Hi-Ho Silver: Building the Second Most Valuable Metal

[Red Fel]

Hello, friends! It's time once again for another exciting build challenge. The subject of this one: Silver!

Wait, what? I hear you exclaim in confusion. (I don't actually hear you personally, but the voices in my head tell me that they perform an accurate impersonation.) We're building a metal? I thought these threads were for character builds?

They are, they are. Let me explain. In a recent thread, somebody mentioned Warforged, and somebody else mentioned the Spellcarved Soldier PrC. This reminded me of the Silver Tracery feat, which upgrades a Warforged with Alchemical Silver, because reasons.

And that made me think, Is that all? We can do better than that.

So here we are, and here's the challenge: We want to build a character with the maximum amount of silver in him. Silver Tracery? Sure. Dragonborn with silver influence? Why not? Silver Dragon Lineage feat? Let's find a place for it. Some kind of silver graft? Sounds awesome. Silver Key PrC? Sadly, Warforged don't qualify, but let's figure it out! The object is to make him highly "silver" while still reasonably functional.

As always, the rules: Sources: 3.0/3.5 only, please. No PF, this time. First-party only, please. Dragon Compendium is okay, Magazine is not. Levels: 1-20. Races: Any. Warforged is ideal, because Silver Tracery, but that's flexible if you can find a better source of silver. Silverbrow Human is also an option, for obvious reasons. Templates: Any, but avoid overdoing it, if you can. So Dragonborn can work, Mineral Warrior can work, but let's avoid stacking three types of giant on, shall we? Cheese: Playable.
Pencils up, and... begin!

[Elricaltovilla]

Are you counting Mithral as part of this whole silver upgrade or no?

[Red Fel]

Are you counting Mithral as part of this whole silver upgrade or no?

Mithral is a thing, but it's not silver. I'll give it partial credit, sure, but if this thing turns into a mithral monster, it's missing the point.

[Vaz]

Classes
Silver Pyromancer; Adds Paladin Spells to your Class list. Use Arcane Disciple (Good) for Dispel Evil to pick up Sacred Exorcist. This is Sorcerer 12/Sacred Exorcist 1/Silver Pyromancer 5.

Feats;
Master of the Silvery Void; 3/day Quicken Teleportation spells.
Silver Blood; Immune to Lycanthropy, damages any Lycanthrope which bites you
Draconic Heritage (Silver); gain Disguise as a class skill and a bonus equal to your number of Draconic Feats against Cold, Paralysis, and Sleep.
Silver Dragon Lineage; can expend spells to Paralyze enemies
Draconic Legacy (Silver); add spells to your list
Silver Fang; natural attacks class as silver for overcoming DR (Organizational, Faerun)
Silver Palm; minor bonuses to Appraise, Bluff and Sense Motive (Regional, Faerun)
Silver Smite; deal additional damage with Smite Evil
Silver Tongue; minor bonuses on bluff and diplomacy (Clan, Rokugan/Oriental)
Silver Tracery; natural attacks and unarmed count as Silver for overcoming DR, +1 Fort Save vs Spells and Spell-likes.
Touch of Silver; Spend Turn Undead to Lay-on-Hands Lycanthropes and Evil Outsiders as if Undead

Spells
Laeral's Silver Lance; Throws a Force Javelin, potentially knocking enemy prone (Sorc/Wiz)
Silver Dragonmail; Gain minor cold resistance as a sorcerer, summon a +1 Mithril Breastplate (Sorc/Wiz)
Silverbeard; Grows a hardened silver beard, increases your AC, increases Diplomacy with Dwarfs (Paladin)
Silvered Claws; natural attacks count as silver (Druid/Ranger/Consecrated Harrier)
Silvered Weapon; weapon becomes silver (Paladin)

Maneuvres
Quicksilver Motion (Diamond Mind); Trade your swift action for another move action

[Red Fel]

These are all awesome ideas, Vaz.

Do you have any suggestions for putting them together into a build?

For example, Silverbeard is a Paladin spell, whereas Silver Draconic feats work better on a Sorcerer. Warforged with Silver Tracery is an option, as is Silverbrow Human. And so forth.

Seems there's a lot of Paladin material on the list, though. Maybe some kind of silver-themed Paladin? Is there some kind of silver-themed mount we could use? (Maybe Dragon Cohort to get one?)

[Vaz]

Warforged Sorcerer 12/Sacred Exorcist 1/Silver Pyromancer 5/Consecrated Harrier 2

That gets you access to all the spells.

If you don't mind using magic items to qualify, Spear of the Hunt (AEG) picks up Track to qualify. You only need Arcane Disciple (Good) as the other feat for the build to qualify (available at 9, pick up ), so you're not starved.

A couple of flaws gets you two feats total.

Silver Tracery, Silver Fang are accounted for via spells.

As for the rest of it... Nope, not really. You've got Quicken Spell into Mastery of the Silvery Void; but it's kinda naff.

The Draconic Legacy requires Draconic Heritage and 3 other Draconic Feats to qualify for Legacy, so that's 5 feats already eaten up (out of 7-9, which if you aren't allowing Magic Items to qualify). Draconic Power is especially useless as Silver is associated with Cold and Silver Pyromancer get benefits for Fire spells. You can pick up Blindsight 20ft via Draconic Senses which is otherwise hard to get; but with Truesight available on the Sorcerer list anyway, it's a bit... yeah.

Any feat can be picked up via the AEG sidebar which allows you to spend several 10K+10K GP or so per prerequisite. Which is especially useful for the naff ones. This is my favourite bar as a GM. If a player has a build in mind, but is short of feats, I'm not averse to having them throw these little bits in. Giving someone a Necklace of "Silver Tongue" to give them that feat is pretty neat; especially when you can build up armour sets. But that's by the by.

[Gabrosin]

I didn't have time to throw together a full build, but I think the correct answer must be something along the lines of:

1. Metallic race made entirely of silver with low to no LA (silver dragon, silver golem, something along these lines);
2. 15 levels of Wu Jen casting, and the ability to hit caster level 19;
3. The Giant Size spell.

Now our character is colossal size and entirely silver. Blend with Persistent Spell for maximum duration.

However, this is a somewhat boring answer that skips over a lot of silver-related stuff in favor of technical correctness (the best kind of correctness).

I trust someone can do better.

[daremetoidareyo]

paladin monk into argent fist, which has a ton of silver themed class abilities, mostly about something called silver flame.

[JDL]

Class: Psion (Telepath) 17th or higher

Step 1: Purchase, steal or otherwise obtain a Perfector golem (Monster Manual III) composed entirely of silver.
Step 2: Hire a spellcaster to use Polymorph Any Object on the Perfector golem to transform it into a human.
Step 3: Cast True Mind Switch on the human.
Step 4: Wait for the Polymorph Any Object to expire, enjoy being a giant silver construct. Regret the fact that your intelligence is now the same as the golem's.

(Shamelessly stolen from the Psychic Sandwich method, any silver based object or creature can be inserted instead of the Perfector golem, which was chosen simply for style points)

[Red Fel]

Alright, lotta replies to go through...


Warforged Sorcerer 12/Sacred Exorcist 1/Silver Pyromancer 5/Consecrated Harrier 2

That gets you access to all the spells.

If you don't mind using magic items to qualify, Spear of the Hunt (AEG) picks up Track to qualify. You only need Arcane Disciple (Good) as the other feat for the build to qualify (available at 9, pick up ), so you're not starved.

A couple of flaws gets you two feats total.

Silver Tracery, Silver Fang are accounted for via spells.

As for the rest of it... Nope, not really. You've got Quicken Spell into Mastery of the Silvery Void; but it's kinda naff.

The Draconic Legacy requires Draconic Heritage and 3 other Draconic Feats to qualify for Legacy, so that's 5 feats already eaten up (out of 7-9, which if you aren't allowing Magic Items to qualify). Draconic Power is especially useless as Silver is associated with Cold and Silver Pyromancer get benefits for Fire spells. You can pick up Blindsight 20ft via Draconic Senses which is otherwise hard to get; but with Truesight available on the Sorcerer list anyway, it's a bit... yeah.

Any feat can be picked up via the AEG sidebar which allows you to spend several 10K+10K GP or so per prerequisite. Which is especially useful for the naff ones. This is my favourite bar as a GM. If a player has a build in mind, but is short of feats, I'm not averse to having them throw these little bits in. Giving someone a Necklace of "Silver Tongue" to give them that feat is pretty neat; especially when you can build up armour sets. But that's by the by.

That's actually quite thorough. So basically, you get all of the spells - Sorcerer and Paladin - plus feats... ish? It's interesting, if a bit patchwork. Maybe we can some up with something a bit more cohesive?


I didn't have time to throw together a full build, but I think the correct answer must be something along the lines of:

1. Metallic race made entirely of silver with low to no LA (silver dragon, silver golem, something along these lines);
2. 15 levels of Wu Jen casting, and the ability to hit caster level 19;
3. The Giant Size spell.

Now our character is colossal size and entirely silver. Blend with Persistent Spell for maximum duration.

However, this is a somewhat boring answer that skips over a lot of silver-related stuff in favor of technical correctness (the best kind of correctness).

I trust someone can do better.

Yeah, technically correct, but it essentially has only one source of "silver". We're going with quantity of sources, not quantity of the metal itself.


paladin monk into argent fist, which has a ton of silver themed class abilities, mostly about something called silver flame.

There's an option, there. Paladin gets us those silver-themed Paladin spells. And you could do a Warforged Paladin with Silver Tracery, or a Silverbrow Human Paladin. So there's some potential there.


Class: Psion (Telepath) 17th or higher

Step 1: Purchase, steal or otherwise obtain a Perfector golem (Monster Manual III) composed entirely of silver.
Step 2: Hire a spellcaster to use Polymorph Any Object on the Perfector golem to transform it into a human.
Step 3: Cast True Mind Switch on the human.
Step 4: Wait for the Polymorph Any Object to expire, enjoy being a giant silver construct. Regret the fact that your intelligence is now the same as the golem's.

(Shamelessly stolen from the Psychic Sandwich method, any silver based object or creature can be inserted instead of the Perfector golem, which was chosen simply for style points)

Same issue as Gabrosin's; it technically gets you the silver, but only one source. We can do better.

Maybe we're trying to get too much at once? Perhaps narrow the scope, get a particular type of silver (e.g. spell-based, Paladin-based, etc.), and try to form a more comprehensive character, instead of a bunch of roughly crammed-together pieces?