Stupid Op Classses

[Sketchopotamus]

What is the most powerful class/build you can think of? Any build or class that is just stupid OP! What are your ideas/thoughts/comments! All books, No dragon magazine!

[Trasilor]

pun-pun? :smallamused:

[Sketchopotamus]

haha We all know of Pun-Pun, but besides him, original ideas that the amazing minds of Giant in the Playground can think of!

[Rubik]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16965444&postcount=2

[Libertad]

Paizo's Arcanist class in the upcoming Advanced Class Guide's shaping up to be really powerful. It literally combines the best aspects of the Sorcerer and Wizard class with none of the drawbacks; in fact, it's intended to be a Sorcerer/Wizard hybrid.

[eggynack]

Druid is always a reasonable answer, and if you wanna get stupid, tossing planar shepherd into the mix is a thing of some crazy level. As for non-planar shepherd build stuff, contemplative is always a decent answer to, "Well, how does your druid do this?" especially in combination with holt warden so that you're fitting those spell domain spells in real live domain slots. The noble druid may have an optimization ceiling that's a bit lower than some of his tier one contemporaries, but the floor on that class is ridiculous.

[weckar]

For those who make it work, the Truenamer is one of the great examples.

[Rubik]

For those who make it work, the Truenamer is one of the great examples.Only at level 20. I doubt anyone would want to wait that long.

[weckar]

Most builds in this forum don't become functional until high levels :)

[Rubik]

Most builds in this forum don't become functional until high levels :)But most of them are at least partially usable before then. Truenamers, not so much. Even if you boost your Truespeak skill high enough to use your abilities reliably, the various abilities generally aren't very good.

The only reasons I added truenamer 20 to one of my builds are A.) truenamers do have a few unique abilities found literally nowhere else, B.) I have +12,000 on my Int mod alone, making success on Truespeak checks quite likely, and C.) I had 130 gestalt HD to play with, so I basically have to take levels in almost everything anyway.

[The Trickster]

Anything Tainted Scholar related is pretty far up there in the OP range.

[TheMonocleRogue]

Artificers blasting through encounters with metamagic cheese and tripling the WBL of the party by having every crafting feat available to them.

[Hangwind]

Archivist+Sacred Exorcist

[Story]

This isn't really a question that can be answered, because from a TO perspective, anything short of Pun-pun and his ilk is weaksauce while from a PO perspective the only real answer is "whatever you can get away with at your table".

[TrueJordan]

I mean, Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 10/ Druid 5 who takes the Realm of madness can turn into a Pseudonatural (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/pseudonaturalCreature.htm) Outsider (or any race, who then becomes an outsider when matched with the template) and takes all it's special qualities and attacks and spell like abilities. So turning into anything that has full magic resist and over 70 AC (Shouldn't be too hard at level 20 with that template), basically makes you unhittable. Have fun?

[Ansem]

Artificer, every magical item at your disposal, every spell at your disposal, minionmancy possible, able to defeat punpun both before and after ascending.

[Petrocorus]

Anything involving Illithid Savant. I mean, their very class features are: you can sylar your way into becoming pun-pun.

[Werephilosopher]

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil and Soul Eater are some of my personal faves.

[prufock]

Artificers blasting through encounters with metamagic cheese and tripling the WBL of the party by having every crafting feat available to them.

Tripling? I think you're underestimating the power of the artificer!

[Rubik]

Tripling? I think you're underestimating the power of the artificer!I used cost reduction techniques and got down to 1/20 base cost pretty easily, and I didn't even use everything at my disposal.

[Eldariel]

Manipulate Form abuse indeed tops the chart. There are various means to that end. Most infinite loops also fall in here. Below that, you have the mentioned Illithid Savant that can indeed get all class features in the game with enough work (all the relevant ones with much less work).


Then it's a long, long list of top tier caster prestige classes. Ironically Planar Shepherd isn't even the worst offender; it basically just brings Druid's casting options to the same level as Wizard's and Cleric's (and Archivist's and Erudite's; Artificers are a bit different).

Tainted Scholar is probably the worst giving you basically free metamagic and about infinite casting stat. Dweomerkeeper is also pretty horrid simply because when the only real way to affect you is to get rid of your stuff and your stuff can't be gotten rid of and you don't need proxies or anything for Free Wishes/Ice Assassins/Simulacrums/whatever, yeah. Beholder Mage is also pretty ridiculous, mostly because they basically walk around with 10 actions a turn or so. Most spells can count as spells of whatever level with sufficient Sanctum Spell-style abuse.

Then there's a whole slew of Wizard/Sorc PRCs with various claims to fame; Spelldancer, Incantatrix, Halruaan Elder, Hathran (regionals should use Acorn of Far Travel for global coverage), Red Wizard of Thay, the list is really quite long and incredibly Faerun-centric (which is why Faerun has something of a bad reputation). Planar Shepherds probably belong here too, generating free Wishes quite early and giving you super Time Stop and such.

Then you get to the free crafting Artificer builds, Erudite in its various guises, Cleric/Archivist-builds and such. These are still way above the level most tables have seen, of course, but way more down to earth (of course, since most of the power of all these classes come from the spells removing PRCs does precious little).

[Phelix-Mu]

Planar Shepherd. A PrC that looks at Druid 20 and says "nope, not strong enough."

Tainted Scholar. It is possible to not abuse it, but the whole point seems to be to abuse it.

Hulking Hurler. Well, it's not cosmic power, but the maths quickly become so ludicrous that actually using an optimized version at a table basically necessitates electronic dice rollers. I don't know who designed it, but a simple side-by-side comparison of the Encumbrance Tables and the table of improvised weapon damage by weight should have indicated that there was something weird going on.

Illithid Savant. Really, they shouldn't have published that. Any campaign where illithids are already playable probably doesn't need an additional boost to the power level.

[weckar]

I just noticed that the Earth Dreamer's capstone has no limits on uses/day. So, in practice, they can bypass pretty much anything not made of metal.

[TrueJordan]

Manipulate Form abuse indeed tops the chart. There are various means to that end. Most infinite loops also fall in here. Below that, you have the mentioned Illithid Savant that can indeed get all class features in the game with enough work (all the relevant ones with much less work).


Then it's a long, long list of top tier caster prestige classes. Ironically Planar Shepherd isn't even the worst offender; it basically just brings Druid's casting options to the same level as Wizard's and Cleric's (and Archivist's and Erudite's; Artificers are a bit different).

Tainted Scholar is probably the worst giving you basically free metamagic and about infinite casting stat. Dweomerkeeper is also pretty horrid simply because when the only real way to affect you is to get rid of your stuff and your stuff can't be gotten rid of and you don't need proxies or anything for Free Wishes/Ice Assassins/Simulacrums/whatever, yeah. Beholder Mage is also pretty ridiculous, mostly because they basically walk around with 10 actions a turn or so. Most spells can count as spells of whatever level with sufficient Sanctum Spell-style abuse.

Then there's a whole slew of Wizard/Sorc PRCs with various claims to fame; Spelldancer, Incantatrix, Halruaan Elder, Hathran (regionals should use Acorn of Far Travel for global coverage), Red Wizard of Thay, the list is really quite long and incredibly Faerun-centric (which is why Faerun has something of a bad reputation). Planar Shepherds probably belong here too, generating free Wishes quite early and giving you super Time Stop and such.

Then you get to the free crafting Artificer builds, Erudite in its various guises, Cleric/Archivist-builds and such. These are still way above the level most tables have seen, of course, but way more down to earth (of course, since most of the power of all these classes come from the spells removing PRCs does precious little).

As an advocate for making the cheesiest characters possible, I would like to point out that Planar Shepherds top any of the classes that rely solely on casting stats (Like tainted scholar) since it doesn't matter how high your CL is if you can turn into something that has infinite spell resistance.
That being said, someone with amazing (i.e. infinite) strength that goes first in a battle will be able to kill him even though he'd have 45 damage reduction and if they don't win after the first attack, which with the right build there's no way he should, the Planar Shepherd could proceed to freeze time for 1d10+1 rounds (with swift concentration) and freeze time, which in a world where action economy is key, it spells death.

Hells yeah, Realm of Madness.
Hells yeah.