcane spellcasting). If both classes are the same, the amount doesn't stack.

Just like prestige classes that boosts animal companions or mounts don't progress both, they do one or the other.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-02-21, 03:17 PM
If both feats do the same action (add your Paladin to your divine spellcasting, add your Paladin to you Arcane spellcasting). If both classes are the same, the amount doesn't stack.

Just like prestige classes that boosts animal companions or mounts don't progress both, they do one or the other.The feats count as different sources. The fact that they calculate their gains in similar ways is not relevant to their stackage.

I didn't use any 'animal companion or special mount' gaining classes. However a lone "or" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_disjunction) includes the meaning of "and" in English. If you mean to xor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xor) two things, English speakers say "Either ... or ..." :smallamused:

Soranar
2010-02-21, 03:19 PM
As a general rule

bonuses from the same source (in this case your dualcasting class) do not stack

and I may not be a native english speaker , but ''or'' doesn't signify ''and''

that's why the expression and/or was invented

or

1.
(used to connect words, phrases, or clauses representing alternatives): books or magazines; to be or not to be.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-02-22, 05:11 PM
As a general rule

bonuses from the same source (in this case your dualcasting class) do not stack

and I may not be a native english speaker , but ''or'' doesn't signify ''and''

that's why the expression and/or was invented

or

1.
(used to connect words, phrases, or clauses representing alternatives): books or magazines; to be or not to be.The source of the bonus is the feat. Please don't try to say otherwise because it without the feat I wouldn't have the bonus, even with the class. The bonuses are different because they are differently named feats. Remember that they pull from all total levels that advance divine/arcane. Don't overthink this :smallbiggrin:

Yes 'or' is a conjuction. Though many are not aware of its logical meaning, 'or' does include the meaning of 'and'. It is ambiguous due to its truth table values. This isn't relevant to the build. See the wikipedia reading.

Soranar
2010-02-22, 05:36 PM
The source that grants the bonuses is different because they are differently named feats. Remember that they pull from all total levels that advance divine/arcane. Don't overthink this :smallbiggrin:

Yes 'or' is a conjuction. Though many are not aware of its logical meaning, 'or' does include the meaning of 'and'. It is ambiguous due to its truth table values. This isn't relevant to the build. See the wikipedia reading.

or can mean and in sentences in which the two options mean the same thing:

This man is big or large.

But in a different sentence like this one:

Do you want vanilla or chocolate?

it's meaning becomes an option. You cannot have both.

As for poorly worded feats, it's difficult to decide which (WOTC or Dragon Mag) made the worst ones.

And the source of the bonus is not the feat, the feat makes your class grant you a bonus.

Fortuna
2010-02-22, 09:34 PM
You realize that vanilla or chocolate interpreted your way is standard English and not logic. The debate is not what or means: it is whether feats etc. use standard english or logical english.

Soranar
2010-02-22, 09:41 PM
You realize that vanilla or chocolate interpreted your way is standard English and not logic. The debate is not what or means: it is whether feats etc. use standard english or logical english.

But then the question becomes what the creators of the prestige class had in mind when they made it. Where they lawyers , or English speakers?

Beorn080
2010-02-22, 10:03 PM
They were employees/writing for WotC, and therefore unlikely english speakers or lawyers.

Akal Saris
2010-02-22, 10:50 PM
1: While everyone has their own interpretation of what is RAW and what isn't, the build has several questionable assumptions and interpretations, uses TO methods of early entry through some sort of weird heartfanner temporary HD advancement or something, has a custom bloodline, assumes LA buyoff, uses flaws, and relies heavily on dragon magazine material.

Now, there's nothing wrong with any of that, but it doesn't seem to me that this "world record" is playing by the same rules that everybody else plays by.

2. I'm actually working on a handbook to the supermount and other methods to gain an arbitrarily large creature as your sidekick. I'll link this build if you don't mind. Even if the combination is too shaky for my own taste, I'm sure there are players out there who find it perfectly reasonable.

FishAreWet: A build that doesn't use that amount of cheese could be as simple as paladin 5/wizard 3/druid 4/arcane hierophant 8. Gets 6th level druid spells, 6th level wiz spells, BAB+14 or so, and with enough of the right feats, a mount with something like paladin 17/druid 20/wiz 20 advancement (probably more, actually). Unfortunately, it would run into alignment issues between druid and paladin.

Edit: reread the post and decided it was too harsh. It's still a little harsh, but I don't mean to offend you so much as point out that maybe you should try to make a world record build without using the heartfanner for early entry, the custom bloodline, or the RAW-shaky interpretations of the rules.

Ormagoden
2010-02-22, 10:59 PM
The feats count as different sources. The fact that they calculate their gains in similar ways is not relevant to their stackage.

I didn't use any 'animal companion or special mount' gaining classes. However a lone "or" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_disjunction) includes the meaning of "and" in English. If you mean to xor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xor) two things, English speakers say "Either ... or ..." :smallamused:

The dude just dropped Xor, all arguments are over.