walking the PO/TO line

[Immabozo]

To clarify, I mean the Practical optimization and theoretical (or total, I've always thought of it as either) optimization line. How much optimization is just low enough to see play, but high enough to crush most everything?

For example, I've been playing with a build idea the last few days that abuses graft weapon to make your weapons both manufactured/armed attacks and natural attacks at the same time.

Race: Goliath
Flaw: Two Weapon fighting
Flaw: imp. bull rush

Level 1 Psychic Warrior (LA bought off) Feats: weapon focus (light mace), combat reflexes
Level 2 Psychic Warrior feat: lightning mace
Level 3 Psychic Warrior feat: power attack
Level 4 Psychic Warrior
Level 5 Psychic Warrior feat: cleave
Level 6 Psychic Warrior feat: leap attack
Level 7 Psychic Warrior
Level 8 Psychic Warrior feat: imp. two weapon fighting
Level 9 Whirling Frenzy Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian Goliath racial sub level
Level 10 Bear Warrior
Level 11 War Shaper
Level 12 War Shaper feat: shock trooper
Level 13 War Shaper
Level 14 War Hulk
Level 15 War Hulk feat: Greater Two weapon fighting
Level 16 War Hulk
Level 17 War Hulk
Level 18 Monk Feat: extra rage
Level 19 swordsage grabbing assasin's stace
Level 20 Fighter Feat Greater Cleave

With the only two psy war powers that matter is Expansion and Graft Weapon. With twin keen, aptitude, skilled gnomish quickrazor scaled up to large for a medium creature with powerful build, then grown (since it is a natural attack) with warshaper to huge, or Expansion grows it +2 size categories naturally.

Assuming Str 48 (18 + 8 war hulk + 8 rage + 5 levels + 4 warshaper + 5 items)

and with greater magic fang +5

So a full attack would look like (+15 BAB, +19 str, + 5 GMF -1 size, -2 whirrling, -2 flurry of blows, -2 TWF) +32/+32/+32/+32/+27/+27/+22/+22 for 2D6 + 2D6 sneak attack + 19 str + 5 GMF + 30 PA critting on a 17-20, granting another attack on crit, another attack each time someone goes down, all attacks hitting three squares, with 15' reach.

And I am sure iajutsu focus can be worked in for roughly another 5D6 per attack.

[Segev]

The broad answer is that every group is different. The line is basically wherever the whole group is balanced at. Your goal in P.O. should always be to align your rough power level with that of the rest of the party.

The answer for discussion on these boards is that you will usually find people start drawing the line of "this will never see play" at the point where infinite combos start to appear. If you're somehow synnergizing rules in ways that allow you to treat mechanics almost like an engine of sorts, wherein you put a resource in, get something else out, then churn that into benefit + more of the resource that initially went in, you're in T.O. territory.

If you're applying things that basicaly obviate the entire level system, or doing anything that lets you set your limits at an arbitrary/infinite level, you're in T.O.

Where the line is fuzziest on these boards tends to be when you start rules-lawyering RAW in the face of what is broadly considered to be RAI, but since RAI is, itself, not cut-and-dried, there is where you'll start having the arguments over what is "reasonable" vs. what is "obvious" vs. what is "debatable."

[Flickerdart]

If you don't need to use scientific notation, it's not TO. I think a bog standard King of Smack gets something like the numbers you have.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Your build takes Cleave before Power Attack.

[Immabozo]

snip

That is, actually, a much better, more succinct answer than I was expecting. Thank you


If you don't need to use scientific notation, it's not TO. I think a bog standard King of Smack gets something like the numbers you have.

so my build is solidly in PO territory?

EDIT:


Your build takes Cleave before Power Attack.

lol, then reversing it is easy

[Chronos]

Quoth Flickerdart:

If you don't need to use scientific notation, it's not TO.
Often true, but not always. Getting 9th-level spells at first level, for instance, is pretty firmly in TO territory, even if you don't use those 9ths for anything but Meteor Swarm.

[Vaz]

Don't you need CL17 for that though?

[Malroth]

Technicaly there's no express rule stating that spells have a minimum required level, Just that you can't learn it untill you have 9th lv slots and no class feature innately gives you any innate 9th lv slots before 17 (so they thought they were safe enough) But with enough feats Its possible to stack the extra slot feat in such a way that it keeps increasing what level spell you can cast all you need is for a spell to count as a spell two levels higher than the slot it occupies.

[Gemini476]

Don't you need CL17 for that though?

Maybe.

It's a phantom rule that the writers thought they wrote, but didn't. You can't cast a spell at a CL that's too low to cast it, but how low is that actually? Presumably the CL that you'd have when you first get access to that spell level, but it's never actually spelled out anywhere.

I can still get CL 17 at level 9, though. And two 9th level spell slots, and one free 9th level spell in the spell book. Or more, perhaps, depending on how fast the CL ramps up.

[Svata]

Don't you need CL17 for that though?

Not necessarily. Ur-Priests get them at CL 9.

[Anlashok]

Unfortunately the line is an arbitrary one depending on the table. I've played games where uberchargers and festering anger abuse was acceptable play for a weapon based class.. and I've played other games where a spirit lion totem barbarian (with no other meaningful optimization) was considered too much simply by itself.

The build itself seems fine IMO, but again that can vary wildly.

[Jeff the Green]

Unfortunately the line is an arbitrary one depending on the table. I've played games where uberchargers and festering anger abuse was acceptable play for a weapon based class.. and I've played other games where a spirit lion totem barbarian (with no other meaningful optimization) was considered too much simply by itself.

The build itself seems fine IMO, but again that can vary wildly.

I have a hard time buying that SLT is ever TO by itself. Too powerful for a given campaign, sure, but it just feels wrong to say that using a class, spell, race, ACF, or skill exactly as intended and expected can ever be TO.

I'm having trouble coming up with a definition that separates TO from too powerful for a given campaign, though, especially if we agree that there's no "average campaign" to judge it against the way courts use the mythical "reasonable person."

Maybe "builds that cannot appropriately be challenged or that have disjunct power curves." That'd include getting 9s before your teens (sure, you have 9s, but with no save higher than 2 and no wealth prior to shenanigans that are themselves probably TO), festering anger (because you can kill anything that isn't immune to damage and yet have otherwise level-appropriate abilities), and rainbow warsnake (because one level you're the worst arcane caster and the next you're spontaneously casting from the cleric list, also hard to challenge).

Even so I'm not terribly happy with that definition.

[jiriku]

I have run several campaigns where your character would fit right in, and one in which he'd be considered rather weak. I have also run campaigns and played in campaigns where that character would badly overshadow the group and would not be appropriate. Usually the best approach is to talk to the DM and assess the skill level of other players.

For example, I'm currently playing a conjurer red wizard in a game where the DM told me, "Full sanction. Show me what you can do." But several of the other players are casual players who barely know the rules; they can't build high-op characters. So I reserve my hardcore optimizing for world-building and collecting power, influence, and fluff wealth that's not spent on my personal gear, and collecting panic-button effects that I can use to discreetly prevent party wipes. In combat my character is a pacifist obsessed with eclectic spells that have strange effects, and he contributes much less than you might expect from an optimized conjurer wizard.

[Anxe]

You have Monk and Barbarian on the same build. How are you getting past the alignment restriction?

Even worse you're taking a barbarian feat when you level up as monk!

[Crake]

Aren't natural weapons considered light weapons, and thus dont get any benefit from power attack?

[Jeff the Green]

You have Monk and Barbarian on the same build. How are you getting past the alignment restriction?

Even worse you're taking a barbarian feat when you level up as monk!

There is chaos monk, and even without it you don't lose whirling frenzy if you become lawful like you do rage. If there were one offer the other it might be worth looking askance at, but nine levels is plenty of time to change your alignment a step.

[Necroticplague]

Aren't natural weapons considered light weapons, and thus dont get any benefit from power attack?

Power attack specifically has them able to be used with it. It doesn't say what they count as, but the default PA ratio is 1:1, so that's what natural weapons use.

[Immabozo]

Aren't natural weapons considered light weapons, and thus dont get any benefit from power attack?

Natural attacks are specifically exempt and PA works on them.


There is chaos monk, and even without it you don't lose whirling frenzy if you become lawful like you do rage. If there were one offer the other it might be worth looking askance at, but nine levels is plenty of time to change your alignment a step.

esactly

[Anxe]

Build should probably say that then...

[Immabozo]

Build should probably say that then...

it's fluff, or use chaos monk, which is Dragon Mag, either way it works.

[bekeleven]

So I've never done much rage optimization. How are you taking one level in whirling frenzy barbarian then getting +8 Strength from rage?

[IAmTehDave]

So I've never done much rage optimization. How are you taking one level in whirling frenzy barbarian then getting +8 Strength from rage?

See the class he picks up at level 10? He's a bear. That's how.

[Immabozo]

See the class he picks up at level 10? He's a bear. That's how.

Yes. Bear Warrior gives you bonuses as a bear of a certain quality based on how many bear warrior levels you have. It is an odd PrC, because it's a 10 level PrC with 3 or 4 levels with HUGE bonuses, but everything else is a dead level. I've never justified taking more than one level, personally

There is an interesting rules lawyer I have actually used in a game and won my case. Bear Warrior states that those bonuses replace your normal bonuses in those categories, when you rage (so +4 str becomes +8, because that's what the bear's stats give). Now it also says you MAY turn into the bear. No where does it connect the two or show that the bonuses come from being in bear form. so you dont, technically, have to turn into a bear.

And on the optimization front, whirling frenzy ACF and bear warrior both trade away the same advantages, for different advantages. So rage becomes really good. And THEN, it qualifies you for War Shaper to give you immunity to crits, +5' reach, another +4 str +4 con and the ability to grow natural weapons, or grow larger ones. So rage becomes +12 str, +8 con, -2 to all attacks for another attack, +2 reflex saves, +2 NA, +2 dodge bonus to AC, +5' reach, immunity to crits.

so rage becomes god mode, basically, haha.

[bekeleven]

So basically, you don't turn into a bear? Then good luck gaining the ability boosts "appropriate to the bear form taken," gaining warshaper class features (all of which "function only when the warshaper is in a form other than [your] own") and, also, meeting the required clause of remaining "in bear form until the end of [your] rage."

Turning into a bear also replaces your natural weapons with those of the bear, erasing your 50k quickrazors.

Once you turn into a bear, it will require you to use a move action to activate morphic weapons. Incidentally, this build is probably the only one that doesn't break using the vague wording on warshaper's class features, since you can't abuse them for more than 1 combat-length.

[Immabozo]

So basically, you don't turn into a bear? Then good luck gaining the ability boosts "appropriate to the bear form taken," gaining warshaper class features (all of which "function only when the warshaper is in a form other than [your] own") and, also, meeting the required clause of remaining "in bear form until the end of [your] rage."

Turning into a bear also replaces your natural weapons with those of the bear, erasing your 50k quickrazors.

Once you turn into a bear, it will require you to use a move action to activate morphic weapons. Incidentally, this build is probably the only one that doesn't break using the vague wording on warshaper's class features, since you can't abuse them for more than 1 combat-length.

no, in this build, the bear claws meld into the weapons just like a human's hands would for the graft weapon power. That was just a note on an argument that can be made.

[bekeleven]

no, in this build, the bear claws meld into the weapons just like a human's hands would for the graft weapon power. That was just a note on an argument that can be made.

If you apply the grafts after you enter a rage, I'm with you. Unfortunately that is impossible (due to time constraints and spellcasting in rage). Bear warrior works like polymorph, replacing your natural attacks.

[Immabozo]

If you apply the grafts after you enter a rage, I'm with you. Unfortunately that is impossible (due to time constraints and spellcasting in rage). Bear warrior works like polymorph, replacing your natural attacks.

You Have a point there.

[Immabozo]

Sorry for double post, but I just realized something


If you apply the grafts after you enter a rage, I'm with you. Unfortunately that is impossible (due to time constraints and spellcasting in rage). Bear warrior works like polymorph, replacing your natural attacks.

These attacks are still manufactured weapons. You still count as armed. Hurray abusing graft weapon! haha