Who's Actually Played Some o' Dese "Iconic Builds"?

[Gnome Alone]

I spend a lotta time thinking up builds and/or characters that I know I probably won't ever get to play, just because I don't play D&D all that often. And when I do, it's usually just my one character in an ongoing campaign (let's see... running about six years now, geez.)

I get real jazzed up about the possibility of being, say, a cleric archer (and if I ever play a "core-only" game, I'll probably just be a nice grandma elf cleric archer and be done with it) but I ain't ever actually done it, y'know? But I remain pretty inspired by a lot of the more well-known optimized builds. And morbidly curious about some of the TO stuff.

So! Who here amongst all y'all hath actually played some of the quasi-famous builds? Including but not limited to:

The Mailman
The Horizon Tripper
The "A-Game" Paladin
Pun-Pun (seriously, has anyone ever actually tried to get away with this abomination?)
The Psionic Sandwich
The Jumplomancer
The Killer Gnome
Jack B. Quick

Also, since I know someone will ask, I am not really defining "iconic"; if you think a build is well-known enough to be included, or if you did not make a carbon-copy of the recommended op-fu monstrosity but incorporated bits of it, go ahead and post it. Just kinda interested in reading some stories of how it/they/whatev worked out, is all.

[Blackhawk748]

While it wasnt the actual Mailman (as the guy who was DMing may have tried to kill my with thrown books if i went that far lol) it was focused around single target (in theory) spells. I called it the Macrosse Missile Massacre Mage. Silverbrow Human Sorc 6/Incantatrix 9 (we were lvl 15 and this is all i could pull off) With Arcane Thesis on Scorching Ray and Magic Missile. Notable Feats included: Twin Spell, Fell Drain, Energy Admixture, Lord of Uttercold, Born of three Thunders, and Repeat Spell. Im pretty sure we know how this works but ill tell you anyway. I would throw all of those things onto a Scorching Ray and fire off 6 Rays that were doing 8d6 (4d6 split between Sonic and Electric and 4d6 split between Cold and Negative Energy) as well as a negative level each, oh and it did it again next turn. Only got to do that particular attack once as it was fairly RP heavy, but i always felt safe walking around with the fantasy equivalent of the Beggars Bazooka in my pocket.

[PsyBomb]

I've done a Mailman as well, party needed a DPR character and the table was high-op. Seriously, that build is FUN.

[Blackhawk748]

I've done a Mailman as well, party needed a DPR character and the table was high-op. Seriously, that build is FUN.

Please tell me you screamed "BURN HERETIC!!" at least once.

[Gnome Alone]

I figured "The Mailman" would be high on the list of things that have seen actual play. IIRC the originator said that one could always remove elements of the build to accomodate varying levels of optimization. Does indeed sound fun/reassuring, that ol' "always delivers" fellow. For myself, I really would like to pull off "Fell Drain Sonic Snap" shenanigans some time, and make that hilarious bard/ToB guy who can cut Fireballs and Dominate Persons in half with his sword.

[Blackhawk748]

I figured "The Mailman" would be high on the list of things that have seen actual play. IIRC the originator said that one could always remove elements of the build to accomodate varying levels of optimization. Does indeed sound fun/reassuring, that ol' "always delivers" fellow. For myself, I really would like to pull off "Fell Drain Sonic Snap" shenanigans some time, and make that hilarious bard/ToB guy who can cut Fireballs and Dominate Persons in half with his sword.

I was once able to do the Fell Drain Sonic Snap trick. Actually didnt drive my party nuts because i saved it for when we REALLY needed it. My excuse was that if we forgot to chop of the thing i killed's head it was gonna become a wight and as a lvl 1 Sorc i am NOT dealing with that.

[Gnome Alone]

Do you mean that was your in-character excuse for not doing that trick all the live-long day? "Concerned about accidentally setting off the Wightocalypse"? Seems pretty legit, actually.

[MesiDoomstalker]

I'm, at current, playing a Sorcadin. I mean, I'm level 1 but, the plans there.

[Emperor Tippy]

The Mailman
Pun-Pun (seriously, has anyone ever actually tried to get away with this abomination?)
The Psionic Sandwich

Yes to those three. Or at least very close variants of all of them.


Do you mean that was your in-character excuse for not doing that trick all the live-long day? "Concerned about accidentally setting off the Wightocalypse"? Seems pretty legit, actually.

That is just a reason to stuff the corpse into your bag of holding so that when it wakes up you have another easy encounter to farm XP out of.

Besides, why are you leaving corpses behind you anyways? Smart parties clean up after themselves. :smallwink:

[Gnome Alone]

I'm, at current, playing a Sorcadin. I mean, I'm level 1 but, the plans there.

Wow, good luck to you. Sorcadin seems like one of those builds that might take a while to really "come online," but I will leave it to wiser, more experienced talking heads than I to say if this is actually true or not.

Because, right now you're just a sorcerer with dreams of being proficient with a sword and planning to get deluxe twilight/thistledown/whatever armor with your non-ill-gotten gains, right?


That is just a reason to stuff the corpse into your bag of holding so that when it wakes up you have another easy encounter to farm XP out of.

Wow, that's brilliant.

"Jimmy, did you put the gold from that mission in the training bag again? Dammit, I clearly labeled it with an undead frowny face."

[Jeff the Green]

That is just a reason to stuff the corpse into your bag of holding so that when it wakes up you have another easy encounter to farm XP out of.

I'm aware that you play at a slightly different level than most of us, but do your level 1 PCs often have bags of holding? Or a way to ensure you don't get energy drained? Or, for that matter, to make sure the wight doesn't tear the inside of the bag? (It may not have a claw attack, but it does have nasty claws that could easily puncture leather if it freaks out and starts flailing around.)

[torrasque666]

I have seen the Killer Gnome in play. Part of the reason I hate Shadowcraft Mages.

[OldTrees1]

I have played The Killer Gnome complete with a pair of Spellblades continuously holding a Heightened Silent Image.

I have suggested The Mailman to a player of mine. He did not use the complete build since he preferred AoEs. My suggestion was given knowing that the player would not optimize it much.

I have played Trippers but I have always had access to better prestige classes than Horizon Walker.

9 years ago, as a PC, I gained and used the Manipulate Form ability to assist a fellow PC in their wish to plant their soul as a parasite into their past self.(He was a Dragonlance fan). Afterwards the ability was never mentioned again.

[Douglas]

I haven't tried any such high-op builds in standard campaigns, but I've played some in arenas and such. I had a level 25 mailman-type sorcerer of my own design in an arena tournament right here on the gitp forums once. I won. Some notable events:
1) Freezing two Solars to death with a small fraction of one turn's action. Yes, Solars are immune to cold. It didn't matter (much).
2) Facing someone who had 25 crafted contingent Heal spells (specifically in an attempt to survive my damage, this was a rematch after partial rebuild). I dealt with it by simply plowing through all the healing with even more damage, intentionally ignoring superior options such as Disjunctioning them all, just because I could.

There's also Team Solars (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-(Archiving)), Persistent Spell buffing taken to an extreme, built for a game specifically advertised as "Extreme dungeon crawling, bring your POWER gaming" (or something like that). Here's the IC thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?82491-The-Grinder-(douglas-Solo)). Sadly, the DM disappeared and never returned when the forums went down for 10 days.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Wow, good luck to you. Sorcadin seems like one of those builds that might take a while to really "come online," but I will leave it to wiser, more experienced talking heads than I to say if this is actually true or not.

Because, right now you're just a sorcerer with dreams of being proficient with a sword and planning to get deluxe twilight/thistledown/whatever armor with your non-ill-gotten gains, right?

Paladin actually. I opened with Paladin since I knew I'd be going from the start and wanted some early game usefulness. And no, I'm not wearing any armor, DM ruled that Abjurant Champion works on (Greater) Mage Armor so I can just use those (which puts me solidly above the curve for several levels, about 10-16 or so, as far as AC goes).

[Emperor Tippy]

I'm aware that you play at a slightly different level than most of us, but do your level 1 PCs often have bags of holding? Or a way to ensure you don't get energy drained? Or, for that matter, to make sure the wight doesn't tear the inside of the bag? (It may not have a claw attack, but it does have nasty claws that could easily puncture leather if it freaks out and starts flailing around.)

No, but we do carry around oil, fire, and acid to dispose of bodies when necessary. At a minimum we take the time to behead the dead and chop off all of their limbs, at least when we have any reason to worry about the corpse being not quite totally inert.

[Aegis013]

The "A-Game" Paladin
The Killer Gnome

I've been these two. Assuming Killer Gnome is Shadowcraft Mage and not I'm-Tiny-But-You're-Dead.

Despite the DM's constant assurances that he could deal with the Gnome (shooting to be a god wizard archetype), I accidentally ended the game prematurely, because the DM got tired of me having answers to stuff all the time. It was probably one of the most fun characters I've ever gotten to play though; I really felt like I had a significant impact on the setting and the game, whereas most games I'm in I feel like I could be replaced with a plank with an angry face and nothing about the game/story/setting would be affected in any way whatsoever.

The A-Game Paladin was pretty fun, I liked being able to dish out big numbers, but it was rough figuring out what to do out of combat with my severely limited music uses and the tendency for lots of combats with the group I was in.

[kardar233]

I've played a Colossus of War (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2478051) that drew from Douglas' Team Solars and the Twice-Betrayer of Shar, once. Didn't last long though.

[Know(Nothing)]

I made something very close to a War Hulking Hurler before I found the builds detailing exactly how much damage I could do by tossing impossibly heavy things at people. I probably would've been fine trying some of the more broken stuff, since I think I was the only non-caster in the party at the time.

[Theobod]

DMd for a simplified wizard mailman focussed around 2 spells. orb of fire and iirc acid fog. he was a storm mage using substitutions and admixtures to pull off sonic and electric damage, storm orbs and summoned storms made for a lot of light and noise in a zombieloft game... fun times.

[Urpriest]

I've played a few sessions with a non-gold dragon using (dragons didn't exist in the setting apparently) Supermount. The build turns out to really lack versatility at high levels, to the point that it's not really viable without WBL optimization.

[Chronos]

I've done a DMM Persist melee clerzilla. We didn't have access to nightsticks, and I made suboptimal choices on my domains and one feat, but it still came out pretty strong.

[Jeff the Green]

I've done a DMM Persist melee clerzilla. We didn't have access to nightsticks, and I made suboptimal choices on my domains and one feat, but it still came out pretty strong.

So did I, now that I think of it. It was kind of a weird build because it was gestalt and used a homebrew dryad monster class that stacked with cleric for spells, but but was basically a Clericzilla archer, using Charm the Arrow instead of Zen Archer. It could have used another turning pool, nightsticks, or the Undeath domain, but the sky-high Charisma made up for it somewhat. It was likewise quite powerful, though ultimately unsatisfying because of the exact mechanics of the dryad class.

[ThatGuyOvaThere]

I played a character much like the mailman a year back i think, except I used tainted sorcerer along with incantatrix. It was probably my favorite character I've played to date. If I remember correctly I used all my d6s and still didn't have enough

[Gnome Alone]

It was likewise quite powerful, though ultimately unsatisfying because of the exact mechanics of the dryad class.

Did that take the form of something like:

"Well guys, that was fun, but since you're leaving the general area of my tree, guess I'll be seein' ya." ...?

[Jeff the Green]

Did that take the form of something like:

"Well guys, that was fun, but since you're leaving the general area of my tree, guess I'll be seein' ya." ...?

Nah, that's solved with livewood (from ECS, I think), a tree that doesn't die when it it's cut down. It's actually mentioned that a number of people have been upset when they realized their new china cabinets came with an angry dryad. No, the problem is that they only sort of stacked, so a Dryad 3 gaining its first level of Cleric would gain one spell from each of 0th-2nd level, plus domain spells (the increase from Cleric 3 to Cleric 4). As we weren't at a particularly high level, it led just enough spells to make her a living hwacha but none to have other fun with.

[BaronDoctor]

Rainbow Warsnake (Bit of a long story).
I played a Bard/Sublime Chord in a small campaign, so Leadership was allowed. (I eventually used it to have a traveling musical put together of our adventures that allowed us to work as spies and have more adventures; "Ripped from the headlines", last month's adventure where we stole the prisoners in a labor camp via Craft Contingent Spell: Teleport!).
My cohort was a level-two-entry Rainbow Warsnake, explained as she'd apprenticed to someone who went visiting couatls and ended up becoming a champion of stuff and had to leave her behind, but decided to leave her in my character's care. (I figured balancing Rainbow Warsnake by being behind two levels was all right). I explained it to the DM and the DM was cool with the wings, the domains...then I explained the 10th level feature and his jaw dropped when I explained what it actually meant.

I smiled and explained that just because I had an NPC Cleric of Torm girlfriend whose temple we cleared out...she had responsibilities there. She'd done plenty of good by me giving me a Holy Avenger (whether intentional or accidental) I could UMD into actually being a Holy Avenger. We weren't taking her with us and we did need the sort of thing a cleric could do.

[Extra Anchovies]

My cohort was a level-two-entry Rainbow Warsnake

How? Versatile Spellcaster shenanigans?

[Deox]

The Mailman
Pun-Pun (seriously, has anyone ever actually tried to get away with this abomination?)
The Psionic Sandwich



Mailman - Venerable Dragonwrought Sorcerer / Force Missile Mage / Incantatrix. Mid / High op game where the party did not have a lot of damage. Refused to cast anything but magic missile. Even crafted Rods of Many Wands for "guns" and handed out bandoliers to party members.

Pun-Pun - DragonCon some years back. An event called the "Cheese Grinder". Some people DMing were notorious for just being jerks and arbitrarily killing players. Characters were ECL 8 with whatever was available, and had to be approved by the judges. Apparently, not one of them either knew or had a problem with what I was doing. Elected to have all players at the tables I played with be able to accomplish whatever their little hearts desired.

Psionic Sandwich / Big Guy's With Me - One of the most fun characters I've ever played. Even used the save game trick after accidentally being eaten. "You guys, I had the most horrible nightmare. Someone tried to toast me!"

[Vaz]

It wasn't a jumplomancer, but it was a Lucid Dreaming-omancer. Basically, he impressed everyone with his sleeping so much he made them love him. It was roleplayed as everytime he hugged them, he was able to fill their thoughts with such amazing dreams of happiness and things they love that he won them over.

[Snowbluff]

None of them, unless you count Jumplomancy for when I do Iaijutsu.

[Gnome Alone]

Mailman - Venerable Dragonwrought Sorcerer / Force Missile Mage / Incantatrix. Mid / High op game where the party did not have a lot of damage. Refused to cast anything but magic missile. Even crafted Rods of Many Wands for "guns" and handed out bandoliers to party members.

Pun-Pun - DragonCon some years back. An event called the "Cheese Grinder". Some people DMing were notorious for just being jerks and arbitrarily killing players. Characters were ECL 8 with whatever was available, and had to be approved by the judges. Apparently, not one of them either knew or had a problem with what I was doing. Elected to have all players at the tables I played with be able to accomplish whatever their little hearts desired.

Psionic Sandwich / Big Guy's With Me - One of the most fun characters I've ever played. Even used the save game trick after accidentally being eaten. "You guys, I had the most horrible nightmare. Someone tried to toast me!"

Wow. Handed out magic gun bandoliers. Check. Used Pun-Pun as a force for good*. Check. Used psionic sandwich and the save-game trick - in conjunction. Check.

In the time-honored† tradition of the quasi-literate everywhere‡, I hereby award you the internet.

*Damn, bet that's a first.
†"time-honored" is here defined as "in the last decade or so"
‡"everywhere" here defined as "among a segment of primarily First World people with internet access"

[GreatDane]

It's important to remember that many of these builds are theoretical and not necessarily intended for actual play. Most people that actually brought an as-written Killer Gnome or Mailman to their gaming table would be asked to reroll or leave. The only "table" I've seen where that level of optimization is acceptable is right here on the forums. I've found that most people who play these builds use the general concept or a few of the building blocks. For example, I'm currently playing a gnome illusionist/master specialist/shadowcraft mage, and I intend to use Heighten Spell in conjunction with Shadow Illusions, but I don't plan to do the whole illusions-more-real-than-reality schtick.

EDIT: Which is all pretty implicit in the OP, since the point of the thread is to find out who's actually played them despite their semi-unplayability.

[AttilaTheGeek]

I did play a Sorcadin once, but in Pathfinder. It was tremendous fun. My build was Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 3 / Dragon Disciple 4 / Eldritch Knight, we started at 12 and ended at 15. The whole time I felt just as capable in melee as any paladin, but with more casting than a 6th-level caster of equivalent level.