Pathfinder Beastmas: A challenge to Master Min-Maxers [Archive]

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Sunken Valley

2013-01-02, 09:58 AM

Inspired by this thread. (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2nix8?Zen-and-the-Art-of-Monk-Maintenance-A-Guide)

In the linked thread, the OP demonstrates how a 20th level Zen Archer Quiggong Monk is able to defeat a Shoggoth, Balor, Pit Fiend, Tarn Linnorm, Ancient Gold Dragon, Solar Angel and the Tarrasque in succession with only one rest period to regain abillities, Ki etc.

He then proceeds to ask if any other class could triumph over it as his Zen Archer could.

So here is my challenge: can any of you build a 20th level character of any class, race and archetype combo to triumph over these seven beasts with only one rest period?

Builds must be 20 point buy but can include any feat, spell, item, trait etc from anything published by Paizo.

Builds should be as descriptively full as possible as per the linked example.

These are the fight rules regarding dice rolls

Fight Rules : no one flees for good - the pride of classdom and the Bestiary are at stake. Single d20s always result in 10, multiple d20s (like full attacks) go 10-11-9, 10-9-11, and repeat. Threats kick in when the percentages from hits (not misses) build up to 60% within or over rounds (eg. 12 basic /20x2 hits would offer one threat and confirmation). Strictly mathematically speaking, multiple 20x2 threats don’t produce exact 5% threat chances, apparently, but for a game guide I reckon a flat 5% per pip will do. If there’s a decisive close call I’ll flag it. Rough but simple.

Terrain rules for combats.

Shoggoth: Underwater, normal light levels, 90 feet apart, everyone has normal concealment beyond 20 feet, no surprise round.

Balor: 10 feet by 10 feet candle lit room, 100 feet high, 10 feet apart, Balor has foreknowledge of character's abilities and gets surprise round.

Pit Fiend: 60 feet by 60 feet dark room, 60 feet high, 50 feet apart, Pit Fiend has foreknowledge of character's abilities, no surprise round.

Tarn Linnorm: Moon lit Tarn, 50 feet apart, Linnorm gets surprise round.

Ancient Gold Dragon: Open Plain, 300 feet apart, Winner of perception check gets surprise round, Dragon starts in the air.

Solar Angel: Garden, 40 feet apart, Character gets surprise round, Solar does not have all its buffs up but if threatened it can plane shift away, buff itself and come back.

Tarrasque, Open Plain, Characters choice of distance (maximum 100 feet), Character gets surprise round.

Let the battle begin!

Spuddles

2013-01-02, 10:28 AM

Sunken Valley

2013-01-02, 10:33 AM

Rogue Shadows

2013-01-02, 10:42 AM

Conjurer 20. Maximize Time Stop. Gate a Solar or 5. Have them use their wishes to create Simulacra of 40 HD wyrms or something. As an Sp Wish, you don't have to pay for the material components or wait for 12 hours for the spell to go off.

Yes, but that's dull. Having said that...

You can't gate Solars in Pathfinder. Gate is now hd/level not 2 hd/level so the 23 HD Solar can't go through the gate. Also how are you getting the wyrm DNA?

You don't actually need solars, you can gate in an efreeti (10 HD), who must then grant you three wishes, which you can use to replicate planar binding (12 HD max, IIRC), which allows you to get more efreet, getting three more wishes per efreeti, ad infinitum. Yes, you have to succeed on binding each efreet, but you're a 20th level conjurer trying to bind a 10 HD outsider with a 6th level spell. You'll succeed.

Anyone else think it's weird that the plural of efreeti is efreet? I dunno, it just seems like it should be the other way around. Anyway, it is well within the limits of a wish to wish for a single scale from any dragon type of your choice (or even from a specific dragon), which gives you dragon DNA.

Having said all this, I think I'd, rather than time stop, instead teleport without error away from the battle temporarily, with every intention to return once I've bound my arbitrarily large dragon army. I like having plenty of time.

Spuddles

2013-01-02, 10:50 AM

Full build please.

You can't gate Solars in Pathfinder. Gate is now hd/level not 2 hd/level so the 23 HD Solar can't go through the gate. Also how are you getting the wyrm DNA?

Trait + ioun stone. Solars only have 22 HD. I guess you could throw in a bead of karma and call something a little bigger, but Solar still OP.

Wyrm DNA? You mean Snow? Either it's all shrunk item'd in your bag of holding, or you know, not a damn single one of the material components matter because Sp Wish. The only material components for Simulacrum, btw, is snow, ice, and rubies.

Pathfinder didn't actually bother fixing any of the biggest bugs of 3.x because, I dunno, they were too busy re-thinking how to power attack should work, or why melee should still not have anything worth doing with their full attacks.

I would recommend adding a few more rules to this challenge.

Psyren

2013-01-02, 11:27 AM

You can't gate Solars in Pathfinder. Gate is now hd/level not 2 hd/level so the 23 HD Solar can't go through the gate.

Point of order: you can call anything up to 2hd/level, even a deity, through Gate. The HD/level limit refers to what you can control, not what you can call. So you can bring in Solars all you want, and though they have no obligation to serve you, they might decide to do so anyway if you're fighting Balors and Pit Fiends.

Rogue Shadows

2013-01-02, 12:04 PM

Point of order: you can call anything up to 2hd/level, even a deity, through Gate. The HD/level limit refers to what you can control, not what you can call. So you can bring in Solars all you want, and though they have no obligation to serve you, they might decide to do so anyway if you're fighting Balors and Pit Fiends.

Yaaaay conjuration!

So, yeah, the very first thing I did when I went about fixing all the core spells that I didn't cut entirely from the game, was note that:
- You can never use a wish to wish for something that would grant you more wishes.
- Summoned/bound/enchanted creatures never grant wishes under any circumstance.

Starbuck_II

2013-01-02, 12:38 PM

WinWin

2013-01-02, 01:59 PM

I invoke backwards compatability (as officially outlined by Paizo) and submit a creation from the 339 boards.

Not my creation. Has the dubious distinction of taking out Khan the Destroyer's original Pun Pun build with a single CL 110 Holy Word (supernatural, not spell or spell-like) in a forum challenge. The monsters posted for this challenge should be a piece of cake.

The Word

"I'm sure you've sinned against something. That will be your downfall.

Race/Class/Level: The Word is a Human Sorcerer 1/Assassin 1/Wujen 1/ Warmage 1/Mage of the Arcane Order 9/Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1. Yes, Really.

System: These characters are from the Forgotten Realms, although with minimal alteration could be transferred to other settings.

[edit] Short Description

The Word can throw Holy Words and Blasphemies at caster level 110, as supernatural abilities that automatically penetrate all SR. Both The Wish and The Word are immune to both spells, but anything else with less than 99 hit dice dies without recourse to a saving throw or spell resistance. Of course, he's also got full spellcasting in the traditional sense, so he's hardly powerless against creatures which are immune to his big trick.

Ability Scores:
Str: 10 (21)
Dex:10 (21)
Con: 12 (21)
Int: 14 (19)
Wis:14 (31)
Cha: 14 (31)

Character Sheet: The Word disdains all deities equally and is Lawful Evil. He currently looks like a completely non-descript man somewhere between his twenties and thirties. His height, weight, and girth are all exactly average, because he's been transformed back into the platonic ideal of a “human”. His skin and eye color are the deep tan you get when you mix all possible human colorations together in a vat.

Hit Points: 169 Saves: Fort: +16, Will: +39, Ref: +18

[edit] Progression

Using the magic of the Thought Bottle, the Word acually loses and regains levels three times, so levels are all shown in the order taken, with the appropriate levels he has at that point. Because a lot of levels are being taken, retaken, and reshuffled, we will always place the level which is presently being incremented as the first list level at each point (however transient that point may be).

[edit] First Life: Human
1 Bard 1 Iron Will, Spell Focus: Evil
2 Ranger 1/ Bard 1
3 Ranger 2/ Bard 1 Still Spell, Rapid Shot
4 Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Endurance
5 Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Silent Spell
6 Ur Priest 1/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Cooperative Spell
7 Ur Priest 2/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1
8 Ur Priest 3/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1
9 Ur Priest 4/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Extend Spell
10 Ur Priest 5/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1
11 Ur Priest 6/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1
12 Ur Priest 7/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Persistent Spell
13 Ur Priest 8/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1
14 Ur Priest 9/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1
15 Ur Priest 10/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Contingent Spell
16 Fighter 1/Ur Priest 10/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Dodge
17 Fighter 2/Ur Priest 10/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Mobility
18 Swashbuckler 1/Fighter 2/Ur Priest 10/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Weapon Finesse, Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell
19 Contemplative 1/Swashbuckler 1/Fighter 2/Ur Priest 10/ Wu Jen 1/Ranger 3/ Bard 1 Spell Focus: Enchantment (from the domination domain)

Here's where the magic kicks in: The Word stores all of his copius XP in a Thought Bottle, and is killed by a Shadow. Based upon his long range plans and hatred of the gods, it is most probable that he voluntarily is killed by a Shadow. He uses his own Rebuke Undead ability to force a Shadow that he created with a Create Undead spell to kill him. This causes him to transform into a Shadow Spawn... exactly as he intended.

[edit] Second Life: Shadow

He is brought back as a Shadow Spawn. This means that his effective character level is reset to 10 as per Savage Species page 210. His stats are now Str -, Dex 14, Con -, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 13.
10 3 Shadow Hit Dice, Point Blank Shot, Alertness
11 Bard +1 Cha
12 Bard
13 Bard
14 Bard
15 Emancipated Spawn, +1 Cha
16 Bard
17 Bard
18 Bard
19 Sublime Chord, +1 Cha

[edit] Third Life: Rakshasa

The Word does not actually die, but he does undergo a Ritual of Vitality (Savage Species, page 150), this sets him back 105,000 XP, leaving him barely enough XP to be 13th level. He can't drop the racial levels until the Ritual goes off, so instead he loses a bunch of Bard levels. As per the FAQ, the highest class levels (in this case the Bard levels) are lost first, reducing him to a Shadow 10/ Sublime Chord 1/ Emancipated Spawn 1/ Bard 1, and then replacing the Shadow levels with 14 levels of Rakshasa. This replaces his physical stats with Str 12, Dex 14, Con 16, it does not change his mental stats (although they do go up with the racial class features of the Rakshasa, as depicted on page 191 of the Monster Manual). For simplicity, Rakshasa abilities that don't stay after the Word changes his race again and do not affect Prestige Class entrance are being omitted. He loses all the feats and skills accumulated during those levels, so unfortunately he won't have Profession: Astrologer anymore. Dang!
1 Rakshasa 1 Combat Casting, All Martial Weapons
2 Rakshasa 2, +2 Int
3 Rakshasa 3
4 Rakshasa 4
5 Rakshasa 5 Alertness
6 Rakshasa 6
7 Rakshasa 7, +2 Wis
8 Rakshasa 8
9 Rakshasa 9, +2 Cha
10 Rakshasa 10
11 Rakshasa 11 combat reflexes
12 Rakshasa 12
13 Rakshasa 13, +2 Cha
14 Rakshasa 14

(Rakshasa levels hook us up with Tumble, Jump, and the Language of Ancient Suloise.)
15 Sublime Chord 1/Rakshasa 14, +1 Wis
16 Emancipated Spawn 1/Sublime Chord 1/Rakshasa 14
17 Bard 1/Emancipated Spawn 1/Sublime Chord 1/Rakshasa 14
18 Emancipated Spawn 2/ Bard 1/Sublime Chord 1/Rakshasa 14
19 Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/ Bard 1/Sublime Chord 1/Rakshasa 14 Elusive Target, +1 Wis

[edit] Fourth Life: Human Again

The Word undergoes the Ritual of Vitality again, but this time becomes a lowly human. This removes all of the Rakshasa levels, so the accumulated feats of Combat Casting, Alertness, and Combat Reflexes are lost. But then he picks up 14 new levels by touching the Thought Bottle again.
1 Emancipated Spawn 1 Combat Reflexes, Sudden Extend
2 Bard 1/ Emancipated Spawn 1
3 Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Elusive Target

(Elusive Target is not presently legal, but it was legal when he got it, and the level he got it in has not gone away, so it sticks around and he can't use it until his BAB goes up past 6 – such as when he casts a Divine Persistent Divine Power.)
4 Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1, +1 Wis
5 Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1
6 Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Scribe Scroll, Innate Spell: Blasphemy (that's the one from PGtF)
7 Mage of the Arcane Order 1/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1

(Mage of the Arcane Order, of course, adds to the Sublime Chord Caster Levels.)
8 Mage of the Arcane Order 2/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Sudden Empower, +1 Wis
9 Mage of the Arcane Order 3/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Supernatural Transformation: Blasphemy
10 Mage of the Arcane Order 4/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1
11 Mage of the Arcane Order 5/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1
12 Mage of the Arcane Order 6/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Improved Initiative, +1 Wis
13 Mage of the Arcane Order 7/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1
14 Mage of the Arcane Order 8/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1
15 Mage of the Arcane Order 9/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Innate Spell: Holy Word, Supernatural Transformation: Holy Word
16 Warmage 1/Mage of the Arcane Order 9/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 +1 Wis
17 Wujen 1/ Warmage 1/Mage of the Arcane Order 9/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Quicken Spell
18 Assassin 1/Wujen 1/ Warmage 1/Mage of the Arcane Order 9/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1 Great Fortitude
19 Sorcerer 1/ Assassin 1/Wujen 1/ Warmage 1/Mage of the Arcane Order 9/ Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated Spawn 2/Bard 1

Final Ability Scores:
Str 10
Dex 10
Con 10
Int 8
Wis 20
Cha 20

He also has 5 inherent bonuses to each stat, and +6 enhancements to each stat – so his final scores are: 21, 21, 21, 19, 31, 31. Not terribly impressive, but they don't need to be.

Feats: Iron Will, Spell Focus: Evil, Still Spell, Rapid Shot, Endurance, Silent Spell, Cooperative Spell, Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Contingent Spell, Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Finesse, Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell, Spell Focus: Enchantment, Combat Reflexes, Sudden Extend, Elusive Target, Scribe Scroll, Innate Spell: Blasphemy, Sudden Empower, Supernatural Transformation: Blasphemy, Improved Initiative, Innate Spell: Holy Word, Supernatural Transformation: Holy Word, Quicken Spell, Great Fortitude

[edit] Skills of Note
Search: 22 ranks
Disable Device: 22 ranks
Hide: 8+ ranks
Disguise: 10 ranks
Move Silently: 8+ ranks
Knowledge: Arcana 13 ranks
Knowledge: Religion 22 ranks
Spellcraft: 22 ranks

Note: I'm being purposefully vague about exactly how many skills he has, because he's used the Savage Species rituals several times – and exactly what happens to your skills when that happens is up for debate. It is entirely possible that he still has the Profession: Astrologer, the Tumble, the Jump, and all that crap left over from his old races.

[edit] Spells of Note

The Word takes full advantage of the eccentricities of the Ur Priest and the Sublime Chord. The Sublime Chord resets all of your arcane caster levels to the sum of all of your arcane caster levels. So in this case, since The Word has 8 separate Arcane Spellcasting classes with a caster level of 11. If he pulls an Orange Ioun Stone out of his pocket, all 8 classes increase by one, and all eight of them are set to the new sum – of 12. Repeat this with 17 more Stones, and we get a grant total of 28 for all his classes. The Ur Priest, which The Word can use as if he had all 10 levels of it thanks to his “Recall Class Features” ability of the Emancipated Spawn class, takes as its caster level half the sum of all other caster levels. In this case, that's half of eight times 28, which is 112, plus a base caster level of 10. So The Word casts all Arcane Spells at level 28, and all Divine spells at level one hundred and twenty-two.

The most important spells that The Word has are Holy Word and Blasphemy – both of which can be cast as spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities 3 times/day. As supernatural abilities. The important part is the spellcaster levels that they can be cast at, which is one hundred and ten or higher. The other important part to keep in mind is that The Word is technically possessed of every single alignment, which means that when he casts Blasphemy he is not “not evil”, and when he casts Holy Word he is not “not good”. This means that is “evil” for the purposes of Holy Smite, but so what?

The Word also amuses himself by periodically casting Clerical buffs on himself and his brother. Who would turn down an Extended Superior Resistance? It grants a +6 Resistance Bonus to all saves and lasts over nine days.

Of more limited scope are the Sublime Chord spells. Most notable among them are Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Shapechange, Gate, Polymorph Any Object, Mind Blank, Greater Teleport, Otto's Irresistable Dance, Mass Charm, and Modify Memory. Of course, to an extent it doesn't really matter what spells he knows, because he's also got a spell pool for being a member of the Arcane Order. He can tax the spellpool out to half his caster level – which in this case means that he can suck out 155 spell levels.

[edit] Items of Note
18 Orange Ioun Stones for +caster level each (and more when added together) for 564,000.

They aren't items, exactly, but The Word invested in several Rituals of Vitality. The Rakshasa transformation set our hero back 196,000 gp, paid in 14 stages of 14,000 gp. The human transformation was much cheaper – costing only 7,000 gp. He also underwent two Rituals of Alignment to gain the [Good] and [Chaotic] subtypes.

The only truly necessary item is the Thought Bottle, that marvelous trinket from the Complete Arcane.

Only major changes required would be alterations in character level for the various incarnations of this build, as LA and ECL function differently in PF. This would result in a net gain of caster levels, but the point is moot.

Starbuck_II

2013-01-02, 04:20 PM

I invoke backwards compatability (as officially outlined by Paizo) and submit a creation from the 339 boards.

Only major changes required would be alterations in character level for the various incarnations of this build, as LA and ECL function differently in PF. This would result in a net gain of caster levels, but the point is moot.

Frank later admitted, the build really wasn't legal, but he knew few would really read everything and try to piece it together.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=52203
Bottom his 1st post on that page.
"The specific builds are now illegal, as several of their feats have been specifically errataed to no longer work that way. You can do basically the same thing of course, but the specifics were done away with in what I can only imagine was a deliberate attempt to undermine those builds. "

Plus, in Pathfinder Wish can't craft magic items like it used to be able to.

Also, you forgot the charge that the Word gets killed by his own Holy Word spells because he "suffers effects according to [his] actual alignment."

Might as well use Frank's legal build Kailea the Blue Mage
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=7128
While meant as a Duo, it works fine by itself.

Aliek

2013-01-02, 07:05 PM

Eh... I've heard ubercharging has been heavily nerfed in PF, but what about a mailman? Can't one just blast away at those guys and be fine with it?

Khantin

2013-01-02, 07:24 PM

Eh... I've heard ubercharging has been heavily nerfed in PF, but what about a mailman? Can't one just blast away at those guys and be fine with it?

There are not enough meta magic reducers or meta magic feats in pf to make it work.

Spuddles

2013-01-02, 10:12 PM

There are not enough meta magic reducers or meta magic feats in pf to make it work.

No Arcane Fusion, either.

WinWin

2013-01-02, 11:43 PM

Frank later admitted, the build really wasn't legal, but he knew few would really read everything and try to piece it together.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=52203
Bottom his 1st post on that page.
"The specific builds are now illegal, as several of their feats have been specifically errataed to no longer work that way. You can do basically the same thing of course, but the specifics were done away with in what I can only imagine was a deliberate attempt to undermine those builds. "

Plus, in Pathfinder Wish can't craft magic items like it used to be able to.

Also, you forgot the charge that the Word gets killed by his own Holy Word spells because he "suffers effects according to [his] actual alignment."

Might as well use Frank's legal build Kailea the Blue Mage
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=7128
While meant as a Duo, it works fine by itself.

Let's be serious here, he was referring the the specifics of CL stacking as they existed at the time of the Words creation, but that is irrelevant.

Frank later admitted, the build really wasn't legal, but he knew few would really read everything and try to piece it together.

I want a citation for that.

As for converting the Word to PF:

Ur-Priest, Nar Demonbinder, Emancipated Spawn and a thought bottle are the core of the Word's 'trick'. You can cycle through 20 levels of every class and PrC you can qualify for using Emancipated Spawn and thought bottle, all to gain bonus CL. While you're at it, you can cycle through every race using the ritual of transmogrification. Killing your Astral Projection every time you Drop a Word spell is irrelevant, due to the thought bottle.

Of course, if you are going to do that, you may as well play a Sarrukh instead, and be done with it.

My purpose in this thread is not to reanimate 10 year old arguments from 339. I am here to shout "Backwards Compatability" and post builds devised by better optimizers than me.