[3.5e] Building a 20th level character to take on gods.

[helik4888]

I was invited to a game where the overall goal of the game will be to kill everything in the Deities and Demi Gods book. first we have to start ragnarok though. I understand that even 20th level characters can have troubles when dealing with beings that possess divine rank but supposedly the DM will fix that. I just want the biggest and baddest character.

So can i get some help generating ideas or get a cool build from the community? Also can I get some help equipping them? remember i am trying to take out things with divine ranks and abilities so that is a thing.

I was told we were going to start by making 20th level character. We can use any book published by WOTC and only WOTC.

Races: We can be any race, we have to take racial HD but we can ignore LA of 4 or under.

Classes: Any WOTC published class

Starting Gold: 760.000 (20th level standard)

and go...

[Flickerdart]

The gods in Deities & Demigods are hilariously weak. Don't worry about taking them on.

Don't worry too much about class levels - your race should be Black Ethergaunt (Fiend Folio). They have 16 aberration HD and cast as a 17th level wizard. They also have +4 level adjustment, but you get that forgiven. Take 4 levels in Incantatrix or whatever.

Why do you want Black Ethergaunt? They get +20 INT and are immune to arcane spells of 6th level and below. Their race also hates gods and wants to kill them all, so it works out perfectly.

After that, do the standard wizard things to win.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Hmmm.

Basic build:
Black ethergaunt 16/eidetic wizard 1/incantatrix 3
Black ethergaunts are 16 RHD abberations, with LA +4, and 17th-level wizard casting. Since you ignore the LA, you are now a 17th-level caster at level 16. Neato. There's just enough room to squeeze in wizard 1/incantatrix 3, for easy persistomancy. Did I mention the selective immunity to arcane spells of sixth level and lower, 40' blindsight-that-isn't-blindsight, +15 natural armour, and a +20 racial intelligence bonus (plus +24 total in assorted stats)?

Cheesy build:
Start with an elan psion (shaper) 17.
Create soul crystals of fusion, greater metamorphosis, and astral seed. Preserve them in quintessence, or use Extend Power.
Drain your HD down to 10. *
Manifest greater metamorphosis and share it with your psicrystal, which assumes the form and abilities of a black ethergaunt.
Manifest fusion on your psicrystal.
Now manifest astral seed.
Die, and get reborn at 9 HD, with all the abilities of a black ethergaunt, plus your own.
Now level up to 20, taking wizard 1 and then Mind Mage 10.

You now have 25th-level wizard casting and 17th-level shaper manifesting, with a +10 boost to both manifester and caster level, and a host of other abilities. Have fun :smallsmile:.


*This is why you have to preserve/Extend the soul crystals: typical negative levels take 24 hours to become permanent, and the crystals only last 1h/level.

[Eldariel]

Well. The biggest, baddest things that can be done belong in no table, certainly nothing that low powered. The worst playable things, hmm...

I'm just brainstorming here. Use what you will, if anything.

- Initiate of Mystra [Player's Guide to Faerun] Dweomerkeeper [Complete Divine Web Enhancement]-base build could do some pretty cool stuff. You'd have to refluff Initiate of Mystra but that's just Tuesday; you want to become the next deity of magic or whatever.

- You can get Persistomancy pretty cheap from Incantatrix (3 levels) [Player's Guide to Faerun] or Tainted Scholar (2 levels) [Heroes of Horror]. Spelldancer [Magic of Faerun] does it in one level, but lacks the other boons. Tainted Scholar is much more powerful but takes some finessing to enable you to become sufficiently tainted while still getting free metamagic. Incantatrix is pretty much no-frills though a technical per-day limit does exist.

- You want some source of spontaneous casting. If you go Cleric, you can use spontaneous domains and such (Customize Domain [DR325] and Domain Spontaneity [Complete Divine] as well as Spontaneous Domain Casting [PHBII] and various ways to gain new domains can go a fair way). A decent look into domains here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3927). With Wizard-base, Uncanny Forethought [Exemplars of Evil] has you covered. Sorcerer & co. can spontaneously Psychic Reform themselves with Limited Wish, though there are some higher optimization loops that allow just going through your spells and converting them to whatever.

- You probably want some access to manifesting. Extra actions from things like Schism, Affinity Field, Synchronity, Temporal Acceleration, Linked Power & co. are just too good not to use even if not abusing them at all. Dominant Ideal Ardent (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) is an interesting more Psionic alternative. There's also Spells to Powers Erudite (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a), which can do ridiculously broken stuff but even on a base-level, is just really solid. It's possible to combine this with other types of casting fairly easily; use fast progression classes (e.g. Sublime Chord [Complete Arcane], Ur-Priest [Complete Divine]) and dual progression.

- You probably want Circle Magic or some such. Halruaan Elder [Shining South], Hathran [Player's Guide to Faerun], Red Wizard [DMG] are the big options to that end. They all offer some other nice stuff; Halruaan Elder gets metamagic abuse, Red Wizard gets caster level and Hathran various boons in Rashemen, or anywhere with Acorn of Far Travel (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a).

- Shadowcraft Mage [Races of Stone] with all the frills might be fun. Vast spontaneity, more-real-than-real shadow spells and massive caster level bonuses. More details here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16433.0).

- War Weaver [Heroes of Battle] offers some nice action abuse though overall he's on the lower end of the powerscale here. Still, take a look here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1473), particularly in conjunction with e.g. Spellguard of Silverymoon.

- If you want to do something a bit off the beaten path, one fast progression class that might be quite interesting but requires a bit of work to enter is Beholder Mage [Lords of Madness]. Basically, you can use Assume Supernatural Ability [Savage Species] or Metamorphic Transfer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#metamorphicTransfer) combined with Polymorph Any Object or similar to permanently take the form of a Beholder and get the abilities needed. Then you get a nice fast progression casting class that can cast 9 spells a turn.

- Illithid Savant [Savage Species] can learn basically anything. If you feel like, you could play one and just eat your way to getting whatever powers you'd like. Just beware, this is dangerously close to omnipotence at which point everything kinda loses purpose in an actual game.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

An easy way to ensure that all your buffs are perma-persisted is to get yourself a demiplane that is timeless in regards to magic (and aging and fast-time, for preference). Then plant an oak tree there and cast acorn of far travel, preferably using a device from Ravenloft: Legacy of the Blood (to prevent your acorn from being dispelled, disjoined, or AMF'd). Add in a bunch of metamagic feats via the demiplane's enhanced magic trait, and while you're at it, make it subjective directional gravity so you can fly by "falling" in whatever direction you want. Now, so long as you hold the acorn, you've got fast time, can persist any spells you want, and you've got a ton of free metamagic, as well.

Also, don't forget to get yourself a ton of free money by taking the Ancestral Relic, Item Familiar, and Landlord feats. Make sure the first two are attached to something you can't lose, such as a graft. Note that Landlord isn't particularly picky about what can be used as your stronghold, so get yourself a Daern's instant fortress, add the effects of a psychoactive skin of proteus to grant it shapeshifting abilities, cast haunt shift on a friendly undead (say, a ghost), turn it into something wearable (or better yet, a warforged component so you can't lose it), and use the rest of the Landlord funds to enhance your stronghold as a portable item. Or you could craft a portable house out of fabricated walls of iron for cheap, enhance it for free using spells (preferably [Su] spells from dweomerkeeper) and repeat the above in lieu of an instant fortress.

[Endarire]

As a player of epic (near-)games before, get ready for a lot of bookkeeping out of character. You may need a 20-50 page 'handbook' to detail your character - your items, lands, buffs, pets/minions, spells usable, and other abilities!

And is Pun-Pun allowed? You are trying to beat all the Deities & Demigods!

[Aharon]

First of all, prepare well. Don't believe the idea floating around that gods as statted are weak. Yes, they do not have the most optimal spells - but they are still competent - none of them have an intelligence below 20, so they definitely shouldn't be played as buffoons.

To take Imhotep as an example (since that comes up often and I have discussed it previously), he has multiple ways of dealing with brute force attacks, depending on level of optimization:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17324530&postcount=8
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19904863&postcount=9
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19453213&postcount=34

So for Imhotep, from most optimized (near TO) to least optimized, we have:

Abuse of Wealth to make a heavily item reliant build that basically has nothing to do with the printed stats except the fact that he got true creation as a SLA
Constantly spend his time layering Prismatic Spheres, so that he's basically unassailable
Use Divination to find out when exactly to cast Prismatic Sphere each day, so that he is surrounded by one exactly at the time of your attack


Except the first version, he won't be able to do a lot to actively harm you - but you killing him will still be non-trivial.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You'll need some way of dealing with all of those deific abilities that screw over mortals. Make yourself immortal (which is, by the D&D definition, deific). Find a way to steal the immortality of a dragon ascendant, preferably via an ice assassin or other controllable emulation.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You'll need some way of dealing with all of those deific abilities that screw over mortals. Make yourself immortal (which is, by the D&D definition, non-deific). Find a way to steal the immortality of a dragon ascendant, preferably via an ice assassin or other controllable emulation.
I believe it goes: supernatural wish for a scroll of ice assassin of an aleax of a dragon ascendant, then fusion + astral seed (via greater humanoid essence)?

(all done within layered time stops, of course, wouldn't want a deity to interrupt the process)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Deific abilities tend to be magical, so do this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20479986&postcount=295) to turn them off, and if you have the device-made acorn of far travel I mentioned earlier, you should remain immune. Use Burrowing Power to force your planar bubble through any obstacles that might be between you and your deific victims.

Also, take the Vecna-blooded template early on, so portfolio sense might not foil your plans.

[edit] On second thought, I don't think Vecna-blooded foils portfolio sense. Gotta find another way around that.