Nova: when its time to not mess around

[Nosta]

so I've been playing dice rp for about 3 years now and I still am learning a lot and one of the words I learned was the term Nova

so I have two questions

1 what is your personal favorite Nova

2 what would be a good Nova for a duskblade sword sage gestalt

I like to learn.

[Xerlith]

3.5 fav? On a Silverbrow Human 2WF WhirlPounce Barbarian 2/bard4/warblade14:
swift for activating Belt of Battle (3 charges) = another Fullround action. Free for Whirling Frenzy.
Charge an enemy, follow up with Time Stands Still. Three full attacks. Boosted with Inspire Courage/DFI that makes for a respectable damage output. Not the strongest, but damn stylish.


For a Swordsage/Duskblade, the answer - for me - is simple.

Shadow Blink into Time Stands Still for two Full-Attack Vampiric Touches channeled via a Bloodstone weapon. Bonus points if it's spellstoring and has something nasty like Shivering Touch already pre-cast. That hurts things a lot.

[ExLibrisMortis]

1) I have a weakness for temporal acceleration, synchronicity and hustle with bestow power shenanigans. It doesn't matter what your killing move is especially, as you're getting any number of actions anyway. However, for a PO combo, I'll nominate the Piranha Death Trap (time stop into metamagic'd vortices of teeth).

2) Pretty much what Xerlith said, although there is a certain elegancy about a SoD maneuver channeling greater bestow curse or similar.

[Draconium]

If you're a Dragonfire Adept, and you managed to finagle yourself some metabreath feats for your use, then you can always use a Maximized Enlarged Clinging Shaped Fivefold Breath of Tiamat - or as I like to call it, the DFA Nuke. You'll need to be at least level 15, and this requires at least a four-feat investment (depending on your race), but the amount of damage resulting from this can stack nastily. Heck, if all you need is damage, just a Maximized one can get the job done.

[mabriss lethe]

A maneuver using Factotum abusing cunning surge and font of inspiration.

[Inevitability]

I like the Spontaneous Metamagic feats.

[Segev]

When my last really high-level sorcerer decided to get serious about ending a fight, he dropped a quickened twinned sphere of ultimate destruction and a twinned sphere of ultimate destruction on the combatants, inches in front of the nose of his rogue/mage ally who was doing a lot of teleport-dodging and getting frustrated at not being able to hit them.

The one that saved survived, of course, but the three that didn't...*piff*.

Normally, he'd have let the rest of the party handle that, but they were in a hurry. (And, while he wouldn't have admitted it, he couldn't do that more than twice, so hanging back and looking lazy made him look more powerful when he finally pulled that stunt out, while using it all the time would have revealed quickly that he couldn't do it very often.)

[Bonzai]

My focused Conjurer/master specialist with circle Magic could nova and cast 5 gates in one round. Circle magic allowed him to boost his caster level to godly amounts, so he could gate in anything from the epic Lvl handbook. Never actually did it, but it was a trick up my sleeve.

[Uncle Pine]

My focused Conjurer/master specialist with circle Magic could nova and cast 5 gates in one round. Circle magic allowed him to boost his caster level to godly amounts, so he could gate in anything from the epic Lvl handbook. Never actually did it, but it was a trick up my sleeve.

Note that you can always gate anything from the ELH or even Elder Evils, although you can't control anything with more than double your CL in HD. But this is nitpicking. :smallwink:

My favourite novas have to be crafting a number of carefully worded contingent (greater) celerity on yourself equal to your level and then use them all at once to lob gembombs at my opponent(s) in case things go dire OR the 1d2 Wizard, which is similar to the 1d2 Crusader except that you play as a normal Wizard until the DM screws up and throw at your party something incredibly overpowered that threatens to kill all your friends and then you punch the thing.

Wu Jen/Spellguard of Silverymoon is also great nova material.

Duskblades pretty much have a built-in nova thanks to eventually being able to channel damage dealing spells with every attack in their full attack chain. You could start from that, since even Shocking Grasp becomes fearsome when you can cast it 4+ times a round on top of your two-handed power attack.

[Red Fel]

It depends on how you're using nova. Typically, "nova" means a massive destructive spike accomplished by burning most or all of your resources in one go. Sometimes, it simply means expending resources to get a massive spike. If you're going with the latter, I have a favorite, which involves combining natural weapons, Barbarian Whirling Frenzy, and the Stormguard Warrior feat.

You will need sources of: Reliable unarmed strike damage. While this can be done with a weapon, unarmed strike damage just feels better in my mind. Monk levels, or IUS + SUS, are great.
Extra attacks. As many as you can get. Snap Kick is good, as is Whirling Frenzy.
Natural weapons. As many as you can get. Some races get them for free, others can take feats. For example, a Warforged can take the Jaws of Death feat for a bite attack.
Dragonblood. Mandatory in order to use Draconic soulmelds. You can take a Draconic or Dragonblooded race, or use the Dragonborn template. Dragonborn Warforged are a favorite of mine.
Levels in Warblade and Totemist. Warblade gives you native access to Iron Heart, which lets you take the Stormguard Warrior feat (and its prereq); you can do this with other initiator classes, but it would cost you more feats. Totemist gives you access to soulmelds, and you want Draconic ones specifically, because they give you multiple natural weapons. Levels in Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian with Whirling Frenzy are optional and recommended.
Now, how does it all work together? Well, take a peek at my previous observations.


Okay. Let's go with a Warblade with a quick dip (at least 2 levels) into Totemist. Base race is irrelevant, but we want the Dragonblood subtype, so either a race that naturally has it (such as Fireblood Dwarf) or the Dragonborn template. For this build, I want to use Dragonborn Warforged, for reasons you'll see shortly.

Alright. Let's plan this at level 20. Let's say it's a total of Warblade 14/ Totemist 6, taking the levels whenever. That gives us a BAB of 18, meldshaper level 6, IL 17 (9th-level maneuvers, yay!), 4 soulmelds shaped, 2 bound, and the totem, crown, feet and hands chakras available. We want 3 feats - Improved Unarmed Strike, Ironheart Aura, and Stormguard Warrior. Since it's Warforged, we also want to take Jaws of Death. Everything else is icing.

Now, let's look at soulmelds. First, why did we want Dragonblood? Because Draconic Soulmelds (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060912a&page=4) are a great way to get natural weapons without chakra binds.

Now, there are several soulmelds we want. First, obviously, is Girallon Arms. Shaped to the Arms, bound to the Totem, it gives us four extra claw attacks. Ordinarily, I'd suggest taking Sphinx Claws, shaped and bound to Hands, for Pounce. But since we're focusing on quantity over quality, instead I'd suggest shaping Dragon Claws to hands, no binding needed. Because he fights unarmed, he can make his full iterative attacks, then swipe with his claws as secondaries. Next, shape Dragon Tail. which gives us a tail attack. We don't need a soulmeld for a bite, because we already have one from Jaws of Death.

So let's step back and look at what we have so far. First, from our +18 BAB, we get 3 iterative attacks. Next, a slam attack, because Warforged. Next, two claws from Dragon Claws. Next, four claws from Girallon Arms. Next, a tail slam from Dragon Tail. Last, a bite from Jaws of Death. So right now, we're at 3+1+2+4+1+1=12. For your last soulmeld, you can take Dread Carapace (shaped to feet) for bonus natural weapon damage.

Notice I said so far. That's because now it gets fun. First, there are a few maneuvers to consider. One is the ever-popular Time Stands Still, which lets you make your full attack twice. Remember that a Warblade can recover maneuvers as a swift action while making a normal attack - so in between rounds of dealing double-full-attacks, you can still perform a full attack, recovering Time Stands Still to use again the next turn. Another is Raging Mongoose, which grants you a maximum of 4 extra attacks with the weapon(s) of your choice at the highest BAB for those weapons. Still another is Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip, which allows you to add rend damage based on how many attacks you make that strike an opponent. Since you make 12, that means you may be adding 20d6 (average 700) against each opponent you strike. Since Raging Mongoose and Girallon Windmill are both boosts, activated with a swift action, you can use either (but not both, unless you have a source of extra swift actions) in conjunction with Time Stands Still to be particularly sadistic.

Now, what about the feats I mentioned? Well, Jaws of Death is obvious - bite attack. And IUS is obvious - using unarmed strikes allows you to switch freely from unarmed to natural attacks with claws and slams, and adds any bonus for natural weapons to your iteratives as well. (As a bonus, if Dragon Magazine is on the table, consider the Beast Strike feat, which adds your claw or slam damage to your unarmed strikes). But why the other two?

Well, Ironheart Aura is there because it's a prereq to Stormguard Warrior. You could sit in an Ironheart stance - if you do, I'd suggest Punishing Stance, because adding 1d6 to every hit when you're performing 12 attacks per round adds up pretty quickly. (Specifically, it averages 12d6, or 42.) But Stormguard Warrior is the real masterpiece. Here's why: Combat Rhythm allows you to spend one turn making touch attacks, but dealing no damage on them. For each attack that hits, on your next round, each of your attacks deals +5 damage. Since you're making 12 attacks, that means each hit on your next turn will deal +60 damage. Just to total that for you, that's 60 * 12 = 720 damage. And you can spike this every other round.

How's that for you?

EDIT: Since you're only using one bind, you can give up a level of Totemist for Whirling Frenzy Barbarian. It penalizes your to-hit, but gets you one extra primary attack per round.

Note that my math may be slightly off. And, coming back to it, you can't quite refresh maneuvers the way I say you can. But look at that bottom paragraph.


Here's why: Combat Rhythm allows you to spend one turn making touch attacks, but dealing no damage on them. For each attack that hits, on your next round, each of your attacks deals +5 damage. Since you're making 12 attacks, that means each hit on your next turn will deal +60 damage. Just to total that for you, that's 60 * 12 = 720 damage. And you can spike this every other round.

It's a nova that you can use every other turn. Every other turn, deal 720 bonus damage. That's enough to bury most things. Buy an Amulet of Mighty Fists, and all of that damage is magical for DR purposes. Buy a Necklace of Natural Weapons, and it can be even scarier.

[AvatarVecna]

It kinda depends on what you mean by "Nova"...and how far you're allowed to optimize before getting books thrown at you. If you're talking about holding back powerful resources until they become necessary to win (because they can't be used for very long), rather than things you could do all day but merely choose not to use most of the time, there's some interesting things you can do, if you're willing to delve deep into the optimization.

Here's a couple of my favorite ways to give a character that nova potential they're looking for:
Take a Goliath Barbarian 5/Hulking Hurler 2/Frenzied Berserker 8 (who qualifies for HH using the Goliath Barbarian Racial ACF) is an ECL 16 character with a solid melee build...and that Hulking Hurler dip for some extra fun. While raging and frenzying, their Strength (assuming bas 18 and standard items) is a healthy 47, with them being Large; this gives them a Medium Load of 14912 lbs, which lets them hurl an object for a whopping 77d6+18 damage once per round, averaging at 287 damage.
What, stacking Rage and Frenzy on a Hulking Hurler isn't enough "Nova" for you? Give them a Headband of the Apache Chief, a custom item of 1/day Command Word: "Giant Form CL 19" (command phrase: "Inuk Chuk!"), which costs about 47880 by the magic item pricing guidelines. Because the Str bonus from the spell is an untyped bonus, it stacks with everything else, so now you're Colossal with a Str of 79; this makes your medium load 15286272 lbs, for a once per round boulder toss dealing (76434)d6+34 damage. If they didn't have a way to dodge that small mountain you just tossed at them...they're dead.
Take a Halfling Warblade 5/Bloodstorm Blade 4/Master Thrower 1/Warblade +10. Between Palm Throw, Rapid Shot, and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, their average round throwing Wounding Kukris at people sees those quadruplet blades fly back and forth a total of 16 times all together, with each hit adding another point of Con damage to the target...and each crit (thanks to Blood In The Water) adding to the attack and damage bonus. Furthermore, if you feel like nova'ing, activate your Boots of Speed and use "Raging Mongoose" and "Time Stands Still" to increase that number from 16 attacks to 38 for a round...which should leave your foe dead where they stand, and resembling swiss cheese.
38 attacks with high crit range, attack, damage, range, and Con damage not enough for you? Okay, so forget about being a Halfling, make it a Dragonwrought Kobold using BS tricks to get the epic feat "Distant Shot"; use Otyugh Hole+DCS to get enough feats to get up the Fighter chain towards Slashing Flurry, while picking up Lightning Mace and Roundabout Kick. Make all your Wounding Kukris Aptitude weapons as well. Now, not only are you starting with the same 16 attacks per round, your nova round is now 42 attacks...before your Aptitude Weapons and feats combine to give you an extra attack for every critical threat and critical confirm you get (on top of the aforementioned "+1 attack/damage per confirmed crit" from Blood in the Water). Basically, here's what happens: you look over the battlefield, you locate everything you want destroyed; as long as you can hit all of those things at the start of your turn, there's a good chance that all of them will be destroyed at the end of your turn. This includes things like distant boulders and the ground, if you so choose, as well as literally anything else you can see (I recommend optimizing your Spot check for this build, which shouldn't be difficult since you're going so far already).

Nova'ing with magic is a lot easier than nova'ing without magic...but nova'ing without magic can be so satisfying.

[Endarire]

Pretty much any combo of "Get extra actions" and "use these actions to deal lots of offensive stuff" will work.

[Tvtyrant]

extra spell admixtured empowered maximized Wand of Orb of Fire.