SRD only optimisation.

[Krull]

My brother and I are having a competition: epic levels vs. splatbooks.

Essentially, he will create a party of 4 lvl 20 gestalt characters using any splatbooks. I, meanwhile, will create a party of 4 lvl 30 gestalt characters using only the SRD. Additionally, we are both allowed to use homebrew as long as we both agree. Homebrew allowed so far is: Improved Monster Classes and the Mageblood Elf/Template (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157065&highlight=Mageblood), both from these boards.

The party must consist of:

1 Melee
1 Arcane
1 Divine
1 Skills


Help me maximise my chances of victory.

[Flickerdart]

Seriously? Level 30 classes? You don't even NEED the Gestalt. Or a party. A single Wizard 30 can create uber Epic spells and then mitigate them down to 0 using chain-gated Solars. Something like "dispel and then kill four guys of my choice, no save, no SR, works across planar boundaries". The only way he can beat you is with Pun-Pun.

Also, Epic wealth blows non-epic wealth out of the water, so your skill-user can load up on staves and Epic spell tablets and then UMD them, in case you didn't win the first time with your uberspell (and then the quickened uberspell, the other quickened uberspells you get from Epic feats, and the move action uberspell).

[Prime32]

Two random build suggestions:


Druid 20//Monk 2/Fighter 1/Psychic warrior 2/War Mind 10/Hierophant (Divine Reach x2, Power of Nature, SLA x2) 5
Feats: Natural Spell, Quicken Spell-like Ability

Wizard 20//Psion 5/Psion uncarnate 10/Assassin 5
Feats: Psionic Body


EDIT: Didn't spot "lv30".

[Krull]

Forgot to say that epic spells aren't allowed.

[Gavinfoxx]

Forgot to say that epic spells aren't allowed.

That completely changes things!

[Ozymandias]

Forgot to say that epic spells aren't allowed.

Then you aren't going to win, unfortunately.

[Flickerdart]

So basically you're denied your only advantage. That's hardly fair. Fortunately for you, most of the bets spells are Core anyway. Make sure that each character takes Epic Leadership for four Thrallherds, and design their thralls in such a way as to negate enemy actions - open with Disjunction, then Quickened Greater Dispel and Quickened Shatter, stuff like that.

[Draz74]

So basically you're denied your only advantage.

:smallconfused:

How is 10 extra levels per character not an advantage?

We're talking Clerics and Druids who can take Heirophant 5 and still have full (level 20) casting. We're talking Psions who can take Metamind 10 and still have full casting. We're talking skillmonkeys who also have full casting (especially considering it's also Gestalt).

That's before I even touch Epic Feats. (Multispell, anyone? Automatic Quicken Spell?)

I think the Epic 30 party should still beat the Splatbook 20 party, no problem. It's not as if the SRD has a shortage of Tier 1-2 classes, after all.

I'd do something like:

Melee: Druid 20 / War Mind 5 / Horizon Walker 5 // Ranger 3 / Barbarian 2 / Psychic Warrior 12 / Slayer 9 / Horizon Walker 4 (if you juggle the order of the levels around, you can do this without ever taking a prestige class on both sides in the same level)
Divine: Cloistered Cleric 20 / Heirophant 5 / Thaumaturgist 5 // Paladin of Tyranny 10 / Sorcerer 20
Arcane: Wizard (conjurer) 25 / Loremaster 3 / Archmage 2 // Psion (telepath) 10 / Thrallherd 10 / Metamind 10
Skills: Rogue 15 / Elocator 7 / Assassin 8 // Psion (shaper) 20 / Psion Uncarnate 7 / Elocator 3

[Gavinfoxx]

By "Melee", do you mean "Good at Melee", or "No 9th level spellcasting" or "No Nth level or above spellcasting"? If the latter, what level is N?

[Defiant]

Level 30 Fighter/Monk specializing in unarmed strikes

[Gavinfoxx]

Level 30 Fighter/Monk specializing in unarmed strikes

*Snort* That was funny!

[Tael]

Melee: Druid, turns into nasty epic animals. Picks up Multispell, Auto-quicken, etc.
Divine: Cleric, duh. Picks up Multispell, Auto-quicken, etc.
Arcane: Wizard, duh. Picks up Multispell, Auto-quicken, etc.
Skills: Another Wizard, duh. Picks up Multispell, Auto-quicken, etc.

[Crow]

Chrono-Legionairre for melee (minor tweaks to make it srd)
Wizard for arcane
Cleric-zilla for divine
Arcane Trickster for skills

Your epic wealth can close the gap elsewhere...the difference is really insane.

[SurlySeraph]

Consider having each party member, or an Unseen Servant or something for each, carry a whole bunch of non-epic Rods of Absorption. Whenever it fills up, draw another one; they're cheap at epic levels, and being able to ignore targeted and ray spells entirely is nice.

Genesis + Astral Projection. There is no valid reason to risk your lives when you could just hang out on a demiplane.

If he's halfway sensible, he'll start off by casting Disjunction on your party at least once. Have summoned monsters with scrolls, or your own party members, starting in multiple overlapping antimagic fields to protect yourself from the effects, or whatever to stop it.

Will Epic Leadership and Legendary Commander be allowed? Because 12,000 or so followers per party member can be handy. 10,000 attack rolls with Ghost Touch Slaying Arrows or something similar can be stopped, but not all that easily. Or you can just have one party members who maxes out leadership to get some 20th-level followers.

Do note that with the proper splatbooks, he can be immune to a lot of things. Damage, for example. Start the battle with Disjunction, preferably several Disjunctions (and, as mentioned before, have a lot of precautions against Disjunction). Have a lot of options. One path I recommend is Holy Word abuse; increase your CL as high as you can, and it'll be very hard for targets to survive. Don't rely too heavily on direct damage, mind-affecting, or any other single type of attack.


Level 30 Fighter/Monk specializing in unarmed strikes

Actually, you probably *could* do a decent build with that.

Exceptional Deflecton + Infinite Deflection + Reflect Arrows = immunity to anything that requires a ranged attack roll, plus sending it back at the caster.

Self-Concealment x5 + epic Hide and Move Silently ranks. Whenever you have your Dex bonus to AC, you can be always invisible, all the time, without magic. And since it says that it's "similar to concealment" rather than that it is concealment, the miss chance stacks with concealment. Pick up a Ring of Sequestering to be invisible (50% miss chance) and immune to divinations, and everyone has only a 25% chance of hitting of hitting you.

Vorpal Strike + lots of attacks. I'd go with a Four-Armed Sahuagin (takes up 5 levels), Whirling Frenzy Barbarian, make sure you get +16 BAB, 11 levels in Monk on the non-full-BAB side for Greater Flurry, and Haste. That's 8 attacks per round; now you take Perfect Multiweapon Fighting to make that 32 attacks per round. With any halfway decent luck, that's a kill.

[mootoall]

I think just a druid 20/ranger 10 (wildshape variant?)//cleric 20/ monk 10 for melee, cleric 20/ druid 10//sorcadin build 20/ wilder 10 (XPH is in the SRD!) for divine, wizard 20/ ranger 10// rogue 20/ Psion 10 (mix up this side for more PP) for skills, wizard 20/fighter 10// Psion 20/ whatever you want 10 for arcane! And that's without PRCs.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea, expect him to be immune to hit point damage... get a lot of disjunctions, and use something like metamagicked all to hell Chain Lightning (or whatever) to target all the visible magical items on each of the characters..

[Defiant]

Actually, you probably *could* do a decent build with that.

Exceptional Deflecton + Infinite Deflection + Reflect Arrows = immunity to anything that requires a ranged attack roll, plus sending it back at the caster.

Self-Concealment x5 + epic Hide and Move Silently ranks. Whenever you have your Dex bonus to AC, you can be always invisible, all the time, without magic. And since it says that it's "similar to concealment" rather than that it is concealment, the miss chance stacks with concealment. Pick up a Ring of Sequestering to be invisible (50% miss chance) and immune to divinations, and everyone has only a 25% chance of hitting of hitting you.

Vorpal Strike + lots of attacks. I'd go with a Four-Armed Sahuagin (takes up 5 levels), Whirling Frenzy Barbarian, make sure you get +16 BAB, 11 levels in Monk on the non-full-BAB side for Greater Flurry, and Haste. That's 8 attacks per round; now you take Perfect Multiweapon Fighting to make that 32 attacks per round. With any halfway decent luck, that's a kill.

:smalleek:

That might actually work...

[Flickerdart]

:smallconfused:

How is 10 extra levels per character not an advantage?

We're talking Clerics and Druids who can take Heirophant 5 and still have full (level 20) casting. We're talking Psions who can take Metamind 10 and still have full casting. We're talking skillmonkeys who also have full casting (especially considering it's also Gestalt).

That's before I even touch Epic Feats. (Multispell, anyone? Automatic Quicken Spell?)

I think the Epic 30 party should still beat the Splatbook 20 party, no problem. It's not as if the SRD has a shortage of Tier 1-2 classes, after all.

I'd do something like:

Melee: Druid 20 / War Mind 5 / Horizon Walker 5 // Ranger 3 / Barbarian 2 / Psychic Warrior 12 / Slayer 9 / Horizon Walker 4 (if you juggle the order of the levels around, you can do this without ever taking a prestige class on both sides in the same level)
Divine: Cloistered Cleric 20 / Heirophant 5 / Thaumaturgist 5 // Paladin of Tyranny 10 / Sorcerer 20
Arcane: Wizard (conjurer) 25 / Loremaster 3 / Archmage 2 // Psion (telepath) 10 / Thrallherd 10 / Metamind 10
Skills: Rogue 15 / Elocator 7 / Assassin 8 // Psion (shaper) 20 / Psion Uncarnate 7 / Elocator 3

None of that matters if you can't go first. The other guy can show up with Spell Stowaway: Time Stop and Celerity on everyone, and can use Red Wizard and Greater Consumptive Field to scale CL unto infinity for dispel checks or Holy Word.

[Tvtyrant]

Take the Improved Monster Class: Beholder all the way up, then max sorcerer on the rest. Once out of Sorc levels grab Bard levels to get Glibness; then use Greater Planar Ally to get a Pit Fiend as a friend. Now you have a ranged unit that fires 9 rays per round and has full casting (which can be cast regardless of the rays).

Apparently they can go into wizard, not sorcerer. In which case same tactic but with wizard instead. Also, since a Beholder counts as a wizard you can MT with Cleric to make an unholy ray casting abomination.

[Lateral]

None of that matters if you can't go first. The other guy can show up with Spell Stowaway: Time Stop and Celerity on everyone, and can use Red Wizard and Greater Consumptive Field to scale CL unto infinity for dispel checks or Holy Word.

I kinda assumed no pre-buffing. Build a team that always goes first. Always. Then kill them-- a full 30th-level divine caster's Holy Word (or Blasphemy, I guess) instantly kills them all with no save because they only have 20 hit dice. With pre-buffing, you may be a bit more in trouble.

[Godskook]

Note: Each character can have 60 total caster levels in base classes. Considering that it only takes 17-18 to make 9ths in *ANY* class, that means you can have at least 3 sets of 9ths by your level, more if you're allowed to use hybrid classes. This is the route I would go, personally, at least for 1 or 2 of the builds. A psion 17/wizard 17/cleric 17/X 9(Probably arranged as Wizard 17/Cleric 13//Cleric 4/Psion 17/X 9) is going to abuse the action economy like nobody's business, and he's going to have access to almost all the good buffs, by himself.

Also, remember that you have access to UA, which means things like Domain Wizards and Cloistered Clerics, to start the list off.

[Flickerdart]

I kinda assumed no pre-buffing. Build a team that always goes first. Always. Then kill them-- a full 30th-level divine caster's Holy Word (or Blasphemy, I guess) instantly kills them all with no save because they only have 20 hit dice. With pre-buffing, you may be a bit more in trouble.
Craft Contingent Spell, War Weaver...so many easy ways to get buffs up out of core.

[molten_dragon]

My brother and I are having a competition: epic levels vs. splatbooks.

Essentially, he will create a party of 4 lvl 20 gestalt characters using any splatbooks. I, meanwhile, will create a party of 4 lvl 30 gestalt characters using only the SRD. Additionally, we are both allowed to use homebrew as long as we both agree. Homebrew allowed so far is: Improved Monster Classes and the Mageblood Elf/Template (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157065&highlight=Mageblood), both from these boards.

The party must consist of:

1 Melee
1 Arcane
1 Divine
1 Skills


Help me maximise my chances of victory.

Hopefully there are some other restrictions here? Like no infinite loops? Otherwise, he's just going to show up with a team of 4 pun-puns and obliterate you.

[Zherog]

Also, remember that you have access to UA, which means things like Domain Wizards and Cloistered Clerics, to start the list off.

That depends on how pedantic of a definition of "SRD" you're using. Unearthed Arcana material is not actually in the SRD -- which is a series of RTF files you can download from WotC's site. (Or, at least, you could; I would imagine they took them down.) Unearthed Arcana is not included in those downloads. However, material from Unearthed Arcana is Open Game Content, and so the folks who run the d20srd.org decided to take advantage of that and include it on their site.

So if "SRD" means the official text files from WotC, UA material is out.
If "SRD" means anything on d20srd.org, then UA material is in.

[Godskook]

Hopefully there are some other restrictions here? Like no infinite loops? Otherwise, he's just going to show up with a team of 4 pun-puns and obliterate you.

@OP, if he does this, whip out the shards of leadership (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9927250&postcount=57) combo. At level 30, you'd get a 59 HD psicrystal without gestalt or flaws. Using either, you can get the 60HD needed to start the epic part of the loop without equipments. You now bring a NI amount of characters to the table, of growing power levels. Eventually, they're going to start being deities, and even if they're not, they're *ALL* subservient to you. This could arguably make *YOU* a deity.

Against pun-pun done *RIGHT* and RAW, you're still screwed, but if he just barely understands it, you've got him with things such as reality revision.