Rubbish Arena Challenge II [D&D 3.5]

[LordOfCain]

Your Task: Create a character with the chassis provided capable of killing a threat 5 CR higher than the character's level
Chassis: Soulknife 5/Your Choice 1
Approved Sources: All 1st Party 3.5 (and un-updated 3.0) sources and Dragon Compendium
Deadline: October 1st 2016
Get building, post builds in this thread, if you have the same concept/basic build as a previous poster you will lose points unless it is deemed suitably unique. Builds will be scored on a 1-10 scale on the points of Originality, Power, and Versatility. I would be happy if anyone else volunteered to help be judge. NOTE: You must be a 5th level Soulknife with one level in a class of your choice. You may have level adjustment as long as you have an ECL of 6 and five levels in Soulknife. I will not judge any builds in thia thread until the winner for the first Rubbish Arena Challenge is finalized. You may not use feats to get Wish/Miracle and should try to optimize the Soulknife class features.

[Extra Anchovies]

Locking the first two feats is pretty harsh, cuz practical garbage-class optimization tends to rely pretty heavily on feats. But there's also a number of the more TO Commoner tricks that don't involve any feats at all (e.g. Dragonborn Raptoran and Colossal Dragonwrought). Perhaps we should open up the first two feats as normal, but ban Wish/Miracle and try to involve as many Soulknife class features and options as possible?

Edit: that being said, I love the idea of a Rubbish Arena Challenge as a sort of casual what-can-we-do-with-this-garbage analogue to Iron Chef. Maybe we can do Soulborn next :smallbiggrin:

[LordOfCain]

Locking the first two feats is pretty harsh, cuz practical garbage-class optimization tends to rely pretty heavily on feats. But there's also a number of the more TO Commoner tricks that don't involve any feats at all (e.g. Dragonborn Raptoran and Colossal Dragonwrought). Perhaps we should open up the first two feats as normal, but ban Wish/Miracle and try to involve as many Soulknife class features and options as possible?

Edit: that being said, I love the idea of a Rubbish Arena Challenge as a sort of casual what-can-we-do-with-this-garbage analogue to Iron Chef. Maybe we can do Soulborn next :smallbiggrin:

True, but there still is flaws and human bonus feats and stuff. (As well as Elder Evil worshipping feats and whatnot).... Hm.... I suppose it would be a good idea to just not allow Wish/Miracle. Approved. :smallbiggrin:

[Endarire]

What is this 'Soulblade' of which you speak? I know of a Soulknife (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/soulknife.htm) class.

[LordOfCain]

What is this 'Soulblade' of which you speak? I know of a Soulknife (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/soulknife.htm) class.

Ughh.... *facepalm. Totally messed up there. Thanks for pointing it out....

[Eldonauran]

What is this 'Soulblade' of which you speak? I know of a Soulknife (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/soulknife.htm) class.

Probably Soulknife. Only other 'Soul" class I know of is the Soulborn from Magic of Incarnum.


...killing a threat 5 CR higher than the character's level...

Do we know anything about the threat in particular? Even the creature type will go a long way towards designing an appropriate build.

[LordOfCain]

Probably Soulknife. Only other 'Soul" class I know of is the Soulborn from Magic of Incarnum.



Do we know anything about the threat in particular? Even the creature type will go a long way towards designing an appropriate build.

Typically it is a "classic" encounter of that kind: Dragons, Minotaur, Giants. Not typically constructs or NPCs.

[Darrin]

Typically it is a "classic" encounter of that kind: Dragons, Minotaur, Giants. Not typically constructs or NPCs.

I'm not seeing any "classic" monsters in the Monster Manual that clock in at CR 11. In MM2, there's bone naga, young adult crystal dragon, fomorian, forest giant, forest sloth, juggernaut, and young adult sapphire dragon.

I mucked up something on imarvintpa. CR 11 creatures:

Elder Air/Earth/Fire/Water Elemental
Barbed Devil
Adult Black Dragon
Young Adult Blue Dragon
Devourer
Dread Wraith
Juvenile Gold Dragon
Young Adult Green Dragon
Hezrou
Hydra
Colossal Monstrous Spider
Stone Golem

If we average all those out, a generic CR 11 would look like:

HD: 16
HP: 165
Init: +3
AC: 24 (Touch 11)
Attack: +21
Standard DPR: 26 (Standard attack, all attacks hit, average damage)
Full DPR: 52 (Full attack, all attacks hit, average damage)
Fort: +12
Ref: +14
Will: +10

I'd say you'd want to show that your build can do at least 165 damage while surviving about 26 damage per round. Commoner 6 with Con 12 has about 32 HP, Soulknife 6 with Con 12 and Toughness has about 46 HP. So average life expectancy might be about 2 rounds.

[Endarire]

Kalashtar Soulknife5/Thrallherd1. Do your standard CHA optimization to boost your believer (follower) count as high as possible. We want maximum Leadership scorage!

Why?

Because more units and the possibility of units with a higher level than anyone expected at this level!

We can get a CHA of 18 (base) + 3 (Venerable) + 1 (level) + 2 (Magic-Blooded Template) + 2 (Unseelie Fey template) + 4 (enhancement) while still remaining within expected wealth by level for a L6 PC. Assuming a 'mere' 26 CHA (that is, disregarding templates), we get a Leadership score of 20, which is enough for 50 L1s, 5 L2s, 3 L3s, 2 L4s, and 1 L5. With +2 Leaderhip score from templates, we get even better results, including a L6 believer!

Using a very simple example, make them all Sorcerers or Wizards. Magic missile doesn't do a lot of damage on its own, but 50d4 force damage in 1 turn from 110' away with disposable minions seems like a pretty good deal. And that's just the level 1 units! Assuming your side survives, they get more actions which means more magic missiles! Alleluia!

Alternatively, substitute your auto-hit option of choice. I prefer magic missile because only shield, spell resistance, and very specific protections block it. And the spell is core. Silent image and ghost sound may also work, but they sometimes have saves and are very GM-dependent.

- - -
Alternatively to the build above, use Shards of Leadership (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10262.0) with a doubly-flawed Human. The last level of its build doesn't matter so much.

[Endarire]

Am I the only entrant? Does that mean I win by default?

[Darrin]

Am I the only entrant? Does that mean I win by default?

I was putting together an entry, but then had to borrow most of it for an Iron Chef entry, so... I'm not sure if I'll post it here until that contest finishes judging.

When I get some more free time, I'll try and come up with another idea.

[LordOfCain]

Am I the only entrant? Does that mean I win by default?
The deadline is October 1st.

[Darrin]

Alrighty then... maybe let's try the brute force approach.

Race: Water Orc
Ability Scores: Str 22, Con 14
Stub: Soulknife 5/Fighter 1
Feats: Power Attack (1st), Hidden Talent: Expansion (1st, via ACF (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a)), Weapon Focus: Mindblade (1st), Shape Soulmeld: Thunderstep Boots (Flaw), Animal Devotion (Flaw), Cobalt Charge (3rd), Leap Attack (6th), Headlong Rush (6th)

Shape a bastard sword mindblade, grip it two-handed. Standard action to expand up to large size, which gives us some natural reach and +2 Str. Swift action to activate Ape's Fury from Animal Devotion gets us another +4, up to 28 Strength. Move action to activate Psychic Strike.

Attack Bonus: 14 = 4 (BAB) + 9 (Str) + 2 (charge) + 1 (Weapon Focus) + 1 (enhancement) + 1 (Cobalt Charge) - 4 (Power Attack)

Damage Bonus: 84 = [9 (avg large bastard sword) + 13 (Str) + 12 (Power Attack x3) + 4 (avg Psychic Strike) + 1 (enhancement) + 1 (Cobalt Charge) + 2 (avg Thunderstep Boots)] x 2 (Headlong Rush)

Hrrrm. That's kinda dicey against a generic CR 11. First charge hits on a 10+ (55% success), and we'd need some minor magic items to do that again on the next round: Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (500 GP, MIC) or Boots of the Battle Charger (2000 GP, MIC) to back up 30', and maybe a Tempo Bloodspike (150 GP, MoE) to get Psychic Strike back up. Second charge has the same chance to hit, so (.55 x .55) = 30% chance both hit. But 84 x 2 = 168 will take down a generic CR 11 with two hits.

[Thurbane]

I'll see if I can come up with anything worth submitting in the next week or so.

[Darrin]

Another stab at it...

Race: Silverbrow Human
Ability Scores: Str 18, Dex 15, Cha 11
Stub: Sneak Attack Fighter 1/Soulknife 5

Feats: Dragonfire Strike (1st), Craven (1st), Martial Study: Distracting Ember (Flaw), TWF (Flaw), Hidden Talent: Bite of the Wolf (2nd), Weapon Focus: Mindblade (2nd), Maiming Strike (3rd), Martial Study: Cloak of Deception (6th)

This trick is based on daremetoidareyou's Scruffy the Fuglimancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19553550&postcount=248) build. We start with 1d6 sneak attack, and Dragonfire Strike gives us another +1d6 sneak attack. We use Maiming Strike to convert this 2d6 into 1 Charisma damage. Since the only sneak attack damage being done now is Charisma damage, Craven adds +1 Charisma damage per character level. Every sneak attack that hits deals 7 Charisma damage. The average Charisma for all CR 11 creatures in the Monster Manual is 13, so two sneak attack hits on most CR 11 creatures will render it unconscious. Dragons tend to have higher Charisma, but no CR 11 in the Monster Manual has a Charisma over 18, so at worst just three solid hits on a flanked or flat-footed opponent will take them out. To make sure we get a full attack against a flat-footed opponent, we have Cloak of Deception for a full round of invisibility. That only works once per encounter, so if our opponent is still standing on the next round, we use Distracting Ember to create a flanker.

Attack bonus is a bit iffy: 10 = 4 (BAB) + 4 (Str) + 1 (Weapon Focus) + 1 (Enhancement) + 2 (invisible/flanking) - 2 (TWF). Against an average AC of 24, we're only hitting on 14+ (35%). With bite of the wolf active, we have three attacks: +10 shortsword/+10 shortsword/+7 bite. But if we really want to make sure our attacks hit, we can abandon our mind blades for a pair of poison rings (Dragon Compendium). These only do 1 damage, but we don't care because we get to make touch attacks with the rings and each hit does 7 Charisma damage. Average touch AC for all the CR 11s in the Monster Manual is AC 11, so our rings only miss on a '1'.

[LordOfCain]

Winner: Darrin
Runner Up: Endarire

[Darrin]

Winner: Darrin
Runner Up: Endarire

No scores? I guess not necessary with only two contestants.

I had a third build I was working on, but maybe I can save it for the next one.