What's the overall most powerful core race melee build you know of?

[Windrammer]

Meaning someone who is dependent on melee attack rolls to get the job done, whichever buffs may be present.

edit: By "power" I mean the ability to win fights with a variety of opponents. You can't always charge.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

This is a vague question, honestly: there are a TON of extremely strong melee builds, although most of them are one-trick ponies that require a lot of dips into various classes. You can be an incredibly strong melee combatant as a properly optimized Fighter, Psionic Warrior, Cleric, Wizard, Druid, Artificer...the list goes on. You can make builds with low up-time of horrifically powerful effects, or consistent-yet-weaker effects. You can even build Pun-pun (which is the strongest, hands down...and I think can be done with a human these days).

You'll have to narrow it down a bit, quite frankly. Off the top of my head the EASIEST completely broken build is probably a 1d2 Crusader build with Human and a size-reducing spell. Infinite damage on every attack, and the rest of the Crusader's kit to back it up.

Also, out of curiosity...why human specifically?

[Tvtyrant]

Get the angry disease and a touch of cancer mage for infinite strength. Or chicken infested caster with quick draw and greater consumptive field for the same.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Get the angry disease and a touch of cancer mage for infinite strength. Or chicken infested caster with quick draw and greater consumptive field for the same.

^Other ways for infinite damage. I still prefer the 1d2 Crusader for elegance. :smalltongue:

[Red Fel]

I'm rather fond of the Teramach (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?286983-3-5-Base-Class-quot-I-want-to-live-inside-a-castle-built-of-your-agony!-quot).

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I'm rather fond of the Teramach (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?286983-3-5-Base-Class-quot-I-want-to-live-inside-a-castle-built-of-your-agony!-quot).

That's a custom class though -- he DID specifically ask for a build. :smalltongue:

[Red Fel]

That's a custom class though -- he DID specifically ask for a build. :smalltongue:

What, builds can't include homebrew? He wasn't exactly forthcoming with source limitations.

Teramach 20 is a build. It's a disgustingly powerful build. It's a build that I really, really want to use in a game someday.

[Tvtyrant]

^Other ways for infinite damage. I still prefer the 1d2 Crusader for elegance. :smalltongue:

I like the 1d2 Crusader becomes it is actually infinite damage, instead of NI like the ones I posted. The disadvantage is that it doesn't help with strength checks, so no autograpple, autobullrush or near infinite carrying capacity. Also the mountain of chicken corpses feed the hungry.

[Rubik]

It's not the most powerful out there, but Tiny Von BigMcLargeHuge (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?132294-Tiny-Von-BigMcLargeHuge) would be human if he took Human Heritage or Human Blooded at first level, which would qualify him for Jotunbrud. It's pretty awesome, though, because the full build is doable by 2nd level, and it's just waiting for a few manifester levels to augment Expansion and Compression to allow the full range of everything.

[Brova]

The d2 Crusader does not seem particularly impressive to me. Simply Power Attacking for "all of it" with a modifier of times twenty or thirty will generally be sufficient to kill anything in one shot, rendering the whole "infinite damage" deal pointless outside of something like sadism.

My personal contender for best melee damage build would probably be a Dread Necromancer 5/Rainbow Servant 10/Sacred Exorcist 1/Dweomerkeeper 4. Basically, you use substitute domain to get anyspell and limited wish, allowing you to emulate polymorph and awaken, giving yourself +1d3 Cha. This will eventually give you arbitrarily much Cha, meaning arbitrarily many spells per day and turning attempts. That allows you to substitute domain to get yourself shapechange, which you can then cast and Persist a hundred or so times. Stack up extraordinary abilities like "immunity to bludgeoning damage" and "immunity to non-bludgeoning damage", as well as all the various rends, rakes, and rages. You can now attack several dozen or hundred times per round, for massive damage.

One question that comes up with this build is what happens if you change forms with shapechange during a full attack. Also which version of the polymorph rules you believe in. There's a set on the old WotC archives that lets you stack supernatural abilities too.

[Darrin]

I like the 1d2 Crusader becomes it is actually infinite damage, instead of NI like the ones I posted.

Even better, the DM can't insist that you infinitely reroll until the heat death of the universe. Aura of Chaos contains the text, "You can continue to reroll", which means you can stop once you've got enough damage to get rid of whatever is annoying you.

[Chronos]

I'm also fond of the d2 crusader, because it's a completely nonobvious combo, constructed of two elements which by themselves look perfectly fine and balanced, and yet which combine for literally infinite synergy. It's a lot more clever than, say, Pun-Pun.

[Venger]

Get the angry disease and a touch of cancer mage for infinite strength. Or chicken infested caster with quick draw and greater consumptive field for the same.

"festering anger" from book of vile darkness. you have to actually be a cancer mage though, you can't just high five one.

windrammer, any more specific criteria you want to throw out? as the thread's said, there's a lot of different directions to go in from hurler to ubercharger and a lot of middle ground.

[Windrammer]

Also, out of curiosity...why human specifically?

I have a lot of distaste for people sacrificing flavor and credibility for power, looking up whatever kooky races WotC farted out on a creative whim to suit specific loopholes of the system. I like powerful builds but I also like thematic purity, I want characters that actually make sense in a story and would be interesting in a movie. None of this "I'm a flying bird-man who gets quintuple damage for vaulting onto somebody". A lot of the strongest builds are utterly illogical, and while many of those can be done with humans, saying "human only" cuts a lot out. I really should have said "core races", I don't know what I was thinking. Part of it's that I'm making a bunch of epic NPC's for a campaign I'm writing and I'm experimenting with powerful builds that stay within the bounds of style and credibility.

[Rubik]

I have a lot of distaste for people sacrificing flavor and credibility for power, looking up whatever kooky races WotC farted out on a creative whim to suit specific loopholes of the system. I like powerful builds but I also like thematic purity, I want characters that actually make sense in a story and would be interesting in a movie. None of this "I'm a flying bird-man who gets quintuple damage for vaulting onto somebody". A lot of the strongest builds are utterly illogical, and while many of those can be done with humans, saying "human only" cuts a lot out. I really should have said "core races", I don't know what I was thinking. Part of it's that I'm making a bunch of epic NPC's for a campaign I'm writing and I'm experimenting with powerful builds that stay within the bounds of style and credibility.So...no fantasy races in a fantasy game.

Sounds legit.

[AvatarVecna]

you have to actually be a cancer mage though.

There's some other ways around the downsides of festering anger, Cancer Mage is just one of the more obvious ones.

[Tvtyrant]

"festering anger" from book of vile darkness. you have to actually be a cancer mage though, you can't just high five one.

windrammer, any more specific criteria you want to throw out? as the thread's said, there's a lot of different directions to go in from hurler to ubercharger and a lot of middle ground.

I meant that you can dip for it, not that they make you awesomw by physical contact. That is Bards IME.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

At what level?

Without infinite/unlimited bonuses shenanigans, a Human Paragon 1/ Fighter 1/ Wizard 2/ Human Paragon 2/ Spellsword 1/ Incantatrix 4/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Eldritch Knight 4 would be my choice at level 11+, example here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?437798-Gestalt-Prestige-Question#11).

[Snowbluff]

At what level?

Without infinite/unlimited bonuses shenanigans, a Human Paragon 1/ Fighter 1/ Wizard 2/ Human Paragon 2/ Spellsword 1/ Incantatrix 4/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Eldritch Knight 4 would be my choice at level 11+, example here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?437798-Gestalt-Prestige-Question#11).
Inside jokes
Nah, it's the Wizard/Swiftblade/AbjChamp/Spelldancer. :smalltongue:

[Windrammer]

"festering anger" from book of vile darkness. you have to actually be a cancer mage though, you can't just high five one.

windrammer, any more specific criteria you want to throw out? as the thread's said, there's a lot of different directions to go in from hurler to ubercharger and a lot of middle ground.

I'm just assembling a general reference, and was actually hoping to see the strongest builds of each area. I'm most familiar with ubercharger but what I'm most interested now are the finesse-y fighting styles (not literal weapon finesse, just mobility and acrobatic gimmicks like what you get with Blade Dancer and Swiftblade)

[Tvtyrant]

From a purity of design standpoint I would suggest Human Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker with a sentient magic weapon. The Axe of Kyort (or whatever) forces her into a frenzy whenever demons are around by casting wall of fire over the barbarian. It is a cursed item, returning to her hand whenever she tries to rid herself of it. The axe can cast revify 3/day, so she cannot die to rid herself of the curse. Also it has dimension door to get past enemy defenses.

[Darrin]

I'm just assembling a general reference, and was actually hoping to see the strongest builds of each area.

The Famous Optimized Character Builds (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258580) thread is worth a perusal.

[Windrammer]

At what level?

Without infinite/unlimited bonuses shenanigans, a Human Paragon 1/ Fighter 1/ Wizard 2/ Human Paragon 2/ Spellsword 1/ Incantatrix 4/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Eldritch Knight 4 would be my choice at level 11+, example here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?437798-Gestalt-Prestige-Question#11).

Oh. Hey you :tongue:

[Windrammer]

The Famous Optimized Character Builds (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258580) thread is worth a perusal.

This is great. Not entirely martial but worth more than a perusal to me :)