60th Level Character Optimization [3.x]

[TeslaJr]

So, my DM asked the party to make the most powerful 60th level non-spellcasting characters we can. I don't mess around with non-spellcasters that often, so I'm not that great at optimizing them. I've also never been past 30th level, so I'm a little overwhelmed. The only thing not allowed is spellcasting of any kind (no wizards, psions, psychic warriors, clerics, druids, binders, tainted sorcerers, planar shepherds, etc).

I'm gonna start off with a level in Spirit Totem Barbarian to get Pounce, then move into Warblade (for maneuvers) and/or Fighter (for feats). If/When I do go into Fighter, I'm definitely picking up the Dungeoncrasher ACF and the Knockback feat. The character will be focused on maximizing PAttack and Trip, so at some point I'm going to pick up 10 levels of Frenzied Berserker and Improved Trip, Knock-down, Leap Attack, and maybe Shock Trooper and Battle Jump. After Epic, I'll probably get the full War Hulk progression for the +20 to Str and Massive Swing. I think I'll also pick up a few levels of Drunken Master for the Stagger ability.

For my weapon, I'm definitely picking up something with reach and slapping Valorous on it. Probably a Spiked Chain, but if there are any better reach weapons out there I'll switch.

[Vhaidara]

War Hulk, FB, and, with 60 levels, you might even be able to finagle in Cavalier and do all of this in a mounted charge that raises your multiplier by another 4.

[Rubik]

Changeling master of many forms into illithid savant, then build your own class from the class and racial features of others. Make sure you eat a hagunemnon for their shapeshifting, and an aleax of an earlier version of yourself for Ex Shapechange.

[Kazyan]

First, clarify how much WBL you have, since the ELH doesn't provide numbers for above 40th level. Regressing a curve to the wonky pattern suggests that you get about 98,500,000 gp. That is going to massively impact what you do.

[Naanomi]

Centaur, templated with any template that gives more than 2 STR for each LA; with Warblade 1/Hulking Hurler 3/Master Thrower 1/Bloodstorm Blade 10/Warhulk (The Rest)

Throw planets, hitting everyone in line of sight (and everyone stupid enough to stand next to someone else twice)

[Phelix-Mu]

I'd go for a smite build, one with a more generalized smite or something. Great Smite epic feat is pretty stupid, and you should have enough iterations of Extra Smite to smote the smitten until they can't take any more smiting. With 60 levels, you should be able to cram in some useful stuff into a non-spellcasting paladin core and then take it in the direction of Grey Guard or Fist of Raziel or something to get more smiting and chain smiting. Add in a bit of Hellreaver from Fiendish Codex II.

You may also want to decide if your silly level would have allowed you to pay an epic spellcaster to caste epic spells on you. Normally, that is just a very silly thing to consider. But level 60 is very silly, so a little more very silly is unlikely to matter.

Basically, I'd go for a Turn Undead/Divine Feat and focus on Smiting, and probably toss a bit of barbarian or some form of rage-esque in there. Or, perhaps a touch of sneak attack, lol. In sixty levels, you could jam a whole lot of class features in there.

And you could buy every other feature you couldn't fit. 98 million. Hehe. You better get a spreadsheet just for your equip list.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Human Divine Minion of Anhur (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a) Saint (LA bought off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm)), Wildshape Ranger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) 1/ Master of Many Forms 10/ Warshaper 4/ Occult Slayer 5/ Master of Many Forms 40. Note that the Complete Adventurer errata makes MoMF count toward your effective Druid level for Wild Shape.
At level ~39 hire an NPC Wizard to use Genesis to create your own pocket plane where time goes by 500 times faster than the material plane. Have Leadership and Epic Leadership, put all your followers in your pocket plane, build a self-sustaining ecosystem and encourage them to multiply and populate the demiplane. Teach them to worship you as a god. Feel free to spend every penny you have doing this, but leave enough to hire an NPC Psion for a Psychic Reformation and get Vow of Poverty and Epic Vow of Poverty (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1666016), which among other things gives you Divine Rank (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineRanksPowers.htm) 0. Per Deities and Demigods chapter 2, a deity with a few hundred to a few thousand followers has a divine rank of 1-5, a few thousand to tens of thousands of worshipers gets divine rank 6-10, hundreds of thousands of followers is divine rank 11-15, etc. You should easily have enough followers to have a divine rank in the neighborhood of 4, which will allow you to have Salient Divine Abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm). By the time characters are level 30, they should be gods.

[TeslaJr]

Changeling master of many forms into illithid savant, then build your own class from the class and racial features of others. Make sure you eat a hagunemnon for their shapeshifting, and an aleax of an earlier version of yourself for Ex Shapechange.

...Bwuh?


First, clarify how much WBL you have, since the ELH doesn't provide numbers for above 40th level. Regressing a curve to the wonky pattern suggests that you get about 98,500,000 gp. That is going to massively impact what you do.
About 65mil


I think this is for a one off, gladiatorial thing, so I can't really go out and get someone to cast spells on me. Also, he said that Permanent Spells are out, so I'm assuming that means spells in general.

[Rubik]

...Bwuh?Say what?

"What?"

[TeslaJr]

Say what?

"What?"

Yeah :smalltongue:

I didn't know Illithid Savant's could take class abilities. I've also never even heard of a hagunemnon

[Phelix-Mu]

It should also be possible to have a Factotum build that can own enough action economy even without spells to be able to kill pretty much anything in a single round. Added bonus of being a crazy skill monkey with lots of downtime options (as many as any other noncaster would have).

As much as I like the idea of having someone cast genesis for your character, that too is rather silly. What spellcaster casts genesis for someone else? That is pretty much guaranteed to get the spellcaster offed as part of ensuring the security of the demiplane, lol.

A much better question is what will you need to kill to level up. I once calculated that a level 75 character I came up with would need to kill a couple dozen hecatonchires to level up (though this was 3.0...the calculus may have changed slightly).

[cosmonuts]

Unrelated question - can I gate in an aleax of myself, even if no god really has it out for me?

[TeslaJr]

It should also be possible to have a Factotum build that can own enough action economy even without spells to be able to kill pretty much anything in a single round.

Yeah, Factotum's are pretty sweet, but I think I'm gonna stay away from that.



A much better question is what will you need to kill to level up. I once calculated that a level 75 character I came up with would need to kill a couple dozen hecatonchires to level up (though this was 3.0...the calculus may have changed slightly).

I think these characters are for a short one session thing, so leveling up shouldn't come into play. Still, a couple dozen hecatonchires? That's scary

[TeslaJr]

Unrelated question - can I gate in an aleax of myself, even if no god really has it out for me?

Aren't Aleax's made from part of a deity? If they are, I don't think you could Gate in one.

[Phelix-Mu]

Unrelated question - can I gate in an aleax of myself, even if no god really has it out for me?

I'd be really surprised if there isn't at least one god that has it in for a given 60th level character. But, assuming you are talking a different setup, I'd probably say no. Gate mentions "unique" creatures as being ungateable. Generally, unique is ill-defined in the game (by which I mean totally not defined). But, an aleax of a given person is pretty much unique, custom made by a god to punish that given person.

Plus, the aleax doesn't exist until the god wills it into being, from what I recall. So I'd say first you need the angry god.

[Rubik]

I didn't know Illithid Savant's could take class abilities.They can steal four things (in addition to the bardic knowledge-esque illithid lore they get): feats, skills, class abilities, and racial abilities. Basically, find abilities you like (such as the choker's and chronotyryn's abilities to warp the action economy) and go to town. You have 60 levels to play with. Have fun with that.


I've also never even heard of a hagunemnonIt's in the SRD. It's a shapeshifting ooze-like creature that can mix-and-match the abilities of other creatures via shapeshifting. Note that, since you're gaining racial abilities as class abilities, you keep these racial traits regardless of what form you take otherwise, which counts for any other racial ability you steal.

[TrueJordan]

Centaur, templated with any template that gives more than 2 STR for each LA; with Warblade 1/Hulking Hurler 3/Master Thrower 1/Bloodstorm Blade 10/Warhulk (The Rest)

Throw planets, hitting everyone in line of sight (and everyone stupid enough to stand next to someone else twice)

Does it technically require an attack roll?
I'd like to introduce you to friendly fire.
http://dndtools.eu/spells/exemplars-of-evil--64/friendly-fire--4965/

[Phelix-Mu]

Does it technically require an attack roll?
I'd like to introduce you to friendly fire.
http://dndtools.eu/spells/exemplars-of-evil--64/friendly-fire--4965/

Hmm. Hulking Hurler can, if memory serves, attack the square you are standing in. I think that might get around the friendly fire thing. Close call, though. I'd need to read both effects carefully.

[TuggyNE]

At 60th level, I can't see why you couldn't just write whatever you want on your character sheet and call it a day. It's not as though there'd be no mechanical way to achieve it, and it can't unbalance things any more than simply playing at 60th level already will, so why not?

[boxfox]

You realize that you're not rolling your character, right?

No DM says, "Let's start at level 60, with absolutely no support for anything in any book ever!"

You're actually rolling one of several characters, possibly:

The BBEG
A rival party for the future
The gods who make up the pantheon of your DM's universe
A "Future you" who will come back in time to tell you important stuff or blah blah blah....
An ancestor who was world-renowned and blah blah blah...
Some other over-done, under-contemplated, and probably unsuccessful story stunt that will probably be either empty fluff that could have been avoided (Thus saving your party lots of useless work), or too powerful (which will likely end in TPK).


Other possibilities exist, but I believe them to be far more unlikely. If I were you, I wouldn't put much work into it and would actually keep it fairly weak...at the same time, think of every single way you can possibly kill this creature, because it's fairly likely that you may need to eventually...

[Graypairofsocks]

War Hulk, FB, and, with 60 levels, you might even be able to finagle in Cavalier and do all of this in a mounted charge that raises your multiplier by another 4.

Just make sure to take War Hulk at epic levels to avoid its lack of Bab advancement.

[Fouredged Sword]

You COULD find two people with aleax though, and eat those. It wouldn't harm the aleax, but it would grant you the ability to only be harmed by someone who is simultaneously two people (not impossible, but you go smite one of them immediately, just make sure to really wipe his soul, not just kill him).

[Chronos]

I'd recommend 19 levels of Knight (or 20, might as well at that point). At that level, not auto-failing saves on a natural 1 is absolutely essential.

[Frozen_Feet]

Between Feat Rogue, Fighter and some creative after-epic multiclassing, you should be able to get basically all Fighter feats. Dreaming of crazy damage multipliers for charging is thinking small, you should be able to pull off any combat style with dignity. As far as Epic feats go, be sure to nab Expectional Deflection, Infinite Deflection, Reflect Arrows and Distant Shot.

The first three allow you to laugh at any ranged attack, including Orbs of Metamagic'd Death. If it's a ranged attack, it bounces right back to the attacker.

The last one allows your own ranged attacks to hit anything you can see. Max out Balance and Spot. These allow you to walk on air at will and spot & fire at things from arbitrary distances. Haul your ass to high orbit and throw meteors at unwitting targets with Hulking Hurler abilities.

You should also be able to pull off some sort of "immunity to damage" combo in 60 levels, even without using any items. Maybe check the Emerald Legion for inspiration?

[Dr. Azkur]

[...]I've also never been past 30th level[...]

Is anyone ever past level 21st? I am a little overwhelmed!

[boxfox]

Is anyone ever past level 21st? I am a little overwhelmed!

My favorite campaign idea involves levels 1-20 fighting material plane with a few other planes eventually, then 21-40 players are freely traveling between planes and possibly dimensions, and for levels 41-60 they're actually going up against the gods.

It's straight forward and fairly linear, though absolutely ripe with possibilities. It's also very newbie friendly, as someone who hardly plays has the time to learn their character, their role, the world, the planes, and then everything afterward step by step. It's slow enough to allow them to be comfortable but fast enough to rarely end with TPK unless the party is made up of stupid kids.

[Dr. Azkur]

My favorite campaign idea involves levels 1-20 fighting material plane with a few other planes eventually, then 21-40 players are freely traveling between planes and possibly dimensions, and for levels 41-60 they're actually going up against the gods.

It's straight forward and fairly linear, though absolutely ripe with possibilities. It's also very newbie friendly, as someone who hardly plays has the time to learn their character, their role, the world, the planes, and then everything afterward step by step. It's slow enough to allow them to be comfortable but fast enough to rarely end with TPK unless the party is made up of stupid kids.

Mine is a 'greekish myth'-styled, good-old-walked descent into Baator, layer per layer, which eventually would take anyone to epic.
If you have the luck divine grace of gaming with a group that will stay together that long... I truly envy you.

[Studoku]

I'd recommend 19 levels of Knight (or 20, might as well at that point). At that level, not auto-failing saves on a natural 1 is absolutely essential.
Alternatively, one level of warblade (needs to be at level 11+) and enough ranks of concentration. Take the three "make a concentration check as a save" manoeuvres and always have them prepared.

[Rubik]

There are lots of ways to ensure you don't fail on a nat 1, including lots and lots and lots of rerolls -- from spells and powers to magic items to feats to class features.

Also, ensuring you're immune to 99.99999% of everything is pretty essentially the same thing (but better), and quite easy with that much money.

[Fouredged Sword]

At 60th level, if you are only making 1 save a round, you are not being threatened.

[Svata]

Also, a Ring of Univresal Elemental Immunity is always a nice touch. Complete immunity to fire, cold, electricity, acid, and sonic damage. 2,160,000 GP. Pocket change for a level 60.

[Rubik]

Also, a Ring of Univresal Elemental Immunity is always a nice touch. Complete immunity to fire, cold, electricity, acid, and sonic damage. 2,160,000 GP. Pocket change for a level 60.Or you could invest in immunity to damage in its entirety, so you don't have to worry about it. See: Delay Death + Beastland Ferocity. Find a way to make DD permanent and undispellable (see: Su ability + Permanency).

Also, a shirt of wraithstalking, to be invisible to undead, and soulfire armor, for immunity to negative energy and death effects.

[Chronos]

There are a lot of things you can be immune to, but some things are pretty hard to manage, short of aleaxe-style cheese. How do you protect against Arrows of Slaying, or Decerebrate, or Decapitating Scarf? Especially if you're getting targeted by, say, 400 of those in a round.

[Zalphon]

Race: Changeling

Build:

Barbarian 1 (Whirling Frenzy/Spirit Lion Totem), Fighter 6, Frenzied Berserker 10/Bear Warrior 5/War Hulk 10/Warblade 20/Warshaper 5/Whatever 3

Really with that many levels, you can just splatter together a build and it will work :P

[Rubik]

There are a lot of things you can be immune to, but some things are pretty hard to manage, short of aleaxe-style cheese. How do you protect against Arrows of Slaying, or Decerebrate, or Decapitating Scarf? Especially if you're getting targeted by, say, 400 of those in a round.Not sure about the scarf (never seen them before), but the slaying arrows are death effects, so soulfire armor works just fine, and Decerebrate is a teleportation effect with power resistance, a Fortitude save, a single target, and only affects living creatures. If you can't figure out at least a dozen counters to that one, that also protect against dozens of other effects (especially with epic wbl), maaaybe you should avoid epic...

[Seppo87]

An Epic Character can easily be nigh immune to melee and ranged attacks -including rays- without magic or any AC

Let's see how

First, you need Exceptional Deflection and Infinite Deflection.
Now you can say goodbye to manyshot factotums and spellwarp snipers.

Now the serious stuff, immune to melee.

-First of all, increase your 5' step. Sparring Dummy of the Master, Tumble check 40 (arms and equipment guide, oriental adventures). It's 15' now.
-Press the advantage stance, step twice each time.
-Dual Stance (needs Warblade20, which is good anyway) Shifting Defense, grants step whenever you'd get an AoO. Which means twice with PTA
-[epic] improved combat reflexes: no limit to AoO
-improved-superior combat reflexes: each opportunity grants you 3 AoO. Convert AoOs in 2xsteps with the aforementioned stances
-Robilar's Gambit, AoOs "when they swing at you"
-We have Combat Reflexes so we can do this when flat.footed

result:
Whenever attacked, we can move up to 90'

improvements:
-Use Sidestep Feat for maximum fun: attack twice and then move away 30'
-Combine with Epic Dodge for good measure
-Have wings. Always helps.

And here it is, your fighting immunity.

Once you have achieved this, spend the rest of the build focusing on

-defense from spellcasters
-utilities
-action economy
-sure ways to deal reasonable damage (reasonable = instakill everything without going needlessly further)

A sure way to deal damage is the hulking hurler. No attack rolls required so it can't be deflected either. It can also deal huge damage, but don't burn all your resources here.
Action Economy for non-spellcasters needs Factotum or a bunch of custom, slotless belts of battle.
Utilities means, you know, the broken stuff spellcasters deal with everyday. Money can buy items. Items cast spells. Spells give utilities.
Defense from spellcaster, well this one is hard.
My favorite way is imbued arrow + antimagic field, but you are a non-spellcaster, and amf is very ineffective at LV60 anyway.
Even a custom item able to cast it at-will with extended duration will not get you anywhere, disjunction is going to kick in 60% of the times at least.
On the other hand, having 50 items able to cast AMF with long duration that you activate in the morning and wear the whole day - now that's difficult to disjoin.
You can still be killed with ease BTW
Honestly I don't think it's actually possible to be completely safe from magic and psionic powers users.

[Chronos]

If you're depending on WBL or spells to make you immune to things, then you need to worry about how you're going to protect yourself after the Disjunction that's going to lead off every battle.

And Decapitating Scarf is a Wu Jen spell. It's basically a no-SR save-or-die that lacks most of the usual immunity keywords.

[Vhaidara]

Don't know if it's been mentioned, but Factotum 8 should be in the build. The proceed to take things like Vow of Poverty and fighter levels, then DCFS. Every. Single. Feat. Into. Font of Inspiration.

You should have 21 FoIs just accounting for levels. That is, 231 IP, plus 5 from 8 levels of factotum is 236, which gives you 78 standard actions.

[Rubik]

Don't know if it's been mentioned, but Factotum 8 should be in the build. The proceed to take things like Vow of Poverty and fighter levels, then DCFS. Every. Single. Feat. Into. Font of Inspiration.

You should have 21 FoIs just accounting for levels. That is, 231 IP, plus 5 from 8 levels of factotum is 236, which gives you 78 standard actions.Note that fighter gains all of the armor and shield feats as bonus feats, so you can DCFS those out if you want, too. Look in the feat descriptions themselves for details.


If you're depending on WBL or spells to make you immune to things, then you need to worry about how you're going to protect yourself after the Disjunction that's going to lead off every battle.Tinfoil hats are your friends. Also, http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?175988-3-5-Defending-against-Disjunction


And Decapitating Scarf is a Wu Jen spell. It's basically a no-SR save-or-die that lacks most of the usual immunity keywords.It's both a ranged attack and a targeted spell. Infinite Deflection and Exceptional Deflection make you immune, as do full concealment (see: Greater Concealing Amorpha and Invisibility) and full cover. Oh, and high AC works, as well, since it's not a touch attack.

[Chronos]

Ah, right, I'd forgotten that Decapitating Scarf has an attack roll.

And Slaying Arrows are only a death effect if they're tuned to a living creature type, so if you're going undead or construct for immunities, they're a threat again.

What about Polymorph Any Object? It has spell resistance, but that's easy enough to bypass at these levels. And transmutation immunity is possible, but usually takes a bunch of levels.

Another one that's tough to protect against is Unearthly Beauty, from BoED. No attack roll, no spell resistance, no [death] or [mind-affecting] tags, no necromancy school, just a save or die. You can avoid it by being blind, but that carries its own set of problems.

You also need some way of protecting against the Word spells (Blasphemy etc.), though saving throws won't help there. The only ways I know of are contingent Atonement (cheesy as all heck) or six levels of Horizon Walker. Or spell resistance, but as mentioned that's easily circumvented.

[Eldariel]

Eternal Blade and Factotum are absolute musts; you need all the action economy abuse you can get. Numbers are trivial with that many levels. Are you allowed to take spell-casting classes but not use the spellcasting? If so, Ruby Knight Vindicator too.

[John Longarrow]

Just as a comment on how outragious these things get, one maneuver lets you do 2d20 + double your concentration bonus damage with a single hit.
If you can't get over a +100 concentration by lvl 60, you are not trying. If you ONLY get a +100 or so, your not trying much. As there are some epic tricks that make it almost impossible to not crit, this on a x5 crit weapon should kill most targets with one hit. This isn't your primary or back up weapon, this is a hold out for if something happens to all of your other ways to kill things.

In general, who ever gets initiative WINS.

[Frozen_Feet]

There are a lot of things you can be immune to, but some things are pretty hard to manage, short of aleaxe-style cheese. How do you protect against Arrows of Slaying, or Decerebrate, or Decapitating Scarf? Especially if you're getting targeted by, say, 400 of those in a round.

All ranged attacks are nullified by Infinite Deflection + Exceptional Deflection. And as implied by "infinite", it matters not how many of such attacks you are subjected. Add Reflect Arrows, and all of those attacks are send back to the attacker.

[Rubik]

Ah, right, I'd forgotten that Decapitating Scarf has an attack roll.

And Slaying Arrows are only a death effect if they're tuned to a living creature type, so if you're going undead or construct for immunities, they're a threat again.You can always become an undead with the Human Heritage feat, so you count as humanoid (rather than undead) when hit by the arrow. The feat also makes you immune to turning and Command Undead-type spells, as well as the shirt of wraith stalking, but you're still undead, meaning you're immune to [Death] effects regardless.

You're still protected with the anti-ranged epic deflection feats, though.


What about Polymorph Any Object? It has spell resistance, but that's easy enough to bypass at these levels. And transmutation immunity is possible, but usually takes a bunch of levels.Taking on the [shapechanger] subtype will allow you to reverse PAO's effects at will. There's also the spellblade, and full concealment (again, see Greater Concealing Amorpha and Greater/Superior/Invisibility, not to mention ethereality and such), since it's a targeted spell. You can also have Craft Contingent PAO, since by this level, PAO is a reasonable way to buff your physical stats, racial abilities, and Int score (especially if it's Su and undispellable), so you should have it up constantly anyway. Having a Magic Mouth set to go off to expand a tinfoil hat would also protect you.


Another one that's tough to protect against is Unearthly Beauty, from BoED. No attack roll, no spell resistance, no [death] or [mind-affecting] tags, no necromancy school, just a save or die. You can avoid it by being blind, but that carries its own set of problems.Well, there are lots of ways to immediately come back after death, so the death effect (rather than [death] effect) wouldn't do much. Blinding Beauty only affects humanoids, and if you're not using PAO by this level, you probably should be (so that takes care of that problem). Plus, there are lots of ways to avoid having to actually be able to see, such as Synesthete, blindfolds of true darkness, Touchsight, those armor crystals of...bent sight? I think? Unearthly Beauty is a tough one to get around if you're not prepared, because there's really no immunity to it, unless you consider the death effect to be targeted (which it should be), but not everyone will do so. If the caster doesn't know you're there, or where you are, the effect should still fail, however, so there is that.


You also need some way of protecting against the Word spells (Blasphemy etc.), though saving throws won't help there. The only ways I know of are contingent Atonement (cheesy as all heck) or six levels of Horizon Walker. Or spell resistance, but as mentioned that's easily circumvented.If you're a manifester, Unconditional Power would let you manifest, still. Gaining immunity to the weaker effects is possible, through type and subtype changes, the talisman of undying fortitude, and similar could give you the appropriate immunities. Being a Chaotic Good creature with the [Lawful] and [Evil] subtypes could help, though that does open up new avenues to attack. A Craft Contingent Spell'd Revivify could get you over the "killed" hurdle. And full cover would, of course, prevent the effect entirely (see: tinfoil hat again). Silencing every caster you come across is always a good idea, even into epic levels. Silent Spell can generally get around it, but the Silence will still neuter all the Word spells. Heck, a Crafted Contingent Silence on yourself in response to any Word spell or sonic spell that does bad things without a save is entirely justifiable. Oh! And don't forget Astral Projection. Even if you die, you'll just pop back up in the demiplane you obviously stored your body in.

Let's come up with more nastiness to suggest immunities toward.

[TeslaJr]

Are you allowed to take spell-casting classes but not use the spellcasting? If so, Ruby Knight Vindicator too.

Unfortunately, no, I can't.