Build Question

[SilverSavio]

I ran the Tomb of Horrors for my friends last Saturday for the fun of it, and I was very lenient with all the rules. I let them build any type of character they wanted to, gave them 62k worth of wealth. Since I was just kind of throwing this together I didn't have time to really look over his character before the game, and one guy showed up with a character that could dish out 90+ damage in one full round.

His build was something like a Human Monk 1/Soulknife 4/Soulbow 5.

Stats in the ballpark of Str 6, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 22, Cha 10.

Feats: Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Monastic Training (Soulbow), Precise Shot, Zen Archery, Two-Weapon Fighting, Tashalatora (Soulbow), Practiced Mind Blade, Woodland Archery, Manyshot, Improved Rapid Shot

I remember him saying something like 1d10+1d8+24 for damage and he got something like 6 a round...Until we looked up how Manyshot worked. Which dropped his attacks to 4 a round. Which I think is right what with him using Flurry and Improved Rapid Shot. But I don't think he calculated the damage right.

Is this character built anywhere in the ballpark of right? Because from what I can tell it was not.

[Urpriest]

Well for one, Practiced Mind Blade is from Dragon, so make sure you're allowing that source.

From there, +6 BAB with Rapid Shot gives three attacks, while Two-Weapon Fighting gives a fourth. None of those feats allow him to flurry with a mind blade or mind arrows, though, so flurry is irrelevant. Similarly not sure where the 1d10 damage bonus is coming from. Does the character have some feat that lets them add unarmed damage to Mind Blade or Mind Arrows? That would be the most likely explanation, but no feats like that are in your list.

Without that, you're adding Wis (+6) to damage, along with +1 for Mind Arrow enhancement bonus and +2 from being effectively a 6th level Soulknife. So far, that adds up to +9. You also have a +1 enhancement cost ability from Soulbow, which explicitly doesn't stack with the +1 enhancement cost ability from Soulknife (not that it would anyway since the class doesn't have language to let you add it to your Mind Arrows). If your guy thought they stacked, maybe he got Collision, for another +5. That still leaves things short though.

Is the character using the trick of firing Mind Arrows through a magic bow? Presumably you'd have mentioned if you saw a bow in the equipment.

In general, I think we're missing something here. Be aware though that 90 damage for a full attack is pretty reasonable for a 10th level character. A melee character for example could power attack for full on two attacks for 40 damage easy, and with a few things that double damage (Valorous Weapons, Leap Attack) could easily push that up to 80+, and that's before Str and weapon enhancements.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Mind Arrows are not a special monk weapon and you cannot use Flurry with them.

You can't add your unarmed strike damage to a weapon attack, including a mind blade or a mind arrow. That 1d10 needs to be removed, it's absolutely silly that he would even think that it can be included in his damage. Monastic Training and Tashalatora are both pretty useless in this build.

According to this list (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/feats&tablefilter=practice), Practiced Mind Blade does not exist as a feat. He has a +1 Mind Blade, and +1 Mind Arrows, which stacks to give him +2 Mind Arrows at his current level.

I'm not sure where all that +24 damage is coming from, but here's how I see his damage potential:

BAB +6, for two attacks at +6/+1.
Improved Rapid Shot adds one attack at his highest bonus when full attacking, +6/+6/+1.
TWF, all attacks take a -2 penalty but he gains one offhand attack at his highest bonus, +4/+4/+4/-1.
Mind Arrows benefit from his Weapon Focus: Mind Blade, Wis bonus +6 to hit instead of Dex, and +2 Mind Arrows, for +13/+13/+13/+8.
Note that as soon as one shot misses he gets a +4 to hit for the rest of the round from Woodland Archer.

Damage is 1d8 base, +2 enhancement, +6 Wis, for a total of 1d8+8. Note that magic items that may affect weapon attacks probably won't apply to Mind Arrows. He gets one +1 equivalent magical property (probably Lucky to give each shot one extra chance to hit if it initially misses), but that's it. Even Bracers of Archery (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#bracersofArcheryGreater) are of no benefit as it specifically says when using a bow, and mind arrows aren't fired from a bow.

Without knowing what specific items he has, I'd strongly recommend you call shenanigans on this character.

[Mithril Leaf]

It's a real shame this wasn't built right (it wasn't) because you can build a really halfway decent soulknife/soulbow at that level. It's one of the few ways to get a good archer without resorting to a caster.

[SilverSavio]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I know that you can get upwards to 90+ damage a round, but I just couldn't figure out where all his numbers were coming from while I was running the module and didn't want to grind it to a halt to fix it.