Muscle Wizard Optimization

[Man on Fire]

Another optimization challenge, now based on popular legendary character concept - Muscle Wizard.

Character must be any sort of arcane caster, prefferably a wizard, multiclassing allowed of course. Prestige Classes are allowed. His gig is increasing his strength and power of unarmed attacks and using his strength to become better in other areas. Full 20 level progression.

What's not allowed:
Pun Pun
Original Muscle Wizard (Cancer Mage with that disease that gives you +2 STR every day)

[Jarian]

3.0 Psionics? Bastards and Bloodlines? Where is the line drawn here?

[Man on Fire]

Don't know what bastards and bloodlines are, but why not, go for it. As for Psionics, I would preffer 3.5 just because of keeping it in one edition.

[Jarian]

Don't know what bastards and bloodlines are, but why not, go for it. As for Psionics, I would preffer 3.5 just because of keeping it in one edition.

Bastards and Bloodlines has a feat that lets you take your casting stat and make it something else. Wizard 20, casts off of Strength. Done. :smalltongue:

3.0 psionics required different stats for different disciplines of powers. It was a mess, but you could in theory produce 'muscle magic' that way.

Anything beyond these obvious uses requires more detail than I want to invest at the moment.

[kardar233]

Aeshkrau Illumian.

[Man on Fire]

I don't think that this feat would really solve it, it's only a good start. It's still the matter of picking up everything else to make him actually efficent at fighting. And I don't really think that "wizard 20" counts as optimization.

And 3.0 psionics - as I said, lets keep it at 3.5, it'll be simpler that way.

[Hirax]

Wizard5/Incantatrix10/any full caster5

Worship lyris, take arcane disciple (luck), arcane disciple (destiny), and arcane disciple (competition)

Persist polymorph, or shapechange at higher levels, and take the form of a sun giant for 37 base strength.

Persist divine power as soon as the competition domain grants you the spell.

Persist the best bite of the wereanimal spell you can at the appropriate level.

At level 17 and higher, you can use miracle (obtained from the luck domain) to cast and persist giant size.

Turning into a sun giant then casting giant size and bite of the werebear put your strength at 85. Add a +5 inherent bonus if desired.

Choose destiny causes you to roll 2d20s on all attack rolls.

There are more spells out there that could be persisted, but we're deep into the territory of diminishing returns at this point.

[dextercorvia]

What Hirax said, combined with Aeshkrau Illumian, and pick up Arcane Strike. Your massive strength gives you numerous bonus spells, which you then turn into even more damage potential.

[Little Brother]

SnipNeeds Blood Wind to be a complete ALEX LOUIS ARMSTRONG!!! *sparkle*

I mean, how else can you throw punches?

[bobthe6th]

"This is my armstrong punch, passed down through the generations." more sparkle.

best character ever. short of quark.

[deuxhero]

With PF material, ARG apparently has an Orc archtype for Witches that bases everything off of con. Not what you are looking for (both a seperate class and con not str), but worth mentioning.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Str Wizard with unarmed attacks?

Wood Elf Half-Minotaur Half-Goristro (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a) Lolth-Touched, you can gradually gain (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031010a) and buy off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) all of that level adjustment by your 18th character level.

Monk 1/ Wizard 4/ Enlightened Fist 5/ Incantatrix 4/ Master of the East Wind 6, either Kung-Fu Genius or Carmendine Monk, Practiced Spellcaster, Improved Natural Attack: Unarmed Strike, Superior Unarmed Strike, Spell Focus: Transmutation, Ability Enhancer, Arcane Disciple: Competition, Arcane Disciple: Luck, Aberration Blood, Deepspawn, Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Graft Flesh, Item Familiar for Spellcraft bonuses, Iron Will via the Otyugh Hole, Monk's Belt. You get Wizard 18 spellcasting at caster level 20, Monk 12 abilities with 17th AC bonus and 21st unarmed damage, and a +11 BAB (+13 fractional). I've used Wood Elf because you can Dark Chaos Shuffle those four martial weapon proficiency feats, as well as Track from Half-Minotaur. Give yourself as many Flexible Arm grafts as you can, which is probably half your WBL which means 28 arms or 14 pairs. Note that Ability Enhancer works with "any transmutation spell you cast that enhances ability scores," which is not specifically limited to spells that grant an enhancement bonus, the only limitation is transmutation spells.

Buffs: Greater Mighty Wallop, Draconic Polymorph: Self, Divine Power, Miracle: Giant Size, Girallon's Blessing, Fuse Arms, Permanency: Greater Magic Fang (CL 20) on his 'unarmed strike' natural weapon.

Draconic Polymorph is based on Polymorph which is based on Alter Self. You can specifically Alter Self into yourself even though you can't generally use it to take the form of a templated creature. That means you can Draconic Polymorph into yourself and gain the unnamed Str bonus from that spell even though you have templates.

Shenanigans: Get Leadership for a Fiend of Possession cohort, it's probably a Bladeling Divine Minion with LA bought off, Warlock 2/ Bloodline 1/ Psion 1/ Fiend of Possession 6/ Legacy Champion 10, for an effective Fiend of Possession level of 15. He's always possessing the character, giving him a +4 Profane bonus to each ability score and adding +15 worth of magic weapon properties to his unarmed strikes. He can also use personal-range buffs on the character, so pick two Least invocations and maybe even Expansion but it won't be all-day so I won't include it.

Strength score: 18 base, +2 race, +4 race, +8 size, +8 race, +8 size, +6 race, +5 levels, and +5 Inherent, +10 unnamed, +8 Enhancement, +32 size, +4 Profane, and +96 for 16 extra pairs of limbs fused at +6 per pair. That's Str 214 for a +102 ability modifier and full BAB via Divine Power.

Unarmed Damage: Monk 20 for 2d10 medium, +2 Huge actual size, Greater Mighty Wallop is applied first for +2 virtual sizes staying within its colossal limit, +1 virtual size Improved Natural Attack, +2 actual sizes Giant Size. The DMG chart shows 4d8, 6d8, 8d8, 12d8 for size increases up to colossal. That's basically +2 dice, +2 dice, +4 dice, so continuing that pattern you would get +4 dice, +6 dice, and +6 dice for seven size increases, or 26d8 base unarmed strike damage.

[Lactantius]

Wizard5/Incantatrix10/any full caster5

Worship lyris, take arcane disciple (luck), arcane disciple (destiny), and arcane disciple (competition)

Persist polymorph, or shapechange at higher levels, and take the form of a sun giant for 37 base strength.

Persist divine power as soon as the competition domain grants you the spell.

Persist the best bite of the wereanimal spell you can at the appropriate level.

At level 17 and higher, you can use miracle (obtained from the luck domain) to cast and persist giant size.

Turning into a sun giant then casting giant size and bite of the werebear put your strength at 85. Add a +5 inherent bonus if desired.

Choose destiny causes you to roll 2d20s on all attack rolls.

There are more spells out there that could be persisted, but we're deep into the territory of diminishing returns at this point.

AFAIK, you don't get the granted domain power with the arcane disciple feat. Only the spells known.

[Cor1]

obligatory pasta....

http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewthread?forum=1&thread=651 is how a wizard grapples.

Here's the build:
So as we all know, Monks suck. In part of my ongoing negative assessment of Monks, I'm going to produce a number of other characters that serve the purpose of a "Monk" without suffering from the painful reckoning of actually having any monk levels. Cause man, that would really suck!

So here it is: A grapple based wizard character. Not what you'd expect from a grapple build, but there you go.

Level 1: You are a human and have a single level of Wizard, and you get to select your feats and specialize and all that. You put your highest rolled stat in Intelligence because you aren't a moron, and your second highest goes into Strength. Rar! You take an Octopus as your familiar (It's Wet Outside), and you select Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved grapple as your feats. You specialize in Transmutation, and take Evocation and Enchantment as barred schools.

Combat: You grapple people! Having Improved Grapple means that you can initiate a grab without provoking an AoO. Assuming that you have a Strength of 14, you'll have a Grapple bonus of +9 at 1st level, which means that you expect to win. You're also going to cast babau slime on yourself, which means that you'll do 1d8 points of acid damage every round you stay in a grapple, which in turn is enough to make you totally lethal. You can take down enemies above your level no problem.

2nd level: Holy shiznit! You got a BAB bonus! Sweet. You now have Grapple onus of +10. But then you can have a spell left over for enlarge person that can jack your grapple bonus up to +16

3rd level: Now things go crazy. You learn fearsome grapple and bladeweave. You get a feat, and it's Aberration Blood. Your Grapple Bonus goes up to +12 and then you cast fearsome grapple, enlarge person, and bladeweave - driving your Grapple bonus up to +22 (comparison: this is better than a Giant Octopus at +15). Further, your victim has to make a Will save every round or be dazed - which means that they can't even attempt to break out. This is where you pin your opponent and the Rogue uses a coup de grace.

4th level: You get a BAB hot diggity! You now have +23 Grapple when it's important (the equal of a Dire Bear, for those keeping track). You also learn some new spells I suggest Balor Nimbus and web

5th level: You get a bonus Metamagic Feat. I suggest either Sudden Extend, or Extend Spell. You also get 3rd level spells. You're probably going to get haste as well as something good like stinking cloud.

6th level: You get a Feat, which will probably be Sudden Maximize. Also you get a +1 to BAB so your grapple bonus just shot past that of a Dire Bear. Also you get some more spells which are Shivering Touch (so once per day you can hand out 18 points of Dex damage as a touch attack in case you come across a Dragon or Purple Worm that can actually beat you in a grapple), and then either shrink item (for all around utility), or girallon's blessing (for ripping peoples' faces right off).

7th level: You may take a prestige class. Or not. I don't even care, because you just got polymorph and the cheese stands alone. Apply all your grapple bull**** as a Remorrhaz, or whatever. I don't even care at this point.


Voilà. Optimize this. Or just beat it.

[dextercorvia]

AFAIK, you don't get the granted domain power with the arcane disciple feat. Only the spells known.

None of his advice relies on domain powers.

[Glimbur]

None of his advice relies on domain powers.

To clarify, Choose Destiny is a spell, not the domain power. Sometimes names are confusing. We should invest in thesauruses for game designers.

[Lactantius]

To clarify, Choose Destiny is a spell, not the domain power. Sometimes names are confusing. We should invest in thesauruses for game designers.

Ah okay.
It's confusing indeed since the granted domain power of Destiny is about dice chances, too.

[nedz]

Barbarian 1 / Sorceror 1
Highest Stat = Strength
Feats Power Attack (+Cleave if Human)
Spells: Enlarge Person and Fist of Stone.

You should be punching (Slam attack) with a strength of 18+4(Rage)+2(Large)+6(FoS) = 26

Build is optimal at level 2