The Whale of Smack

[Rebel7284]

Inspired by the King of Smack and President of Smack builds, I present to you the Whale of Smack.

Lawful Neutral Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale
Stub: Monstrous Humanoid HD 3/Cloistered Cleric 1/Monk 1/Warmind 10/Crinthi Shadow Marauder 5

HP: 6 + 9d8 + 10d10 + 20xCon
Skills:
13 x (2 + Int)
6 x (4 + Int)
1 x (6+Int)
BAB: 16
AC: 10 - Size + Dex + Wis+3(Monk) + 9 Natural + 4(War Mind) + 7 Law Devotion + 12 Inertial Armor (From buffing combo, see below) = up to 45 + Wis + Dex - Size = ~50ish at level 20. Certainly augmentable higher if desired. Will probably be lower because Law Devotion is better set to attack most of the time (factored as attack bonus below.)
Base Saves: 13/16/11



Lvl
Class
Feats
Powers
Class Features


1
Monstrous Humanoid 1
Hidden Talent [Dimention Hop]
Dimention Hop
Blindsight 120, Hold Breath, Swim Speed, +4 Spot/Listen


2
Monstrous Humanoid 2





3
Monstrous Humanoid 3
Stealthy




4
Cloistered Cleric 1
Knowledge Devotion[K.Psionics](b), Law Devotion(b)
Cleric casting
Turn Undead, Lore, Luck Domain Granted Power


5
Monk 1
Improved Unarmed Strike(b), Monastic Training(b)

Flurry of Blows


6
War Mind 1
Tashalatora
Expansion
Chain of Personal Superiority(+2 Str,Con)


7
War Mind 2

Claws of the Beast
Chain of Defensive Posture (+2 AC)


8
War Mind 3


DR 1/-


9
War Mind 4
Beast Strike
Feat Leech



10
War Mind 5


Sweeping Strike (Attack Adjacent Squares)


11
War Mind 6

Dimention Slide
DR 2/-


12
War Mind 7
Snap Kick

Chain of Personal Superiority (+4 Str,Con)


13
War Mind 8

Steadfast Perception
Chain of defensive posture (+4 AC)


14
War Mind 9


DR 3/-


15
War Mind 10
Mounted Combat
Empower Weapon
Chain of Overwhelming Force (+10d6 damage)


16
Crinti Shadow Marauder 1


Shadow ride


17
Crinti Shadow Marauder 2


Sudden strike +1d6


18
Crinti Shadow Marauder 3
Sun School, Crappy Mounted Feat(b)

Shadow Walk


19
Crinti Shadow Marauder 4


Sudden strike +2d6


20
Crinti Shadow Marauder


Shadow pounce



Why War Mind, you may ask? These builds have typically used Psychic Warrior! Wouldn't access to only 7 powers make the character a one trick pony?
There are several reasons.
- The extremely limited powers known list can be overcome quite easily, see below.
- War Mind has relevant class features, most notably Sweeping Strike which can DOUBLE the number of attacks the character gets.
- War Mind power progression is as fast as a Psion while having full BAB making it much better suited for a gish, especially one that needs to lose ML at both ends.
- I feel comfortable trading access to level 6 powers for Shadow Pounce

With that said, RAW reading of Ardent power progression when combined with customized mantles is certainly a possible alternative, trading Sweeping Strike and the 4th iterative for easier access to more powers.

Feats I also want to take, but don't have space for:
Practiced Manifester
Overchannel
Power Attack -> Improved Bullrush ->Knockback -> Shock Trooper (playing dominoes with opponents is nice for Sweeping Strike!)
Improved Natural Attack (Unarmed Strike)
Improved Natural Attack (Claws)
Superior Unarmed Strike
Combat Reflexes
Improved Grapple
Stunning Fist
True Believer -> Gauntlets of the Talon
I want all the things!

But wait! I can have some of the things!
The two difficulties that I have encountered when building this character is too few feat slots and too few powers known. However, Psychic Warriors (and by extension War Minds) get the wonderful level two power Feat Leech that solves both problems to some extend!
To use it properly you need a low level Psion Ally/Hireling/Cohort/Party Member. Level three would do!
Have that character take the psionic feats that you need and use Feat Leech whenever you want access to them (ideally out of combat so that your feat source doesn't get squished.)
I recommend the following layout:
Human Psion 3
1. Overchannel
H. Extend Power OR Talented
B. Practiced Manifester
3. Expanded Knowledge
Please note that there is no class feature that actually grants this hireling. If your DM is not happy about letting you find low level psions with just the feats you need in exchange for gp, you may need to swap a feat for Leadership or, less optimally, enter Thrallherd.
At level 15, you can build your own perfect target with Expanded Knowledge[Psychic Reformation]. You can Reformat away the Expanded Knowledge feat after you're done. :)

Typical buff routine would include you using Feat Leach to take any long duration buff or utility power you want from any list, Inertial Armor is included in the stat block, and manifest that power (extended if applicable). Then dismiss Feat Leech and repeat. If you want to save one of the powers acquired this way for combat (Schism? Metamorphosis?), you can use Empower Weapon to store it in a weapon.

If you ever find a high level Telepath or, in the broken case, an StP Erudite, that happen to know Psychic Chirurgery and can be convinced to use it on you, all of these shenanigans with Expanded Knowledge can be bypassed, although stealing feats still remains useful.

Useful Items:
Fanged Ring - INA: Unarmed Strike and possible Con damage!
Monk's Belt - +5 Levels to Unarmed Strike Damage and AC
Necklace of Natural Weapons - Because adding special abilities to your Unarmed Strikes is wonderful
Bones of Li-Peng - Legacy Items that boosts Monk level by 5 more and gives a couple of other useful abilities (Defending, Dex Bonus)
Monk's Tatoo - +4 Levels of Monk
Torc of Power Preservation - Power points are precious and augmenting by an extra 1 can make a difference.
Cognizance Crystals

The attack routine at level 20 with just the first two items taken into account and the following buffs in place: Expansion to Gargantuan, Max Augmented Claws of the Beast, Law Devotion. Assuming 49 Strength.
Teleport near your opponents 3 times while using Snap Kick.
Base: +14/+14/+14/+14/(+14 Sun School)/+9/+4/-1
Modifiers: -3 size, +7 Law Devotion, +19 Strength for a total attack routine of:
+37/+37/+37/+37/+37/+32/+27/+22 x 3 (24 attacks) This can be doubled to 48 attacks if you're attacking a group with adjacent characters.

Damage: 8d8(unarmed strike)+12d8(claws)+19 +2d6 Sudden Strike. (Min:41,Max:191,Avg:116) You can also 1/day add 10d6 to any one attack.

Assuming all attacks connect, you are looking at an average of 2,784 damage to up to two adjacent targets. Of course, this number is drastically lower before Shadow Pounce comes online.

Please be considerate of the power level of the game you are playing before using this character. Don't drop a whale on an unsuspecting DM's head.

[Darrin]

I have some quibbles:

Crinti Shadow Marauder has a requirement that the character must be Crinti or have the official sanction of the nobility of Dambrath. When this came up in Iron Chef LXXIV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?458711-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXIV), the consensus was that "Crinti" could include drow, half-drow and (presumably dark-skinned) humans. Anthropomorphic whale isn't explicitly forbidden, as you could have one that saves a noble's life or did something notable for Dambrath at an early age, but you might get some pushback on this issue with some obstinate DMs.

Shadow Pounce comes in pretty late. You could get into CSM after War Mind 6 or 7, then finish up after CSM 5... but you need ML 9 to augment dimension slide up to a move action.

Being large doesn't seem to be doing anything except a size increase on damage (no Knockback). A medium-sized creature with Improved Natural Attack, Totem Avatar soulmeld, or Superior Unarmed Strike would have about the same damage, and have three more class levels to cram in more stuff.

7 PP (aug expansion) + 7 PP (aug claws) + 1 PP (dimension hop) + 5 PP (dimension slide) + 9 PP (aug dimension slide) = 29 PP. Ouch, that's going to burn off 40% of your PP.

[WhamBamSam]

Yep, if Dragon Magazine material is on the table, Beast Strike is a passable alternative to Rapidstrike for leveraging your Claws of the Beast damage dice.

Sweeping Strike doesn't work if you move more than 10 ft, probably including teleportation. You might consider Whale 3/Monk 3/Fist of Zuoken or Zerth Cenobite 9/Shadow Marrauder 5 instead to double dip unarmed damage progression with Talashtora.

A Psicrystal can make a decent Feat Leech repository that comes as a non-leadership feat. If your DM doesn't mind feat leeching Practiced Manifester off a Psion to apply to your War Mind class, doing it with a Psicrystal (which doesn't have a class to apply the feat to, but can still qualify) shouldn't be a problem either.

Note that if you're using Snap Kick repeatedly, the penalties start stacking.

[Jack_Simth]

Problem:
The Anthropormorphic Animals from Savage Species do not get feats for their racial hit dice. See page 215, feats:

Feats: If the base creature has Weapon Finesse as a racial bonus feat, the anthropomorphic animal also has it if it still has the related attack form. Otherwise, anthropomorphic animals gain feats only through class levels.(Emphasis added)

You've got two more feats listed in the build than you actually have. For purposes of feats, you only have 17 levels, not 20, with the three racial hit dice.