[3.5] Athach Cleric 14 vs Regular Cleric 15

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

These comments got me to thinking:

Or Athach Cleric 14 at CR 15 (non-associated levels can be broken).

I don't really understand how that's broken. At CR 15 you could just be a 15th level Cleric. Is the fact that you're a funky three armed not-giant really adding anything to compare with 8th level spells? To really break non-associated levels you want something with a really big pile of HD per CR. Ideally, something with more than twice it's CR in HD so you can get critters with CRs lower than their Wizard levels. For example, a hypothetical CR 3 creature with 12 HD lets you make a CR 9 Wizard 12. There's nothing I can (quickly) find like that in the SRD except high end vermin, which are too high for the trick to do much good.

Well, personally I'd say that +16 Str, +10 Con, Huge Size and 133 extra HP is worth the level, but that's just my opinion.

...so just for the heck of of, I was wondering if anyone would take up the challenge? Can you build an optimized Cleric 15 (non-LA race), and how would it match up against an optimized Athach Cleric 14? How would you even best optimize the Athach? Would it be eligible for Epic feats?

Assume that both have PC level 15 wealth by level at their disposal for the sake of fairness.

Cheers - T

[jiriku]

Yes epic feats. It has over 21 HD.

Athach cleric 14 is significantly stronger than human cleric 15 because level adjustment. However, it's not the physical stats or size -- those can easily be had from spells. It's the increased hp, base saves, and base attack bonus, and the opportunity cost of the spell slots that the human cleric loses reproducing the athach's natural brawn and bulk. Now, the official line is that the two are equivalent in an encounter, because the athach's "versatility" doesn't come into play in a single encounter. However, the cleric 15 is the one with greater versatility here, so that explanation is bunk. I would expect the athach 14 and cleric 15 will have approximately equal offensive power, but the athach's superior durability will enable it to last an additional 2-3 rounds of combat and inflict correspondingly more damage before it goes down.

To add onto Brova's point, there are several printed monsters with wizard casting at a higher level than their CR. Cloaker lord, hobgoblin warsoul, and ursinal guardinal come to mind.

[AvatarVecna]

Part of the problem here is that there's such a huge discrepancy between the CR and ECL systems. By CR, the two are equal at CR 15...but that's acting under that assumption that an Attatch gains more from X levels of Fighter or Barbarian than they do from X levels of Cleric, which is so ridiculously absurdly false it's not even funny. The Cleric 15 is ECL 15, while the Attatch Cleric 14 is ECL 33 (clearly very advanced).

Can access to an extra level of spells make that much of a difference? Maybe, maybe not. One thing that would help in certain kinds of cleric battles is Veil of Undeath (a Cleric 8 spell that makes you essentially undead); you may lose your Con mod bonus HP, but you're also healed by negative energy (which evils clerics get for free), not to mention all those delicious immunities; if you made it an Invisible Spell, the Attatch cleric might try to Harm you near the end of the fight, only to heal you back up to full.

Of course, we're talking about two high-level casters here. Unless we're talking Tippy level optimization, this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html) is what the fight ends up looking like, since martial prowess is pretty arguably worthless when there's level 7+ spells flying around.

[Uncle Pine]

Given that they are both optimized, both the athach and the regular Cleric should share the same build. Thus, the only literal thing that the regular Cleric has over the athach is 8th level casting. A quick search through a couple of handbooks (I don't usually play Clerics) tells me that the useful stuff at that level is: Antimagic Field, Discern Location, Greater Spell Immunity, Cloak of Chaos/Holy Aura/Shield of Law/Unholy Aura, Summon Monster VIII, Mass Death Ward, Greater Blink, Foresight, Maze, Mind Blank, Moment of Prescience, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Polymorph any Object, Summon Nature's Ally VII, Sunburst and True Domination. Of these:
- Antimagic Field is negated by Initiate of Mystra;
- Greater Spell Immunity, Cloak of Chaos/Holy Aura/Shield of Law/Unholy Aura, Summon Monster VIII, Death Ward, Greater Blink, Foresight, Mind Blank and Summon Nature's Ally VIII will be dispelled with a chained twinned rapid greater dispel magic, because the athach has the extra feats necessary to pull something ridiculous as that and has a greater CL than the regular Cleric thanks to Practiced Spellcaster;
- Polymorph Any Object, Sunburst and True Domination offer a save and thus are useless (though Sunburst stil deals damage), as the atach has plenty of saves due to its increased HD;
- Discern Location isn't useful in combat;
- Maze can effectively be a problem, but is defeated by Plane Shift (5th level);
- Otto's Irresistible Dance is only usable if the regular Cleric can get past the athach's increased reach;
- Moment of Prescience is useful, because it means that the regular Cleric will likely win initiative.

Meanwhile the athach sports Huge size, +16 Str, +2 Des, +10 Con, +2 Wis (even though it has -4 Cha, which will hurt DMM), 14 HD with BAB, saves and 5 extra feats, can select up to 3 epic feats and has 3 arms.

I go all in on the athach.

[Brova]

Honestly, the real dividing line is going to be the athach's epic feats. polymorph any object means that the 15th level Cleric can just also be an athach, meaning his marginal power is going to be almost definitionally greater.

[Chronos]

This all presupposes that cleric is considered a non-associated class for athaches. While there are a few rules (or in most cases, guidelines) for which classes are associated, there aren't any for which ones are not, and if cleric levels really do more for an athach than fighter levels do, then cleric levels should probably be considered associated.

[Brova]

This all presupposes that cleric is considered a non-associated class for athaches. While there are a few rules (or in most cases, guidelines) for which classes are associated, there aren't any for which ones are not, and if cleric levels really do more for an athach than fighter levels do, then cleric levels should probably be considered associated.

Having the comparison point be Fighter levels is hardly fair. Advancing the athach's abberation hit dice is substantially better than giving him Fighter levels. That's not because being an abberation is broken, it's because Fighter is not a real class and should probably count as not associated even for melee brutes.

[Uncle Pine]

Honestly, the real dividing line is going to be the athach's epic feats. polymorph any object means that the 15th level Cleric can just also be an athach, meaning his marginal power is going to be almost definitionally greater.

PaO doesn't give the HD of the new form, although it does give the regular Cleric 7 Int (the average for an athach). How useful.

[Brova]

PaO doesn't give the HD of the new form, although it does give the regular Cleric 7 Int (the average for an athach). How useful.

Uh, those HD are not particularly useful. You aren't going to die because you took a bunch of hit point damage, you're going to die because you failed a save against death. Of course, it's also worth noting that the 15th Cleric could just do some other trick involving polymorph any object to stack together whatever things you happen to inherit based on whichever version of polymorph any object is current.

[Uncle Pine]

Uh, those HD are not particularly useful. You aren't going to die because you took a bunch of hit point damage, you're going to die because you failed a save against death.
Those HD are indeed useful, not only because they net you at least 133 hp (which frankly is nothing to sneeze at) but because they come with a +4/+4/+9 bonus to saves, or +9/+5/+10 after racial modifiers.

[Brova]

Those HD are indeed useful, not only because they net you at least 133 hp (which frankly is nothing to sneeze at) but because they come with a +4/+4/+9 bonus to saves, or +9/+5/+10 after racial modifiers.

The saves are good, I'll give you that - it might actually push the athach over depending on what the 15th level Cleric cons out of polymorph any object. But the HP don't matter in the kind of high lethality environment I assume this discussion is aimed at. A 15th level Rogue is looking at seven or more attacks (three from BAB + Perfect Two Weapon Fighting + haste is the minimum), for 12d6 damage each (1d6 flask + 9d6 sneak attack + 2d6 that shadow hand stance) which is an average of almost 300 damage. You can pump that up even more with abuse magic device for polymorph tricks. A 14th level athach Cleric has to roll max HP every level to survive average damage. And that's without Rapid Shot, Craven, abuse magic device, or dumpster diving for more sneak attack.

[Hellborn_Blight]

A 15th level Rogue is looking at seven or more attacks (three from BAB + Perfect Two Weapon Fighting + haste is the minimum), for 12d6 damage each (1d6 flask + 9d6 sneak attack + 2d6 that shadow hand stance) which is an average of almost 300 damage. You can pump that up even more with abuse magic device for polymorph tricks. A 14th level athach Cleric has to roll max HP every level to survive average damage. And that's without Rapid Shot, Craven, abuse magic device, or dumpster diving for more sneak attack.

And the second level spell Living Undeath, a prime DMM persist target, negates that. But best not to go off into irrelevant hypotheticals, as a 14 cleric anything destroys a 15 rouge.

I'm going Athach all the way. Higher caster level (if you are doing it right), additional feats some epic, save bonuses. Eighth level spells just can't stack up against those differences.

[Brova]

And the second level spell Living Undeath, a prime DMM persist target, negates that. But best not to go off into irrelevant hypotheticals, as a 14 cleric anything destroys a 15 rouge.

Someone under the effect of living undeath is "not subject to sneak attacks and critical hits for the duration of the spell, as if it were undead". Presumably that includes the bit where grave strike overrides your immunity.


I'm going Athach all the way. Higher caster level (if you are doing it right), additional feats some epic, save bonuses. Eighth level spells just can't stack up against those differences.

You underestimate the absurdity that is polymorph any object. Now, the epic feats probably tip things in the athach's favor because of epic spellcasting, but it's a lot closer than people seem to believe. The only reason this isn't a clear win for the 15th level Cleric is not getting shapechange yet.

[Pilo]

If the Athach is really optimized, it would have the leadership feat, with the average score (15+14-2 = 27), it gives him a level 17 cohort, which can be an optimized wizard, cleric or druid, which brings 9th level spells in the game for the athach team.

(Useless post, now there would be a no leadership close in the question)

Most epic spellcasting feats require to cast 9th level spells before taking them.

[Hellborn_Blight]

Someone under the effect of living undeath is "not subject to sneak attacks and critical hits for the duration of the spell, as if it were undead". Presumably that includes the bit where grave strike overrides your immunity.

No it doesn't.

Living Undeath
This spell imparts a physical transformation upon the subject, not unlike the process that produces a zombie. While the subject does not actually become undead, its vital processes are temporarily bypassed with no seeming ill effect. The subject is not subject to sneak attacks and critical hits for the duration of the spell, as if it were undead.

Grave Strike.
For 1 round, you can deliver sneak attacks against undead as if they were not immune to extra damage from sneak attacks. To attack an undead creature in this manner, you must still meet the other requirements for making a sneak attack.
This spell applies only to sneak attack damage. It gives you no ability to affect undead with critical hits, nor does it confer any special ability to overcome the damage reduction or other defenses of undead creatures.

Emphasis mine.

You are still living, thus grave strike does nothing for you. It doesn't matter that the immunity to crits is that of an undead, grave strike only lets you by pass the immunity of an undead creature, and living undeath does not turn you into an undead. Truedeath Crystal has the same problem, as it only effects undead creatures. Specifics are important and relevant.

[Brova]

You are still living, thus grave strike does nothing for you. It doesn't matter that the immunity to crits is that of an undead, grave strike only lets you by pass the immunity of an undead creature, and living undeath does not turn you into an undead. Truedeath Crystal has the same problem, as it only effects undead creatures. Specifics are important and relevant.

Yes, you aren't undead but you are immune to sneak attacks and criticals "as if it [you] were undead". Undead are not immune to sneak attacks by a Rogue under the effect of grave strike. The question is then whether you are treated as undead for the purpose of resolving sneak attacks and criticals (in which case grave strike works) or you are immune to sneak attacks and criticals and the text serves only to remind you that undead also have this immunity.

[jiriku]

I am not feeling this "133 hp is irrelevant" argument. Even in extremely high-op groups, monsters with several hundred hp and the defenses of a buffed tier 1 full-caster do not get one-shotted via hp damage on a routine basis. No matter how you slice it, a 25+ percentile improvement in saving throws, 130+ extra hp, four extra feats, and a non-dispellable form with huge size and multiple natural attacks is quite valuable. Against that, a human cleric 15 is bringing to the table one extra 5th level spell slot and three 8th level spell slots.

Now, maybe those spell slots are worth it. 8th level spells gets you death pact, which is arguably as good as having many hit points. Brilliant aura and mass death ward make you quite valuable in a group -- but that still doesn't approach the options available to the athach cleric.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Epic feats and substantial chassis upgrades > 8th level spells. If the Athach really needs some 8th level spell to make it competitive he could always have a scroll as part of his treasure.

Like Chronos, however, I doubt how useful it is to take the most lenient interpretation of associated class guidelines to determine who's the most powerful monster at a particular CR. That's like abusing custom magic item guidelines to create a powerful PC. Why not just use the stuff explicitly printed in the book?

Really it's more fun to take a monster straight from the book (or, in a Dragon's case, make sure the written chassis is doing the heavy lifting, like with Steel Dragons or Fang Dragons).

[Uncle Pine]

Like Chronos, however, I doubt how useful it is to take the most lenient interpretation of associated class guidelines to determine who's the most powerful monster at a particular CR. That's like abusing custom magic item guidelines to create a powerful PC. Why not just use the stuff explicitly printed in the book?

Read the OP again. That's why.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Read the OP again. That's why.Do you mean the OP that explicitly mentioned the thread to which I referred?

[Uncle Pine]

Do you mean the OP that explicitly mentioned the thread to which I referred?

Yes. You asked what's the point in abusing non-associated class rules to create unde CRed monsters and the OP answers to that question. The question isn't whether or not non-associated class rules are broken (everyone seems to understand they are), but whether or not they're more broken than 8th level spells in this specific istance (as detailed in the OP).

I wasn't trying to insinuate that you didn't read the OP. I'm sorry if that's what it looked like.

[jiriku]

Really it's more fun to take a monster straight from the book

Oh my goodness! Really no. No no no no. There are so many kinds of awesome produced by advancing and modifying monsters.

[StreamOfTheSky]

My first thought: Cleric 15 has higher level spells, so it wins.
My 2nd thought: But wait, the Athach Cleric 14 has a higher CL (Practiced Spellcaster)...possibly MUCH higher CL if the feat can be taken multiple times (I seriously don't know, it's not the sort of situation you usually see in a caster build).

So either Cleric 15 wins on 8th level spellcasting, or Athach Cleric 14 wins by having such a massive CL disparity that Blasphemy (or one of its alignment variants) auto-wins the fight. The thought of the Athach racial HD, beyond as a source for more effective caster levels, never even entered my mind. I guess they are also good for epic feat access, and maybe for an even bigger boost to BAB from Divine Power. That's about it, though. Spells are what matter for this.

[ksbsnowowl]

My first thought: Cleric 15 has higher level spells, so it wins.
My 2nd thought: But wait, the Athach Cleric 14 has a higher CL (Practiced Spellcaster)...possibly MUCH higher CL if the feat can be taken multiple times (I seriously don't know, it's not the sort of situation you usually see in a caster build).

So either Cleric 15 wins on 8th level spellcasting, or Athach Cleric 14 wins by having such a massive CL disparity that Blasphemy (or one of its alignment variants) auto-wins the fight. The thought of the Athach racial HD, beyond as a source for more effective caster levels, never even entered my mind. I guess they are also good for epic feat access, and maybe for an even bigger boost to BAB from Divine Power. That's about it, though. Spells are what matter for this.

Practiced Spellcaster can only apply once per casting class. So Athach Cleric 14 with a CL of 18, vs. a Human Cleric 15 with a CL of 15.

What that does present, though, is a situation where if the Human Cleric used Consumptive Field, he still won't get a high enough CL to even affect the Athach with Blasphemy, et al. But the Athach can get his CL high enough with Consumptive Field to kill the human cleric outright.

[DrMartin]

The Athach can craft so many more contingent spell than the straight cleric is not even funny

[Chronos]

Epic feats are lackluster at low-optimization, because all the good caster epic feats (including Epic Spellcasting, the automatic metamagics, and Multispell) require the ability to cast 9th-level spells. On the other hand, there are ways to meet that requirement as a cleric 14, involving Heighten and similar effects. They usually cost a lot of feats, but we've got plenty of those available.

We can also just ignore the epic feats and take a whole bunch of non-epic feats. A whole bunch of Extra Turning can be a great help for a persisting cleric: Sure, no single spell will be as good as the 8th-level ones, but there are still plenty of low-level persistable spells, and the athach will be able to get more of them.

On the other hand, though, the humanoid cleric will be able to take prestige classes, but the athach is based on the premise that it's taking non-associated levels, and prestige classes are always associated. So the athach will be short any prestige class benefits, in addition to its lesser casting.

[Brova]

Epic feats are lackluster at low-optimization, because all the good caster epic feats (including Epic Spellcasting, the automatic metamagics, and Multispell) require the ability to cast 9th-level spells. On the other hand, there are ways to meet that requirement as a cleric 14, involving Heighten and similar effects. They usually cost a lot of feats, but we've got plenty of those available.

If you want to take epic feats, the Cleric 15 can do that too. Loremaster can be entered as a Cleric and grants you "any one feat" as a class ability. That includes, say, Epic Spellcasting. He'll only get one epic spell slot, but the broken part of epic spells isn't casting more than one of them a day.


On the other hand, though, the humanoid cleric will be able to take prestige classes, but the athach is based on the premise that it's taking non-associated levels, and prestige classes are always associated. So the athach will be short any prestige class benefits, in addition to its lesser casting.

Okay, I think the Cleric 15 takes it in that case. Cleric 4/Dweomerkeeper 10/Loremaster 1 (with the difference engine) or Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 10 (without the difference engine) is probably sufficiently better than even Cleric 15 thanks to supernatural spell cheese (i.e. awaken loops, permanency abuse, limited wish). Frankly, there's probably some better option for all those spare level after Dweomerkeeper 4.

[Uncle Pine]

Okay, I think the Cleric 15 takes it in that case. Cleric 4/Dweomerkeeper 10/Loremaster 1 (with the difference engine) or Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 10 (without the difference engine) is probably sufficiently better than even Cleric 15 thanks to supernatural spell cheese (i.e. awaken loops, permanency abuse, limited wish). Frankly, there's probably some better option for all those spare level after Dweomerkeeper 4.

I feel obliged to say that in the OP you didn't argue about a Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 10 (or a Cleric X/any other combination of classes Y, with X+Y=15) to be better than an athach Cleric 14. We're talking about straight Cleric against straight athach Cleric here.

I also feel like Pilo made an excellent point in post #14, even though he's been ignored:

If the Athach is really optimized, it would have the leadership feat, with the average score (15+14-2 = 27), it gives him a level 17 cohort, which can be an optimized wizard, cleric or druid, which brings 9th level spells in the game for the athach team.
An athach Cleric 14 with (Epic) Leadership has access to a cohort with at least 9th level spells. If someone thinks that Cleric 15 crushes athach Cleric 14 because the former has 8th level spells, 9th are going to crush the regular Cleric so hard there'll be nothing to cast Resurrection on left.

[Brova]

I feel obliged to say that in the OP you didn't argue about a Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 10 (or a Cleric X/any other combination of classes Y, with X+Y=15) to be better than an athach Cleric 14. We're talking about straight Cleric against straight athach Cleric here.

That's true. I was responding to someone who raised the point about taking PrCs. Honestly, the differences come down to how and how much the builds are optimized. With minimal optimization, it's probably about even with 8th level spells matching up against a physically superior chasis. With reasonable optimization as straight Clerics, athach pulls ahead because he can take advantage of racial hit dice but the Cleric 15 can't take advantage of PrCs. With everything open, the Cleric 15 pulls ahead again because there are some nuts Cleric PrCs. Epic or leadership messes with stuff a bit, but it's ultimately something both of them can do to a very respectable degree.


An athach Cleric 14 with (Epic) Leadership has access to a cohort with at least 9th level spells. If someone thinks that Cleric 15 crushes athach Cleric 14 because the former has 8th level spells, 9th are going to crush the regular Cleric so hard there'll be nothing to cast Resurrection on left.

At that point the Cleric can just take leadership for a cohort with a level of Loremaster and epic spellcasting. Leadership is (IMO) not really going to prove much of anything, because you could always take leadership for any of the known-broken tricks out there.

[Uncle Pine]

At that point the Cleric can just take leadership for a cohort with a level of Loremaster and epic spellcasting. Leadership is (IMO) not really going to prove much of anything, because you could always take leadership for any of the known-broken tricks out there.

Even with Leadership on the table, the regular Cleric still ends up losing: a regular Cleric 15 optimized for Leadership can only have a 13th level cohort, while an athach Cleric 14 can have a 27th level cohort. A 13th level character (if we assume he has grabbed Epic Spellcasting in any way) can only cast 16/10=1 epic spell, while a 27th level character can cast 3 of them (30/10=3). Assuming equal optimization, 3 epic spells beat 1 epic spell, thus the athach wins.

You can say that this doesn't prove anything because a duel like the one described above tells us more about the cohorts' strength than the two Clerics', but such an argument doesn't make much sense: with the given restrictions (athach must be a 14th level Cleric, regular Cleric must be a 15th level Cleric), anything that can guarantee victory to one of the two parts is relevant. In this case we learned that the athach can abuse Leadership better than the regular Cleric, which leads to the athach's victory unless the regular Cleric can somehow beat the athach and his epic cohort.

[Brova]

Even with Leadership on the table, the regular Cleric still ends up losing: a regular Cleric 15 optimized for Leadership can only have a 13th level cohort, while an athach Cleric 14 can have a 27th level cohort. A 13th level character (if we assume he has grabbed Epic Spellcasting in any way) can only cast 16/10=1 epic spell, while a 27th level character can cast 3 of them (30/10=3). Assuming equal optimization, 3 epic spells beat 1 epic spell, thus the athach wins.

Every version of leadership prevents you from having cohorts of higher than your level. The athach is at best getting another Cleric 14. That might be worth it because that Cleric can have whatever PrCs he wants, but at that point the other Cleric could simply have his own mini-me chain of cohorts with identical stats. At best, you can argue that "level" and "hit dice" are used interchangeably in which case the Cleric 15 recruits a Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 7/Loremaster 1 (or Cleric 3/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5/Loremaster 1 with the difference engine) who can repeatedly awaken himself with the combination of limited wish, polymorph, and supernatural spell. That gives him an even bigger pile of hit dice than the athach and lets him recruit an even more insane cohort.

Honestly though, that doesn't prove that athach Cleric 14 is brokenly good, it proves that epic spellcasting is brokenly good and getting minions more powerful than you are is brokenly good. Before this discussion can really proceed, it needs to be determined what conditions are being optimized for and what broken loops are allowed. For example, in a core only, no epic situation, the Cleric 15 is better because the athach lost everything (except leadership) but the Cleric still gets polymorph any object. If we're comparing straight Clerics with all sources allowed and a gentleman's agreement not to break too much, the athach pulls ahead thanks to more turning and better caster level. If you don't set some restrictions, every character has the same (essentially infinite) power because someone forgot to restrict the magic items wish creates.

[Segev]

Without (further) shenanigans, the Athach Cleric 14 has 28 HD, and thus for purposes of Leadership either qualifies as "level 28" or "level 33," depending on whether ECL counts towards Leadership's measure of your "level."

If it does, this is the one area where ECL/LA actually can help you, by letting you have a cohort who is higher level than you otherwise could.

Regardless, either interpretation means the Athach Cleric with Leadership has a cohort of at least ECL 26.

[Brova]

Without (further) shenanigans, the Athach Cleric 14 has 28 HD, and thus for purposes of Leadership either qualifies as "level 28" or "level 33," depending on whether ECL counts towards Leadership's measure of your "level."

If it does, this is the one area where ECL/LA actually can help you, by letting you have a cohort who is higher level than you otherwise could.

Regardless, either interpretation means the Athach Cleric with Leadership has a cohort of at least ECL 26.

I covered that. A Dweomerkeeper can cheese his "level" (via awaken hit dice) up to any point you care to name, and even if the Cleric 15 can't be one, his cohort certainly can. Also, there is not to my knowledge any indication leadership uses "level" as "character level" rather than "class level". D&D uses level in too many different contexts to claim that it is definitively one or the other without some kind of backup.

[Segev]

I covered that. A Dweomerkeeper can cheese his "level" (via awaken hit dice) up to any point you care to name, and even if the Cleric 15 can't be one, his cohort certainly can. Also, there is not to my knowledge any indication leadership uses "level" as "character level" rather than "class level". D&D uses level in too many different contexts to claim that it is definitively one or the other without some kind of backup.

Nowhere does it indicate that it uses "class level" as opposed to any other definition, either. It seems highly unlikely that multi-classing is supposed to hinder your Leadership Score nor your ability to recruit cohorts. If it were, that sounds like the kind of thing that would have been called out at some point in the long history of 3.5's rules. All evidences and examples we have seem to be to the contrary: that it is your character level, not class level (and if so, in which class?) that determines your cohort's maximum level.

To claim it's "class level" requires answering a number of other questions, and actually represents a pretty big paradigm shift in most Leadership-based designs: no multi-class Leader (including those with PrCs) will be as effective as a single-class Leader.

[Uncle Pine]

I covered that. A Dweomerkeeper can cheese his "level" (via awaken hit dice) up to any point you care to name, and even if the Cleric 15 can't be one, his cohort certainly can. Also, there is not to my knowledge any indication leadership uses "level" as "character level" rather than "class level". D&D uses level in too many different contexts to claim that it is definitively one or the other without some kind of backup.

Level is "character level" by default. Any abilities that is keyed of class levels specifies "class level".

By the way, before continuing I'll ask you a question: since you seem to think that a single Cleric level is better than an athach's chassis, would you allow any of your players or NPCs to switch one Cleric level with +133 hp, +16 Str, +2 Dex, +10 Con, -4 Int, +2 Wis, -4 Cha, +9 Fort, +5 Ref, +10 Will, 3 arms, poison, darkvision, Huge size, 5 bonus feats, 50 ft. base speed and some skill points? Would you claim that this switch made your NPC/player weaker?

Regardless of the answer to the question, I'm positive that at any optimization level, the athach will kick the regular Cleric's ass. So flesh a Cleric build, set any condition (i.e. core only, mo Leadership) and let's settle this.

[Segev]

Level is "character level" by default. Any abilities that is keyed of class levels specifies "class level".

By the way, before continuing I'll ask you a question: since you seem to think that a single Cleric level is better than an athach's chassis, would you allow any of your players or NPCs to switch one Cleric level with +133 hp, +16 Str, +2 Dex, +10 Con, -4 Int, +2 Wis, -4 Cha, +9 Fort, +5 Ref, +10 Will, 3 arms, poison, darkvision, Huge size, 5 bonus feats, 50 ft. base speed and some skill points? Would you claim that this switch made your NPC/player weaker?

Regardless of the answer to the question, I'm positive that at any optimization level, the athach will kick the regular Cleric's ass. So flesh a Cleric build, set any condition (i.e. core only, mo Leadership) and let's settle this.

Interestingly, because this is about CR, which is about single hostile encounters, this is one of those rare moments when the face-to-face combat challenge is actually a good test!

(Usually, these things get brought up in "is this class overpowered?" threads, and people pit, say, an optimized monk against an optimized druid, when the true test for such things should be gauntlets of dungeon encounters, because the two aren't designed to fight each other so much as to overcome obstacles.)

[Brova]

By the way, before continuing I'll ask you a question: since you seem to think that a single Cleric level is better than an athach's chassis, would you allow any of your players or NPCs to switch one Cleric level with +133 hp, +16 Str, +2 Dex, +10 Con, -4 Int, +2 Wis, -4 Cha, +9 Fort, +5 Ref, +10 Will, 3 arms, poison, darkvision, Huge size, 5 bonus feats, 50 ft. base speed and some skill points? Would you claim that this switch made your NPC/player weaker?

polymorph any object is an 8th level spell in the trickery domain. The only part of that which you lose by using polymorph any object instead of being an athach is the hit dice and associated hit points and saves. In the face of the level of lethality high level D&D presents, only the saves are relevant. To be fair, it's a substantial jump even with the bonus the 15th level Cleric gets from stacking the +2's from PrCs. Unfortunately, it's got to contend with supernatural spell, circle magic, spontaneous casting, and planar binding.


Regardless of the answer to the question, I'm positive that at any optimization level, the athach will kick the regular Cleric's ass. So flesh a Cleric build, set any condition (i.e. core only, mo Leadership) and let's settle this.

The important thing to remember is that the athach can't take prestige classes without giving up the nominal equality the question is premised on. So the initial build is Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5/Anything that advances casting 1. You can cast any Cleric spell spontaneously thanks to acorn of far travel (emulated via supernatural limited wish), you get circle magic to boost your casting to absurd levels, you can use a supernatural limited wish to cast awaken on yourself giving you extra HD and charisma, and thanks to your mammoth HD you can do all the tricks the athach does with epic feats even better. I'm not even sure it matters what the ban list is at that point, because PrCs usurp the athach's main advantage.

[Segev]

Would somebody mind explaining how awaken can be cast on the hypothetical cleric, and how that's boosting HD and such?

[Extra Anchovies]

polymorph any object is an 8th level spell in the trickery domain. The only part of that which you lose by using polymorph any object instead of being an athach is the hit dice and associated hit points and saves. In the face of the level of lethality high level D&D presents, only the saves are relevant. To be fair, it's a substantial jump even with the bonus the 15th level Cleric gets from stacking the +2's from PrCs. Unfortunately, it's got to contend with supernatural spell, circle magic, spontaneous casting, and planar binding.

The important thing to remember is that the athach can't take prestige classes without giving up the nominal equality the question is premised on. So the initial build is Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5/Anything that advances casting 1. You can cast any Cleric spell spontaneously thanks to acorn of far travel (emulated via supernatural limited wish), you get circle magic to boost your casting to absurd levels, you can use a supernatural limited wish to cast awaken on yourself giving you extra HD and charisma, and thanks to your mammoth HD you can do all the tricks the athach does with epic feats even better. I'm not even sure it matters what the ban list is at that point, because PrCs usurp the athach's main advantage.

What are you doing with dweomerkeeper levels? The challenge is this:

Can you build an optimized Cleric 15 (non-LA race), and how would it match up against an optimized Athach Cleric 14?

If we're allowing the LA 0 cleric to prestige, we should allow the Athach to do so as well.

[Brova]

Would somebody mind explaining how awaken can be cast on the hypothetical cleric, and how that's boosting HD and such?

There are several different things to resolve here, so this will take a while.

First, becoming a legal target for awaken. awaken specifies that it targets "a tree or animal". Now, our hypothetical Cleric is neither a tree nor an animal. Fortunately, polymorph can help. polymorph transforms you into a creature of a certain set of types of up to your hit dice. These types include animal, and polymorph states: "The subject’s creature type and subtype (if any) change to match the new form." So all our Cleric needs to do to be awakened is have polymorph cast on him or cast it himself. At this point he will be an animal and thus a valid target for awaken.

Second, casting awaken. Obviously awaken is not a Cleric spell. To my knowledge the only spell list awaken exists on is the PHB Druid list. This seems like an insurmountable hurdle, but it is not. Our Cleric is a worshiper of Mystra (both for the initiate of mystra feat and the Hathran PrC) and she offers the Spell domain. This domain has limited wish as it's 7th level spell. limited wish allows the Cleric to emulate "any other [non-sorcerer/wizard] spell of 5th level or lower". As awaken is 5th level, it can be emulated. Normally this would cost XP, but supernatural spell allows the Cleric to avoid the XP cost of limited wish, including the additional XP for emulating awaken.

Third, the benefits of awaken. This part is simple. You get +1d3 Cha and +2 HD. Arguably you get +3d6 Int, but the Cleric doesn't care. The only real question is what kind of hit dice you get. Presumably they are probably magical beast hit dice (as the spell turns an animal into a magical beast), but the spell doesn't specify.

Finally, stacking awaken. awaken can be stacked on a basic level by simply changing your type from magical beast back to animal. But there's one problem. To awaken an animal, you have to make a will save against 10 + it's HD. That's a problem if the Cleric wants to repeatedly awaken himself, as his hit dice are increasing but his will save is not. The simple solution is to use force of personality to key will saves off of Cha rather than Wis, but that doesn't quite keep up unless you can maximize and empower your awakens. Fortunately, divine metamagic exists. If the Cleric doesn't want to spend the feats, he can simply drain off the HD.


If we're allowing the LA 0 cleric to prestige, we should allow the Athach to do so as well.

Well, someone pointed out that PrCs are always associated. Assuming that's true, it's an advantage to the Cleric 15. Not allowing him to abuse that but allowing the athach to abuse its racial hit dice seems to me a misrepresentation of their relative threats. The question is whether a CR 15 NPC Cleric benefits more from being an athach (which costs 1 class level) or not. Failing to allow PrCs warps the threat level.

[Segev]

Hm. That's an interesting process. The one major hole in it I see is the question of whether changing to "animal" type can "stick." That is, you have an Int greater than 2, which by definition of the "animal" type is not allowed; it becomes a "magical beast" when an animal's int exceeds 2. So does that not make the cleric immediately a "magical beast?"

[Brova]

Hm. That's an interesting process. The one major hole in it I see is the question of whether changing to "animal" type can "stick." That is, you have an Int greater than 2, which by definition of the "animal" type is not allowed; it becomes a "magical beast" when an animal's int exceeds 2. So does that not make the cleric immediately a "magical beast?"

The specific text in this instance is: "no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher can be an animal". There are problems with that. First, there's a conflict here between polymorph setting your type (an allowance) and the animal type saying you can't have 3 or more Int (a restriction). I'd be inclined to rule that this is a case of specific (polymorph giving you a type) overriding general (animals must have 1 or 2 Int). Second, it's not entirely clear what happens if an animal does have 3 or more Int. awaken gives an animal an Int of at least 3, but it also sets the animal's type to magical beast. It's possible that the sentence is descriptive rather than prescriptive (i.e. that no creature with an Int of 3 or more is an animal, not that a creature with an Int of 3 or more cannot become an animal). IMO, the trick is rules legal (although definitely too powerful for most games), but you can certainly mount a fairly reasonable argument that it is not.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Was there a specific reason the athach cleric couldn't also use this awaken loop? They can cast limited wish and polymorph, and with the ECL they have + thought bottles, the XP cost is very managable. It's not unlimited, but if this becomes a contest between the two loops, it becomes a matter of who is older. The older person will have more time to boost their cha and regain XP.

[Brova]

Was there a specific reason the athach cleric couldn't also use this awaken loop? They can cast limited wish and polymorph, and with the ECL they have + thought bottles, the XP cost is very managable. It's not unlimited, but if this becomes a contest between the two loops, it becomes a matter of who is older. The older person will have more time to boost their cha and regain XP.

Sure. But supernatural spell puts the Cleric 15 at an advantage. If the athach wants to do the trick at all, it bumps him down to a Cleric 13 due to the 500 XP cost of using a though bottle. And the loop isn't even the only advantage the build gives you. Spontaneous casting off the entire Cleric list is a pretty big game, as is circle magic.

[Uncle Pine]

Well, someone pointed out that PrCs are always associated. Assuming that's true, it's an advantage to the Cleric 15. Not allowing him to abuse that but allowing the athach to abuse its racial hit dice seems to me a misrepresentation of their relative threats. The question is whether a CR 15 NPC Cleric benefits more from being an athach (which costs 1 class level) or not. Failing to allow PrCs warps the threat level.

No, your point was that Cleric 15 > athach Cleric 14. If you're willing to retract your argument we can go on and ask ourselves if "priest" 15 (with "priest" being any combination of classes with a clerical or divine motif) is better than athach Cleric 14, otherwise we are stuck with straight Clerics. Again, remember that you set this restriction.

[Brova]

No, your point was that Cleric 15 > athach Cleric 14. If you're willing to retract your argument we can go on and ask ourselves if "priest" 15 (with "priest" being any combination of classes with a clerical or divine motif) is better than athach Cleric 14, otherwise we are stuck with straight Clerics. Again, remember that you set this restriction.

Uh, what? I mean, I get that I said "Cleric 15", but in my mind that's shorthand for "five Cleric levels and a stack of PrCs". The Cleric class is five levels long. No one is taking levels 6 - 20 of Cleric, because they have to offer you. Frankly, you wouldn't take level 2 of Cleric except that there aren't PrCs at that point.

[Uncle Pine]

Uh, what? I mean, I get that I said "Cleric 15", but in my mind that's shorthand for "five Cleric levels and a stack of PrCs". The Cleric class is five levels long. No one is taking levels 6 - 20 of Cleric, because they have to offer you. Frankly, you wouldn't take level 2 of Cleric except that there aren't PrCs at that point.

That's a different thing altogether. Claiming that a 14th level athach is better than any given 15th level X is an empty boast, as it's the same as claiming that Aberration 14/Cleric 14 is the ultimate unbeatable build. And IIRC there is at least a way to get 9th at 1st level or something equally ridiculous, so we can legitimately concur that Aberration 14/Cleric 14 is not the ultimate 3.5 build. But it's still a better build than Cleric 15, if we're talking about CR instead of ECL.

So I get that you agree than athach Cleric 14 > LA +0 Cleric 15?

[Brova]

So I get that you agree than athach Cleric 14 > LA +0 Cleric 15?

In general it probably has an edge. Not as much as people seem to think, especially in core, but there's something there. It is heavily dependent on what's banned though. For example, if greater planar binding is on the table, but chain binding/efreet wishes aren't, the Cleric 15 pulls ahead. Basically, there's a lot of variability.

[Extra Anchovies]

The Athach has 29 HD. That's three epic feats.

The Athach can natively cast spells of up to 7th level. A Sanctum, Earth Spell, Heightened (+1) 6th-level spell uses a 7th-level spell slot, and is cast as a 9th-level spell inside the Athach's sanctum.

The Athach, by nature of being able to cast 9th-level spells, and by having more than enough room in their build for 24 ranks in Spellcraft and Knowledge (Religion).

Thus, the Athach can qualify for Epic Spellcasting.

Sorry, did someone say the Cleric 15 has a chance?

[Uncle Pine]

In general it probably has an edge. Not as much as people seem to think, especially in core, but there's something there. It is heavily dependent on what's banned though. For example, if greater planar binding is on the table, but chain binding/efreet wishes aren't, the Cleric 15 pulls ahead. Basically, there's a lot of variability.

Greater Planar Binding is a Sor/Wiz spell. In general, I noticed that the only strategies the 15th level Cleric seems to be able to use against the athach are based on a couple of spells tgat the athach can easily replicate with a scroll. Yes, you can easily start chain binding eefret if you have access to a higher level of spells, but if you have 14 HD of cross-class UMD ranks, you'll easily use any sort of scrolls. I really fail to see how the regular Cleric can beat the athach without resorting to cheap tricks that are easily replicated with clever use of wealth, while the athach has various consistent mechanical benefits over the regular Cleric.

EDIT: @Necrocarnum Fisherman: Now that's a nice catch.

[Brova]

Greater Planar Binding is a Sor/Wiz spell. In general, I noticed that the only strategies the 15th level Cleric seems to be able to use against the athach are based on a couple of spells tgat the athach can easily replicate with a scroll. Yes, you can easily start chain binding eefret if you have access to a higher level of spells, but if you have 14 HD of cross-class UMD ranks, you'll easily use any sort of scrolls. I really fail to see how the regular Cleric can beat the athach without resorting to cheap tricks that are easily replicated with clever use of wealth, while the athach has various consistent mechanical benefits over the regular Cleric.

greater planar binding is available both as a bonus spell from the Hathran PrC and as a domain spell from the Demonic domain. But yes, specific spells can be replicated. The straight Cleric 15 build is at a disadvantage in many (but not all) cases. It goes (as a general rule) PrC'd Cleric > athach Cleric > vanilla Cleric. Obviously there are exceptions, but that's the general trend. The athach's hit dice give it a big advantage over a vanilla Cleric, but it can't keep up with circle magic and spontaneous casting, especially with awaken undermining it's HD advantage.

[Uncle Pine]

greater planar binding is available both as a bonus spell from the Hathran PrC and as a domain spell from the Demonic domain. But yes, specific spells can be replicated. The straight Cleric 15 build is at a disadvantage in many (but not all) cases. It goes (as a general rule) PrC'd Cleric > athach Cleric > vanilla Cleric. Obviously there are exceptions, but that's the general trend. The athach's hit dice give it a big advantage over a vanilla Cleric, but it can't keep up with circle magic and spontaneous casting, especially with awaken undermining it's HD advantage.

Keep in mind that a 15th level "Cleric" (I'm going to use quotation marks when talking about a multiclassed or PrCed Cleric) that has been awakened multiple times isn't a 15th level "Cleric" anymore: he's actually a "Cleric" 15/Magical beast NI, a NIth level character*. There isn't much to say about the power of a NIth level character.

*Just to provide an additional example, a 15th level necropolitan Cleric that has lived for a sufficiently long amount of time is also a NIth level character, as he automatically grabbed the Evolved Undead template NI times. I know it's different from the awaken-based example because here you're stacking LA and CR instead of HD, but I know you'll see the common points.

[Brova]

Keep in mind that a 15th level "Cleric" (I'm going to use quotation marks when talking about a multiclassed or PrCed Cleric) that has been awakened multiple times isn't a 15th level "Cleric" anymore: he's actually a "Cleric" 15/Magical beast NI, a NIth level character*. There isn't much to say about the power of a NIth level character.

That's not really true. awaken doesn't indicate a CR increase, and even if you count the HD as advancement, there's always the avenue of burning them off with wights (or whatever). As a player, it's even more clear cut. ECL counts three things: racial hit dice, class levels, and level adjustment. In reverse order, awaken doesn't list a level adjustment, grants no class levels, and while it grants hit dice they are not racial. And again, burning the HD with level drain negates the issue entirely.


*Just to provide an additional example, a 15th level necropolitan Cleric that has lived for a sufficiently long amount of time is also a NIth level character, as he automatically grabbed the Evolved Undead template NI times. I know it's different from the awaken-based example because here you're stacking LA and CR instead of HD, but I know you'll see the common points.

100% with you conceptually. It's a very similar trick. But the holes in the rules are such that while a Cleric who has been awakened an arbitrary number of times is ECL 15 while a necropolitan who has evolved an arbitrary number of times is ECL Lots.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Page 7 of the Monster Manual: Level Adjustment [...] Add this number to the creature’s total Hit Dice, including class levels, to get the creature’s effective character level (ECL).
Page 172 of the Dungeon Master's Guide: Add a monster’s level adjustment to its Hit Dice and class levels to get the creature’s effective character level, or ECL.

It doesn't matter what kind of HD they are. Awaken HD aren't bonus HD, like inspire greatness' HD, in case that was a concern. Awaken increases ECL.

[Brova]

Page 7 of the Monster Manual: Level Adjustment [...] Add this number to the creature’s total Hit Dice, including class levels, to get the creature’s effective character level (ECL).
Page 172 of the Dungeon Master's Guide: Add a monster’s level adjustment to its Hit Dice and class levels to get the creature’s effective character level, or ECL.

It doesn't matter what kind of HD they are. Awaken HD aren't bonus HD, like inspire greatness' HD, in case that was a concern. Awaken increases ECL.

The SRD disagrees:


To determine the effective character level (ECL) of a monster character, add its level adjustment to its racial Hit Dice and character class levels.

[Segev]

Do recall that the Athach Cleric 14 is only CR 15 as long as he retains nothing but "non-synnergistic" levels. Go ahead and PrC the Athach, but the PrC levels cost 2 cleric levels apiece to keep it CR 15, because the Athach's PrC levels are 1:1 for CR whereas the cleric levels they're replacing were 2:1::levels:CR.

[Extra Anchovies]

Do recall that the Athach Cleric 14 is only CR 15 as long as he retains nothing but "non-synnergistic" levels. Go ahead and PrC the Athach, but the PrC levels cost 2 cleric levels apiece to keep it CR 15, because the Athach's PrC levels are 1:1 for CR whereas the cleric levels they're replacing were 2:1::levels:CR.

Supernatural Spell may be nice, but it's nothing next to Epic Spellcasting. Did anyone even see my post where I showed how the Athach can qualify?

[Uncle Pine]

Do recall that the Athach Cleric 14 is only CR 15 as long as he retains nothing but "non-synnergistic" levels. Go ahead and PrC the Athach, but the PrC levels cost 2 cleric levels apiece to keep it CR 15, because the Athach's PrC levels are 1:1 for CR whereas the cleric levels they're replacing were 2:1::levels:CR.

For the Nth time: no one is trying to give the athach PrC levels: he doesn't need them.


That's not really true. awaken doesn't indicate a CR increase, and even if you count the HD as advancement, there's always the avenue of burning them off with wights (or whatever). As a player, it's even more clear cut. ECL counts three things: racial hit dice, class levels, and level adjustment. In reverse order, awaken doesn't list a level adjustment, grants no class levels, and while it grants hit dice they are not racial. And again, burning the HD with level drain negates the issue entirely.

The nitpicker in me wants to scream that as soon as a 15th level "Cleric" awakens himself he disqualifies himself from the challenge regardless of what he does with his new Magical Beast HD, much in the same vein as using the Profession skill to break the 200.000 gp wealth limit by 1 cp would disqualify the athach from the challenge even if he then spends the extra money to buy himself a new pair of boots.
An awakened "Cleric" 15, even being a CR 15 creature, isn't a 15th level "Cleric" anymore and thus isn't a valid entry.

However, it doesn't look like dragging this discussion would bring any benefit as we already answered the OP's question:
- A sufficiently optimized Cleric X/Whatever Y (with X+Y = 15 and "sufficiently optimized" = "can deal with epic spells"*) can beat an athach Cleric 14.
- An athach Cleric 14 will beat any Cleric X/Whatever Y (with X+Y = 15) that isn't sufficiently optimized (= cannot deal with epic spells).
- An athach Cleric 14 will beat any LA+0 Cleric 15 by virtue of his better chassis and epic spellcasting (this is the answer the OP was seeking).

*What a Cleric X/Whatever Y could do to be able to deal with epic spellcasting is yet to be determined (because epic spellcasting grossly equates "I win"), but if with the given datas this seems like the most accurate assumption we can make.

Did I miss anything (i.e. a method that the "Cleric" can use to prevent the athach from using his epic spellcasting that doesn't rely on Leadership, because we already pointed out that the athach can abuse Leadership better than the "Cleric")?

[Brova]

Supernatural Spell may be nice, but it's nothing next to Epic Spellcasting. Did anyone even see my post where I showed how the Athach can qualify?

So can the Cleric 15. Both via Loremaster and via massive HD thanks to awaken.


Did I miss anything (i.e. a method that the "Cleric" can use to prevent the athach from using his epic spellcasting that doesn't rely on Leadership, because we already pointed out that the athach can abuse Leadership better than the "Cleric")?

Loremaster. awaken loops. Getting epic spellcasting as a non-epic creature is not terribly difficult.

[Uncle Pine]

Loremaster.
The athach still has a higher skill cap and thus more epic spells. A "Cleric" with only a Loremaster dip to grab Epic Spellcasting loses against the athach.


awaken loops.
I think you have missed my previous post. Please read it again, especially this:

An awakened "Cleric" 15, even being a CR 15 creature, isn't a 15th level "Cleric" anymore and thus isn't a valid entry.

[Chronos]

Loremaster doesn't let you get Epic Spellcasting early, anyway. Nothing about the Loremaster's bonus feat says that you get to ignore prerequisites.


Quoth Brova:

The SRD disagrees:
That says the same thing: ECL is total HD (that is, racial plus class HD) plus LA.

[Brova]

The athach still has a higher skill cap and thus more epic spells. A "Cleric" with only a Loremaster dip to grab Epic Spellcasting loses against the athach.

Marginally higher. The athach generally gets two more every day. That's something, but the Cleric gets greater planar binding for extra assistants, letting his spell be bigger. If we allow epic leadership, he can use circle magic to pump higher level spells into epic spellcasting.


I think you have missed my previous post. Please read it again, especially this:

Aside: Why does this board not support nested quoting?

Anyway, your point doesn't hold water in the ways challenges are established. The fact that the PrC'd Cleric gets more dangerous from using awaken is not, as far as the rules are concerned, any different from the athach Cleric getting more dangerous by using persisted spells to buff himself. It's possible to argue that the HD count as advancement, in which case the Cleric would have to burn them off to remain CR 15, but there's no positive indication of that in awaken.


Loremaster doesn't let you get Epic Spellcasting early, anyway. Nothing about the Loremaster's bonus feat says that you get to ignore prerequisites.

That's how bonus feats work. Unless specified, they don't require prerequisites. It's somewhere in the MM.


That says the same thing: ECL is total HD (that is, racial plus class HD) plus LA.

You're making a conflation. The HD from awaken are neither racial nor class HD. They're just HD. Frankly, it's not entirely clear what kind of HD they are.

[Uncle Pine]

Aside: Why does this board not support nested quoting?
Yeah, I miss nested quotes too.


Anyway, your point doesn't hold water in the ways challenges are established. The fact that the PrC'd Cleric gets more dangerous from using awaken is not, as far as the rules are concerned, any different from the athach Cleric getting more dangerous by using persisted spells to buff himself. It's possible to argue that the HD count as advancement, in which case the Cleric would have to burn them off to remain CR 15, but there's no positive indication of that in awaken.
People can establish challenges in multiple ways. This challenge was based on a 15th level Cleric against a 14th level Cleric athach. The follow up to this challenge is based on a 15th level "Cleric" against a 14th level athach. In both cases they are given the wealth of a 15th level character to equip themselves.
A 15th level "Cleric" isn't simply defined as a member of a LA +0 race that is also a CR 15 opponent. He's also a character with 15 HD, because LA +0 means that he only has class HD. Even though Awaken doesn't modify the "Cleric"'s CR, it increases his HD total and thus turns him intk a character that violates the restrictions of this challenge. Persisted spells doesn't increase the HD total, ECL or CR of a creature as far as I know.


You're making a conflation. The HD from awaken are neither racial nor class HD. They're just HD. Frankly, it's not entirely clear what kind of HD they are.
The HD from Awaken are Magical Beast HD.
If you awaken an animal or tree, you increase their racial HD by 2.
There are only class or racial HD in d&d 3.5.
Bonus HD from Awaken are racial HD.

[Chambers]

That's how bonus feats work. Unless specified, they don't require prerequisites. It's somewhere in the MM.

Is this what you're referring to?


Feats
Sometimes a creature has one or more bonus feats, marked with a superscript B. Creatures often do not have the prerequisites for a bonus feat. If this is so, the creature can still use the feat. If you wish to customize the creature with new feats, you can reassign its other feats, but not its bonus feats. A creature cannot have a feat that is not a bonus feat unless it has the feat's prerequisites.

I don't see how that allows characters to ignore a feat's prerequisites when choosing a bonus feat.

[Brova]

Is this what you're referring to?

Yes.


I don't see how that allows characters to ignore a feat's prerequisites when choosing a bonus feat.

The Loremaster lists "any one feat" as one of it's secrets. There's no restriction there on what you can or can't choose, and no claim that you have to meet prerequisites. Compare the Fighter's bonus feats which both give a specific list and require you to meet the prerequisites.

[Chambers]

The Loremaster lists "any one feat" as one of it's secrets. There's no restriction there on what you can or can't choose, and no claim that you have to meet prerequisites. Compare the Fighter's bonus feats which both give a specific list and require you to meet the prerequisites.

There's also nothing in the Loremaster class feature that specifically allows them to ignore the feat's prerequisites, like the Monk's bonus feats does.

[Extra Anchovies]

There's also nothing in the Loremaster class feature that specifically allows them to ignore the feat's prerequisites, like the Monk's bonus feats does.

Indeed. It's the same as the Rogue's bonus feat special ability. It doesn't mention whether they need to meet prerequisites, so it defaults to the normal, i.e. needing to meet a feat's requirements before selecting it.

[Brova]

There's also nothing in the Loremaster class feature that specifically allows them to ignore the feat's prerequisites, like the Monk's bonus feats does.

Indeed. It's the same as the Rogue's bonus feat special ability. It doesn't mention whether they need to meet prerequisites, so it defaults to the normal, i.e. needing to meet a feat's requirements before selecting it.

Okay. Now apply that exact same line of logic, but starting with the Fighter's bonus feats.

At best you've reached a spurious conclusion based on which example you've reasoned from, at worst it's not relevant because Loremaster explicitly says "any one feat" unlike the Monk specifying improved unarmed strike or the Fighter noting that it's feats "must be drawn from the feats noted as fighter bonus feats". You might have a case with Rogue, but Loremaster is cut and dried.

[Extra Anchovies]

Okay. Now apply that exact same line of logic, but starting with the Fighter's bonus feats.

At best you've reached a spurious conclusion based on which example you've reasoned from, at worst it's not relevant because Loremaster explicitly says "any one feat" unlike the Monk specifying improved unarmed strike or the Fighter noting that it's feats "must be drawn from the feats noted as fighter bonus feats". You might have a case with Rogue, but Loremaster is cut and dried.

3.5 is an exception based rules system, where "it doesn't say I can't do X" is not the same as "the rules allow me to do X". There's nothing explicitly stating that Loremasters need to meet a feat's prerequisites, but that does not equate to their being able to select a feat without meeting its prerequisites.

[Chambers]

Okay. Now apply that exact same line of logic, but starting with the Fighter's bonus feats.

At best you've reached a spurious conclusion based on which example you've reasoned from, at worst it's not relevant because Loremaster explicitly says "any one feat" unlike the Monk specifying improved unarmed strike or the Fighter noting that it's feats "must be drawn from the feats noted as fighter bonus feats". You might have a case with Rogue, but Loremaster is cut and dried.

Not really. My premise is that characters must qualify for the feats they select, as per the rules under Prerequisites (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#prerequisites). The Fighter Bonus Feats class feature says that this rule applies for the Fighter's bonus feats. The Monk's Bonus Feats class feature says that this rule does not apply to the Monk's bonus feats. The Loremaster's bonus feat class feature does not say specifically whether this rule applies or not.

Since the Loremaster doesn't say that the character may ignore the bonus feats prerequisites then the general rule still applies.

I understand the rule in the Monster Manual to be a specific rule that applies only to Monsters; I don't take it to be another general rule. This may be the source of the disagreement. Do you take that rule in the MM to be an universal rule rather than an exception for Monsters?

Edit:

Mod of the Broken Pattern: We've diverged fairly well from the original discussion. I've created a new thread to handle this other topic. Please bring this discussion here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?421607-Bonus-Feats-amp-Prerequisites&p=19400055)

[Brova]

I understand the rule in the Monster Manual to be a specific rule that applies only to Monsters; I don't take it to be another general rule. This may be the source of the disagreement. Do you take that rule in the MM to be an universal rule rather than an exception for Monsters?

This is 3e, not 4e. There are no "special rules for monsters" I mean, FFS, this entire debate is premised on creatures of identical CR but differing ECL, i.e. creatures that are being evaluated as monsters. A 15th level Cleric is not in any fundamental sense different from a Marut, a Mummy Lord, or a mid-age dragon. He's a creature, if he happens to be controlled by the DM he's a monster, if he happens to be controlled by a player he's a PC. And yes, the specific case of bonus feats overrides the general case of feats. Then the specific case of Fighter bonus feats overrides the general case of bonus feats. Also worth noting that Loremaster and Rogue explicitly state "any feat" without qualifications.

[Chambers]

Just made an edit to my previous post Brova, let's move this discussion over to that thread. :smallsmile: [/thread derail]

[Lans]

The saves are good, I'll give you that - it might actually push the athach over depending on what the 15th level Cleric cons out of polymorph any object. But the HP don't matter in the kind of high lethality environment I assume this discussion is aimed at. A 15th level Rogue is looking at seven or more attacks (three from BAB + Perfect Two Weapon Fighting + haste is the minimum), for 12d6 damage each (1d6 flask + 9d6 sneak attack + 2d6 that shadow hand stance) which is an average of almost 300 damage. You can pump that up even more with abuse magic device for polymorph tricks. A 14th level athach Cleric has to roll max HP every level to survive average damage. And that's without Rapid Shot, Craven, abuse magic device, or dumpster diving for more sneak attack.

Your analysis leaves off equipment worn by the npc, as well as its enhanced stats from the elite array. From what I've counted he could be about 56hp above average damage with average hp. Plus thats assuming the rogue hits with all of his attacks. I think a cleric can get the AC where he might miss on the last itterative, plus miss chances.

[Brova]

Your analysis leaves off equipment worn by the npc, as well as its enhanced stats from the elite array. From what I've counted he could be about 56hp above average damage with average hp. Plus thats assuming the rogue hits with all of his attacks. I think a cleric can get the AC where he might miss on the last itterative, plus miss chances.

Those are touch attacks dude. And the Rogue can pop divine power off of a wand if he's worried about missing.

[Lans]

Those are touch attacks dude. And the Rogue can pop divine power off of a wand if he's worried about missing.

I know, I also know that the cleric spell list is wide and powerful, and can bring real defenses to bear in ways I vaguely recall.

[Brova]

I know, I also know that the cleric spell list is wide and powerful, and can bring real defenses to bear in ways I vaguely recall.

There definitely are defenses, but they aren't perfect and there are also Rogue counters. This sort of thing is weird, because while the ceiling is the same for both (wish abuse), and the floor for the flask Rogue is higher (i.e. if you are a flask Rogue at all you are more effective than someone who has simply taken DDM: Persist but doesn't know how to abuse it), Cleric gets better in the poorly defined "high but not crazy optimization" area. Basically, the Rogue can go to ten, and he can go to a hundred, but he has a hard time going to twenty.

One thing worth noting is that the Rogue can abuse the other portion of the candle to get his own Cleric casting. Abuse magic device in general holds up pretty well for the Rogue.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Ranged sneak attack is an unreliable way to murder things, especially in high optimization environments. The Cleric in question can just persist Stone Body and be done with it, which is a good idea for many reasons. Anyone with access to Ranger, Druid or Sorcerer spells (which could be the Cleric if we're positing a rogue that blows 21 grand on a Divine Power wand) can cast two Primal [X] spells from Dragon Magic and get Uncanny Dodge all day, and again this is a good idea for more than just a ranged rogue.

There are ways to kill high HP clerics in one round but that's not it, and it's still harder when there's a lot more HD involved.

[Brova]

Ranged sneak attack is an unreliable way to murder things, especially in high optimization environments. The Cleric in question can just persist Stone Body and be done with it, which is a good idea for many reasons.

There's a variant in Dungeonscape that lets you trade trap sense for half damage on people immune to sneak attack. So you just need to crank out more attacks. Perhaps by using polymorph to turn into a Arrow Demon.


Anyone with access to Ranger, Druid or Sorcerer spells (which could be the Cleric if we're positing a rogue that blows 21 grand on a Divine Power wand) can cast two Primal [X] spells from Dragon Magic and get Uncanny Dodge all day, and again this is a good idea for more than just a ranged rogue.

That's actually a pretty good counter. The Rogue probably has some way to deal with uncanny dodge at this point. For example, a wand of grease.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

There's a variant in Dungeonscape that lets you trade trap sense for half damage on people immune to sneak attack. So you just need to crank out more attacks. Perhaps by using polymorph to turn into a Arrow Demon.It requires flanking, which has several problems, one of which being that the flask rogue doesn't work. Oh, if you plan on playing a rogue in the near future, the ACF from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is the same but more clearly-worded.
That's actually a pretty good counter. The Rogue probably has some way to deal with uncanny dodge at this point. For example, a wand of grease.There are many problems with Grease at this point, the biggest one being that balancing without 5 ranks still just causes the flat-footed condition.

[Brova]

It requires flanking, which has several problems, one of which being that the flask rogue doesn't work. Oh, if you plan on playing a rogue in the near future, the ACF from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is the same but more clearly-worded.

Actually, that's irrelevant. The exact wording of the most recent version of stone body (the one in the Spell Compendium) states that you are immune to "extra damage from critical hits" while the Rogue only loses sneak attack against creatures who are "immune to critical hits". So the spell just doesn't do anything for you.


There are many problems with Grease at this point, the biggest one being that balancing without 5 ranks still just causes the flat-footed condition.

Do'h.

I guess the go-to is a Quickened scroll/wand/staff of summon monster to grapple.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Actually, that's irrelevant. The exact wording of the most recent version of stone body (the one in the Spell Compendium) states that you are immune to "extra damage from critical hits" while the Rogue only loses sneak attack against creatures who are "immune to critical hits". So the spell just doesn't do anything for you.I don't want to do that "immune to extra damage" vs. "immune" debate, so let's move on to other issues.

The spell also states you have no physiology, and rogues require a discernible anatomy; these are synonyms.

Also, any spell or magical effect that generates a type of concealment the rogue cannot beat also poses an issue. Really there are a lot of concerns when it comes to sneak attack.
Do'h.

I guess the go-to is a Quickened scroll/wand/staff of summon monster to grapple.Do you think a low level summoned monster grappler is really going to work against a buffed cleric?

[Uncle Pine]

Are we still trying to find out how a regular 15th level Cleric (or "Cleric") could possibly stand a ghost of a chance against an epic spellcasting athach Cleric 14? Or did we deem it impossible and moved on? Before the moderator does it again, it might be better to open a new thread (i.e. "[3.5] Athach Cleric 14 vs Regular Rogue 15") to continue the new discussion.