Optimize this feat 3: Swim-by attack from Stormwrack

[daremetoidareyo]

I Love Feats. They are little alterations to the rules and they interface with class features in some really fun and strange ways. Sometimes their utility is circumspect (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?471548-optimize-this-feat-Battle-Mage-Tactics-(MMV)) and sometimes it gets into some weird waters (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?456152-RAW-what-makes-a-person-a-captain-of-a-ship-Scourge-of-the-Cheese). There is just something really satisfying about the interplay of feats and rules to produce illogical and unintended effects. Also, as a team, we can collectively push the limits of our apparent intelligence. (https://www.singularityweblog.com/human-swarming-and-the-future-of-collective-intelligence/)

What is this?
So I'm thinking about posting a weekly "Optimize this feat." Arbitrary credit seems to be important to sway people's incentives, so I have devised the following system to award credit to people who help plumb the possibilities of how to use a feat. I'm developing this on the fly, so rules are subject to change :smallannoyed:


All participants in the optimization endeavor post directly into the thread. They may post as many times as they want, just like any thread where you volunteer your ideas. After a week, the thread will be evaluated and participants will be assigned a score. That score represents how helpful or novel the poster was in their analysis of a feat's uses, abuses, interactions, and limitations. The rubric by which points are assigned to posters is developed below. The poster's who are most helpful will be announced after a week, and have their name highlighted in bold and in a font color other than black!


Point Allocation Rubric
The following list is not exhaustive of how points will be allocated, as I imagine that there will be weird end cases.

Suggestion of a non-overtly obvious class feature, spell, feat, skill trick, psi-power, magic/psionic item, or monster that interplays with the feat to produce an exaggerated result.

Overt Obviousness will be judged by me, but I will generally allocate points generously, What I am trying to avoid is people suggesting feat interplays that are non-exceptional and thus cluttering the thread with lame and uninteresting things. 1 point.

If the suggestion is particularly powerful, an additional point may be allocated to reward the optimizerly thinking. This decision is mine, although I will be swayed by what seems like genuine "co-signing," where other posters in the thread really glom onto the idea and develop it further.

A small build stub, between 5-12 levels, that includes a small write up of how the feat interplays with a few class features, racial features, spells, powers and feats to produce an effect that is far beyond the scope of what the feat of the week is capable of providing on its own. 5 points. +/- 1 point.

A rather undeveloped stub may only receive 4 points if it is a slightly modified rehash of a previous stub. A rather ingenious stub can earn an extra point. In some cases, you may actually do both! All of these are judgement calls as adjudicated by myself.

A fully functional optimization of the feat that ramps it up to its maximum power level where there is no way to possibly make it more amazing, including a 20 level build that follows the same format as iron chef dishes, but with minimal write up, is worthy of 10-12 points.

A display of relevant rules expertise that shapes the discussion is worthy of 0 or 1 point. This is the "squishiest" criteria, and will only be allocated when it corrects part of the conversation that is going too far off the rails. Particularly nasty interchanges about RAW may lead to abdication of this point. Being incorrect isn't an immoral offense, so I want an atmosphere where suggestions are flying but staying generally within the real bounds of dnd play. RAW discussions tend to get a little too personal, and hopefully this arbitrary point system can circumvent that.


BIAS
I am not a perfect judge. I prefer mundane to magical. I prefer Tier 3 and below to Tier 2 and up. But I do love me some dysfunction. So optimization that requires a lot of high level spells or powers (anything level 4 or up) will be less impressive to me. Go ahead and make your suggestion, I will try to police these biases in myself, but understand that these are factors that are in play.

Other information
All of that said, I have an exhibited tendency to be more forgiving/rules lax, whereas some of you are far more RAW heavy. I really do appreciate ya'll, so don't be afraid to reign in some of the theory and ground it in what is explicitly allowed. Different tables play the game differently. And this forum tends to highlight super polarized ends of this permissiveness spectrum that spans from "RAW to a fault" - "So ridiculously theoretically unbalanced beyond any DM's willingness to allow". Most play tends to be in the middle, if not a little skewed towards RAW: but not all play. With that in mind, if requested, if you are asked to assume that the theoretical DM handwaves your criticism as a special exception, please update your approach and proceed from there if you would like to continue to parse the possibilities that a feat offers. In this way, we can develop the full spectrum of what a feat can do.

This week's Feat is Swim-by Attack from Stormwrack (p. 94).

This endeavor concludes at 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time on January 20th.


Optimize this Feat 1:Wanderer's Diplomacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472308-Optimize-This-Feat-1-Wanderer-s-Diplomacy): VAZ
Optimize this Feat 2: Conductivity (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?473047-Optimize-this-Feat-2-Conductivity-from-Unearthed-Arcana&highlight=Conductivity): ben-zayb

[daremetoidareyo]

The feat reads

You can attack in the middle of a fast pass by your opponent.

Prerequisite
Swim speed

Benefit
When swimming, you can take a move action and another standard action (such as an attack) at any point during the move. You cannot take a second move action during a round when you make a swim-by attack.

Normal
Without this feat, you take a standard action either before or after your move, but not in the middle of your move.

I know this seems like a terrible feat , but there are 3 apparent ways to me for rocking it out.

1. As intended: underwater or on the surface of the water.

2: Find a RAW way to "swim" through air.

3: Find a RAW way to "swim" through other media. (earth, shadow, webs)

4. Bring the water to you

[Troacctid]

The other way is to find a way to bring the water with you.

I'm not aware of any ability that would let you swim through air--that's just called flying, generally, and it uses Flyby Attack. Gaining a permanent flight speed is also a lot easier than carrying around enough water to swim everywhere you go, so if you're taking Swim-By Attack, you're going to be taking it because you expect to spend a lot of time underwater for reals, not because you're hoping to abuse it in all terrain. A build using Swim-By Attack should pretty much start with the assumption that the adventure will take place almost entirely underwater.

[Flickerdart]

Hey, if we're getting RAW picky, the phrase "When swimming, you can take a move action and another standard action (such as an attack) at any point during the move" is very ambiguous:

What is "another" standard action? Does it impart more than one?
The sentence technically reads "you can take a move action...during the move." It specifies you cannot take a second move action, but nothing is stopping you from moving with another type of action and then taking a move action and your standard action during that move.

RAI is pretty clear, but hey.

Also there is a fourth way to rock out - create massive quantities of water or other liquid. Is it still a thread about Swim-By Attack if the character is based around flooding the entire plane to make his feat useful?

[Starbuck_II]

This is most useful in elemental plane of water.
If only there was a way to carry a plane's abilities with you.
Since you get a move and standard action, can you combine them to a full, thus full attacking while swimming?

[Troacctid]

If only there was a way to carry a plane's abilities with you.
There are ways, but they don't include the plane's actual physical terrain.


Since you get a move and standard action, can you combine them to a full, thus full attacking while swimming?
Not unless you have a way to make a full attack as a standard action.

[Platymus Pus]

When swimming, you can take a move action and another standard action (such as an attack) at any point during the move. You cannot take a second move action during a round when you make a swim-by attack.
Well seeing as you can already normally take a move and standard action while moving even in water.
I'll have to assume it literally means another standard action, like a AoO that procs by moving by people.
The spell Burst of Speed goes well with this feat I believe.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/burst-of-speed
Basically this one feat is the main mechanic of Rondo of swords. http://lparchive.org/Rondo-of-Swords/Update%2002/41-31.png
I also suggest this spell.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sky-swim

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hmm. Swift Hunter+Greater Manyshot seems like the obvious combo, particularly if it does, in fact, give an extra standard action. . Or spells, of course, because **** spells are always the most powerful option.

[Platymus Pus]

Hmm. Swift Hunter+Greater Manyshot seems like the obvious combo, particularly if it does, in fact, give an extra standard action. . Or spells, of course, because **** spells are always the most powerful option.

Why take feats when constant spells do the same thing :xykon:

[daremetoidareyo]

Has no one thought of a decent earthglide build? That might work.

Also still looking for guidance on using this feat as an inhabitant of a water elemental.

Are there any planar shepherd shenanigans?

Is walking on water substantively different than swimming?

Lastly, Suggested changes to the judging rubric are being accepted.

Post Lastly, feat suggestions are welcome. Perhaps our 5th feat will be democratically elected?

[Troacctid]

I maintain that the best use of Swim-By Attack is to assume that you will always be underwater. There's just no practical way to use it anywhere else in such a way that Flyby Attack wouldn't obviously be better and easier.

It is actually a very useful feat for NPCs, because as the DM, you get to dictate what environment the players will encounter them in. For example, I might take the standard sahuagin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/sahuagin.htm) from the Monster Manual and replace its Great Fortitude feat with Swim-By Attack. The players would encounter a group of sahuagin while traveling on the shore or in a boat, and the sahuagin would swim up to the surface, fire their crossbows, and dart back underwater again for cover.


Is there anyway to be a swimmer who lives inside a giant water elemental? Or better yet, a swarm of water elementals? Cuz the swarm could do its thing. You could attack, move into the water elemental and attack as you move through it.
You can only swim through a water elemental while it's in vortex form, and it can only use vortex form if it's already underwater, so this doesn't work.


Can you not typically make a full attack underwater? First person to clarify this RAW gets a point. Troactid, I think you may get it...Unless anyone has an interpretation where your standard action during your move via this feat doesn't supersede your normal standard action.
You can make a full attack underwater, you just need a full-round action to do so, making it incompatible with Swim-By Attack.

I suppose you could use your standard action to start/complete a full round action. This doesn't work with full attacks, but it does work with e.g. Eldritch Glaive.


Has no one thought of a decent earthglide build? That might work.
Earth gliding is not swimming. It doesn't work with Swim-By Attack.


Are there any planar shepherd shenanigans?
You could use Planar Shepherd to mimic the traits of the Elemental Plane of Water.

The Elemental Plane of Water has the following traits.


Subjective directional gravity. The gravity here works similar to that of the Elemental Plane of Air. But sinking or rising on the Elemental Plane of Water is slower (and less dangerous) than on the Elemental Plane of Air.
Water-dominant.
Enhanced magic. Spells and spell-like abilities that use or create water are both extended and enlarged (as if the Extend Spell and Enlarge Spell metamagic feats had been used on them, but the spells don’t require higher-level slots). Spells and spell-like abilities that are already extended or enlarged are unaffected by this benefit.
Impeded magic. Spells and spell-like abilities with the fire descriptor (including spells of the Fire domain) are impeded.


However, I don't see any of these traits being helpful for abusing Swim-By Attack.


Is walking on water substantively different than swimming?
Yes. Walking on water would use Spring Attack, not Swim-By Attack.

[Flickerdart]

There's a feat - Flying Fish Leap - that lets you jump out of the water with a simultaneous high and long jump. If a charitable DM counts this as swimming (since the start and end is in water and you are never using non-Swim speeds) you could carry around a small-ish area of water, and jump out of it to stab enemies.

[icefractal]

Is this using 3.5 material only? If Pathfinder is allowed, then there's the spell Sky Swim (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sky-swim). Still kind of niche, because it's the same level and duration as Fly, so it only helps if you have a swim speed better than what you could get as a fly speed. Or if your opponents are packing a lot of anti-flying spells.

That, or just use it for an exclusively underwater campaign, in which case it's better and easier to get than Spring Attack.

[Starbuck_II]

There's a feat - Flying Fish Leap - that lets you jump out of the water with a simultaneous high and long jump. If a charitable DM counts this as swimming (since the start and end is in water and you are never using non-Swim speeds) you could carry around a small-ish area of water, and jump out of it to stab enemies.

The Kiddie Pool of doom?!

[Troacctid]

The Kiddie Pool of doom?!

If you're small enough, Tenser's Floating Disk holds about 2 gallons of water and follows your movement.

[daremetoidareyo]

Earth gliding is not swimming. It doesn't work with Swim-By Attack.


There is wiggle room there due to the way the ability tends to be worded. Specifically the phrase: "You give the subject the ability to glide through earth and stone as easily as an earth elemental does.
The affected creature can glide through stone, dirt, or almost any other sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water."

You can earth glide without a burrow speed on your character sheet, so your movement mode is defaults to something, so it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to the burrowing mode of movement. Except with the only exception of the Darkrunner's stonewalking ability, which has a burrow speed caveat.

If you don't have a land speed, it is debatable that you could earthglide swimby attack as easily as fish with the feat does through water.


Earth elemental
Earth Glide (Ex): An earth elemental can glide through stone, dirt, or almost any other sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water. Its burrowing leaves behind no tunnel or hole, nor does it create any ripple or other signs of its presence. A move earth spell cast on an area containing a burrowing earth elemental flings the elemental back 30 feet, stunning the creature for 1 round unless it succeeds on a DC 15 Fortitude save.

Earth glide spell:
You give the subject the ability to glide through earth and stone as easily as an earth elemental does.
The affected creature can glide through stone, dirt, or almost any other sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water.
Its burrowing leaves behind no tunnel or hole, nor does it create any ripple or other signs of its presence.
A move earth spell cast on an area containing the affected creature flings the creature back 30 feet and stuns the creature for 1 round unless it succeeds on a DC 15 Fortitude save.



The Kiddie Pool of doom?!

I love this ridiculous idea. Going crazy with it. Basically it's a druid with two animal companions that have water cannons strapped to them (cannons that simply have water in them). The animal companions run in parallel and the druid "shoots" back and forth making attacks with 1 standard action, while casting spells with his other freed up standard action.


Is this using 3.5 material only? If Pathfinder is allowed, then there's the spell Sky Swim (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sky-swim). Still kind of niche, because it's the same level and duration as Fly, so it only helps if you have a swim speed better than what you could get as a fly speed. Or if your opponents are packing a lot of anti-flying spells.

That, or just use it for an exclusively underwater campaign, in which case it's better and easier to get than Spring Attack.

I know jackall about most pathfinder stuff, but seeing as how this directly addresses the issue, and that forums are part conversation, part performance art for others, I see no reason to disallow pathfinder suggestions. I cannot in good faith really render judgements about portability for most tables. But this is a great suggestion regardless.

[Nashira]

Would you be able to use this feat alongside sand swim, the ability that sounds of the Sandstorm races have? I mean, it's technically swimming, just not through water...

[ben-zayb]

Would you be able to use this feat alongside sand swim, the ability that sounds of the Sandstorm races have? I mean, it's technically swimming, just not through water...
I think this is the best suggestion so far! It can do the Ghost-mole tactics on a sandy terrain using an ordinary Asherati!:smallbiggrin:


I'm guessing some variety of the Jellomancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?214898-The-Jellomancer) could take advantage of this feat.

[daremetoidareyo]

Would you be able to use this feat alongside sand swim, the ability that sounds of the Sandstorm races have? I mean, it's technically swimming, just not through water...

The Asherati. Here's the text


As a merfolk is to the sea, an asherati is to sand, ash, dust, and even softsand (but not slipsand, packed dirt, or rock). An asherati can sandswim through such materials at his land speed while wearing light armor or carrying a light load. His speed drops to 5 feet if an asherati wears heavier armor or carries a medium load. An asherati cannot make any headway through the sand while carrying a heavy load. An asherati breathes normally while under the sands. This supernatural ability doesn't allow an asherati to breath in mediums other than sand, dust, or ash, nor does it allow an asherati to hold its breath longer than normal in water or dangerous gases.

This is definitely in ask your DM territory, mostly because of the landspeed aspect being directly called out: you aren't using your swim speed...But that merfolk to sea comment isn't just flavor text anymore, is it? Good find!

[Troacctid]

Asherati explicitly use their land speed, not their swim speed. Even if it worked, it's not as if loose sand is that much more common than water.

[Zetapup]

Earth Glide (Ex): An earth elemental can glide through stone, dirt, or almost any other sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water. Its burrowing leaves behind no tunnel or hole, nor does it create any ripple or other signs of its presence. A move earth spell cast on an area containing a burrowing earth elemental flings the elemental back 30 feet, stunning the creature for 1 round unless it succeeds on a DC 15 Fortitude save.

The easiest way I know of (off the top of my head) to get earth glide is paladin 12, taking the underdark knight substitution levels. Start off with a race that gets a swim speed (which one shouldn't matter much), and then go paladin at least 12 levels, taking feats that focus on damage and casting (so power attack, knowledge devotion, battle blessing, and sword of the arcane order, etc). Make sure to take the mystic fire knight sub levels as well and wield a 2 handed weapon with reach so you can avoid AoO's when you attack people.

Battle Blessing is excellent for this since you aren't using your swift actions for anything else, so might as well use them to buff up your charge (I don't think you can actually charge given the wording of the feat, but you get the idea). Assuming that earth gliding counts as swimming, you can "swim" 10 feet or so under your opponents, and then come up and attack them every round.

The main problem with this is seeing where you need to go. The easiest way I can think of is to grab mindsight- if sword of the arcane order counts as giving you arcane casting, you just need to be non-good for mindbender (so be a paladin of tyranny or slaughter). Otherwise, I can't think of any easy options right now, but I'm sure there's something that'd work.

Your damage will be kinda eh (although you miiight be able to make some sort of manyshot build work, or dip a ToB class for the standard action strikes. I'd probably go with the strikes, since they do some decent damage and you can nab some high level ones since you're taking the ToB levels so late), but your enemies won't know where/when you're going to come up from and can't really target you without readying actions/casting move earth. There's probably a few kinks in this that need to be worked out, but it seems pretty solid as long as earth gliding counts as "swimming".

[daremetoidareyo]

Big ole analysis...

Your opponents would be left having to ready an action every round. Ring of x-ray vision would pair nicely with your paladin.

Earth dreamer solves both the earth glide problem and the sight problem.

Elocator solves the landspeed problem with earthglide.

It also solves the problem of how to "swim" in air entirely. If you are an air breather with no land speed (awakened dolphin? Berserk from Deities and demigods cachalot form?) you can scorn earth and swim through the air. You will also need to be allowed to retrain those useless dodge mobility and spring attack feats while retaining your class features...Although, judging by the wording of spring attack, this might be a way to get two attacks during a move.




http://img03.deviantart.net/03c0/i/2007/217/1/b/land_whale_by_oh8.jpg

Swim by attack looks like it may stack with spring attack. If DM says no, retrain spring attack or get it in item form somehow and then retrain it. This build works off of earth glide's fish statements, the lack of clarity about what movement speed to use for elocator's scorn earth and the berserk's ability to transform into a gargantuan sperm whale for an entire day. Attack above ground dive into the earth. A terrestrial Moby **** that leaves no survivors. Three fold mask of the Chimera looks like it may circumvent the weird wording of the swimby attack.









Level

Class

Feat








1
Fighter

Expeditious dodge, Mobility, power attack








2
Duskblade











3
Totemist

Earth Sense








4
Darksong Knight Fighter

Spring Attack








5
Ardent




Freedom Mantle, water mantle





6
Elocator

swim by attack

scorn earth





7
Berserk











8
Berserk











9
Berserk

Snatch

Cachalot: Str 35, Dex 13, Con 24





10
totemist




3fold mask of chimera (double move actions), All essence in dread carapace





11
Earth Dreamer











12
Earth Dreamer

open least chakra








13
Earth Dreamer




tremorsense





14
Earth Dreamer




earth sight





15
Earth Dreamer

cleave

earth glide





16
war hulk











17
war hulk











18
uncanny trickster

feat








19
Uncanny Trickster










20
Uncanny Trickster

[WhamBamSam]

I love Swim-By Attack. I did a build a while back for a different thread that involved using it in its intended environment.

NE Venerable Dragonwrought Aquatic Kobold Feat Rogue 2/Binder 8/Stalwart Sorcerer 1/Knight of the Sacred Seal (Paimon) 5/Crusader 1/Aquatic Ferocity Barbarian 1/Battle Dancer 1/Hit-and-Run Sneak Attack Fighter 1
1. Kobold Feat Rogue 1 - Dragonwrought, Combat Reflexes
2. Feat Rogue 2 - Expeditious Dodge
3. Binder 1 - Mortalbane
4. Binder 2
5. Binder 3
6. Binder 4 - Swim By Attack, Improved Binding
7. Stalwart Sorcerer 1 - Weapon Focus (Rapier)
8. Knight of the Sacred Seal 2
9. Crusader 1 - Sahuagin Flip
10. Knight of the Sacred Seal 2
11. Knight of the Sacred Seal 3
12. Knight of the Sacred Seal 4 - Maximize SLA
13. Battle Dancer 1 - Improved Unarmed Strike
14. Aquatic Ferocity Barbarian 1
15. Knight of the Sacred Seal 5 - Extra Granted Maneuver
16. Binder 5
17. Binder 6
18. Hit-and-Run Sneak Attack Fighter 1 - Craven
19. Binder 7
20. Binder 8

The important trick here is the Races of the Dragon spell Ghostly Tail, taken as our Draconic Rite of Passage SLA, which is just the gift of bad writing that keeps on giving. First off, as a 1st level it has an hour/level duration. The CL for your Draconic Rite of Passage SLA is your character level, so it won't take long for it to be lasting pretty much the whole adventuring day. Second, it explicitly works even if the person provoking does so when you aren't wielding a weapon that threatens them, so if the provoking action is attacking your allies after being Defensive Rebuked, that's fair game for (Maximized Mortalbane) Ghostly Tail, even if you're no longer there to dole out the punishment. To that end, we're looking to lay the rebuke on as many enemies as possible. Enter Paimon, whose Dance of Death ability lets you move your speed and attack anyone you pass by as a standard action. But wait there's more! Sahuagin Flip lets us Withdraw as a move action, moving double our speed. Swim By Attack lets us put our standard action Dance of Death anywhere during that move. Rapid Retreat, from the Kobold Rogue sub-level, increases move speed by 5 while Withdrawing (which, as the Dance of Death is happening during our move action, includes both the Withdraw movement and Dance of Death movement). We've also got a +10 to swim speed from Aquatic Barbarian's variant Fast Movement, and +30 from Wings of the Sea via the Sorcerer level or a wand. All totaled, the little guy moves 255ft slicing up people for 85ft of it, ends his turn in some patch of paralytic plant (for Clownfish flavor and to actually do something with the Dragonwrought paralysis immunity, might not be worth it relative to the extra feat being a vanilla kobold would give, honestly), then, should they attack anyone else, smacks them for 4d6 (maximized)+[Character level]+[Precision stuff which applies even from beyond 30ft, as it's technically a melee attack] Force damage.

I think that Sahaugin Flip+Swim-By Attack is a combo worth keeping even if we do go the route of doing our swimming via Earth Glide or whatever. Whether or not we bother with Kobold Rogue or any of the other cheeses involved is more of an open question.

Going the Earth Glide route, I'd agree with the Swift Hunter suggestion. Poke your head up out of the ground to loose a volley, then dive back down to relative safety. You can probably get enemies flat-footed that way most of the time as well. I had hoped that we'd be able to use the Manticore belt Totem bind and get our swim speed from another soulmeld, but it turns out the one I was thinking of (Kraken Mantle) doesn't actually grant a swim speed, just bonuses that are analagous to those a swim speed would give you. Ah well.

[Zetapup]

Your opponents would be left having to ready an action every round. Ring of x-ray vision would pair nicely with your paladin.

Earth dreamer solves both the earth glide problem and the sight problem.

Elocator solves the landspeed problem with earthglide.

It also solves the problem of how to "swim" in air entirely. If you are an air breather with no land speed (awakened dolphin? Berserk from Deities and demigods cachalot form?) you can scorn earth and swim through the air. You will also need to be allowed to retrain those useless dodge mobility and spring attack feats while retaining your class features...Although, judging by the wording of spring attack, this might be a way to get two attacks during a move.

Ooh, yeah, I completely forgot about that ring. The earth dreamer is nice, but 3+con modifier rounds per day for the vision and earth glide is a bit limiting, in my opinion. I think I've figured out how to avoid most readied actions. Avoiding melee is really easy, since you can just wield a reach weapon and add on the deformity feat that gives you an extra 5 feet to your reach (or take the long reach feat and wield an aptitude weapon). That should outdistance most melee attackers, and you can throw on size increases or more reach feats if you're going up against larger creatures frequently.

Avoiding ranged attacks/spells is a bit cheesier- be an argent spider (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psb/20030725a) entomanothrope. The int penalty sucks, but take a look at argent spider's dimension slide ability. That should negate one (or more, if you teleport strategically) attack per round (Alternatively, you could dip a level of wizard for the specialist conjurer ability that lets you teleport 10ft as an immediate action. Heck, you could do both since they don't conflict action-wise). Add in a dash of fast healing from whatever source you like most (wands of lesser vigor, probably, unless you can nab a template that does it better), and you've got a very difficult to kill combatant.

WhamBamSam's clownfish dragon is pretty sweet, and it could be partially added to the build too. I was already planning on dipping a level of a ToB class after paladin for some strikes, so that works out pretty nicely. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well on this build since it's focused more around a "duck out of the ground, attack, duck into the ground" sort of tactic and will only hit one enemy per round. Still, 2d6 + character level damage (plus potentially more if you dip rogue) is a nice little incentive to keep the enemy from attacking any of your teammates.

[daremetoidareyo]

Combining the kiddie pool of doom with the flying fish leap and a gore attack; All thanks to your fine suggestions I present:

The Beer Power Fish Cannon
http://i.imgur.com/3nr7agn.png

LE Carp Hengeyokai
Barbarian 3/Fighter 2/Battle Trickster 2/Monk 2/DrunkenMaster 2/HornedHarbiinger 1/Sorcerer 1

32 Point Buy
Humanoid
Str 16
Dex 8
Con 12
Int 14
Wis 12
Cha 14

Carp
Str 1
Dex 20
Con 10
Int 14
Wis 12
Cha 14

The premise is simple, pour enough beer for the dimunitive carp to both drink and swim in into a 4' long cylinder that has a tapered edge, Drop your Carp into it, and the fish does all of the hard work!
Point somewhere, and fire!




Level
Class
Feats
Class Features


1
Ferocity (cityscape) Barbarian
swim-by attack (SW)
Begin Neutral, speed +10


2
Horse Totem Barbarian
Quick Swimmer Skill Trick (CS), Run (bonus)
trade uncanny dodge for improved trip


3
Planar Barbarian
Great fortitude
trap sense for portal blah blah, knowledge (planes)


4
Hit and Run (DotU) Fighter
Expeditious Dodge (ROW), Extreme leap skill trick(CS)



5
Overwhelming Attack Monk
Power Attack, IUS
Quit Drinking, turn Lawful


6
Draconic Fist Monk
Flying Fish Leap (SW),



7
Battle trickster
twisted charge skill trick



8
Battle trickster
Leap Attack (CA)



9
Dragon Blood Sorcerer
Obtain familiar
Strength of the true form, Expeditious retreat or Tenser's floating disk. Your UMD ranks are your ravens UMD ranks


10
Drunken Master

Drink like a Fiend


11
Drunken Master

Stagger


12
Horned harbinger
Power Lunge (sword and fist) Death Devotion (CC)







Get your raven familiar to use a wand of strength of true form on you every turn in order to compensate for that paltry strength of 1. As a carp you only have a swim speed, and it is only at 20 after your barbarian bonus. You will need to buff thine self with expeditious retreat, or just get an item that boosts speed. Drink Like a Demon and drop your intelligence and wisdom to 2, granting a +10 bonus to strength. Leap from the barrel of the gun, make both a swim and a jump check for an extra 20 feat of movement (skill tricks!) Use stagger to make your jump charge disobey the laws of normal jump charge physics, but Don't target any creature more than 15 to 25 feet away. Power attack if you think that you can hit. Between Leap Attack and Power Lunge and Flying Kick, and Death Devotion, you can do quite a bit of damage at 13th level, turn around mid jump and dive back into the concealment of your barrel, Whirling Frenzy may grant an extra attack, but you may not have the BAB for it, so you may prefer to take the ferocity ACF from Cityscape.

Besides the main Premise, the funkiest non-RAW aspect is using planar barbarian substitution level on the third level of barbarian to get knowledge planes. As pointed out below, the class feature of trap sense would then be traded away twice. Hopefully, the fact that the planar barbarian is a substitution level and not an ACF is enough to allow it to fly. Otherwise....the chart would look like this





Level
Class
Feats






1


Martial Rogue
Keeper of Forbidden Lore (FC1) (1), Expeditious Dodge
UMD




2


Ferocity Skilled city dwelling Barbarian,
Quick Swimmer Skill Trick (CS),
trade ride for tumble, +10 movement




3


Horse Totem Barbarian
Run (bonus), Great Fortitude (3)






4


Overwhelming Attack Monk
power attack (bonus), ius (bonus) Extreme Leap skill trick
Flurry




5


Draconic Fist Monk


Evasion




6


Monk
Flying Fish Leap (6),
+10 move




7


Drunken Master


Drink like a fiend




8


Drunken Master


stagger




9


Battle trickster
Leap Attack (9), twisted charge Skill trick






10


Battle trickster
Swim by attack (bonus)






11


Sorcerer


strength of the true form, Tensers floating Disk




12


Horned harbinger
death devotion (CC), Power Lunge (sword and fist)
Horns!








Anyway, 2*(1d6 gore damage (+ 1d12 flying kick) + 2*power attack damage + 2*1.5* (3str+2rage+5demondrink=)10 strength damage). Assuming that you put 1 BAB into power attack, you do 68 +1d6*2 per round, an extra dex mod X2 more if your opponent is flat footed. Plus you make them gain negative levels on your strikes.

Have an ally fill up the cylinder and roll it towards the enemy caster. Use tensers floating disk to make a kiddie pool if you are imprisoned, all you need to do is fill it with two gallons of liquid...drunken death carp of doom ain't too picky.

I would finish off the build with scout levels and maybe some improved skirmish or snap kick. Maybe even an initiator. Another option is taking 3 levels of uncanny trickster and using it to get another 10' speed from a monk level, as well as using it to get another use of ferocity per day from barbarian. Who cares if flyby attack + sparrow hengeyokai + horned harbinger is better. This has Flava. (and yes, I know that isn't a carp in that picture)

[Darrin]

MAGIKARP used SPLASH!
But, it failed!
MAGIKARP needs FLURRY OF BLOWS and EVASION.

[daremetoidareyo]

MAGIKARP used SPLASH!
But, it failed!
MAGIKARP needs FLURRY OF BLOWS and EVASION.

Thanks. I remembered reading once about a barbarian from the north who was able to join the drunken masters. Apparently that was entirely a lie.

[Darrin]

Thanks. I remembered reading once about a barbarian from the north who was able to join the drunken masters. Apparently that was entirely a lie.

If you replace Fighter 2 and PsyWar 1 with Cobra Strike or Overwhelming Attack Monk 2, then it should still work as posted.

More troubling: Lion Totem, Wolf Totem, and Bear Totem can't be combined like that, as they all trade away the same class features. Wolf Totem and Spirit Lion Totem work because Wolf Totem keeps Fast Movement, and Spirit Lion trades that away for Pounce.

(I'm not sure there is any such thing as Planar Fighter 1/2. The Planar Substitution levels for Fighter are 4th/8th/12th.)

[daremetoidareyo]

If you replace Fighter 2 and PsyWar 1 with Cobra Strike or Overwhelming Attack Monk 2, then it should still work as posted.

More troubling: Lion Totem, Wolf Totem, and Bear Totem can't be combined like that, as they all trade away the same class features. Wolf Totem and Spirit Lion Totem work because Wolf Totem keeps Fast Movement, and Spirit Lion trades that away for Pounce.

(I'm not sure there is any such thing as Planar Fighter 1/2. The Planar Substitution levels for Fighter are 4th/8th/12th.)

Wrong lion totem, I wanted run for free, not pounce :) I'll edit the planar sub levels.

Well, It's all edited up. Had to move a bunch of stuff around...

[Darrin]

Wrong lion totem, I wanted run for free, not pounce :) I'll edit the planar sub levels.

I know what you meant. I was just providing an example of why Spirit Lion Totem works but Boring Lion Totem doesn't.

Hmm. I'm not quite sure Stagger works here, as I don't think the jump/swim thing counts as a charge. However, we might be able to fix that. You need at least two levels of Monk for Drunken Master... well, pick up five more levels, and get Mantis Leap (Sword & Fist, needs Monk 7). This turns any "normal Jump check" into a charge (because jumping out of a beer cannon is pretty "normal", right?). Even better, that charge was just our move action for the round... we still have a standard action left, so we could do a ToB strike or whatever, and since our "charge" is still a move action, we can "Stagger" back to our beer.

If you want to add Pounce... Barb doesn't go so well with Lawful monks, maybe take Totemist 2 and Open Least Chakra for Sphinx Claws.

(Too bad Swim By Attack prevents any additional moves on your turn, otherwise you could SPLASH twice a turn, or three times with hustle.)

If you're looking for more feats to showcase, I have a suggestion: Hammer and Piton from Dungeonscape.

[WhamBamSam]

You don't seem to actually be using Swim-By Attack, since you're taking a charge action rather than a move+standard.

You also don't appear to qualify for Dragonblood Sorcerer, unless you're trying for some manner of chicanery like having Essence of the Dragon or Polymorph or something cast on yourself right when you take the level.

I wasn't aware of some of those swim speed boosting things though. Good finds. There's also Water Heritage (+20 ft) and Planar Touchstone (Mundelir Lake) (+10 ft), though the build's somewhat feat tight as is.

There are a few ways to get Flurry without being lawful. Brood Monkeys have it as a racial ability. Creatures with the dragon type automatically qualify for Disciple of the Eye, and so can get around its alignment prereq. It used to be argued that Shou Disciple's Martial Flurry worked, but that's sketchy, and I don't think I've seen that claim for a while.

EDIT: I nominate Contagious Paralysis from Libris Mortis as a feat to showcase in the future.

[daremetoidareyo]

You don't seem to actually be using Swim-By Attack, since you're taking a charge action rather than a move+standard.

You also don't appear to qualify for Dragonblood Sorcerer, unless you're trying for some manner of chicanery like having Essence of the Dragon or Polymorph or something cast on yourself right when you take the level.

I wasn't aware of some of those swim speed boosting things though. Good finds. There's also Water Heritage (+20 ft) and Planar Touchstone (Mundelir Lake) (+10 ft), though the build's somewhat feat tight as is.

There are a few ways to get Flurry without being lawful. Brood Monkeys have it as a racial ability. Creatures with the dragon type automatically qualify for Disciple of the Eye, and so can get around its alignment prereq. It used to be argued that Shou Disciple's Martial Flurry worked, but that's sketchy, and I don't think I've seen that claim for a while.

EDIT: I nominate Contagious Paralysis from Libris Mortis as a feat to showcase in the future.

You see this is what happens when I go off the rails, I forgot about charge being a full round action.

It appears that I need to reconfigure the whole thing back around the basics. 1 single action. No rage.

[Flickerdart]

Charging is not a full-round action when you are Slowed or otherwise have only a standard action available (such as a zombie would). Swim-by Attack does not require that your movement be with a move action, and in fact grants you the ability to take your move action during the movement, as previously discussed.

[daremetoidareyo]

Charging is not a full-round action when you are Slowed or otherwise have only a standard action available (such as a zombie would). Swim-by Attack does not require that your movement be with a move action, and in fact grants you the ability to take your move action during the movement, as previously discussed.

That isn't exactly the way that most DM's would adjudicate.


If you're looking for more feats to showcase, I have a suggestion: Hammer and Piton from Dungeonscape.

I'll add it to the short list. Also, this feat might actually save the beer cannon fish. It actually completely changes the dynamic. There is nothing written about creatures that only have a swim speed not being allowed to make either standing jump checks nor are there any rules that I know of about swim speed only creatures being barred from making Climb Checks. In fact it says this under the climb speed: "With a successful Climb check, you can advance up, down, or across a slope, a wall, or some other steep incline (or even a ceiling with handholds) at one-quarter your normal speed. A slope is considered to be any incline at an angle measuring less than 60 degrees; a wall is any incline at an angle measuring 60 degrees or more." All we need to do is budget that into the movement.

This makes the charging part of the build a great way to enter combat. This is a mouthfull, but I think that this might be the craziest build that I've ever done.





Level

Class

Feats








1
Martial Rogue

Hammer and Piton (bonus), Keeper of Forbidden Lore (FC 1)

UMD, Climb, Tumble, Swim, Jump, Knowledge (Planes)





2
Ferocity Skilled city dwelling Barbarian,

Quick Swimmer Skill Trick (CS)

trade ride for tumble, +10 movement





3
Bear totem barbarian

Versatile Unarmed Strike (PHB2) (3)








4
Bear Totem Barbarian

Great Fortitude








5
Overwhelming Attack Monk

power attack (bonus), ius (bonus) Extreme Leap skill trick

Flurry





6
Draconic Fist Monk

Flying Fish Leap (6),

Evasion





7
Hit and Run Fighter

Expeditious Dodge








8
Drunken Master




Drink like a fiend





9
Drunken Master

Leap Attack (9),

stagger





10
Battle trickster

twisted charge Skill trick








11
Battle trickster

Swim by attack (bonus) Leaping Climber Skill Trick(CS)








12
Sorcerer

Power Lunge (sword and fist), Alertness

strength of the true form, Tensers floating Disk





13
Horned harbinger

death devotion (CC),

Horns!





14
Fighter 2

giantbane (CW)(bonus)








15
Ardent dilletant

underfoot combat(15) corner Perch Skill Trick








16
Ardent dilletant

Wall Jumper Skill Trick (CS)








17
Ardent dilletant

Dismount Attack (CS)








18
Ardent dilletant

Battle Jump (18), Confound the Big Folk (bonus)

Sense Link








Ok. Necessary Gear here is Wand of strength of True Form, Wand of expeditious retreat, a strength booster +4 magic item on your raven familiar, Something to Boost your Speed, a piton, and an adamantium Tube with a small enclosed basin at the bottom, a pillow, and about 2 gallons of Beer.

Give the wand to your raven, who will have your UMD ranks. Pour your beer into the bazooka. Cast Tensers Floating Disc. Prop your Bazooka onto the pillow Transform into a carp and load yourself inside. The Disc will follow your raven. If you don't like that idea, perhaps a back line party member can just carry the bazooka.

Combat Begins. You Cast Strength of the True form on yourself and then Drink enough beer to drain your intelligence and wisdom down to 2 as a move action. Your strength goes from 1 to 16. This will give you at least +10 strength. Chill in the Cylinder for this round. Next round, your raven will fly and use your ranks in UMD to wand a casting of "strength of the true form" on you. This round, however, perhaps he can cast expeditious retreat on you with another wand. You have total concealment in your Bazooka. Finish off your turn with putting a piton in your mouth...and use versatile unarmed strike to make your natural attacks all bludgeoning...

Round 2:
Activate Ferocity. Raven hits you with SOTTF.
Swim check (which you can take 10 on due to having a native swim speed) activates the Quick swimmer Skill Trick. This give you 10 more feet of movement this turn. We can now swim 60 feet.
Flying Fish Leap allows you to make a Jump check at no penalty to breach the surface of the water and your high jump check will allow you to move an equal amount of horizontal distance. A High Jump's DC is equal to 8 without a 20' head start times the distance to be cleared, and you gain a +4 bonus for every 10 feet of speed you have over 30. 10 +10 (barbarian) +30 Expeditious + your item bonus = +8 bonus. Add a minimum +10 strength bonus, and over 20 ranks in Jump. It doesn't matter much, because we're gonna add that extra 10 feet of movement from the quick swimmer skill trick into this jump height.

Because you moved more than 10 feet laterally with a jump, you can spend a swift action to get 10 more feet of movement. This means that you can move your Jump distance laterally and you have 10 more feet of movement for the turn. You can Hit anyone 10 feat away. Swimby attack activates, and you use your standard action to place the piton with a touch attack! This deals 1d4 plus your strength in damage. Because you used your horns, which are an unarmed strike, consider activating draconic fist.

If the target is at least one size category larger than you, you can make a special Climb check (DC equal to the target's Armor Class) to enter his space as part of your move action. This activates the Speedy ascent Skill trick, granting you another 10 feet of movement. If you make the Climb check with a -5 penalty, you can move half of your speed value, of which you have only used a fraction of (like 3 feet)...So you climb onto his back as a carp, where you have 10 more feat of movement left, which you use to make a "running" High jump from your climb speed. This is where you apply that addition 10 feet of movement from using the extreme leap skill trick. If you manage to get 10' into the air, you activate Battle Jump on your way back down! Where you flip yourself around for a charge attack for double double damage with double and half strength damage and double power attack damage calculated into that (at least 90 hp.) (Leap Attack power lunge battle jump double charge damage using 1.5 strength modifier for primary natural attack). But your DM might not allow that, so you could instead use that position to Corner perch skill trick if applicable, which you can use to wall jump skill trick next turn to land back in your bazooka, making a standard attack along the way...or...

You stay on top of your enemy. And 1 of 2 things might happen. Either he can't move because swim-by attack reads: "You cannot take a second move action during a round when you make a swim-by attack" while Hammer and Piton reads "if your foe moves, you remain in his space as he moves" so if swimby attack doesn't pin him in place, (which has utility) or you are moving again, and therefor you get a standard action at any point in the move seeing as how your locomotion is powered predominantly by your sole movement method, a swim speed. Regardless, If the DM adjudicates that neither of these things occur, (which, let's be honest, is probably fair), underfoot combat grants you soft cover.

Now, all of your movement from here on is climb checks, tumbles, and jumps.

Round 3:
You have so many options. Raven hits you with SOTTF.
A.) If this opponent remained adjacent to another opponent from last turn, (either because he couldn't move due to swimby's reading, or your charge killing him), Giantbane's climb aboard allows you to make a DC10 climb check as a free action to climb up the next guy, with whom it is said that you are explicitly moving with on his turn, you're not just staying in his space (like the wording with hammer and piton). So you get a standard action on your move, and another standard action if this guy moves.
From here, you can fight defensively to make an attack, and if there is a wall, proceed to use your skill checks to use Leap climber, Climb the wall the requisite height, and use wall jump Battle jump charge attack this enemy like you did last turn. If you land adjacent to a new enemy, well, next turn you can do some more.

B.) If there is no adjacent enemy to climb, or your opponent is still alive after last round, or there is no wall to utilize, you have some options. 1.) Due to confound the big folk, this opponent is now flatfooted against you, so you could power attack defensively, (dex to damage from hit and run fighter) with a standard action, thus triggering CTBF's underfoot defense, thus granting any attacks against you until next turn a 50% of just hitting the opponent or 2.) you can use a standard action to use CTBF's Unsteady footing to make a trip attempt against this guy. And seeing as how there is no provision that you need hands to make a ride check, so you could command your raven to pick you up off the tripped enemy and drop you back into the canon or...fly over/near another opponent where you...

Round 4. Use a free action to fast dismount your raven who has taken you to a region of the battle field with two opponents. Raven hits you with SOTTF. You use the fast dismount skill trick as a free action to make a charge as a standard action on one guy adjacent to another guy that you are also charging by the simply falling clause of battle jump to charge. You might have been able to use swimby attack while the raven flew you over there as a standard action during a move. Probably not that seems like pushing your luck.

You are now out of skill tricks.

[WhamBamSam]

I'm pretty sure "unarmed strike" and "unarmed attack" only refer to the unarmed strike weapon itself and not to natural weapons in generality. It also doesn't actually matter because Hammer and Piton requires a 1-handed bludgeoning weapon, and natural weapons count as light weapons.

You could take 2 levels of Warshaper, and so give yourself a tentacle with which to use Gloves of Man with which to wield said bludgeoning weapon.(Totemist 2 with the Displacer Mantle bound to your totem would also give tentacles which could be used this way).

It would also seem by my reading that moving into your opponent's space with Hammer and Piton takes a whole move action, rather than just part of one. Moreover, I don't see how you can be said to be taking a move action when you're being carried along with your opponent, and even if you were, I thought we were going by the pretty clear RAI (and valid RAW reading) of Swim-By Attack that doesn't give you additional standard actions in a round.

Note however that you can use Giantbane to climb onto the back of an opponent that you've already climbed onto with Hammer and Piton. The D&D Glossary's definition of adjacent is "in a square that shares a border or a corner with a designated square" which includes the square itself, as it shares all of its own borders and corners.

I also don't think you're really mounted in this scenario, so you probably can't use Dismount Attack.

[Flickerdart]

You could take 2 levels of Warshaper, and so give yourself a tentacle with which to use Gloves of Man with which to wield said bludgeoning weapon.(Totemist 2 with the Displacer Mantle bound to your totem would also give tentacles which could be used this way).

It's also possible to use Dragon Tail and Prehensile Tail if you have more feats than levels to spare.

[WhamBamSam]

It's also possible to use Dragon Tail and Prehensile Tail if you have more feats than levels to spare.I was sorta trying to skirt the potential issue of how alternate forms interact with feat-based natural weapons. I suppose you can always use Shape Soulmeld (Dragon Tail) instead of Dragon Tail the feat if your DM doesn't like the keeping of a mundane tail when you transform.

If that's not an issue, then Aberration Blood+Deepspawn is a feat based method for getting two tentacles (to use a pair of Gloves of Man) which doesn't require the Dragonblood subtype.

[daremetoidareyo]

I'm pretty sure "unarmed strike" and "unarmed attack" only refer to the unarmed strike weapon itself and not to natural weapons in generality. It also doesn't actually matter because Hammer and Piton requires a 1-handed bludgeoning weapon, and natural weapons count as light weapons.

You could take 2 levels of Warshaper, and so give yourself a tentacle with which to use Gloves of Man with which to wield said bludgeoning weapon.(Totemist 2 with the Displacer Mantle bound to your totem would also give tentacles which could be used this way).

Combining this with Flickerdart's suggestion, just adding prehensile tail in place of versatile unarmed strike. A carp already has a tail, so there is no need to take bonus tail feats. Wrap a hammer in there and done.


It would also seem by my reading that moving into your opponent's space with Hammer and Piton takes a whole move action, rather than just part of one. Moreover, I don't see how you can be said to be taking a move action when you're being carried along with your opponent, and even if you were, I thought we were going by the pretty clear RAI (and valid RAW reading) of Swim-By Attack that doesn't give you additional standard actions in a round.

I'm still agnostic on the extra standard actions in a round reading. The feat is worded so strangely. Most DM's wouldn't allow extra standard actions during your turn, but if during another person's turn, you are moving by virtue of your swim speed, (which you've used for climbing based movement), it is rules lawyerly arguable that you can do it.

Most DM's would stop you from being a drunken fish based ammunition system. And when you look at this build, you are more useless than a truenamer for like 9 levels, so you'de have to start at high levels in the first place.

However, battle jump is weird, as "you can execute a charge by simply dropping from a height of at least 5 feet above your opponent." The presence of simply in that sentence is strange, no? Further, falling is a free movement type for creatures without a fly ability, which makes the charge part of the action, which has no action assigned to it, fall into a strange place. Height drop, wherein no fly or levitate is used, with the right DM, may be enough to activate the charge rules.

You Hammer and Piton observation appears correct and thus is the biggest problem I'm seeing. And giant bane has a "move adjacent// next turn you can" language, so the only work around that I'm seeing is that you need to move your canon adjacent to the opponent that you want to climb in order to activate giantsbane. This requires mounting your cannon to the shoulder of an ally, preferably a bruiser type, so there is little way to do it alone. This, of course, makes hammer and piton as well as prehensile tail redundant, which opens up a fighter and normal feat again, and you don't any logistical concerns around getting a drunk intelligence 2 fish to use a piton and a tail hammer...



Note however that you can use Giantbane to climb onto the back of an opponent that you've already climbed onto with Hammer and Piton. The D&D Glossary's definition of adjacent is "in a square that shares a border or a corner with a designated square" which includes the square itself, as it shares all of its own borders and corners.

I also don't think you're really mounted in this scenario, so you probably can't use Dismount Attack.

Thanks for the rules clarification. That increases the utility therein.

It doesn't count as being mounted to be riding a bird? Im sure that there is a lightweight bird-mount fish saddle that can be mundanely crafted to address this concern. The saddle is gonna look a lot like a pot, but weirder things have happened, (ride checks from the center of oozes...) But, at some point, you should probably find a way to permenantly increase the size of your raven familiar to at least diminutive.

[WhamBamSam]

Combining this with Flickerdart's suggestion, just adding prehensile tail in place of versatile unarmed strike. A carp already has a tail, so there is no need to take bonus tail feats. Wrap a hammer in there and done.Note that Prehensile Tail requires a tail attack, not just a tail. If the carp has that, then you're set. It also requires TWF.


I'm still agnostic on the extra standard actions in a round reading. The feat is worded so strangely. Most DM's wouldn't allow extra standard actions during your turn, but if during another person's turn, you are moving by virtue of your swim speed, (which you've used for climbing based movement), it is rules lawyerly arguable that you can do it.It's worded the same way that Flyby Attack is, so any ruling you make for one will apply to the other. That's sort of consequential.

You could also use the extra standard actions reading to get effective free quickens on a much simpler build.
1. Give your caster a swim speed.
2. Construct a bathtub with some means of easy transportation.
3. Cast a standard action spell.
4. Swim around in the tub with your move action and cast another standard action spell with Swim-By Attack.


You Hammer and Piton observation appears correct and thus is the biggest problem I'm seeing. And giant bane has a "move adjacent// next turn you can" language, so the only work around that I'm seeing is that you need to move your canon adjacent to the opponent that you want to climb in order to activate giantsbane. This requires mounting your cannon to the shoulder of an ally, preferably a bruiser type, so there is little way to do it alone. This, of course, makes hammer and piton as well as prehensile tail redundant, which opens up a fighter and normal feat again, and you don't any logistical concerns around getting a drunk intelligence 2 fish to use a piton and a tail hammer...Hmm, maybe. Is there any way we can simplify this back to just jumping out of the cannon, landing a martial strike and dropping back into the cannon? Won't do as much damage relative to leap attack charging, but could probably be made respectable. You could also take a Totemist 2 dip and use your high jump check to make Landshark Boots attacks with your standard action.


Thanks for the rules clarification. That increases the utility therein.Happy to help. I found that nugget recently while doing some largely unrelated optimization research and it seemed pertinent.


It doesn't count as being mounted to be riding a bird? Im sure that there is a lightweight bird-mount fish saddle that can be mundanely crafted to address this concern. The saddle is gonna look a lot like a pot, but weirder things have happened, (ride checks from the center of oozes...) But, at some point, you should probably find a way to permenantly increase the size of your raven familiar to at least diminutive.My mistake. I missed that you were riding the raven. I thought you were trying to dismount the enemy you were climbing on.

[daremetoidareyo]

The other way is to find a way to bring the water with you.

2 points. 1 for good Idea, 1 for other people glomming onto it.


I'm not aware of any ability that would let you swim through air--that's just called flying, generally, and it uses Flyby Attack. Gaining a permanent flight speed is also a lot easier than carrying around enough water to swim everywhere you go, so if you're taking Swim-By Attack, you're going to be taking it because you expect to spend a lot of time underwater for reals, not because you're hoping to abuse it in all terrain. A build using Swim-By Attack should pretty much start with the assumption that the adventure will take place almost entirely underwater.


I maintain that the best use of Swim-By Attack is to assume that you will always be underwater. There's just no practical way to use it anywhere else in such a way that Flyby Attack wouldn't obviously be better and easier.

Yeah, yeah, but our optimizer should be so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they don't stop to think if they should.



Hey, if we're getting RAW picky, the phrase "When swimming, you can take a move action and another standard action (such as an attack) at any point during the move" is very ambiguous:
What is "another" standard action? Does it impart more than one?
The sentence technically reads "you can take a move action...during the move." It specifies you cannot take a second move action, but nothing is stopping you from moving with another type of action and then taking a move action and your standard action during that move.

RAI is pretty clear, but hey.

Rules fastidiousness always winds up finding stuff like this. 1 point for being a close reader. This was in part helpful in deciding to combine this with battle jump which also has a weird activation.


Also there is a fourth way to rock out - create massive quantities of water or other liquid. Is it still a thread about Swim-By Attack if the character is based around flooding the entire plane to make his feat useful?

This is just a variation of bring the water with you, but I do like it. Shame that it wasn't developed further.


This is most useful in elemental plane of water.
If only there was a way to carry a plane's abilities with you.
Since you get a move and standard action, can you combine them to a full, thus full attacking while swimming?

Good Question. Probably not.


Well seeing as you can already normally take a move and standard action while moving even in water.
I'll have to assume it literally means another standard action, like a AoO that procs by moving by people.

1 point. This is a good point, supports Flickerdart's perspective.


The spell Burst of Speed goes well with this feat I believe.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-sp...burst-of-speed
Basically this one feat is the main mechanic of Rondo of swords. http://lparchive.org/Rondo-of-Swords...2002/41-31.png
I also suggest this spell.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sky-swim

All pathfinder: I see +3 suggestions. +1 for sky swim being so perfect.


Hmm. Swift Hunter+Greater Manyshot seems like the obvious combo, particularly if it does, in fact, give an extra standard action. . Or spells, of course, because **** spells are always the most powerful option.

1 point swift hunter. 1 point greater manyshot. 1 point spells + extra standard action. Question for bonus point: Can you cast a spell with a somatic component while moving?


You can only swim through a water elemental while it's in vortex form, and it can only use vortex form if it's already underwater, so this doesn't work.


Thanks for clarifying: 1 pt.


You can make a full attack underwater, you just need a full-round action to do so, making it incompatible with Swim-By Attack.

I suppose you could use your standard action to start/complete a full round action. This doesn't work with full attacks, but it does work with e.g. Eldritch Glaive.

3 points. (1 rules clarification; 1 for suggestion, 1 for it being pretty clever) I like a person who suggests solutions!



Earth gliding is not swimming. It doesn't work with Swim-By Attack.

You could use Planar Shepherd to mimic the traits of the Elemental Plane of Water. However, I don't see any of these traits being helpful for abusing Swim-By Attack.

Yes. Walking on water would use Spring Attack, not Swim-By Attack.

I disagree on earth gliding. Particularly if your only movement method is a swim speed. I also disagree in part on planar shepherd on the same premise.

The strength of gravity on a plane with this trait is the same as on the Material Plane, but each individual chooses the direction of gravity’s pull. Such a plane has no gravity for unattended objects and nonsentient creatures. This sort of environment can be very disorienting to the newcomer, but is common on “weightless” planes.

Characters on a plane with subjective directional gravity can move normally along a solid surface by imagining “down” near their feet. If suspended in midair, a character “flies” by merely choosing a “down” direction and “falling” that way. Under such a procedure, an individual “falls” 150 feet in the first round and 300 feet in each succeeding round. Movement is straight-line only. In order to stop, one has to slow one’s movement by changing the designated “down” direction (again, moving 150 feet in the new direction in the first round and 300 feet per round thereafter).

It takes a DC 16 Wisdom check to set a new direction of gravity as a free action; this check can be made once per round. Any character who fails this Wisdom check in successive rounds receives a +6 bonus on subsequent checks until he or she succeeds

You can "swim" using your wisdom check.

3 points for rules clarifications. Looks like you're trying to be the voice of reason. Thank you.


There's a feat - Flying Fish Leap - that lets you jump out of the water with a simultaneous high and long jump. If a charitable DM counts this as swimming (since the start and end is in water and you are never using non-Swim speeds) you could carry around a small-ish area of water, and jump out of it to stab enemies.

1 point.


The Kiddie Pool of doom?!

1 point


If you're small enough, Tenser's Floating Disk holds about 2 gallons of water and follows your movement.

1 point


Would you be able to use this feat alongside sand swim, the ability that sounds of the Sandstorm races have? I mean, it's technically swimming, just not through water...

I like it...but I don't think it works at most tables due to the ability being based on a landspeed. 1 point for finding that. It was nowhere near my radar.


I think this is the best suggestion so far! It can do the Ghost-mole tactics on a sandy terrain using an ordinary Asherati!
I'm guessing some variety of the Jellomancer could take advantage of this feat.

1 point for Jellomancer and introducing me to the terms "ghost mole tactics"

The easiest way I know of (off the top of my head) to get earth glide is paladin 12, taking the underdark knight substitution levels. Start off with a race that gets a swim speed (which one shouldn't matter much), and then go paladin at least 12 levels, taking feats that focus on damage and casting (so power attack, knowledge devotion, battle blessing, and sword of the arcane order, etc). Make sure to take the mystic fire knight sub levels as well and wield a 2 handed weapon with reach so you can avoid AoO's when you attack people.

Battle Blessing is excellent for this since you aren't using your swift actions for anything else, so might as well use them to buff up your charge (I don't think you can actually charge given the wording of the feat, but you get the idea). Assuming that earth gliding counts as swimming, you can "swim" 10 feet or so under your opponents, and then come up and attack them every round.

The main problem with this is seeing where you need to go. The easiest way I can think of is to grab mindsight- if sword of the arcane order counts as giving you arcane casting, you just need to be non-good for mindbender (so be a paladin of tyranny or slaughter). Otherwise, I can't think of any easy options right now, but I'm sure there's something that'd work.

Your damage will be kinda eh (although you miiight be able to make some sort of manyshot build work, or dip a ToB class for the standard action strikes. I'd probably go with the strikes, since they do some decent damage and you can nab some high level ones since you're taking the ToB levels so late), but your enemies won't know where/when you're going to come up from and can't really target you without readying actions/casting move earth. There's probably a few kinks in this that need to be worked out, but it seems pretty solid as long as earth gliding counts as "swimming".

Ooh, yeah, I completely forgot about that ring. The earth dreamer is nice, but 3+con modifier rounds per day for the vision and earth glide is a bit limiting, in my opinion. I think I've figured out how to avoid most readied actions. Avoiding melee is really easy, since you can just wield a reach weapon and add on the deformity feat that gives you an extra 5 feet to your reach (or take the long reach feat and wield an aptitude weapon). That should outdistance most melee attackers, and you can throw on size increases or more reach feats if you're going up against larger creatures frequently.

Avoiding ranged attacks/spells is a bit cheesier- be an argent spider entomanothrope. The int penalty sucks, but take a look at argent spider's dimension slide ability. That should negate one (or more, if you teleport strategically) attack per round (Alternatively, you could dip a level of wizard for the specialist conjurer ability that lets you teleport 10ft as an immediate action. Heck, you could do both since they don't conflict action-wise). Add in a dash of fast healing from whatever source you like most (wands of lesser vigor, probably, unless you can nab a template that does it better), and you've got a very difficult to kill combatant.

WhamBamSam's clownfish dragon is pretty sweet, and it could be partially added to the build too. I was already planning on dipping a level of a ToB class after paladin for some strikes, so that works out pretty nicely. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well on this build since it's focused more around a "duck out of the ground, attack, duck into the ground" sort of tactic and will only hit one enemy per round. Still, 2d6 + character level damage (plus potentially more if you dip rogue) is a nice little incentive to keep the enemy from attacking any of your teammates.

5 points for stub, 1 point for mindsight, +2 point for holistic thinking, even including tactics. +1 reach weapon, +1 argent spider entomathrope. This would be a great build. PCs would hate to face this guy down. DMs would hate engaging this PC.


Clownfish dragon

I think that Sahaugin Flip+Swim-By Attack is a combo worth keeping even if we do go the route of doing our swimming via Earth Glide or whatever. Whether or not we bother with Kobold Rogue or any of the other cheeses involved is more of an open question.

Going the Earth Glide route, I'd agree with the Swift Hunter suggestion. Poke your head up out of the ground to loose a volley, then dive back down to relative safety. You can probably get enemies flat-footed that way most of the time as well. I had hoped that we'd be able to use the Manticore belt Totem bind and get our swim speed from another soulmeld, but it turns out the one I was thinking of (Kraken Mantle) doesn't actually grant a swim speed, just bonuses that are analagous to those a swim speed would give you. Ah well.

10 points full build. +1 Swift hunting tactics suggestion +1 for first mention of sahuagin flip directly.


MAGIKARP used SPLASH!
But, it failed!
MAGIKARP needs FLURRY OF BLOWS and EVASION.

If you replace Fighter 2 and PsyWar 1 with Cobra Strike or Overwhelming Attack Monk 2, then it should still work as posted.

More troubling: Lion Totem, Wolf Totem, and Bear Totem can't be combined like that, as they all trade away the same class features. Wolf Totem and Spirit Lion Totem work because Wolf Totem keeps Fast Movement, and Spirit Lion trades that away for Pounce.

(I'm not sure there is any such thing as Planar Fighter 1/2. The Planar Substitution levels for Fighter are 4th/8th/12th.)

Hmm. I'm not quite sure Stagger works here, as I don't think the jump/swim thing counts as a charge. However, we might be able to fix that. You need at least two levels of Monk for Drunken Master... well, pick up five more levels, and get Mantis Leap (Sword & Fist, needs Monk 7). This turns any "normal Jump check" into a charge (because jumping out of a beer cannon is pretty "normal", right?). Even better, that charge was just our move action for the round... we still have a standard action left, so we could do a ToB strike or whatever, and since our "charge" is still a move action, we can "Stagger" back to our beer.

If you want to add Pounce... Barb doesn't go so well with Lawful monks, maybe take Totemist 2 and Open Least Chakra for Sphinx Claws.

(Too bad Swim By Attack prevents any additional moves on your turn, otherwise you could SPLASH twice a turn, or three times with hustle.)

4 point rules clarifications. +1 point for classiness.

[daremetoidareyo]

You don't seem to actually be using Swim-By Attack, since you're taking a charge action rather than a move+standard.

You also don't appear to qualify for Dragonblood Sorcerer, unless you're trying for some manner of chicanery like having Essence of the Dragon or Polymorph or something cast on yourself right when you take the level.

I wasn't aware of some of those swim speed boosting things though. Good finds. There's also Water Heritage (+20 ft) and Planar Touchstone (Mundelir Lake) (+10 ft), though the build's somewhat feat tight as is.

There are a few ways to get Flurry without being lawful. Brood Monkeys have it as a racial ability. Creatures with the dragon type automatically qualify for Disciple of the Eye, and so can get around its alignment prereq. It used to be argued that Shou Disciple's Martial Flurry worked, but that's sketchy, and I don't think I've seen that claim for a while.

I'm pretty sure "unarmed strike" and "unarmed attack" only refer to the unarmed strike weapon itself and not to natural weapons in generality. It also doesn't actually matter because Hammer and Piton requires a 1-handed bludgeoning weapon, and natural weapons count as light weapons.

You could take 2 levels of Warshaper, and so give yourself a tentacle with which to use Gloves of Man with which to wield said bludgeoning weapon.(Totemist 2 with the Displacer Mantle bound to your totem would also give tentacles which could be used this way).

It would also seem by my reading that moving into your opponent's space with Hammer and Piton takes a whole move action, rather than just part of one. Moreover, I don't see how you can be said to be taking a move action when you're being carried along with your opponent, and even if you were, I thought we were going by the pretty clear RAI (and valid RAW reading) of Swim-By Attack that doesn't give you additional standard actions in a round.

Note however that you can use Giantbane to climb onto the back of an opponent that you've already climbed onto with Hammer and Piton. The D&D Glossary's definition of adjacent is "in a square that shares a border or a corner with a designated square" which includes the square itself, as it shares all of its own borders and corners.

I also don't think you're really mounted in this scenario, so you probably can't use Dismount Attack.

Note that Prehensile Tail requires a tail attack, not just a tail. If the carp has that, then you're set. It also requires TWF.

It's worded the same way that Flyby Attack is, so any ruling you make for one will apply to the other. That's sort of consequential.

You could also use the extra standard actions reading to get effective free quickens on a much simpler build.
1. Give your caster a swim speed.
2. Construct a bathtub with some means of easy transportation.
3. Cast a standard action spell.
4. Swim around in the tub with your move action and cast another standard action spell with Swim-By Attack.

7 points rule clarifications. 2 points water heritage and touchstone site. 1 point brood monkeys, never heard of them before. 1 point warshaper suggestion. 1 point cheesy spellcaster suggestion (might need jump checks to establish line of effect.)

OK that finishes it. This was a far more productive round than I thought it would be. We got 4 builds out of it, two earth gliders, and undersea clownfish, and I think that I worked the kinks out of the fish cannon. Thank you everybody.



Optimizer
Points


Troacctid
11


Flickerdart
2


Platypus pus
5


Grod_The_Giant
3


Starbuck II
1


ben-zayb
1


WhamBamSam
24


Zetapup
10


Darrin
5



It appears that WhamBamSam took the lead on this one. Congrations! Enjoy your Blue Bold Lucida Console Font Size 4.

WhamBamSam

Special Thanks to Flickerdart and Troacctid for early development troubleshooting. For your efforts, here is a picture of a drunk fish being shot through a bazooka by a monkey. (http://imgur.com/VsQ0KbZ)

[Troacctid]

What, don't I get points for my sahuagin build?

[daremetoidareyo]

What, don't I get points for my sahuagin build?

Just big ole miss. "Build" is a little generous, but regardless, 1 point. Score editted to reflect.