'Fibonacci' campaign - Insanely high level 3.5 builds.

[EvilLogic]

One of the members of our gaming group loves gimmicks and especially strange campaign ideas. His newest is a campaign where every PC levels according to the standard fibonacci series.
example: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 etc...
So by the time we level up for the seventh time, we're level 34. For those wondering, we level up not based on experience, but based on certain objectives in the campaign. However, to balance this out we will be starting as level 0 commoners with base 10's in all stats and nothing but one of the core races. At then end of the first little segment, he explains how the levelling works in RP and we get level 1. We can still gain ability score increases through levelling and feats as per normal.
In order to allow for levels this high, he has not only authorized use of every published D&D expansion (except Serpent Kingdoms because Pun Pun), but also most published homebrew.

So the question is....
What do you build?

Assume level 89 or one of the lower numbers if you think your build is good enough. Note: The DM has implemented a system where all the enemies will be based off of our power level, and have ways to deal with immunities and 100% crit chances. However, this makes it effective to get two abilities that function the same way. For instance, the player is completely immune to non-lethal damage and converts all his damage to non-lethal. The enemy has something like Immunity Bypass I (ex) which allows him to still do damage to the player. However, if the player has 2 abilities that make him immune to that damage, he is still immune.

[daremetoidareyo]

Note: The DM has implemented a system where all the enemies will be based off of our power level, and have ways to deal with immunities and 100% crit chances.

Choose the weakest possible things. The DM is only matching what you bring to the table. Convince all of the players to make gully dwarfs wizards and muckdweller experts. Take all classes with non combat utility. Bards with all lovey dovey spells, weapon proficiencies in lasso. Mythic exemplars of craft (origami). Your level wont matter if you're a wimp!

[Doctor Despair]

Honestly? In that campaign, I'd rather keep things simple -- too many prestige classes ruins the cake, or something like that. If you go straight bard, epic bard, bard variants, etc. and take the epic feat Music of the Gods you can have a lot of fun. :) You have a ton of combat utility since you can fascinate and suggest even things immune to those effects (so long as they aren't deaf, but you can probably find a way around that) and a ton of roleplay opportunity because bards are awesome. :D

[GrayDeath]

Under that premise I`d probably try to get all possible Fighter/Kensai Variants, for the "Old Maste rof the Moutnain" Feeling while still not prompting the GM to come up with insane opposition.

Sounds ... weirdly interesting.

[AvatarVecna]

So...you're basically playing a regular game, except you level up a lot quicker? That's essentially what's happening here.

Now, I assume that enemies are appropriate for the level you are, rather than the number of level ups you've gained (so your lvl 34 characters aren't fighting CR 8 creatures); I also assume that this remains true for the wealth you gain. There's a couple points that are worth taking stock of regarding character creation, though. First:


However, to balance this out we will be starting as level 0 commoners with base 10's in all stats and nothing but one of the core races.

I hope you like either casting spells or sucking eggs, because you're going to be doing one of those two things with base 10 in everything. I mean, by the Nine, say what you want about 3d6 6 times in order, at least it tends to throw some 11s your way on average.

Alright, so accepting the fact that your stats suck, you're going to want to choose a race that lets you focus everything into one ability...and the best classes for that are casters, which at most need just their casting stat. Personally, I would say become a wizard, with the Gray Elf race from the Monster Manual (which makes it a Core race), and then age yourself to Venerable once you've got a few levels under your belt, to pump that Int even higher. If your DM doesn't like the idea of the elf going from "spry adult elf" to "wizened wizard" overnight while the rest of the party remains babyfaced, suck it up and start the game as Venerable, because that +3 Int will save you from cursing out the DM when you realize you're incapable of casting level-appropriate spells for having too low a casting stat once you gain enough levels for that to come into play. There's tons of wizard PrCs out there that give you a massive boost in capability; usually, you have to wait forever to get to the useful abilities, but gaining a whole bunch of levels at once means you don't have to suffer through a mostly-dead level to get to the cool stuff, if you plan accordingly. I recommend Incantatrix (for that metamagic goodness), Shadowcraft Mage (if you can convince the DM to use the non-racist variant), War Weaver (to stretch out those buff spells), and Archmage (for general useful abilities). Combining Incantatrix with any one of the others gets you to 20th level, at which point you no longer care about gaining levels in caster classes other than for gaining CL. No, at this point, you care about bonus feats.

Assuming your DM has heard of, and has no problem with, the Dark Chaos Shuffle Trick, take caster classes until you are rich enough to craft an item that lets you cast at-will "Embrace the Dark Chaos" and at-will "Shun the Dark Chaos"; at this point, begin taking levels in anything that grants you a ton of bonus feats early one (I recommend going Monk 2/Ranger 2/Fighter 2/Martial Rogue X); this should give you a ton of feats that you can shuffle into actually useful feats; normally, you'd have to suffer through all those levels taking those feats one at a time and turning them into something useful. But with this weird level-up system and your combined abuse of the magic and crafting system, you can basically gain like 20 free feats in a single level-up, and that number only grows higher. While obviously magic benefits (such as the ability to cast spells above 9th lvl, metamagic reduction, auto-metamagic, and so on) is great, the best way IMO to abuse this is to take the Great Intelligence feat from Epic Level Handbook (which is legal since it's one of the feats that was never upgraded to 3.5).

But is increasing your intelligence through this method worth it? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy a Headband of Intellect? Not really: while at item granting both spells at-will is pretty expensive at 365000 gp for the crafter (730000 market price), it basically turns any feat you're not using for something else into an Int-booster. Assuming you already have the +6 headband, upgrading it to the +12 version costs a whopping 1440000 gp, and the spell-granting item costs almost exactly half that, and just requires 6 bonus feats be sacrificed to your Int. And of course, while the headband price gets higher and higher (assuming your DM even allows it to go beyond the implied +12 limit), the relative cost of just using your feat-changing item never costs additional money, only additional feats...leaving you to spend your money on recreating other spells at-will/continuously.

Yes, feats are worth quite a bit...but increasing your Int as a high-epic wizard is one of the best things you can spend it on (although if you've followed my bonus feat sniping advice, you'll have plenty of feats to work with anyway). You'll want to spend some of them on Practiced Spellcaster to boost your CL back up to ECL, but that'll be drops in the bucket once you've hit epic Martial Rogue levels and you're getting epic rogue bonus feats on top of the fighter bonus feat progression.

[Maxrim]

I'm assuming that he means he'll have all 10s at level 0, and roll stats or point buy at level 1. In my epic experience, it's very easy to use your stats for a LOT of things. Most of those things will be ones that you don't need to care about immunities for. Divine Grace, Battle Dancer's AC Bonus, Hexblade's Arcane Resistance, the epic feat from Dragon 297 Battle Dance, Snowflake Wardance, Divine Might, etc, all for Charisma. Check out this for some starters:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus

Presumably you'll be able to accumulate wealth to match your level. If so, you should be aware of a 4th level Artificer infusion called "Item Alteration". It changes a bonus type on an item, like, say, your Belt of Magnificence, into another non-sacred, non-profane, non-dodge bonus. Like, say, one into Insight, one into Luck, one into Insight, one into Size, whatever your GM will allow.

War Hulk is especially nice post-20, as is Dragon 280's Eldritch Master (Improved Spell Capacity and a MM feat every 3 levels? Yes please), though if your GM isn't removing or changing Epic Spellcasting in some way, use that at level 21 (I'm a big fan of this fix for Epic Spellcasting: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?37410-Epic-Metamagic-replaces-Epic-Spellcasting).
More than any of that though, you're being given all the resources you need to try out something that might not work well in a 1-20 game. Follow your heart, or maybe play a Diviner, divine for someone else's heart, and follow that, whichever sounds fun.

[Maxrim]

Build Suggestion: Ode to Ajjadio
This build is in honor of one of the NPCs in my campaign, whose gloriously inaccurate punches can melt steel.

Homebrew/Other Sources used:
Monte Cook's Complete Book of Eldritch Might for Battle Touch (Requires Dex 15, allows you to, with the free touch for casting a melee touch spell, make a full attack, and hold the charge for the whole round, releasing it with each touch.)
Ask your DM about switching the Ascetic Knight prereq from Smite Evil to Smite Good
Path of War for Warlord, Steelfist Commando, & Bladecaster
The Epic Tome of Battle Material available here (4th comment down): http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=707.0

1. Monk 1, New Feats: Stunning Fist, Improved Unarmed Strike, Combat Casting
1. Monk 1
2. Monk 2, New Feats: Combat Reflexes
3. Monk 2/Sorcerer 1, New Feats: Battle Touch
This is where you get the first itchings of your trick. Shocking Grasp on both of your Flurry of Blows attacks.

5. Monk 2/Sorcerer 3
8. Monk 2/Sorcerer 4/Paladin of Tyranny 2, New Feats: Ascetic Mage
The Charisma Sadness is coming together, adding it to AC and Saves. Combust is love and life.

13. Monk 5/Sorcerer 4/Paladin of Tyranny 4, New Feats: Ascetic Knight
The downside of the build is that the primary spellcasting (Sorcerer) is a bit... slow. Speed that up if you'd like.

21. Monk 6/Sorcerer 4/Paladin of Tyranny 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Hexblade 2, New Feats: Alternative Spell Source, Improved Trip, Quicken Spell, Divine Metamagic (Quicken Spell)
By Quickening a, say, Combust, you get 2 full attacks, with Flurry of Blows, Haste, and a BAB of (with the epic bonus) +17, that's 12 attacks in a round, with, without CL bonuses, 9d8 extra fire damage on each hit. We can do better.

34. Monk 6/Sorcerer 4/Paladin 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Hexblade 3/Warlord (Steelfist Commando) 4/Bladecaster 8, New Feats: A Teamwork feat of your choice, Rapid Martial Strike, Lightning Fists (Sword and Fist), Improved Counterspell, Lightning Martial Strike, Lightning Martial Strike
Oh look, we're doing better. 14 attacks per round, two of which can be strikes. An Initiator Level of 23 means that those are pretty nice strikes. 7 more levels of Sorcerer casting leaves us with 8th level spells.

55. Monk 6/Sorcerer 4/Paladin 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Hexblade 3/Warlord (Steelfist Commando) 4/Bladecaster 10/Spellsword 1/Eldritch Master (Dragon 280) 10/Artificer 8, New Feats: Additional Magic Item Slot, Additional Magic Item Slot, Lightning Martial Strike, Lightning Martial Strike, Lightning Martial Strike, Lightning Martial Strike, Battle Dance (Dragon 297), Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, Intensify Spell, Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms & Armor, Craft Wand, Enhance Spell, Improved Metamagic
With 18th level sorcerer casting, a caster level without items of 28, and 12th level spells from Eldritch Master's Spell Boost, we're finally good at spells. With 4th level Artificer Infusions, we can now stack on the Belts of Magnificence with our Additional Magic Item Slot feats. Battle Dance is wonderful.

89. Monk 6/Sorcerer 4/Paladin 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Hexblade 3/Warlord (Steelfist Commando) 20/Bladecaster 10/Spellsword 1/Eldritch Master (Dragon 280) 10/Artificer 14/Shaman 5/Sacred Fist 7, New Feats: Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Improved Metamagic, Improved Metamagic, Improved Metamagic, Lightning Martial Strike, Lightning Martial Strike, Lightning Martial Strike, Lightning Martial Strike, Sacred Spell, Searing Spell, Snap Kick, Superior Stance Usage, Superior Stance Usage, Superior Stance Usage, Craft Rod, Craft Staff, Twin Spell, Forge Ring, Improved Natural Attack (Unarmed Strike)
Oh look, 11th level Shaman Casting, that's a few domains of your choice, Cha to saves again, and we've also got a lot more maneuvers and better infusion-ing. 16 attacks per round, 10 of which get to be strikes, all of which get to make use of a super-souped up touch spell, which, with Searing Spell and Sacred Spell, can now entirely bypass immunities. We get 4 stances at once, too.

Continue adding fun things to taste.

[Bronk]

Well, I'd say that your DM is going to have a hell of a time challenging you around level 81 or so, maybe even at L55, so I'd concentrate on having fun at the lower levels, just in case the game fizzles out.

I'd start with something that can do well with lousy stats, like rogue, and keep that for, say, the first 10 levels, with the added bonus of having more skill points than with other classes.

Increase your intelligence every four levels, leaving the rest to be made up with magic items.

Then, take one level of wizard, one level of cleric, then take dweomerkeeper until level 34.

Be sure to max out Spellcraft and your knowledges (arcana, nature, religion).

At level 34, between magic items and stat increases, you should be able to cast ninth level spells, meaning you can cast wish, and, as a dweomerkeeper, you can cast it as a supernatural ability (no XP, etc.).

At this point, wish up an item to boost spellcraft, then use the wish rules in Savage Species to transform yourself and everyone else who wants it into a great wyrm dragon, or a leShay, or whatever you like that is more powerful and has better stats. Any racial hit dice or LA boosts will get washed out in one or at most two of your level ups. You can spend a few days to use wish to give everyone a +5 inherent bonus to every stat, then, while you're at it, wish for any magic items you're missing, or improve the ones you have.

After that, just take 21 levels of each major spellcasting class during your later jumps. Each one will allow you to get a new set of Epic Spell castings. Also, you should take 'obtain familiar' so that all the arcane caster classes will add cumulatively to the creature's level, and remember that you keep adding more 'familiar spells' every ten levels at a minimum. You can get extra familiars with feats, too. Similarly, your druid animal companion can be pretty awesome at higher levels. After you run through the caster classes, you can take the initiator classes next.

Good luck!

[Immabozo]

I have a question, how will WBL work? It sounds like nothing close to the WBL tables will be viable, which makes VOP stupid OP strong.

Also, with you starting our as a commoner, take the chicken infested flaw. It fits with VOP, feeding the needy, and it can be very funny.

Also, I would make a barbarian/bear warrior/nature's warrior/war hulk based ubercharger, and then get martial maneuvers and take IRS for immunity to death, per RAW, as I argue in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480655-Taking-actions-after-character-death)

[EvilLogic]

Wealth is going to be interesting. Our DM is going to try to give us appropriate amount of wealth, but "No guarantees" he says. From what I know about the campaign plan, we won't be getting lots of opportunities to go shopping, meaning that most of our items will be determined by what he tries to throw at us to kill us.
Thanks for all the responses. I hadn't considered lacking the ability to use high level spells without improving ability scores a lot, as usually that isn't a problem. When we hit level one, we don't get a point buy or to roll for stats. All the stats we have are gained from levelling, classes, and races.
Also, forgot to mention, the campaign world is going to be similar to Eberron if that changes anything.

[Tyrex]

Hey, Just wanted to drop by and say hello. Im apart of this campaign with Evil and I wanted to add some stuff.

I agree with the whole stats thing. As it is right now I plan to just take the Lost Traditions feat from "Bastards and Bloodlines" to make all of the spell casting classes I plan to take run off of constitution. While it is third party, I doubt he would turn it down. He IS letting us use home brew after all. I'll be under powered, but by just focusing on a single stat I will be significantly better off then Evil and Moony. Well, that is until Evil reads this.

As it is, we were going with a more theme heavy character route. For example, Moony is going with nothing but Druid/nature related stuff while I am sticking to a more complicated theme.

As it is right now, I have a few levels into ascendant, a home brew class that allows for the character to basically make clones of himself. At epic levels it maxes out at 5 clones. That effectively means I am 6 people. Its an easy force multiplier. From there I just take whatever class I want, so long as I fit the prereqs, and I have a certain clone stick to that class. At later levels they would each get a second class and I would just keep dumping more and more on the higher we go.

So far the clones I have set up are

Lilith, the necromancer/cannon fodder controller
Ash, the magical girl*/rouge
and Varin, the gunslinger/long range support

*Don't judge me. I chose magical girl because they get the spell like ability to shoot a 1d6 bullet per caster level per turn. Each of them counts as their own attack, so sneak attack would count for each individual one. It also means 2 str damage from crippling strikes. thats equals out to 20 1d6+10d6 and 40 str damage. This is assuming each of them hit, which is easy to do with a ranged touch attack.

[Tyrex]

Honestly? In that campaign, I'd rather keep things simple -- too many prestige classes ruins the cake, or something like that. If you go straight bard, epic bard, bard variants, etc. and take the epic feat Music of the Gods you can have a lot of fun. :) You have a ton of combat utility since you can fascinate and suggest even things immune to those effects (so long as they aren't deaf, but you can probably find a way around that) and a ton of roleplay opportunity because bards are awesome. :D

If we did that we could all ways use vibrations. Something really loud so they can 'feel' the music. Get what Im saying? Hope this makes sense.

[Immabozo]

Especially with those item restrictions, not being able to shop often, I STRONGLY suggest VOP, it is stupid powerful with so many levels, even better when items will be scarce, and it will give significant boosts to stats, making spellcasting possible.

I, personally, would go VoP* StP Erudite (If allowed, psion/wizard/sorcerer if not)/thrallherd and using the metaconcert power with your thralls and get stupidly huge thrall/whatever the other term is army and insane DCs, PP, etc

*Upon re-reading VoP, most bonuses stop gowing at level 20. It will SEVERELY cripple your character, unless the +8/+6/+4/+2 to 4 different ability scores, is that major to you, but the AC continues to grow, example being +33 AC at level 89. But you could build a wildshaping druid that can hit that AC and with AC in the low 80s to high 90s, by 15.

EDIT: wildshaping druid/Master of Many Forms/Nature's Warrior/Warshaper will be stupid powerful with shifting into other shapes. Then getting psionics after that would be my next step

[Tyrex]

Especially with those item restrictions, not being able to shop often, I STRONGLY suggest VOP, it is stupid powerful with so many levels, even better when items will be scarce, and it will give significant boosts to stats, making spellcasting possible.

I, personally, would go VoP* StP Erudite (If allowed, psion/wizard/sorcerer if not)/thrallherd and using the metaconcert power with your thralls and get stupidly huge thrall/whatever the other term is army and insane DCs, PP, etc

*Upon re-reading VoP, most bonuses stop gowing at level 20. It will SEVERELY cripple your character, unless the +8/+6/+4/+2 to 4 different ability scores, is that major to you, but the AC continues to grow, example being +33 AC at level 89. But you could build a wildshaping druid that can hit that AC and with AC in the low 80s to high 90s, by 15.

EDIT: wildshaping druid/Master of Many Forms/Nature's Warrior/Warshaper will be stupid powerful with shifting into other shapes. Then getting psionics after that would be my next step

I have a way to turn into any creature I want all ready. A class by the name of Master Transmogifist gives me the ability to do that. But looking at it now, knowing the whole stat handy cap, I will have to wait until around level 60 or something to get it all finished up the way I want.

[Immabozo]

I have a way to turn into any creature I want all ready. A class by the name of Master Transmogifist gives me the ability to do that. But looking at it now, knowing the whole stat handy cap, I will have to wait until around level 60 or something to get it all finished up the way I want.

Is that a homebrew class? It sounds like it. Then again, such a campaign will require heavy homebrew. The CR system will very quickly fall apart into uselessness.

[Tyrex]

Is that a homebrew class? It sounds like it. Then again, such a campaign will require heavy homebrew. The CR system will very quickly fall apart into uselessness.

Its actually in complete arcane if I remember correctly. A LOT of the classes I plan to take are Home brew though. Im allowed to use them, so I will use all of them I can.

[Immabozo]

Its actually in complete arcane if I remember correctly. A LOT of the classes I plan to take are Home brew though. Im allowed to use them, so I will use all of them I can.

I homebrewed some feats the might be fun (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?276008-Vow-of&p=14897573#post14897573). Not good, fun.

[Tyrex]

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks man.

[AvatarVecna]

Is that a homebrew class? It sounds like it. Then again, such a campaign will require heavy homebrew. The CR system will very quickly fall apart into uselessness.

Well...on the one hand, Master Transmogrifist is not homebrew, it's from Complete Arcane; on the other hand, it lets you focus on being more powerful in a handful of particular Polymorph forms, not "turning into anything". The non-homebrew "turning into anything" class is "Master of Many Forms", which lets a druid give up their spellcasting ability to gain access to much more varied wild shape forms and sizes, and is a pretty common choice for epic druids.

[Tyrex]

Well...on the one hand, Master Transmogrifist is not homebrew, it's from Complete Arcane; on the other hand, it lets you focus on being more powerful in a handful of particular Polymorph forms, not "turning into anything". The non-homebrew "turning into anything" class is "Master of Many Forms", which lets a druid give up their spellcasting ability to gain access to much more varied wild shape forms and sizes, and is a pretty common choice for epic druids.

Sorry, I had said that wrong. I was talking about the level 10 class feature that allows you to add a special ability/attack, movement type, or natural Armor bonus from another creature I can polymorph into onto a favored creature. For example, I can be a Red Dragon, one of my favored creatures, and add onto it the regeneration of a troll. This would mean acid is the only weakness in the regeneration due to the Red Dragon being immune to fire.

When I said "turn into any creature" I meant that I can effectively gain the strengths of any creature. Sorry that I said that completely wrong.

[Immabozo]

Sorry, I had said that wrong. I was talking about the level 10 class feature that allows you to add a special ability/attack, movement type, or natural Armor bonus from another creature I can polymorph into onto a favored creature. For example, I can be a Red Dragon, one of my favored creatures, and add onto it the regeneration of a troll. This would mean acid is the only weakness in the regeneration due to the Red Dragon being immune to fire.

When I said "turn into any creature" I meant that I can effectively gain the strengths of any creature. Sorry that I said that completely wrong.

I have researched many forms as a former MoMF druid and I know for at least the druid, you are limited by HD, not that this will be a problem for you for long! But at low HD, I STRONGLY suggest the trolls from MMIII, at 12 or 13 HD, the war troll is the best option I found for a MoMF until the high teens, and then there is a four armed beast (I dont mean the creature type) at around 22HD that is amazing. I can bid up my notes if you'd like. I dont know if your PrC has the same restrictions on shifting.