[3.5] Build Challenge

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

Just for funsies, what could you build if you had the following limits.


Every second class level (i.e. 2,4,6,8 etc.) has to be an NPC class, excluding Adept (i.e. Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert or Warrior).
No fast-progression casting PrCs (i.e. no Ur-Priest etc.).
No theurge PrCs.
No level adjusted races or templates.

Could you build a still-viable character, who'd be fit to adventure in a Tier 3 party?

Cheers - T

[Gildedragon]

Yeah... Magewright is a pretty good NPC class :P
Going Rogue-Expert leaves one a fairly decent trapfinder; mix in knowledge devotion and your damage output (though lessened by losing rogue levels) is still pretty ok; mixing some warrior in there is not half bad.

[PacMan2247]

There are a number of ways to shore up the mechanical weaknesses of the NPC classes, but my experience is that player creativity is more important than mechanics. Skill-monkeys and ranged fighters are easy enough to manage with the given parameters, and if we're only talking about keeping up with Tier 3, a Tier 1 class hardly needs any thought to keep up mixed with an NPC class every other level.

[Randomguy]

If you don't count BAB / arcane casting as a theurge prc then a wizard or sorcerer /warrior / abjurant champion build would do okay.

Martial adepts do okay too, since the npc class levels count as 1/2 initiator levels.

[Troacctid]

Incarnate or Totemist should work fine as a skillmonkey.

[DeAnno]

Expert is sort of a poor man's Factotum. Iaijutsu Focus, Knowledge Devotion.

[WeaselGuy]

With Wild Cohort, a Strongheart Halfling, Ranger, Fighter, and Warrior levels, going into Wild Plains Outrider and Halfling Outrider gets you a solid mounted character. Cross settings with Eberron (Strongheart Talenta Halfling!) for cheesy fleshraker nonsense.

[Inevitability]

Mystic wildshape ranger 10/warrior 10? The only downside I can think of is getting some important features at a slower pace. Throw in SotAO for extra fun.

[Ruethgar]

Psionic Adepts are also a thing and could easily fit into a build. You could make an OK Tash build with that. Depending on how much cheese you allow, Lucid Dreaming from an Expert would be all you need. Chameleon casting doesn't count as a qualifier for casting by their class feature, so an Awakened Cat Factotum 1/Magewright 1/Chameleon 1/Mag/Cham/Mag/Cham would get slightly better early spell selection even if it falls off fairly quickly.

[ATHATH]

Spellthief+Magewright+Master Spellthief, perhaps?

[Jormengand]

Ardent and manifester level bonuses can get you at least 14 manifesting levels easily because of the stupid way ardent works (also, because magic items that affect your casting affect your manifesting too, you can get the caster level buffing ioun stone and get 8th-level powers). Mix with Warrior, take some gishy mantles, pretend that you're a psychic warrior (You even get an extra power level or two).

[Amphetryon]

Desert Half-Orc Barbarian 2/Half-Orc Paragon 3/Orc Paragon 3/Totemist 2/Expert 10. Warrior 10 might also work, but seems a bit too one-dimensional to hang with T3.

[Efrate]

Battle sorcerer/adept/abjurant champion is a very basic gish with a lot of bases covered. You get polymoph from adept, as much utility/buffs as you can from sorcerer and a little bit from adept, and minor and major creation and a bunch of decent utility over both your classes. Lack of divine power kind of hurts but you can toss spell slots away for arcane strike to nova dececntly, cause hydras with tons of d4s extra on each attack hurt.

[Pyromancer999]

There's a few builds that could work.

Emissary of the Lord of Blades: You could go Warforged Barbarian(Lion Totem) 1/Fighter 2/Warforged Juggernaut 5/Crusader 2 for odd levels, with levels in Warrior at every even level. For more utility, replace Crusader 2 with Combat Trickster.

Not-Master-But-He-Does-His-Best-And-It's-Alright Crafter: Magewright 10/Artificer 10. Do alright crafting/with magic items, plus have some supplementary spells from Magewright. To add some more utility spells, just add Arcane Disciple for a good domain for that. Don't have to have a Wisdom higher than 13 for that.

Veteran of the Last War: Magewright 12/Mage of the Arcane Order 2/Warrior 1/Knight Phantom 5(not in order). Able to cast as 18th level Magewright, also has BAB 13. So has some arcane spellcasting ability alongside mounted combat attacks for a mounted pseudo-gish. I like to imagine this one as a Aundarian Magewright who worked hard enough to join the Arcane Order, then got drafted into combat during the Last War, eventually proving strong enough to join the Knights Arcane, even if as a lesser member. For better optimization, sub in Wizard levels during levels 1,3, and 5 instead of just constant Magewright, and advance those with the prestige classes for 5th level wizard spells.

Poor Man's Anima Mage: Human Magewright 10/Binder 2/Anima Mage 8. 1st level feats are Precocious Apprentice and any metamagic feat, and 3rd is Improved Binding. Get casting as 18th level Magewright casting(decent enough) and bind as a 12th level Binder, which can be furthered with more takings of the Improved Binding feat.

Vestige Puppet(Jack of All Trades Build): Expert 10/Binder 5/Knight of the Sacred Seal 5. BAB 15, Decent skills thanks to Expert, and Binding as a Binder 10 does the rest.

Pseudo-Rogue: Changeling Expert 10/Rogue 3(Penetrating Strike ACF)/Spellthief 1/Psionic Rogue 1/Master of Masks 1(Assassin Mask)/Nightsong Enforcer 1/Swordsage 1(w/Assassin Stance)/Sneak Attack Thug Fighter 1/Avenger 1. Comes out with decent enough skills, BAB 12(so less than straight Rogue), some Rogue abilities from Rogue levels, and +10d6 sneak attack.

Pseudo-Wizard: Magewright 14/Mage of the Arcane Order 4/Wyrm Wizard 2. Cast any Wizard spells you like some of the time, and add a spell from any list to your class list. Substitute Fiend-Blooded for Wyrm Wizard to get an actual extra spell known from a narrower list, a fiendish familiar, and +1 to AC, as well as Full casting(as Wyrm Wizard loses one casting level).


Three Builds for Gleaner, since it's sort of an official NPC class, since Keith Baker made it and posted it on this site:

Plantmaster: Gleaner 6/Divine Oracle 1/ Gleaner 1/Sovereign Speaker 1(Plant Domain), then alternate Gleaner and Holt Warden till the end for Gleaner 13/Divine Oracle 1/Sovereign Speaker 1/Holt Warden 5. Can alternatively go Gleaner 15/Holt Warden 3-4/Contemplative 1-2 in order to get that extra Blessed Beast.

Earthmaster: If Dragon is allowed, Gleaner 14/Earthshaker 6 is easy to get with little trouble other than skills needed.

Pseudo-Druid: Play a Shifter Gleaner 14/Moonspeaker 6. Get Wildshape and other goodies, although the Summoning class feature isn't really good for you.

For all the Gleaner builds above: Take Wild Cohort. Use your Blessed Beast uses on it to make it much better than a normal animal companion, including ending at 20th level with having almost the same HD as you(would be more, but at some levels your companion's HD would end up being higher than yours, which isn't allowed). Also good to put on a familiar for those levels if someone can figure out a way to get that in there.

[Ruethgar]

Extra Familiar has no prerequisites and could be added to get you a familiar. It also doesn't advance at all, but you wanted to know how to get one in there and that's an answer.

[Pyromancer999]

Extra Familiar has no prerequisites and could be added to get you a familiar. It also doesn't advance at all, but you wanted to know how to get one in there and that's an answer.

That's true, although kind of iffy since it says additional familiar.

There's also that it doesn't say that the creature necessarily needs to be a special companion or even yours, so you could tame a creature, add the Blessing to that, or even cozy up with the familiar of someone else in the party and use your spare Blessing(s) on that. Granted, doesn't do as much for familiars as Animal Companions, but it does advance their HD for HD-based effects, plus allow them to get feats if their HD is high enough. It's a minor benefit on the whole for familiars, so it doesn't matter too much if the familiar is yours or not in the end, when thinking on it.

[Waazraath]

Hey all,

Just for funsies, what could you build if you had the following limits.


Every second class level (i.e. 2,4,6,8 etc.) has to be an NPC class, excluding Adept (i.e. Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert or Warrior).
No fast-progression casting PrCs (i.e. no Ur-Priest etc.).
No theurge PrCs.
No level adjusted races or templates.

Could you build a still-viable character, who'd be fit to adventure in a Tier 3 party?

Cheers - T

Are multiclass penalties involved? That is, if I have a cleric 1 / fighter 1 / barbarian 1 build with 3 levels of warrior, would there be an XP penalty? (making the build basicly invalid, imo)

[Thurbane]

Are multiclass penalties involved? That is, if I have a cleric 1 / fighter 1 / barbarian 1 build with 3 levels of warrior, would there be an XP penalty? (making the build basicly invalid, imo)

That's up to you...since these are theoretical builds, you can assume your normal table rules apply. I know a lot of tables waive XP penalties.

[Waazraath]

In that case, pretty basic one, ignoring multi-class penalties. Idea: basic loads of damage dealing charge build, based on fighter / barbarian. Use warrior NPC class for the full BaB. Few tricks that are used to compensate for this challenge:
- devotion feats (trigger on character level, not class level)
- Tome of battle classes, NPC class levels still give 1/2 initiator level
- changeling / warshaper combo

NPC side: 10 levels of warrior
"good" side:
1: barbarian (lion totem barbarian for pounce), whirling frenzy acf, feat: extra rage
3: cloistered cleric (knowledge as bonus domain, trade animal and travel domains for the devotion feats)
5: fighter, bonus feat: improved bull rush
6: (feat: power attack)
7: fighter, bonus feat: shock trooper
9: warblade: 3 maneuvers, white raven tactics, action before thought, *free*; stance: leading the charge; feat: extra turning
11: warshaper: immune to stunning and crits, natural weapon
12: (feat: leap attack)
13: warshaper: +4 con +4 str
15: warshaper: extra reach, feat: *free*
17: warshaper: fast healing 2
18: (feat: *free*)
19: swordsage, 6 maneuvers up to lvl 5, 1 first level stance

The build can do, from the early levels on, huge amounts of damage. It isn't tier 3 I think, but its damage potential makes it definitely usefull enough for a tier 3 party that it would fit in among a duskblade, incarnate and a beguiler (to name a few). The devotion feats give it nice little tricks, like an early 'fly', movement increase, and swift action movement. Total strength bonus from rage, warshaper and animal devotion is +16. Warshaper gives pretty neat offensive and defensive benefits. With battle leaders charge, the build can shock trooper pounce leap attack kill without aoo, and retreat to safety after the kill with a swift action movement. At the higher levels, when damage is more often not 'the' solution, at the very least it can move to the full caster and use the (arguably best ToB-maneuver) white raven tactics to give a full caster an extra turn. At the higher levels, the build can be further customized based on what a specific party needs, with the free feats and swordsage maneuvers.

[Randomguy]

How are you qualifying for Warshaper in that build? Did you intend to take a level of Bear Warrior somewhere?

[Divide by Zero]

How are you qualifying for Warshaper in that build? Did you intend to take a level of Bear Warrior somewhere?

Looks like he's taking Changeling as his race. They qualify thanks to the Shapechanger subtype.

[Waazraath]

Yes, as Divide by Zero says.

[Thurbane]

Warblade 10/Expert 10 wouldn't be too horrible. Get some juicy stuff like Iaijutsu Focus happening. Knowledge Devotion.

[Jormengand]

Oh, the other fun thing about expert is that it can easily hit the prerequisites for Word Given Form Mastery, especially if you're prepared to lose a level on monk (unarmed swordsage?), so you can get total concealment against your dodge target (which you can change by talking, which is a free action that can be taken at any time) meaning you're untargetable and get AC and reflex bonuses. Expert can also do lucid dreaming stuff; take item familiar? By about 6th level you should be able to make all LD checks without having to roll. This means that you can kill anyone who sleeps, meaning you're pretty much T4 without any other abilities. Take a bunch of skills and you basically hit T3 (one thing you're ridiculously good at, many things you're useful at).