The "Best" Character Builds (3.5)

[TheDMofDMs]

Hey. I've just hopped on here, so I thought I'd start this thread.

I've watched a lot of players commit to power gaming, to min-maxing and optimization, and though I'm sure the spirit of the role-playing game lies elsewhere, I'm curious.

If a D.M. lets their players have free rein with every supplement ever made, the campaign will probably fall apart, and devolve into "bang, you're dead" "no, I dodged" sort of thing. So, let's say you're limited to the three core books. Maybe one extra one. What's the craziest thing you can come up with? I mean, besides Pun-Pun.

I'll throw down my lot first:

The easiest is a caster with the Vow of Poverty from the Book of Exalted Deeds. With the bonus feats from the Vow, you take the Vow of Non-Violence and the Vow of Peace. Suddenly, you're forcing opponents to make Will saves with outrageously high DC's or be neutralized.

The more absurd I can think of would just involve the core books, and the Leadership feat. Be a cleric. Cast Animate Dead. Your cohort, by the way, is also a cleric. Who has the leadership feat.
This one would obviously take a while to get in full-swing, but adding the Libris Mortis and it's Corpsecrafter feats bump things up into further absurdity.
I actually had a "Munchkin Duel" with one of my players-a notorious power gamer, who we even caught outright cheating to gain some glory-and I used this last concept. We were, of course, level 20. I don't know what his build was, unfortunately, because I won the initiative and ordered my army of hill giant skeletons to throw boulders at him.

Well, anyway, those are the two silliest builds I can think of. What say you?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Druid 20, Natural Spell, win with core-only.

Cleric with Thaumaturgist, get a Ghaele Eladrin as your Planar Cohort, break the game with core-only.

Wizard, Candle of Invocation, summon an Efreet, wish for three more candles, infinite wish chain, core-only.

Limiting books doesn't stop broken tricks from happening, it just hurts the already weak nonspellcasters by limiting their options. Spellcasters will be powerful regardless of what books are available, allowing most of the official 3.5 content helps to make nonspellcasters feel useful when there are well-played spellcasters in the party.

[Greenish]

Thrallherd with two thrallherd thralls (who may or may not have thrallherd thralls) and a psicrystal with leadership with a circle caster as a cohort.

Of course, one of the thrall's thralls should be a necrocarnate so that you can thin the herd.

[Keld Denar]

Books don't kill campaigns. Malicious players with books kill campaigns.

Don't eliminate the books, eliminate the malicious players.

That said...Pun-Pun. /thread

Ok, so...other than Pun-Pun...

How about the 3 most rediculous PrCs?

Beholder Mage
Illithid Savant
Tainted Scholar

And build involving those is inherantly dumb. Period.

[Master_Rahl22]

If you want TO builds (Theoretical Optimization, generally based on strict and/or slightly warped readings of RAW and not meant to ever be played in games) then you'll see some doozies. There's The Omniscifier (can get infinite Knowledge checks and use those to do just about anything), Chuck (circles the globe 2 or 3 times in one round), the Jumplomancer (uses the Exemplar from Complete Adventurer which allows one to make a skill check and use that result instead of Diplomacy, then jumps several miles into the air to make everything within sight worship him), the 1d2 Crusader (uses abilites to reroll 1s on damage, and roll damage again when max to get infinite damage) etc.

I don't have links for these but some quick Googling should turn them up. I will also second Biffoniacus_Furiou that disallowing books doesn't stop cheese, it just limits the cheese available to casters.

[Keinnicht]

War Hulk.

Seriously. I played a half-ogre war hulk who, at high levels with items and stuff, had a strength score of 63.

Which means that I probably could have grappled and pinned an ancient red dragon with very little issue.

[pilvento]

Books don't kill campaigns. Malicious players with books kill campaigns.

Don't eliminate the books, eliminate the malicious players.



AMEN, the thirst for optimization of ur party is the enemy.

[Greenish]

Which means that I probably could have grappled and pinned an ancient red dragon with very little issue.If you're not even aiming at grappling the tarrasque, you're not really trying. :smalltongue:

[Edit]: Oh yeah, Planar Shepherd of the Plane of Dreams, since we're being silly.

[Typewriter]

War Hulk.

Seriously. I played a half-ogre war hulk who, at high levels with items and stuff, had a strength score of 63.

Which means that I probably could have grappled and pinned an ancient red dragon with very little issue.

War Hulk is my all time favorite PrC all because of one ability: No time to think

Love it.

[Hyfigh]

AMEN, the thirst for optimization of ur party is the enemy.

Isn't this a text-book display of the Stormwind Fallacy? You can optimize without sacrificing your ability to role-play. Having characters that are well optimized doesn't mean they are inherently broken. Playing with the intent to break the game is the enemy; not optimization.

@ the OP: "Best" build is a relative term. Game breaking, well optimized, well optimized for what it is, "best" for it's category, etc... There are quite a few different ideals that can be addressed... Mind narrowing things down?

[SurlySeraph]

While it's not so much a build as smart use of WBL and abuse of the Stronghold Builder's Handbook, sofawall's Cube build is beautiful. It's basically just a flying house whose occupant is nigh-impossible to reach, that flies around controlling the weather and bumping you with a Prismatic Wall until you die.

I recall seeing some kind of theurge build that managed to work in Planar Shepherd, Tainted Scholar, *and* Beholder Mage with double 9s, 10 actions per round due to that stupid plane of dreams, and nigh-infinite caster level, but don't remember the details.

[pilvento]

Isn't this a text-book display of the Stormwind Fallacy? You can optimize without sacrificing your ability to role-play. Having characters that are well optimized doesn't mean they are inherently broken. Playing with the intent to break the game is the enemy; not optimization.

@ the OP: "Best" build is a relative term. Game breaking, well optimized, well optimized for what it is, "best" for it's category, etc... There are quite a few different ideals that can be addressed... Mind narrowing things down?

i try to think that the op gamebreak of some of my friends is not a bad intention. when i optimize i leave some wholes in my build so the dm can use them. but an optimized character lots of ac, hp, saves, ar, dmg etc and players end making thinks like that cause they are afraid of the dm or just to prove who is the best in the gaming table.

[Hyfigh]

i try to think that the op gamebreak of some of my friends is not a bad intention. when i optimize i leave some wholes in my build so the dm can use them. but an optimized character lots of ac, hp, saves, ar, dmg etc and players end making thinks like that cause they are afraid of the dm or just to prove who is the best in the gaming table.

I see. Your view matches, just stated in a way that I hadn't understood. I don't think players should play to break a game, or prove they're the best; unless, of course, that's the purpose of the game. That's not role-playing. An optimized character can be built and played well without one hindering the other.

[Kansaschaser]

Well, if we are doing the 3 core books plus one other book of our choice, I choose to use the 3 core books with Unearthed Arcana sprinkled in.

I'll play a gestalt character with variant races, flaws and traits, racial paragons, and spell points. There are so many things I could optimize using that. :smallbiggrin: