Shadow-Pouncing War Hulk

[Baroknik]

Hey all,

I am thinking about a build (just for funsies/future NPC possibly) that utilizes Shadow Pounce and Massive Swing together to have some fun with.

Basically, the best way to get this from what I can see is to go

Full BAB Class 5/War Hulk 10/Teflammar Shadowlord 4 (though TSL 5 would be great for re-occurrence)

However, meeting all the pre-reqs in time AND getting the Maneuvers does not seem that straight-forward to me. If anyone has any advice for what to go with it would be greatly appreciated.

I also am unsure what race would be good to use to get large, we have up to LA+1 to play with, though if we can do it with none that would be ideal (since then it could go TSL 5).

Basics so far:
Full BAB 1 (Power Attack, Cleave (flaw), Blind-fight (flaw))
Full BAB 2
Full BAB 3 (Mobility)
Full BAB 4
Full BAB 5
X5/War Hulk 1 (Spring Attack)
X5/War Hulk 2
X5/War Hulk 3
X5/War Hulk 4 (Martial Training: Shadow Jaunt)
X5/War Hulk 5
X5/War Hulk 6
X5/War Hulk 7 (Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance)
X5/War Hulk 8
X5/War Hulk 9
X5/War Hulk 10
X5/WH10/Teflammar Shadowlord 1
etc.




Also, any advice for getting Dimension Door as a spell-like ability or getting past that qualification (if I can't find a hard-case, using Shadow Jaunt to qualify wouldn't be a terrible stretch, imo).

Also, though getting TSL 5 would be awesome, if I can't and can still go with a 0 LA build, then I could take 3 levels of Swordsage and enter Warhulk just one level late -- this would free up my Martial Study: Shadow Jaunt, as I could get it for free and also increase my IL for getting Shadow Stride earlier.

Anyway, any feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!




P.S. It occurred to me that I could maybe find a Large EL 3 race and make it dustform and then incarnate, which should give me some extra BAB to play with initially for earlier entry into War Hulk (or more time to go swordsage/other qualifiers). If we can get TSL 5 with that it would be awesome, as turning into shadowy dust fits the weakness-to-bludgeoning thing from dustform.

[Chronos]

There aren't any ECL 1 large races, but I think some of the anthropomorphic animals from Savage Species have only RHD (which is full BAB due to being monstrous humanoids). At LA +1, your best bet will be the Half-Ogre and/or Half-Minotaur template, which are brokenly overpowered as written, and a great bargain even if you make the obvious fix.

You could also get a permanent casting of Enlarge Person, but that's generally considered a bad idea, since you'll be totally screwed if you ever get hit by a Dispel Magic.

And Teflammar Shadowlord doesn't require any ranks in mental skills, does it? No Time to Think makes it a pain to combine War Hulk with other prestige classes.

[Baroknik]

There aren't any ECL 1 large races, but I think some of the anthropomorphic animals from Savage Species have only RHD (which is full BAB due to being monstrous humanoids). At LA +1, your best bet will be the Half-Ogre and/or Half-Minotaur template, which are brokenly overpowered as written, and a great bargain even if you make the obvious fix.

You could also get a permanent casting of Enlarge Person, but that's generally considered a bad idea, since you'll be totally screwed if you ever get hit by a Dispel Magic.

And Teflammar Shadowlord doesn't require any ranks in mental skills, does it? No Time to Think makes it a pain to combine War Hulk with other prestige classes.

Anthropomorphic isn't a bad way to go, that's what I was thinking with the RHD and taking Incarnate Construct to have LA -2 to help with qualifying.

I'm AFB at the moment, but I think the requirements for TSL are just ranks in Hide and Move Silent (though it's 10 total, which makes entry a bit steep on qualifications, but I believe is possible.

That being said, if anyone has suggestions that help incorporate this, please let me know!

[daremetoidareyo]

it's not exactly dimension dooring, but going planar fighter 1 (dodge mobility spring attack)/jaunter 4 (expedition to demonweb pits) can give you a ton of mobility.

You might want to consider legacy champion (if your DM alllows) which will give you medium progression of BAB on top of your war hulking.

[Baroknik]

it's not exactly dimension dooring, but going planar fighter 1 (dodge mobility spring attack)/jaunter 4 (expedition to demonweb pits) can give you a ton of mobility.

You might want to consider legacy champion (if your DM alllows) which will give you medium progression of BAB on top of your war hulking.

Thanks, will take that into consideration.

On your second point, I am the DM, I'm looking for a very tough brutish NPC build on this and was thinking that someone shadow-pouncing with AE attacks seemed like it could be very entertaining (granted it would only have a BAB of +8ish around level 20, but would also have a decent hit thanks to the STR from War Hulk). If we can get him EWP: Spiked Chain and a Skilled Spiked Chain it becomes even more fun.

Combat routine could go something like:
Shadow Jaunt, 3 AE attacks on everything in a 20-ft radius
Shadow Stride, 3 AE attacks on everything in a (potentially new) 20-ft radius
Shadow Blink (don't think it's possible to get here actually, but 2/day with anklets of translocation), 3 AE attacks on everything in a (potentially new) 20-ft radius

While I know that that large an ae attack isn't useful vs a small party necessarily, it is more of a brute that would be featured in some large-scale battles. Hope that idea helps with feedback, though I really have appreciated all the advice so far guys! Keep it coming!

[ben-zayb]

The Blink Shirt soulmeld allows you to teleport a la Dimension Door except with a shorter range, though I'm not sure if soulmelds are SLAs or what.

[Darrin]

Shadow-walker template gives dimension door as an SLA. Only LA +1. I think it's in Unapproachable East.

Also, anthropomorphic baleen whale is large size, 3 racial HD, but no LA. Anthropomorphic snake also, but the whale has blindsight and a tail attack.

[torrasque666]

Anthropomorphic isn't a bad way to go, that's what I was thinking with the RHD and taking Incarnate Construct to have LA -2 to help with qualifying.
How were you planning on getting to be a Construct to be a valid target for Incarnate Construct?

[Swaoeaeieu]

is there still the trick of going legacy champion war hulk to get tasty BAB and the war hulk str and special attack?
Combine that with a way of getting the shadow pounce and you are golden.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You can use LA buy-off to effectively get 3 LA to work with, or use the CR-based rules instead (that is, monstrous humanoid HD count for 1/3rd CR each). Half-ogre half-minotaur goliath with 5 RHD is ECL 7 with +2 LA, but probably only CR 3, off the top of my head: the base CR for a 1 HD goliath is 1/2 or 1, adding +4 HD is +1.33 CR, half-minotaur is +1 because of the size increase, and half-ogre doesn't add anything because it doesn't increase size - that is a total of 2.83 or 3.33. Adding War Hulk as 10 associated class levels and Telflammar Shadowlord 5 on top gets you CR 18, you can qualify for Shadowlord with a template or a level in swordsage (IL 8.5 if you take SS 1 after the War Hulk levels, enough to pick up 4th-level maneuvers, or 5th-level if you add another monstrous humanoid RHD for +0.33 CR). You should be able to throw that at a 15th-level party as 'hard' encounter, depending on OP-level.


Edit: The varag (MMIV) is a 3 HD CR 1 humanoid with a 60' move speed and Run and Spring Attack as bonus feats. Humanoids have only 3/4 BAB, but they also have only 1/4 CR per HD. If you're using the CR variant, you can add 4 HD and templates to get a 7 HD CR 3 half-ogre half-minotaur varag, who would have a 70' move speed and 5 base attack.

The phaerlin giant (Monsters of Faerûn) is an 8 HD huge giant, CR 3. It's basically terrible at everything but smashing (+10 str, -2 dex, +8 con, -2 int, -2 wis, -2 cha, also 20' move speed, frightful presence, scent, claw/claw/bite and 10 NA). It natively qualifies for war hulk, and with 6 base attack it gets an iterative straight out of the box.

[Baroknik]

How were you planning on getting to be a Construct to be a valid target for Incarnate Construct?

Appreciate all the feedback again! Probably won't get around to responding to everything until Monday, but did want to answer this one.

Dustform can be applied to any living creature and changes the type to construct without an effective LA. Combining that with Incarnate Construct reduces the LA by 2. However, you would retain the weakness to bludgeoning weapons. However, if it is possible to then get to Shadowlord 5, that can become an interesting thematic component as the BSF dude can get pounded into "dust" (or "shadows" in this case) and then reform later to seek more revenge.

[torrasque666]

Appreciate all the feedback again! Probably won't get around to responding to everything until Monday, but did want to answer this one.

Dustform can be applied to any living creature and changes the type to construct without an effective LA. Combining that with Incarnate Construct reduces the LA by 2. However, you would retain the weakness to bludgeoning weapons. However, if it is possible to then get to Shadowlord 5, that can become an interesting thematic component as the BSF dude can get pounded into "dust" (or "shadows" in this case) and then reform later to seek more revenge.

Hmm.... could have sworn that dust form was LA +2.

[ben-zayb]

Hmm.... could have sworn that dust form was LA +2.

Just flipped the book, and I can confirm it gets LA+2 (and CR+2).

[Chronos]

The dustform/incarnate combo is mostly used in optimization for resetting creature type to humanoid, so as to be eligible for more templates.

[Baroknik]

The dustform/incarnate combo is mostly used in optimization for resetting creature type to humanoid, so as to be eligible for more templates.

Ah, my mistake then, must not have been dustform I was thinking of. I currently don't have access to my books, but what LA is Effigy? I could always find a ECL 3 Large Creature and Effigy --> Incarnate Construct, right?

I know these sound cheap, but honestly for a final ECL of 20 this guy will be interesting and fun as an NPC, but not much in the way of a genuine force compared to magic. I'm trying to avoid any epic levels on NPC's (unless it's by virtue of statted RHD), so while I could just "give him a level extra" I'd rather not.



More on the idea of the backstory for this guy:

I'm imagining the true BBEG having made an army of War Hulk 10/TSL 4's as his general high-end minions to use against infantry, but like the idea that one of them is "special" and has the 5th level of TSL to have the free resurrect thing (the others would probably be near-mindless, while the latter may have some agency).

If someone has a better idea for making big guys that warp around a battlefield and blow things up around them (while being melee brute types, not caster/gishes) please let me know! As of now the shadowpouncing full-AE-attacking guy just seems fun though...

[torrasque666]

Ah, my mistake then, must not have been dustform I was thinking of. I currently don't have access to my books, but what LA is Effigy? I could always find a ECL 3 Large Creature and Effigy --> Incarnate Construct, right?

Its LA --.

Though really, if you're making an NPC what you really care about is CR, not ECL. Effigy is CR+1

[Baroknik]

Its LA --.

Though really, if you're making an NPC what you really care about is CR, not ECL. Effigy is CR+1

Good point, thank you! Using CR actually could be great for this purpose as Incarnate Construct halves the CR of the creature (mind you, I don't mind tweaking to make true challenge match CR later).

The downside of incarnate construct is that it morphs the creature into a giant, which only has 3/4 BAB, but if I try and formulate a final CR rather than an ECL I can probably work around that.

By the time the characters face the general version (clones/slaves), I would think final ECL should probably be around 17, since that gives them growth room to start out as a type of boss-like encounter and grow to be more of a lieutenant-at-best type of creature.

Using the above CR schema (Base Creature --> Dustform --> Incarnate Construct) would give a final CR before class levels of 3 on a 4-HD monster which would have a BAB of 3 as well (which is what I want at that CR). This gives a lot of wiggle room and includes the "critted into shadows" weakness I like thematically.

Using Effigy I would probably look for a 7-HD creature to have a CR of 4 with a BAB of 5 and work from there.

Thoughts/suggestions on good base creatures? Requirements are: large, humanoid-appearance (flavor-wise) (monstrous is good in appearance)

[torrasque666]

Using the above CR schema (Base Creature --> Dustform --> Incarnate Construct) would give a final CR before class levels of 3 on a 4-HD monster which would have a BAB of 3 as well (which is what I want at that CR). This gives a lot of wiggle room and includes the "critted into shadows" weakness I like thematically.

You know, I was going to say something about how Incarnate Construct removes the special qualities of the creature, and then I realized that the Dustform Weakness isn't listed under Special Qualities, but its own subsection. OOOooohhhhh this can be interesting....

[Baroknik]

You know, I was going to say something about how Incarnate Construct removes the special qualities of the creature, and then I realized that the Dustform Weakness isn't listed under Special Qualities, but its own subsection. OOOooohhhhh this can be interesting....

Yeah, that's part of what really really draws it to me for a villain's tool -- an obvious flaw. Of course it also makes it interesting for the "full" version guy that has the 5th level of TSL so that he can make a Reflex Save to reform at sunset the next day after being pasted into "shadow-stuff" by a critical hit (though technically it only procs when reduced to 0 or fewer hitpoints, not when it is destroyed as the Weakness to Bludgeoning, but I don't think that's too bad of a handwave to allow it here).

On that note, does anyone know of a good way to make the dude guaranteed to make his Reflex Save or to default to Fort instead? I could always get him Martial Training (Action Before Thought), since he'll probably have a good CON, but that still leaves it up to chance a bit more than I'd potentially like...