Inevitable demise: 4 mundane-geared fighters vs 4 Maruts [Build Challenge]

[NichG]

Based on a very drawn out theorycraft debate between myself and Kelb_Panthera about the importance or unimportance of magical gear to basic survival in D&D 3.5, I've started this thread to call for builds and people willing to run them to try to resolve the high-op end of the debate.

I'm betting on the fighters on this one.

Here are the parameters:

Kelb_Panthera will run 4 by-the-book Maruts against 4 Lv19 straight-classed Fighters. The fighters cannot have any magical gear (though they may have mundane gear of their choice up to WBL). Leadership and sources of spellcasting are not permitted, but otherwise go crazy.

You are allowed to 'build for the fight' - fighters who are specifically optimized to defeat Maruts are fine (and I would guess somewhat necessary).

Kelb, any other details you want to specify? Say, whether LA-sans-RHD is acceptable, or if its acceptable to take races that get SLAs as long as you don't use them? Location of the encounter? Is successfully fleeing considered a victory?

[Yogibear41]

This will be interesting, you should probably list something about starting stats(32 pb?) and usable races and templates(I see you wrote about RHD and LA) Also no leadership, but what about spending money on hirelings? or wartrained animals and things? I'm sure some obscure alchemical item could help here since they are non-magical.

Also what will the battle field look like? Can the fighters set up hundreds of feet away and use war weapons from a distance? Do the fighters have a castle to hide behind? Are they fighting on the material plane? etc. etc. Average HP per hit die?


EDIT: LOL, nvm I just scrolled down and saw the Marut's spell like abilities, there is no way, without a crazy base race or a template, and even then maybe if you had the VOP too to replace magic items, maybe then.

[eggynack]

EDIT: LOL, nvm I just scrolled down and saw the Marut's spell like abilities, there is no way, without a crazy base race or a template, and even then maybe if you had the VOP too to replace magic items, maybe then.
You could almost say that the victory of the maruts is... inevitable. Fwee hee hee.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I find the stipulation that allows building specifically to counter a marut a bit distasteful but I'll roll with it anyway.

Let's limit races to no higher than ECL 3 before class levels. That'll allow for the odd lizard man or the like if anyone likes. Let's keep templates to a minimum; 1 per character, if desired. The logic here is that the majority of tables wouldn't allow excessive template stacking or use of exceedingly odd races. SLA's feels like trying to get around the spellcasting restriction but let's see where it goes.

Builds are allowed 32 point-buy. It's my understanding that this is a pretty typical choice for point-buy.

Encounter location is a good question. It's a hell of an important variable. An open arena feels a bit contrived. Perhaps a large-ish dungeon chamber with a bit of debris? I'm open to suggestions here.

I think that should be about right, though I'm willing to hear any other suggestions before we roll initiative.

Oh, and we'll need to either get this moved to the PBP subforum or at least open a thread there for rolling dice since the dice roller code doesn't work in this subforum.

[Yogibear41]

Just to clarify, ECL 3 lizard men get 16 levels of fighter or 19 levels of fighter?

Is Dragon Magazine content fair game?

Define "spellcasting" to please, easy to say arcane, divine, psionics, are out what about racial SU and SP abilities as well as things like the shape soul meld feat.

What about Flaws and traits?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I'm a bit too busy to make a party of fighters, but aside from good tactics it seems like the Fighters have three main needs:

Flight. Look at the SLAs (Air Walk, ranged stuff) and the defenses (DR 15/not mundane stuff, fast healing 10). Basically this means raptoran/dragonborn/etc is necessary.

Good damage that doesn't rely on solid objects being nearby. Again, the maruts are going to be in the air, and their bull rush isn't terrible, so dungeon crasher probably won't work. That said, this is the easiest part, what with power attack/leap attack/shock trooper. No pounce though... Maybe go Combat Brute? You're going to have the feats.

Good will saves. Without magic or multiclassing, I'm looking at +6 base +3? wis +2 feat = +11 before dumpster diving for more obscure bonuses. That obviously has to be jacked up, or four maruts with at-will Fear and Greater Command will spam the party to death. Martial Study: MoPM and concentration investment (2+int skills remember) will work... once. Steadfast determination may be a good investment if you can get a ridiculous templated monstrosity with a huge con bonus. That would cover this well.

In fact I can start to see the fighters who could win. Dragonborn water orc half minotaur half blah blah huge str and con bonus race, wings, standard shock trooper setup, steadfast determination + other will save boosters.

This reminds me... I assume other magical subsystems aren't allowed?

[kardar233]

The DCs on the Marut's SLAs are relatively low, so I think it shouldn't be too hard to optimize your saves to the point where you can pass on a 1, though that would probably require some careful choice of race or template. Unfortunately, since there are four Maruts, you're likely to have to roll a bunch of saves which not only makes it more likely that you'll get a 1, it also removes Diamond Mind save-replacers as feasible ways to beat saves. The DC on the blinding fist is much higher, which could be problematical. Thus, I'd definitely advise some way to get Blindsight or similar so you can avoid the 50% miss chance if you get blinded.

[Kelb_Panthera]

To clarify, final ECL is 19, starting ECL is no greater than 3.

I'm strongly disinclined toward allowing Dragon Magazine but I'm willing to take a vote on it from people -not- participating as fighters.

It's my understanding that Dragon material is frequently disallowed but I don't get the impression it's so frequently disallowed that it should be discarded outright, so let's hear from the peanut gallery.

[eggynack]

I'm generally against dragon magazine stuff in optimization battles, and in other things. It's a tricky source in a lot of ways.

[Yogibear41]

Well, IMO for the point to be actually valid that you can play DND at high levels without the need for magic in a standard CR based gamed you should be able to do it with the races in the players handbook (which obviously you can't) but for the sake of my CHALLENGE ACCEPTED attitude I feel a good side of half-Minotaur awesomness could be greatly utilized


Half-Minotaur Water Orc Saints that is.

Also, what about 3.0 sources that never got updated such as Savage Species.

[chaos_redefined]

Kelb, you forgot to state whether he could count as winning if he successfully escaped from them.

Also, limitations on sources allowed for the fighters is currently missing.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

The DCs on the Marut's SLAs are relatively low, so I think it shouldn't be too hard to optimize your saves to the point where you can pass on a 1, though that would probably require some careful choice of race or template. Unfortunately, since there are four Maruts, you're likely to have to roll a bunch of saves which not only makes it more likely that you'll get a 1, it also removes Diamond Mind save-replacers as feasible ways to beat saves. The DC on the blinding fist is much higher, which could be problematical. Thus, I'd definitely advise some way to get Blindsight or similar so you can avoid the 50% miss chance if you get blinded.It is a lot higher, but a fighter with a bunch of crazy templates would probably be able to make the save ~60% of the time.

As far as allowing dragon or not, maybe give two tiers of challenge: If you have to use dragon material, you only get the silver medal.

[Mithril Leaf]

Two questions, Bestiary of Krynn, and grafts/symbionts?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Standard rule for 3.0 material; valid unless updated.

Grafts require a caster to be applied so, no, they're out. Symbionts are in a kinda grey area so we'll allow them.

Successfully fleeing isn't a win with inevitables. They -will- hunt you down, no matter how long it takes. That's their nature. If you don't kill it now you're just going to have to fight it again later so I don't feel that should be an acceptable win condition. Kill 'em or die trying.

Bestiary of Krynn is definitely 3rd party. Let's stick to WotC and, if the consensus runs that way, dragon. Note that if Dragon Magazine gets disallowed, we'll also be disallowing Dragon Compendium.

[Yogibear41]

Tossing out the Demonsworn Knight feat for a way to get around the dr/15 chaotic, to bad there is not a good version of it so it could go with saint or VOP, at least that I know off

Primordial Scion feat says hi, construct lock+ improved crit scimitars could be a thing.


Are Dragonmarks allowed? Are they allowed on non-dragon marked races? (remember something silly about reincarnation getting around that or something)

[Vogonjeltz]

A Marut only has 2 melee attacks in a full attack, correct?

What's their speed and grapple?

If a fighter can, non magically, be optimized to put the Marut into a pin, the Marut would be incapable of doing significant levels of damage.

I believe there is also a feat that prevents an opponent from casting unthreatened, so that given sufficient damage output at least one fighter could disrupt any attempt to use a spell like ability.

To counter flying would only require ranged damage capable of overcoming damage reduction correct? (Yes, the Marut can fly, but what would it do offensively?) so a composite bow with +6 draw, and the three weapons spec feats would be doing 13-20 damage per hit, up to 5 attacks per round, is that enough to overcome DR and fast healing?

Also if WBL can't be used for magic items, what about mounts?

[Mithril Leaf]

Standard rule for 3.0 material; valid unless updated.

Grafts require a caster to be applied so, no, they're out. Symbionts are in a kinda grey area so we'll allow them.

You can easily get fiendish grafts from a sibriex, no casting required.

All ACFs for fighters on the table?

[Gwendol]

I'd put forth my VoP challenge build:
Dragonborn Goliath bear totem barbarian 4/FotF 3/Bear warrior 1/Warshaper 4/Hulking hurler 3/Bear Warrior 4, Dragon Wing aspect


1. Imp Unarmed Strike, Sacred Vow (Flaw), Vow of Poverty (Flaw), Toughness (Bonus)
2. Imp Grapple (Bonus)
3. Power Attack, Great Fortitude (Bonus)
4.
5. FotF 1
6. PBS
7.
8. Bear Warrior 1
9. Warshaper 1, Weapon Focus (javelin)
10.
11.
12. Extra rage
13. Hulking Hurler 1
14. Area attack
15. Combat reflexes, Overburdened heave
16. Bear Warrior 2
17.
18. Multiattack

[Kudaku]

So it's a party with 2.3 million GP worth of WBL but they can't buy any magical items?

Ho boy... I'd hire something. Something big.

[RegalKain]

I'm a member of the peanut gallery here, I'd assume the no-magic to mean no Supernatural either, otherwise a Team of 4 Dragonborns could metabreath the crap out of their breath and get some pretty hefty damage, especially if the Draconomicon stacking of a metabreath is allowed, since a breath isn't technically magic it's just supernatural, this could turn into a lot less Fighter focused, and a lot more what can we do to make our Fighters mini-casters, which is kind of avoiding the point of the challenge, just my two cents though.

Also for those pre-posting races etc, remember he said a Single Template, so you're allowed 1Race, 1 Template, of which your starting ECL can be no higher then 3.




Let's limit races to no higher than ECL 3 before class levels. That'll allow for the odd lizard man or the like if anyone likes. Let's keep templates to a minimum; 1 per character, if desired. The logic here is that the majority of tables wouldn't allow excessive template stacking or use of exceedingly odd races. SLA's feels like trying to get around the spellcasting restriction but let's see where it goes.

Edit:


I'd put forth my VoP challenge build:
Dragonborn Goliath bear totem barbarian 4/FotF 3/Bear warrior 1/Warshaper 4/Hulking hurler 3/Bear Warrior 4, Dragon Wing aspect



Kelb_Panthera will run 4 by-the-book Maruts against 4 Lv19 straight-classed Fighters. The fighters cannot have any magical gear (though they may have mundane gear of their choice up to WBL). Leadership and sources of spellcasting are not permitted, but otherwise go crazy.

Straight-Classed fighters, wouldn't that negate your build which is not a straight classed fighter at all?

[Mithril Leaf]

Also remember how it's 4 straight classed fighters.

EDIT: Ninja'd

[Gwendol]

Sorry, missed it was Fighter (the "class") and not the role.

Ok, back to the drawing board then :smallsmile:

[NichG]

As someone cheering for the fighters, I'd say no Dragon Magazine. I suspect there's plenty of stuff that can be done with the books without going obscure like that.

Edit: To clarify the spirit of this challenge, the origin of this was a debate about a game in which basically the DM would not allow PCs to have any say over their gear. So I'd say not only magical items should be disallowed, but also things where you specifically pay for magical 'stuff' - e.g. its kind of against the spirit of it to pay a wizard to Polymorph Any Object you into a pebble, and then PaO the pebble into a Balor (hurray for getting around any explicit HD limits of PaO...).

Edit edit: Also, keep in mind that the Maruts will be played as optimally as we can figure out how to make them do so. That means that if they can fly out of the range of your weapons or behind cover and full heal, they will do so - thats probably the main problem with a ranged build, though if you can kill them before they get out of range...

----

This isn't a suggested build, but rather a set of observations about things that looked tempting when I was doing the low-op version of this in the other thread:

Indomitable Will is a nice guard against TPK-by-Fear, and these guys have more feats than they know what to do with.

Bonus to-hit matters a lot if you aren't doing Shock Trooper, because DR makes Power Attack even more valuable than normal. Even if you are doing Shock Trooper, a few points of to-hit can make a huge difference in the battle outcome stats from what I've seen (e.g. don't forget those flanking bonuses).

Iron Heart Surge would be nice if you can finagle it - negate Fear, Earthquake, Blindness all in one package. But the prereqs might be expensive if you're getting it via Martial Study.

If you can fly, fly. Earthquake is really nasty when used as part of a tag-team strategy, since its no-save action denial. Air Walk is actually less frightening, because the Marut itself has no ranged attacks. I didn't consider a bow-based build, but its actually got a lot to recommend it if the Maruts can't actually fly out of range to fast-heal to full. If nothing else, I would keep a bow as backup since the Marut could shed its full plate to get a 40ft base movement speed, which means that it wins in a kiting race against the usual fighter fare.

There's at least two low-level ToB maneuvers that can get through DR if you want to try to win in a burst fight. Mountain Hammer and Burning Brand. That's probably stretching Martial Study a bit thin though.

Don't ignore skill tricks. Awesome blow means that standing up from prone as a free action is potent. Don't ignore cross-class skills - they're Large and their AoO can blind you, so Tumble would be a good investment.

[Yogibear41]

Need to go to bed so didn't think out every single feat (and left almost all the free exalted out) or do point buy but here is the basis:

Feral Vri Saint Vril Errata stats: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20070504a

1. Sacred Vow
Flaw 1: VOP
Flaw 2: Claws of the Beast
Fighter1: Improved Unarmed Strike
2. Fighter 2: Weapon Focus: Claws
3. Primordial Scion
4. Weapon Spec: Claws
6. Saint Template, Inured to Energy (sonic)
8. Fighter Feat: Improved Critical
9. Thick-Skinned
10. Greater Weapon Focus: Claw
12. Thick-Skinned, Greater Weapon Spec: Claw
14. Weapon Focus Imp Unarmed Strike
15. Thick Skinned
16. Weapon Spec: Unarmed Strike

So Immune to electricity, resist 15 sonic, damage reduction 16/evil and fast healing 10 or 8 if you say saints does not stack with the 2 from feral. Can't really do anything if they fly away but are basically unkillable by there damage, and if they do fly away it just resets the fight allowing both to fast heal.

Base fort save is +5, +2 resistance from VOP, +4 wisdom from templates, and having a base wisdome of say 12, gives you a +10 on will saves could be boosted more with a little work.

Primoridal Scion makes your attacks chaotic and gives +1d6 on your attacks against lawful creatures, should take care of those guys easy enough.

If the saints abilities screw with the no spellcasting stipulation I will have to devise a new strategy.

Everything is basically out of the: PHB, Savage Species, and Fiendish Codex(which ever one is the demon one) Vril are in the underdark book, but the page was half left out so the link to the web page.

[rexx1888]

peanut gallery says throw out the dragon mags :P fact is, they arent balanced in any sane way, an we arent expecting the maruts to get any special ubir treatment.

either way the fighters are grade A boned but still, im a peanut :P

[Mithril Leaf]

peanut gallery says throw out the dragon mags :P fact is, they arent balanced in any sane way, an we arent expecting the maruts to get any special ubir treatment.

either way the fighters are grade A boned but still, im a peanut :P

Neither is core :smalltongue:

And I wouldn't count on the fighters being too boned yet.

[NichG]

Yogi has a very good start I think. We need to figure out the flight angle though, even if its just being able to out-wait the 150 minute duration of Air Walk somehow...

[Deophaun]

Yogi has a very good start I think. We need to figure out the flight angle though, even if its just being able to out-wait the 150 minute duration of Air Walk somehow...
Waiting out the duration isn't going to help, because it's at-will. There may as well be no duration.

[Mithril Leaf]

Need to go to bed so didn't think out every single feat (and left almost all the free exalted out) or do point buy but here is the basis:

Feral Vri Saint Vril Errata stats: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20070504a

Against the rules, 1 template only.

I'm still gunning for those nonmagical fiendish grafts.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Actually, even I thought we were talking about fighter the role, rather than fighter the class, for this exercise.

I'm reasonably confident that running it as fighter the class is near certain victory for the maruts.


I -want- to discard VoP out of hand. It's well known that low and no item scenarios are the only place that VoP shines. I'd have to strongly question if it was the character or the vow that won the day. I'll take a vote on this one too though.


Somebody mentioned Dragonmarks; yes to the marks, no to putting them on non-marked races. IIRC, dragonmarks only manifest in pure-bred members of the dragonmarked races, excepting aberrant marks, which precludes dragonmarked races with any inherited templates as well.

[Deophaun]

Hmm... I'm unsure if Weapon Focus and the like can apply to things like Alchemist Fire, but if it can, that might be a viable way to take out a Marut.

[SPoilaaja]

No dragon magazine used:

Bob the batrider
Fighter 19
Illumian

Str 18 -> +4 with levels: 22
Dex 10
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 6

HP: 166
Initiative: +6 (once per day +1d6,reroll once per day and reroll up to to 3 times with luck feats)
F R W
+14 +6 +6 EDIT: Forgot Unbelievable luck, take +2 to reflex saves, up to +8
AC: negatives after shocktrooper

Skills: Ride +24(22 ranks), Concentration +22(17 ranks), Handle animal +3(5 ranks).

Special: Sigils (Uur), (Hoon), 4 luck rerolls

Feats:
Improved initiative
Danger sense
Heroic Destiny
Lucky start
Unbelievable luck
Better lucky than good
Martial Study (moment of perfect mind)
Mounted Combat
Spirited Charge
Weapon focus (lance)
Law Devotion
Combat Brute
Ride-by-attack
Power Attack
Animal Cohort - (swap to dire bat when enough levels)
Shock Trooper
Improved Sunder
Improved Overrun

Flaw: Vulnerable, Pathetic (-2 charisma)

Trait: Aggressive


+25 Masterwork Lance
Law devotion bumps to hit up to +32
Charging give +2 bonus, up to +34 Lance, Use luck reroll to consider 1 as 20, so you can't miss

Use the lance with two hands, eventhough you are mounted.

Damage: 1d8+9
Power attack for 19(shocktrooper): 1d8+47.
Charging with a lance and spirited charge: 3d8+141 damage
Combat brute next round: even more damage




Dire Bat
HD 13, doesn't die to circle of death

Bat speed: 80 fly

Quick Trait

Willing Deformity
Deformity (madness) (immunity to mind affecting)
Martial Study (steel wind)
Air Heritage
Travel devotion

Skills: Jump 5, Balance 5
Twisted Charge


------------
Tactics: Win initiative (maruts have +1), if you don't: reroll a few times until you win

Round 1:
Charge the enemy with ride-by-attack killing a marut instantly (you have enough attack bonus to hit on a roll of 2, and you can consider rolls of 1 as 20)

If for some reason that does not work, you ride-by attack as far as possible, and bat uses travel devotion to get even further away.

If needed, you can use twisted charge to get around any possible walls of force, but you should be winning the initiative, so save this to the next round if needed.

Round 2:
Repeat charge, this time combat brute.



Get 4 of these guys and win the combat on the first round.


Edit: Gear used: Bat saddle and masterwork Lance.

Edit 2: I'm actually missing a feat on Bob. Pick up Weapon Specialization or another luck feat for more rerolls.

[Emperor Tippy]

I'm reasonably confident that running it as fighter the class is near certain victory for the maruts.

Not really.

You need to be running Weapon Supremacy and pick up at least 5 points over BAB to guarantee a hit on its AC of 34. That isn't difficult really.

Then you need to be running Martial Study: Mind Over Body along with pumping your Concentration check to +30. That buys you one free pass per encounter on the Fist of Lighting. Another feat for Iron Heart Surge is also a good idea because that will let you remove the blindness once per encounter as well.

If I was doing it I would use the Unseelie Fey template (Dragon Compendium) to pick up Blindsight so that I can just ignore that whole issue.

Then you need to be pumping out at least 26 points of damage per round with a standard action attack. Run 20/20 Str and Dex along with Shadow Blade and you have 10 points of that. You should be able to hit 30 or so points of damage consistently.

Now you have the issue of the Marut's own attacks. It has an AB of +22. This means that you, ideally, want an AC of 41. That means picking up 31 points. Without touching magic that is mostly a lost cause. Leather armor and 22 Dex nets you +8, Weapon Supremacy is another +1, a Buckler is another +1. You can pick up some more in various ways but if you are focusing on AC you are likely to top out at around an AC of 25 to 30. If you can't hit an AC of 24 then don't bother even trying because the Marut will hit on anything but a natural 1.

Getting miss chance without class features or magic items is mostly a lost cause. Your best choice is Martial Stance: Child of Shadow but that is barred as it is supernatural, so good luck on that one.

That means that you need to pick up DR to negate as much of the damage as possible. Unseelie Fey gets you 15/ Cold Iron, which should mostly negate the non elemental damage.

Then you just run around and play the game of death by a thousand cuts.

It's really a pity that this has to be done with a Fighter, because a Monk could do it so much better.

There is also doing this with an archer. Pumping your damage high enough is a great deal more difficult but it does let you kite a lot more effectively, the problem with that plan is that effectiveness is highly dependent upon environment.

----

Incidentally, this is the kind of challenge that would be pretty trivial for an ECL 19 straight classed Fighter that got WBL. Hell, just being able to grab +4 Tomes for Str and Dex along with +6 items pumps your AC by 5 points, your AB by 5 points, and your flat damage bonus by 10 points. The AB boost lets you dump the excess into power attack which ends up working out to another 10 points of damage per attack. Then you have a weapon that overcomes chaotic DR and you are looking at 25 points of additional damage. A Minor Cloak of Displacement just flat makes 20% of attacks miss and when combined with a Third Eye Conceal for Mind Blank it even negates True Seeing.

[Gotterdammerung]

don't really feel like building these fighters (super lazy) but I totally think the fighters should win. So ill throw some fuel on the fire for anyone building.

Tactics of the wolf on all 4 fighters will add 36 damage on every attack made while flanking. (There is a feat chain to make flanking possible from odd angles. It's worth considering if you go this route. Adaptable Flanker, Vexing Flanker) This becomes pretty potent on a natural attack race. Even a small one like Kobold. Dvati are also a possible choice here. 4 character but 8 bodies. This would double the bonus from stances and double the number of attacks.

Alternately, an entire group combining charge builds, high initiatives, Leading the charge stance, and white raven's tactics manuever can pretty much guarantee a blitzkrieg victory. Especially if you added in Dvati to this mix (statistically guaranteed for party to go first with 8 different chargers and 72 bonus damage on charges from Leading the charge (stance)).

Other noteworthy options:
Tomb-tainted soul removes the threat from the inflict mass in one feat (something you have plenty of)

Fearless (feat)
makes you immune to all sources of fear.

Sense Weakness (Feat) lets you ignore the first 5 of any DR

The Lesser Mechanatrix race does not take damage from electricity and is instead healed for 1/3d of the the damage the electrical attack would have done.

Unseelie Fey and Dragonborn templates give flying for no LA



About the only thing left to worry about is earthquake. This spell is completely environment based so its threat will fluctuate, but in the previously mentioned cavern it would be nasty if spammed on you 4 times. On an open field, it is a joke. So if the challenge would specify a location for the battlefield it would help to know which earthquake we are dealing with.

Assuming the worst though, possible solutions for the dreaded quadruple cave-in earthquake combo:
Troll-blooded feat

Win initiative and kill them before they get a turn (super totally doable as afore mentioned)

Don't go underground. If you need to back it up on your character sheet make the 4 fighters claustrophobic. Maruts always come to you. If you don't ever go underground the battle will never happen there.

P.S. What the hell did 4 straight fighters with no spells or magic items ever do to piss off these Maruts?

[Yogibear41]

Silly me about the 2 templates, tired and all. I will return later with a single templated no VOP critter. Is the saint template still acceptable?

[Rejusu]

P.S. What the hell did 4 straight fighters with no spells or magic items ever do to piss off these Maruts?

They had the audacity to suggest that mundanes don't need no stinking magic to be effective. The maruts came to put them in their place. :smalltongue:

[Oko and Qailee]

Nice on Spoilaaja's part.

I was going to suggest Shock Trooper with devotion feats, but you kinda beat me to it.

[Yorrin]

Another guy rooting for the fighters here. I don't know if it would be against the spirit of the challenge (much less the rules!) but Shape Soulmeld: Fellmist Cloak would give a 10% miss chance against non-adjacent opponents. Bonus Essentia feat ups that to a 20%. This could be a real game-changer if allowed.

[Togo]

Actually, even I thought we were talking about fighter the role, rather than fighter the class, for this exercise.

If it was fighter the role, the challenge becomes much, much easier. If the existing challenge loses steam, I'm happy to come up with a 'fighter the role' and we can see how many maruts I can handle.

[NichG]

Part of the reason I picked this one (the 4 Lv19 Fighters vs 4 Maruts) is because in the other thread we all agreed that this fight would be a lost cause in low-op play, so I thought it'd be a neat contrast between low-op play and high-op play.

I think 'fighter the role' is way too easy.

Incidentally, Tippy, there's no 'no supernatural stuff' rule - just no spellcasting and no magic gear. Child of Shadow should be just fine.

Yogi, I can't see why Saint would be a problem; if it has SLAs, then its probably sufficient so long as you never use the SLAs in the fight. Kelb, agree?

[Rejusu]

Another guy rooting for the fighters here. I don't know if it would be against the spirit of the challenge (much less the rules!) but Shape Soulmeld: Fellmist Cloak would give a 10% miss chance against non-adjacent opponents. Bonus Essentia feat ups that to a 20%. This could be a real game-changer if allowed.

It would be. Pretty much any supernatural ability goes against the purpose of the challenge. It's about whether mundanes, limited to purely mundane options can handle encounters like this.

[Brookshw]

I'm on team fighter side as wee (and frankly that other thread is kind of silly).

Regarding the arena maybe go raid the test of spite?

[Vogonjeltz]

Got it.

Equip one with a masterwork mancatcher (CW), who is fully proficient. They can use their normal attack bonuses to grapple the Marut as a free action and then force the Marut to the ground with no check required.

In order to fight, the Marut would have escape the grapple (unlikely if the fighter has a combined +36 on this check, which they would) and stand up from prone, provoking AoO from all 4. (Which would probably reinitialize the grapple)

It will have to be large, but still

[Spuddles]

I feel like 19lvls of fighter gets you enough feats to have everyone weapon supremacy composite longbow the maruts to death as well as shocktrooper spirited charge them should the maruts decide to engage in the ground game.

Maruts cant do anything substantial at range.

All you need to do is buy 4 mounts that can withstand 4 chain lightnings. I'm going with battletitans.


Well, IMO for the point to be actually valid that you can play DND at high levels without the need for magic in a standard CR based gamed you should be able to do it with the races in the players handbook (which obviously you can't) but for the sake of my CHALLENGE ACCEPTED attitude I feel a good side of half-Minotaur awesomness could be greatly utilized


Half-Minotaur Water Orc Saints that is.

Also, what about 3.0 sources that never got updated such as Savage Species.

Yeah I was thinking something similar. Dragonborn half minotaur half ogre lolth touched water orc with steadfast determination and trollblooded. Has regen 1 (fire and acid), uses huge fort save to make will saves, doesnt fail on nat one. Of course that is a sketchy as hell build.

Dragonborn necropolitan

[NichG]

Got it.

Equip one with a masterwork mancatcher (CW), who is fully proficient. They can use their normal attack bonuses to grapple the Marut as a free action and then force the Marut to the ground with no check required.

In order to fight, the Marut would have escape the grapple (unlikely if the fighter has a combined +36 on this check, which they would) and stand up from prone, provoking AoO from all 4. (Which would probably reinitialize the grapple)

It will have to be large, but still

Does this work when there are four Maruts? (also, remember Air Walk - they will not be on the ground when they first show up).



It would be. Pretty much any supernatural ability goes against the purpose of the challenge. It's about whether mundanes, limited to purely mundane options can handle encounters like this.

I have to disagree here. Its more about the impact of magic item loss on non-casters vs casters. Whether an ability is (Su) or (Ex) isn't really the issue, its whether the ability actually makes the person into a spellcaster. I mean, a Monk would be in the spirit of this challenge even though they get (Su) abilities, but I like Fighter for this because its such a 'non-class' - really, everything it gets is up to how the users of the class want to spend those feats.

[Gwendol]

Got it.

Equip one with a masterwork mancatcher (CW), who is fully proficient. They can use their normal attack bonuses to grapple the Marut as a free action and then force the Marut to the ground with no check required.

In order to fight, the Marut would have escape the grapple (unlikely if the fighter has a combined +36 on this check, which they would) and stand up from prone, provoking AoO from all 4. (Which would probably reinitialize the grapple)

It will have to be large, but still

With dimension door at will I consider grappling the Marut a losing proposition.

[Vogonjeltz]

With dimension door at will I consider grappling the Marut a losing proposition.

Provokes AoO, which would make any given spell fail.

[Rejusu]

I have to disagree here. Its more about the impact of magic item loss on non-casters vs casters. Whether an ability is (Su) or (Ex) isn't really the issue, its whether the ability actually makes the person into a spellcaster. I mean, a Monk would be in the spirit of this challenge even though they get (Su) abilities, but I like Fighter for this because its such a 'non-class' - really, everything it gets is up to how the users of the class want to spend those feats.

What's your view on soulmelds then, they're essentially magic items as feats/class features.

[Mithril Leaf]

I'll toss in the skeleton of a ranged build because it's a fun challenge with no magic gear.

Dragonborn Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale fighter 16.
Air Heritage for 60 foot flight (this is what I we going for with grafts).
Primordial Scion for chaotic attacks.
Manyshot and Flyby Attack for a good number of shots per round, and thus damage.
Weapon Focus full chain including greater and Ranged Weapon Supremacy, this pumps damage.
Exotic Weapon Proficiency for the footbow gives you 1.5 times strength to damage, which is a nice +15 (18 base + 8 racial + 4 levels).

Basically you fly around and kite with decently respectable damage.

[Feilith]

Maruts have a whooping +1 to initiative so the fighters should almost always win that.

4 fighters with similar builds utilizing the same feats

Lv 17 Centaur fighter Hits 100% of time vs Flat Footed Murat (AC 33)
Spoilered for to-hit math

17 +10 -1 +4 +2 +1 +1 = 34
Bab+Strength-size +RHD BaB+Charge+Weapon Focus+ Greater Weapon Focus


All fighters Charge with a lance and use leap attack for a *3 multiplier to the Power Attack With their penalty going to their AC (Shock Trooper)

Because they're Centaurs they can utilize leap attack AND spirited charge +their racial double damage on a charge which also applies to their Power Attack Damage adding another 3 to their multiple (x3 (+200%) from Spirited charge w/ lance and x2 (+100%) from racial)

Each fighter in their charge will deal on average 149 Damage. just the static damage will do 129 damage.

Murat killed

Damage Calculations

1d8 (4.5)*4 = 18 + (19*6= 114) +15 +2
Sprited Charge Racial Lance+ Shock Trooper+1.5 Str +Weapon Specialization

Armor Maths in here

10 + 8 Full Plate + 1Dex +3 Nat. Armor -1Size -2Charge Penalty = 19 AC



All done with just a Masterwork lance and all those tasty Fighter Bonus feats

I'm pretty sure that math turned out right, but someone may want to check it

[Mithril Leaf]

Maruts have a whooping +1 to initiative so the fighters should almost always win that.

4 fighters with similar builds utilizing the same feats

Lv 17 Centaur fighter...

Max racial ECL is 3. Including racial hit dice and LA.

[NichG]

What's your view on soulmelds then, they're essentially magic items as feats/class features.

I'm going to defer to Kelb on this one, I think. Or at least see whether or not their inclusion would negate the point of the exercise for him.

Personally I think spending feats on soulmelds is a reasonable (if somewhat expensive) way to respond to the constraint 'you aren't allowed to have magic items' if it were to come up in an actual game. I'd expect some players to use it as a response, so I'm inclined to call it valid.

Incidentally, we have something like 2 or 3 rules-valid builds so far. How do we want to organize actually running this?

[Ivanhoe]

I support the notions that the maruts basically do not have a big chance, even against straight fighters, since they probably lose initative. The centaur charger example by Feilith illustrated it well.

There is the dungeon crasher ACF, there is the overwhelming attack ACF, there are non-item fighter builds that could outgrapple easily a marut's +27 at those levels, even flying raptorans. Knowlege devotion provides fighters with boosts to attack and damage combined with the usually lacklustre weapon specialisation tree (including more leeway to power attack), and of course at level 19 up to 5th level maneuvers and stances from the ToB.

[Phelix-Mu]

This is very interesting. I favor the fighters. The SLAs and DR are problematic, but if the encounter happens indoors, in a not-superdome setting, then I'm not even sure the fighters need flight.

Out of curiosity, air walk isn't flight...couldn't you still bull rush someone using air walk?

[SPoilaaja]

Spoilered for to-hit math

17 +10 -1 +4 +2 +1 +1 = 34
Bab+Strength-size +RHD BaB+Charge+Weapon Focus+ Greater Weapon Focus



You're not going to fit 17 bab from fighter, +2 LA and 4 RHD to an ECL 19 build

and how do you fit +10 mod strength to the build? max 26 starting str and 4 from levels. That's a +5

EDIT: And maruts can air walk, so you need some form of flight. Also while flying you cannot jump for leap attack

[Deophaun]

and how do you fit +10 mod strength to the build? max 26 starting str and 4 from levels. That's a +5
26+4 results in 30 Str, or a +10 bonus.

Also while flying you cannot jump for leap attack
Rules quote? I see nothing in the Jump description that says it cannot be used while flying, or that it must be used on the ground, or anything indicating terrain or movement requirements.

[SPoilaaja]

Rules quote? I see nothing in the Jump description that says it cannot be used while flying, or that it must be used on the ground, or anything indicating terrain or movement requirements.

"If your check succeeds, you land on your feet at the far end." long jump - srd

[eggynack]

"If your check succeeds, you land on your feet at the far end." long jump - srd
Yes, but what do your feet land on? The far end appears to be a bit of an undefined term, as it were. It seems that you can declare the far end as some imaginary point in space, and thus land upon it.

[SPoilaaja]

definition of landing: land - cause to come to the ground; "the pilot managed to land the airplane safely"

[Deophaun]

"If your check succeeds, you land on your feet at the far end." long jump - srdAnd? white space

[Gulnar]

If we play this by the 'fighter as role' rules, couldn't a single hulking hurler // warhulk lift a lead column and throw it toward the maruts, killing all four istantly thank to the million+ damage that these kind of build are famous for? Or it's a melee only challenge?

[Hurnn]

Just my thoughts.

If you have to take a feat that copies or allows you to use another classes abilities, you have already lost same with templates and LA monsters. The same also applies to su and ex abilities, ie dragon born and cheesing out the breath weapon that's not the fighter winning that the race winning.

[Lans]

Then you need to be pumping out at least 26 points of damage per round with a standard action attack. Run 20/20 Str and Dex along with Shadow Blade and you have 10 points of that. You should be able to hit 30 or so points of damage consistently. They can use dimension door to get distance to heal though.


Now you have the issue of the Marut's own attacks. It has an AB of +22. This means that you, ideally, want an AC of 41. That means picking up 31 points. Without touching magic that is mostly a lost cause. Leather armor and 22 Dex nets you +8, Weapon Supremacy is another +1, a Buckler is another +1. You can pick up some more in various ways but if you are focusing on AC you are likely to top out at around an AC of 25 to 30. If you can't hit an AC of 24 then don't bother even trying because the Marut will hit on anything but a natural 1. Maruts have power attack so if you keep it at 10 your letting them get an extra 15 pts of damage. Improved combat expertise and allied defense means 1 fighter can give all of them +20 to AC.



----

The locate creature ability seems to make the starting encounter range at over a 1000ft

[NichG]

If we play this by the 'fighter as role' rules, couldn't a single hulking hurler // warhulk lift a lead column and throw it toward the maruts, killing all four istantly thank to the million+ damage that these kind of build are famous for? Or it's a melee only challenge?

Its not melee-only. Its Fighter-as-class only because fighter-as-role would be way too easy.

I'm starting to think Fighter-as-class might even be too easy :smallsmile:


Just my thoughts.

If you have to take a feat that copies or allows you to use another classes abilities, you have already lost same with templates and LA monsters. The same also applies to su and ex abilities, ie dragon born and cheesing out the breath weapon that's not the fighter winning that the race winning.

The problem is that this is very subjective. I mean, there's been debate about whether passive (Su) abilities should count. I can't really answer that for anyone, but I can suggest that the point of having very specific build rules is to remove the subjectivity and be talking about the same 'something'. This has to simultaneously coexist with the fact that, in a real game, players have a very large toolkit of things to make their characters with - feats, skills, race, classes, PrCs, ACFs, purchased items, magical locations, etc.

In this particular case, we're constraining some of those (straight-classed Fighter) to set the context of the effect of removing another of them (availability of magical items). In some sense, this isn't about the fighters - its about the items. The fighters are just the spokespeople for how this affects 'non-casters'.

[Lans]

The inevitables dimension door ability can get 3 of them 2880 feet in a round. The fighters are going to need a way to keep them from leaving, or killing them in 1 or 2 rounds.

This ability with air walk should make charging them impossible unless the person has perfect flight.

Deep impact and fell shot are good choices considering there touch AC.

WRT will be awesome here.

A way to get electricity resistance would be good

There is a feat that gives people a healing pool of 3xlevelxmembers. Might be useful.

What about teamwork benefits?

Any symbiotes good?

Any bizarre materials that count as a chaotic weapon?

[PraxisVetli]

Do the Fighters all have to be the same?

[Spuddles]

If the Maruts leave, fighters auto-win.

[TheArimadios]

First post on the forums, so yay. Anyway, question. Would all this allow Mounts? If so, I think I've got this down pat. If not? I think i've got this down pat.

Let's talk tactics - if you can use mounts, Allied Centaur Acceptable? If not, Pegasus/Griffon/Dragon (Limited, of course.) - Keeping to the spirit of the challenge, dragon mounts couldn't breath, or use spells.

With mounts - Pegasus, Charge, include all those nifty charge talents. If you can template Pegasus, try adding War beast to increase it's size. Lets ya trample. Nasty. (Yes, in mid air. DON'T QUESTION THE PEGASUS.)

32 point buy, adjusting specifically for the challenge... 22 str 12 dex /8/8/8/8 everything else wield mw lance for roughly 18 extra damage, power attack 10, that's 38 extra damage. Now, we add in spirited charge for a total tripling of 19 damage to equal 57 extra damage. Basically, you're crapping on heads. Building for a playable character, drop strength to 20 or 18, bump other stats to 12. drops the damage to 50 or so at 20 and 45 or so at 18, rough maths.

IF you can use mounts, and had centaurs (Who have some amazing leaps.) and decided they had fighter class levels? Helllooooooo Double Lance Charge of DEATH. Just assuming elite array for mount levels... 15/14/13/12/11/10 stats linear, you're talking 1d8 (3 - 24) + 3 (9) + 3 (9) = lance + str 1 1/2 + spirited charge ( 21-42) damage from your mount, without trample.

All of these numbers are with just the feats mounted combat, ride-by attack, spirited charge, and power attack. I did not include weapon lines, nor am i concerned with babs or anything. Nor did i increase the centaur beyond 1st cl. I think. Someone check mah maths. But, basically, that's how I'd do it. If they're low enough to hit me in melee, They're low enough to get charged.

Without mounts?

Simple as Big rear-end bow, with big rear-end damage components. Pump damage + 6, stand ground, fire away endlessly. Or ya'no. Just throwing axe em to death.

[Seerow]

If we play this by the 'fighter as role' rules, couldn't a single hulking hurler // warhulk lift a lead column and throw it toward the maruts, killing all four istantly thank to the million+ damage that these kind of build are famous for? Or it's a melee only challenge?

If you find a way to build a hulking Hurler that deals million+ damage with a throw that doesn't use magic, template stacking, or any race/template combination over ECL 3... I'll cede you a victory.

[Urpriest]

Let's talk tactics - if you can use mounts, Allied Centaur Acceptable? If not, Pegasus/Griffon/Dragon (Limited, of course.) - Keeping to the spirit of the challenge, dragon mounts couldn't breath, or use spells.

No Leadership, so has to be something you can get with WBL. So Griffon/Pegasus, but definitely no Centaur/Dragon.

That said, buying creatures is sort of wonky as all hell, and no-items Fighters in RL games are generally way below WBL, so it feels kind of silly to give them full WBL.

[Seerow]

No Leadership, so has to be something you can get with WBL. So Griffon/Pegasus, but definitely no Centaur/Dragon.

That said, buying creatures is sort of wonky as all hell, and no-items Fighters in RL games are generally way below WBL, so it feels kind of silly to give them full WBL.

Hrm.

How feasible is maxing out handle animal and rearing an army of Battletitans and the like with 760,000gp and nothing better to do as a Fighter?

[Urpriest]

Hrm.

How feasible is maxing out handle animal and rearing an army of Battletitans and the like with 760,000gp and nothing better to do as a Fighter?

Easy. I mean, the optimization standard for this sort of thing is Bubs the Commoner, and he's 3rd level.

That's why it's...more than a little silly.

[Gemini476]

This ability with air walk should make charging them impossible unless the person has perfect flight.
...Any particular reason for that?

Speaking of which, why not just buy a mount? Double damage from lances can be pretty good, although I'm not sure what would be the best option.
Then again, that assumes that the battlefield has enough space for such. Four Rocs take up a lot of space.


A way to get electricity resistance would be good
Alchemical Platinum armor gets you Sonic Resistance 2, which isn't worth taking over DR 3/- Adamantine armor.


Any bizarre materials that count as a chaotic weapon?
Not as far as I know; most of the aligned ones are Good. Heavy weapons (alchemical gold or platinum) have higher damage dice, though. It only averages out to +2 damage for a Greatsword, but may be worth looking into for a lack of a better option. (+1d6 from Stygian Ice is technically better, but those weapons melt in temperatures higher than -40 degrees.)

[Oko and Qailee]

The inevitables dimension door ability can get 3 of them 2880 feet in a round. The fighters are going to need a way to keep them from leaving, or killing them in 1 or 2 rounds.



I would vote that if the Maruts would flee because they would die otherwise then the fighters won.

We don't deny exp for enemies running in games.

[kardar233]

I don't think that the Maruts Dimension Door-ing away should be considered a loss, as they would probably do so in order to Fast Heal to full and then return. This attrition style could work well on the Fighters.

I think the optimal tactic for the Maruts is to have one of them Dimension Door the group into melee and take a few whacks at the Fighter(s) while one readies an action to Door them back into safety after they finish. In order to counter this the Fighters need to have Mage Slayer and a long reach, or Karmic Strike/Robilar's Gambit, or both.

[Yogibear41]

Lesser Zenythri(mm2) swordwraith Fighter 16 http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040202a

Point Buy: 18 Str 16 Dex 8 con 8 int 14 wis 8 cha, after racials: 20 str, 18 dex, - con, 8 int, 16 wis, 6 cha, all level up points go to strength for 24 strength at 16. (could probably take points out of wis and put into dex for better ini and reflex saves vs earthquake ability) (could also put points into int if you actually needed skill points)

Feats:

1. Inured to Energy (sonic), Flaw: Inured to Energy (electricity) Flaw2: any abyssal heritor feat, fighter feat : power attack
2. Fighter Feat : improved bull rush
3. Thick Skinned (12 total DR)
4. Fighter Feat: weapon focus: greatsword
6. Thick Skinned (14 total DR), Fighter Feat : shock trooper
8. Fighter Feat: Weapon Spec: greatsword
9. Thick Skinned (16 total DR)
10. Fighter Feat: improved weapon focus greatsword
12. Thick Skinned (18 total DR), Fighter Feat: weapon focus: composite longbow
14. Fighter Feat: improved weapon specialization: greatsword
15. Primodrial Scion
16. Fighter Feat: Weapon Specialization: composite longbow


Important Stuff: +7 strength mod, MW great sword using the material that adds +1 fire damage and +1 lighting damage, MW Composite Longbow with +7 strength modifier, use non-magical alchemical arrows to do extra 1d4 damage and the material that adds +1 fire and +1 lightning damage (I believe.)

Greatsword should be at +26 to hit doing 2d6+14 damage +1 fire +1 lighting

Bow should be at +21 to hit doing 1d8+9 + any special damage for non-magical alchemical arrows.

Primordial Scion makes all weapons/attacks chaotic aligned and deal an extra 1d6 to lawful critters.

Damage Reduction of 18/magic and slashing (there attacks are slams and non-magical) VS attacks that do 2d6+12= average damage of 1 from each slam, max of 6 from each slam.

Resistance 15 to sonic and electricity VS attacks that do 3d6 of each, average = no damage max= 3 damage from each.

Undead becomes immune to all their mind affecting abilities, and cant be crit.

Check my math :smallsmile:

Should also leave thousands of gold of wealth by level to send all kinda of animals at these things hopefully making them use their chain lightnings to start with, as well as other abilities.

* Should also probably optimized attack rolls, slightly better with fighter feats to avoid missing as often.


Things that make it iffy: zenythri and swordwraiths are almost always lawful, but primordial scion requires chaotic, nothing against the rules of course just lose flavor points here :smallsmile:

EDIT: granted nothing really keeps the Maruts from just dimension dooring away and resetting the fight over, and over, and over again until they wear you down do to no fast healing.

[NichG]

I'm on the fence with the Maruts fleeing. I'm actually tempted to say that if the Maruts can flee and return then that's not actually a loss. Kiting or pulling back and Fast Healing are valid tactics that the Maruts could use, that the Fighters need to be able to deal with.

However, lets put a time limit on it to prevent 'I come back in a week while they're asleep' shenanigans. If the Maruts can't kill the Fighters after 1000 rounds, and the Fighters do not flee, the Maruts lose. Is that reasonable?

Edit: Or maybe we label that outcome 'stalemate'?

[PraxisVetli]

TheArimadios, you can't Warbeast Pegasi or Griffons. It's an Animal, Beast, or Vermin only.
Just Saiyan.

[Yogibear41]

Just Saiyan.

Just Super Saiyan

Yellow doesn't show up very well :smallfrown:

[Phelix-Mu]

If the maruts dimdoor away, do they have a way of seeing into the area before dimdooring back? Cause that's actually not such a great strategy, as the round they arrive they will be down one marut (the one that dimdoor'd), and the fighters could ready actions to take upon the reappearance of the maruts (though I'm unclear if any actions they could ready would be worth much). I suppose it's better than staying and being destroyed, but, as previously mentioned, if they flee to avoid destruction, the fighters should at least score some points off the retreat of the enemy.

An enemy that withdraws and reappears usually counts as two separate encounters, am I wrong? At the very least, it's a significant increase to the CR of the encounter, I would think (though I suppose the given CR assumes that the enemy uses its abilities to its advantage).

Anyway, I was mentioning earlier that air walk isn't really like flight, so that might suggest some means of establishing superior meneuverability.

Also, did Kelb ever iron out the setting for the fight? Did we go with a fairly non-descript dungeon room? For obvious reasons, dimensions are key....

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm going to defer to Kelb on this one, I think. Or at least see whether or not their inclusion would negate the point of the exercise for him.

Personally I think spending feats on soulmelds is a reasonable (if somewhat expensive) way to respond to the constraint 'you aren't allowed to have magic items' if it were to come up in an actual game. I'd expect some players to use it as a response, so I'm inclined to call it valid.

Incidentally, we have something like 2 or 3 rules-valid builds so far. How do we want to organize actually running this?

Soulmelds are fine.

I believe standard practice for a trial like this is to actually run the encounter in a PBP thread once all the participants are organized.



Army of critters via handle animal: no. No one is impressed by an army defeating 4 opponents. It's essentially just going around the leadership restriction.

Mounts: if its description gives a price to purchase, it's fine.

Jumping while flying: no. Your feet need something to push off of and something to land on. It kinda makes sense if you're air-walking but it's nonsensical for true flight. I can't cite RAW here but RAW doesn't cover everything. This is a -ruling- based on logic.

Maruts withdrawing: not a victory for the fighters. It's the same logic that prevents successfully fleeing from them being a victory; they -will- return. Their entire purpose is to slay their designated target(s).

For fairness sake, however, forcing them to withdraw 4 times will constitute a victory for the trial. DMG guidelines say a party should be able to overcome 4 encounters in a day so a DM following those guidelines -shouldn't-, IMO, have the maruts return a fifth time on the same day.

[Phelix-Mu]

To continue on the Jumping while flying thing: Could you jump off of a wall or the ceiling while flying? Admittedly, there probably isn't a form of flight available with the maneuverability for this, but I'm interested nonetheless.

Finally, does someone need to be on the ground to be bull rushed? Because the maruts aren't really flying, I don't think (my main hypothesis being that a marut can stand still while air walking, something flying creatures normally can't do).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Bull-rushing doesn't have any restrictions that would force it to remain on the ground. Even by RAW it should work just fine in the air.

[Yogibear41]

Isn't there an alchemical item that turns of fast healing for an amount of time? or is it just regeneration with things like trolls? Even then I suppose the Maruts could just wait it out. It seems more probable to build a group of 4 fighters that could just "survive" these repeated encounters over and over, with the ability to dimension door if the maruts ever got moderately low on hp. In all honesty, even if the fighters survived the first time and the Maruts left they are smart enough to come back with all new abilities and items that could just wreck the fighters day, but I suppose that wouldn't be playing them "right out of the book"

[Emperor Tippy]

Isn't there an alchemical item that turns of fast healing for an amount of time? or is it just regeneration with things like trolls?

It's a poison, Construct's are immune to those.

[Dimers]

Deep impact and fell shot are good choices considering there touch AC.

Speaking of psi that isn't a supernatural or spell-like ability, I was thinking Enhanced Elan Resistance, myself. Getting +6 to saves here and there wouldn't suck. You could take a few iterations of Psionic Talent to have plenty of pp to spend on it, and if you go all-out with Psionic Talent, then also taking Enhanced Elan Resilience would be handy.


Karmic Strike/Robilar's Gambit

I got pre-swordsaged. Seems like this should be in pretty much every build, given that Team Fighters' AC is going to be meaningless and they want more DPS.

[Lans]

...Any particular reason for that?



Because of the range of dimension door and locate creature the maruts will know the fighters are there before the fighters do. Suprise round maruts DD 60 feet above fighters and unleash 2 chain lightnings.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Because of the range of dimension door and locate creature the maruts will know the fighters are there before the fighters do. Suprise round maruts DD 60 feet above fighters and unleash 2 chain lightnings.

I'd think the fact you can't charge if your movement is impeded, and going up when you don't have perfect maneuverability impedes movement by half, was probably the bigger issue.

[Ziegander]

No dragon magazine used:

Bob the batrider
Fighter 19
Illumian

Str 18 -> +4 with levels: 22
Dex 10
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 6

HP: 166
Initiative: +6 (once per day +1d6,reroll once per day and reroll up to to 3 times with luck feats)
F R W
+14 +6 +6 EDIT: Forgot Unbelievable luck, take +2 to reflex saves, up to +8
AC: negatives after shocktrooper

Skills: Ride +24(22 ranks), Concentration +22(17 ranks), Handle animal +3(5 ranks).

Special: Sigils (Uur), (Hoon), 4 luck rerolls

Feats:
Improved initiative
Danger sense
Heroic Destiny
Lucky start
Unbelievable luck
Better lucky than good
Martial Study (moment of perfect mind)
Mounted Combat
Spirited Charge
Weapon focus (lance)
Law Devotion
Combat Brute
Ride-by-attack
Power Attack
Animal Cohort - (swap to dire bat when enough levels)
Shock Trooper
Improved Sunder
Improved Overrun

Flaw: Vulnerable, Pathetic (-2 charisma)

Trait: Aggressive


+25 Masterwork Lance
Law devotion bumps to hit up to +32
Charging give +2 bonus, up to +34 Lance, Use luck reroll to consider 1 as 20, so you can't miss

Use the lance with two hands, eventhough you are mounted.

Damage: 1d8+9
Power attack for 19(shocktrooper): 1d8+47.
Charging with a lance and spirited charge: 3d8+141 damage
Combat brute next round: even more damage




Dire Bat
HD 13, doesn't die to circle of death

Bat speed: 80 fly

Quick Trait

Willing Deformity
Deformity (madness) (immunity to mind affecting)
Martial Study (steel wind)
Air Heritage
Travel devotion

Skills: Jump 5, Balance 5
Twisted Charge


------------
Tactics: Win initiative (maruts have +1), if you don't: reroll a few times until you win

Round 1:
Charge the enemy with ride-by-attack killing a marut instantly (you have enough attack bonus to hit on a roll of 2, and you can consider rolls of 1 as 20)

If for some reason that does not work, you ride-by attack as far as possible, and bat uses travel devotion to get even further away.

If needed, you can use twisted charge to get around any possible walls of force, but you should be winning the initiative, so save this to the next round if needed.

Round 2:
Repeat charge, this time combat brute.



Get 4 of these guys and win the combat on the first round.


Edit: Gear used: Bat saddle and masterwork Lance.

Edit 2: I'm actually missing a feat on Bob. Pick up Weapon Specialization or another luck feat for more rerolls.

It seems to me that a build has already been posted that wins this challenge soundly and with no room for argument and yet everyone in the thread has ignored its existence.

I also seems to me that if the Maruts are after the Fighters, that it is entirely reasonable that the Maruts have to come to the Fighters to do them in. That means the Fighters should be free to spend their millions of GP on creating, shaping, and controlling the battleground. It's the Inevitables that are picking the fight, the Fighters aren't going questing after them.

[NichG]

It seems to me that a build has already been posted that wins this challenge soundly and with no room for argument and yet everyone in the thread has ignored its existence.

Well I think at this point, people are working on constructing their own builds. We've got a handful of builds that look like they should work, but of course part of the game is to see also how clever the 4 Maruts can be played.

I would personally anticipate the Maruts dim-dooring in above the Fighters and falling for a round so they can get surprise and all act during the surprise round (to avoid the annoying 'dim door prevents actions this round' clause). Since the Maruts are seeking the Fighters, I would in general guess that if you can't win without winning initiative, the build won't work.

[kardar233]

It seems to me that a build has already been posted that wins this challenge soundly and with no room for argument and yet everyone in the thread has ignored its existence.

I also seems to me that if the Maruts are after the Fighters, that it is entirely reasonable that the Maruts have to come to the Fighters to do them in. That means the Fighters should be free to spend their millions of GP on creating, shaping, and controlling the battleground. It's the Inevitables that are picking the fight, the Fighters aren't going questing after them.

I don't think that allowing the Fighters to terraform the arena to their maximum advantage is really in the spirit of the challenge.

Furthermore, that bat rider doesn't fare well against the pseudo-Shadowpounce tactic I outlined.


Maruts withdrawing: not a victory for the fighters. It's the same logic that prevents successfully fleeing from them being a victory; they -will- return. Their entire purpose is to slay their designated target(s).

For fairness sake, however, forcing them to withdraw 4 times will constitute a victory for the trial. DMG guidelines say a party should be able to overcome 4 encounters in a day so a DM following those guidelines -shouldn't-, IMO, have the maruts return a fifth time on the same day.

Would you say that Dimension Dooring away to return the next round counts as withdrawing? Personally, I wouldn't say so. However, there needs to be a hard limit on what counts as withdrawing (as opposed to taking tactical advantage of superior movement) because of the Maruts' Fast Healing ability.

[Ziegander]

I don't think that allowing the Fighters to terraform the arena to their maximum advantage is really in the spirit of the challenge.

If I have hundreds of thousands of gold pieces and something extremely powerful is trying to kill me, then you'd better bet that I'm going to start spending that money one anything I can to defend myself. That means conscripting armies, devising siege-craft, and constructing fortresses. Why exactly are the Fighters not allowed to do this?


Furthermore, that bat rider doesn't fare well against the pseudo-Shadowpounce tactic I outlined.

I don't understand how it doesn't. Maybe a single bat rider doesn't, but when the Maruts attack and four bat riders all win initiative, which is almost certainly guaranteed, the four bat riders instantly destroy all four Maruts 100% of the time.

The bat rider isn't even the best mounted build that could be thrown at this challenge but even a single one of them is incredibly threatening to the entire four-part group of Maruts. We can do better and we have four fighters to work with here. Why are we ignoring the bat rider, when we could be talking about how dangerous he is, and what he needs to be able to do to be even more dangerous? It basically doesn't lose initiative. Someone do the math, because I don't feel like it, but it has to be an astronomically low chance that any one of the four Maruts beats any of four bat riders on initiative. From there it's just fly, lance, destroy. Seriously, what do the Maruts do against that kind of power? Falling for one round is an incredibly stupid tactic, no offense NichG, but the fighters and their army of hirelings would see that coming instantly and start peppering them with enough arrows to blot out the sun.

[NichG]

If I have hundreds of thousands of gold pieces and something extremely powerful is trying to kill me, then you'd better bet that I'm going to start spending that money one anything I can to defend myself. That means conscripting armies, devising siege-craft, and constructing fortresses. Why exactly are the Fighters not allowed to do this?


In practice, because its difficult to run, evaluate, and puts the focus on handwaving large numbers of other NPCs - that kind of handwaving goes against the idea of this as an optimal build/tactics challenge and makes it more of a strategic challenge (that is also more subjective and so harder to generate agreement on).

In principle, think of it this way - if the fighters spend millions of gold and are forced to live the rest of their lives in specially constructed anti-Marut fortress deathtraps, then the Maruts basically have control over the fighters. The fighters cannot leave their lair for fear of being attacked sans-protections. They cannot adventure or even go have a coffee. They probably can't sleep, since without being able to purchase magic, they can never be sure that the Marut squad won't dim-door into their bedroom while they're unconscious and just coup-de-gras them.

So, even if we ignore the pragmatic metagame stuff, a solution that involves the fighters camping out and waiting for the Maruts is unsatisfactory in the sense that if this were a regular campaign, that would be equivalent to saying 'I retire'.


Falling for one round is an incredibly stupid tactic, no offense NichG, but the fighters and their army of hirelings would see that coming instantly and start peppering them with enough arrows to blot out the sun.

Keep in mind that the Maruts can fall 500 feet in one round. 500 feet is a -50 to Spot checks. Yes, its dumb, but thats the rules. Much of this is going to depend on the battlefield Kelb sets up anyhow.

As far as the army, you don't get to have them. That rule was posted on page 1 - no Leadership and no follower-armies.

I certainly think this challenge is doable - even perhaps done already - but the point of this is not to handwave away 'I think this can win' - we did that already on the other thread. And, since I expect Kelb will be pulling some very non-trivial tactics since the over-stupidity of the simulated Maruts' tactics on the other thread were a point of contention, I would not 'be sure of' any particular element of the sequence. Is there any way the Maruts can get surprise? If so, you have to be prepared for that, because as much as you can build the Fighter for the fight, Kelb gets to see all these builds and its only fair if he can plan tactics specifically to counter them (given that the Maruts are a fixed quantity).

[Ziegander]

In practice, because its difficult to run, evaluate, and puts the focus on handwaving large numbers of other NPCs - that kind of handwaving goes against the idea of this as an optimal build/tactics challenge and makes it more of a strategic challenge (that is also more subjective and so harder to generate agreement on).

In principle, think of it this way - if the fighters spend millions of gold and are forced to live the rest of their lives in specially constructed anti-Marut fortress deathtraps, then the Maruts basically have control over the fighters. The fighters cannot leave their lair for fear of being attacked sans-protections. They cannot adventure or even go have a coffee. They probably can't sleep, since without being able to purchase magic, they can never be sure that the Marut squad won't dim-door into their bedroom while they're unconscious and just coup-de-gras them.

At this point you might as well say that they each have as much masterwork equipment as they want + 3000gp or so worth of additional non-magical items. Or even that they have 0gp wealth for all that you're allowing them to spend it on. They can't spend their wealth on anything, and they also can't have Vow of Poverty. Okay...

And I'm not even saying that the challenge is impossible that way, but I am saying it's misleading to give them millions of gp that they can't spend in any meaningful way.

I thought part of the challenge was about the importance and power of wealth in D&D, or at least that's what your OP had led me to believe. If you're pulling the value of wealth out of the game, that's fine, but don't tell people they have hundreds of thousands of gold pieces to spend if they can only spend it on booze and hookers.


Keep in mind that the Maruts can fall 500 feet in one round. 500 feet is a -50 to Spot checks. Yes, its dumb, but thats the rules. Much of this is going to depend on the battlefield Kelb sets up anyhow.

Yes, they can, and the -50 to spot checks holds to when they are 500ft up away before they've fallen. Do the fighters and any hirelings have their eyes closed the entire rest of the time the Maruts are falling to the ground? You're telling me that no one, out of potentially hundreds of spotters are going to notice as four big constructs fall out of the sky for six whole seconds until they are being punched in the face with lightning fists?


As far as the army, you don't get to have them. That rule was posted on page 1 - no Leadership and no follower-armies.

Yes, no Leadership; no followers. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about spending the hundreds of thousands of gold pieces each fighter has to buy armies of sellswords, and grant lands and keeps to higher level NPCs. But as far as I can tell spending the fighters' gold pieces in general is being basically frowned upon.

[Yogibear41]

I just realized something, maybe we should stop doing fighter builds for fighting these things and start optimizing their diplomacy roles. hahahaha :smallbiggrin:

No don't kill me my uncle was a warforged!


only need a 25 to go from hostile to unfriendly :smallsmile:

[Gwendol]

Aren't inevitables supposed to be immune to diplomancing?

[SPoilaaja]

1 batrider takes 3 feats less (possibly opening up his mental defences, or not 1 shotting a marut) and picks up Shape soulmeld (shedu crown), Open least chakra and mindsight. As soon as maruts are within 100 feet, the mindsighted batrider (let's call him Batrider X) blows in to a whistle. The bats are trained to activate their travel devotions and to spread out to a circle where everyone is inside everyone elses charging range.

[TuggyNE]

Aren't inevitables supposed to be immune to diplomancing?

I dunno about "supposed to" RAW-wise, but I think Kelb would likely agree that they of all creatures should be. They're not there to be dissuaded or manipulated, they're there to kill you dead.


1 batrider takes 3 feats less (possibly opening up his mental defences, or not 1 shotting a marut) and picks up Shape soulmeld (shedu crown), Open least chakra and mindsight. As soon as maruts are within 100 feet, the mindsighted batrider (let's call him Batrider X) blows in to a whistle. The bats are trained to activate their travel devotions and to spread out to a circle where everyone is inside everyone elses charging range.

That's great, but Spot +16 suggests that the Maruts will be able to open their surprise round — with quadruple chain lightning all over everyone — from at least 160 feet away, and probably a good bit more; Large bats with nothing to hide behind are not difficult to spot, after all. (And if they put a little effort into triangulating with their locate creature angles as they approach, they can rather easily know how far away the fighters are and where from hundreds and hundreds of feet away. Even without that, taking a standard action every round gives a free reroll on the Spot check.)

[SPoilaaja]

As stated in the opening post, the Fighters can be built for this challenge. So one of their tactics is to always fly 35 feet away from each other so the chain lightning only hits the rider and his bat. At caster level 14, it deals an average of 49 damage, which is not enough to kill either the rider or the bat. The 14 HD bat have 119 HP if they pick up +1 con at 8HD.

After the maruts shoot their chain lightnings, 3 bobs and X Charge maruts to death

[Gwendol]

Me thinks the Maruts be toast unless they can always DD away and recover. Chances are that at least one of them bites the dust every time, at least if the fighter focuses on one or two at a time.

[SPoilaaja]

A good way to stop locate divination cheese to triangulate the exact position of the fighters is to buy padded armors for everyone and infuse the padded armors with very very thin pieces of lead.

[shaikujin]

2 questions:

1) Does the Marut's Dimension Door have an exception to this clause "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn."

It says "Using" and not "Casting", so does that clause apply to the caster only, or everyone the caster brings along?


2) Is the "symbiotic" template in Savage Species legal for this challenge?

Apologies if these have been asked and answered before.

[SPoilaaja]

Does the Marut's Dimension Door have an exception to this clause "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn."

Good point. To use, definition: "to employ for some purpose; put into service; make use of: to use a knife."
or
"to avail oneself of; apply to one's own purposes: to use the facilities."

Going by the definition of use the Maruts are unable to act after they dimension door as a group.
Maruts can also only bring up to 2 other Maruts with the dimension door (cl 14. 1 medium creature/3 caster levels, 2 slots for a large creature)

[Rejusu]

If I have hundreds of thousands of gold pieces and something extremely powerful is trying to kill me, then you'd better bet that I'm going to start spending that money one anything I can to defend myself. That means conscripting armies, devising siege-craft, and constructing fortresses. Why exactly are the Fighters not allowed to do this?

Because that would be metagaming. How exactly do the fighters know these Maruts are coming to kill them? They don't have access to any kind of divination and it's not like the Maruts sent them a letter.

"Dear Fighter X,
It has come to our attention that you insulted our mothers the week before last (Wednesday 29th Jan at the Troll and Fireball public house). This cannot stand and so we must regretfully inform you that your inevitable demise has been moved up to Tuesday 12th February. Please report to the field of battle by no later than 2pm, bring your friends!
With love,
The Maruts"


Disregarding that there's no way for them to know it goes against the purpose of the challenge. Acting on foreknowledge of an encounter is a big advantage, one which skews the results because there's no guarantee that the four musketeers will always possess such forewarning or the means to act on it.



I thought part of the challenge was about the importance and power of wealth in D&D, or at least that's what your OP had led me to believe. If you're pulling the value of wealth out of the game, that's fine, but don't tell people they have hundreds of thousands of gold pieces to spend if they can only spend it on booze and hookers.


Nope, it's about the importance of magic/magic items or other supernatural powers. If it was about wealth then WBL would be restricted. This challenge came out of a discussion about what mundanes can do without convenient access to magic.


Yes, no Leadership; no followers. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about spending the hundreds of thousands of gold pieces each fighter has to buy armies of sellswords, and grant lands and keeps to higher level NPCs. But as far as I can tell spending the fighters' gold pieces in general is being basically frowned upon.

Because everybody already knows what the outcome of Zerg rushing would be. And it also defeats the purpose of the challenge. Which is to see if the fighter can win, not the army at his back. It doesn't really count as the fighters victory if they're barely involved. They may as well be commoners.


2 questions:

1) Does the Marut's Dimension Door have an exception to this clause "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn."

It says "Using" and not "Casting", so does that clause apply to the caster only, or everyone the caster brings along?

The user is the caster. Any creatures he brings with him the spell is used on. Semantics aside it's irrelevant. It says you can't take any actions until your next turn. Which means this will only ever affect the caster as it's on his turn Dimension Door is used. When it reaches the turn of the Marut he brought with him in the initiative order it is that Maruts next turn so he can act normally.

SPoil is correct that each Marut can only bring two others with him.

[TuggyNE]

Because that would be metagaming. How exactly do the fighters know these Maruts are coming to kill them? They don't have access to any kind of divination and it's not like the Maruts sent them a letter.

"Dear Fighter X,
It has come to our attention that you insulted our mothers the week before last (Wednesday 29th Jan at the Troll and Fireball public house). This cannot stand and so we must regretfully inform you that your inevitable demise has been moved up to Tuesday 12th February. Please report to the field of battle by no later than 2pm, bring your friends!
With love,
The Maruts"


Building to fight the Maruts is fine, but I'm not sure there's actually any rules-legal way to infuse your armor with enough lead to block divinations.


Because everybody already knows what the outcome of Zerg rushing would be. And it also defeats the purpose of the challenge. Which is to see if the fighter can win, not the army at his back. It doesn't really count as the fighters victory if they're barely involved. They may as well be commoners.

FWIW, I actually don't think most followers would even be useful. They can't break DR 15/chaotic without magic, which means their damage is limited (if melee) or nonexistent (if ranged). They also have a lot of trouble even hitting in the first place.

And, if you're relying on hordes of 1 HD hirelings to spam the Maruts to destruction with mighty+5 greatbows or something, then the Maruts will just circle of death or chain lightning them into oblivion. Or, y'know, stick a wall of force up to separate the targets from their erstwhile armies.

So A, it doesn't work; B, it's not appropriate for the challenge.

[shaikujin]

Good point, the other creatures the caster brings along won't be affected since it's not their turn.

So since each can bring only 2 others along, the 4th one will have to stay behind or also use it's DD and forgo any further actions, including any surprise rounds.

Escaping via daisy chain casting will be 1 DD shorter.

Btw, since DD requires the caster and the 2 maruts to be touching, that also means they will be bunched up together when they emerge, right? Esp since the caster can't take a move action, and the other 2 will still need to be touching that first caster when they activate their own DD in the daisy chain DD strategy.

If each of the charging fighters can position himself so that he is threatening all 3, would cleave and great cleave be useful?

Are alchemical items considered legal for this challenge?

[Brookshw]

Building to fight the Maruts is fine, but I'm not sure there's actually any rules-legal way to infuse your armor with enough lead to block divinations.


Lead lined cloaks are in the complete scoundrel iirc?

[SPoilaaja]

Alchemical items should be fine, as long as you don't need magical components to craft them

[shaikujin]

That's great, but Spot +16 suggests that the Maruts will be able to open their surprise round — with quadruple chain lightning all over everyone — from at least 160 feet away, and probably a good bit more;

How high does the fighters' spot bonus need to be to turn the tables and get a surprise round against the Maruts?

Are masterwork tools (say googles) that gives a bonus to spot legal for this challenge?

[SPoilaaja]

Masterwork tools are mundane gear, thus legal

[Rejusu]

Are masterwork tools (say googles) that gives a bonus to spot legal for this challenge?

The goggles do nothing. :smalltongue:

Also are we talking about the fighters shielding themselves from divinations? I'm not really sure this ties into my point that the fighters have no way to predict the fight.

Stuff like this makes me sad that games like the Test of Spite are no longer running.

[SPoilaaja]

Shielding yourself from divinations is something that a lvl 19 party should think of, even in low magic settings. and as was stated in the opening post, the fighters can be built for this encounter, so justifying lead clothing is not needed.

[shaikujin]

The goggles do nothing. :smalltongue:

Also are we talking about the fighters shielding themselves from divinations? I'm not really sure this ties into my point that the fighters have no way to predict the fight.

Stuff like this makes me sad that games like the Test of Spite are no longer running.

Whoops, hazard from years of typing google. Ah Google, how hath thou ruined me!

I meant goggles that gives a bonus to spot :)

Shielding from divinations can be done via the Vecna-blooded template, though that'll use up the 1 template allowed for this challenge. There're probably other templates that'll be more useful for this challenge.

[Gwendol]

Protection from divination, even mundane such as lead-lined garments, should be legal, if not outright standard issue at that level.

[TuggyNE]

How high does the fighters' spot bonus need to be to turn the tables and get a surprise round against the Maruts?

Probably at least +26 or so. The Maruts know what direction the fighters are in and where they are headed continuously, plus the previously-mentioned possibility of triangulation to get their distance; because of this, they can take their time approaching and use their standard actions for Spot rerolls.

[NichG]

I consider the lead-lined thing to be kind of iffy. If there's an item by RAW that does it (e.g. lead-lined cloak that explicitly says it blocks divinations) then that'd be fine, but if its something you're making up on your own I'd say no. Its too ambiguous how worn items actually interact with things like spells.

Consider that clothes, in general, satisfy the conditions of objects that block line of effect for spells, but wearing a shirt does not make you immune to a fireball.

[SPoilaaja]

Lead lining is from complete scoundrel. It's made for a pocket. Nothing stops you from filling your cloaks insides with lead lined pockets if you want to go by clear RAW, instead of allowing to apply it to just lining the cloak.

[Ziegander]

Okay, so two Maruts maximum can get a surprise round on the team of Fighters, nothing particularly worrisome.

And also, NichG explicitly allowed the Fighters to build specifically for a Marut fight, so unless he actually wants to ban spending gp on anything but personal gear and food, then I call shenanigans.

Are you saying that if I came up with a Leader of Men build (without actually taking Leadership mind you), that I could not use a mass of hirelings (ie: not followers), of which I can afford literally thousands, optimized from my feat choices to kill the Maruts that would not be a valid build for this challenge? If so, then why? I would be using strictly Fighter levels, and only mundane resources.

EDIT: Ah, well, it doesn't actually appear that there really are any mundane leader of men type feats aside from Leadership and others with Leadership as a prerequisite. Which is really entirely lame, isn't it? Carry on fellows, I bow out.

[shaikujin]

I think spoilaaja's and yogibear's builds would win this.

If the lead lined clothing doesn't pan out (might also need to remove clothing to bathe and for other activities etc), Spoilaaja's batrider doesn't have any templates, and can take Vecna blooded to neutralize the advantage of divination magic.

My own ideas kept going back to a mounted flying ubercharger, much like batrider. Esp since the fighter's class skills and spirited charge line of (bonus fighter) feats seems to support this..

[NichG]

And also, NichG explicitly allowed the Fighters to build specifically for a Marut fight, so unless he actually wants to ban spending gp on anything but personal gear and food, then I call shenanigans.


Given that Kelb has banned Leadership from this, other things that emulate Leadership are likely to cause problems as well. What I care about is that whatever builds are submitted someone can't just go and say 'well yeah, your character was really the Lv20 wizard you hired, not the Lv19 fighter' or things like that. Basically I want this to actually stand as demonstration of a point, rather than be vulnerable to a lot of easy criticisms.

[Vogonjeltz]

The goggles do nothing. :smalltongue:

Also are we talking about the fighters shielding themselves from divinations? I'm not really sure this ties into my point that the fighters have no way to predict the fight.

Stuff like this makes me sad that games like the Test of Spite are no longer running.

Don't Maruts only come after those who cheat death repeatedly or on a massive scale? (Ie liches, and clerics who raise a lot of people from the dead)

Why bother asking how the fighters know the Maruts are coming for them if we haven't established a reason for the Maruts to come after them at all?

[NichG]

The Fighters win by not avoiding death by old age before the Maruts arrive? Thats... creative alright.

[Vogonjeltz]

Fighters can also have the planar substitution levels which allow them to a lot their weapons, bypassing the DR entirely, and affect themselves and their enemy in a grapple as if subject to a dimensional anchor. Granted, these are Supernatural abilities, but more importantly they are also class abilities.

[Phelix-Mu]

If the maruts and the fighters aren't involved in an encounter, we lose the premise for the challenge. Since the challenge exists, we should just assume that there is a reason for the two parties to meet on less-than-friendly grounds. A conceit of the challenge.

Besides, Inevitables regularly mark up all kinds of collateral damage and the like while in pursuit of a mission. You can't just assume that if the fighters don't do anything to make them the direct targets of the maruts then the two sides would never come into conflict.

I do like the batriders. I'd be interested if there weren't another way to manage this, though it might depend on the exact terrain of the challenge.

As to the surprise round, I think the maruts would almost be better served waiting in an area the fighters are entering, using some form of hiding or blocking line of sight in order to avoid detection. I don't know if their tactics can be optimized to this extent, but if they dimdoor (a pretty predictable tactic after the first use), this limits their own tactical deployment and action economy.

If the maruts can't get surprise due to Vecna-Blooded or lead-lined whatever, then the maruts' chances decline considerably.

EDIT: Nice call on the planar substitution levels.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It seems to me that a build has already been posted that wins this challenge soundly and with no room for argument and yet everyone in the thread has ignored its existence.

I also seems to me that if the Maruts are after the Fighters, that it is entirely reasonable that the Maruts have to come to the Fighters to do them in. That means the Fighters should be free to spend their millions of GP on creating, shaping, and controlling the battleground. It's the Inevitables that are picking the fight, the Fighters aren't going questing after them.

It's not being ignored, not in particular at least. There are a number of circumstances that are, as yet, undefined for the challenge. Labeling this a build challenge was misleading. It's intended to be a trial run, so we need 4 builds that are legal by the rules we've set forward and we need to pin down a few more details before we can begin.

Shaping the battlefield is a no-go. Maruts aren't so stupid as to blindly walk into a trap on the scale you're talking about. There's also the question of how the fighters even know these creatures are after them.

As for what they did to draw the attention of mechanus; I didn't think it was really necessary to define but, just for giggles, let's say that they've been fiated to have the endless quality and have lived triple the normal life-span for whichever of them is of the longest-lived race. Their getting together to adventure is what put them on the radar.


Would you say that Dimension Dooring away to return the next round counts as withdrawing? Personally, I wouldn't say so. However, there needs to be a hard limit on what counts as withdrawing (as opposed to taking tactical advantage of superior movement) because of the Maruts' Fast Healing ability.

A withdraw will be defined as the fighters getting at least 3 rounds without a marut in sight -after- battle is initially joined.


2 questions:

1) Does the Marut's Dimension Door have an exception to this clause "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn."

It says "Using" and not "Casting", so does that clause apply to the caster only, or everyone the caster brings along?

No. Dim-door robs you of the remainder of your turn. However, dim-door allows you to transport more than just yourself as well so it still has pretty solid strategic and tactical use.



2) Is the "symbiotic" template in Savage Species legal for this challenge?

Apologies if these have been asked and answered before.

Symbiotic on a PC is well known cheese. I'd be -very- surprised if you could even find two creatures to combine that wouldn't circumvent or outright violate the ECL 3 starting race restriction. Let's call that a tentative no.



As far as I know, there is no RAW way to cloak a living creature in lead to block divinations. If someone can show something to the contrary I'll happily concede the point. The lead lining in CS is for lining containers, not people.

[Hurnn]

Really the amount of hedging and trying to skirt the spirit and rules of the challenge here is amazing. In all honesty "if" the maruts were truly out to kill these 4 guys they could wait till they were separated, preferably unarmed and unarmored and kill. Them 1 at at time. "(m1)target bob one is in his house in his bed. (m2)target bob ones weapon is on its rack. (m3) target bob ones armor is in his closet. (m4) dimension dooring to bob ones bedroom in 5, 4, .....

[Gwendol]

Eh, the fighters are already nerfed enough by the "no-magic" clause.

[kardar233]

So since each can bring only 2 others along, the 4th one will have to stay behind or also use it's DD and forgo any further actions, including any surprise rounds.

I think then that the best idea will be to swap Maruts in and out. For example: Maruts 1, 2, and 3 are Dimension Doored in by Marut 1. Marut 2 uses his readied action to swing at one of the Fighters and then Marut 3 uses his readied action to Dimension Door out of range. Then, they swap out whichever Marut took damage from the Fighters' readied action and do the same thing again.

Since there are four positions that a Marut can be in (Dooring in, Dooring out, striking, waiting) any single Marut can go three turns in between taking a striking turn, meaning that the Fighter will have to deal at least 30 damage with his readied action in order to start gaining on attrition.


Btw, since DD requires the caster and the 2 maruts to be touching, that also means they will be bunched up together when they emerge, right? Esp since the caster can't take a move action, and the other 2 will still need to be touching that first caster when they activate their own DD in the daisy chain DD strategy.

Dimension Door allows for a "conga-line" positioning through this phrase:
All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you.

This makes it much more likely that only one Marut is in melee range of the fighters at any given time.


A withdraw will be defined as the fighters getting at least 3 rounds without a marut in sight -after- battle is initially joined.

Ah. If the Maruts take advantage of three turns of Fast Healing between strikes as well as using the swapping strategy that I outlined earlier in this post, the only way the Fighters have a reasonable chance of winning is by being able to one-shot a Marut in the tiny window they have available.

[SPoilaaja]

to kardar: That is why divination immunity is needed for this challenge. The vecna-blooded that was suggested is a really great way to access that. If used on batrider builds, they lose only a bit of hp and a point of Bab.

[Phelix-Mu]

So, the next step, assuming batriders or whatever else have Vecna-Blooded (and they all need it or it is decidedly less useful), is to consider how the maruts are likely to act if they can't rely on their divination. They could still probably orchestrate a fairly effective ambush just from mundane scouting and dimdooring around from surveillance points. I don't know if they could necessarily dimdoor right into combat, but they could dimdoor into some kind of strategic formation in an area they'd set up in the path of the fighters.

In the meantime, the fighters are pretty clueless. Even if they set up some kind of patrol formation as they move about, there is a fair likelihood that they enter an area unaware of the maruts (who would just be waiting behind cover or whatever).

This could particularly screw a mounted build, as the maruts could easily pick a place for the ambush where the mounts were out-of-action, or at least much less useful (like a place that forced the riders to temporarily dismount).

[SPoilaaja]

if you continue that line of thought they'll also wait until the batriders are sleeping or fighting other creatures or even taking a crap. The rules need to be set in someway how the fight is going to happen.

[Phelix-Mu]

if you continue that line of thought they'll also wait until the batriders are sleeping or fighting other creatures or even taking a crap. The rules need to be set in someway how the fight is going to happen.

Agreed, otherwise the maruts can obviate a fair selection of builds, or the fight altogether (wait until the fighters are sleeping). There are builds (in this case, races) that can get around sleeping, but that is significant resource restriction beyond the intent of the challenge (to gauge what fighters sans magic are able to bring to the table).

EDIT: I'd like to see a monk version of this challenge. Hehe, but that's just me.

[Meth In a Mine]

How is this possible in any definition of the word? The fighters are rich as all heck, but can't buy a single magic item? That limit boned them from the get-go.
I really like the idea of a build challenge, but this is a bit too much.
Sorry if I sound mean. I don't mean to be.

[Phelix-Mu]

How is this possible in any definition of the word? The fighters are rich as all heck, but can't buy a single magic item? That limit boned them from the get-go.
I really like the idea of a build challenge, but this is a bit too much.
Sorry if I sound mean. I don't mean to be.

It's more of a thought experiment than any kind of statement that fighters should go about without magic (or that any sane fighter would). We want to see just how boned the fighters would be if they had no magic and were fighting something that is generally defeated by magic items/magic.

[Brookshw]

How is this possible in any definition of the word? The fighters are rich as all heck, but can't buy a single magic item? That limit boned them from the get-go.
I really like the idea of a build challenge, but this is a bit too much.
Sorry if I sound mean. I don't mean to be.

This is a challenge to evaluate to base line capabilities of fighters, nothing more, nothing less. The rejection of magic is a requirement logically of establishing the base line, as is the rejection of leadership.

P.s. I don't think you sound mean, I just think people are misunderstanding the purpose of the exercise.

[Meth In a Mine]

It's more of a thought experiment than any kind of statement that fighters should go about without magic (or that any sane fighter would). We want to see just how boned the fighters would be if they had no magic and were fighting something that is generally defeated by magic items/magic.

I think we know the answer now: Very. :smallbiggrin:

Cheers

[Phelix-Mu]

Actually, I give the fighters a fair chance of success. The maruts may be able to orchestrate some kind of moment of greatest advantage, but the fighters have quite a bit of build resource to work with. The dimdoor withdrawal will be problematic, but if Kelb allows the planar substitution levels (not very vanilla, though), then that might be dealt with one marut at a time.

As expected, much depends on the terrain/area layout and the starting formations of each side.

[NichG]

Based on the builds seen so far, the fighters aren't boned at all. I'm tempted to say the challenge is too easy, actually.

The last thorny bits being dealt with now are how to basically deal with the dim-door kiting tactics the Maruts can use. I think the builds that people here are considering viable can basically oneshot a Marut whenever they get a chance to attack, so the main question is how to get that chance.

[Vogonjeltz]

If the maruts and the fighters aren't involved in an encounter, we lose the premise for the challenge. Since the challenge exists, we should just assume that there is a reason for the two parties to meet on less-than-friendly grounds. A conceit of the challenge.

Besides, Inevitables regularly mark up all kinds of collateral damage and the like while in pursuit of a mission. You can't just assume that if the fighters don't do anything to make them the direct targets of the maruts then the two sides would never come into conflict.

I do like the batriders. I'd be interested if there weren't another way to manage this, though it might depend on the exact terrain of the challenge.

As to the surprise round, I think the maruts would almost be better served waiting in an area the fighters are entering, using some form of hiding or blocking line of sight in order to avoid detection. I don't know if their tactics can be optimized to this extent, but if they dimdoor (a pretty predictable tactic after the first use), this limits their own tactical deployment and action economy.

If the maruts can't get surprise due to Vecna-Blooded or lead-lined whatever, then the maruts' chances decline considerably.

EDIT: Nice call on the planar substitution levels.

Ty on the levels

I did think of a plausible reason, the fighters are all Elan and so cheated death. That being said, each Marut would be aimed at a single target according to their entry and proceed immediately to that task, so the idea of them working together, or attempting hit and run tactics is simply implausible as they are depicted.

[TheArimadios]

Reading the Marut combat guide - and in the spirit of this challenge, let's say they are simply inevitables told to kill these four mundane geared fighters. The combat section says that it uses Dimension Door and Locate creatures to find enemies who flee - while it's possible to daisy chain these dimdoors, it's theoriectically violating the terms of the Marut's 'programming' (They are constructs. They have orders, and while capable of thinking through challenges, these are LAWFUL creatures. Let's be honest here. They will basically NOT be chaining these dimdoors until someone kills one of them.) Maximized HP for a Marut is 180 HP - If all four fighters (Human, of course.) Get a charge at any one, using mounted lances, they will kill it. Maruts do not have reach, even as a large creature, they will step into a 10ft range to attack, because "They walk surely and implacably towards its target" - while using CL during distance close section.

Basically, this means: 42 dmg on a AoO, 84 FA maximized damages. That's the maruts. Once per DAY they can use CL, for 15d6, so, 90 damage max.

Working encounter system...

Fighter Ini Win?
Bob, Bill, Joe, Fred, Charge Marut 1, Kill it, Rideby attack to reasonable range if applicable (Probably not.)

Marut 2, 3, and 4, each targeting different fighter, using a maximized damage formula, deal 180 damage at range to all but one fighter who takes maximum of 135, if they are bunched, if not, vape one fighter with 270 damage, reduces fighters kill power by a round.

Marut 2 is critically wounded, possibly flees to self repair (Unlikely, these are constructs called INEVITABLES.), if not, Charge/bull rush. Deals 42 Damage to a fighter, killing it. ( 180+42 = 220, fighter lvl 19 maximized hp, before con bonus, 190.)

Marut 3 and 4 repeat action. Victory Maruts.

Marut Surprise round?

4 CLs. Fighters in marching order, since unawares of Marut attack, total damage, 90 + 135 damage = 225 maximized damage. fighters need a MINIMUM constitution of 18 (Preferably 20) to survive the FIRST ROUND. PS, That's to every fighter. EVERY SINGLE ONE. These numbers are maximized, by the way.

So, we need 18 con, prefering 20. Now we need to be able to HIT them. That means, we need a hiiiiiiigh strength, even with every attack being a charge.

Assume 20 is not a crit for this bit... 20+19 = 39, Marut AC 34, which means a roll of 14 or better is required to hit. Charge lowers to 12, WF and GWF lower it to a 10, reasonable, but clumsy for use with PA. +4 damage from WS and GWS, consumed 4 feats, total feats allowable for 19 fighter is 16, 17 if human. So, for a baseline -9 damage, and 50 percent hit rate, you spend 4 feats. A quarter of your allotment. Reasonable.

Mounted feats, 3, Mounted Combat, Spirited Charge, Ride-by Attack. Leaves you with 9 feats.

To nullify the Marut's combat bonuses, you need to have ( 31 DC - 15 (Base + con mod.) = 16) a 16 or better on your for save to reduce this to an 80 percent chance of blind or deaf on a charge, or a mulplicative 80 percent to avoid one, and an additative 80 percent to avoid both. YOU NEED FORT SAVE FEATS. Not to mention massive armor bonuses.

They have 22 to attack, which means, even against a base commoner, they will hit (42 - 10 = 32 ) 160 percent of the time. 170 percent on a charge. Which means you MUST have 22 AC to reduce it to a maximized 100 percent hit chance. This means tower shield, full plate, for a total ac of 24 (10 + 9 + 5) Meaning a marut must roll 2 or better to hit. What? That's a 90 percent hit rate! We need that lower. Templates under ECL 3 that add natural armor? Half Dragon. +3 ECL, reduces feat number by 2, Reduces hitpoints by minimum of 30, with Con bonus, that's 42 (Remember, all numbers maximized.) meaning, 224 hp maximized, just barely enough to survive a failed reflex save from all 4 CLs, with diehard. Doable.

Half Dragons also get +2 con, which improves our hp to 240. Which means total of 249, -225 for cl grouped up spam, then you're looking at 24 minimum hp left, after the opening salvo.

So that's 28 AC. Which means 70 percent of the time, you will be hit. Which means that 70 percent of the time, at least one fighter will die every time a marut moves after round one. unacceptable. You need more armor. So let's see, we're down to 15 possible feats, we've used eight, and we need more saves and armor. dodge brings our survival chance up to 35 percent to survive, 65 to die every round the maruts take per fighter. That's six feats left. Great fortitude to reduce the chance of blind or deaf to 70. That's five. We're getting tight. Lightning reflexes means ( 20-7 = 13 or better to save) that we only get CL neutered 65 percent of the time. That's 4. Combat expertise to raise our ac to 33 during every attack means (42 - 34 = 8) 40 percent chance to die on every marut attack - acceptable. That's when not charging. It's a 50 percent on a charge.

That's 3 feats left, some offensive, some defensive. So let's talk attacks now, seeing as we have a CHANCE of survival if the dice gods love us. So let's look at our attack now. On a charge we have ( B 16, +4 F, +2 C, -5 CE = 17, so max 37 VS Ac 34 ) a ... 15 percent hit chance. We only hit on 17s or higher. Whut.

Bear in mind, this is WITHOUT Strength or Template. (To go to 18 con will take 6 + 4 + 6, 16 points, so, half of our point allotment.) So. We're going to need some more reflex saves, So let's go six points into dex, for 14, which is +2, which means, CL neutering occurs 55 percent of the time. ( because 20 - 9 = 11 * 5 = 55 ) , leaving us with (16 + 6 = 22 - 32 = 10) 10 point buy points, meaning strength 16 which is plus 3, so, max 40 now attack roll on a charge. which of course is ( 6 * 5 = 30) 30 percent hit rate. Add Half Dragon template, which adds +4, improving our hit rate to 50 percent. Reasonable. However, power attack means this will degrate futher. It's really the ONLY way to deal damage here, Because you'll need PA 5 with a lance to degrade the DR to nothing with a Lance. That's a roll of 15 or better required to hit.

Let's talk damage. On a Spirited charge, a human HD riding a normal mount (Maruts won't target the mounts, because THEY ARE NOT IN VIOLATION OF LIFE LENGTH LAWS, YO.) A human HD will deal maximized, 45 damage. Add the feats for 12 extra damage for a total of 57 damage per charge, which means, 3 charges equal 171 damage, not enough to kill it. So we still need 4 fighters charging. We want that lower, to have a fighting chance. (This is pre Power Attack here.) So we need to deal 9 more damage, PA 1 on each fighter will lower this to 3 charges necesary per marut, before DR. Uh oh.

Still not good enough. Alright, We increase the PA. We can have up to 11 at this point, with CE still working. We still only have a maximum hit chance of 50, so each point HURTS. Let's see... 6 will kill in 3 charges, ( PA 6, Feats 4 , lance 8, strength 7, so, time three for spirited charge, 75, minus dr = 60. 60 * 3 = 180 HP ) Now. That means we've lost 6 attack bonus, So let's tally attack.

16 + 2 + 7 - 5 - 6 - uh oh. We only hit on 20s. That's 5 percent. But wait, we've forgotten our FEATS BABY! That's a further +2 , so now we can hit on a 17. Three of these puppies, and it's a dead marut. However...

At this rate, it's better to look at the option to crit-kill them in one blow. Two triplings would be a x5, unless my dnd math fails me (A tripling is two doublings, there for, two triplings would be four doublings, which adds into a quintupling.) Which means, on a nat 20, we're looking at ( Maximized, 40 + 35 from strngeth, 20 ffrom feats, 30 from PA = 125) 125 damage for a single crit charge. Add in another 15 from PA bonuses to the point that only a nat 20 hits, and nat 20 confirms, then you're looking at 140 damage per crit charge. That's, by the way, a 1 percent chance of happening, or so.



The numbers game, boiled down...

You need about 20 armor, and 15 or so bonus damage (while retaining a minimum +14 to hit) to take this fight reasonably chanced. This build still has 3 feats to play around with. Improved crit is worth a major look. But basically, the rule is this - on a strict maximization sense, you have to pull something from somewhere OTHER than core rules to turn this into a fair fight. Some wicked arsed feats, preferably.

Oh yeah. AND CONSTRUCTS CANT BE CRIT, LOLOLOLOL, Fail. You're gonna need 90 damage from a single lance charge to two shot the maruts. Dang. That's, uhm... 66 damage total from other sources than your lance, which would be 22 bonus damage necesary on your BASE charge to deal with him in two hits. Currently, this one is 8 + 13, So a further 9 damage is needed to kill these punk arses. In two charges, which, when you boil the fight down maximized in the fighter's ini favor, goes (2 maruts, 3 fighters, 1 marut, 2 fighters, 0 maruts, win.)

Unless of course you have one tower shield fighter up front, unmounted, and the rest in back, of different set ups, and then all this theroy crafting falls to ... well, let's say horse apples. Cover = win. CL Don't Curveball, Sucka.

Excuse the rampant typos, most of this was free-thought.

PS: I didn't account for fear, or will saves. Fighters be boned if they do that.

Basically? Modify all those AC and Attack and Damage numbers by -2 (-6 in case of damage with lance.) Meaning 92 necesary damage to kill them dang robots.

[NichG]

Arimadios, we already did the 'programmatic' one in the other thread. This one is 'smartest possible tactics for the Maruts versus cleverest possible tactics/build for the fighters'. So whether or not properly-characterized Maruts would do it, for the sake of this challenge they're just a bag of mechanics without the RP elements.

[TheArimadios]

Oh. I didn't even realize there was a different thread of this. Crap. Sucks to be new and get sucked into a debate like this. Also, other question...

Bariaur? Do it's RHD mean it's above allowable? it has a level adjustment of +2, so... Acceptable? I'm almost always confused by this bit.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If all four fighters are sleeping at the same time, unless they're at an inn in a settlement, they deserve to be CDG'ed to death. That's just inexcusably careless. So can we drop that bit of absurdity?

However, choosing to wait for a time of greatest advantage to strike isn't such an absurd thought. On the other hand, I suspect that the maruts would be pressured by whatever force directs them to get the job done ASAP. There won't be any following the fighters around for days after getting within striking distance. Same or next day at latest. Marut's aren't exactly the stealthiest of creatures so I should think hitting more or less immediately would probably be the typical MO. A surprise round shouldn't be terribly surprising (ha!) but anything beyond that is probably outside the scope of what we're trying to see here.

[TheArimadios]

Well, That being said - I can certainly see a Surprise round being the logical event. (Dropping in ala MASTER CHIEF comes to mind.) On top of that, Being able to survive the inital CL burst would be the Biggest challenge to overcome. I leave that bit to others with more experience in odd races/templates. Beyond that, it boils down to dealing as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time - their FA is absolutely devastating. Retreat is out due to wall of force, and let's face it, they're inevitables. They will just. Keep. slowly. Airwalking. Toward. you. until. death.

Now, Maruts using ultra inventive tactics does seem a little far-fetched, even with them being like, ultramaruts. (Ha. Ultramarines.) I don't see them being able to do the One at a time approach, which, ultimately is self defeating. (One Marut, One CL per day, Four dudes with lances on a pegasus. Yeah, Marut be boned, even at 16 strength.) If taking out the mounts becomes paramount to their success, even then, the Fighters have a good chance on foot with lance charging and spring attack. (Reduce to double damage, more math shenanageins I won't get into now.) That being said...

Why not just make a GS Fighter with mass strength and con, get a +1 to Dex, and just flat out lay into the Maruts with flanking great sword attacks and Boatloads of tanky feats? Damage Reduction and Improved Toughness come to mind. It'd work. Kinda defeats the Purpose of the challenge, but, it'll work. CL only works once a day, and Fearing the Fighters defeats the Marut's purpose. Every IT feat (They stack) is another 19 hp, So you're looking at (minus 4 feats for weapon Chuck Norrisery) 12 feats or so, so +228 Hp? That's enough to endure a full battery of CL blasts. ... Christ, I think I'm going to make that character, just a walking wall of HP soak. DR is epic, so it's out.

Anyway, Something like that could beat a Marut, Even if it was still a charge-a-holic with a lance, just pingpong charge. Rediculous... Whittling a monster down would boil out to alchemically enhanced weapons, inventive weapon tactics (Tanglefoot bags, torches, and just flat ole' oil barrels come to mind. Also, Crushing the punks in dungeon traps, or finding a demon and making a deal with it, (Pazuzu, Pazuzu, PAZUZU!) In fact, even on foot, a chargeaholic with a lance and dumped everything but strength and con would basically make mincemeat out of them.

Really, it deepends, How Specialized for the fight can the characters be? Are we talking, "Yes, they exist ONLY for this theoretical fight." or, "No, they must be playable characters." levels here? Because, if they can be strictly for this fight, I'll 32 point buy him up right now, and take four clones against them any day of the week. Maruts Aren't all that difficult, if you straight up focus on BURNING THEM DOWN WITH LANCE STABS or GREAT SWORD SLASHES.

Or heck, Just Scythe em to death. Monkeygrip and Oversized weapon, to boot. (Mmmm, 2d8 + 1 1/2 Str with X4 multiplier... I'll take that with a side of Half-dragon half-Orcs, kthxbai.) Really, people are trying to compensate for the Maruts Having air walk so hard - did they forget, they're humanoid, so even if they fly, with a two handed weapon, they're in range when they attack you? Melee's Melee. It's a 10 foot creature with 10 foot reach. That means it can punch it's feet. Five foot step into melee, Scythe with a Oversized Monkeygrip, and Boom. They use SLAM attacks, so no weapons for maruts - they HAVE to close to "I can hit you back" range. Take it on the chin, pick targets, Annihilate.

Also, These guys remind me of the Armored Titan from Attack On Titan.

[NichG]

Fear is not actually counter to their purpose if Wall of Force is in play, because the fighters can't actually flee - it means the fighters drop their weapons and basically can't fight back for something like 15 rounds. So Fear wins for the Maruts unless it can be somehow defended against/countered (several ways to do so appear in builds earlier in this thread, so its not insurmountable).

Dim-door kiting tactics I think are currently the biggest problem. It basically limits things to one-shotting tactics to a large degree.

I wouldn't actually expect the Maruts to stay in melee. One tactic would be something like two teams of two Maruts. The first member of each team dimension-doors in at the furthest range of Mass Inflict Light Wounds. The second member uses Mass Inflict Light Wounds. The next round, they reverse order, popping a second Mass Inflict and then dim-dooring away.

Alternately, they use a team of three plus one guy as backup. In the three-member team, Marut 1 dimdoors the team in; Marut 2 full-attacks someone; Marut 3 dimdoors them away. Which makes this into a fight of readied actions, which negates a lot of ubercharger/damage boost stuff that the fighters could use. Even worse, do the 3-Marut pattern with Mass Inflict Light Wounds at range.

I think necropolitan has already been suggested as a counter to the Mass Inflict. Tomb tainted soul might also work?

[kardar233]

Alternately, they use a team of three plus one guy as backup. In the three-member team, Marut 1 dimdoors the team in; Marut 2 full-attacks someone; Marut 3 dimdoors them away. Which makes this into a fight of readied actions, which negates a lot of ubercharger/damage boost stuff that the fighters could use. Even worse, do the 3-Marut pattern with Mass Inflict Light Wounds at range.

This is what I've been suggesting, assuming you can get your Initiative counts right; otherwise use Readied actions. Furthermore, you can rotate which Marut actually does the hitting, allowing each wounded Marut to Fast Heal thirty or forty HP while it sits out or ferries his friends back and forth.

Unless the Fighters are Large and have reach+adjacent weapons, it's unlikely that more than one Fighter is going to be able to make an attack against the Marut. Since the Maruts can retreat for a maximum of three rounds and there are four possible positions in their tactic, a Marut can go up to fifteen rounds between being hit, meaning that it will be fully healed. In that case, the Fighters need to be able to kill the Marut in one, two or three hits (depending on Karmic Strike and Robilar's Gambit) in order to get anywhere, and this is without any charge bonuses or multipliers, though Overwhelming Attack will get you double damage on your Karmic Strike/Rob's Gambit attacks (though as it's a full-round action, you won't be able to ready).

The Fighters could go Ranged, which allows all four fighters to attack on their readied actions. Since you can ready standard actions, the Fighters could all ready a (Greater) Manyshot, making for four attacks each. However, the Maruts' DR15/chaotic mean that unless they use the Planar Fighter substitution level (Kelb, what's your stance on that?) they're going to be severely strapped for damage. Even with the Planar Fighter, much bonus archery damage is magic-based (such as the ubiquitous Raptor Arrows) meaning that the Fighters may not be able to kill the Maruts in one barrage.

~EDIT~ Furthermore, any of the ways of dealing with the Maruts' tactics expose other vulnerabilities. If the Fighters go for Reach/Large size/Karmic Strike/Rob's Gambit, they are then vulnerable to the Maruts staying out of their reach by using Mass Inflict Light Wounds or Fear. If the Fighters choose archery, then it becomes problematic if they are blinded. Mounted Fighters run into the problem that their mounts are likely much more vulnerable to Chain Lightning or other effects than they are, meaning it's easy for them to be dismounted.

[NichG]

Well, there's four fighters, they don't all have to be the same build. Maybe its worth considering a split team - two ranged, two melee - in order to cover the bases. I will say though that ranged seems to have the advantage that you don't need to care about flight, so instead you can use the template for God-blooded of Vecna, which means that if you move around in between the Marut dimdoors, they can't teleport into melee range reliably.

Here's a weird thought - is there any way to force the fight to be under sand or water - some environment that would cause the Marut dimdoors to shunt?

[PrinceOfMadness]

To those claiming the contest is too easy, you could always build the fighters to the lowest ECL they could reliably take out the maruts :smallamused:

I assume that since the fighters can be tailored to kill maruts, they are aware of the marut's interest in ending them? How much prep time do the fighters get before the showdown?

I assume the maruts are being played tactically as opposed to their MM Combat entry?

[Vogonjeltz]

To those claiming the contest is too easy, you could always build the fighters to the lowest ECL they could reliably take out the maruts :smallamused:

I assume that since the fighters can be tailored to kill maruts, they are aware of the marut's interest in ending them? How much prep time do the fighters get before the showdown?

I assume the maruts are being played tactically as opposed to their MM Combat entry?

Yes to the last question, Maruts work alone according to the MM1 entry, and it's been established that fighters can easily win assuming the tactics used there.

[Rejusu]

Are you saying that if I came up with a Leader of Men build (without actually taking Leadership mind you), that I could not use a mass of hirelings (ie: not followers), of which I can afford literally thousands, optimized from my feat choices to kill the Maruts that would not be a valid build for this challenge? If so, then why? I would be using strictly Fighter levels, and only mundane resources.

As I pointed out before it would defeat the purpose of the exercise. It's like saying that I can beat up Mike Tyson because I paid a few bigger guys to do it. It's disingenuous. It renders all the constraints of the challenge meaningless.

[Kelb_Panthera]

To those claiming the contest is too easy, you could always build the fighters to the lowest ECL they could reliably take out the maruts :smallamused:

That's missing the point. According to the encounter calculator, 4 maruts should constitute an EL 19 encounter. A party of 4 level 19 characters should be able to defeat them without burning off more than 20% of their daily resources under normal circumstances.

I posit that, since normal circumstances include having reasonably ready access to level appropriate magic gear, according to the DMG, that it would be nigh-impossible for a party of 4 non-casters to meet the benchmark of defeating the maruts with only 20% of their resources. I further posit that it's more than a little questionable if they could reliably defeat the creatures at all.

Thus, we test.


I assume that since the fighters can be tailored to kill maruts, they are aware of the marut's interest in ending them? How much prep time do the fighters get before the showdown?

It's not a showdown. It's a hunter and quarry scenario. The fighters know they're coming but not when or where.


I assume the maruts are being played tactically as opposed to their MM Combat entry?

I intend to play them to the peak of my tactical ability and to within the greatest strategic ability I can muster within a few reasonable constrains.

They're immortal creatures built for a specific purpose. That purpose is setting aright any instance of a mortal escaping its inevitable demise as decreed by the forces of absolute Law. They will strike within a day or so of pin-pointing their quarry, without fail, and, unless a particularly likely ambush site presents itself, more or less immediately since every second the target outlives the death it was supposed to meet is an affront to the very laws of the cosmos.

[Togo]

I'm happy to build a non-caster and see how it will do either singally or as part of a group with other people's builds.

[Gemini476]

If all four fighters are sleeping at the same time, unless they're at an inn in a settlement, they deserve to be CDG'ed to death. That's just inexcusably careless. So can we drop that bit of absurdity?

However, choosing to wait for a time of greatest advantage to strike isn't such an absurd thought. On the other hand, I suspect that the maruts would be pressured by whatever force directs them to get the job done ASAP. There won't be any following the fighters around for days after getting within striking distance. Same or next day at latest. Marut's aren't exactly the stealthiest of creatures so I should think hitting more or less immediately would probably be the typical MO. A surprise round shouldn't be terribly surprising (ha!) but anything beyond that is probably outside the scope of what we're trying to see here.

...You do know that just means that the best time to bring the Fighters to their Lawful death is when they are sleeping at an inn in a settlement?

Actually, that's a really good idea. The Fighters probably aren't wearing armor while sleeping (unless they have Endurance), and even if they have weapons they are prone and the Maruts possibly not far away enough to Charge.
So for tactics, just have them Dim.Door into the Fighter's bedrooms individually and try to Coup de Grace (and if the Fighter's wake up before that, well, see above.)

[Flickerdart]

How well are maruts briefed on their quarry? Their SLAs don't include any information gathering skills, their senses are pretty bad, and their stealth is nonexistent. I imagine they'll have locate creature running 24/7 and just amble around until they ping something and dimension door in. While they can easily use dimension door to escape after one of them attacks, there doesn't seem any reason for them to do so since they just see a bunch of fighters in nonmagical gear. This gives the fighters at least one round of actions before the maruts see what they're really up against and try to adjust their tactics to something other than "immediately murder enemy".

The best marut strategy in any outdoors terrain seems to be Air Walk, Dimension Door into range, then rotate through 4 rounds of 1 earthquake and 3 chain lightnings (anything else is fine after they run out; fear spam might be best, hoping the fighters fail the DC). The DC of earthquake doesn't matter because the fighters cannot move or attack while it's going on regardless of what happens.

[Kelb_Panthera]

...You do know that just means that the best time to bring the Fighters to their Lawful death is when they are sleeping at an inn in a settlement?

If that's where they should happen to discover their targets, sure. The likelihood of that being the case is pretty slim though. There's also the issue of people kicking up a commotion at 4 death machines just walking down the street before getting in range of the inn, especially if -anyone- is foolish enough to try to stop them. The fist of thunder isn't exactly quiet when they bash town guards out of their way to get to their quarry.


Actually, that's a really good idea. The Fighters probably aren't wearing armor while sleeping (unless they have Endurance), and even if they have weapons they are prone and the Maruts possibly not far away enough to Charge.
So for tactics, just have them Dim.Door into the Fighter's bedrooms individually and try to Coup de Grace (and if the Fighter's wake up before that, well, see above.)

In the -unlikely- event that they should get this shining opportunity, of course they'd take it. The presumption that they -could- get that opportunity is what's questionable. Just porting into the room will make noise that prompts a listen check and -may- prevent them from getting the opportunity to CDG. Their full plate and lack of ranks makes that listen check a -lot- easier to make than it otherwise might be; 1d20 -6 if they actually attempt to move silently, just -6 if they don't.

[TheArimadios]

IMHO, Four Mundane fighters are NOT going to sleep in inns without having a good reason, Nor are they going to forsake Watches, even at this point. Then we run into the issue of "Are they Elves?" - Which kinks that ENTIRE plan. No, if this is to be a true test of the most inventive tactics, then you should look at the bare tactics FOR fighters. and for Maruts. Now, A marut daisy chain, Regardless of how often they get hurt, they're always going to be two or three injured. People are forgetting, Fighters can Delay action, to optimize their INI counts.

I mean, If I'm seeing this, as a fighter, my option is, "Delay until AFTER you see a Dimdoor drop out Maruts, and move BEFORE it can react from being DimDoored in." - If all four fighters give up a move to delay to this point, then they have a near guaranteed kill on a Marut. (My personal favorites are ubercharges, or just plain monkey grip over sized great swords. (Owie. 4d6+1 1/2 str.) DR can always be overcome by MASSIVE damage dealings.

Green Starmetal could help, but I'm still investigating weapon materials... Basically, Starmetal Swords - Unless someone knows something even more exotic.

The fighters and the Maruts are both going to be as tactical as possible. This means that, For the fighters, knowing they're going to be assaulted by Daisy-chain (After the first or second time seeing it) are going to ready up charges, Or defensive actions. Basically, Delay until optimum charge time.

Since they can carry more than one weapon, And fight in more than one style, Might I suggest forgoing the weapon specialization style feats, just going for straight soak, and maning up to take it on the chin? Bear in mind, most of the stuff I can look up is SRD and various non-srd source books?

All this being said, my point in posting all this is to open up the field of Possibilities, bring to the table underestimated tactics, and remind people, that sometimes, outside of the box, or bottom of the barrel thinking pays off? I've seen TPKs STOPPED by delay actions. So, all in all, just remember - If this is a four man team of fighters, they are GOING to be able to predict certain things - You're 19th level. You are GODS AMONGST MEN. You EAT FIREBALLS TO THE FACE LIKE IT WAS LUNCH. You're basically, the best of the most mundane.

So, anyway. Sometimes, just straight up slug-fests are best. I mean, getting your strength up to a +10 or better would reduce this to triviality. Starmetal Huge Greatsword with +10 is (4d6+15 +1d6) 45 damage per hit maximized, overcomes the DR leaving 5 to 30 damage done per hit. Six hits to kill it. Each fighter has 4 swings a turn with a FA. Two of those are likely to hit. Vary for randomness, These guys don't last more than 12 turns. with averaged damage. If you add the +4 damage from the weapon feats, you're looking at about 10 attacks.

Okay. So they Dim-door out of melee range? Quickdraw a bow for greater than charge range. Starmetal Arrows on Oversize Monkeygrip (Huge) 10 Composite Longbow, Then Bamf. 3d6 +10 +1d6 At range. That's a boat man. For lances? Do the same, except 15 STR bonus, and then, boom. Charge is double, Spirited Charge is triple. Good frickin game, Bra.

Oh. Or Fullblade. With Monkeygrip, And Oversized Weapon. Uh... Bro? 4d8 Damage? Why not. We've got the feats to support it.

Basically, the DR is not an issue, for 3 feats we reduce it to triviality, and for 5, we can reduce it to absolute bumpkiss. If we chose to weapon specialize, 9 feats later, we're gods amongst men. Now, all this being said, We still have to look at our defenses.

By the By, I'm not sure, But I've been seeing things that say Wield Oversized Weapon is Epic, but the stuff I looked at didn't seem to have it (May have overlooked.) That being said, Substitute the feat for Heavy Weapon Exotic Profciency, and just use a heavy version - Monkeygrip + that acheieves the same result. There's discussions on their stackability, but we're talking fighters with strengths of 20 or better here, they can swing it around like a champ.

Moonblood Armor or Adamantite Armor take care of our needs, really.


Anyway. That's all I got for now. Monsterous amounts of damage can really help our situation here.

Edit: Forgot about the Feycraft Weapon Template, but I don't know much about it, other than it drops weight and weapon size catagory.

[Flickerdart]

II mean, If I'm seeing this, as a fighter, my option is, "Delay until AFTER you see a Dimdoor drop out Maruts, and move BEFORE it can react from being DimDoored in."
That's not how delaying turns works. You can only delay to an initiative count, not into the middle of someone else's turn.

[weckar]

I'm sure it has been pointed out before, but aren't purely-natural no-magic fighters just about the only type of creature Maruts aren't interested in confronting in the slightest?

[TheArimadios]

Force Individual INI checks for each member of the encounter? Each Marut is powerful enough to deserve it's own, and It's a mechanics way of preventing total DM Genitalia like behavior. It's up to Kelb and Nish, I think. Anyway, Everything I've run has been able to move between two units on any single ini count. If something is running 13, and my player is too, I make them roll off, and give each INI a priority count. EG: Joe gets a 13, and so does the Skeleton, Skeleton and Player Roll off on D 4 (because there are two parties), highest result goes first. Otherwise, you have to randomly determine, and the like, and ugh. It just gets messy.

But, If the Maruts have to have individual INI counts, that makes it a MUCH fairer fight, mechanically.

Clarity: Well, I mean the ones he DImdoors in, NOT the one who just got done using his Dimdoor. Dhur. I reread that, and see how someone could be confused by the wording.

[Yorrin]

Force Individual INI checks for each member of the encounter? Each Marut is powerful enough to deserve it's own, and It's a mechanics way of preventing total DM Genitalia like behavior. It's up to Kelb and Nish, I think. Anyway, Everything I've run has been able to move between two units on any single ini count. If something is running 13, and my player is too, I make them roll off, and give each INI a priority count. EG: Joe gets a 13, and so does the Skeleton, Skeleton and Player Roll off on D 4 (because there are two parties), highest result goes first. Otherwise, you have to randomly determine, and the like, and ugh. It just gets messy.

But, If the Maruts have to have individual INI counts, that makes it a MUCH fairer fight, mechanically.

Clarity: Well, I mean the ones he DImdoors in, NOT the one who just got done using his Dimdoor. Dhur. I reread that, and see how someone could be confused by the wording.

Unfortunately you seem to be forgetting that the Maruts are going to be delaying their turns to synchronize initiative since they've all but been guaranteed a surprise round.

[Ziegander]

Unfortunately you seem to be forgetting that the Maruts are going to be delaying their turns to synchronize initiative since they've all but been guaranteed a surprise round.

Can we run through this one more time? How do they get a surprise round at all? How are they able to nearly guarantee this ability to get a surprise round?

[TheArimadios]

So? Fighters Synch their Ini too. Force a Reroll of Ini. If EVERYTHING goes at INI 1, Well, crap, who goes first? REROLL INIATIVE, BOYS. I'm not afraid to delay until the time is right. "I want to go right now."

"But the marut is going."

"No, a Marut just went. I want to make my move between them."

"But it's all in the same six second period of combat!"

"So let me use my six seconds of glory right now."

"But - "

"There's four Maruts, and four fighters. Stripe em if you have to, but I want to make my move before the next marut goes - I announced my delay earlier, which means I can adjust my initative count at any point to right just then. if a Cleric can delay until the rouge gets lightning bolted, why can't i delay until after the first marut comes in, but before the second goes?"

"Because Rule 0."

"..." *TABLEFLIP, FACEKICK DM.*

Basically, only a truely rear endish DM will Rule 0 a RAW. If you want to go BETWEEN the two fire breathing dragons, why can't you? You announced a delay, You've got the RAW ticket. Use it.

It's like the golden ticket baby. You've got it, why NOT dive into the river of chocolate? One kid out of six gave back the gobstopper, and he won the big secret contest. And he STILL drank the ever-fizzy stuff.


Basically: This one's up to DM's discression - Are the Maruts going all at once, or is delay action an acceptable tactic?

[Yorrin]

Can we run through this one more time? How do they get a surprise round at all? How are they able to nearly guarantee this ability to get a surprise round?

Becuase Kelb has told us so.


A surprise round shouldn't be terribly surprising (ha!)

TheArimadios: fair point, if a little bombastically stated.

[Hurnn]

Can we run through this one more time? How do they get a surprise round at all? How are they able to nearly guarantee this ability to get a surprise round?

locate creature range of 960' + dim door would be my guess.

[TheArimadios]

TheArimadios: fair point, if a little bombastically stated.

Why thank you, Yorrin. I want to play Devil's Advocate while giving the Fighters a fighting chance.

[shaikujin]

Questions:

1) Does Vecna-Blooded still take 1 LA once the 40 damage points are used up?

2) Does it still count for the limit of 1 template allowed for this challenge? (Ie can I acquire another template once I burn out that 40 points)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Can we run through this one more time? How do they get a surprise round at all? How are they able to nearly guarantee this ability to get a surprise round?

This:


locate creature range of 960' + dim door would be my guess.

Unless they're -all- shielded against divinations the maruts are almost certain to get the drop on the fighters.

[Ziegander]

So maybe two of the Maruts actually get to act in that surprise round? And that's if you deny the Fighters Listen/Spot checks to avoid being surprised by the ones that still get to act after the Maruts Dimension Door in?

[Flickerdart]

And that's if you deny the Fighters Listen/Spot checks to avoid being surprised by the ones that still get to act after the Maruts Dimension Door in?
Nobody is entitled to any Spot/Listen checks - any that do happen is at the DM's sole discretion. The surprise round rules only mention that "determining awareness may call for Listen checks, Spot checks, or other checks" but I have trouble seeing how Spot or Listen will help you notice that Maruts are sneaking up on you when they teleport in.

[shaikujin]

1 more question, can WBL be spent on Tomes to increase stats?

[TheArimadios]

Kelb has spoken, and this is approaching a rule 0 ruling - He says they get a Surprise round unless they're all some freaky mumbo jumbo weird template/race that's like, immune to scrying. Which effectively bones the fighters - Unless they rule seperate Ini counts for everything, that's a moot point. The full 19 levels is a huge bonus over 16 levels and a template. Templates are nice, but never super useful until +4.

All this being said - Listen checks are nice, but we ARE talking about rolling the dice here.


My Suggestion: A best 2 out of 3 competition. Full redos of EVERY dice roll, just to confirm results of the test. I mean, run the encounter, start to finish, post by post, three full times, reusing the characters.

I have no opinion on all four fighters being clones, or the fighters being uniques. Without magic items, this is a dang TOUGH encounter.

As far as people saying "Why are the Maruts after the fighters?"

My answer: "There's an incredibly old necromancer who's becoming a lich RIGHT BEHIND THEM."

"But Locate creature and Dimdoor!"

"Rule 0, now shut it."

"Crap."

Nuff said. THE DM'S HAVE SPOKEN. THE DUEL SHALL OCCUR! DEATH TO THE MARUTS!

[kardar233]

Basically: This one's up to DM's discression - Are the Maruts going all at once, or is delay action an acceptable tactic?

If the Maruts are using my Dimension Door hit-and-run strategy, whether the Fighters delay or not is irrelevant as the Maruts' actions are taken as a sequence of readied action triggers, meaning that the only way the Fighters can act during the time the Maruts are in range is with immediate actions or their own readied actions.

[NichG]

I'm generally in favor of the reading that Delay lets you insert your turn between any set of other, discrete turns. That way, the difference between Ready and Delay is that a Readied action can actually interrupt someone else's turn, whereas a Delayed turn can only occur at breaks between turns.

Ultimately its up to Kelb though, since he's acting as DM for this.

Incidentally, what about Tower Shields? Total Cover is actually pretty nice when dealing with surprise attacks, since if nothing else it can be used to control the locations that the Maruts can attack from to some degree (its actually sort of ambiguous because of the lack of facing, but a squad of fighters constantly using Tower Shields may simply be, by the book, immune to all attack).

[TuggyNE]

I mean, If I'm seeing this, as a fighter, my option is, "Delay until AFTER you see a Dimdoor drop out Maruts, and move BEFORE it can react from being DimDoored in." - If all four fighters give up a move to delay to this point, then they have a near guaranteed kill on a Marut. (My personal favorites are ubercharges, or just plain monkey grip over sized great swords. (Owie. 4d6+1 1/2 str.) DR can always be overcome by MASSIVE damage dealings.

You can't delay for this, only ready, and readying doesn't let you charge* unless you get a surprise round. (In which case why are you not simply charging?) So readied actions must either be melee attacks (trivially avoidable by spamming mass inflict light wounds on every fighter instead of popping into melee), moves to attempt AoOs on departing Maruts (only works on one Marut, and risks AoOs from the others), or ranged attacks (which will not be able to bypass DR in most cases, nor simply power through it by more than a few points).

*Charging must be done as a full-round action unless you are limited to taking only standard actions in a round; readying allows you to prepare a standard action, but does not otherwise limit you to taking only standard actions.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So maybe two of the Maruts actually get to act in that surprise round? And that's if you deny the Fighters Listen/Spot checks to avoid being surprised by the ones that still get to act after the Maruts Dimension Door in?

Up to 3 actually. One ports the team in and the other three act in the surprise round unless you're going with a much more specific set of tactics. My mistake.

If you can build a fighter that can make a successful spot or listen check at nearly 1000ft without any magical aid, I'd be very interested in seeing it.



@ TheArimadios:

It's not guaranteed that there will be a surprise round but it's -very- likely. The maruts can pinpoint their target from nearly 1000ft away and cover that distance in an instant. If the mundane characters can't either block the effect of locate creature, prevent the maruts from 'porting to within striking distance, or detect them from those sorts of distances they almost certainly -will- be caught by surprise.

If it were a lone marut, D-door's clause that removes the remainder of the caster's action for the round would prevent it. With some riding the others in, the maruts are aware that battle is starting while the party isn't and that calls for a surprise round.

That's simple logic, not DM fiat.

[kardar233]

If it were a lone marut, D-door's clause that removes the remainder of the caster's action for the round would prevent it. With 3 riding the fourth in, the maruts are aware that battle is starting while the party isn't and that calls for a surprise round.

That's simple logic, not DM fiat.

Actually, since the Dimension Door is CL 14 and the Maruts are Large, they can only bring two friends along. In my suggested strategy, the fourth sits out to Fast Heal for a round.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Actually, since the Dimension Door is CL 14 and the Maruts are Large, they can only bring two friends along. In my suggested strategy, the fourth sits out to Fast Heal for a round.

Even so, the point remains. The maruts almost certainly -will- hit the fighters by surprise.

[NichG]

*Charging must be done as a full-round action unless you are limited to taking only standard actions in a round;

Wait, does that mean that if the Fighters manage to somehow get the Slowed or Staggered status conditions, they can ready a charge?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Wait, does that mean that if the Fighters manage to somehow get the Slowed or Staggered status conditions, they can ready a charge?

........ congratulations, you've discovered a disfunctional rule.

[kardar233]

Wait, does that mean that if the Fighters manage to somehow get the Slowed or Staggered status conditions, they can ready a charge?

That does seem to be the case, however strange it may be. That opens up Flying Charger Fighters with some way to get one of those conditions put on themselves. However, their movement speed and maneuverability would have to be high enough to reach the Maruts who will be ~60ft away, directly upwards if possible. Furthermore, partial charges only move up to your full speed, and if you're using Slowed (rather than Staggered) your movement speed is again impacted.

[Hubert]

That does seem to be the case, however strange it may be. That opens up Flying Charger Fighters with some way to get one of those conditions put on themselves. However, their movement speed and maneuverability would have to be high enough to reach the Maruts who will be ~60ft away, directly upwards if possible. Furthermore, partial charges only move up to your full speed, and if you're using Slowed (rather than Staggered) your movement speed is again impacted.

If the fighters know the maruts are coming, is it not possible for them to retreat in caves with low ceiling? That would neutralize the "directly upwards" part.

[Flickerdart]

If the fighters know the maruts are coming, is it not possible for them to retreat in caves with low ceiling? That would neutralize the "directly upwards" part.
If they do, the maruts use their earthquake SLAs to bury the fighters alive, and the fighters lose.

[shaikujin]

More questions regarding charging as a standard action,

Assuming the character is not slowed or staggered, and has just used his move action, he is now limited to a standard action. By RAW, can he now use a standard action charge?

Secondly, the same character that's not afflicted with the slowed or staggered conditions, can he use his standard action to ready a standard action charge? Since the "Ready" action limits him to only a standard action.

What if he gets a standard action by means of synchronicity? Can he use that action to ready a Standard action charge?

[Flickerdart]

More questions regarding charging as a standard action,

Assuming the character is not slowed or staggered, and has just used his move action, he is now limited to a standard action. By RAW, can he now use a standard action charge?

Secondly, the same character that's not afflicted with the slowed or staggered conditions, can he use his standard action to ready a standard action charge? Since the "Ready" action limits him to only a standard action.

What if he gets a standard action by means of synchronicity? Can he use that action to ready a Standard action charge?
None of these things are the characters being limited to a standard action - he is still entitled to a move action during his turn. In the same way that being able to cast spells doesn't go away when you have no more daily spells remaining, using up your move action (or forfeiting the move) does not mean you are denied it.

[NichG]

With the Earthquakes, this seems like yet another reason for the Fighters to get Iron Heart Surge. Combined with Adaptive Style, it means they can reliably escape the 'buried under rubble' condition after only 2 rounds of being buried at most. So they could just get the Maruts to use up all their castings of it, and just get it out of the way that way. This is especially true for the builds that use Saint or some other form of fast healing, where basically burying the fighters just delays the 'real' start of the fight.

Also, based on a weird technicality, if the Fighters are buried and are not actually attacked further by the Maruts within that time, that may count as one of the four 'Marut Withdrawls' permitted.

Any one of the Shadow Hand jaunt abilities would also resolve it.

[SPoilaaja]

I think it'd be more convenient for the fighters to fly than to try combat the earthquake. Even if they get out of the quake, they'll still have to hit the air walking maruts.

[Spuddles]

With the Earthquakes, this seems like yet another reason for the Fighters to get Iron Heart Surge. Combined with Adaptive Style, it means they can reliably escape the 'buried under rubble' condition after only 2 rounds of being buried at most. So they could just get the Maruts to use up all their castings of it, and just get it out of the way that way. This is especially true for the builds that use Saint or some other form of fast healing, where basically burying the fighters just delays the 'real' start of the fight.

Also, based on a weird technicality, if the Fighters are buried and are not actually attacked further by the Maruts within that time, that may count as one of the four 'Marut Withdrawls' permitted.

Any one of the Shadow Hand jaunt abilities would also resolve it.

Shadow Hand teleports require LoS and LoE, if I am not mistaken


I think it'd be more convenient for the fighters to fly than to try combat the earthquake. Even if they get out of the quake, they'll still have to hit the air walking maruts.

Can't archer fighters out DPS flying Maruts with dragonbone str rated bows and like 5 archery feats?

[Artillery]

With the Earthquakes, this seems like yet another reason for the Fighters to get Iron Heart Surge. Combined with Adaptive Style, it means they can reliably escape the 'buried under rubble' condition after only 2 rounds of being buried at most. So they could just get the Maruts to use up all their castings of it, and just get it out of the way that way. This is especially true for the builds that use Saint or some other form of fast healing, where basically burying the fighters just delays the 'real' start of the fight.

Also, based on a weird technicality, if the Fighters are buried and are not actually attacked further by the Maruts within that time, that may count as one of the four 'Marut Withdrawls' permitted.

Any one of the Shadow Hand jaunt abilities would also resolve it.

I suggest we just build our home of Hewn Stone or Deep Coral. Both have enough HP to survive 4 Earthquakes without collapsing. Build an arena to our advantage. Design it to be riot resistant, aka don't let anything have a line of sight or effect greater then 50ft or so. Besides the arena and entry way for large creatures to go through use nothing but passages sized for medium creatures.

Preventing it from using dimension door just means having no 10x10 areas in a 1000ft radius. This also prevents Earthquake from mattering.

Dig down 1995ft with the entrance such that it can be have your few watchmen occupy the space preventing a retreat dimension door, the Maruts will also need to be shunted on their initial entry doing 3d6 damage to them not effected by DR. Make sure nowhere except where you want the fight to occur is sized for them to get there.

Build the arena in a way that no 10x10 squares are within reach of others preventing daisy chaining dimension doors. Using layout to force them to remain where they teleport in or face squeezing penalties. Make sure the fighters are positioned so relative to one another they will have cover or be greater than 30ft away nerfing the chain lightning threat. This is with one fighter taking ranks in Knowledge Engineering to ensure the roof can survive 4 Earthquakes without collapsing. Most likely boxing them off preventing line of sight and effect. Each box containing 4 openings sized for a medium creature, requiring a DC30 escape artist check for a large creature to squeeze through. Sized to allow a large-long mount with its rider to maneuver unhindered.

MDK commences. Show them you didn't cheat death, death didn't want you any more.

[SPoilaaja]

It has been stated that building an arena/home is not an acceptable use of WBL.

[Artillery]

It has been stated that building an arena/home is not an acceptable use of WBL.

Actually it doesn't cost WBL at all to dig an underground fortress. Hewn stone is listed as no cost underground. Designing an arena in an underground city and leaving some 5x5 blocks to prevent large people from warping in. Sounds reasonable. The Marut is coming for them and they are aware of it. That means they can force the home field advantage. 4 lvl 19 fights can mine an arena quite quickly.

Mining with a fighter works fast.
Adamantine Greatsword with 22 Strength power attacking. 2d6+9+38 or 54 dmg per attack. Hitting on all but a 1. It takes 16.67 attacks to do the 900dmg to remove the block. So average of 17.54 attacks per 5ft block. 105.26 seconds per block. So in an 8 hour work day one of our fighters can excavate 273.61 blocks. That is 34201 cubic feet, or about 10 foot tall room slightly below 60x60, but parts of it are not being dug up so that helps. The 1995ft shaft down will take 12 hours of digging. We have 4 fighters

So 4 mundane fighters could carve that arena in less than a day. And before its built the Maruts physically can't get to them because there is no space for a large creature.

[NichG]

I feel like we've actually gotten away from the most promising directions and instead are trying to 'gimmick' the challenge. I still think that some of the builds posted on the first few pages have the best shot at winning, terrain/etc aside.

The Saint build is basically totally immune to most anything the Maruts can do, even if it can't strike back. There were some issues with too many templates on this guy, so there may be some juggling required.

The Vecna-blooded Bat-rider can basically ubercharge and kill a Marut in one shot if it gets a chance. Aside from the dim-door guerilla tactics, this seems pretty close.

The idea of using archers with readied actions again seems quite solid, but there hasn't been a detailed build posted for this idea yet. I've kind of been trying to stay out of the 'builds' part of this (mainly, I'm not nearly as good at it as many people here), but maybe I'll give this one a shot.

Without doing weird terrain-shaping or army-hiring stuff, these ideas seem like the best shots so far.

[SPoilaaja]

Actually it doesn't cost WBL at all to dig an underground fortress.


You know what I mean. Read the thread, it was stated that you couldn't craft an arena for the purpose of this challenge.

[SPoilaaja]

I feel like we've actually gotten away from the most promising directions and instead are trying to 'gimmick' the challenge. I still think that some of the builds posted on the first few pages have the best shot at winning, terrain/etc aside.

SNIP

Without doing weird terrain-shaping or army-hiring stuff, these ideas seem like the best shots so far.

Just a tip for people that still might think builds:

You need to address 1) Dimension door shadow pounce tactics 2) Be able to deal with Air walking 3) Have a way of reliably surviving chained greater commands or mass inflicts 4) Be able to deal with the damage reduction and fast healing 5) If you deal with Air walking in some other way than flying, you need to deal with being boxed by wall of forces 6) Not hide in a cave, you die to earthquakes 7) Have a way of not get raped by fort DC 31 blindness and deafness 8) Have your party not die to 4 chain lightnings 9) and with all this, hit AC 34 or beat them in some other way.

EDIT: And possibly be divination proof (Locate creature), partially related to 1) Dimension door shadow pounce tactics

[Hurnn]

That does seem to be the case, however strange it may be. That opens up Flying Charger Fighters with some way to get one of those conditions put on themselves. However, their movement speed and maneuverability would have to be high enough to reach the Maruts who will be ~60ft away, directly upwards if possible. Furthermore, partial charges only move up to your full speed, and if you're using Slowed (rather than Staggered) your movement speed is again impacted.

Well if kelb is truly evil he could remove the mounts from the mix almost at will.

[Talderas]

Could we at least construct a challenge that is reasonable to occur?

There is very little reason why maruts would be hunting a party of four fighters who have no access to any magic.

[NichG]

Could we at least construct a challenge that is reasonable to occur?

There is very little reason why maruts would be hunting a party of four fighters who have no access to any magic.

That's not really relevant to the thing this challenge is trying to show. Nothing here is about any situation that would occur in a real campaign. The Maruts are just bags of mechanics, as are the Fighters. This is a question about purely game-mechanical things.

[Brookshw]

Speaking of builds....

Seems a few legit ideas have been posted. Will we be seeing any results over the weekend Kelb?

[TheArimadios]

Error, You can't be WOF buggered. It's a 13 round effect Maruts can use ONCE a day, Can only be 130 ft wide by ten foot tall (Or some variation of these measurements.) There are only a maximum of four. Maruts can't enter except by DImDoor. Arrows can't pass, and the like. So, basically... If all Maruts target ONE fighter with a CL burst, Null that fighter. If the rest just flat trap one in a ten by ten, and just straight drop on his head? uhm... it's a 10 by 10 monster made of metal. Just half the damage from a Block-o-Rock trap to determine how much damage a fighter takes. They can fall 600 feet a round, right? So, one round, 600 feet up... Yeah. Squishy-squash. Two fighters out of the runnings. SPam mass Inflict Light Wounds, Dead other two fighters.

If you allow a situation like this, you are ensuring TPK. It's the DM's responsibility to AVOID TPK while riding the ragged edge of disaster. Now, as stated, this fight should take 20 percent of their resources, right? Assuming fighter of 19th level with +4 con, that's roughly 54 hp from each fighter. Now, remember that 20 percent is directly corolated with the avaliability of healing spells. That means, ideally, that number is thrown out the window. Now, that being said, 216 damage to each fighter would constitute 80 percent resource usage from each fighter.

That's a huge amount. But, remember, this is a group of fighters who are missing 3/4ths of their potential power abilities. (Stealth moves, Arcane and Divine magic.) I can see that being reasonable. I'm currently working on ideas for a Ranged Build focusing on Bonus damage on Multiple attacks. Using a base race of human, because humans are OP. That being said, don't expect "Omg AWESOME" from me - someone will have to take the idea and run with it.

[NichG]

If you allow a situation like this, you are ensuring TPK. It's the DM's responsibility to AVOID TPK while riding the ragged edge of disaster.

In this exercise, it is the DM's responsibility to cause a TPK by any rules-legal means necessary. Keep that in mind. This is to test whether or not, at high levels of op-fu, the lack of magical items is exacerbated or made less significant.

Basically, in the very-low-op version of this (e.g. the Marut wastes rounds as per book tactics, just sits there and whales on fighters, etc), four Lv15 Fighters basically never TPK'd against a single Marut, but the four Lv19 Fighters vs 4 Maruts was generally considered a TPK due to the action economy benefit of being able to blind everyone in the first round.

So now we're bracketing the other end, to see if at very-high-op (on both DM and player sides), the Lv19 version of the fight is still a TPK or not.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Actually, we can't begin yet for two reasons. The first, and most glaring, is that there have only been 2 completed and legal builds presented; one by spoilaaja and one by yogibear. The second is that we haven't really pinned down what kind of battlefield we'll be using. The latter is my fault but it seems I still have some time to decide until two more legal builds are actually presented.

I'm still open to suggestions.

[TheArimadios]

Ah, I see. Coming into the debate ignorant of the last challenge is a pain. ANyway, here's a simple, pure core human Fighter Build. (I used Pathguy.)


Josephine the Agile

Female Half-Dragon Human Fighter 19
True Neutral
Representing ID4FVS4M

Strength 28 (+9)
Dexterity 18 (+4)
Constitution 16 (+3)
Intelligence 10 (+0)
Wisdom 8 (-1)
Charisma 10 (+0)

Size: Medium
Height: 5' 8"
Weight: 240 lb
Skin: Pale
Eyes: Green
Hair: Blonde Wavy

Total Hit Points: 214 [includes improved toughness]

Speed: 10 feet [armor] [slow trait]

Armor Class: 24 = 10 +8 [full plate] +1 [buckler] +1 [dexterity in armor] +4 [half-dragon]

Touch AC: 11
Flat-footed: 23

Initiative modifier: +4 = +4 [dexterity]
Fortitude save: +14 = 11 [base] +3 [constitution]
Reflex save: +12 = 6 [base] +4 [dexterity] +2 [lightning reflexes]
Will save: +7 = 6 [base] -1 [wisdom] +2 [iron will]
Attack (handheld): +28/+23/+18/+13 = 19 [base] +9 [strength]
Attack (unarmed): +28/+23/+18/+13 = 19 [base] +9 [strength]
Attack (missile): +23/+18/+13/+8 = 19 [base] +4 [dexterity]
Grapple check: +28/+23/+18/+13 = 19 [base] +9 [strength]

Light load:
Medium load:
Heavy load:
Lift over head:
Lift off ground:
Push or drag:
400 lb. or less
401-800 lb.
801-1200 lb.
1200 lb.
2400 lb.
6000 lb.

Languages: Common

Composite Longbow [1d8, crit x3, range incr. 100 ft., 3 lb, piercing]

Full plate armor [heavy; +8 AC; max dex +1; check penalty -6; 50 lb.]

Buckler [+1 AC; check penalty -1; hardness 10; hp 5; 5 lb.]

Feats:

Blind-fight
Dodge
Mobility
Endurance
Die Hard
Improved Critical x1 Weapon(s):
Iron Will
Lightning Reflexes
Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot
Many Shot
Shot on the Run
Weapon Focus x1 Weapon(s):
Weapon Specialization x1 Weapon(s):
Greater Weapon Focus x1 Weapon(s):
Greater Weapon Specialization x1 Weapon(s):
Improved Toughness

Traits:

Slow

Skill Name

Key
Ability

Skill
Modifier

Ability
Modifier

Ranks

Misc.
Modifier
Appraise Int 0 =
+0

Balance Dex* 6 =
+4
+2 [tumble]
Bluff Cha 11 =
+0
+11
Climb Str* 9 =
+9

Concentration Con 3 =
+3

Craft_1 Int 0 =
+0

Craft_2 Int 0 =
+0

Craft_3 Int 0 =
+0

Diplomacy Cha 2 =
+0
+2 [bluff]
Disguise Cha 0 =
+0

Escape Artist Dex* 4 =
+4

Forgery Int 0 =
+0

Gather Information Cha 0 =
+0

Heal Wis -1 =
-1

Hide Dex* 4 =
+4

Intimidate Cha 2 =
+0
+2 [bluff]
Jump Str* 21 =
+9
+22 +2 [tumble] -12 [speed 10]
Listen Wis -1 =
-1

Move Silently Dex* 4 =
+4

Perform_1 Cha 0 =
+0

Perform_2 Cha 0 =
+0

Perform_3 Cha 0 =
+0

Perform_4 Cha 0 =
+0

Perform_5 Cha 0 =
+0

Ride Dex 4 =
+4

Search Int 0 =
+0

Sense Motive Wis -1 =
-1

Spot Wis -1 =
-1

Survival Wis -1 =
-1

Swim Str** 9 =
+9

Tumble Dex* 17 =
+4
+11 +2 [jump]
Use Rope Dex 4 =
+4


* = check penalty for wearing armor

Bluff >=5 ranks gives +2 on disguise checks to act in character.

Human:

Extra feat at first level (already included)
Four extra skill points at first level (already included)
One extra skill point at each additional level (already included)

Half-Dragon Template:

+8 strength, +2 intelligence, +2 constitution, +2 charisma (already included)

Darkvision (see 60 feet in pitch-dark)

Breath attack once per day

Fire: Red (30' cone 6d10 DC 19), Brass (60' line 3d6 DC 17), Gold (30' cone, 6d10 DC 20)
Acid: Black (60' line 6d4 DC 17), Copper (60' line 6d4 DC 17)
Cold: White (30' cone 3d6 DC 16), Silver (30' cone 6d8 DC 18)
Electricity: Blue (60' line 6d8 DC 18), Bronze (60' line 6d6 DC 18)
Gas: Green (30' cone 6d6 DC 17)
Damage Immunity

Fire: Red, Brass, Gold
Acid: Black, Copper, Green
Cold: White, Silver
Electricity: Blue, Bronze
+4 natural armor bonus (already included)

Wings

Hit dice increases one dice type to maximum of d12

Level adjustment +3

Fighter:

Bonus Feats (already included)

Class HP rolled
Level 1: Fighter 13
Level 2: Fighter 8
Level 3: Fighter 8
Level 4: Fighter 8 +1 to strength
Level 5: Fighter 8
Level 6: Fighter 8
Level 7: Fighter 8
Level 8: Fighter 8 +1 to strength
Level 9: Fighter 8
Level 10: Fighter 8
Level 11: Fighter 8
Level 12: Fighter 8 +1 to dexterity
Level 13: Fighter 8
Level 14: Fighter 8
Level 15: Fighter 8
Level 16: Fighter 8 +1 to dexterity
Level 17: Fighter 8
Level 18: Fighter 8
Level 19: Fighter 8


I realize I buggered up some stuff on it - Like I said, it's a rough estimate of her. This being said, i have a question.

Heritage feats? Allowed?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Heritage feats are fine but your fighter has 3 levels too many. Half-dragons are LA +3.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'm also interested in the possibilities posed by not having all 4 fighters be the same. We have a couple decent submissions already, but, ideally, all 4 fighters would be designed to operate in conjunction at maximum efficiency.

Did we find out if planar substitution levels are in or out? Sorry if I missed the post.

[TheArimadios]

Alright. Going to fix that issue in a future version of Jo.

Also, As a Note: I am still relatively NEW to DnD in general, so my stuff is all somewhat clumsy. I welcome someone with greater cheeseing powers to take my ideas and run with them. That being said, I just stumbled onto something amazing. I'm going to see if I can't provide cheese fuel for more people. I just need to confirm a few things, and i'll post a build for it. Rechecking first post for clarity.

[Brookshw]

It's the DM's responsibility to AVOID TPK

Huh? I like my coffee black and my player characters dead.

But seriously, that's highly debatable (and start a new thread please if you'd like to). Even an underpowered threat can occasionally cause a tpk, fickle dice gods, poor planning on the parties part. Make a fair encounter and let the chips fall where they may.

[Phelix-Mu]

Huh? [COLOR="Blue"] Make a fair encounter and let the chips fall where they may.

Or make a modestly unfair encounter, give the pcs a bit of a warning (assuming they are paying attention), and put on the splash guard/apron.:smallbiggrin:

[Kelb_Panthera]

If you allow a situation like this, you are ensuring TPK. It's the DM's responsibility to AVOID TPK while riding the ragged edge of disaster.

Not so. It's a DM's job to present an entertaining game. For some that is exactly as you describe.

For others, however, that involves presenting merciless challenges that force the players to use every mental resource they can muster to survive and trying your level best to kill the living bejeezus out of their characters. Finding the balance point where a given encounter could go either way is the trick to making this kind of game work but actively avoiding a TPK is anathema to it.

The sense that your characters are genuinely threatened is the major part of the appeal here.

[Brookshw]

Or make a modestly unfair encounter, give the pcs a bit of a warning (assuming they are paying attention), and put on the splash guard/apron.:smallbiggrin:

Exactly, fair!

[Gotterdammerung]

The auto surprise round is kind of bogus. Locate creature is not a very powerful divination spell. It only tells you when you are facing the target. It doesn't tell the maruts exactly where the fighters are in the 960 feet. They could spend all day bouncing to random guesses and never find a moving target. And they don't automatically know if they will see the fighters upon arrival. They have to look around when they arrive. Then if no fighters are in sight they have to do a little pirouette to see which direction they are in and guess a new location. There is no basis here for an auto surprise round.

Also you most certainly can ready a charge. Any time you ready an action you are limited in that round to a standard or a move. This limitation qualifies you for a standard action charge.

I don't see how the fighters could lose this challenge. Just building from things discussed in this thread alone, you could build a fighter immune to everything a marut could possibly threaten a player with. Wait... No one mentioned Apparition Ribbon yet. Okay now the aforementioned statement is true.

[TheArimadios]

While that's true, I hesitate to quote, but, uh....


Based on a very drawn out theorycraft debate between myself and Kelb_Panthera about the importance or unimportance of magical gear to basic survival in D&D 3.5, I've started this thread to call for builds and people willing to run them to try to resolve the high-op end of the debate.

I'm betting on the fighters on this one.

Here are the parameters:

Kelb_Panthera will run 4 by-the-book Maruts against 4 Lv19 straight-classed Fighters. The fighters cannot have any magical gear (though they may have mundane gear of their choice up to WBL). Leadership and sources of spellcasting are not permitted, but otherwise go crazy.

You are allowed to 'build for the fight' - fighters who are specifically optimized to defeat Maruts are fine (and I would guess somewhat necessary).

Kelb, any other details you want to specify? Say, whether LA-sans-RHD is acceptable, or if its acceptable to take races that get SLAs as long as you don't use them? Location of the encounter? Is successfully fleeing considered a victory?

*cough* That seems to fit my theroy - Attempting to make a TPK a reality without Actively CHASING it is more of a DM's job. (I frequently put CL 3 ECL 7 up against CR 9 and table flip when they beat it without anyone dying.)

Anyway, pointing this stuff out isn't the point of this post, and shame on you for taking a sidelong comment and attempting to ninja the subject matter of this forum topic. FOR SHAME.

Now, Onto my question. are these two Templates acceptable, or are they outlawed?


Half-Minotaur
(born to one Minotaur parent & a giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid)
(DR313 p94)
Upper body is covered with shaggy hair, while head has a snout & horns.

Inherited Template that can be added to any Small-sized to Huge-sized Giant,
Humanoid, or Monstrous Humanoid.

Usually has a Chaotic alignment.

Gain Feat: Track
.
Str +4
Con +2
Int –2
Wis +2
Natural Armor +2
Level Adjustment +1
if size increases, CR +1

If the Base Creature was of Small or Medium size, its size is increased by one category, with all the appropriate changes to its ability scores, etc., plus a +10’ improvement to base movement.

These changes are in addition to the bonuses and penalties listed.

Darkvision 60’.

Gain the Scent ability.

+2 Racial bonus on Search, Spot, & Listen checks.

Gain a Damage Category 6 Gore attack.

+4 bonus on checks to escape a Maze spell & always know which direction is North.


And



Gheden

(one parent was a mindless undead, usually due to the tinkering of a Necromancer)

(DR313 p63)
Gray, corpse-like skin, with hollow, black eyes. Often gaunt, but sometimes very muscular. Smell like recently dug dirt.

Template that can be added to any Giant, Humanoid, or Monstrous Humanoid.

Often Neutral Evil.

Darkvision 60’

+4 Racial bonus on Intimidate checks.

Immune to energy drains attacks

Immune to fear & confusion effects.

+2 Racial bonus on saves vs. Fear, Poison, Disease, Paralysis, & spells from the Necromancy school.

Gain the Endurance, Diehard, & Toughness feats.
Str +4
Dex –2
Con –2
Int –2
Cha –4
Level Adjustment +1
CR +0

When it dies, there is a 3% per HD chance the Gheden will rise as a mindless Undead (typically a Zombie).

Spells such as Detect Undead will detect a Gheden as if it were an Undead of half its HD.

Fortification – there is a 50% chance that any Sneak Attack and/or Critical Hit on the Gheden will be negated. Does not stack with other forms of Fortification.

When saving against Negative Energy damage (such as from an Inflict Wounds spell), the Gheden takes no damage on a successful save and half damage on a failed save.

Slow Aging – the Gheden ages at ¼ the normal rate after it reaches maturity.

A Gheden Cleric receives a +2 bonus to Turn or Rebuke mindless Undead.

Takes 1d4 damage from a direct hit of Holy Water.

Vulnerability to Turning – A turning attempt that would Turn or Rebuke an Undead of half the Gheden’s HD causes the Gheden to receive a –4 penalty on attacks, saves, skill checks, & ability checks until the ‘turner’ attacks the Gheden, up to 10 rounds. If the attempt would have Destroyed or Commanded the Gheden, it is Stunned for 2d4 rounds.

Dead Nerves – Gheden have a minimal sense of touch and no sense of pain. Not effected by non-lethal damage, stunning, & death from massive damage.

The Ghaden receives a –8 penalty on skill checks involving touch (such as Open Lock), but receives a +4 bonus on Concentration checks to ignore damage.

Detect Undead (mindless only), at will at Caster level.



If either of the DMs protest, I won't use them, but, I'm truely interested in the Gheden Template.

[SPoilaaja]

@Arimados

What does your archer build do against 4x greater commands to shoot each other recasted on every round?

[TheArimadios]

Spoilaaja, I've said it in nearly every post, My stuff is quite limited as far as what feats i can pick, what I can learn about, and the like.

I've poured nearly 15 hours of research into the crap i HAVE posted, cross refrencing, getting established DM opinions - But I've reached the end of my rope, far too quickly in my opinion, several times.

Allllllll of that being said, I think I'm on to something here. Barring a DM saying "No, just No." to it, Inside the spoiler is contained a Punchy Fighter.

Eguri the Hideous

Male Half Ogre (base) Half Gheden (Template) Fighter 16
Chaotic Neutral
Representing ID4FVS4M

Strength 32 (+11)
Dexterity 10 (0)
Constitution 12 (+1)
Intelligence 4 (-3)
Wisdom 12 (+1)
Charisma 3 (-4)

Size: Medium
Height: 7' 0"
Weight: 200 lb
Skin: Pale
Eyes: Black
Hair: White Straight; Beardless

Total Hit Points: 132 [includes improved toughness]

Speed: 20 feet [armor]

Armor Class: 27 = 10 +8 [full plate] +4 [tower shield] +1 [dexterity] +4 [Natural Armor]

Touch AC: 11
Flat-footed: 26

Initiative modifier: +1 = +1 [dexterity]
Fortitude save: +11 = 10 [base] +1 [constitution]
Reflex save: +6 = 5 [base] +1 [dexterity]
Will save: +6 = 5 [base] +1 [wisdom]
Attack (handheld): +27/+22/+17/+12 = 16 [base] +11 [strength]
Attack (unarmed): +27/+22/+17/+12 = 16 [base] +11 [strength]
Attack (missile): +17/+12/+7/+2 = 16 [base] +1 [dexterity]
Grapple check: +27/+22/+17/+12 = 16 [base] +11 [strength]

Light load:
Medium load:
Heavy load:
Lift over head:
Lift off ground:
Push or drag:
692 lb. or less
693-1384 lb.
1385-2080 lb.
2080 lb.
4160 lb.
10400 lb.

Languages: Common

Full plate armor [heavy; +8 AC; max dex +1; check penalty -6; 50 lb.]

Tower Shield [+4 AC; max dex=+2; check penalty -10; hardness 5; hp 20; 45 lb.]

Feats:

Toughness Racial
Endurance Racial
Die Hard Racial
Improved Critical x1 Weapon(s): Unarmed Strike
Improved Unarmed Strike
Power Attack
Improved Bull Rush
Improved Overrun
Anarchic Heritage Anarchic
Improved Outer Planar Heritage Anarchic
Weapon Focus x1 Weapon(s): Unarmed Strike
Weapon Specialization x1 Weapon(s): Unarmed Strike
Greater Weapon Focus x1 Weapon(s): Unarmed Strike
Greater Weapon Specialization x1 Weapon(s): Unarmed Strike
Improved Toughness
Lucky Start +1 luck reroll/day
(3 Unspent Feats.)

Traits:

Skill Name

Key
Ability

Skill
Modifier

Ability
Modifier

Ranks

Misc.
Modifier
Appraise Int -3 =
-3

Balance Dex* 1 =
+1

Bluff Cha -4 =
-4

Climb Str* 11 =
+11

Concentration Con 1 =
+1

Craft_1 Int -3 =
-3

Craft_2 Int -3 =
-3

Craft_3 Int -3 =
-3

Diplomacy Cha -4 =
-4

Disguise Cha -4 =
-4

Escape Artist Dex* 1 =
+1

Forgery Int -3 =
-3

Gather Information Cha -4 =
-4

Heal Wis 1 =
+1

Hide Dex* 1 =
+1

Intimidate Cha 15 =
-4
+19
Jump Str* 5 =
+11
-6 [speed 20]
Listen Wis 1 =
+1

Move Silently Dex* 1 =
+1

Perform_1 Cha -4 =
-4

Perform_2 Cha -4 =
-4

Perform_3 Cha -4 =
-4

Perform_4 Cha -4 =
-4

Perform_5 Cha -4 =
-4

Ride Dex 1 =
+1

Search Int -3 =
-3

Sense Motive Wis 1 =
+1

Spot Wis 1 =
+1

Survival Wis 1 =
+1

Swim Str** 11 =
+11

Use Rope Dex 1 =
+1


* = check penalty for wearing armor

This character has 1 luck rerolls per day.

Half Ogre (base) Half Gheden (Template):

Unfamiliar race. Adjustments already included.

+10 strength

-4 dexterity

-2 constitution

-4 intelligence

+0 wisdom

-6 charisma

Edit sheet & write details here as needed.

Giant Blood: For all special abilities and effects, a half-ogre is considered a giant. Half-ogres can use giant weapons and magic items with racially specific giant powers as if they were giants.

Space: 10 feet
Reach: 10 feet
Natural armor: +4

When it dies, there is a 3% per HD chance the Gheden will rise as a mindless Undead (typically a Zombie).

Spells such as Detect Undead will detect a Gheden as if it were an Undead of half its HD.

Fortification – there is a 50% chance that any Sneak Attack and/or Critical Hit on the Gheden will be negated. Does not stack with other forms of Fortification.

When saving against Negative Energy damage (such as from an Inflict Wounds spell), the Gheden takes no damage on a successful save and half damage on a failed save.

Slow Aging – the Gheden ages at ¼ the normal rate after it reaches maturity.

A Gheden Cleric receives a +2 bonus to Turn or Rebuke mindless Undead.

Takes 1d4 damage from a direct hit of Holy Water.

Vulnerability to Turning – A turning attempt that would Turn or Rebuke an Undead of half the Gheden’s HD causes the Gheden to receive a –4 penalty on attacks, saves, skill checks, & ability checks until the ‘turner’ attacks the Gheden, up to 10 rounds. If the attempt would have Destroyed or Commanded the Gheden, it is Stunned for 2d4 rounds.

Dead Nerves – Gheden have a minimal sense of touch and no sense of pain. Not effected by non-lethal damage, stunning, & death from massive damage.

The Ghaden receives a –8 penalty on skill checks involving touch (such as Open Lock), but receives a +4 bonus on Concentration checks to ignore damage.

Detect Undead (mindless only), at will at Caster level.


Be sure to know bonuses to skills, special abilities, low-light / dark vision, and any natural armor class bonus.


Fighter:

Bonus Feats (already included)

Class HP rolled
Level 1: Fighter 11
Level 2: Fighter 7
Level 3: Fighter 7
Level 4: Fighter 7 +1 to strength
Level 5: Fighter 7
Level 6: Fighter 7
Level 7: Fighter 7
Level 8: Fighter 7 +1 to strength
Level 9: Fighter 7
Level 10: Fighter 7
Level 11: Fighter 7
Level 12: Fighter 7 +1 to strength
Level 13: Fighter 7
Level 14: Fighter 7
Level 15: Fighter 7
Level 16: Fighter 7 +1 to strength

More about Eguri:

He punches things with power attack. He punches things HARD. Also, he punches with the power of CHAOS. He punches as a GIANT Creature (I think, because of Giant Blood.) He's Immune to fear.


Bear in mind, I kind of suck at this kind of thing, So if anyone can improve on it, be my guest. This is all an attempt to become a better DND player and DM for me.


Edit: Found a feat, Superior Unarmed Strike - If you take it, at 16th level for a medium character, it upgrades your unarmed damage to 2d6 - I'm trying to get refrences for the size increases (Up to giant. yeesh.) If we use GS progession, it goes 3d6 (Large) , 4d6 (huge) 6d6 (Giant) I believe. It may be 2d8 3d8 4d8. That's big.

Far as flight goes? I don't know. Lead em to a cave or something. Just sayin.

[TuggyNE]

Can't archer fighters out DPS flying Maruts with dragonbone str rated bows and like 5 archery feats?

Out-DPS? No, I don't think so: 57 average negative energy damage at 60' if all four Will saves are passed is hard to beat past DR 15, crit immunity, and fast healing 10, and it gets better if the fighters are clumped at all. Out-range? Yes, but only for one round.

Archery breakdown: 2d6 (composite greatbow) + 7 (Str bonus; difficult to really pump this up without sacrificing accuracy) + 4 (GWS) = 3.11/hit. If you get four hits/round (probably with Rapid Shot and lots of luck) from each of four archers, that's a mere 49.76 on one Marut, which fast healing reduces to about 40.

Then there's the likelihood of Maruts hopping in and fist-blinding the archers, earthquake, greater command, fear, etc.


The auto surprise round is kind of bogus. Locate creature is not a very powerful divination spell. It only tells you when you are facing the target. It doesn't tell the maruts exactly where the fighters are in the 960 feet. They could spend all day bouncing to random guesses and never find a moving target. And they don't automatically know if they will see the fighters upon arrival. They have to look around when they arrive. Then if no fighters are in sight they have to do a little pirouette to see which direction they are in and guess a new location. There is no basis here for an auto surprise round.

It continually informs them for 140 minutes per casting what direction the targeted fighter is currently in and what direction that fighter is heading, if any. So if the fighters move to evade, the Maruts move to intercept.

Also, Spot +16 vs limited or no cover, Hide not a class skill, and 2+Int skills/level says "the fighters are not hard to see".


Also you most certainly can ready a charge. Any time you ready an action you are limited in that round to a standard or a move. This limitation qualifies you for a standard action charge.

No, you are not limited in that round. You are limited in that readied action, but not in that round, because in that round you could have chosen to take a full-round action, and can still move before readying anyway. Since you are very definitely not limited to a single standard action in the round, you cannot qualify for a partial charge.

[TheArimadios]

Screw Archery. Just Punch em. No DR with 2 feats on a punch. Find a way to get big in strength (Half Ogre is LA2.) And then, a way to get BIGGER in strength. (Half Gheden, Half minotaur.) Then, all you have to worry about is flight. Poles + Canvas = YOU CAN'T SEE ME. We have massive amounts of WBL. Let's just make a Big arse Canvas so they can't spot us.

[NichG]

@Arimados

What does your archer build do against 4x greater commands to shoot each other recasted on every round?

Greater command can't actually do that. There are five commands it can give - Halt, Drop, Flee, Fall, Approach.

[Kelb_Panthera]

*cough* That seems to fit my theroy - Attempting to make a TPK a reality without Actively CHASING it is more of a DM's job. (I frequently put CL 3 ECL 7 up against CR 9 and table flip when they beat it without anyone dying.)

As I said, the DM's job is to make an entertaining game, whatever that means to the individual group. For some, actively seeking a TPK, within certain constraints, -is- the DM's job.


Anyway, pointing this stuff out isn't the point of this post, and shame on you for taking a sidelong comment and attempting to ninja the subject matter of this forum topic. FOR SHAME.

Now, Onto my question. are these two Templates acceptable, or are they outlawed?


Half-Minotaur
(born to one Minotaur parent & a giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid)
(DR313 p94)
Upper body is covered with shaggy hair, while head has a snout & horns.

Inherited Template that can be added to any Small-sized to Huge-sized Giant,
Humanoid, or Monstrous Humanoid.

Usually has a Chaotic alignment.

Gain Feat: Track
.
Str +4
Con +2
Int –2
Wis +2
Natural Armor +2
Level Adjustment +1
if size increases, CR +1

If the Base Creature was of Small or Medium size, its size is increased by one category, with all the appropriate changes to its ability scores, etc., plus a +10’ improvement to base movement.

These changes are in addition to the bonuses and penalties listed.

Darkvision 60’.

Gain the Scent ability.

+2 Racial bonus on Search, Spot, & Listen checks.

Gain a Damage Category 6 Gore attack.

+4 bonus on checks to escape a Maze spell & always know which direction is North.


And



Gheden

(one parent was a mindless undead, usually due to the tinkering of a Necromancer)

(DR313 p63)
Gray, corpse-like skin, with hollow, black eyes. Often gaunt, but sometimes very muscular. Smell like recently dug dirt.

Template that can be added to any Giant, Humanoid, or Monstrous Humanoid.

Often Neutral Evil.

Darkvision 60’

+4 Racial bonus on Intimidate checks.

Immune to energy drains attacks

Immune to fear & confusion effects.

+2 Racial bonus on saves vs. Fear, Poison, Disease, Paralysis, & spells from the Necromancy school.

Gain the Endurance, Diehard, & Toughness feats.
Str +4
Dex –2
Con –2
Int –2
Cha –4
Level Adjustment +1
CR +0

When it dies, there is a 3% per HD chance the Gheden will rise as a mindless Undead (typically a Zombie).

Spells such as Detect Undead will detect a Gheden as if it were an Undead of half its HD.

Fortification – there is a 50% chance that any Sneak Attack and/or Critical Hit on the Gheden will be negated. Does not stack with other forms of Fortification.

When saving against Negative Energy damage (such as from an Inflict Wounds spell), the Gheden takes no damage on a successful save and half damage on a failed save.

Slow Aging – the Gheden ages at ¼ the normal rate after it reaches maturity.

A Gheden Cleric receives a +2 bonus to Turn or Rebuke mindless Undead.

Takes 1d4 damage from a direct hit of Holy Water.

Vulnerability to Turning – A turning attempt that would Turn or Rebuke an Undead of half the Gheden’s HD causes the Gheden to receive a –4 penalty on attacks, saves, skill checks, & ability checks until the ‘turner’ attacks the Gheden, up to 10 rounds. If the attempt would have Destroyed or Commanded the Gheden, it is Stunned for 2d4 rounds.

Dead Nerves – Gheden have a minimal sense of touch and no sense of pain. Not effected by non-lethal damage, stunning, & death from massive damage.

The Ghaden receives a –8 penalty on skill checks involving touch (such as Open Lock), but receives a +4 bonus on Concentration checks to ignore damage.

Detect Undead (mindless only), at will at Caster level.



If either of the DMs protest, I won't use them, but, I'm truely interested in the Gheden Template.

I called for a vote on dragon magazine when it was first asked. So far, all the votes have been against so I'm gonna go with "no." If the public sentiment changes I'll be happy to reconsider but, for now at least, dragon is out; including the compendium.

[Gotterdammerung]

Why throw out the compendium? It's a legit first party source. If your saying it is out because the material originally appeared in the magazine, then you are going to have to throw out about half the 3.5 books as well. There is all kinds of legit first party books with content originally appearing in dragon magazine.

[Azoth]

If Dragon is useable (forgot if it was or wasn't), then issue 355 has a fighter acf worth looking at.


Spoilered the basics of it.


Eldritch Warriors (Alternate class features for Fighters)
*Armored Savant (L1: Lose feat; ignore weight of armor for encumberance, armor slows you down as if one category lighter, maximum dexterity bonus +1, half normal ASF)
*Bonded Armor (L8: Lose feat; Bond to suit of armor, speeding donning and removing to full action, scaling insight to AC when worn)
*Eldritch Grace (L4: Evasion against spells and magical effects while only lightly encumbered)
*Eldritch Juggernaut (L18: Lose feat; gain spell resistance 11+HD in medium or heavy armor)
*Fortification (L10: Lose feats at L10,14,18; Gain Light, Medium, Heavy Fortificiation)
*Warrior of Air (L2: Lose feats at L2,6,12,20; Gain Electricity Resistance 5/10/20, Feather Fall, Freedom of Movement, Deal extra electrical damage on melee/unarmed attacks)
*Warrior of Earth (L2: Lose feats at L2,6,12,20; Gain Acid Resistance 5/10/20, Magic Stone, Deal extra acid damage on melee/unarmed attacks, Stone Shape)
*Warrior of Fire (L2: Lose feats at L2,6,12,20; Gain Fire Resistance 5/10/20, Burning Hands, deal extra fire damage on melee/unarmed attacks; Fire Shield (self only)
*Warrior of Water (L2: Lose feats at L2,6,12,20; Gain Cold Resistance 5/10/20, Obscuring Mist, Deal extra cold damage on melee/unarmed attacks, Water Breathing)



Basically with it and chosing to be an Eldritch Warrior of Air you can pretty much remove the fear of the Chain Lightnings between evasion and electric resistance 20. Most of their other spells aren't an issue due to SR 30 at lvl19. No fear of crits due to heavy fort built in. A scaled insight to AC means that they should hit less as well.

The only issue with this is that it removes ALL your bonus feats so you are stuck with only 7 (8 if human) to build to cut them down. So you only get one strategy to work with. This ACF does make them alot easier to manage however, even if using its granted spells is forbidden.

[SPoilaaja]

Greater command can't actually do that. There are five commands it can give - Halt, Drop, Flee, Fall, Approach.


Well the end result is the same. Make them drop weapons, Spam approach to follow you to a place where you want to finish them off or just spam approach to make the fighters walk back and forth between line of AoO:s.

[TheArimadios]

Or just Command Fall into a CDG. >.> JUST SAYIN. SORRY FIGHTER BROS.

Also: Personal vote is allow Dragon. It's friggin cool stuff in there, and this stuff is mostly impossible without. We're working to find work arounds to the Magic gear limitations.

Otherwise, just say, "Core Only. Suck it." and watch the builds fly. Really, there's not a lot of option here to find the appropriate stuff to hit these punks with in core - It's written with high magic in mind. But we're looking at Low magic settings. So core's right out. If someone knows of a +1 LA template that gives flight (Even crappy flight) give me a shout out, and we'll see how a Half Ogre puncher works on it. With 7 feats, (Heritage, Imp Heritage, Imp US, WF US, GS US, GWS US) We're looking at massive damage - Without having to give up bonus feats, we can climb that into some masssssive damage ranges that don't get DR'd.

Okay, I gotta jet for now. I'll check when I get back home, but. Date night with the wife, It's Valentines and all, all you single suckers. Much love, and much teasing.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Why throw out the compendium? It's a legit first party source. If your saying it is out because the material originally appeared in the magazine, then you are going to have to throw out about half the 3.5 books as well. There is all kinds of legit first party books with content originally appearing in dragon magazine.

No, it's not. It, like dragon magazine before it, is a Paizo product with WotC licensing. I'd really rather not have that debate again. I mentioned several pages ago that it would be both or neither and no one objected then. I'm sticking by that decision now.

Note, however, that I say again: if the general opinion shifts such that dragon magazine -should- be allowed then the compendium comes back in with it.

[Phelix-Mu]

It's a significantly stiffer challenge sans Dragon Magz/Compendium. If the intent is partly to see how bare bones the fighters can bone before getting boned, then trying without Dragon Magz seems sensible.

[Firebug]

A withdraw will be defined as the fighters getting at least 3 rounds without a marut in sight -after- battle is initially joined.

How about Human Fighter 19Human Fighter 19
Normal Feats (H,1,3,6,9,12,15,18): Toughness
Fighter Feats:
1: Improved Toughness
/rest don't matter unless you can take Improved Toughness multiple times (it doesn't state you can) and since Toughness isn't a Fighter feat. Though likely expertise and improved expertise and other defensive feats.
18d10(levels) + 10 (1st) + 8x3 (toughness) + 19x5(18 con + improved toughness) = ~223 hp without beefing con through templates or flaws
Ready Actions for when the Maruts appear.
Spike their eyes out.
Pray you have enough HP to outlast 3 rounds of being beat to death by the Maruts who are no longer in sight. Granted it'll probably be 12 rounds for the Maruts to 'withdraw' 4 times. But then again do they even re-engage if they can't be seen?

Yes, kind of ignores the whole point I suppose. But I bet the Maruts weren't expecting that.

[Phelix-Mu]

Ready Actions for when the Maruts appear.
Spike their eyes out.
Pray you have enough HP to outlast 3 rounds of being beat to death by the Maruts who are no longer in sight.

Yes, kind of ignores the whole point I suppose. But I bet the Maruts weren't expecting that.

Aw, now I am seriously tempted to design a kamikaze fighter, designed to simply take time dying while his friends fought them, or otherwise draw aggro. Too bad that's not really a thing in D&D.

Still, if we could make a build designed around soaking attacks, say the only one not Vecna-blooded, then maybe that could buy some time for the rest of the group. The party may not have items for returning dead members to life, but they probably have enough unspent wealth to afford to do so later. *wink*

[Gotterdammerung]

No, it's not. It, like dragon magazine before it, is a Paizo product with WotC licensing. I'd really rather not have that debate again. I mentioned several pages ago that it would be both or neither and no one objected then. I'm sticking by that decision now.

Note, however, that I say again: if the general opinion shifts such that dragon magazine -should- be allowed then the compendium comes back in with it.

It is official content. It is content that has been authorized by the proper authority, the very definition of official.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It is official content. It is content that has been authorized by the proper authority, the very definition of official.

So is the beastiary of krynn and athas.org. You didn't say official you said first party. The only reason I didn't throw them both out without a second thought is because they -are- very commonly accepted 2nd party materials and I didn't want to preclude them based entirely on my own bias.

[TheArimadios]

Question, and I know this one's stupid, and might be violating the no Dragon Mag rule, but I feel it should be asked anyway - Are Web enhancements For Sourcebooks acceptable? Say Races of Stone or Races of the Dragon?

Just a question for a build I'm tinkering with.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Question, and I know this one's stupid, and might be violating the no Dragon Mag rule, but I feel it should be asked anyway - Are Web enhancements For Sourcebooks acceptable? Say Races of Stone or Races of the Dragon?

Just a question for a build I'm tinkering with.

Those are pretty universally accepted around here. I don't have any problem with them. That said, it's generally considered polite to post a link when you use material from those articles.

[shaikujin]

Trying very hard to do something different from the posted builds so far, basics:


Mechanatrix (FF) LA 1. Medium Outsider with Electricity healing.
Feats Tome Tainted Soul and Outsider Wings.



Electricity healing means chain lightning and fist of lightning (at least the electricity damage portion) actually heal the fighters.

Tome tainted soul means mass inflict also heal the fighters. I see mass inflict as the more dangerous ability since it's at will.

Flight negates Earthquake.

This means the Maruts have no way to hurt the fighters using ranged attacks and needs to close to melee range.

It'll shut down kiting or hit and run tactics. Not much to worry about surprise rounds either.



I can't decide on what template to take though. My original choice was Vecna blooded, but since the fighters don't really have to worry about the Maruts surprising or kiting them, perhaps there are better templates I can chose from.

[FullPlateJacket]

If basic PHB equipment-section alchemical items are allowed, then the Mad Alchemist feat from PHBII can be used to disrupt the Maruts' SLAs by using a readied action to throw a thunderstone at their square, forcing them to make a Concentration check vs. the fighter's Craft (Alchemy) check or lose the spell, which can probably be optimized to the point that the Maruts can't win the roll.

[NichG]

Shaikujin, you should probably use your template to either get Fear immunity or just very good will saves, since they can still use Fear (bigger problem) or Greater Command (mostly makes things complicated).

Also, at close range, consider the possibility that each Marut Planeshifts a Fighter to the Positive Energy Plane. I believe there's a Fighter ACF that lets you dimensionally anchor yourself though.

[shaikujin]

Thanks, Necropolitan would be nice then :D

Planar Fighter sub to deal with the plane shift, thanks!

[FullPlateJacket]

Other silly things that can save the fighters if they pledge their souls to demon lords and such.

First, Mark of Nessus from Fiendish Codex II. Enemies need to make a will save of DC 10 + half HD + Cha mod whenever they want to attack you or target you with a spell or SLA, and are forced to change targets or choose another action if they fail.

Vile feats from Elder Evils can also be used to gain stuff like Immunity to Mind-Affecting, or Stagger your allies if you want to ready charges...

[TuggyNE]

If basic PHB equipment-section alchemical items are allowed, then the Mad Alchemist feat from PHBII can be used to disrupt the Maruts' SLAs by using a readied action to throw a thunderstone at their square, forcing them to make a Concentration check vs. the fighter's Craft (Alchemy) check or lose the spell, which can probably be optimized to the point that the Maruts can't win the roll.

Can't take Craft: Alchemy without being a spellcaster.

[SPoilaaja]

Can't take Craft: Alchemy without being a spellcaster.

Then take a feat that gives you some lvl 0 spell like abilities. That should qualify as being a spellcaster.
PS. And yes I know that getting an ability to cast spells was frowned upon in this contest, but I don't see how being able to cast dancing lights, to qualify for skillranks is bad.

[SPoilaaja]

Or just Command Fall into a CDG. >.> JUST SAYIN. SORRY FIGHTER BROS.


Falling damage is capped at 20d6, which is average of 70 damage. the maruts can deal that much damage in a maximum of few rounds, so no reason to really try to drop them.

[Azoth]

@Spoilaaja: The only feat that qualifies you for craft (alchemy) is Magical Training. A regional feat that grants you the ability to cast 3 cantrips as a wiz/sorc with a cl of 1. Any feat that grants SLAs doesn't count as for some reason using SLAs isn't the same as "being a spellcaster".

[Perseus]

I find it very damning when to optimize against these things you either need magic items or some crazy starting race...

Really you aren't optimizing the class but you are optimizing a race with the handicap of putting fighter levels on it.

[Artillery]

Can't take Craft: Alchemy without being a spellcaster.

Incorrect


To make an item using Craft (alchemy), you must have alchemical equipment and be a spellcaster. If you are working in a city, you can buy what you need as part of the raw materials cost to make the item, but alchemical equipment is difficult or impossible to come by in some places. Purchasing and maintaining an alchemist’s lab grants a +2 circumstance bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks because you have the perfect tools for the job, but it does not affect the cost of any items made using the skill.

You can take Craft(Alchemy), you just can't make things without the spell casting ability.

[Perseus]

Incorrect



You can take Craft(Alchemy), you just can't make things without the spell casting ability.

Hahaha

Isn't that just peachy.

[Gemini476]

Can the Maruts really daisy-chain with readied actions? You can only ready actions within combat, after all, so for the first round they still need to follow initiative.

It works fine for later rounds, but yeah.

[Artillery]

Looking at ways to deal with the DR easily and within the spirit of the challenge.

Aligned Strike from Complete Champions pg 48. Lets us align our weapon as a free action to one of our alignment components. So we need chaotic alignment.

Simple way to deal with DR with any weapon. It replaces a 4th level or higher feat.

This means archery is now easily viable.

Other possibly useful one is Resolute also from Complete Champions pg48. Immediate action to take a reduce our BAB by up to half and gain a bonus to our will save equal to the penalty to BAB till the end of our next action.

We might want a Warforged Fighter in this, there is the feat Construct Lock that makes it so on a critical threat instead of the normal confirmation roll it is instead to lock it up. If you do atleast 1 dmg with it the construct needs to make a fortitude save of 10+1/2 character level + con mod or is immobilized and helpless for one round..

TWF Kukri crit fisher Warforged who has a 30% chance of paralyzing per attack. I should stat this up.

Are mundane ways to improve a weapon allowed, such as serrated or laminated steel allowed?

[NichG]

Perseus, I don't find it damning, I find it revealing just how many different paths to power there are in the game - even when you shut off a few of the most well-known ones, other ones crop up to take their place. Without PrCs, class features, spellcasting, and gear, we can still find all sorts of crazy stuff and make very powerful characters. It goes to show that, with clever and adaptive players, that ingenuity can be worth a lot more than any one particularly powerful option or set of options.

Artillery - any mundane gear is fine, which would include weapon mods.

[SPoilaaja]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a

Make the crit Kukris out of this stuff


EDIT - I didn't think this through. Constructs are immune to criticals, no need to get x4.

[Brookshw]

Perseus, I don't find it damning, I find it revealing just how many different paths to power there are in the game - even when you shut off a few of the most well-known ones, other ones crop up to take their place. Without PrCs, class features, spellcasting, and gear, we can still find all sorts of crazy stuff and make very powerful characters. It goes to show that, with clever and adaptive players, that ingenuity can be worth a lot more than any one particularly powerful option or set of options.
.

Agreed. Afb atm but I don't recall the relevant parts of the dmg making any claims that a party is out of luck w/o standard wbl, or even that its a given. Closest I can find online is pf which specifies the availability can fluctuate drastically. That magic gear is a "necessity" seems mostly a player projection and matter of individuals expectations. Some of the builds seem to pretty successfully to demonstrate this is not the case.

[Artillery]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a

Make the crit Kukris out of this stuff

I knew before checking it was Kaorti Resin. They are crit immune anyways. I'm deciding between Laminated Steel or Baatorian Green Steel. Because money is no issue I could always go with Laminated Green Steel, but its just +1 to hit and +1 dmg either way.

Does anyone have an issue with the Saint Template for its non-magic benefits? Namely electric immunity and fast healing it also fits thematically with this guys vow of nonviolence. Maruts are not humanoids or monstrous humanoids and are free game for it. With the build currently the fort save DC against Construct Lock is 29. Issue is that he lacks in terms of damage output even though DR isn't an issue. Instead of Kukris I could switch to Razor Skipdiscs from Frostburn if doing it from Ranged would work better.

Also anyone have the 20 level chart for builds from iron chef? It will make this a lot clearer to show.

[Lans]

Out-DPS? No, I don't think so: 57 average negative energy damage at 60' if all four Will saves are passed is hard to beat past DR 15, crit immunity, and fast healing 10, and it gets better if the fighters are clumped at all. Out-range? Yes, but only for one round.

Archery breakdown: 2d6 (composite greatbow) + 7 (Str bonus; difficult to really pump this up without sacrificing accuracy) + 4 (GWS) = 3.11/hit. If you get four hits/round (probably with Rapid Shot and lots of luck) from each of four archers, that's a mere 49.76 on one Marut, which fast healing reduces to about 40.
.

Your short changing the fighters damage some, ranged weapon mastery and knowledge devotion adds up to 7 and then theres the various ways to ignore damage reduction

[Flickerdart]

Some of the builds seem to pretty successfully to demonstrate this is not the case.
Correction: Some of the builds demonstrate that it is possible to have a shot at defeating a CR-equivalent encounter when you know the encounter ahead of time and tailor your entire party's builds to fight it. This is not a generalizable result.

[icefractal]

Indeed. "Hard mode" would be making one that could handle a variety of CR 19 enemies.

The closest thing to the situation that started it all would probably be something more like "make a 19th level non-magic type, using relatively widely accepted material, that can handle a variety of CR 19 enemies with only a fairly small amount of semi-random magic items." But that's a lot harder to quantify.

[Artillery]

Your short changing the fighters damage some, ranged weapon mastery and knowledge devotion adds up to 7 and then theres the various ways to ignore damage reduction

We've shown the DR isn't hard to deal with. Aligned Strike is a fighter ACF worth the lose of a feat. Be Chaotic Neutral. Take Tomb-tainted Soul. Easily deals with the DR and Inflict. Dealing with the lightning dmg is easy, sonic is not doable in our range. Hit-and-run Fighter and a greased floor is dex to dmg.

If you want something that is practically designed to fight Matur. Be a Valkyrie. Immunity to cold, electricity, fear, and sonic. DR 10/Cold Iron. Aligned Strike(Chaotic). Its also large. It has LA 5 though which is above what was the stated limit. It with 14 levels of fighter would make for a simple build and fight.