Building a Deva Avenger

[herrhauptmann]

A few weeks ago, one of my friends who played 4E died, so next week we're going to have a 'memorial game' in his memory. One of the criteria is that we play a character which Matt had interacted with. Ideally with one of his own characters, but a memorable one that he DM'd is good too.

The problem though, is that I haven't played 4E in over a year, and I've never made or played a level 23 character. If I start this on my own, it'll take me forever, so I'm asking for help here.



Deva Avenger. Set in the Forgotten Realms.
The background for this character is that while he remembers his past lives, he wasn't a deva then. (Past lives are all my old AD&D and 3.X characters), with the most recent one being an epic wizard who managed to Gate back to Faerun after being trapped in a demiplane (nicer version of Ravenloft) for 30+ years. The problem was that he returned moments before Mystra died and magic left the world. (Imagine going from epic wizard, back to level 1. He didn't take it so well.)

As a character, his goal was to restore Mystra to life, and kill Cyric and Shar. As a set of gaming rules oddities, I could never decide if I wanted him to be a multiclass wizard, or cleric; and switched back and forth several times at level up.

Restrictions:
Isolating Avenger.
Level 23
Equipment: Level 23 item, Level 24 item. Level 22 item, and gold sufficient for a level 23 character.
Wields an Executioner Axe.
Has to have the level 6 power: Wrath of the Divine. Reason: Matt loved/hated that power as a DM.
Him:"The owlbear attacks you, with both claws. Hit, and, I'm sorry, he also crits."
Me: "HA!"
Him: ??
Me: *explains power*
Him: Owlbear dies.
Books available:
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
MM2
Players handbook 1,2,3
Adventurers vault 1,2
Arcane Power
Divine Power
Drocnomicon: Metallic
dragon Magazine Annual 2009
Dungeon Delve
DMG 1,2
Ebberon Campaign and Players Guides
Martial Power 1,2
Open Grave
Primal Power
The Plane Below.
Also, I don't remember a lot of the 4E specific acronyms and abbreviations, so expect a lot of confusion on my part if you use a lot of these.
Would appreciate if you could list the source location for a lot of the feats and powers, otherwise I'll spend all night searching for them.
Some of the participants are of the type that believe you're a bad roleplayer and gamer if you have a day where you roll poorly, even if you actually make varied characters and make them act appropriately. (They're the reason I stopped playing 4E:smallfurious:)

edit:
Been looking, I think I might take the Unveiled Visage paragon path,
and Harbinger of Doom epic destiny.

[Sol]

Edit: sorry I didn't see the bit about listing sources. I'm on my phone right now but the easiest way to handle that is to open up the DDI compendium and search for things. Even if you are not a subscriber it will let you do the searches, which will show you results including their source, though it will not let you click on the results to see what stuff actually does.

Not really optimized but this is a good start :)

Spent most of your money on extra items, there's 154000 gold leftover.

The biggest issue retribution avengers face is death - the playstyle tends to be fairly reckless. In addition, you both want enemies to attack you and don't want them adjacent to you, because if they are adjacent to you when you're trying to attack your oath target, you don't get rerolls. To this end, I took several powers that allow you large shifts or push back enemies around you before the attack. With everybody move, no respite, blade of repulsion, and warding blade, you shouldn't need to spend a feat and a channeling use on Divine Rage. I tossed in enough close burst powers and other "end your turn adjacent to me" punishment that intelligent enemies should rapidly realize you're not a fun target.

Both hand of divine guidance and painful oath are from dragon 372...I don't know if they're in the 09 annual, but they're generally regarded as mandatory avenger feats.

If you continue levelling this character past 23, grab things like divine mastery, hand of radiance, punishing radiance, and of course whatever looks snazzy.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Deva, Avenger, Unveiled Visage, Harbinger of Doom
Build: Isolating Avenger
Avenger's Censure Option: Censure of Retribution
Seeker for the Lost Clan (Seeker for the Lost Clan Benefit)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
STR 15, CON 13, DEX 12, INT 24, WIS 24, CHA 10

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
STR 13, CON 11, DEX 10, INT 16, WIS 16, CHA 8


AC: 38 Fort: 32 Ref: 37 Will: 38
HP: 159 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 43

TRAINED SKILLS
Dungeoneering +25, History +27, Intimidate +17, Perception +24, Religion +26

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +12, Arcana +18, Athletics +13, Bluff +11, Diplomacy +11, Endurance +12, Heal +18, Insight +18, Nature +18, Stealth +12, Streetwise +11, Thievery +12

POWERS
Basic Attack: Melee Basic Attack
Basic Attack: Ranged Basic Attack
Deva Racial Power: Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes
Avenger Feature: Abjure Undead
Avenger Feature: Divine Guidance
Avenger Feature: Oath of Enmity
Avenger Attack 1: Bond of Retribution
Avenger Attack 1: Overwhelming Strike
Avenger Utility 2: Righteous Pursuit
Intimidate Utility 6: Everybody Move
Avenger Utility 6: Wrath of the Divine
Avenger Attack 7: No Respite
Avenger Attack 9: Blade of Repulsion
Unveiled Visage Attack 11: Radiant Visage
Unveiled Visage Utility 12: Divine Vigilance
Avenger Attack 15: Aspect of Fury
Avenger Utility 16: Temple of Seclusion
Avenger Attack 17: Warding Blade
Avenger Attack 19: Blade of Astral Hosts
Unveiled Visage Attack 20: Divine Aspect
Avenger Utility 22: Shield of Providence
Avenger Attack 23: Sacred Arena

FEATS
Level 1: Weapon Proficiency (Execution axe)
Level 2: Battle Awareness
Level 4: Axe Expertise
Level 6: Weapon Focus (Axe)
Level 8: Guaranteed Retribution
Level 10: Unarmored Agility
Level 11: Painful Oath
Level 12: Power of Skill
Level 14: Battle Intuition
Level 16: Armor of Vengeance
Level 18: Improved Defenses
Level 21: Slashing Storm
Level 21: Hand of Divine Guidance
Level 22: Halo of Warding

ITEMS
Symbol of Victory +4
Bloodiron Execution axe +5 x1
Veteran's Githweave Armor +5 x1
Iron Armbands of Power (paragon tier) x1
Gauntlets of Blood (paragon tier) x1
Amulet of Vigor +5 x1
====== End ======

[herrhauptmann]

Thank you for your help,
Just one question for the moment, what's this Seeker of the Lost Clan? Is that something from the essentials line or something?

[Sol]

it's a background from the current encounters season. I picked it largely at random, but it let me add both history and dungeoneering to class skills. not the most useful skills perhaps but they're keyed off of wis/int.

[herrhauptmann]

More questions:
Intimidate Utility 6: What is it, what book? I'm not seeing it.
Where do I find No respite, and Blade of repulsion and Sacred arena powers?
Shouldn't I keep the avenger 13 Encounter power?

Issues with these feats:
Level 2: Battle Awareness Isn't this a fighter power?
Level 12: Power of Skill Probably can't take it, Mystra isn't exactly a deity anymore.
And can't find all of these. (just type the name into a pdf, finds it for me.)
Level 4: Axe Expertise
Level 10: Unarmored Agility
Level 11: Painful Oath
Level 14: Battle Intuition
Level 16: Armor of Vengeance
Level 18: Improved Defenses
Level 21: Hand of Divine Guidance
Level 22: Halo of Warding

Don't have the character builder, so I have to find everything in the books. I know it's free, but installing it is not possible on my computer. (Don't ask)

[Sol]

Skill Powers are in PHB3. Everybody Move is on page 172.

No Respite, Blade of Repulsion, Sacred Arena, Painful Oath, Hand of Divine Guidance, and Halo of Warding are all from Dragon Magazine 382's fantastic Class Acts: Avengers article.

Unarmored Agility is in PHB3.

Battle Intuition is from Dragon 374's Ecology of the Deva article. Battlewise is a fair substitute from the Essentials books (HotFL/HotFK/HoS)

Axe Expertise and Improved Defenses are from the Essentials books.

Armor of Vengeance is from Divine Power, but on further glance, Improved Armor of Faith is better. I put AoV in in a previous edit when I had already taken IAoF.

Battle Awareness is a fighter multiclass feat that grants you an encounter power OA against a target that shifts away from you. Power of Skill or Melee Training (Wisdom) are both acceptable ways of obtaining a scary OA. Power of Skill is preferred if you're willing to worship another deity while attempting to raise Mystra. According to the PHB and Divine Power, you're allowed to worship more than one diety, and according to Deva flavor text, you probably should. But somehow almost no DMs allow it and almost no players do it. Probably because the CB doesn't support it. It would make thematic sense to worship a god of knowledge (ioun, oghma, both of whom also have the skill domain) while searching for a way to resurrect Mystra.

Looking at the level 13 power, eh. You could. I prefer No Respite. Both are 2[W], but No Respite allows you to guarantee that you'll get your oath rerolls. The best of the 13th level powers has a great control zone rider that could potentially deter creatures from running up to you and denying your rerolls, but unless your DM is a huge metagamer, most monsters won't know what the zone does until one enters it. And you're not a controller...you're a striker, so guaranteeing that you'll get your striker bonus (oath rerolls) is more important than maybe dazing something that runs up to you.

Sorry it took me a bit to reply, busy weekend!