Indestructable - Permission melee

[Little Brother]

So I have been listening to too much music and playing too much TCG stuff, and I wanted to know if this kinda build was possible.

For those unfamiliar with TCG stuffs, permission builds are basically built to deny what you want to deny, to control opponent's actions, and otherwise say "NO!"

The biggest issue for stuff like this that I can see is a lack of actions, or at least the biggest one. Stance of Alacrity helps, but doesn't make it perfect. Other issues involve dying to casters(Concentration saves help with this), and maneuvers readied. An idiot crusader makes this easier, but not entirely resolving this.

Useful maneuvers are the saves, Baffling Defense/Wall of Blades/Other AC replacers, Counter-Charge, and mobility stuffs. The Throw line could be useful, but I dunno. Maybe attach a Tripper chassis onto it?

So, thoughts? Is a build with this goal possible? What should a build look like?

Thanks.

[Snowbluff]

In Magic the Gathering, the most boring, painful, and annoying decks to play against are pure control decks. Expect 1-3 ragequits per session if you do this.

[Little Brother]

In Magic the Gathering, the most boring, painful, and annoying decks to play against are pure control decks. Expect 1-3 ragequits per session if you do this.I find them interesting.

Also, in Yugimanz, Counter Fairies/Glads are incredibly fun to play, though sadly too slow for this format. MTG does it better, but both are fun, and the idea I'm going for.

[Ardantis]

Dying to casters would be the major weakness of the build.

I'd say you need to build Swordsage, for the variety of maneuvers. Feat out for Thicket of Blades just because it's so annoying.

Remember, "permission" can include soft barriers, as well, to make it not worth your opponent's time to take certain actions (like winning). My favorite example of this in MTG is Dovescape, which, if you're not familiar, is an enchantment which counters all noncreature spells and grants the caster a number of doves equal to the casting cost of the spell.

The card won games because the player who played it EITHER had lots of high-cost spells to make tons of doves with, OR because said player had lots of unblockable or evasion creatures to play underneath the doves combined with passive barriers to stop the enemy doves. A deck that appeared unbalanced became the game winner once the unusual soft barrier of Dovescape was brought into play.

However, the second thing I'll stress is that while these builds are interesting, and they are, they are also hilarious. Dovescape both sets the game on a course towards Armageddon AND slows the game down to a crawl. The challenge is to get the other side to recognize the gallows humor.

Best of luck.

[SowZ]

In Magic the Gathering, the most boring, painful, and annoying decks to play against are pure control decks. Expect 1-3 ragequits per session if you do this.

My favorite two headed giant deck is 20% lands, 20% discard, 20% land destruction. I basically pick whichever enemy is the biggest threat to completely stop from ever doing anything and then throw some discards at the second player once in a while. It's not particularly powerful or complicated, but some people have refused to play against it nonetheless. And I laugh.

The moral? You don't need to control them. Not directly. Just take away their tools.

[Anxe]

Combine Dovescape with Aether Flash (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25678) for ultimate power!

As for the D&D character build, I can't help much. But I can make a list of targets for the "NO!"

Sneak Attack
Full Attack
Charge
Elemental Damage (Fire, Electricity, Acid, Sonic, Cold, and Force)
Being walled in
Being charmed
Being made to rage
Being greased or webbed and such (Freedom of movement is the obvious solution)
Death effects
Energy Drain
Ability damage and drain
Enemy Spell Resistance
High enemy saves
High enemy AC
High enemy DR
High enemy mobility (dragon's strafing attack or something like that)
Enemies escaping (Teleporting away)

Probably a good list to start with.

[Big Fau]

If you can use Action Points, the Grace of Ghallanda (Dragonmarked) feat allows you to use Diplomacy to negate attacks.

[Alienist]

My favorite two headed giant deck is 20% lands, 20% discard, 20% land destruction. I basically pick whichever enemy is the biggest threat to completely stop from ever doing anything and then throw some discards at the second player once in a while. It's not particularly powerful or complicated, but some people have refused to play against it nonetheless. And I laugh.

The moral? You don't need to control them. Not directly. Just take away their tools.

I am surprised those ratios work for you at all.

By my count 20% land means you need ~15 cards on average to get 3 lands out, and unless things have been ridiculously accelerated 3 mana is the spot at which land and hand destruction begin to take off.

What is the remaining 40% ... cantrips?

Did you mean 30% for all three ratios? I'd imagine that would work a lot better?

(But hey, what do I know, I never played much multi-player and the people I know who did all seemed to love howling mines. Cards! Cards for everyone! Muahahaha!)

[Little Brother]

Combine Dovescape with Aether Flash (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25678) for ultimate power!

As for the D&D character build, I can't help much. But I can make a list of targets for the "NO!"

Sneak Attack
Full AttackI can't figure out what to do here.

ChargeCounter Charge maneuver? Beyond that, I got nothing

Elemental Damage (Fire, Electricity, Acid, Sonic, Cold, and Force)There's a Warlock Invocation that gives that, isn't there?

Being walled inTeleportation is an option here.

Being charmed
Being made to rageSave replacers(Especially if combined with a Ring of Undersong and Perform(Martial Drill))

Being greased or webbed and such (Freedom of movement is the obvious solution)
Death effects
Energy Drain
Ability damage and drainGear(Soulfire Armor and Ring of FoM for example)

Enemy Spell Resistance
High enemy saves
High enemy ACBeyond the Diamond Mind strikes, ,I got nothing here, beyond trying to render them useless, and just raw numbers

High enemy DR
High enemy mobility (dragon's strafing attack or something like that)Mountain Hammer/Foehammer/etc, Sudden Leap, and Teleportation.

Enemies escaping (Teleporting away)Weirdstone.

Probably a good list to start with.The big issue is fitting all of this into a mundane build.

[Anxe]

I am surprised those ratios work for you at all.

By my count 20% land means you need ~15 cards on average to get 3 lands out, and unless things have been ridiculously accelerated 3 mana is the spot at which land and hand destruction begin to take off.

What is the remaining 40% ... cantrips?

Did you mean 30% for all three ratios? I'd imagine that would work a lot better?

(But hey, what do I know, I never played much multi-player and the people I know who did all seemed to love howling mines. Cards! Cards for everyone! Muahahaha!)

I think he meant 20 cards of each category, not twenty percent.

[DeAnno]

With these sorts of ideas basically you have three ways you can go:

Opportunity Attacks:
You can establish reach and punish movement, SLAs, spells, and even Supernatural abilities with varying degrees of force, though I'm pretty sure you can't prevent Su use. The pro of this is you are immune to all common melee tactics, and the con is obviously that people can destroy you from outside your reach.

Counters:
Rare outside Epic. In Epic you could probably create some form of creature with Free action counterspells, infinite and exceptional deflection, and so on and so forth, and pretty much be able to stop or block anything bad you can see as much as you want. The main drawback is that these sorts of tactics are easy to overwhelm pre-epic when they're all limited to 1/turn pretty much.

Pure D:
There are a wide variety of these builds but they all pretty much boil down to indomitability inside an AMF or protected by heavy SR. Sometimes they are run purely or nearly purely physical with Frenzied Berzerker but it is hard to get the AMF outside of Runescarred. This is the most easy and reliable but has the obvious downside of only protecting you.

[Big Fau]

I think he meant 20 cards of each category, not twenty percent.

Speaking from personal experience, that's actually a poor mix these days. There's a handful of decks out there now that use 18 or less lands (I've got a Modern Restore Balance deck that runs 11), and a few that run more than 20 (the CAL archtype, which was popular a few years ago, ran 28+).

[Person_Man]

Suggestions:

Play a class with useful Standard Actions (spells, maneuvers, powers, etc), which includes most Tier 1-3 builds. Win Initiative. Ready an action to attack your enemy whenever he tries to act against you or your allies. When he does, trigger your action. This can usually prevent casting, manifesting, and movement.
Daze effects. Very few things are immune, and it basically prevents your target from taking any action for 1ish rounds. You may wish to look at Daze effects as well, since it's the most reliable and potent status effect out there. Boomerang Daze is the most efficient method, but there's also Shield Slam, Anvil of Thunder, Killoren Smite, Dragonmark Smite, Devoted Inquisitor build, Cabinet Trickster, Dire Flail Smash, Ironsoul Forgemaster, Arcane Focus soulmeld, Incarnum Blast invocation, Dahlver-Nar vestige, Scion of Dantalion, Dazing Strike maneuver, a few magic items offer it.
A simple net with a trailing rope prevents movement away from you if you can beat the target in an opposed Str check. It's a great way to lock down casters without any Feat investment.
Divine Defiance feat: Burn a turn/rebuke undead use to counter a spell as an Immediate Action. You must still have Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, or the same spell available. But this is really one of the best ways to counter magic as it happens. Even if you're not playing a caster, the Paladin (who also has great Saves) and a variety of PrC gets access to Turn Undead, and you can buy a Wand of Dispel Magic at a high caster level and put it in a Wand Chamber so that you can use it with your weapon. Fiendish Codex II, pg 83.
There are a couple of ways to get Immediate Action movement (check the free movement list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103358)). When an enemy casts, move into range. If you have Mage Slayer, he's basically boned.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'll give this a shot, going with an underdog class:

Human, Cloistered Cleric 1/ Paladin 19; Inquisition and Competition domains, Knowledge Devotion (Kn: Arcana); Charging Smite ACF (PH2); Divine Counterspell (Paladin) ACF (CM); Permanency + Enlarge Person as early as possible.

Str > Cha > Wis > Con > Int (minimum 13) > Dex

Collector of Stories skill trick, Kn: Religion and Arcana max, 4+ ranks in every other Knowledge skill that contributes to Knowledge Devotion.

Shaky and Aligned Devotion flaws.
EWP: Flindbar (H), Combat Expertise (F), Improved Disarm (F), Jotunbrud (1), Improved Trip (3), Divine Defiance (6), Knock-Down (9), Combat Reflexes (12), Power Attack (15), Defensive Sweep (18).

Items: +1 Impact Flindbar with a wand chamber, Wand of Silence, Helm of Battle (MIC), heavy armor and heavy shield, this stuff (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851).

At level 6+ you're able to counterspell as an immediate action 1+Cha mod times per day via Divine Defiance plus Divine Counterspell. Your total bonus to use Divine Counterspell is Paladin Level +3, so there's a decent chance for it to succeed, even greater if items that increase your effective Turn Undead level can contribute to that. Between the counterspelling, disarming, Silence, and Charging Smite, plus a little spellcasting for versatility, it actually makes for a viable sword-and-board tank build that can shut down enemy casters quite well.

[Alienist]

Speaking from personal experience, that's actually a poor mix these days. There's a handful of decks out there now that use 18 or less lands (I've got a Modern Restore Balance deck that runs 11), and a few that run more than 20 (the CAL archtype, which was popular a few years ago, ran 28+).

Don't forget, he's talking about 2 headed giant (or something similar) so his team mate can do the offense and defense. He can keep one of the opponents locked down with land destruction, and throw the occassional monkey wrench in against the other opponent....

He'd lose to... umm.... elves and the insane green deck that could smash your face in with only 10 land in the deck....


As for a permission/denial based D&Der, I think at low levels a two level dip in Monk (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), for crazy saves and evasion, stacked with a two level dip in Paladin for divine grace is worth considering. Then any +cha items have a baked in +saves as well.

There's just something to be said for still having a bucketload of hps after the initial salvo from the bad guys. :smallbiggrin:

[TheMeMan]

Dying to casters would be the major weakness of the build.

I'd say you need to build Swordsage, for the variety of maneuvers. Feat out for Thicket of Blades just because it's so annoying.

Remember, "permission" can include soft barriers, as well, to make it not worth your opponent's time to take certain actions (like winning). My favorite example of this in MTG is Dovescape, which, if you're not familiar, is an enchantment which counters all noncreature spells and grants the caster a number of doves equal to the casting cost of the spell.

The card won games because the player who played it EITHER had lots of high-cost spells to make tons of doves with, OR because said player had lots of unblockable or evasion creatures to play underneath the doves combined with passive barriers to stop the enemy doves. A deck that appeared unbalanced became the game winner once the unusual soft barrier of Dovescape was brought into play.

However, the second thing I'll stress is that while these builds are interesting, and they are, they are also hilarious. Dovescape both sets the game on a course towards Armageddon AND slows the game down to a crawl. The challenge is to get the other side to recognize the gallows humor.

Best of luck.


Off-topic, but I have to reply to this.

Been nearly 6 years since I've played.

After looking at the card in question I'm glad I did. That's just... wrong, on so many levels and would end the game right quick after being played. That's an awful, awful card for WotC to have made. Tokens of that sort are rarely easy to abuse. This, however, could end up sending the game into a meltdown of dozens of 1/1 tokens in the course of a couple turns.

[Little Brother]

I was more thinking using maneuvers as a mechanism for this.

How can one get Stance of Alacrity early? That seems to be the best method. Scorpion Parry and Fool's Strike seem to be good ideas, and one can use Baffling Defense with the stance that lets you move when you are missed for immense mobility.

Anything I am missing? Any other ways of getting extra Immediate Actions?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Not sure if this is what you mean; but Sir Noah Whay seems like a start



Sir Noah Whay

Paladin of Tyrrany 3/Hexblade3/Monk2/Suel Archanamach 4/Abjurant Champion5/Uncanny Trickster 3 (Advancing Abjurant Champion).

In effect, he says 'no'. Whatever you are bringing, he simply declines to acquiesce to your request.

2x CHA to all saves, aura which drops opponent saves by -2, Evasion AND Mettle, Wis to AC, Unarmed being the primary damage dealer, and then we get to buffs.

Abjurant Champion + Uncanny Trickster = 4th level Abjuration spells may be quickened. I'm not sure how to increase this, but you'd need another 2 abjurant champion effective levels to get all his Abjuration spells auto-quickened. However, there's some fun 4th level Abjuration spells we can use. The big one from Core, of course, is Dimensional Anchor.

Greater Mirror Image = almost impossible to hit in melee combat.
Mage Armor + Shield = another +18 to AC, before toys
Protection from Good = another +7 Deflection bonus
Greater Mighty Wallop = decent damage output
Wraithstrike. When you absolutely, positively HAVE to hit EVERY TIME...

So right off the bat, we have:

NO to anything allowing a saving throw. It simply won't work, unless you crank your DC's into the 50's.

NO to anything trying to hit in melee. Assuming you get the 1 in 8 chance of actually hitting the RIGHT 'him', you still have to contend with AC in the upper 50's. Even touch spells will have a problem considering his TOUCH AC will be over 30.

He can pick up toys to be immune to situational effects. Ring of Freedom of Movement, for example, or a Scarab of Protection to stop the Enervation Spam. Or simply be a Warforged/Necropolitian and be immune to Enervation Spam. Periapt of proof against poison makes you immune to poison, you're already immune to diseases thanks to Paladin of Tyranny. Monk's Belt + Improved Natural Attack + Greater Mighty Wallop for some pretty nasty damage output. Lesser Cloak of Displacement is good at being immune to sneak attack, plus gives you a decent miss chance.

Feats can be chosen to flavor, depending on what you are facing. Prerequsite feats are pathetically easy to obtain, of course, so you can either go Lockdown with Gatling Tripper cheese, or go Ubercharge with Shock Trooper/Leap Attack. Other options may be found in Tome of Battle. Counter Charge is always nice if you find yourself facing Uberchargers, Shadow Blade/Assassin's Stance if you wish to be a Dex-centric character, Stone Power/Shards of Granite is nice for ignoring DR/Hardness, and of course, Snap Kick for getting more attacks per round. Karmic Strike + Evasive Reflexes = never get hit by a full attack ever again, as long as you have room to maneuver.

The point of this build is:

1) Never say Die
2) Tell Batman to Piss Off
3) Beat Down/Lockdown machine

[The Gilded Duke]

Boomerang Daze is amazing, and doesn't even require boomerangs, use an adaptive weapon from Tome of Battle. Before I knew about adaptive weapons I had a few builds that went around meleeing with boomerangs. As far as other stuff on the list...

Sneak Attack - Uncanny Dodge (Barbarian 2 gives it)
Charge - Steadfast Boots from MIC. When wielding a two handed weapon, you are treated as always having it readied vs a charge, and it does double damage vs a charge even if it normally cannot. Can do some fun stuff with Improved Grab, Boomerang Daze and other on hit abilities.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It looks like you're suck waiting until level 15 (16 for a Warblade) to get Stance of Alacrity, similar to how it's so difficult to get early access to a given 8th level spell.

For a Warblade, get your two-level dip in Feat Rogue and use the Spell Reflection ACF in CM, and use that with Wall of Blades and Stance of Alacrity to send ranged touch attacks back at the caster. (Persistent Ray Deflection is still better.)