The most horrible build you have ever seen before?

[CyberThread]

What is the most horrible build, that you have ever seen attempted to be played at your table?

[Ravenica]

PF

Rogue/Fighter/Bard(Archeologist)
but he refused to use his bard spells or his archeologists luck, he just wanted the ability to roll any knowledge check.

He was being outperformed in damage by a dedicated Fighter archer....

[nedz]

Rogue/Wizard

Would only cast Fireball or Magic Missile, even at level 18

Ed: Oh and no metamagic or PrCs :smallsigh:
No use of synergistic spells for the rogue part.

[navar100]

Pathfinder

Ranger, archer, who took Vital Strike. Unlike many here I like Vital Strike. It is not for everyone. It is not for an archer. There are better feats he can use when he's only getting one attack anyway. Unfortunately the player is a munchkin who got caught up in the Vital Strike bandwagon because the Fighter took it and the Paladin was seriously considering taking it before the campaign ended due to real life interference. He purposely only took a single shot sometimes when he could have done a full attack just so he could use Vital Strike.

Fighter/cleric with Two-Weapon Fighting and Power Attack, 3.0 game when 3E first came out. This was me when I didn't know any better just learning the rules. The multiclassing was fine with me. It was the two feats together that were the problem. They did not work together. Fortunately the DM allowed players to swap a feat after a few sessions since everyone was just learning. I got rid of Power Attack. I really did want two-weapon fighting, and I was enjoying it and not having any issues with it.

[SowZ]

A low strength high Dex rogue who dual wielded daggers and refused to take Weapon Finesse or TWF no matter how emphatically I suggested it. Instead she spent all her feats on +2 to two skills feats.

[Story]

The worst I've seen was a Hill Giant Barbarian, though to be fair, he got turned into a Hill Giant for story reasons.

Why the DM thought having an ECL16 character in a level 4 party would ever be a good idea remains a mystery to me though.

[Silverbit]

This was me, in 3.5 with a small amount of 4e elements (not a serious campaign, but rather fun nonetheless.)

Cleric 2/Monk 1. In heavy armour. Using non-proficient martial weapons. Yeah. As I recall, that character died after an incident with jellyfish swarms, a green dragon and gunboats. Those were the days...

[lunar2]

i've seen monk 26. 'nuff said.

[VariSami]

A Halfling Swashbuckler that was able to deal an average of maybe 6-10 damage per round at level six. He also had no redeeming mechanical qualities outside of combat. I believe the player actually admitted that he wanted to build something capable of nothing but running away (which, of course, makes the movement penalty for small size quite ironic).

[the_david]

Sometimes I don't know why I still play Pathfinder.

Ranger with two-weapon fighting, power attack and combat reflexes. She did great at level 1, using a lucerne hammer. Than she decided to do the two-weapon fighting thing using 2 longswords. I used math to show her the error of her ways. So far, she hasn't used combat reflexes.

She also has a level 6 PFS sorcerer with intensified spell. (She took it at level 5, I think) She insists he's effective.

[mattie_p]

Back when I first started 3.0, I built a fighter/wizard who used two feats on spell mastery, so they could pretend to be a fighter who spontaneously developed sorcerer abilities later in life.

[ArcturusV]

Worst one?

I had a guy who tried to play a Half-Orc, Half-Dragon, Vampire, Demon Blooded Barbarian. Most of the other players heavily templated up as well so I didn't QUITE have the usual problem of trying to provide an adventure that could accommodate players with 100+ HP while not instantly killing someone with 12.

But he decided to play Stupid Evil, first town they got to, tried to bully them into making him their supreme overlord. They left for an adventure after he publicly announced he was a vampire, killed a bunch of people and fed on them in the town square, and said he'd be back soon to lay claim to the villagers and their tribute to their new blood god.

So when they came back from their adventure 2 week later. He went out to demand his "Tribute" in the town square. Found out the villagers ran to the nearest three towns, begged the clerics there to help them. And the Clerics whipped up a godawful number of Holy Water flasks for them, for free, to end the Vampire Menace. He got bombed out of oblivion in round one by about 40 different holy waters smacking him.

Which taught me the lesson of both: Warn players about Stupid Evil. And: Templates should not be stacked together because you will be pathetically weak for your level.

[SowZ]

Worst one?

I had a guy who tried to play a Half-Orc, Half-Dragon, Vampire, Demon Blooded Barbarian. Most of the other players heavily templated up as well so I didn't QUITE have the usual problem of trying to provide an adventure that could accommodate players with 100+ HP while not instantly killing someone with 12.

But he decided to play Stupid Evil, first town they got to, tried to bully them into making him their supreme overlord. They left for an adventure after he publicly announced he was a vampire, killed a bunch of people and fed on them in the town square, and said he'd be back soon to lay claim to the villagers and their tribute to their new blood god.

So when they came back from their adventure 2 week later. He went out to demand his "Tribute" in the town square. Found out the villagers ran to the nearest three towns, begged the clerics there to help them. And the Clerics whipped up a godawful number of Holy Water flasks for them, for free, to end the Vampire Menace. He got bombed out of oblivion in round one by about 40 different holy waters smacking him.

Which taught me the lesson of both: Warn players about Stupid Evil. And: Templates should not be stacked together because you will be pathetically weak for your level.

You can mitigate it some by picking templates that raise your con or your hd to d12s but yeah you still have to be careful.

[Story]

Ah, stupid evil. I remember one campaign where after literally the first encounter, the player decided to try to rape on of the corpses.

First town we come to, he picks a fight with the guards and gets thrown in jail. I was in favor of leaving him to rot, but for some reason we had to break out anyway. Then he ended up backstabbing us in the middle of combat.

Fortunately that campaign only lasted for four sessions.

[Qc Storm]

I saw a cleric with Eschew Material once.

[Helcack]

I wanted my first 3.5 character to be fun to play, but not effective. So I played a Drow(Was Evil, brainwashed by gnomes into being True Neutral after being captured) Druid 5 Wizard 1 it was fun for roleplay stuff because my character was just weird to the point that no one knew what to do with him and I had a pet Toad and Basilisk who loved to cuddle ^^

[Red Fel]

Ah, stupid evil. I remember one campaign where after literally the first encounter, the player decided to try to rape on of the corpses.

First town we come to, he picks a fight with the guards and gets thrown in jail. I was in favor of leaving him to rot, but for some reason we had to break out anyway. Then he ended up backstabbing us in the middle of combat.

Fortunately that campaign only lasted for four sessions.

I was in a campaign that ran the opposite direction. Evil campaign, only one of us was actually playing evil. Two played it as if they were heroes who just happened to be employed by an evil empire, one was chaotic selfish, and one was just plain insane.

When players tried to penalize me for playing evil by stopping me from getting revenge on an innkeeper who had [REDACTED], I was peeved. When the DM decided to punish me for being evil, I was frustrated. When our first encounter after that was a Lammasu, I walked up and gave it a hug.

Don't play evil campaigns unless you really know the other players well.

Back on topic, I've mentioned this build before - Half-Celestial Devil-Blooded Hexblade in an epic level campaign. I figured that the high levels would offset the LA. Which was true. But there's a massive difference between level 19 and level 20. The other players had 20 in class levels. I had around, with those templates... I think 14? 16? I was at a useless level in a useless class. I even wasted a feat to get him an Imp familiar.

Sure, the flavor was great. But... Wow, that was a massive dogpile of fail, right there.

[Amphetryon]

Wizard 1/Fighter 7/Spellsword 6, using a Feat to gain a 2nd level spell and qualify.

[Scumbaggery]

Druid/Planar Shephard.

He himself wasn't horrible, but the things he did...

[Blackhawk748]

Worst build ever? Half-orc druid 8? i think. Build wise it wasnt horrible, he did actually grab Natural Spell, he was just an idiot. Now the party consisted of a Dwarven Cleric, me, a Human Rogue Assassin, and a Human Monk. Now we were rather low OP so this was all fine, but the Druid was just terrible. He wore no armor, and the only spell he EVER cast was Shillelagh, oh and he was to lazy to stat out an animal companion. I remember him asking me to heal him after a fight, and i just told him that he could do it himself. (i was a blaster cleric so i tended to nuke stuff, it was fun.) Well he told me he didnt want to waste his slots, he used like 3 on average in a day, so i responded by using Cure Serious on the monk who had taken like 5 damage, the druid had like 10 HP left. Needless to say that Druid died a horrible death shortly thereafter.

[Segev]

For reasons of wanting some very specific skills, in an Iron Kingdoms game, I played a War Bard/Wizard with no PrC to mix them. He was roughly 50/50 in his level split. In combat, he was not very effective, but he avoided combat where he could and was a fun and enjoyable member of the party. He was focused on inventing modern medicine.


In the truly dysfunctional category is a player whose character was to go Fighter/Wizard/Fighter/Wizard/Fighter/Wizard all the way up, because that supposedly was the character concept. The backstory had a girl who wanted to be a warrior who was kidnapped and forced to learn wizardry due to her natural talents in it, and then ran away from her master. But for some reason, she kept alternating to study wizardry every other level. She wore the heaviest armor she could find, and felt she was very clever for using scrolls to avoid the ASF. Evocation scrolls, typically of the "save for half" variety. She wouldn't listen to any advice on making her build better; it was either "cheesy" or "not in-character." If not both.

It got especially silly at one point when she demanded of my character - a dedicated wizard - "don't hog the scrolls." We'd found several, and my PC was going to scribe them into his spell book. One was 4th level (when we were 6th level PCs), so I couldn't scribe it yet. She demanded that she get it now, and didn't seem to understand when my wizard offered to re-scribe copies of the scrolls himself for her to use when he was done transcribing them into his spellbook.

She also scolded my dedicated wizard - who had Craft Wondrous Item as well as Scribe Scroll - for charging 3/4 market value for magic items he custom-made for the other PCs. It was selfish and greedy to not do it for just the gp cost of materials (half market value, never mind that he had to spend exp on them, nor that he'd spent a feat on the ability, and he was STILL offering a better deal than could be gotten in the open market).

She was annoying and foolish and had the worst build and implementation I'd ever seen in actual play.

[rainstorm]

We were playing a 3rd level campaign just starting off. The party sorcerer's feats were quick draw and negotiator. Not once did the magic missile wand the sorcerer even use his quarterstaff since he could just cast magic missile for more damage (he was a halfling, so 1d4 quarterstaff damage), and actually hit things. Also, the only social skill he used was intimidate so both of his feats were a waste. The dm even told him to reconsider multiple times but he just kept those two feats...

[DruidAlanon]

rogue with 2 short swords, 3.0 core.
Evocer mage, banned transmutation, 3.0 core.
Each true necromancer.
fighter/mage/bladesinger (can you ever play an effective bladesinger?)
monk/reaping mauler
fighter/reaping mauler
Almost each warmage

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I think this was in the beginning of 2004, because it was definitely right before Complete Divine was printed. Characters started at 7th level, this guy made a Half-Celestial Human, Monk 1/ Cleric 1/ Sorcerer 1, planning on taking Mystic Theurge without any early entry tricks. He used a Dire Flail despite not even being proficient with it, and didn't even have TWF due to Dex 14 so he could get Str 18. He'd True Strike and get adjacent then full attack, primary hand was a disarm at +16, offhand was a trip at -8 to hit. Even with True Strike you can't really disarm a Hill Giant when they get +24 due to size and using a two-handed weapon. He got splattered pretty quick, and wasn't entirely sure why.


The following year, right after Complete Adventurer was released, I was running a game that only had one person reliably showing up, so the characters were gestalt. The reliable player was a Warmage//Full BAB + Rainbow Servant (reflavored to Phoenix Servant), taking Warmage with Rainbow Servant's levels that don't grant spellcasting (per the table). The above player made some terrible combination of Half-Celestial/many dips//Monk 2/ Cleric, with Great Cleave and Leap Attack.

I think the characters were 8th or 9th level, going through the sewers under a large city looking for whatever was causing trouble, and found some Kythons from BoVD. They're standing shoulder to shoulder in a 10 ft. wide hallway, with two juvenile kythons directly in front of them, and beyond was a 30x30 room with three adult kythons hanging back waiting for an opening to strike.

This guy swings once and moves back to get a running start, then the next round charges one of the adults, jumping over the juvenile in the hallway with leap attack, landing directly behind both juveniles and adjacent to two of the adults. He was expecting to kill the adult in one hit, then great cleave everything else he was threatening, but he had a terribly low attack bonus and missed his first swing. The juvenile now flanking him full attacked him, the two adults he's now adjacent to both full attacked, and the remaining adult charged since it now had a target it could reach. They were in the perfect position to gradually work their way through all of their opponents, but he decided he'd show off what his terrible build was capable of and got ripped to pieces. He promptly informs the Warmage player that he should run because he too would die, the Warmage responds by casting Black Tentacles and then Fireballing all of them down. I'm pretty sure he went and told the city guards what was in the sewer, and that he wasn't going back down there. It was a bit of a side quest anyway, and he'd used kythons before and didn't want anything to do with them as a PC.

[evisiron]

Melee focused Dwarven Bard.
The character wasn't even interesting, utterly lacking in background or personality to compensate for the lack of aptitude.

[Jon_Dahl]

Mystic Theurge build, just one level before taking the first level of the PrC.
They say it's a trap, and I can confirm this.
You have a cleric 3/sorcerer 4 and there's very little he can do about things, in combat or outside combat. Really.

[RustyArmor]

1wizard/1sorcerer/1druid/1cleric/1bard/1wujen/1shugenia(sp?)/1favorsoul
Titled himself the master of cantrips. Had a BAB of 0 at 8th level though his will save was pretty damn amazing.

[DungeonDelver]

The worst one I ever had myself was a Fighter/Psion (Psychokinesis). Since nobody else was especially well built, he managed not to totally suck. I really didn't have any clue what I was doing.

The worst I've seen otherwise was a gestalt Rogue/Shadowdancer/Alchemist. There could have been synergy in the build, but she never used it. All she did was throw bombs, ignore her other class features, and wonder why she sucked.

[3WhiteFox3]

fighter/mage/bladesinger (can you ever play an effective bladesinger?)


Yes. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=274122)

The worst builds I've seen so far (in PF) have probably been the (two!) builds that decided that it was a good idea to waste a feat on exotic weapon proficiency for the Bastard Sword, just so they could make it large. So yeah wasting a feat and -2 to attack just for 3.5 extra damage.

Sadly they got this idea from the "iconic" barbarian.

EDIT: I should clarify that while the build isn't on the level as some of the others here, it was that they seemed to legitimately think it was cheesy to do this.

[Jeff the Green]

A couple of times I've seen people make Paladin/Monks. Without Serenity.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Warforged Fighter, specced out very well to be an excellent charger, even taking Dungeoncrasher. After dropping to 6 HP from a Blue Dragon encounter, he remained in the back, hitting people with his nonmagical Longbow, which he had no feats for, over his heavily enchanted Greataxe. I, as a Complete Adventure Ninja, was more useful than he was. Even before the Blue Dragon, he rarely charged (he had Pounce from a custom magic item specifically requested by him), and most the time forgot about Dungeoncrasher. It was sad, and pathetic.

I offered to swap characters for one session, to show him how poorly he was playing his own character (he was saying the same about me). I managed to decimate 2/3s the opponents of every encounter, while he only got Sudden Strike off once (I was getting it off 4 out of 5 rounds). He didn't take it well.

[sabelo2000]

Worst build ever? Half-orc druid 8? i think. Build wise it wasnt horrible, he did actually grab Natural Spell, he was just an idiot. Now the party consisted of a Dwarven Cleric, me, a Human Rogue Assassin, and a Human Monk. Now we were rather low OP so this was all fine, but the Druid was just terrible. He wore no armor, and the only spell he EVER cast was Shillelagh, oh and he was to lazy to stat out an animal companion. I remember him asking me to heal him after a fight, and i just told him that he could do it himself. (i was a blaster cleric so i tended to nuke stuff, it was fun.) Well he told me he didnt want to waste his slots, he used like 3 on average in a day, so i responded by using Cure Serious on the monk who had taken like 5 damage, the druid had like 10 HP left. Needless to say that Druid died a horrible death shortly thereafter.

One of my players had a similar, albino half-orc druid. He didn't play so dumb, though, and in fact managed some spectacular feats once in a while. But we still laugh at the time he tried to speak with plants when there was only moss around... our DM roleplayed the moss as having an Int of about 1/2 and its only thoughts were pretty much, "growing... growing... growing..."

[asnys]

I played, for a year or two, a dual-wielding paladin in 3.0. I technically didn't even actually have the Dex to take all those TWF feats, but I didn't notice until I'd been playing the character long enough that nobody wanted to make me switch. Eventually I PrC'd into a homebrewed "half-phoenix" prestige class whose big abilities were adding a couple of arcane blasting spells to my spell list and blowing up if I died. At the time, I blamed the DM's stinginess with loot for my ineffectiveness.

(He was pretty stingy, actually. In part because he gave 100 x level bonus XP just for showing up since we had trouble with attendance, so we never had our proper wealth-by-level.)

That wasn't quite the worst, though. That group also featured a wizard who fought in full plate and used Monkey Grip to dual-wield great swords. :smallconfused:

[Razanir]

Monk//Cleric. Not the best character overall, although there WAS the one awesome time he cast cure light wounds through a flurry to heal an ally AND damage an enemy in one action.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Tielfing (Standard +2 dex, +2 int, -2 Cha)

The Levels
Rogue 1
Sandman Bard 5
Arcane Trickster 1

Preferred Tactic in Combat: Weapon Finesse+Rapier to try and sneak attack.

Player's perception of the Bard spell list: "It's not very good because it doesn't really have any damage spells." This lead to:

Spells the Bard knew
- Vanish
- Mage Hand
- Tap Inner Beauty
Spells I know the Bard didn't know
- Grease
- Mirror Image
- Invisibility
- Eagle's Splendor
- Silent Image
- Blur

I feel that I should also point out that the player chose to do this so that they could rush to Arcane Trickster (a 1/2 BAB class, for those that forget), by level 7 (the start of the campaign) instead of level 8. This was a game that was being played at double XP. The player has also been playing 3.X games, as far as I can tell, for at least 4 years.

Unfortunately the player also chose to be a Tiefling in a world so racist that even Aasimar were persecuted.

[LogosDragon]

It shocks me, seeing Druids as part of the worst builds, but then, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Order of importance, after all, is tactics>build>class.

I'd say the worst I've seen played is Varsuvius my friend's Eldritch Disciple blaster. If you can't tell that that's bad just by hearing it, read up on what blasters need to function in this game, then lol at my friend endlessly ^_^ He also thought straight Eldritch Blast was better than changing its essence, but now we're just getting silly.

[nedz]

To be fair: most of these are bad play rather than bad build.

[MesiDoomstalker]

To be fair: most of these are bad play rather than bad build.

Well then let me add, in the same game, we had a future Mystic Theurge. We started at level 5, I expected him to have his first level already, using some early entry trick as he was a much more experienced player than I was. I was wrong. Cleric 2/Wizard 3. Ok, well next level he'll grab Cleric 3 and grab MT at 7. The game went to level 10, before it died, and he never took MT. I asked him why not, he said he wanted to finish out the build as an MT.

[denthor]

I tried to make the worst build ever started at first level Fighter with net and whip and improved trip as the feats. My vision was to have a second rank fighter that would trap and make enemies easier to hit not run away.

Wisdom 9
Intellegence 14


I fAILED

Since I had trip as a feat I took Halbert as my primary melee weapon. I thought it was a 10 foot reach weapon. No such luck. I Multiclassed to thief at 3rd. The people I played with actively tried to get me killed. Let me go to front line. When I got to 6th level fighter/2nd level thief/I took wizard.

We were always in the dark or underdark and nobody ever had a way to see. So I gave up a 10 point ring of fire resistance. For a wand of dark vision, scolls of dark vision and three potion of dark vision. I was the only party member to even think about it. I got fair value for the ring in total I 10,500 GP worth of dark vision for a 10,000 GP ring.

Since I had one level wizard I was able to read the scrolls and use the wand.

I ended the Character as 6th fighter/4th thief/4th wizard opened a magic item shop filled with dark vision potions. Oh and yes dark vision was always on her spell slots

For some reason with this character I was just fixated on that spell.

[Werephilosopher]

In my first (and so far, only :smallfrown:) PF game, one fellow adventurer was a Sorcerer who decided against learning Identify, despite the number of magic items we found. He also dumped Dexteriy. It wasn't too bad, because he was new, and we all had a good time; but sometimes it got annoying hearing him ask why his rays never hit, and enemy attacks always got through his low AC.

But the worst build I've EVER seen was my own, during my first game ever. Since I just up and asked to join the group mid-session, they simply handed me the character sheet of the guy who bailed on them... a half-elf monk. Eventually I got the DM to let me exchange all my class levels.... so I could be a psion nomad. My feats were Expanded Knowledge (Energy Missile) and EWP (Spiked Chain). And I thought my astral caravan power was the coolest (it sucks).

Ah, the good old days.... :smallsmile:

[dps]

To be fair: most of these are bad play rather than bad build.

Yep, and some of the bad builds seem to be the result of players who are putting more emphasis on roleplaying a character concept than on mechanics, which is a bit different than somebody making a bad build because they don't understand or think through what they're doing.

[DungeonDelver]

Well, my Psion/Fighter was me not knowing anything about what I was doing build wise. I made him work because we were in a sub-optimal game.

Roleplay is one thing. If you want to build a character that does something, and they turn out to be terrible at that because you built them wrong...that's another.

Speaking of which; Several primary 9th-level casters that didn't put their highest ability score in their primary casting stat. No, they weren't crippled when it came to other stats.

[navar100]

In my first (and so far, only :smallfrown:) PF game, one fellow adventurer was a Sorcerer who decided against learning Identify, despite the number of magic items we found. He also dumped Dexteriy. It wasn't too bad, because he was new, and we all had a good time; but sometimes it got annoying hearing him ask why his rays never hit, and enemy attacks always got through his low AC.

But the worst build I've EVER seen was my own, during my first game ever. Since I just up and asked to join the group mid-session, they simply handed me the character sheet of the guy who bailed on them... a half-elf monk. Eventually I got the DM to let me exchange all my class levels.... so I could be a psion nomad. My feats were Expanded Knowledge (Energy Missile) and EWP (Spiked Chain). And I thought my astral caravan power was the coolest (it sucks).

Ah, the good old days.... :smallsmile:

Did he have Detect Magic? In Pathfinder you can identify magic items with Detect Magic using a Spellcraft check. The Identify spell just gives a +10 enhancement bonus to the check.

[TrollCapAmerica]

We might wanna state what sort of bad build we are presenting beforehand.I can think of some variants

1-Somebody overestimates a builds capabilities and ends up underperforming.This can happen even to a competent player sometimes too
2-As above but mostly underperforms due to the rest of the party simply doing it better and making them look bad by comparison
3-The player is new and simply didnt understand why something wouldnt work either for lack of foresight or understanding of the math
4-The player is focused on the fluff of a build they end up wildly underperforming
5-The player is dumb as a bucket of rocks an either screws up the build or application of the characters capabilities

The worst ive seen was 3 and 5.We had a new player that insisted he knew D&D and was a competent player.He ends up rolling a Halfing Rogue since we lacked one in the party.The game is based mostly around the Warblade who has become King of his ancestral homeland and has been using slow progression to keep our levels down around 6/7 despite having played a long time.He makes this character so he could be the 007 of the campaign and we are all into it

Except everytime he went off on his own scouting or infiltrating he couldnt figure out what to do.He would walk right up to people and use the most half assed lies that were so bad the DM wouldnt even allow a Bluff check.He checks am enemy base and just kind of wandered around expecting the DM to drop something he needed right in his lap and was only barely talked out of trying to ambush a wandering guard and interrogate him [again its a Halfing].

He was rarely in combat but that might have been for the best.He never once managed a sneak attack and never tried to set one up despite everyone offering suggestions on it constantly,The DM even gave him a magical music box that let him go ethereal for a few rounds to set up sneak attack positioning and he still couldnt figure it out.I gave him the idea for a Keen Rapier and weapon finesse [We houserule it and Zen Archery as applying to hit and damage] but he still never really used them

He ends up getting killed a couple weeks ago when he went along with the Dread Pirate to and end up tangling with one of his rivals.The Pirates had a duel and the PC won and let the other leave under the condition that they stay out of his waters.The Halfling decides hes gonna sneak over there and assassinate the rival.He actually did a fairly good job sneaking onto the ship and even saw the Captain getting medical attention.the thing is midway through he decided he would sneak around killing all members of the crew.There were along of reasons why this was a bad idea but with a pretty good hide score and his etherealness box he might have made a good showing of it.Instead he snuck into the kitchen and just started stabbing cooks.I will also add the kitchen was close to where the captain was being treated so he was the first one there to investigate

To be fair with his Keen rapier he actually gave the Captain a good run and brought him down to single digit HP [He was healed for a little over half] but ended up becoming a splotch on the wall and giving one of our enemies a bunch of cool magical trinkets they will surely use alot better

[rockdeworld]

Yes. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=274122)
Even I'm not sure about that :smallamused:

How funny, when I saw the thread title I assumed it meant "horrible" as in "terribly powerful and scary" and thought of Tippy's planet character, followed by the Nasty Gentleman. (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1038816)

Anyway, the worst build I've ever seen was probably a PFS inquisitor built around diplomacy, some bluff, and nothing else. His combat tactics were "yell at the enemy and use spells meant for social encounters." To his credit, he did serve as an effective tank, because he was 2 levels above us, had the most HP, and actually got the enemies to target him with their attacks. Last I saw, he had gained 3 levels and was taking on a level 7-9 module with another group.

[ChaoticDitz]

I've played alongside a Centaur Bard with a bunch of sing-boosting and draconic feats and Vow of Nonviolence. He had an interesting concept, to say the least, but it just didn't work. He picked terribad feats that didn't really work together, he should have been a Tauric something instead of Centaur, and my god, that dumped Int was played way way WAY too well... It was honestly frustrating making him feel like his support was doing anything for the team. Because it really wasn't.

[TiaC]

My worst character was a Half-Orc Monk wielding an Orc Double Axe. He eventually got Boots of Levitation and started spinning his axe over his head and acting like he was a helicopter. I think it took me until level six to become proficient with the axe.

Other bad characters:
Half-elf Fighter 7/Druid 1, upon gaining the druid level he ditched his armor and picked up a quarterstaff
Human Wizard 11, insisted on being a swordfighting wizard like Gandalf. Never cast buffs except for true strike. Stat priority was Str>Con=Dex>Int. Was offended by suggestions to play a gish PrC. Feats were proficiencies and toughness.
Barbarian 5/Sorceror 5. Took extra rage, raged every fight. Never cast spells.
Half-dragon Drow Wizard. Played as a primary spellcaster with +5 LA. The same game had a Vampire monk at ECL 10. That group was trying a high-LA Campaign. If the other players hadn't gone Feral Half-Ogre Barbarian and the Trumpet Archon monster class it might have been possible to lowball it.

[Craft (Cheese)]

A couple of times I've seen people make Paladin/Monks. Without Serenity.

Miko Miyazaki?

[Beardbarian]

The worst build i've ever seen?

PF straight elf sorcerer. Just for the longsword proficiency he tought that he was a good melee.

[BWR]

I have come to one realization while reading these boards (several actually, but only one relevant here): a lot of groups have a lot higher standards for what they consider decent characters than my groups.

It's not that we do not have a player who can make good builds, it's just that the rest of us don't really bother.

[CombatOwl]

What is the most horrible build, that you have ever seen attempted to be played at your table?

Well... horrible in what way? Ineffective? I was invited to a game once, and the DM told me nothing about what was going on. Turns out the party was shipwrecked on an island that was being taken over by daemons... and I was playing a tiefling fighter/rogue that focused on small weapons. None of them could bypass DR. Needless to say I didn't participate in the fights very much, except to provide flanking bonuses.

OTOH, my current rogue/cleric is pretty bad too. It seemed fun when building, but in play it just hasn't worked at all.

Mechanically speaking, I had someone try to play a truenamer once. That was pretty bad too. Oh, duh, enchanters and illusionists in undead-heavy games. I played such a character--fortunately it was pathfinder and I could prepare banned spells (sadly, evocation and necromancy--again the DM didn't say what the game was about beforehand) with double slots.

[ArcturusV]

I wouldn't say it's necessarily high standards. For example, my example. That is just a reflection of really ****ty rules (Level Adjustment) being used by someone who didn't really understand that minor powers/stat buffs did not really equal character levels, as far as effectiveness goes.

In particular the problem with having 12 HP at level 10+.

Though I do understand your feeling there. Most of the stuff I see talked about on boards as potential builds or character concepts are quite far removed from my own personal experiences at the table. Don't think I've ever had someone go make resetting magical trap spam, or shapechanging into a Zodar, or Ice Assassins, etc.

[Ghost Nappa]

Maybe this thread should be changed to making characters for the most un-optimized game ever and seeing how long they can survive.

Things like:
Your only allowed to put Skill Points in Non-Class Skills. You can't put in a second rank until EVERY skill has 1 rank.

All spellcasters in the party have to pick the same spells. They should be as situational as possible.

[Deathkeeper]

My first PF game, oh my. A monk with 10 Con. Half-decent feats, but put next to nothing in Acrobatics or any skills that would actually help her. Also spent feats for stuff like Scorpion Style instead of anything defensive or effective.
Also paired with our cleric, 8 str but still attacked occasionally, pumped Cha despite my 20 Cha Sorc being the party face, wasted skill points on Dance at one point, and actually took Scribe Scroll despite the GM giving us scrolls for very cheap prices all the time. And then never used it. Also insisted on purchasing scrolls like Gentle Repose in case someone died, not seeming to understand the concept of "just memorize it the next day." We also had to convince him Bull's Strength was a good spell.




I've played alongside a Centaur Bard with a bunch of sing-boosting and draconic feats and Vow of Nonviolence. He had an interesting concept, to say the least, but it just didn't work. He picked terribad feats that didn't really work together, he should have been a Tauric something instead of Centaur, and my god, that dumped Int was played way way WAY too well... It was honestly frustrating making him feel like his support was doing anything for the team. Because it really wasn't.

Well, he was. He was a Tauric human/horse.
...the fact that the template is better than the creature it's based off of always bothered me. At least he played something well. It was just the stupid part. :smallamused:

[atomicwaffle]

Half-Elf Bard 4 Sorcerer 2
The player himself is a bit (read: a lot) of an idiot himself, and the inspiration for this character was Johnny Cage. He constantly referred to himself in the 3rd person as "The God of Rock." and had Craft: Autograph. 4 months i had to endure this before he finally died. I was satisfied when our gnome wizard fireballed him.

[denthor]

I have come to one realization while reading these boards (several actually, but only one relevant here): a lot of groups have a lot higher standards for what they consider decent characters than my groups.

It's not that we do not have a player who can make good builds, it's just that the rest of us don't really bother.

Many people pour over the books and Min/Max. Take the mimimum pealty for the maximum benefit.

I do not like to play that way it means you always have to use the same tactic every time and any change will cause you to lose badly and quickly.

[Story]

Did he have Detect Magic? In Pathfinder you can identify magic items with Detect Magic using a Spellcraft check. The Identify spell just gives a +10 enhancement bonus to the check.

You can do that in 3.5 too, you just have to spend 1.5k on an Artificer's Monocle first.




I do not like to play that way it means you always have to use the same tactic every time and any change will cause you to lose badly and quickly.

Alternatively, it allows you to use a variety of tactics while still being effective.

[XmonkTad]

One of my first ever characters was a Kobold Hexblade that focused on tripping. Best thing I did all game was kill another Kobold with a Curling Wave Strike. No one was impressed.

[Toliudar]

My first 3.0 character was a halfling cleric 4/rogue 4 who never once sneak attacked, used spells only for healing and crafting magic items, and who was focused entirely on creating small effigy creatures and mechanical tricks that had only modest effectiveness in game. He was officially and immediately the Elan of the group, and was soon retired to stay-at-home NPC status.

[DungeonDelver]

I don't view characters who aren't super-optimized as horrible builds. I view characters that can't fight default monster manual foes effectively as horrible builds.

Any build that can't contribute to combat against normal, non-optimized foes is horrible.

Like the elf sorcerer I once played alongside that consistently tried to use his longbow instead of his spells...at level five.

[nedz]

Many people pour over the books and Min/Max. Take the minimum penalty for the maximum benefit.

I do not like to play that way it means you always have to use the same tactic every time and any change will cause you to lose badly and quickly.

The best characters are those with the most options, not one trick ponies.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Any build that can't contribute to combat against normal, non-optimized foes is horrible.

Not using theoretical optimization is good.
Not using practical optimization is neutral.
Not using any optimization-- ie, making a character who is deliberately incompetent-- is bad.

Doing research before you start playing (google handbooks, talk to buddies who have played longer, etc) is good.
Flipping through the PHB and building a character from random parts that look cool is neutral.
Doing the above and refusing to learn from the experience is bad.

[Red Fel]

The best characters are those with the most options, not one trick ponies.

Seconded.

While I dislike min/maxing for mechanical reasons, I can appreciate it for in-character reasons. For instance, an Olympic Swimmer isn't going to also practice archery - he's going to swim. He's going to swim like crazy, shave off his body hair, maintain an absurd (and possibly unhealthy) body tone, and do any number of other bizarre things. And that makes sense.

Doing it just because you want your character to be SUPER AWESOME at X is a nuisance at best, and counterproductive at worst. Doing it for reasons that make sense in-character is understandable. Doing it in a way that gives you diverse functionality is actually pretty smart.


Not using theoretical optimization is good.
Not using practical optimization is neutral.
Not using any optimization-- ie, making a character who is deliberately incompetent-- is bad.

Objection: Just because you don't optimize doesn't mean your character is deliberately incompetent. It just means that any positive results are incidental, rather than by design.

Nothing wrong with designing a character for fun instead of for profit.

... I think I may have contradicted myself... Shh, don't tell anyone.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Oh almost forgot my first character. Elf Duskblade. I came into a campaign right at level 13, which in hindsight was awesome for a Duskblade. My friends helped me build him, and by help I mean, I said what I wanted and they put it on the character sheet. I didn't know how to use any of my feats, or my spells, till the second session. When I learned spells were limited per day, and I saw how many I was getting, I freaked out. "Only 9 1st level spells?! And 2 of my 4ths?!!?!?!" I overreacted and was extremely stingy with my spells cast. I'd average about 3 1st levels a day. I don't think I ever cast a 4th or 3rd level spell. I also didn't know how wonderful Power Attack was, or the fact I had over a 100,000 gp was not a trivial sum. I only have a magical Longsword because it was found in loot, a +2 vanilla longsword. My armor was nonmagical chainshirt, I didn't use a shield nor two-handed my longsword. I was very pathetic.

When fighting a boss-crab thing, I managed to deal 30 damage with Shocking Grasp Full-Attack. And then cried in the corner when the barbarian did over 100 on his first swing.

[Akal Saris]

Oh, duh, enchanters and illusionists in undead-heavy games. I played such a character--fortunately it was pathfinder and I could prepare banned spells (sadly, evocation and necromancy--again the DM didn't say what the game was about beforehand) with double slots.

I ran a 1-shot 3.5 game where the name was "Tomb of the Wight Lord" or something, and I told the PCs the name beforehand.

Despite the warning (or perhaps in willful recklessness), all 3 PCs decided to play multi-class rogues, so they had a:
Rogue 1/Cleric 1
Rogue 1/Diviner 1
Rogue 1/Monk 1

Of course, virtually nothing was sneak-attackable in the dungeon as written, so I ended up having to throw some living opponents at them and reducing the undead encounters :P

[nedz]

I ran a 1-shot 3.5 game where the name was "Tomb of the Wight Lord" or something, and I told the PCs the name beforehand.

Despite the warning (or perhaps in willful recklessness), all 3 PCs decided to play multi-class rogues, so they had a:
Rogue 1/Cleric 1
Rogue 1/Diviner 1
Rogue 1/Monk 1

Of course, virtually nothing was sneak-attackable in the dungeon as written, so I ended up having to throw some living opponents at them and reducing the undead encounters :P

Maybe they confused the title with Tomb of Horrors ?

[flare'90]

I ran a 1-shot 3.5 game where the name was "Tomb of the Wight Lord" or something, and I told the PCs the name beforehand.

Despite the warning (or perhaps in willful recklessness), all 3 PCs decided to play multi-class rogues, so they had a:
Rogue 1/Cleric 1
Rogue 1/Diviner 1
Rogue 1/Monk 1

Of course, virtually nothing was sneak-attackable in the dungeon as written, so I ended up having to throw some living opponents at them and reducing the undead encounters :P

I can see the player going: "It's a tomb so it will have traps in it. I'll dip Rogue for trapfinding."

[ArcturusV]

Red Fel: I agree there. Sometimes I will do things I know are suboptimal just because... why not? You never see it.

Example: In a currently recruiting game I'm throwing up a Half-Orc Paladin. Yeah... I know that Paladins typically are bad. And Half-Orc isn't exactly ideal for a Paladin with the Charisma ding. And only having 1 skill point per level is really going to irk me, badly. But it'll be a fun concept, in a setting where the DM has said there are actually a lot of Paladins. And it SOUNDS like he's doing all human paladins, so having a character hook as a "savage" Paladin who does worship Gruumsh out of traditional faith (Though with his own Lawful Good kick to it) sounded interesting to me.

... though the build itself will likely be horrible enough that I will get to add it to this topic later.

[TechnoWarforged]

4 Monk/8 sorcerer - I was the offender on that one. Being my first serious d&d campaign I didn't realized that nothing should have substitute for spell/caster levels. Yes, not even the ability to safely fall 30 feet without taking damage and being a sorcerer means that I'll be blasting things from afar and anything that gets closed to me means I'm dead... extra HP/ki strike or otherwise...

[Invader]

Warforged Fighter, Spencer out very well to be an excellent charger, even taking Dungeoncrasher. After dropping to 6 HP from a Blue Dragon encounter, he remained in the back, hitting people with his nonmagical Longbow, which he had no feats for, over his heavily enchanted Greataxe. I, as a Complete Adventure Ninja, was more useful than he was. Even before the Blue Dragon, he rarely charged (he had Pounce from a custom magic item specifically requested by him), and most the time forgot about Dungeoncrasher. It was sad, and pathetic.

I offered to swap characters for one session, to show him how poorly he was playing his own character (he was saying the same about me). I managed to decimate 2/3s the opponents of every encounter, while he only got Sudden Strike off once (I was getting it off 4 out of 5 rounds). He didn't take it well.

This doesn't sound like a bad build so much as a bad player.


To be fair: most of these are bad play rather than bad build.

Gah, swordsage'd

[LogosDragon]

This doesn't sound like a bad build so much as a bad player.

I don't think those are mutually exclusive concepts to any degree whatsoever.

[SimonMoon6]

I saw someone playing a monk/rogue (with roughly equal levels of each).

This was back when 3.0 was new so people were still feeling out the rules. The DM had pretty much made this character for the player because he needed the help. I think the DM though this character would be pretty useful because it sounds cool: a highly maneuverable sneak-attacking martial artist skills-guy who could avoid everything. But of course, nothing about the build worked and the player was incapable of optimizing it.

[LogosDragon]

I saw someone playing a monk/rogue (with roughly equal levels of each).

This was back when 3.0 was new so people were still feeling out the rules. The DM had pretty much made this character for the player because he needed the help. I think the DM though this character would be pretty useful because it sounds cool: a highly maneuverable sneak-attacking martial artist skills-guy who could avoid everything. But of course, nothing about the build worked and the player was incapable of optimizing it.

Two-level Monk dip isn't bad at all for Rogues, especially if you're concept-searching for somebody who uses nonlethal Sneak Attacks. But yeah, that mostly sounds bad.

[nedz]

Two-level Monk dip isn't bad at all for Rogues, especially if you're concept-searching for somebody who uses nonlethal Sneak Attacks. But yeah, that mostly sounds bad.

Well the optimal number of Monk levels are {0,2,4,6,11}, in that order, but Rogue isn't high tier and so Monk 2 works well. Mainly for the free feats, especially if you go outside core, and the ability to swap Evasion out with an ACF and yet still have Evasion. The save boosts are handy as is Wis to AC, well possibly. For non-lethal sneak attacks though: Sap is a Rogue weapon.

[Zubrowka74]

Me making the transition from 2e to 3.0 : half-elven druid /... fighter ? The fluff was cool but that's about it.

[PraxisVetli]

Githyanki Cleric of Nerull
NE, Straight Cleric all the way to 20
No DMM
No regular Meta either
In fact, not a single feat that wasn't out of the PH!
Or Spells either!
His fluff was fun, he Lich'd around lvl 15, wanted to go epic and challenge the Lichqueen, attempt to reunite the Yankis with the Zeris, challenge the flayer dynasty on a global scale.
Except...

did no research on any of the threes' societies
took no Leadership feats (cuz you know, not in the PH..sorta)
bought only enhancements for weapon and armour, gave rest to church (thereby not qualifying for Vow of Poverty)
Refused to look up/ use his Psionics, essentially paying a +2 LA for a minus to his casting
TRIED TO BE A HEAL MACHINE WHILE BEING NE
and wielded a halberd; refused to take Somnatic Weaponry, so spell casting was funny

Coup de Grace?
When he quit the campaign because it was too hard, and he couldn't keep up (rest of us were moderately optimal), and couldn't figure out WHY he couldn't keep up.
anyway, that's my rant/contribution.

[SimonMoon6]

Well the optimal number of Monk levels are {0,2,4,6,11}, in that order, but Rogue isn't high tier and so Monk 2 works well. Mainly for the free feats, especially if you go outside core, and the ability to swap Evasion out with an ACF and yet still have Evasion. The save boosts are handy as is Wis to AC, well possibly. For non-lethal sneak attacks though: Sap is a Rogue weapon.

And since this was 3.0 not 3.5, one level of Monk gave everything that was really useful. And there were no such thing as ACFs. So, this guy had evasion from being a monk and evasion from being a rogue.

Basically, the monk levels just diluted the usefulness of his rogue abilities (which aren't that great to start with) without adding anything that he ever used other than the save bonuses.

[Invader]

I don't think those are mutually exclusive concepts to any degree whatsoever.

Which is exactly why I said it, I'm not sure what your point is or are you just agreeing with me? :smallconfused: