Pathfinder (no 3rd party) optimization ceiling? How much can you break the game?

[Seppo87]

I've been playing 3.5 for years and I'm familiar with most of the high-end optimization builds around. You know, thousands of damage, hundreds of AC, infinite power points, infinite turns in combat... pun-pun...

Then I began playing Pathfinder. And it looks like the designers tried to keep things low.

So here's the question:

Using in-game abilities to attain permanent power ups isn't allowed no army of solar or similar. No cows to salt or similar.
Just a brand new character sheet, out of the box, using standard resources and wbl -
how powerful can it be at lv20?

I'm talking about numeric values here but also immunities and tactically superior options.

[Tuvarkz]

The wizard is just as broken as ever, having some of its most iconic spells (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/spell-lists-and-domains/spell-lists---sorcerer-and-wizard#TOC-9th-Level-Sorcerer-Wizard-Spells) available.
The Divination-focused wizard (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo---arcane-schools/classic-arcane-schools/divination), however, gets particularly dangerous when the level 20 Diviner gets a +10 to initiative, always rolls 20 in initiative, and can always act in the surprise round. On top of that, Wizards are no longer impeded from preparing spells of opposite schools, said spells just cost two slots to prepare (The exception being Sin Magic Wizards).
Arcane Discoveries (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-discoveries/arcane-discoveries-paizo) in general give the wizards some quite mean tools.
The Elf (And Half-Elf due to Elf Blood racial trait) Spellbinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/elf/spellbinder-wizard-elf) archetype trades the easily obtainable Arcane Bond (That can be taken at the cost of two feats (Skill Focus: Knowledge (any)+Eldritch Heritage-Arcane Bloodline - See how Half-elves even get the skill focus bonus feat for this too?)) for even more flexibility in spell preparation.
Other fullcasters get similar tools.
Simply put, Paizo didn't really fix much, it just reduced or eliminated the most apparent issues with the game, not really taking into account the inherent caster/martial disparity, particularly in respects of prepared full casters, as well as doing some really abitrary stuff like weapon cords.
The Tier System is still there, and not a single 1st party noncasting character reaches Tier 3, and only a couple archetypes of 4/9 casters reach it.

[Cosi]

The big thing to understand about Pathfinder is that the magic of backwards compatibility means they can't nerf casters all that much. glitterdust is worse now, but cloud of bewilderment isn't. Some of the broken tricks in core are gone (wish for items, shapechange), but broken tricks that aren't core (ice assassin) aren't. And on top of that, Wizards got a bunch of bonuses. So the path to real ultimate power is just to take an optimized 3.5 Wizard, cross off everything from core, and replace it with the non-core alternatives that are (with the exception of shapechange or wish or similar) with core options that are almost as good. Then pick up the extra powers PF gives you for no reason.

[Jormengand]

The big thing to understand about Pathfinder is that the magic of backwards compatibility means they can't nerf casters all that much. glitterdust is worse now, but cloud of bewilderment isn't. Some of the broken tricks in core are gone (wish for items, shapechange), but broken tricks that aren't core (ice assassin) aren't. And on top of that, Wizards got a bunch of bonuses. So the path to real ultimate power is just to take an optimized 3.5 Wizard, cross off everything from core, and replace it with the non-core alternatives that are (with the exception of shapechange or wish or similar) with core options that are almost as good. Then pick up the extra powers PF gives you for no reason.

One would think that since the Pathfinder Roleplaying System is made by Paizo Publishing, anything by Wizards of the Coast would be deemed 3rd party, which is being ignored as per the title of the opening post. Not to mention I don't think there's anything official saying that compatible revised third edition content can be used in Pathfinder (of course, your DM is at liberty to say they can, but the DM is also at liberty to allow homebrew, so that's not the point).

[Extra Anchovies]

Hm. Samsaran (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-samsaran) Wizard (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/spell-sage) 20 with the Mystic Past Life alternate race trait (to snag any good non-wizard arcane spells, or get early access to some stuff through the APG Summoner list) and the Spell Sage archetype (for limited spontaneous access to the bard, cleric, and druid lists) is a good start. Maybe use VMC or Eldritch Heritage to get your familiar back.

You'll also want Sacred Geometry (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry) for the unholy shenanigans it enables - namely, lots and lots of free metamagic, with frightening reliability. Here's a table (http://i.imgur.com/VglJXiQ.png) of the success chances by spell level and skill ranks, a proof (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17879295&postcount=110) of said table, and a web tool (http://sd.af/geo/) so your turns don't take half an hour each.

[Sahleb]

Despite what everyone says, it's a little better.

The optimized cleric in 3.5e can persist the top 6 spells on his spell list at around 10th level, using only Wealth By Level, a 1st level wisdom of 11, & divine metamagic.

The same cleric in pathfinder will be able to quicken 1 1st level spell per turn through Sacred Geometry and has to cast all his normal spells the normal way.

Likewise, druids are nerfed. Their wildshape equivalent no longer scales, and they are limited to a list of abilities instead of whatever their form happens to have. 3.5e druids had 3 in all stats but wisdom and constitution and failed to give a **** because he wildshaped into a dragon and ate people. If you tried to do that as a pathfinder druid you'd fail at melee combat.

I'm not saying pathfinder balance is *good*, but it is marginally better thant 3.5e.

Also, metamagic cheese in general took a nerfbat to the face. Consider Magical Lineage, Spell Perfection, Wayan Spellhunter and Sacred Geometry in light of Arcane Thesis, Divine Metamagic, Practical Metamagic, Metamagic School Focus, Incantatrix, Ultimate Magus, Spelldancer, etc. etc.

And specific bonuses generally have clauses that prevent adding them together in favorable ways.

[Seppo87]

Any specific records, like, best burst damage, best sustained damage, best unbuffed AC, to hit etc? Maximum number of actions per round?
Stuff like that?

there are no famous build at all?

[Sahleb]

Not really. The community seems content to play at relatively low levels of optimization. There's a lot of talk about DPR, but nothing really creative in the style of the old CO boards.

One thing could be this:

Samsaran Spell Sage Wizard 5/Arcane Savant 5/Collegiate Arcanist 10

Traits:
Magical Lineage(Holy Word), Outlander(spells, holy word and 2 others)

Feats
1 - Scribe Scroll
1 - Scholar (****ty prereq #1)
3 - Sacred geometry (Consecrate Spell & Extend Spell) (Consecrate is Maximize, but +2 level and only vs evil, requires the ability to cast consecrate, which you can through Spell Sage.)
5 - Magical Aptitude (****ty prereq #2)
7 - Spell Mastery (****ty prereq #3)
9 - Quicken Spell (as all your other metamagic, it's too expensive to use normally. On the other hand, now you can toss out a quickened 1st level spell every turn, so that's good.)
11 - Spell Focus: Evocation
13 - Spell Specialization: Holy Word
15 - Mage's Tattoo: Evocation
17 - Spell Penetration
19 - Improved Spell Penetration

Basically, add 5 arcane spells to your spell list, add any 4 spells to your spell list, add 10 druid spells to your spell list, and add the good domain to your spell list. Cast any bard, druid or cleric spell spontaneously 1/d, but slow as hell.

Prepares spells in 15 minutes, with certain spells he can prepare faster. Can prepare 1/15th of his total spells in 1 minute while adventuring.

Standard holy word cheese.

This is about the best thing I can come up with. I think it's pretty much as good as it gets.

[alcarithemad]

You'll also want Sacred Geometry (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry) for the unholy shenanigans it enables - namely, lots and lots of free metamagic, with frightening reliability. Here's a table (http://i.imgur.com/VglJXiQ.png) of the success chances by spell level and skill ranks, a proof (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17879295&postcount=110) of said table, and a web tool (http://sd.af/geo/) so your turns don't take half an hour each.

I wrote that tool! Nice to see it's still useful. Here's the spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QmfW4o7DujPhKirgV_BqXjKoEer9VhOrgpLjDgPKono/edit?usp=sharing) that table was based on. If I recall correctly, it was generated by doing 100,000 rolls for each skill/level combination.


Feats
1 - Scribe Scroll
1 - Scholar (****ty prereq #1)
3 - Sacred geometry (Consecrate Spell & Extend Spell) (Consecrate is Maximize, but +2 level and only vs evil, requires the ability to cast consecrate, which you can through Spell Sage.)
5 - Magical Aptitude (****ty prereq #2)
7 - Spell Mastery (****ty prereq #3)
9 - Quicken Spell (as all your other metamagic, it's too expensive to use normally. On the other hand, now you can toss out a quickened 1st level spell every turn, so that's good.)


Don't take Quicken Spell at 9th. Take Sacred Geometry again for two metamagic feats, because somebody thought allowing that was a good idea.


You can take this feat more than once; each time, select two additional metamagic feats, adding their effects to the list of possible effects you can apply to spells with this ability.

[Necroticplague]

Don't take Quicken Spell at 9th. Take Sacred Geometry again for two metamagic feats, because somebody thought allowing that was a good idea.

Isn't the advantage of Quicken Spell canceled by how Sacred Geometry extends casting times? I mean, if you're already using Sacred Geometry, it's a free boost, but that eats in to your allowed level of free metamagic.

[Florian]

Any specific records, like, best burst damage, best sustained damage, best unbuffed AC, to hit etc? Maximum number of actions per round?
Stuff like that?

there are no famous build at all?

No, not really.
I think there´re three reasons for this:
- A lot of the people that were really dedicated to TO never switched to PF because of "lower ceiling".
- People that switched to PF wanted to leave the old 3.5 brokenness behind, therefore never going too deep into this again.
- PF developed in a rather different direction than 3.5 did, avoiding old wonky things (and adding their own ones).

Build discussion are way more down to earth and are rather based on role/function than meaningless numbers that will never come up in real play. You´ll find that there´re a number of standard builds that get tossed around and talked about, some standard concepts on combos and a bit of talk how that could be updated every time new source material becomes available.

Edit: Compare the topics on builds that you find. Most PF topics are based on base classes and often stay single class, most 3.5 builds revolve around PrC and class feature stacking.

[Sahleb]

Isn't the advantage of Quicken Spell canceled by how Sacred Geometry extends casting times? I mean, if you're already using Sacred Geometry, it's a free boost, but that eats in to your allowed level of free metamagic.

No, the increase is specifically the same increase that spontaneous casters suffer, and Quicken specifically ignores this increase.

Edit: There's more room to interpretation of this than I believed originally. I think the above is still correct, but other people might well think differently. This is pathfinder though, so there's bound to be official word out there somewhere.


Don't take Quicken Spell at 9th. Take Sacred Geometry again for two metamagic feats, because somebody thought allowing that was a good idea.

True enough. Maybe Selective Spell? On the other hand, that fits well in a rod too. Dazing spell is potentially good.

[Psyren]

Other than Sacred Geometry, which NSDM would allow, the ceiling is much lower. No wishing for items, polymorph and shapechange significantly weaker, no Su Transformation, no 120% real shadow illusions, no DMM etc.



Standard holy word cheese.

Holy Word was nerfed too, all its functions now involve a saving throw. Partial, so still useful, but not auto-win even against the BBEG if you pumped your CL the way it was.

And along those lines - fewer ways to pump your CL (e.g. no Consumptive Field).

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, here's an example. Hexcrafter Magus 19 / Orc-blooded Sorcerer 1. Prepare by using the Fortune hex on yourself and keep cackling to maintain it. Use regular tricks to increase your save DC, then spellstrike for Disintegrate with a keen scimitar. You now have a 51% chance of threatening a crit, which you automatically confirm with Pendant of the Blood Scarab, dealing 80d6+80 plus regular weapon damage of about 2d6+52. You can do this four times per day.

That's 419 damage. It's no Hulking Hurler, but it will one-shot almost every monster in the books. Yeah, the ceiling is clearly lower.

[Seppo87]

Is that the current melee burst damage record?

[Psyren]

Is that the current melee burst damage record?

Are you asking him to comb through every melee build ever posted to compare the numbers? :smalltongue:

[Kurald Galain]

Is that the current melee burst damage record?

Well actually, let's add Intensify Spell (via Spell Perfection) and boost caster level to 25 (+1 from varisian tattoo, +4 from bead of karma) and we end up with 102d6+144, which is 246 to 756 max, or an average of 501 damage. This will one-shot a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon, reducing it to glitterdust. Given that you can also make a full attack in the same round (three strikes plus haste), this will also drop Big T if you can get past its ludicrous fort save.

You can probably boost this some more, I think there's a trick somewhere to reroll ones on damage.

[Kurald Galain]

Wait, I'm being silly. Tack on Empower and Maximize via either the respective Magus arcana or with metamagic rods or gems. That makes 27d6+798 = 892 average.

[Seppo87]

As expected by the gaming community :)
Breaking the unbreakable is the bread and butter of some people.

Good examples both for casters and gishes, I have a more clear idea of the possibilities.
I wouldn't play a broken character anyway but it's a fun subject in itself.

[Kurald Galain]

As expected by the gaming community :)
Breaking the unbreakable is the bread and butter of some people.

Good examples both for casters and gishes, I have a more clear idea of the possibilities.
I wouldn't play a broken character anyway but it's a fun subject in itself.


Ok, let's see if we can break 1000.

Hexcrafter Magus 17 / Crossblooded orc+draconic Sorcerer 1 / Winter Witch 1 / Dual-cursed Oracle 1. Total caster level 17 (base) +2 (trait) +1 (varisian tattoo) +1 (ioun stone) = 21. Take the feat Spell Perfection (Disintegrate). Wield a +5 spell storing weapon of icy burst and shocking burst, while your familiar wields fate's shears.

Round one, activate karma bead for +4 caster level while your familiar applies oil of Bless Weapon to auto-confirm crits, and use a swift action to enchant your weapon with the Magus ability, making it keen.
Round two, activate Fortune hex while your familiar casts Ill Omen on your enemy so it has to roll twice on its save, and use a swift to haste yourself.
Round three, cast Intensified Empowered Maximized Disintegrate (intensify from a metarod you're holding in an extra limb, or a metagem; empower from the Magus arcana; maximize from the feat with Spell Perfection). Use a swift action to make it a cold spell and add +1d4 damage.

Spellstrike. Use various rerolls to make sure you get a 15-20 (not all that hard). Autoconfirm because of Bless Weapon.

Damage = 300 (maximized 50d6) + 25d6 (empower) + 150 (sorcerer bloodline) + 1d4 (winter witch) + 1d6 (base weapon damage) + 9 (enchantment) +6 (strength) +2 (weapon spec) +5 (bladebound) times two (critical hit), +2d6+2d10 (icy/shocking burst) = 1149 damage. There's a fortitude save, but the enemy has to roll six times (twice from ill omen, forced rerolls from misfortune and fate's shears that also have to be rolled twice) to the odds aren't good. Follow up with intensified snowball from spell storing weapon (most GMs don't allow metarods to apply here) for another 10d6 (base) +20 (bloodline) = 55 average, follow up with three attacks (three iteratives but let's assume the last one misses, one from haste) for 1d6+18 each = another 64 damage.

Total average damage = 1268.

[AvatarVecna]

Is that the current melee burst damage record?

Race: Human
Class: Fighter (Dragoon) 20
Stats (Lvl 1, pre-adjustment, 20 pb): 18/17/10/7/7/7
Stats (Lvl 20, post-adjustment): 23/19/10/7/7/7
Stats (post-items): 34/19/10/7/7/7
Feats: Weapon Focus: Lance (Human); Two-Weapon Fighting (ECL 1); Mounted Combat (Dragoon 1); Skill Focus: Ride (Dragoon 1); Power Attack (Fighter 2); Double Slice (ECL 3); Weapon Specialization: Lance (Fighter 4); Ride-by Attack (ECL 5); Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (Fighter 6); Spirited Charge (ECL 7); Greater Weapon Focus: Lance (Fighter 8); Leadership (ECL 9); Improved Critical (Fighter 10); Greater Two-Weapon Fighting (ECL 11); Greater Weapon Specialization: Lance (Fighter 12); Trick Riding (ECL 13); Mounted Skirmisher (Fighter 14); Staggering Critical (ECL 15); Stunning Critical (Fighter 16); Tiring Critical (ECL 17); Critical Mastery (Fighter 18); Exhausting Critical (ECL 19); Blinding Critical (Fighter 20)
Items: Belt of Giant Strength +6 (36000); Gauntlets of the Weaponmaster (110000); Bracers of Sworn Vengeance (25000); Manual of Gainful Exercise +5 (127500); +5 Impact adamantine Lance of Speed (203010); +5 Courageous Impact adamantine Lance (131010); Horseshoes of Glory (39600); something giving X/day Enlarge Person (maybe 10000-ish?)
Cohort: Some super-awesome horse with class levels or extra HD

The two really questionable parts of this build are a mount as a cohort (although I think that's legal) and using Spirited Charge and Mounted Skirmisher at the same time (which I think is legal, but I've seen people claim it's not). Acting under the assumption that it is, what we're looking at here is a round-to-round full attack routine of +41/+41/+41/+36/+36/+31/+31/+26 with Power Attack being used; while doing this, hit damage is 11d6+111; meanwhile, crits are auto-confirmed, deal 20d6+222, and come with up to two rider effects. Against the Tarrasque, taking his AC 40 and DR 15/epic into account, this kind of charge deals an average of 934.45 damage. Sure, such a build wouldn't see that kind of damage in real play (Con 10, all 7s for mental stats, completely focused on DPR), and even if it did, that kind of damage wouldn't happen all the time (since it's dependent on multiple limited-use abilities), but it's still pretty good DPR.

And again, if it turns out that Spirited Charge+Mounted Skirmisher isn't a legal move, this gets a lot less impressive.

EDIT: Of course, it's also worth mentioning that against foes with less AC/DR, or without using the limited use per day abilities, this is still pretty dependable damage: the limited use abilities are giving a +1 +5 attack, +2d6 damage (which isn't multiplied, due to being non-base damage dice), and +1d6 base damage (which is being multiplied). That still leaves us with the ridiculous attack routine of +36/+36/+36/+31/+31/+26/+26/+21 with hit damage of 6d6+111 and crit damage of 12d6+222 (with crits triggered by 19-20, auto-confirmed, and coming with riders), which makes this ridiculous DPR build very dependable DPR rather than "melee burst damage".

EDIT 2: Also, while it wouldn't be melee necessarily, dual-wielding gunslingers are pretty notorious for having ridiculous DPR, mostly due to being able to take just about any penalty they want due to targeting Touch AC. I've built (pre-errata) gunslingers that dual-wield double-barreled pistols that could theoretically one-round-kill anything but the three most powerful fiends (Orcus, the Oinodaemon, and Lucifer); whether such a build is still considered viable depends on how official the PF community considers PF errata to be.

[Kurald Galain]

something giving X/day Enlarge Person (maybe 10000-ish?)
How about a 750-gp wand? At level 20, making a DC 20 UMD check isn't hard :smallbiggrin:

[Florian]

It´s also possible to build a Slayer that can nearly auto-Coup de Grace beginning around lvl 8 and will enforce Fort saves above DC 100 to avoid instant death. Not as spectacular as the above Magus´ pure damage, but as lethal.
That was based on auto-succeeding on intimidate, instantly worsening the conditions by to steps and auto-triggering a CdG attempt. Boo!/Slash if you will.
(I did a build somewhere around here. When I find the time for it, I´ll search for it.)

[AvatarVecna]

How about a 750-gp wand? At level 20, making a DC 20 UMD check isn't hard :smallbiggrin:

On any other build, I'd probably agree with you. On a Fighter build with 7 Int, though, I basically need full Ride ranks (and possibly want ranks in Perception/Handle Animal), so spending ranks on UMD is unfortunately unlikely to be in the cards for such a build, even with Human bonuses helping out. Besides, I've got a personal preference for items that have no finite limit of uses, even if there's a daily limit of some kind. Of course, with everything else, you've still got nearly 200k gp to work with, so some items giving at-will low-level spells are definitely affordable. Another good one to get (especially if it can be made continuous/permanent) is Lead Blades, which is another effective size increase, which boosts the base damage from 2d6/3d6 to 3d6/4d6; if we can find another effective size increase to stack on with Enlarge Person, Impact, and Lead Blades, we can get them to the colossal 6d6 instead of the 4d6 my post assumed; that gives us hit damage of 20d6+111 and crit damage of 38d6+222.

Of course, pairing this ridiculous build with a dedicated buffer like a Bard just makes everything even worse.