(ECL 20 vs Neutronium Golem) Fight!

[OldTrees1]

A Neutronium_golem (https://1d4chan.org/images/4/43/Neutronium_golem_page.png) is a monster from the Immortal's Handbook. I think this forum can beat it with a sufficiently optimized ECL 20 character.


Rules:
1) You start with the xp of an ECL 20 character and cannot gain more. Advancement orthagonal to ECL (Bloodline, Divine Rank, Mythic, and similar) should be avoided. LA Buyoff is allowed. Thought Bottles are allowed but only if you show your work.

2) Your total wealth by level including permanent spell effects is capped at the ECL 20 wealth by level (760,000 gp).

3) No Dragon Magazine but otherwise free rein on official 3.P material.

4) You start on the same plane but 3000 miles apart (so you start outside of its areas of effect).

5) You both are aware of each other. There is no surprise round. You are currently effected by its Magnetar ability.

6) You must survive for 1 year after the golem is defeated for you to win.

7) Any rules I missed that you want to add, feel free to include them and or ask for me to include them in the opening post.

Can it be done? How easily can it be done? How many qualitatively different grand strategies would work?


Edit (Many viable winning builds exist in the thread. I am just posting some of those below):
1)Gusmo with Cleric 1/Wizard 5/Dweomerkeeper 10/Incantatrix 4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21780912&postcount=10)
Continuously under Shapechange(Solar) and Veil of Undeath via Incantrix negates almost all the Golem's offense. Forcecage traps the Golem negating its last offense. Supernatural Spell Polymorph any Object bypasses the Golem's defenses and this character can wait for it to fail its save.

2)ExLibrisMortis with Clerc(Spell Domain) 11 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21783281&postcount=61)
Block line of effect and planeshift to safety. Send in an incorporeal minion with a no save no SR item trap.

3)AvatarVecna broke the challenge with an Epic caster (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21783974&postcount=67) via the Young template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1/).
Basically in 3.P the Young template is a -1 LA template that nobody in their right mind would allow, but it does mean the 21st level epic spellcaster is only ECL 20.

Edit 2: Round 2 uses a stronger interpretation of divine damage.

1)ben-zayb with a Ghost (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21781536&postcount=41) was unaffected by the stronger divine damage interpretation by being Incorporeal.

2)Shaikujin with a Necropolitian Incarnate Construct Warforged (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21795683&postcount=130) commoner 1
By sustaining a buffer of trillions of temp hp, they do not need to fear the damage. By being undead they ignore the outer layers of the gravitic aura. Finally the method they use to get those trillions of temp hp doubles as a boost to kill the Golem in one punch.

Edit 3: Round 3 My Numbers Can Handle Your Numbers(Use the fewest bypasses)
1)Shaikujin with a Warforged commoner 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21797466&postcount=143)
High Initative, Movement, Temp Hp, Saves, Attack, Damage, Con, with the ability to heal the Con damage
Chance of failure: 1141/8000 (chance of not making the 3 saves)
Distance to ground zero: Within 20ft(closest)
Golf Score: 0

Edit 4: This Golem has been thoroughly outmatched. Someone should make a new thread with a new victim target.

[Swaoeaeieu]

just a thought: d2 crusader to bypass all that hardness. Iron heart surge to survive radiation afterwards?

[Zombimode]

How do you survive the 31.000 damage of the heat Aura. It's divine fire damage - which probably means it works like Flamestrike, thus even if you get fire immunity (possible) you somehow have to deal with 15.000 "divine" untyped damage.

Maybe getting an effect that lets you ignore damage for a while (like Deathless Frenzy)?


Iron Heart Surge does not interact with the Radiation in any way: it is flat ability damage, not a condition.

[Swaoeaeieu]

well thats what i get for skimming the statblock XD

[OldTrees1]

just a thought: d2 crusader to bypass all that hardness. Iron heart surge to survive radiation afterwards?

d2 crusader would deal enough damage to bypass hardness. However you still need to go first, get in range, survive getting in range(Gravity Aura, Heat Aura), & hit to reach that point.

Iron Heart Surge would not work or not be needed on the radiation. You can only Surge after you have taken the ability damage. If you can survive the ability damage long enough to Surge, you don't need to Surge. Although surviving 200 Con damage(within 1000 miles when it died) would be hard to do without an immunity. I suspect 20 or 2(between 1000 miles and 2000 miles) can be survived if you survive the rest of the death throes.


How do you survive the 31.000 damage of the heat Aura. It's divine fire damage - which probably means it works like Flamestrike, thus even if you get fire immunity (possible) you somehow have to deal with 15.000 "divine" untyped damage.

Maybe getting an effect that lets you ignore damage for a while (like Deathless Frenzy)?

I too presume it works like Flamestrike.

Ignoring damage for a while is a good idea. However do remember you need to survive for a rather lengthy time afterwards. Have a plan for when your ignoring damage would run out.

[Zombimode]

well thats what i get for skimming the statblock XD

While I think it is possible to take a Neutronium Golem out whithout being a Level 9700 character, it's numbers are large enough that any plan with a chance for success needs to pay attention to Detail.

Besides, d2 Crusaders are on the same Level of rules elegancy as "Iron Heart Surging the athmosphere/Backround Radiation of the Universe away". If we go down this way the obvious answer to this challenge would be PunPun with the abilties "Immun to anything a Neutronium Golem does" and "Free Action: destroy target Neutronium Golem, no save", which would defeat the purpose of this challenge :smalltongue:

[etrpgb]

Ignoring damage for a while is a good idea. However do remember you need to survive for a rather lengthy time afterwards. Have a plan for when your ignoring damage would run out.

A bucket of water and Cure Minor Wound wand would suffice?

[Zombimode]

Ignoring damage for a while is a good idea. However do remember you need to survive for a rather lengthy time afterwards. Have a plan for when your ignoring damage would run out.

Hm, Contingent Rejuvinating Coocoon? I'm at away from books right now and I don't remember if it sets your HP to max or if it just applies the effect of a Heal spell (which would not be enough). Probably the later. But at least a Contingent Coocoon (or Resilient Sphere) could protect you from the Disintegration of the Death Throes.


A bucket of water

Again, if we go down that road, PunPun is the answer.

[OldTrees1]

A bucket of water and Cure Minor Wound wand would suffice?

I think we could do better. If we can't, then maybe. I forget if the Drowning RAW kills you anyways or not.


Hm, Contingent Rejuvinating Coocoon? I'm at away from books right now and I don't remember if it sets your HP to max or if it just applies the effect of a heal spell (which would not be enough). Probably the later. But at least a Contingent Coocoon (or Resilient Sphere) could protect you from the Disintegration of the Death Throes.

The Cocoon is just the Heal Spell(150hp)

Resilient Sphere would block the Disintegration (but not the rest) if you are within 140 miles
Resilient Sphere would protect you if it survives the Disintegration step (be outside of 140 miles)
That is a nice move.

[Gusmo]

I see no significant offense that isn't easy to become immune to, which is the biggest problem with it. Any high op caster (say, someone with 3 levels of incantatrix for persist shenanigans) is buffed to the gills with immunity to all of the things it can do. It has no obscure ability that you could reasonably argue 'what if someone didn't prepare to be killed by that!' An example killer of this thing would be a cleric1/wizard5/dweomerkeeper10 (Complete Divine web enhancement)/incantatrix4 (Player's Guide to Faerun), which could forcecage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm) it using supernatural spell for no wealth expenditure, then cast polymorph any object (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorphAnyObject.htm) using supernatural spell, attempting to turn the golem into a fish (or some other creature that would die in the environment where it's trapped in the forcecage). If the golem doesn't roll a 1 on its save against PAO, the forcecage lasts long enough for you to come back the next day and try again (see edit), recasting forcecage as needed. It has no means of escaping. Once the golem eventually rolls a 1, it dies. By my reckoning this build only needs ECL 16 to kill the golem in this fashion, because that's the point at which it gets 8th level spell slots.

Edit: of course, when I say come back, make sure you don't go away using any magical means, otherwise its magnetar will allow it to follow you.

[etrpgb]

Dweomerkeeper 10 allows to ignore the spell immunity? I guess the author thought that would make it more difficult.

[Gusmo]

Dweomerkeeper 10 allows to ignore the spell immunity? I guess the author thought that would make it more difficult.

Dweomerkeeper4, actually, though you only get one use of the ability at that level, and four uses of the ability at dweomerkeeper10. The removal of components (notably XP,material, and focus), are even crazier still.

[etrpgb]

Double checked, yup it works. Forcecage/PaO for the win :D !

But, why bother with PaO? Since you can ignore the Spell Immunity, any Save-or-Die spell will work (it will throw a 1 eventually).

[Zombimode]

I see no significant offense that isn't easy to become immune to, which is the biggest problem with it.

Well, you make this claim, but without actually having anything to show for and adressing the Golem's specifics this is just an empty claim.


The Cocoon is just the Heal Spell(150hp)

Bummer.

How about not using your real Body? Fight the Golem while being in different Body you took via Magic Jar. Then, after the fight with the Golem and while your "ignore damage" effect is still running, teleport to the location of the Magic Jar and return to the jar. The downside is that this probably needs DM adjucation since I don't think it is clearly defined what happens to your HP Ratio when you return to the Jar, take over a different body or return to your own body.
Personally as DM I would rule that for corporeal creature the Ratio of maxHp/currentHp is part of the body and thus not something that you take with you when you move your soul arround.

[OldTrees1]

I see no significant offense that isn't easy to become immune to, which is the biggest problem with it. Any high op caster (say, someone with 3 levels of incantatrix for persist shenanigans) is buffed to the gills with immunity to all of the things it can do. It has no obscure ability that you could reasonably argue 'what if someone didn't prepare to be killed by that!' An example killer of this thing would be a cleric1/wizard5/dweomerkeeper10 (Complete Divine web enhancement)/incantatrix4 (Player's Guide to Faerun), which could forcecage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm) it using supernatural spell for no wealth expenditure, then cast polymorph any object (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorphAnyObject.htm) using supernatural spell, attempting to turn the golem into a fish (or some other creature that would die in the environment where it's trapped in the forcecage). If the golem doesn't roll a 1 on its save against PAO, the forcecage lasts long enough for you to come back the next day and try again (see edit), recasting forcecage as needed. It has no means of escaping. Once the golem eventually rolls a 1, it dies. By my reckoning this build only needs ECL 16 to kill the golem in this fashion, because that's the point at which it gets 8th level spell slots.

Edit: of course, when I say come back, make sure you don't go away using any magical means, otherwise its magnetar will allow it to follow you.

This looks promising. Here is a quick form for the Forcecage & Polymorph any Object every day grand strategy.
You are going first by:
You are traveling close enough by:
You are immune to the auras(Damage, Stun, Unconsciousness, Death, Max Hp reduction) by:
???, ???, ???, being more that 60ft away, being more than 60ft away
You are getting as far away as needed, if it didn't roll a 1, by:
You are doing that all on your turn by:

[emeraldstreak]

It has no counter to supernatural spell, no immunity to ability damage/drain. Its big damage numbers are irrelevant to an Ikea Tarrasque. Nondamage can be delayed with Mad Foam Rager and possibly removed with Iron Heart Surge.

[OldTrees1]

Double checked, yup it works. Forcecage/PaO for the win :D !

But, why bother with PaO? Since you can ignore the Spell Immunity, any Save-or-Die spell will work (it will throw a 1 eventually).
PaO avoids dealing with the death throes so it needs fewer immunities in the build.



How about not using your real Body? Fight the Golem while being in different Body you took via Magic Jar. Then, after the fight with the Golem and while your "ignore damage" effect is still running, teleport to the location of the Magic Jar and return to the jar. The downside is that this probably needs DM adjucation since I don't think it is clearly defined what happens to your HP Ratio when you return to the Jar, take over a different body or return to your own body.
Personally as DM I would rule that for corporeal creature the Ratio of maxHp/currentHp is part of the body and thus not something that you take with you when you move your soul arround.

Not using your real body is a good way to personally avoid the area of effects.

Since Magic Jar talks about what happens if the host body is slain, I would rule the damage is part of the body.


It has no counter to supernatural spell, no immunity to ability damage/drain. Its big damage numbers are irrelevant to an Ikea Tarrasque. Nondamage can be delayed with Mad Foam Rager and possibly removed with Iron Heart Surge.

IIRC Ikea Tarrasque costs 9 ECL.

Mad Foam Rager would delay, but I don't see anything for Iron Heart Surge to remove (you are either dead, unable to surge, or indifferent).

[etrpgb]

I have no idea for the Max Hp reduction, but from Death effect you need Deathward (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm), Favor of Ilmater helps against stun, and the pair Beastland Ferocity and Delay Deat against the damage? Some spells might need to be cast via Limited Wish.

And before the spells run out, Magic Jar to escape in another body?

[OldTrees1]

I have no idea for the Max Hp reduction, but from Death effect you need Deathward (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm), Favor of Ilmater helps against stun, and the pair Beastland Ferocity and Delay Deat against the damage? Some spells might need to be cast via Limited Wish.

And before the spells run out, Magic Jar to escape in another body?

Good steps.

The Max HP reduction only matters if you get within 60ft and only if you expose yourself to that range for many rounds before victory.


Remember the rules for transferring bodies with Magic Jar. It has a much smaller range than the auras you are dealing with. It will need a helping hand.

[Shalist]

Offensively, you can one-hit kill it with the Mace of Smiting:

Mace of smiting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#maceofSmiting): "Any critical hit dealt to a construct completely destroys it (no saving throw)."
Surge of fortune: Complete Champion, cleric-5; discharge as an immediate action to make your next roll (within 1 round) a natural 20.
Sense weakness: MoE pg 101, clr/wiz2, automatically confirm a single critical threat over the next 24 hours.

Defensively, levitation would protect from the effects of the gravitar aura, and taking 'total cover' behind a simple riverine tower shield would protect one from its dying starquake. Fire immunity is easy enough via gear or magic, and its melee isn't relevant if you act first.

I'm missing a few things, like it flying at the speed of light with perfect maneuverability, but it's a start.

Alternately, bring a 'mirror of opposition' or 3, just for the lulz.

[Gusmo]

This looks promising. Here is a quick form for the Forcecage & Polymorph any Object every day grand strategy.
You are going first by:
You are traveling close enough by:
You are immune to the auras(Damage, Stun, Unconsciousness, Death, Max Hp reduction) by:
???, ???, ???, being more that 60ft away, being more than 60ft away
You are getting as far away as needed, if it didn't roll a 1, by:
You are doing that all on your turn by:

Going first is irrelevant, it will have no way to harm me.

It doesn't seem to have any defense against divination, so finding it shouldn't be hard. Discern location (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/discernLocation.htm) would seem to work fine with it being on the same plane. Once you find it, you could walk there hopefully, but there might also be some swimming, climbing, etc. involved. What's the point of all that reality bending power if you can't enjoy a good trek once in a while. You can use any sort of magic to get there if you're not up to taking the scenic route.

I will be shapechanged into a solar via persist shenanigans and have veil of undeath active via persist shenangigans. This gives me immunity to the required fortitude saves. Its damage attacks do not bypass the solar's regeneration, and therefore they do nonlethal damage, which I am immune to thanks to veil of undeath. Edit: veil of undeath is in the Spell Compendium, it basically gives you undead immunities.

Walking away again. Getting back in time again might be tricky, even with that freakishly high intelligence everyone loses track of time once in a while. But it's okay, if I'm late it can't hurt me anyway. If it's moved I just need to find it again, if it doesn't want to find me for some reason. Edit2: also, if you do want to travel further away via magic, it seems like a dimensional lock cast with supernatural spell would keep it in place in the forcecage if you want to spend the night in your demiplane or whatever without it following you.

I don't need to do it all on my turn, as stated, the golem has no way to harm me, so I can dither as much as I'd like.

[emeraldstreak]

IIRC Ikea Tarrasque costs 9 ECL.


In this case it costs regeneration, immunity to fire, immunity to nonlethal. It doesn't have to be permanent either. Ring of regeneration, Imix (mm5), divine persist Favor of the Martyr is permanent and less than 1 ecl with buyout.

[OldTrees1]

Going first is irrelevant, it will have no way to harm me.

It doesn't seem to have any defense against divination, so finding it shouldn't be hard. Discern location (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/discernLocation.htm) would seem to work fine with it being on the same plane. Once you find it, you could walk there hopefully. What's the point of all that reality bending power if you can't enjoy a good stroll once and a while. You can use any sort of magic to get there if you're not up to taking the scenic route.

I will be shapechanged into a solar via persist shenanigans and have veil of undeath active via persist shenangigans. This gives me immunity to the required fortitude saves. Its damage attacks do not bypass the solar's regeneration, and therefore they do nonlethal damage, which I am immune to thanks to veil of undeath. Edit: veil of undeath is in the Spell Compendium, it basically gives you undead immunities.

Walking away again. Getting back in time again might be tricky, even with that freakishly high intelligence everyone loses track of time once in a while. But it's okay, if I'm late it can't hurt me anyway. If it's moved I just need to find it again, if it doesn't want to find me for some reason.

I don't need to do it all on my turn, as stated, the golem has no way to harm me, so I can dither as much as I'd like.

So continuous(24/7 with no breaks) Shapechange(Solar) + Veil of Undeath. That makes you immune to everything except the max hp reduction(20ft & 60ft Aura). If it can tag you with that enough times before you win then you will lose. However since you don't need to leave its aura (as long as you are outside 60ft), you can always be ready to recast Forcecage. Since it cannot tag you enough times before you can cast Forcecage once, I think this is a win(added to the OP).

[etrpgb]

What is the common interpretation of Veil of Undeath immunity to "Death"? I guess immunity to death effects, but also to death by damage (like Delay Death) ?

[OldTrees1]

What is the common interpretation of Veil of Undeath immunity to "Death"? I guess immunity to death effects, but also to death by damage (like Delay Death) ?

Only Death Effects.

[etrpgb]

Besides since super cheap metamagic tricks are obviously permitted, let's not forget the metamagic feat: "Irresistible Spell" (Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide) that removes the saving throws. Just cast PoO (to fish) twice (so it's permanent) and that's it.

[OldTrees1]

Besides since super cheap metamagic tricks are obviously permitted, let's not forget the metamagic feat: "Irresistible Spell" (Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide) that removes the saving throws. Just cast PoO (to fish) twice (so it's permanent) and that's it.

Wasn't Irresistible Spell errata'd to only +10 DC?

[etrpgb]

Seems so... my bad.

So the main tricks are:
Dweomerkeeper 4 to ignore Spell Immunity.
Shapechange(Solar) + Veil of Undeath with Persist Metamagic.

Or just hitting it with a fairly mundane magic item, the Mace of smiting : "Any critical hit dealt to a construct completely destroys it (no saving throw)."
In order to hit, just use two spells: Surge of fortune and Sense weakness.

Once again the forum proves how stupidly broken dnd3 is... It can punch a planet to debris, but it cannot budge a Wizard.

[Zombimode]

Once again the forum proves how stupidly broken dnd3 is... It can punch a planet to debris, but it cannot budge a Wizard.

This is exactly the wrong conclusion to draw from this.

Frist, sentence two it is not even correct. A correct Version would be: "It can punch a planet to debris, but it cannot budge one very specific wizard build".

But even then, your first sentence is still wrong.
Single instances of unituitive outcomes does not render a system broken. Something is broken if you can't use it anymore (or only with significant difficulties). D&D 3.5 is not broken in this sense evidenced by the fact that it is a widly used System for 14(!) years now, even after it was discontinued 9(!) years ago. It works perfectly fine at countless tables for countless of players.

[5ColouredWalker]

Because it technically works and I always like bringing it up with these. Miracle can technically do anything the diety it is requested from allows.

"[Target] dies without allowing for [SR/Save, as phrased appropriately for setting.]." Source being your deity (I presume he'd rather you live than be destroyed by that monstrosity).

Survival is ensured by Contingent Teleportation (Whatever trigger set off to go after the thing dies but before the death throes effect you) or True Ressurection.
Or contingent miracle. Because as said, miracle by RAW does anything approved by the Deity/DM.



Technically, Reality Revision and Wish also work with their more powerful request clause, but are more likely to backfire.

Extra Edit:
Or, build is an Old Dragonwraught Kobold using Ultimate Magus and Wizard for CL > 20 and Epic feats by level 20. Then uses [Epic Spell] cast within his contingent timestop.

[Gusmo]

So continuous(24/7 with no breaks) Shapechange(Solar) + Veil of Undeath. That makes you immune to everything except the max hp reduction(20ft & 60ft Aura). If it can tag you with that enough times before you win then you will lose. However since you don't need to leave its aura (as long as you are outside 60ft), you can always be ready to recast Forcecage. Since it cannot tag you enough times before you can cast Forcecage once, I think this is a win.

Eh, I don't think the gravitic aura gets through, but it doesn't particularly matter. Delay death (arcane disciple, destiny domain) + autohypnosis checks (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#autohypnosis), or any number of similar combos are enough to become functionally immune anyway. Per my second edit, which I snuck in while you were writing your reply, I'm not sure 24/7 buffs are required. Once you've hit it with forcecage and supernatural dimensional lock, you can retire to a demiplane or somewhere and not be buffed, because I don't think it can follow you, due to dimensional lock seemingly working on even extraordinary abilities. But this is high op, so frankly it would be more reasonable to assume that uptime is in fact 24/7.

Also, I just realized this is possible to solve in a single day anyway, thanks to astral projection being utterly stupid by RAW. Don't cast PAO after forcecage, cast supernatural dimensional lock instead. Teleport to somewhere suitably far away, or plane shift to the material plane if you're not already there, then shapechange into a nightmare. Send one astral projection after another until one of them has a supernatural PAO that gets through.

[Beheld]

It occurs to me that Accretion amounts to the Neutronium Golem accepting anything. So all you need is delay death, higher init, + shooting an arrow at it with Trap the Soul on it. Get it Spell like for avoiding the (obscene) cost, and instantly trapping it in the gem. Then plane shift to water plane to drown yourself.

[Gusmo]

This is exactly the wrong conclusion to draw from this.

Frist, sentence two it is not even correct. A correct Version would be: "It can punch a planet to debris, but it cannot budge one very specific wizard build".

Eh, I get your point, and I do get a similar sentiment in many other threads, but I feel like you're off base for this particular monster. This has been done many times before on this forum and others, there are more than a few wizards and other characters who laugh at the golem. And many of the builds aren't even necessarily tailored. The reason I was able to come up with what I did with basically no effort is because it doesn't require anything specialized. No, seriously, literally nothing I posted is a tactic specialized for the golem, literally all of those spells are on the list of things I think all wizards should have, because, for instance...



But, why bother with PaO? Since you can ignore the Spell Immunity, any Save-or-Die spell will work (it will throw a 1 eventually).

PAO is one of the best SoDs in the game, due to very few things being immune to polymorphing. All the other spells I mentioned aren't obscure single purpose book filler that I dumpster dived for to meet this challenge, they're powerful and versatile spells that I'd put into any wizard's spellbook. Cleric1/wizard5/dweomerkeeper10/incantatrix4 isn't a build that's remotely specialized for this challenge, it's pretty much just a generic high op caster. I've been looking at other suggestions (in this thread and past threads), and it seems commonplace for people to come up with other builds which I wouldn't consider specialized that are able to take out the golem with ease.


Single instances of unituitive outcomes does not render a system broken. Something is broken if you can't use it anymore (or only with significant difficulties). D&D 3.5 is not broken in this sense evidenced by the fact that it is a widly used System for 14(!) years now, even after it was discontinued 9(!) years ago. It works perfectly fine at countless tables for countless of players.

I do agree with this point about 3rd Edition being entirely workable at tables worldwide though, it brought to mind Rich Burlew's recent tweet (https://twitter.com/RichBurlew/status/829418183161479172) about the forum reaction versus the twitter reaction to Elan's lack of ranks in concentration. Challenges like this are amusing, but I like the perspective you're bringing up here.

[OldTrees1]

Because it technically works and I always like bringing it up with these. Miracle can technically do anything the diety it is requested from allows.

"[Target] dies without allowing for [SR/Save, as phrased appropriately for setting.]." Source being your deity (I presume he'd rather you live than be destroyed by that monstrosity).

Survival is ensured by Contingent Teleportation (Whatever trigger set off to go after the thing dies but before the death throes effect you) or True Ressurection.
Or contingent miracle. Because as said, miracle by RAW does anything approved by the Deity/DM.



Technically, Reality Revision and Wish also work with their more powerful request clause, but are more likely to backfire.

Extra Edit:
Or, build is an Old Dragonwraught Kobold using Ultimate Magus and Wizard for CL > 20 and Epic feats by level 20. Then uses [Epic Spell] cast within his contingent timestop.

Contingent Teleport/Planeshift to escape Death Throes? Nice. That saves you from the ability damage.

I don't think you can count on the Deity to grant greater wishes via Miracle in this scenario.

Also I am going to avoid the DWK epic feat debate.

however


Eh, I don't think the gravitic aura gets through, but it doesn't particularly matter. Delay death (arcane disciple, destiny domain) + autohypnosis checks (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#autohypnosis), or any number of similar combos are enough to become functionally immune anyway. Per my second edit, which I snuck in while you were writing your reply, I'm not sure 24/7 buffs are required. Once you've hit it with forcecage and supernatural dimensional lock, you can retire to a demiplane or somewhere and not be buffed, because I don't think it can follow you, due to dimensional lock seemingly working on even extraordinary abilities. But this is high op, so frankly it would be more reasonable to assume that uptime is in fact 24/7.

Also, I just realized this is possible to solve in a single day anyway, thanks to astral projection being utterly stupid by RAW. Don't cast PAO after forcecage, cast supernatural dimensional lock instead. Teleport to somewhere suitably far away, or plane shift to the material plane if you're not already there, then shapechange into a nightmare. Send one astral projection after another until one of them has a supernatural PAO that gets through.
Good catch about the Dimensional Lock. Swapping Polymorph any Object to Trap the Soul(credited below) is a further refinement



It occurs to me that Accretion amounts to the Neutronium Golem accepting anything. So all you need is delay death, higher init, + shooting an arrow at it with Trap the Soul on it. Get it Spell like for avoiding the (obscene) cost, and instantly trapping it in the gem. Then plane shift to water plane to drown yourself.
Nice no save no SR instant lose move.


So combined we have someone that is immune to everything(well they survive the max hp penalty rather than be immune to it) the golem can throw. Can perfectly trap the golem while still being free to move themselves, can defeat the golem with a single action once in range, and can escape the death throes that never happen in the first place.

I expected this to be quick but I did not expect it to be this quick and this through (I thought I at least would get a night's sleep first :smalltongue:).

What now?

[Gusmo]

You could make up new challenges. Some examples:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?382053-If-it-has-stats-(Challenge-to-the-playground)
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?256950-3-5-The-Stuffy-Doll-Vs-the-Playground-(V-1-V-28)
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?386054-If-it-has-stats-Challenge-3-(Challenge-over-4-already-being-built!)
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?349764-Wizard-vs-Army
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?218989-Wizard-20-versus-Monk-1000

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Once again the forum proves how stupidly broken dnd3 is... It can punch a planet to debris, but it cannot budge a Wizard.

Actually, it can't. Going by the object hitpoints rules, the estimate given in the statblock for earth's hit points is hilariously low - hp is given by inch of thickness, and given that the earth is hundreds of millions of inches thick, even if it had the average consistency of paper it would have at least hp in the billions. Which still seems low, given that the collective hp of its human inhabitants alone would be in the tens of billions, but whatever.

Also, as far as I can tell, given the awful writing of the immortal's handbook, the Neutronium Golem has no immunity to its own heat aura, and its fast healing and hardness aren't nearly enough to overcome it. So actually, all you need to do is not die for a couple of hours until it burns itself out in a miniature supernova of bad design.

Incidentally, if that doesn't work, another possibility is putting a contingent antimagic field on something (for simplicity's sake, let's say a simulacrum of yourself) and teleporting it next to the golem, which will promptly stop being immune to its own gravity. I'm no expert on the subject but I imagine the consequences would be... unpleasant. Also it'd have to start making saves against its own gravitic aura - what kind of saves we're not sure, because awful writing, but none of them are nearly high enough.

[Gusmo]

...what kind of saves we're not sure, because awful writing...

Whoa, I didn't notice that until now, I had just been assuming all of those saves were fortitude saves, because that somehow made sense to me. But it actually never lists the type of save you need to make anywhere. Does it? Is there some general rule in the PHB, MM, or DMG that would default it to fort, ref, or will?

[ben-zayb]

Meh, using a caster is playing at easy mode. The real challenging part would be, can we do these without spellcasting/manifesting?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Meh, using a caster is playing at easy mode. The real challenging part would be, can we do these without spellcasting/manifesting?
I mean "get regeneration and become immune to nonlethal damage" isn't that hard, at which point you just need to be fast enough to dodge that aura and use the 1d2 Crusader trick or something to deal sufficient damage.

[Gusmo]

I believe I've seen hulking hurler builds in previous threads reach attack bonuses and damage output high enough to kill it. There's probably some amount of shenanigans that could get a charger to do it, too.

[ben-zayb]

I mean "get regeneration and become immune to nonlethal damage" isn't that hard, at which point you just need to be fast enough to dodge that aura and use the 1d2 Crusader trick or something to deal sufficient damage.
Using unoriginal TO trick like the d2 Crusader doesn't appeal to me, so I'd probably avoid that one.

My attempt: Ghost Human Druid 5 / Wizard 1 / Master of Many Forms 7 / whatever 2

Wild Shape into a Crystalline Troll (MM3). It retains your incorporeal subtype and undead type, including associated traits, but gives you a CON score and Regeneration
You literally can just stand beside it without any repercussions, so try Malevolence daily until it fails the save, then just make it kill itself.
Even if, for some reason, it starts running away from you, activate Abrupt Jaunt as a swift action so that its own special Spell Stowaway will damn it into appearing adjacent your destination area.
Even in the case where the Disintegration upon Death Throes (50% chance) affects and destroys you, you autosucceed the DC16 level check to Rejuvenate
If you can hide incorporeal magic items within your incorporeal clothing such that the they can't get affected with the X-ray Spread, at least on its first round, just use a Rod of Construct Control (A&EG) on your first turn.

[OldTrees1]

Using unoriginal TO trick like the d2 Crusader doesn't appeal to me, so I'd probably avoid that one.

My attempt: Ghost Human Druid 5 / Wizard 1 / Master of Many Forms 7 / whatever 2

Wild Shape into a Crystalline Troll (MM3). It retains your incorporeal subtype and undead type, including associated traits, but gives you a CON score and Regeneration
You literally can just stand beside it without any repercussions, so try Malevolence daily until it fails the save, then just make it kill itself.
Even if, for some reason, it starts running away from you, activate Abrupt Jaunt as a swift action so that its own special Spell Stowaway will damn it into appearing adjacent your destination area.
Even in the case where the Disintegration upon Death Throes (50% chance) affects and destroys you, you autosucceed the DC16 level check to Rejuvenate
If you can hide incorporeal magic items within your incorporeal clothing such that the they can't get affected with the X-ray Spread, at least on its first round, just use a Rod of Construct Control (A&EG) on your first turn.


What about the no save max hp reduction for turns spent next to the golem? You are safe for at least 9 turns, but if it tags you 10 times then your max hp will be 0 (serious problems for undead and notable problems for the living).

Magntar says "can follow" so Abrupt Jaunt does not force it to appear. However the Golem will not retreat in this scenario.

Good use of ECL 20 Ghost to be unconcerned with most dangers.

I see you are planning on using Malevolence however since you were curious about magic items: Items might be in danger. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm) You survive the blasts for no damage (Regen->nonlethal Immunity) but if you roll a nat 1 then they are likely destroyed (they need a nat 20 to counter your nat 1). So there is a 0.05*0.95=4.75% chance of breaking per round from the Heat Aura. It takes 14 rounds for it to reach a 50/50 chance of having been broken (uses of Pulsed X-Ray count as an additional round in the math).

[Dagroth]

Ignoring Hardness/DR is super-easy for a Martial Initiate with the Shards of Granite Feat.

[Calthropstu]

6 wall of force cast simultaneously beats this thing. Add permanency.

You would simply need a bunch of copies of yourself.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

What about the no save max hp reduction for turns spent next to the golem?

That's based on gravity. He's incorporeal.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Wasn't Irresistible Spell errata'd to only +10 DC?

Not quite. The official version of the feat removes the saving throw. The feat was unofficially updated later to add +10 to the save. Thus if official 3rd party is allowed than it removes the save and if unofficial 3rd party is allowed then it adds +10. (If you look at the official errata files for the book you will see they do not mention irresistible spell).

[OldTrees1]

6 wall of force cast simultaneously beats this thing. Add permanency.

You would simply need a bunch of copies of yourself.
That would trap it until you use magical movement.



That's based on gravity. He's incorporeal.
That follows.

[Calthropstu]

That would trap it until you use magical movement.


Not quite.
Spell Stowaway requires line of effect. Doesn't matter that range is infinite, no line of effect = no activation. And wall of force blocks line of effect.

[OldTrees1]

Not quite.
Spell Stowaway requires line of effect. Doesn't matter that range is infinite, no line of effect = no activation. And wall of force blocks line of effect.

You're right.

[flappeercraft]

Just a basic idea of what could be not a full build here. A Cleric/Crusader as a d2 Crusader. Have him take the Diehard feat and DMM Persist for Delay death along with casting Word of Recall in some place. Then go on the Aura of Chaos Stance, initiate combat and cast Surge of fortune to automatically hit and do Infinite damage. Then use Word of Recall to bail out. Of course immunities to the abilities would need to be covered here but it would work if you add sufficient immunities.

[ExLibrisMortis]

(I really, really hate the design on this monster)

Step 1: Be invulnerable.
The golem has no ability to affect the ethereal plane.
The golem cannot get to the ethereal plane without its Magnetar ability leading it there.
The Spell Stowaway epic feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm), referenced in the Magnetar ability, specifies that you must have line of effect to receive the benefits of a spell.
A tower shield will break line of effect.
Per the terms of the challenge, we are not surprised, so we can take immediate actions.
Ergo: celerity > plane shift with a tower shield up allows us to get to safety.

Step 2: Kill it.
Wait for it to fail a save against something funny. Throw voidstone marbles against it, or whatever.

[Calthropstu]

(I really, really hate the design on this monster)

Step 1: Be invulnerable.
The golem has no ability to affect the ethereal plane.
The golem cannot get to the etheral plane without its Magnetar ability leading it there.
The Spell Stowaway epic feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm), referenced in the Magnetar ability, specifies that you must have line of effect to receive the benefits of a spell.
A tower shield will break line of effect.
Per the terms of the challenge, we are not surprised, so we can take immediate actions.
Ergo: celerity > plane shift with a tower shield up allows us to get to safety.

Step 2: Kill it.
Wait for it to fail a save against something funny. Throw voidstone marbles against it, or whatever.

The tarrasque stopper of portable hole/bag of holding trap also does the trick.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The tarrasque stopper of portable hole/bag of holding trap also does the trick.
A good choice, it doesn't require direct contact. Just plane shift a summoned monkey with a readied action, I suppose.

[OldTrees1]

A good choice, it doesn't require direct contact. Just plane shift a summoned monkey with a readied action, I suppose.

The monkey would die too fast.
As might the magic items come to think of it.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The monkey would die too fast.
As might the magic items come to think of it.
Good point. Summon undead IV for an allip will work, though. You need to give the allip an incorporeal bag of holding/portable hole, but that's easy enough to arrange.

Alternatively, if the save versus death is still a problem, buff it with surge of fortune (a personal spell, but available through shenanigans - symbionts for one - and maybe you can even use an incorporeal familiar or psicrystal).

[Calthropstu]

The monkey would die too fast.
As might the magic items come to think of it.

Nothing in its ability list damages you on your turn. Except maybe its hp reduction aura, but that is only 10% max.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Nothing in its ability list damages you on your turn. Except maybe its hp reduction aura, but that is only 10% max.
I would go with the conservative reading that you take the Gravitic Aura and Heat Aura damage as soon as you enter its range. That's still okay, though.

[emeraldstreak]

A good choice, it doesn't require direct contact. Just plane shift a summoned monkey with a readied action, I suppose.

You cannot ready out of initiative (unless Bloodhound).

[ExLibrisMortis]

You cannot ready out of initiative (unless Bloodhound).
I'm still engaged with the golem, aren't I? And so are things that I summon, they get their turns as normal (as does the golem, who could conceivably run away at light speed, in which case I'd have to find them - some way of performing the whole thing in a standard would be ideal, but would probably raise the ECL to 17th, for time stop). If need be, I can cast a quickened magic missile first, entering combat with my summons, then get them to Ready.

(and synchronicity also works, but that's a bother)

[OldTrees1]

I'm still engaged with the golem, aren't I? And so are things that I summon, they get their turns as normal (as does the golem, who could conceivably run away at light speed, in which case I'd have to find them - some way of performing the whole thing in a standard would be ideal, but would probably raise the ECL to 17th, for time stop). If need be, I can cast a quickened magic missile first, entering combat with my summons, then get them to Ready.

(and synchronicity also works, but that's a bother)

I'll grant the readied action, but you will want your summon (and items) to survive the Heat Aura(I'm ruling the auras trigger on entry and at start of the victim's turn).

[ExLibrisMortis]

I'll grant the readied action, but you will want your summon (and items) to survive the Heat Aura(I'm ruling the auras trigger on entry and at start of the victim's turn).
Yeah, that's what the incorporeal subtype is for. The auras are (ex) and should thus count as nonmagical, negated by incorporealty. The free-action pulse is (su), but should not trigger, because the readied action interrupts the neutronium golem.


I'm not entirely sure what the lowest-level build would be that can do this.

For pure survival, any 11th-level Spell Domain cleric will do: plane shift is a 5th, and greater anyspell gets you celerity. If you can get celerity before 11th, that'd drop the ECL, but I'm a bit tired and not going to look for a way right now. Divine Magician doesn't work, and there are no domains with celerity on it.

A portable hole and bag of holding I cost 22 500 gp, WBL for an 8th-level character.

Summon undead IV is on the cleric list, so we have an allip. Allips are intelligent enough to carry out orders (INT 11), and I'm assuming the babble is not a problem. If it is, summon undead V gets us a shadow (INT 6).

Turning magic items incorporeal is a simple matter of turning incorporeal while carrying them. Ghost trap, a cleric 6th, will negate incorporealty, so simply cast that, give the items to your undead servitor. This also neatly solves the problem of having to touch the creature to plane shift it. As it shifts to the Material, it turns incorporeal again, because it's out of the ghost trap area. It uses its readied action to place a portable hole into a bag of holding, taking the golem to the astral plane.

So a cleric 11 with the Spell domain and no compunction about using one [evil] spell should be able to win.


On the other hand, that's just moving it, not destroying it, which is a shame. I was thinking about using animate objects on some voidstone, ordering it to ready an action to attack the golem, and shifting it next to the golem. Trouble is, you need to make it incorporeal, as well. Another trick is to bind the Crystal Helmet soulmeld to your crown chakra, which makes your melee attacks [force] (it does not exactly state what that means, but it suggests it should work from the ethereal). A third option is to use the Mind Mage Force Touch ability, allowing you to use concussion blast to deliver touch spells, but that power allows PR, and converting it to a spell (via Chameleon Crafting) to work with Supernatural Spell may disqualify it for Force Touch.

Oh, and Transdimensional Spell doesn't state it works from the Ethereal to the Material. A Transdimensional spectral hand would otherwise be quite nice. Maybe you could force the golem onto the Ethereal, using its Spell Stowaway ability, then deploy your tower shield, and shift right back, but I'm worried the golem might arrive right on top of you on the first shift (if you roll badly on the random destination).

Anyway, as I said, I'm a bit tired, so that's my ideas for now :smalltongue:.

[The Viscount]

Why on earth does this monster not have any special senses? It's incapable of detecting anything with Hide and MS mods above 20.

How about this? A sort of Stuffy Doll. I call it I'm Rubber You're Glue.
Cleric 20 with the Animal Domain and Time Domain.
Enter the combat with the following spells up:
Sheltered Vitality
Death Ward
Delay Death
Shapechange (form of a Jovoc)
Contingency on Phoenix Fire for the Golem's Death

Then do nothing. You're protected from anything serious, just accept the stunning and unconsciousness, because everything else works without your action. The monster rushes to kill you and begins to do so. Jovoc's retributive aura doesn't specify creatures, so it can still affect the golem. The golem deals a lot of damage in a round, so half of that is reflected back on it every round, and because it's mindless there's no reason it would realize this or stop. Assuming average damage for everything, the golem kills itself in about 10 rounds. When the golem dies you're at around -5 million hp, and that's a big bother to deal with, so we're going to just respawn with phoenix fire. You can use Pact of Return on the Phoenix Fire to come back instantly with no level loss if you prefer.

Is this poor form since I'm dead for those 10 minutes? I didn't feel like drownhealing.

[OldTrees1]

Why on earth does this monster not have any special senses? It's incapable of detecting anything with Hide and MS mods above 20.

How about this? A sort of Stuffy Doll. I call it I'm Rubber You're Glue.
Cleric 20 with the Animal Domain and Time Domain.
Enter the combat with the following spells up:
Sheltered Vitality
Death Ward
Delay Death
Shapechange (form of a Jovoc)
Contingency on Phoenix Fire for the Golem's Death

Then do nothing. You're protected from anything serious, just accept the stunning and unconsciousness, because everything else works without your action. The monster rushes to kill you and begins to do so. Jovoc's retributive aura doesn't specify creatures, so it can still affect the golem. The golem deals a lot of damage in a round, so half of that is reflected back on it every round, and because it's mindless there's no reason it would realize this or stop. Assuming average damage for everything, the golem kills itself in about 10 rounds. When the golem dies you're at around -5 million hp, and that's a big bother to deal with, so we're going to just respawn with phoenix fire. You can use Pact of Return on the Phoenix Fire to come back instantly with no level loss if you prefer.

Is this poor form since I'm dead for those 10 minutes? I didn't feel like drownhealing.

Nice alternative to drownhealing. There does have to be a line somewhere with regards to resurrection. However I think phoenix fire is reasonable. You are basically using it as a 10 minute Time Hop (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timeHop.htm).

[Gusmo]

As an alternative to creating challenges with new creatures, maybe another thing you could do would be to make a new version of this neutronium golem thread after a few more solutions have been posted. In the new thread post a list with a summary of things that have already been proven to work, like you're doing already in the first post, with a rule stipulating that new entries shouldn't rely on existing methods. Maybe post some additional optional challenges with each new thread, and also keep a running record of things like lowest ECL, fewest sources used, or whatever. This would ferret out the obvious stuff like what I posted (boring and common high op caster tactics), so that more creative solutions might start emerging. I would also add a few rules clarifications about how the golem works, like when you need to save from the effects, what type of saves they are (I assume fortitude?), and that the HP reduction isn't being treated as damage, and thus bypasses any form of damage immunity.

[AvatarVecna]

Out of curiosity, how long have we been ECL 20 prior to the fight? Because I spy a cheap tactic...

EDIT: Which may or may not work anyway, but whatever, always good to check.

[OldTrees1]

Out of curiosity, how long have we been ECL 20 prior to the fight? Because I spy a cheap tactic...

EDIT: Which may or may not work anyway, but whatever, always good to check.

I am curious. How about half your age or 1 million years (whichever is less).

[AvatarVecna]

I am curious. How about half your age or 1 million years (whichever is less).

Oh I doubt this would need nearly that much time. Depending on how much mitigation I can get, I might only need a single day. The crux of the issue here is an interesting interaction between the highlighted rules from the OP below:


Rules:
1) You start with the xp of an ECL 20 character and cannot gain more.

3) No Dragon Magazine but otherwise free rein on official 3.P material.

Effective Character Level is not the same thing as Character Level - obvious observation, I know, but it's leading somewhere. Pathfinder doesn't really have ECL in those exact words, but things that increase your effective level (such as templates) instead increase your CR, which is more or less the same thing as LA is in 3.5; for example, a Monk 14 and a Half-Dragon (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/half-dragon/) Monk 12 would be of equal "CR" or "ECL". Now let's move on to the example that matters here: the Young (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1/) template, which decreases the CR of a creature that takes it. Thus, a Monk 20 and a Young (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1/) Monk 21 would also be considered equal CR/ECL. Needless to say, we're not making a Young Monk.

So, when your Young Elf takes their 21st Wizard level, you pick up Epic Spellcasting as your feat (because of course you do). Even just a few years of 2 Epic Spells/day is a long time to get your permanent buffs going. It obviously gets insultingly easy if we mix in some Leadership stacking cheese to get that sweet sweet "additional participants" mitigation; I'm thinking layered Thrallherds. Presuming even a couple years with such a set-up, I'm fairly certain that I could get my wizard buffed up enough that he could tank all the golem's damage and beat it in a bout of fisticuffs. I guess if you like, I can make up a bunch of epic spells to "show my work" on that.

EDIT: Note, I'm using the Young template because it's a way of taking advantage of the highlighted rules from the OP, but there's other ways of getting Epic Spellcasting pre-epic, and Epic Spellcasting cheese (and Leadership cheese, for that matter) isn't exactly anything new or exciting.

[OldTrees1]

Pathfinder really went and printed a -1 LA generally applicable template? :smalleek:

[AvatarVecna]

Pathfinder really went and printed a -1 LA generally applicable template? :smalleek:

Two of them (four if you count 3rd party). (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/indexes-and-tables/templates-by-cr-adjustment/) I've seen it suggested that the simple templates are intended to only be available as quick alterations to monsters, and while I could believe that based on the "balance" of these things, I also don't recall anything actually forbidding players from taking them, just suggestions to DMs to throw books at players that try to use them.

And you think it's stupid now, when I'm using it to get an extra level for basically no cost, but it's even stupider when you combine it with the Advanced template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/advanced-creature-cr-1/): final stat alterations are A) Dex +8/Int +4/Wis +4/Cha +4, and B) size category -1...for CR +0 total. It's silly cheese, and it's a great way to figure out if your PbP DM is actually spending any time thinking/looking over requests.

EDIT: And I'd be more than happy if somebody could post evidence that it doesn't actually work, like the template not being a generally applicable one or something, because it means using those templates isn't just something any character can do.

[Morcleon]

Erudite 20.
Take Supernatural Transformation to turn my spell-to-power Incarnate Construct power (since psionics are considered spell-like abilities) into a (Su) ability.
Use the metamagic feat conversion clause in the ELH to get Persist Power, manifest Persisted Timeless Body. This grants immunity to anything the Neutronium Golem can do.
Use the spell-to-power clause to cast Persisted Greater Invisibility.
Manifest Greater Psionic Teleport to be right next to it.
Use my (Su) Incarnate Construct ability on the Neutronium Golem while invisible (casting time 8 hours).
The Neutronium Golem is now friendly toward me, so I don't even need to fight it at all.
With a Circlet of Persuasion, an Admiral's Bicorne, and 18 cross-class ranks in Diplomacy, I have a +19 Diplomacy, so I autosucceed on a Diplomacy check to turn it to Helpful.

Winning by friendship! :smallbiggrin:

[ben-zayb]

What about the no save max hp reduction for turns spent next to the golem? You are safe for at least 9 turns, but if it tags you 10 times then your max hp will be 0 (serious problems for undead and notable problems for the living).As the Incorporeal subtype states, "It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms"


Magntar says "can follow" so Abrupt Jaunt does not force it to appear. However the Golem will not retreat in this scenario.That may situationally be correct, depending on how the capability to "can follow" was granted; in this case, however, it was through Spell Stowaway, and since that epic feat doesn't have a clause where its benefits can be waived off, then that means it always works as stated.


Good use of ECL 20 Ghost to be unconcerned with most dangers.

I see you are planning on using Malevolence however since you were curious about magic items: Items might be in danger. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm) You survive the blasts for no damage (Regen->nonlethal Immunity) but if you roll a nat 1 then they are likely destroyed (they need a nat 20 to counter your nat 1). So there is a 0.05*0.95=4.75% chance of breaking per round from the Heat Aura. It takes 14 rounds for it to reach a 50/50 chance of having been broken (uses of Pulsed X-Ray count as an additional round in the math).The good thing here is, I only need the Rod of Construct Control for a round or two at most to order it to not resist my Malevolence.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Erudite 20.
Take Supernatural Transformation to turn my spell-to-power Incarnate Construct power (since psionics are considered spell-like abilities) into a (Su) ability.
Use the metamagic feat conversion clause in the ELH to get Persist Power, manifest Persisted Timeless Body. This grants immunity to anything the Neutronium Golem can do.
Use the spell-to-power clause to cast Persisted Greater Invisibility.
Manifest Greater Psionic Teleport to be right next to it.
Use my (Su) Incarnate Construct ability on the Neutronium Golem while invisible (casting time 8 hours).
The Neutronium Golem is now friendly toward me, so I don't even need to fight it at all.
With a Circlet of Persuasion, an Admiral's Bicorne, and 18 cross-class ranks in Diplomacy, I have a +19 Diplomacy, so I autosucceed on a Diplomacy check to turn it to Helpful.

Winning by friendship! :smallbiggrin:

Uh... It's a mindless construct.

[Morcleon]

Uh... It's a mindless construct.

Incarnate Construct gives the resultant creature a Con and Int score.

[Anthrowhale]

The Neutronium Golem is uniquely vulnerable to antimagic since (Ex) Gravitic Aura reduces its hp by 10% while (Su) Gravitic Mastery prevents this. This suggest an ECL 8 or 9 build has a chance and an ECL 13 build succeeds deterministically.

A Telthor (ECL+2) Warblade 7 buys a Torc of Antimagic (25K gp). On round 1, the Neutronium Golem wins initiative but only has a 50% chance of inflicting damage since Pulsed X-ray misses incorporeal things 50% of the time. On the Warblade's turn, trigger the Torc of Antimagic.

What happens next is a little bit unclear. According to the spell nothing happens to the warblade since it is incorporeal, but not undead. According to the Rules Compendium, all incorporeal creatures wink out which probably does not bring the Torc with it.

In either case, the golem is subject to the AMF, suppressing Gravitic Mastery, resulting in it losing 10% of hp according to Gravitic Aura. Gravitic Aura probably applies to the current maximum hp, so the neutronium golem loses hp on an exponential basis over the next 123 rounds until it reaches 9hp. The warblade then hits it with a mountain hammer attack for 9hp.

This approach can be done with no rules ambiguity and no chance of death at ECL 13 with a Human Cleric 13 using Spell and Magic domains and Initiate of Mystra, Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Selective Spell, and DMM[Persistent Spell] to cast DMM[Persistent Spell] Greater Anyspell[Permeable Form] and DMM[Persistent] Selective Spell[You] Antimagic Field. Permeable form grants incorporeality for immunity to mundane and [Ex] attacks while Antimagic granting immunity to the (Su) attacks. Selective Spell[you] prevents any wink out. The golem will mindlessly attack damaging itself to 9hp, then it dies from Anyspell[Heroics[Martial Study[Mountain Hammer]]].

[Calthropstu]

Pathfinder really went and printed a -1 LA generally applicable template? :smalleek:

Actually no.

In Pathfinder, LA does not exist. There IS CR, but that in no way modifies level. CR != Lvl.

Instead, there are what are called race points. Your GM lets you have up to X race points. You select a race with fewer than X race points. Each ability a race has as standard is listed with a points value.
If you want the fluff, but not the abilities or want to drop race points simply eliminate abilities until race points match.

For example, a half dragon. You really want to have a half dragon. GM says it's too powerful, you can only have 15 race points. You drop some abilities like its breath weapon, wings, lesses the ability boosts... you get the fluff and some of the abilities, but a much weaker version.

Like I said, LA dlsimply does not exist.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Incarnate Construct gives the resultant creature a Con and Int score.

Ah, I forgot that. Silly me.

[Karl Aegis]

Divine fire damage bypasses any resistance, immunity, regeneration or any other way of mitigating it.

Surviving for one year afterwards generally means hoping whoever created one of these things doesn't notice one of its shiny toys no longer exists for that year. Entirely possible, but you should probably have some way to deal with that guy as well.

[Calthropstu]

you could, of course, simply completely confuse the thing with a simple time hop. A mindless assassin with a complete link to you would probably move on once that link was completely severed... as would be the case with time hop. Question is, would the link regain itself once the time hop expired?

[Morcleon]

Divine fire damage bypasses any resistance, immunity, regeneration or any other way of mitigating it.

Where is this listed?

[TheifofZ]

Be a level 16 Lich Wizard with ranks in basketweaving.
Have a pocket dimension for your phylactery.
Have a crafted giant basket that is shrunk down to hat size via magic.
Have a stack of tower shields.

Step 1: Cast AMF
Step 2: Break Line of Effect with Tower Shield.
Step 3: Die.
Step 4: Wait the 1d10 days required to come back to life.
Step 5: Teleport back in.
Repeat Steps 1 through 5 until it's gravity field has reduced it's max HP to less than 10.
Use one of the many amusing methods to deal 10 points of damage to it; even if that requires you to be in melee range (Possibly a Gargantuan+ Sized basket that weighs enough to overcome it's DR being dropped onto it's head? because basketweaving.) Since the golem's max HP is below 10, it dies.
Die again in the blast wave.
Respawn again. Win. Spend the rest of your year using your arbitrarily high intellect to craft the radioactive landscape into the perfect basket to celebrate.


(I'm... not entirely sure this counts, actually. It's pretty dumb, and requires you to die. Probably several times. Also you aren't technically 'alive' at any point in the actual challenge.)
Edit: Minor tweak.

[Morcleon]

Cast a Permanent AMF on golem. From a scroll. You have an arbitrarily high Int, because unlimited prep time, so you cannot fail to cast the spell.

How are you going to make the AMF permanent?

[TheifofZ]

How are you going to make the AMF permanent?

Well. Okay, no, that's fair. Let me edit that to a small stack of tower shields, and 'Teleport in and drop AMF the number of times required to reduce it's HP to a number below the minimum damage an arbitrarily large basket, falling from max height will deal'. Does that help?
You're a lich. Death is a slap on the wrist. So long as the the LoE breaks, via tower shield, then the rest of it's abilities are moot explicitly because, for the purposes of this exercise, as long as your existence hasn't been permanently ended, it continues. Since the golem is mindless, and won't learn to move to the side to establish Line of Effect, instead just blasting you through the shield every time, you always respawn in a position it can't reach until you return to the location of the fight, drop the AMF on yourself so that when it punches you, it starts to take reduced max HP every round until the AMF ends or its HP cannot reduce by 10% any more (IE: 9 HP).

Edit: There. Fixed. Still pretty dumb.

[Karl Aegis]

Where is this listed?

Immortals Handbook: Ascension page 125. Apparently it's only magical effects, which are then obliterated. So Shapechange, Veil of Undeath, Forcecage, Wall of Force, Prismatic Sphere and the Force Field Supernatural ability don't provide any defense against it. Manifestation (Su) probably doesn't work either.

[Morcleon]

Immortals Handbook: Ascension page 125. Apparently it's only magical effects, which are then obliterated. So Shapechange, Veil of Undeath, Forcecage, Wall of Force, Prismatic Sphere and the Force Field Supernatural ability don't provide any defense against it. Manifestation (Su) probably doesn't work either.

Divine [Effect] and the Neutronium Golem's divine fire damage are not the same thing. The Neutronium Golem does not have Divine [Effect], and so its divine fire damage does not bypass magical defenses.

[Karl Aegis]

So we're just going with Divine Damage has no definition for things like Ultima [Effect]? It's a third party book. Definitions are going to be in weird places. The definition for divine damage happens to be under the divine ability Divine [Effect]. Divine [Effect] really has no bearing on exactly what divine damage is. It's just where the definition is. Divine Fire damage is exactly how it sounds. It is fire damage that penetrates any type of magical defense and destroys those defenses and barriers. By including Force Field as a specific example, you can assume magical includes anything that is created by magic or suppressed by an anti-magic zone, including supernatural abilities. You really just need a boat load of hit points to survive this thing's heat aura, pulsed x-ray and subsequent coup de grace (eventually, if need be). Tower shields really aren't going to be surviving this kind of damage, so you'll need something else to block line of effect (an epic spell would work, but would be destroyed by the divine fire damage).

[OldTrees1]

So we're just going with Divine Damage has no definition for things like Ultima [Effect]? It's a third party book. Definitions are going to be in weird places. The definition for divine damage happens to be under the divine ability Divine [Effect]. Divine [Effect] really has no bearing on exactly what divine damage is. It's just where the definition is. Divine Fire damage is exactly how it sounds. It is fire damage that penetrates any type of magical defense and destroys those defenses and barriers. By including Force Field as a specific example, you can assume magical includes anything that is created by magic or suppressed by an anti-magic zone, including supernatural abilities. You really just need a boat load of hit points to survive this thing's heat aura, pulsed x-ray and subsequent coup de grace (eventually, if need be). Tower shields really aren't going to be surviving this kind of damage, so you'll need something else to block line of effect (an epic spell would work, but would be destroyed by the divine fire damage).


Round 2: Karl Aegis's reading of the Divine damage.
Fight!

Karl would you please quote verbatim the definition of Divine damage listed under Divine[Effect] followed by, a distinctly separate, summary in your own words? We will be treating all abilities that deal divine damage as inheriting the qualities of that definition for the scope of their divine damage.


(Sidenote: Round 2 already gave me an idea for Round 3)

[ShurikVch]

Why use SoD spells, if we have no-save-just die?
Transcend Mortality still deadly as ever; Annihilation from Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil makes Sphere of Annihilation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/artifacts.htm#sphereofAnnihilation) for round/level.

Also, I don't see how is "survive for 1 year" a problem - are we banned Greater Teleport?

About the "divine fire" - from the description of Fire portfolio:
Divine Fire Your fire damage is treated as 50% divine damage
Perfect Divine Fire Your fire damage is treated as 100% divine damage

[OldTrees1]

Also, I don't see how is "survive for 1 year" a problem - are we banned Greater Teleport?

Survive 1 year after defeating the golem. It was meant to prevent Pyrrhic victories(like delay death without a plan to survive).

[ShurikVch]

Survive 1 year after defeating the golem. It was meant to prevent Pyrrhic victories(like delay death without a plan to survive).So, Clone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clone.htm) and Astral Seed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/astralSeed.htm) are illegal now?

How about the Undead? They are already dead by definition - does it mean they auto-lose?

One very important question: how, exactly, behaving the Neutronium Golem in question?
Does it charging, standing still, wandering around, or escaping?

[Anthrowhale]

About the "divine fire" - from the description of Fire portfolio:

If I understand correctly, "divine fire" is basically what Flame Strike (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/flameStrike.htm) does, implying that the Incorporeal + AMF self-destruction approach still works fine?

[Buufreak]

I haven't seen this brought up yet, but the math side of my brain is kicking in with the discussion of auras. Does the golem's aura define much about "10%"? Honestly, if mathematics operate how I remember, the aura shouldn't kill you as quickly as people think. Shouldn't it do gradually less damage?

[ExLibrisMortis]

I haven't seen this brought up yet, but the math side of my brain is kicking in with the discussion of auras. Does the golem's aura define much about "10%"? Honestly, if mathematics operate how I remember, the aura shouldn't kill you as quickly as people think. Shouldn't it do gradually less damage?
Good point. Presumably, you would end at 9 hp, at which point the 10% rounds down to 0, and you take no further hp reduction.


@Divine fire damage: I'm pretty sure that's an existing damage type, not something defined in the Immortals book. Not only flame strike, but also the likes of Silver Pyromancer reference it.

[OldTrees1]

So, Clone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clone.htm) and Astral Seed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/astralSeed.htm) are illegal now?

How about the Undead? They are already dead by definition - does it mean they auto-lose?

One very important question: how, exactly, behaving the Neutronium Golem in question?
Does it charging, standing still, wandering around, or escaping?

Clone and Astral Seed are valid ways of surviving. However I think we should avoid the technically valid "I hire a spellcaster to cast Ressurection later".
Undead are not disqualified. They can clearly survive if not destroyed.

The Golem has been given some instructions based upon what its creator knows about you (and its creator does know about you). Basically it has been boiled down to:
1) The golem will not retreat
2) On its turn the golem will try to affect you with its aura, free action AoE, and attacks. This may involve moving closer to you.


I haven't seen this brought up yet, but the math side of my brain is kicking in with the discussion of auras. Does the golem's aura define much about "10%"? Honestly, if mathematics operate how I remember, the aura shouldn't kill you as quickly as people think. Shouldn't it do gradually less damage?

Since I want you to succeed, I am interpreting the 10% in the least favorable light. Aka your temporary max hp is reduced by 10% of your normal max hp.

[Buufreak]

Good point. Presumably, you would end at 9 hp, at which point the 10% rounds down to 0, and you take no further hp reduction.


@Divine fire damage: I'm pretty sure that's an existing damage type, not something defined in the Immortals book. Not only flame strike, but also the likes of Silver Pyromancer reference it.

See, I'm not sure about that. Let's assume we started with 100 for argument and simplicity. Round 1 takes you to 90. That's easy. But now what? Do we go to 80 or 81 at round 2? 70 or 73 at round 3? So on and so forth. So theoretically, it will eventually only do 1 point per round.

[Anthrowhale]

Since I want you to succeed, I am interpreting the 10% in the least favorable light. Aka your temporary max hp is reduced by 10% of your normal max hp.

If I understand correctly, the golem dies after 10 rounds of exposure to AMF rather than being reduced to 9hp after 123 rounds.

[ShurikVch]

OK

Wu Jen 15/Spellguard of Silverymoon 5

1. Shapechange into animated suit of riverine armor
2. Teleport to Neutronium Golem
3. Cast Transcend Mortality
4. Teleport out

[OldTrees1]

If I understand correctly, the golem dies after 10 rounds of exposure to AMF rather than being reduced to 9hp after 123 rounds.

That is how I am ruling if for this thread.

[Calthropstu]

you could, of course, simply completely confuse the thing with a simple time hop. A mindless assassin with a complete link to you would probably move on once that link was completely severed... as would be the case with time hop. Question is, would the link regain itself once the time hop expired?

No answer?

That's fine. Time travel will automatically wreck this as well. Go back to before this thing was built, kill the creator.

I still like my wall of force plan best: no death throes, no planet wide massacre, no hassle. Relatively low cost... now it becomes a matter of killing the creator before he frees his creation.

[OldTrees1]

No answer?

That's fine. Time travel will automatically wreck this as well. Go back to before this thing was built, kill the creator.

I still like my wall of force plan best: no death throes, no planet wide massacre, no hassle. Relatively low cost... now it becomes a matter of killing the creator before he frees his creation.

Sorry I missed it.
Time Hop can escape the fight (temporarily?) but does not count as a defeat.

Time Traveling and killing the creator might be difficult considering the creator(high level epic caster) is much stronger than the creation. While you could time travel back far enough to find the creator at non epic level, an epic caster can have anticipated and defended against that 9th level spell.

Your Permanency Wall of Force plan is a really nice one. Quite the elegant and low level solution that unveiled a lot of techs.

[Gusmo]

My previously stated build works for round 2. You just need to go arcane disciple (destiny domain), have delay death as part of your contingency setup, then use supernatural wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm) once you've got the golem contained, for this effect:


Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you and your companions have taken, or remove all poison effects from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.

I believe veil of undeath still makes you immune to all the required fortitude saves? Anything else new that needs tweaking?

Edit: ah, consciousness, right, delay death is only half the solution. I'll see if I can figure out an easy way to reliably hit 30 on autohypnosis checks when I get home. If I can't get there then I'll just use beastland ferocity or something.

[ben-zayb]

Manifestation (Su) probably doesn't work either.Manifestation isn't needed anyway, since the Ghost starts the battle on the same plane as the Neutronium Golem.



Round 2: Karl Aegis's reading of the Divine damage.
Fight!

Karl would you please quote verbatim the definition of Divine damage listed under Divine[Effect] followed by, a distinctly separate, summary in your own words? We will be treating all abilities that deal divine damage as inheriting the qualities of that definition for the scope of their divine damage.


(Sidenote: Round 2 already gave me an idea for Round 3)The Ghost (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21781536&postcount=41) takes both Round 1 and Round 2 even with that definition without needing to change anything, because Incorporeality =/= Immunity.

Basically, a low Op, noncaster, nonmanifester ECL20 PC (with 3 class levels to spare) can take on the Neutronium Golem. It can even be at ECL17 with 85% chance of success.

Let that sink in. It's like Tarrasque vs Allip all over again.

[Gruftzwerg]

Since D2 Crusader and pun-pun already had their debut in this show, I would like to add BoBaFeat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503665-quot-TO-BoBaFeat-quot-Body-outside-Body-amp-Moment-of-Clarity)to the party.

In a blink of an eye, BoBaFeat fills the uni-/multiverse with his Body Outside Bodies. All buffed up into demigods with unlimited stats, saves, feats, SLAs and so on. The real BoBaFeat also profits from unlimted multispells/round.

end of story:
a) BoBaFeat just commands one of his demigod clones to do the job and just keeps doing what he is always doing: produce more clones.. where he sees it fits.

b) BoBaFeat goes to max clone production: Neutronium Golem (and the whole universe) gets squeezed by the amount of new BoB clones produced per round: Remember, every clone has BoB as SLA and Spell Stowaway: Body-outside-Body to be automatic affected by the spell/sla when someone else uses it within 300ft. and the real BoBaFeat is casting unlimited amounts of Body-outside-Body with (unlimited) multispell (epic feat).

I guess mission accomplished (besides from using Infinite Cheese^^) :smallcool:

[Karl Aegis]

33. DIVINE [EFFECT] (SU)
You can create quintessence based effects
Benefit: The effect causes d3 divine damage per hit dice of the immortal. Divine damage penetrates any type of magical defense (including a force field, prismatic sphere, wall of force etc.), destroying the barrier in the process.

e.g. A lesser deity (45hit die) taking Divine Beam would gain a ray attack dealing 11d3 bane damage...

...Special: This effect can be taken multiple times and its effects stack...

I interpret this to mean magical defenses are ignored and anything blocking line of effect is destroyed until you do have line of effect to whatever is taking the damage. Since Force Field (Su) is included in the types of magical defenses it could penetrate (it isn't a barrier) and Force Field (Su) doesn't normally defend against non-physical damage, divine damage penetrates things that don't normally defend against it. Whether it also destroys the magical effect depends on if your DM/Supernal rules that magical defense and barrier are synonyms in this case.

[ShurikVch]

I interpret this to mean magical defenses are ignored and anything blocking line of effect is destroyed until you do have line of effect to whatever is taking the damage. Since Force Field (Su) is included in the types of magical defenses it could penetrate (it isn't a barrier) and Force Field (Su) doesn't normally defend against non-physical damage, divine damage penetrates things that don't normally defend against it. Whether it also destroys the magical effect depends on if your DM/Supernal rules that magical defense and barrier are synonyms in this case.You can't use that rule without knowing exactly what is "effect"
[EFFECT]
Abilities with the [effect] suffix were created to give multiple, mainly attacking options. Each effect has a base number of dice, as well as a base area of effect or range (See Table 4-10). Both of these factors can be increased by adding additional divine ability slots, increasing an effect from Standard through Greater, Superior, Perfect, Mastery and Uncanny Mastery.
Beam (Ray): As a standard action, the deity can unleash visceral blasts from its body (typically its eyes or hands) against its foes. It must make a successful ranged touch attack to deliver the damage.
Blast (Wave): As a standard action, the deity can emanate the effect either centred on their person exploding outwards (the immortal is undamaged by this) or at range (akin to a fireball). The radius of the explosion is equal to 25 ft. + 5 ft./2 hit die of the immortal. Those caught within the area of effect must make a Reflex saving throw (DC 20 + key ability bonus + divine rank) for half damage.
Blood: Anyone striking and injuring the deity in melee is splashed by the deities ichor and suffers the effect. The deity does not need to have actual blood, to gain this ability, it could be bone shards, ethereal essence or any other possible type of reply. This is an automatic ability and does not count against the deities actions.
Breath: As a standard action, the deity can exhale the effect (typically from its mouth). There is a 1d4 round delay between each use of this ability. Those caught within the area of effect must make a Reflex saving throw (DC 20 + key ability bonus + divine rank) for half damage.
Hand (Touch): The deities very touch conveys the effect. This represents a standard action, though only requires a successful touch attack to deliver the effect.
Immolation (Death Throes): This type of effect only occurs when the god's manifestation is destroyed (although, as a standard action, the deity can also opt for self-destruction). When the god's manifestation is reduced to negative hit points, it explodes, those caught within the area of effect must make a Reflex saving throw (DC 20 + key ability bonus + divine rank) for half damage.
Storm (Aura): The effect can be activated as a standard action existing until dismissed. It surrounds the deity in a clearly tangible field that moves with the immortal. Those caught within the area of effect take full damage. Those who attempt to move out of the area can make a Reflex saving throw (DC 20 + key ability bonus + divine rank) for half damage.
Strike: This effect can be activated as a free action and lasts until dismissed. The effect accompanies the deities melee attacks, acting in tandem with both natural and manufactured weapons. Although the effect does not stack with similar special weapon abilities.
e.g. The Fiery Strike divine ability would not stack with the damage from any type of flaming weapon special ability.
Wrath (Gaze): The deities potent gaze delivers the effect. Each round targets are within the area of effect, they must make a Will saving throw (DC 20 + Charisma bonus + divine rank) to avoid the effect. This effect operates automatically, however, targets need only make one successful saving throw per round. The effect can be switched off as a free action, but takes a full round to reactivate.


EFFECTS - STEP BY STEP
Step 1: Choose an ability with the [Effect] suffix in parenthesis .
Step 2: Choose one of the nine types of effects (Beam, Blast, Blood, Breath, Hand, Immolation, Storm, Strike, Wrath).
Step 3: Apply the deities hit die to Table 4-9: Effect Parameters.
Steps 4-6 (optional): You can double the damage three times (in such cases a double-double is a triple) by taking the same divine ability three more times.
Step 7 (optional): Once the immortal takes the ability for the fifth time, it has mastered the ability. Instead of increasing the damage this time, it gains access to all the other types of effects. All of which are rated as "Perfect" for the purpose of determining their amount of dice.
Step 8 (optional): In choosing the same ability for the sixth, and final time, the immortal can now shape the effect so that it can pick and choose which targets within the area of effect suffer the damage.
e.g. The immortal could use a Force Blast on a group containing both enemies and allies, and only target the enemies. Or use Iatric Breath on a similarly mixed group and only choose to heal its allies.Since "divine fire" of Neutronium Golem is incapable to fulfill the Step 2, "DIVINE [EFFECT]" rule clearly shouldn't be applied

[Karl Aegis]

33. DIVINE [EFFECT] (SU)
You can create quintessence based effects
Benefit: The effect causes d3 divine damage per hit dice of the immortal. Divine damage penetrates any type of magical defense (including a force field, prismatic sphere, wall of force etc.), destroying the barrier in the process.

e.g. A lesser deity (45hit die) taking Divine Beam would gain a ray attack dealing 11d3 bane damage...

...Special: This effect can be taken multiple times and its effects stack...

Highlighted for what is relevant to the discussion.

[ShurikVch]

Highlighted for what is relevant to the discussion.This RAW is unique to DIVINE [EFFECT]
No other case of "divine damage" says so, thus it should be "specific" case rather than "general"

[shaikujin]

Attempt with an ECL 0 mundane character‎ using brute force
‎
‎
Hotrod, the Neutral Evil Necropolitan, Incarnate Construct Warforged Level 1 Commoner.‎
‎
(Technically an ECL1 character if -1 LA cannot reduce ECL to less than 1)

‎Assumption:
1) The Neutronium Golem's divine fire damage only bypasses magical defences, but not Ex Regeneration (both Good AND Chaotic).
‎
2) Up to ECL20 WBL is available earlier from any of the infinite money tricks (eg auto resetting trap of fabricating gold bars).



Explanation of Race and Templates:
Warforged is used because it has no max age, plus I want to fluff making a hidden engine compartment in his chest.
‎
Incarnate Construct (-1 LA) is to make a Warforged humanoid, so that it qualifies for Necropolitan.‎ Being undead means immunity to non-lethal damage.
‎
‎

Feats:‎
Lvl1 -‎ Martial Stance (Blood in the Water)
‎Flaw1 - Multiweapon Fighting
‎
Special abilities:
Regeneration 5 (both Good AND Chaotic)‎, from the Shriver magical location (from Fiendish Codex 2).
Notes: Have hireling mages casts Surge of Fortune while he goes through the Shriver, so that he will not fail any save.‎
‎
Grafts:‎
‎12 x Mighty Arms grafts (For fluff reasons, preferably fine sized, painted bright yellow, and grafted in a hidden compartment on left chest).
‎The words "V12 Engine" is emblazoned in bright yellow on the lid of the recessed compartment.
Note: The size is purely for fluff reasons. If the rules do not allow for fined-sized grafts on a medium sized character, normal sized ones grafted on the back is fine.‎
‎
Gear:
2 x normal sized +1 Blessed Morphing Sizing Arrows made from Razor Feather (from the Steel Wing in MM5). Arrows made from Razor feather is treated as made from Adamantine and has a non-magical Keen effect.
‎
12 x similar arrows as above, but sized for the 12 grafted Mighty Arms.
‎

‎
Preparation:‎
‎Backup, buy spellcasting services for a contingency and wish. If Hotrod is rendered inert for more than 1 round, activate the Wish function that heals HP to full and remove all ailments.*
‎
‎Morph all the arrows into Kukris (Stump Knives will work even better, but we'll use Kukris for now). Equip all.
‎
Enters Blood in the Water stance. This gives a stackable untyped bonus to attack and damage every time he crits.
‎
Hotrod starts stabbing himself with the Kukris. Especially with the 12 bright yellow V12 Mighty Arms, each arm pumping like a piston.
‎
Since Hotrod's regeneration is only bypassed by attacks which are both Good AND Chaotic,‎ the Kukris do only non lethal damage. However, as Hotrod gains the Undead type from Necropolitan, he is immune to non-lethal damage.
‎
He can still roll critical threats on himself and confirm them, but is not subject to critical damage.

Kukris have a threat range of 18-20.
The non magical Keen property increases this to 15-20.
The Bless weapon property says that it doesn't work with MAGICAL properties which increases the threat range, but since we are getting Keen from a non-magical source, the Bless property works fine. The bonus we are looking for is its ability to auto confirm crits on Evil creatures.
‎
Those 2 properties means we will score a crit 30% of the time.*
Hotrod has 14 attacks a round.
‎There are 14400 rounds a day.

That's 60,480 (14 x 14400 x 0.3) crits a day‎
Hotrod doesn't need to sleep.
He has 1 million years to do this. (fast time plane recommended. Festering anger can do this as well from strength damage, but that's been done before.)
‎
That's ‎22,075,200,000,000 crits.
Due to Blood in the Water stance, that number translates to attack and damage bonus.

None of the golem's damage are Good and Chaotic, and does not bypass Hotrod's regeneration.

Hotrod, with his V12 engine hammering furiously in his chest, approaches the golem and pokes him in the eye, killing the golem instantly with 22 trillion damage, while remaining unhurt from it's attacks or deaththroes.



This was a caffeine induced build attempt. I had a much more dramatic ending, but my phone is giving me problems and didn't save that latest version. Please let me know if I'd missed some flaw in my plans.

[OldTrees1]

Manifestation isn't needed anyway, since the Ghost starts the battle on the same plane as the Neutronium Golem.

The Ghost (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21781536&postcount=41) takes both Round 1 and Round 2 even with that definition without needing to change anything, because Incorporeality =/= Immunity.

Basically, a low Op, noncaster, nonmanifester ECL20 PC (with 3 class levels to spare) can take on the Neutronium Golem. It can even be at ECL17 with 85% chance of success.

Let that sink in. It's like Tarrasque vs Allip all over again.

Even with the Round 2's divine damage change, Incorporeal's being unaffected by non magical damage is a sufficient defense.


This RAW is unique to DIVINE [EFFECT]
No other case of "divine damage" says so, thus it should be "specific" case rather than "general"

Round 1 was won and so to extend the challenge Round 2 is using my understanding of Kael Aegis's interpretation:

Divine damage penetrates any type of magical defense (including a force field, prismatic sphere, wall of force etc.), destroying the barrier in the process.

I interpret this to mean magical defenses are ignored and anything blocking line of effect is destroyed until you do have line of effect to whatever is taking the damage. Since Force Field (Su) is included in the types of magical defenses it could penetrate (it isn't a barrier) and Force Field (Su) doesn't normally defend against non-physical damage, divine damage penetrates things that don't normally defend against it. Whether it also destroys the magical effect depends on if your DM/Supernal rules that magical defense and barrier are synonyms in this case.

So for Round 2 magical(including spell-like and supernatural) defenses and barriers are penetrated & destroyed(although I would rule it only suppresses abilities rather than ability rip).



Attempt with an ECL 0 mundane character‎ using brute force
‎
‎
Hotrod, the Neutral Evil Necropolitan, Incarnate Construct Warforged Level 1 Commoner.‎
‎
(Technically an ECL1 character if -1 LA cannot reduce ECL to less than 1)

‎Assumption:
1) The Neutronium Golem's divine fire damage only bypasses magical defences, but not Ex Regeneration (both Good AND Chaotic).
‎
2) Up to ECL20 WBL is available earlier from any of the infinite money tricks (eg auto resetting trap of fabricating gold bars).

None of the golem's damage are Good and Chaotic, and does not bypass Hotrod's regeneration.

Hotrod, with his V12 engine hammering furiously in his chest, approaches the golem and pokes him in the eye, killing the golem instantly with 22 trillion damage, while remaining unhurt from it's attacks or deaththroes.

This was a caffeine induced build attempt. I had a much more dramatic ending, but my phone is giving me problems and didn't save that latest version. Please let me know if I'd missed some flaw in my plans.

You have Ex immunity to the damage, stun, unconciousness, & death but not to the max hp reduction. However there is no way for the Golem to tag you more than once with the max hp reduction before you have a chance to charge & attack (which will easily hit 95% of the time).

Except Regeneration requires a Con score (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#regeneration). I expect this is only a minor setback.

As a side note: Ironically the Golem now wishes the Heat Aura offer a save. If it did, then regardless of your immunity it would eventually destroy your items. But the Heat Aura does not offer a save.

Also thank you for reminding me about the Shriver! Regen is nice. Upon reading further, lots of the benefits are nice despite the 30K gp price tag.

[atemu1234]

Well, if you can get up through Bone Knight from the Five Nations sourcebook, you get immunity to nonlethal. So if you play a Half-Red Dragon Half-Troll , you're immune to nonacid damage. I own Immortals Handbook but haven't read through the stats in a while, but IIRC it doesn't deal acid damage. That makes you able to get close enough to it to hit it with something, at the very least.

From there... you'll have to be a Cleric to get into Bone Knight. Multiclass to Crusader and... well, you see where I'm going. You could accomplish this by level 15 or so, given, and you'd probably have to be a halfling carrying a shuriken or something.

But hitting the thing and dealing damage becomes an issue. To auto hit, IDK, that's beyond my pay grade. Just pack a few thousand shurikens or something, and then you can just keep throwing until you roll a nat 20.

[The Viscount]

My build doesn't change and works the same for round 2. I'm still pondering over a way to do it without Phoenix Fire, might take a bit of retooling.

[OldTrees1]

FYI
The list of victors in the OP is an incomplete list. I am mostly just choosing a sampling of the diversity of these valid builds.

@atemu1234
It does Fire, Divine(see how round 2 buffed divine damage), and Bludgeoning damage(Death throes/slam). So no source of Acid damage.


My build doesn't change and works the same for round 2. I'm still pondering over a way to do it without Phoenix Fire, might take a bit of retooling.

So it does. Nice.

[Morcleon]

FYI
The list of victors in the OP is an incomplete list. I am mostly just choosing a sampling of the diversity of these valid builds.

What about the build that wins without actually killing the thing? :smalltongue:

[OldTrees1]

What about the build that wins without actually killing the thing? :smalltongue:

There have been a few of those (clever way to avoid the death throes). The Polymorph Any Object one is listed in the opening post. There was also a "6 permanent walls of force" build that reminded us that blocking life of effect blocked the Golem's 'follow you' ability.

[Karl Aegis]

Since you both start on the same plane and ghosts always exist on the Ethereal Plane naturally, even while manifested, the golem should start on the Ethereal Plane with you where ghosts don't have the incorporeal subtype.

Blood in the Water requires you to score a critical hit against an opponent. Since undead aren't subject to critical hits and you aren't your own opponent at least most of the time you don't have any way of activating Blood in the Water to overcome the hardness of the golem. Attacking the golem repeatedly also doesn't work unless you have some way of bypassing the accretion ability. You also don't have any way of getting to or away from the golem.

Going back in time to kill the creator probably doesn't work since the creator most definitely either has always had over 40 Divine Ranks or took the Slipstream ability which makes it so they cannot be undermined by time travel. You probably don't want to be fighting something with over 40 divine ranks at any point without divine ranks yourself.

[Morcleon]

There have been a few of those (clever way to avoid the death throes). The Polymorph Any Object one is listed in the opening post. There was also a "6 permanent walls of force" build that reminded us that blocking life of effect blocked the Golem's 'follow you' ability.

I was talking about my "defeat it with friendship" build. :smalltongue:

[OldTrees1]

Since you both start on the same plane and ghosts always exist on the Ethereal Plane naturally, even while manifested, the golem should start on the Ethereal Plane with you where ghosts don't have the incorporeal subtype.

There is a RAW argument for ghosts still being incorporeal on the ethereal despite the fluff. So I am allowing it for this thread despite houseruling it otherwise at my table.


I was talking about my "defeat it with friendship" build. :smalltongue:

That one worked too.

[shaikujin]

You have Ex immunity to the damage, stun, unconciousness, & death but not to the max hp reduction. However there is no way for the Golem to tag you more than once with the max hp reduction before you have a chance to charge & attack (which will easily hit 95% of the time).

Except Regeneration requires a Con score (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#regeneration). I expect this is only a minor setback.

As a side note: Ironically the Golem now wishes the Heat Aura offer a save. If it did, then regardless of your immunity it would eventually destroy your items. But the Heat Aura does not offer a save.

Also thank you for reminding me about the Shriver! Regen is nice. Upon reading further, lots of the benefits are nice despite the 30K gp price tag.

Cool! That means my plan actually has a chance :)


10% HP damage:
Just wondering, wouldn't the 10% HP damage still need to be both Good AND Chaotic aligned to deal damage?


95% chance to hit:
Each arm has a 95% chance to hit. If both Hotrod's main arms miss, Hotrod moves into t golem's square, opens up his engine compartment, and starts stabbing the golem with the 12 additional attacks.


Con score for Regeneration:
OK, here's the weird part... a Warforged is a Construct with the subtype "Living Construct". Living Construct subtype specifically grants creatures with this subtype a Con score. It seems to me that SQ of this subtype over-rides the Construct type's lack of Con score. (and in general, subtype SQ over-rides SQ from types)

Becoming a Necropolitan does not remove Hotrod's "Living Construct" subtype. Meaning he still has a Con score and can use Regeneration without problems.

Is this a valid interpretation?


Destruction of items:
Hotrod is using his bare hands rather than his kukris to attack the golem. Of course, even though the sheathed weapons will be subjected to the aura.
Only the 2 normal sized weapons are normally at risk from damage. The other 12 weapons are in a hidden chest compartment with a lid (engine hood), and are blocked from the aura's line of effect. I think.

They are also morphed from arrows.
Hotrod has no other items of note.

[ben-zayb]

Here's another entry that can take on the Neutronium Golem on both rounds. Admittedly, this ECL9 (with ECL17 WBL) build has more stinky cheese, but still no spellcasting/manifesting.

Imp Warblade 1 / Binder 1, taking the feats Brand of the Nine Hells and Mark of Cania, taking the Moment of Perfect Mind maneuver, maxing out Concentration, binding Ronove, and undergoing the Ritual of Transfiguration to be Incorporeal, which is under ECL20 WBL.

Use Invisibility on yourself, then initiatie Moment of Perfect Mind to save. This procs Mark of Cania. Wash, rinse, and repeat, until you have +YES to attack rolls, damage rolls, saves, and checks. Use Ronove's Far Hand supernatural ability to smack the Neutronium Golem for 1d6+YES damage.



Since you both start on the same plane and ghosts always exist on the Ethereal Plane naturally, even while manifested, the golem should start on the Ethereal Plane with you where ghosts don't have the incorporeal subtype.Haha, that was some nice sarcasm! Of course, you are smart enough to realize that someone was able to develop an Epic Spell before taking on the Golem, so a single standard action to manifest before the fight starts shouldn't be a problem.

[OldTrees1]

Cool! That means my plan actually has a chance :)


10% HP damage:
Just wondering, wouldn't the 10% HP damage still need to be both Good AND Chaotic aligned to deal damage?


95% chance to hit:
Each arm has a 95% chance to hit. If both Hotrod's main arms miss, Hotrod moves into t golem's square, opens up his engine compartment, and starts stabbing the golem with the 12 additional attacks.


Con score for Regeneration:
OK, here's the weird part... a Warforged is a Construct with the subtype "Living Construct". Living Construct subtype specifically grants creatures with this subtype a Con score. It seems to me that SQ of this subtype over-rides the Construct type's lack of Con score. (and in general, subtype SQ over-rides SQ from types)

Becoming a Necropolitan does not remove Hotrod's "Living Construct" subtype. Meaning he still has a Con score and can use Regeneration without problems.

Is this a valid interpretation?


Destruction of items:
Hotrod is using his bare hands rather than his kukris to attack the golem. Of course, even though the sheathed weapons will be subjected to the aura.
Only the 2 normal sized weapons are normally at risk from damage. The other 12 weapons are in a hidden chest compartment with a lid (engine hood), and are blocked from the aura's line of effect. I think.

They are also morphed from arrows.
Hotrod has no other items of note.

Non Issue 1:
The 10% hp reduction is not damage, but I described why it was insufficient to stop you.

Non Issue 2:
The 95% chance to hit per attack was me presuming the golem was 20ft away(to hit you with the max hp reduction) and that the fact you could charge the golem mean that it could only get within 20ft once before you destroyed it.

Hypothetical Non Issue 3:
The Golem cannot damage your magic items with its Heat Aura because Heat Aura has no saving throw for you to roll a nat 1 on and although the death throes do have a save, you are not relying on your items at that point. This is why I said that it was ironic that the Golem would wish one of its abilities offered a save that it currently does not. If it becomes relevant then I will look up if the "AoE & nat 1 on the save" are blocked by blocking line of effect.


Now to the point where you attempt is still refining: The Con score for the Regen
The Living Construct subtype is not lost by gaining Necropolitian, but its benefits are each dependent on "unless otherwise noted". Necropolitian's comment about losing your Con score counts as otherwise noted as far as I can see (there are a few other reasons for Necropolitian to overwrite Living Construct in this case, but this is the clearest reason).

However I have seen your TO skills at work before, so I expect this to only be a minor setback.


Here's another entry that can take on the Neutronium Golem on both rounds. Admittedly, this ECL9 (with ECL17 WBL) build has more stinky cheese, but still no spellcasting/manifesting.

Imp Warblade 1 / Binder 1, taking the feats Brand of the Nine Hells and Mark of Cania, taking the Moment of Perfect Mind maneuver, maxing out Concentration, binding Ronove, and undergoing the Ritual of Transfiguration to be Incorporeal, which is under ECL20 WBL.

Use Invisibility on yourself, then initiatie Moment of Perfect Mind to save. This procs Mark of Cania. Wash, rinse, and repeat, until you have +YES to attack rolls, damage rolls, saves, and checks. Use Ronove's Far Hand supernatural ability to smack the Neutronium Golem for 1d6+YES damage.

What is the range on Far Hand?
Edit: I was going to ask why you didn't die from the Golem using its slam, but then I realized that the Golem's slam is non magical. The author gave it DR 1500/-(well actually hardness 1500) instead.

Incorporeal is being a surprisingly heavy lifter against the Golem.


Haha, that was some nice sarcasm! Of course, you are smart enough to realize that someone was able to develop an Epic Spell before taking on the Golem, so a single standard action to manifest before the fight starts shouldn't be a problem.
No they are quite correct that the Ghost is always on the Ethereal plane (even when manifesting). So manifesting before the fight starts would not affect the Ghost and Golem's starting plane (Ethereal plane in the case of Ghosts & arbitrary nondescript plane, like the material for example, in the case of everyone else).

[shaikujin]

Blood in the Water requires you to score a critical hit against an opponent. Since undead aren't subject to critical hits and you aren't your own opponent at least most of the time you don't have any way of activating Blood in the Water to overcome the hardness of the golem. Attacking the golem repeatedly also doesn't work unless you have some way of bypassing the accretion ability. You also don't have any way of getting to or away from the golem.


There are some critical hit dependant effects that specifically do not trigger against crit immune creatures. Blood in the Water does not seem to have such a statement. It also doesn't say it triggers on doing critical damage, but simply that scoring a critical will suffice.

I believe that effects which doesn't specifically state they "do not work on crit immune creatures" (or similar language), can still be triggered by rolling and confirming a crit.

Also Living Construct traits a retained. Hopefully it over-rides conflicting SQ from the Undead Type.

If Hotrod starts stabbing himself I believe he can can considered as his opponent.



If the above fail to work, I will fall back to my older plan - Hotrod buys a few hamsters, put them 1 by 1 through the Shriver to get regeneration (same hireling will buff the hamster's saves to ensure it survives).
Once any of the hamster survives, Hotrod manacles it in the engine compartment. He will now stab the hamster instead.

[ben-zayb]

An easy way to effectively negate the max HP reduction is via Endurance + Die Hard and similar abilities, since it will no longer work on a 0 Max HP character. Granted, it won't work on every build (e.g. undead gets destroyed at 0HP, some need full-round actions, etc), but it might help other builds.


Actually, if you have damage immunity anyway, don't mind the max HP reduction. Generally, D&D rounds fractions down, so once your max HP is under 10, 10% is rounded down to 0. That ability, as clarified, doesn't involve damage and damage rolls, and also doesn't involve HP rolls, so we're good.

[OldTrees1]

An easy way to effectively negate the max HP reduction is via Endurance + Die Hard and similar abilities, since it will no longer work on a 0 Max HP character. Granted, it won't work on every build (e.g. undead gets destroyed at 0HP, some need full-round actions, etc), but it might help other builds.


Actually, if you have damage immunity anyway, don't mind the max HP reduction. Generally, D&D rounds fractions down, so once your max HP is under 10, 10% is rounded down to 0. That ability, as clarified, doesn't involve damage and damage rolls, and also doesn't involve HP rolls, so we're good.

Upthread I stated that since it was undefined and since I want you to win, I am interpreting the max hp reduction in the way that is least favorable to you. Aka it is 10%/2% of your normal maximum per round so you are at 0 hp in 10/50 rounds.

Technically being at 0hp will not kill you, but it offers one last inconvenience to either avoid or push through.


Also Living Construct traits a retained. Hopefully it over-rides conflicting SQ from the Undead Type.

If the above fail to work, I will fall back to my older plan - Hotrod buys a few hamsters, put them 1 by 1 through the Shriver to get regeneration (same hireling will buff the hamster's saves to ensure it survives).
Once any of the hamster survives, Hotrod manacles it in the engine compartment. He will now stab the hamster instead.

Just before this post I answered your question about Necropolitian and Living Construct. I think Necropolitian overwrites Living Construct with regards to Con score (reasoning in the previous post).

Your older plan covers gaining the +atk and +dam (your secret compartment protect the hamster from the Heat Aura and any Pulsed X-Ray) but does not cover surviving damage dealt (The Heat Aura being the primary concern although I suspect your ECL 1 build might have to survive the Pulsed X-Ray and a Slam before you get to One-Punch it.

[ben-zayb]

Upthread I stated that since it was undefined and since I want you to win, I am interpreting the max hp reduction in the way that is least favorable to you. Aka it is 10%/2% of your normal maximum per round so you are at 0 hp in 10/50 rounds.

Technically being at 0hp will not kill you, but it offers one last inconvenience to either avoid or push through.Ah, got it. Endurance + Die Hard should still work, right? How about if the character starts with just 9 max HP, wouldn't that mean reduction of 0 to max HP (10% of 9, rounded down) every round?

[OldTrees1]

Ah, got it. Endurance + Die Hard should still work, right? How about if the character starts with just 9 max HP, wouldn't that mean reduction of 0 to max HP (10% of 9, rounded down) every round?

Even if your normal max hp is 9, you will reach 0 hp in 10 rounds for the purpose of this thread*. Normally being at 0hp is the Disabled condition(only move or standard actions, standard actions make you lose 1hp and start dying). Die Hard extends the Disabled condition from 0hp to -9hp. That gives you a few more actions unless you have another trick up your sleeve.

Consider your temporary max hp = (10 - rounds of exposure) * your normal max hp / 10 (round).
So if you normally have 9 max hp (for the purpose of this thread):
9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 (or much slower if you are being tagged at 60ft instead of at 20ft)

[Gusmo]

Will be busy for foreseeable future and can't update any details on using my build with delay death, but I don't know that the 6 wall of force method works, due to the spell specifying the it creates vertical planes. There might be a way to finagle them into the appropriate position, but this needs needs to be explained.

[shaikujin]

Non Issue 1:
The 10% hp reduction is not damage, but I described why it was insufficient to stop you.

Non Issue 2:
The 95% chance to hit per attack was me presuming the golem was 20ft away(to hit you with the max hp reduction) and that the fact you could charge the golem mean that it could only get within 20ft once before you destroyed it.

Hypothetical Non Issue 3:
The Golem cannot damage your magic items with its Heat Aura because Heat Aura has no saving throw for you to roll a nat 1 on and although the death throes do have a save, you are not relying on your items at that point. This is why I said that it was ironic that the Golem would wish one of its abilities offered a save that it currently does not. If it becomes relevant then I will look up if the "AoE & nat 1 on the save" are blocked by blocking line of effect.


Now to the point where you attempt is still refining: The Con score for the Regen
The Living Construct subtype is not lost by gaining Necropolitian, but its benefits are each dependent on "unless otherwise noted". Necropolitian's comment about losing your Con score counts as otherwise noted as far as I can see (there are a few other reasons for Necropolitian to overwrite Living Construct in this case, but this is the clearest reason).

However I have seen your TO skills at work before, so I expect this to only be a minor setback.



Apologies, I didn't see your reply until I posted my later response :D

I'll see if there's a way to give an Undead a Con score within the rules and without raising from ECL 1.
Usual suspects would be via Symbiotic template or Fusion+Astral Seed abuse I think.

Question, are Dragonlance splats considered legal for this challenge? Specifically, "Races of Ansalon"?



Meanwhile, for a quick win, I'll simply add the Bodyfeeder WSA to the morphing arrows. This will give 22 trillion temp HP, which refreshes every crit. I can even do away with regeneration in that case.

Oh, I forgot, the hamster needs to go through a ritual of alignment to make it evil in order for the Blessed WSA to work.
An easier and cheaper version is to diplomancy a troll into helpful/fanatic instead, then pay to cast Return to Nature to make it fine sized (to fit into the engine compartment), and use the troll as my engine.

If this plan works, I'll post a cleaned up version later.



There also seems to be a way to use a Warforged Juggernaut / Ranger / Warblade / Frenzied Barbarian build that uses feats like Improved Crit and Murderous Intent to do something similar without using any magical gear.

[OldTrees1]

Apologies, I didn't see your reply until I posted my later response :D

I'll see if there's a way to give an Undead a Con score within the rules and without raising from ECL 1.
Usual suspects would be via Symbiotic template or Fusion+Astral Seed abuse I think.

Question, are Dragonlance splats considered legal for this challenge? Specifically, "Races of Ansalon"?



Meanwhile, for a quick win, I'll simply add the Bodyfeeder WSA to the morphing arrows. This will give 22 trillion temp HP, which refreshes every crit. I can even do away with regeneration in that case.

Oh, I forgot, the hamster needs to go through a ritual of alignment to make it evil in order for the Blessed WSA to work.
An easier and cheaper version is to diplomancy a troll into helpful/fanatic instead, then pay to cast Return to Nature to make it fine sized (to fit into the engine compartment), and use the troll as my engine.

If this plan works, I'll post a cleaned up version later.



There also seems to be a way to use a Warforged Juggernaut / Ranger / Warblade / Frenzied Barbarian build that uses feats like Improved Crit and Murderous Intent to do something similar without using any magical gear.

Sure we can extend the allowed sources to the splat books that WotC published but did not write (or the Pathfinder expansions Pazio published but did not write).

Bodyfeeder giving huge chunks of temporary hp appears sustainable. It deals roughly Xe5 damage per round via auras and Xe6 damage per round via slams, so gaining an average of 1 billion temp hp per round would suffice.

I did presume the "hamster" was a small enough sized humanoid/monsterous humanoid(given the Shriver requirements) however a shrunken Troll would make it more concise (it also avoids the 99 day recharge task).

I see nothing wrong here, once you post the cleaned up version that will be another win.

[Karl Aegis]

I do want to see the build that uses parts 4) and 5) of the rules to their fullest effect. Something like Reserves of Strength Explosive spell in a greater arcane fusion sanctum greater arcane fusion to technically be making a spell into a "movement effect" so that the golem uses magnetar to cast the spell on itself, bringing it closer to you as you use the spell to move yourself farther away from the golem at the same rate it is coming at you. Something powerful enough get to past it's hardness while simultaneously not powerful enough to instantly kill yourself.

[ben-zayb]

I do want to see the build that uses parts 4) and 5) of the rules to their fullest effect. Something like Reserves of Strength Explosive spell in a greater arcane fusion sanctum greater arcane fusion to technically be making a spell into a "movement effect" so that the golem uses magnetar to cast the spell on itself, bringing it closer to you as you use the spell to move yourself farther away from the golem at the same rate it is coming at you. Something powerful enough get to past it's hardness while simultaneously not powerful enough to instantly kill yourself.I actually was able to turn #5 around to the Golem's disadvantage, but OldTrees1 ruled that Magnetar's ability is optional.

[shaikujin]

Revised attempt with an ECL 1 mundane character using brute force.
‎
‎Hotrod, the Necropolitan Incarnate Construct level 1 Warforged Warblade
‎(If Incarnate Construct allows this to be considered as ECL 0, then this becomes an ECL0 build)


Feats:‎
Lvl1 -‎ Multiweapon Fighting


Manuevers:
‎Sudden Leap
Blood in the Water stance
‎
‎
Grafts:‎
‎12 x Mighty Arms grafts (For fluff reasons, preferably fine sized, painted bright yellow, and grafted in a hidden compartment in the left chest).
‎The words "V12 Engine" is emblazoned in bright yellow on the lid of the recessed compartment.

Note: The size is purely for fluff reasons. If the rules do not allow for fined-sized grafts on a medium sized character, normal sized ones grafted on the back is fine.‎ Just wear a fake backpack to cover the arms and chain the fine sized troll in the backpack.
‎

Gear:
2 x normal sized +1 Blessed/Bodyfeeder/Morphing/Sizing Arrows made from Razor Feather (from the Steel Wing in MM5). Arrows made from Razor feather is treated as made from Adamantine and has a non-magical Keen effect.
‎
12 x similar arrows as above, but sized for the 12 grafted Mighty Arms.
‎

‎
Preparation:‎
Pay hirelings to buff Diplomacy skill, diplomancy a troll into helpful/fanatic.
Pay hirelings to cast Return to Nature on the troll until it becomes fine sized (to fit inside Hotrod's engine compartment).
Secure it inside the engine compartment with manacles.
‎
‎Morph all the arrows into Kukris (Stump Knives will work even better, but we'll use Kukris for now). Equip all.
‎
Enters Blood in the Water stance. This gives a stackable untyped bonus to attack and damage every time he crits.
‎
Hotrod starts stabbing the troll with the Kukris. Especially with the 12 bright yellow V12 Mighty Arms, each arm pumping like a piston.
‎
Kukris have a threat range of 18-20.
The non magical Keen property increases this to 15-20.
The Bless weapon property says that it doesn't work with MAGICAL properties which increases the threat range, but since we are getting Keen from a non-magical source, the Bless property works fine. The bonus we are looking for is its ability to auto confirm crits on Evil creatures.
‎
Those 2 properties means we will score a crit 30% of the time.
Hotrod has 14 attacks a round. (an average of 4.2 attacks will crit per round)
‎There are 14400 rounds a day.

That's 60,480 (14 x 14400 x 0.3) crits a day‎
Hotrod doesn't need to sleep.
He has 1 million years to do this. (fast time plane recommended. Festering anger can do this as well from strength damage, but that's been done before.)
‎
That's ‎22,075,200,000,000 crits.
Due to Blood in the Water stance, that number translates to attack and damage bonus.
Due to the Bodyfeeder WSA, that 22 trillion damage also translates to 22 trillion temp HP. Which is refreshed on every crit (~4.2 times a round).



Showdown
Hotrod, with his V12 engine hammering furiously in his chest, waits for the golem to approach, while nonchanlantly absorbing the measly millions of damage the golem can dish out, with his 22 trillion temp HP.
Hotrod uses his Swift action to Sudden Leap into the golem's square and use a full round attack to poke the golem in the eyes, killing the golem instantly with 22 trillion damage per hit.




‎Notes:
Assumption:
Up to ECL20 WBL is available earlier from any of the infinite money tricks (eg auto resetting trap of fabricating gold bars).

Explanation of Race:
Warforged is used because it has no max age, plus I want to fluff making a hidden engine compartment in his chest.

Incarnate Construct is used to qualify for Necropolitan.

Other options:
Initially had Regeneration 5 (both Good AND Chaotic)‎, from the Shriver magical location (from Fiendish Codex 2).
Notes: Have hireling mages casts Surge of Fortune while he goes through the Shriver, so that he will not fail any save.‎
Dropping the for now as I need a bit of time to give an Undead a Con score.

If flaws are used, the level of Warblade can be replaced with Commoner (use the feats to pick up Martial Study and Martial Stance). I initially used Commoner, but using a Warblade is slightly more elegant.

For even higher damage output, use Monk to get additional attacks with Flurry, and use stump knives (17-20 crit range if attacking a target he has already damaged before).

[Gruftzwerg]

@OldTrees1:
May I ask why my BoBaFeat entry did got ignored?
Sry if I did make fun of the attack method? Since he has access to unlimited stats, skills, feats, Wizard spells as SLA, and blaa I thought I wouldn't need to go more into detail.
Is that issue why you ignored him?
He could just use "Shapechange" to turn into something big, use "Trow Anything" & "Distant Shot" (epic feat) and throw one of his demigod-clones from safety (since the enemy is so big and can be seen from far distances). With unlimited Stats & to Hit bonus the (thrown) clone will hit for unlimited damage.

I mean, after all he fits your requirements. He is ECL 20 (no extra xp needed for anything), haven't used a copper coin of his WBL, he will survive the eternity and you didn't ban epic rules & cheese (!) ^^ Sry again if my post didn't make a serious appealing, but it was meant to be a real entry.

[OldTrees1]

Attempt with an ECL 1 mundane character using brute force
‎
‎Hotrod, the Level 1 Warforged Commoner
‎(If Incarnate Construct allows this to be considered as ECL 0, this template can be added without loss of effectiveness)
Did you drop Necropolitian(which sheltered you from saves vs Stun, Unconciousness, and Death)? I expect it was just a typo.


@OldTrees1:
May I ask why my BoBaFeat entry did got ignored?
Sry if I did make fun of the attack method? Since he has access to unlimited stats, skills, feats, Wizard spells as SLA, and blaa I thought I wouldn't need to go more into detail.
Is that issue why you ignored him?
He could just use "Shapechange" to turn into something big, use "Trow Anything" & "Distant Shot" (epic feat) and throw one of his demigod-clones from safety (since the enemy is so big and can be seen from far distances). With unlimited Stats & to Hit bonus the (thrown) clone will hit for unlimited damage.

I mean, after all he fits your requirements. He is ECL 20 (no extra xp needed for anything), haven't used a copper coin of his WBL, he will survive the eternity and you didn't ban epic rules & cheese (!) ^^ Sry again if my post didn't make a serious appealing, but it was meant to be a real entry.

I have been reading through it carefully(it is not the easiest read) and looking for why the bodies don't die before they do anything of consequence:

You start 3000 miles away (way outside of Distant Shot range considering the Golem is merely 8ft tall even with the target size patch to spot checks). Edit: Oh wait you are relying on your +NA to spot.

If you could throw the body that distance, I am looking for the reason for it to survive the heat auras or gravitic auras(although gravitic does offer saves). It is a post that links to a thread that requires the reader to go read every feat in the game, so it is possible I missed something. The best I can presume is that you are expecting to throw an infinite number of these bodies in 1 round(to beat Gravitic Aura) and have them each have lots of hp(to beat Heat Aura).

So you create infinite bodies and gain infinite actions. Then your +NA to spot allows you to throw your NA hp bodies through the heat aura where they have a 7999/8000 chance of failing. The remaining 1/8000 of the throw bodies does "something"(see less expensive builds). That works.

[shaikujin]

Did you drop Necropolitian(which sheltered you from saves vs Stun, Unconciousness, and Death)? I expect it was just a typo.


Whoops, actually, while optimizing the Bodyfeeder, I sort of forgot the other reasons I still needed that.

Will edit now. Thx!

[OldTrees1]

Whoops, actually, while optimizing the Bodyfeeder, I sort of forgot the other reasons I still needed that.

Will edit now. Thx!

I thought so. I added it to the OP as if it were a Necropolitian (nice to get an ECL 1 martial build of there).





I think it is time for round 3 (you can still tag a build as Round 2 for a few days, or even afterwards I can't/won't stop you)


Round 3:
My Numbers Can Handle Your Numbers

We have found many great ways to bypass the golem:

Incorporeal to bypass gravity & non magical attacks
Line of Effect to bypass Magnetar
Undeath to bypass Fort Saves
Phoenix Fire to bypass dealing with the damage
and a few others


For Round 3 we want to really push this victory by doing it on their terms. How close to 0 bypasses can you do and still win? I am going to get very nitpicky here about what does or does not count as a bypass because I expect most builds submitted will be down in the fractional bypasses. So I will detail what I expect to see:

1) Initative: Beat them at initiative. they merely have a +79
2) You are a long ways away (3000 miles). Extend your operational range and/or move into operational range. Get within 60ft for bonus points in the next section
3) Depending on your operational range, take the Heat Aura damage and roll saves against the Gravitic Aura. The more layers you expose yourself to the higher the bragging rights.
4) Kill the Golem while allowing it to use its AC, Hp, or Saves as applicable. (SR: NO is still fine since that is an immunity rather than a defense)
5) Suffer and survive the death throes and heal the damage and ability damage. (Wish was a good tech mentioned upstream) The closer to ground zero the higher the bragging rights.
6) However since we are testing numbers against numbers, you get some leeway. You only need 12.5% or better odds of making it through to step 6. If you have at most an 87.5% chance to fail, you count as a success for this round.

Once round 3 has valid candidates, someone should make another thread with another victim because I don't see how we can humiliate the golem any more than we have.

[Gruftzwerg]

I have been reading through it carefully(it is not the easiest read) and looking for why the bodies don't die before they do anything of consequence:

You start 3000 miles away (way outside of Distant Shot range considering the Golem is merely 8ft tall even with the target size patch to spot checks). Edit: Oh wait you are relying on your +NA to spot.

If you could throw the body that distance, I am looking for the reason for it to survive the heat auras or gravitic auras(although gravitic does offer saves). It is a post that links to a thread that requires the reader to go read every feat in the game, so it is possible I missed something. The best I can presume is that you are expecting to throw an infinite number of these bodies in 1 round(to beat Gravitic Aura) and have them each have lots of hp(to beat Heat Aura).

So you create infinite bodies and gain infinite actions. Then your +NA to spot allows you to throw your NA hp bodies through the heat aura where they have a 7999/8000 chance of failing. The remaining 1/8000 of the throw bodies does "something"(see less expensive builds). That works.

While the bodies only have a part of my infinite HP, they still have infinite Hp. So the %dmg ain't the problem (still infinite HP left). And since "Distant Shot" is an attack action the clone will arrive in 1 attack action time (less than 6 seconds). So any aura effect (due to entering the zone) happens in that 1 attack action. Further assume infinite Saves for anything the clone may need to roll. I can apply any Wizard spell needed as further protection (ok, maybe I spend some money to get some spells^^).
If unlimited HP & Saves don't solve the problem:
Clone readies Shape Change SLA for the moment he gets throw > turns into incorporeal creature > short before impact he uses his free action shape shift (per turn) to turn back into his normal form > due to infinite Dex bonus, it hits (unless 1rolled) = + infinite Str bonus = oneshot.

And throwing the clone was just one idea. I could "whish" me something to throw at him. Anything that does not disappear until it reaches him is enough to kill him.

[ShurikVch]

Incorporeal to bypass gravity & non magical attacksActually, IMHO, "divine fire" - in it's overpowered 2nd round interpretation - should burn incorporeal creatures too: incorporeality fails in AMF, which can happen only with magical stuff

Line of Effect to bypass MagnetarMagnetar is a joke: most of teleportation effects are allow SR, and Neutronium Golem is immune to magic

About the 3rd round:
How about the permanent rune of Revenance (which will trigger every time character died)?
If it's OK, then unarmed Warblade with Vile Strike would devastate the Neutronium Golem

[ben-zayb]

Round 3: Alright, since the challenge headed to a more "brute force" approach, I'm gonna have to resort to spellcasting and some TO of various freshness.

"Karma Chameleon", the ECL1 Tiny Lawful Evil Symbiotic Lizard

Symbiotic (Fine* Greenbound Hagunemnon "guest" + Baleful Polymorphed** Hatchling Phaerimm "host"), with the Supernatural Transformation (innate SLA spellcasting) feat
1. Use Alter Shape to get a hybrid Greater Dusk GiantHoH with Cannibalize (Ex) and, say, PhaneSRD with the Abomination Special Qualities (Ex)
2. Use Cannibalize to get at least 18HD (aka 9th level spellcasting)
3. Use multiple supernatural Chaos Shuffle with Heroics to get at will supernatural Wish (ie Improved Spell Capacity, Innate SpellCAr keyed to Wish, and requisite feats)
4. Use XP-less at-will Wish to Chaos Shuffle with impunity, with priority to getting at-will Delay Spell Time Stop, for Chaos Shuffle in no actual time.
5. Use XP-less at-will Wish and at-will Time Stop to Chaos Shuffle into every feat you qualify for an arbitrary amount of times if the feat can be taken multiple times. Everything. EVERYTHING. You now have YES to all possible quantifiable value that can be increased with an arbitrarily large amount of feats, Body Outside Body clones with at will SLA/Su, and action economy.
6. Kill enough epic creatures for buying off all level adjustments, then starve yourself so you lose all cannibalized HD. This leaves you as an ECL1 character with 6 less non-epic feats and a few less skill ranks.

*Hagunemnon host can change size via Alter Shape
**Baleful Polymorphed into a Lizard. Yeah, this Phaerimm didn't have an easy life.
Which of the arbitrarily large amount of ways* to "take care" of the Neutronium Golem that will earn the most points for this round is left as an exercise for the reader.


*which, chances are, likely include every single solution that will be made on this particular challenge

[OldTrees1]

While the bodies only have a part of my infinite HP, they still have infinite Hp. So the %dmg ain't the problem (still infinite HP left).

The %max hp reduction effect of being within 60ft has been detailed above. Having nigh infinite or even truly infinite hp does not protect against it. Your clones only being within the range for 1 round does.

Yes, The Boba build works. You have the Distant Shot epic feat + infinite clones + infinite actions + infinite Spot + infinite hp + infinite saves + infinite Dex + infinite Str thus you do succeed at surviving defeating the golem.


Actually, IMHO, "divine fire" - in it's overpowered 2nd round interpretation - should burn incorporeal creatures too: incorporeality fails in AMF, which can happen only with magical stuff
Magnetar is a joke: most of teleportation effects are allow SR, and Neutronium Golem is immune to magic

About the 3rd round:
How about the permanent rune of Revenance (which will trigger every time character died)?
If it's OK, then unarmed Warblade with Vile Strike would devastate the Neutronium Golem

Incorporeal undead wink out in an antimagic field (not the same as failing). There is no other interaction between incorporeal and antimagic field (although spells that grant incorporeal would fail). It is a border case and I might have ruled the other way some other month.

Revenance would count as suffering the damage but count as bypassing healing the damage and the death save from Gravity Aura. So scores in part 3 (1/5) and 5 (1/2) would suffer a bit. (remember low is good)


Round 3: Alright, since the challenge headed to a more "brute force" approach, I'm gonna have to resort to spellcasting and some TO of various freshness.

"Karma Chameleon", the ECL4, Tiny, Lawful Evil, Symbiotic Lizard

Symbiotic (Fine* Greenbound Hagunemnon "guest" + Baleful Polymorphed** Hatchling Phaerimm "host"), with the Supernatural Transformation (innate SLA spellcasting) feat
1. Use Alter Shape to get a hybrid Greater Dusk GiantHoH with Cannibalize (Ex) and, say, PhaneSRD with the Abomination Special Qualities (Ex)
2. Use Cannibalize to get at least 18HD (aka 9th level spellcasting)
3. Use multiple supernatural Chaos Shuffle with Heroics to get at will supernatural Wish (ie Improved Spell Capacity, Innate SpellCAr keyed to Wish, and requisite feats)
4. Use XP-less at-will Wish to Chaos Shuffle with impunity, with priority to getting at-will Delay Spell Time Stop, for Chaos Shuffle in no actual time.
5. Use XP-less at-will Wish and at-will Time Stop to Chaos Shuffle into every feat you qualify for an arbitrary amount of times if the feat can be taken multiple times. Everything. EVERYTHING. You now have YES to all possible quantifiable value that can be increased with an arbitrarily large amount of feats, Body Outside Body clones with at will SLA/Su, and action economy.
6. Starve yourself so you lose all cannibalized HD, leaving you with 6 less non-epic feats and a few less skill ranks. You are now at ECL 4, with 1HD and +2 LA from Phaerimm Hatchling, +1 LA from Symbiotic template.

*Hagunemnon host can change size via Alter Shape
**Baleful Polymorphed into a Lizard. Yeah, this Phaerimm didn't have an easy life.
Which of the arbitrarily large amount of ways* to "take care" of the Neutronium Golem that will earn the most points for this round is left as an exercise for the reader.


*which, chances are, likely include every single solution that will be made on this particular challenge

Well, as soon as a valid build is presented we can say that you will mimic it after the fact. Until then ... :smallbiggrin:

[shaikujin]

I thought so. I added it to the OP as if it were a Necropolitian (nice to get an ECL 1 martial build of there).





I think it is time for round 3 (you can still tag a build as Round 2 for a few days, or even afterwards I can't/won't stop you)


Round 3:
My Numbers Can Handle Your Numbers

We have found many great ways to bypass the golem:

Incorporeal to bypass gravity & non magical attacks
Line of Effect to bypass Magnetar
Undeath to bypass Fort Saves
Phoenix Fire to bypass dealing with the damage
and a few others


For Round 3 we want to really push this victory by doing it on their terms. How close to 0 bypasses can you do and still win? I am going to get very nitpicky here about what does or does not count as a bypass because I expect most builds submitted will be down in the fractional bypasses. So I will detail what I expect to see:

1) Initative: Beat them at initiative. they merely have a +79
2) You are a long ways away (3000 miles). Extend your operational range and/or move into operational range. Get within 60ft for bonus points in the next section
3) Depending on your operational range, take the Heat Aura damage and roll saves against the Gravitic Aura. The more layers you expose yourself to the higher the bragging rights.
4) Kill the Golem while allowing it to use its AC, Hp, or Saves as applicable. (SR: NO is still fine since that is an immunity rather than a defense)
5) Suffer and survive the death throes and heal the damage and ability damage. (Wish was a good tech mentioned upstream) The closer to ground zero the higher the bragging rights.
6) However since we are testing numbers against numbers, you get some leeway. You only need 12.5% or better odds of making it through to step 6. If you have at most an 87.5% chance to fail, you count as a success for this round.

Once round 3 has valid candidates, someone should make another thread with another victim because I don't see how we can humiliate the golem any more than we have.



Yay! Thanks for adding it :D
It's extremely satisfying to be able to beat the challenge with a level 1 mundane character.



Round 3:
ECL 1 mundane character using even more brute force (and even more ridiculously large numbers.)



‎Hotrod, the Necropolitan Incarnate Construct level 1 Warforged Warblade
‎(If Incarnate Construct allows this to be considered as ECL 0, then this becomes an ECL0 build)


Feats:‎
Lvl1 -‎ Multiweapon Fighting


Manuevers Known
1/3 - ‎Sudden Leap (Tiger Claw 1). Make a Jump check as a swift action and move the distance determined by the check result. The language seems to imply you just move whatever distance the result shows.
2/3 - Moment of Perfect Mind (Diamond Mind 1)
3/3 - Sapphire Nightmare Strike (Diamond Mind 1). Standard action to make 1 attack using a Concentration check instead of a normal attack roll

*/* (Bonus from ring) - Moment of Alacrity (Diamond Mind 6). Swift action boost to improve initiative by 20 for subsequent rounds. Prerequsite is to already know 2 Diamond Mind maneuvers, hence, the manuever selection above)


Manuevers Readied:
1/3 - ‎Sudden Leap (Tiger Claw 1). Make a Jump check as a swift action and move the distance determined by the check result. The language seems to imply you just move whatever distance the result shows.
2/3 - Sapphire Nightmare Strike (Diamond Mind 1). Standard action to make 1 attack using a Concentration check instead of a normal attack roll
3/3 - Moment of Alacrity (Diamond Mind 6). Swift action boost to improve initiative by 20 for subsequent rounds. Prerequsite is to already know 2 Diamond Mind maneuvers, hence, the manuever selection above)


Stance:
1/1 - Blood in the Water
‎
‎
Grafts:‎
‎12 x Mighty Arms grafts (For fluff reasons, preferably fine sized, painted bright yellow, and grafted in a hidden compartment in the left chest).
‎The words "V12 Engine" is emblazoned in bright yellow on the lid of the recessed compartment.

Note: The size is purely for fluff reasons. If the rules do not allow for fined-sized grafts on a medium sized character, normal sized ones grafted on the back is fine.‎ Just wear a fake backpack to cover the arms and chain the fine sized troll in the backpack.
‎

Gear:
2 x normal sized +1 Blessed/Bodyfeeder/Morphing/Sizing Arrows made from Razor Feather (from the Steel Wing in MM5). Arrows made from Razor feather is treated as made from Adamantine and has a non-magical Keen effect.
‎
12 x similar arrows as above, but sized for the 12 grafted Mighty Arms.
‎
Ring of Diamond Mind (Scholar Level). Scholar level grants knowledge of a maneuver up to 6th level. The maneuver chosen for this ring is Moment of Alacrity.

Auto-resetting trap of Machosim (level 2 sor/wiz spell from BOVD). This spell have the effect of granting a +1 stackable luck bonus to attack rolls, saving throws and skill checks on the next round, for every 10 points of damage taken.

‎
Preparation:‎
Pay hirelings to buff Diplomacy skill, diplomancy a troll into helpful/fanatic.
Pay hirelings to cast Return to Nature on the troll until it becomes fine sized (to fit inside Hotrod's engine compartment).
Secure it inside the engine compartment with manacles.
Note: An unwilling creature can be used, but it's best to have a willing one if possible. An even better way is to use Nybor's Psychic Imprint to craft an absolutely loyal intelligent construct, then use the Wish Ritual in Savage Species to change it into a Troll.

‎
‎Morph all the arrows into Kukris (Stump Knives will work even better, but we'll use Kukris for now). Equip all.
‎
Enters Blood in the Water stance. This gives a stackable untyped bonus to attack and damage every time he crits.
‎
Kukris have a threat range of 18-20.
The non magical Keen property increases this to 15-20.
The Bless weapon property says that it doesn't work with MAGICAL properties which increases the threat range, but since we are getting Keen from a non-magical source, the Bless property works fine. The bonus we are looking for is its ability to auto confirm crits on Evil creatures.
‎
Those 2 properties means we will score a crit 30% of the time.
Hotrod has 14 attacks a round. (an average of 4.2 attacks will crit per round)
‎There are 14,400 rounds a day.
5,256,000 rounds in a year.
5,256,000,000,000 rounds in a million years. That's 5 quadrillion rounds (OldTrees capped prep time to 1 million years or age of character, whichever is lower)

That's 60,480 (14 x 14400 x 0.3) crits a day‎
Hotrod doesn't need to sleep.
He has 1 million years to do this. (fast time plane of 1 year : 1 round recommended. Festering anger can do this as well from strength damage, but that's been done before and is slower, only 365 million damage.)
‎
That's ‎22,075,200 crits a year (using the above fast time plane, only 1 round has passed in the material plane).

‎22,075,200,000,000 crits in 1 million years (using the above fast time plane, only 69.4 days have passed in the material plane. Useful number to know in case Hotrod ever needs to drop out of combat for more than a min - the bonus from Blood in the Water is lost if he goes for 1 minute without scoring a crit).

Due to Blood in the Water stance, that number translates to attack and damage bonus.
Due to the Bodyfeeder WSA, that 22 trillion damage also translates to 22 trillion temp HP. Which is refreshed on every crit (~4.2 times a round).



Perpetual combat every round for 1 million years:‎
Round 1
Auto-resetting trap triggers Machosim
Hotrod uses a Swift action to trigger Moment of Alacrity to increase Initiative by 20
Hotrod uses a Full round attack to stab the troll with the Kukris. Especially with the 12 bright yellow V12 Mighty Arms, each arm pumping like a piston.
‎
Since Hotrod gets a crit an average of 4.2 times a round, the first crit will be used to get 22 trillion temp HP.
Then he attacks himself to deal 22 trillion damage (doesn't matter if it doesn't crit), wiping out the temp HP.
The 22 trillion done to himself triggers Machoism's effect - for every 10 points of damage taken in a given round, he gains a +1 luck bonus on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks made in the following round.
Second crit will be used to restore his temp HP back into 22 trillion.


Round 2
Same as above, except Hotrod uses the Swift action to recover his Moment of Alacrity maneuver instead of triggering Moment of Alacrity.


Round 3 onwards
Repeat rounds 1 and 2
‎

Tally of bonus:
Initiative = 25+ quadrillion (+20 to initiative, multiplied by 5,256,000,000,000 rounds, divided by 2 since we have to alternate between triggering/recovering Moment of Alacrity on every other round)
quadrillion

Luck bonus from Machoism to Attacks/Saves/Skill checks = 2+ trillion

Attack/Damage bonus from Blood in the Water = 22+ trillion



Showdown
Hotrod, with his V12 engine hammering furiously in his chest, wins initiative (25 quadrillion against the golem's 79)

He uses a swift action to activate Sudden Leap, rolling a Jump and Tumble check to travel 2+ trillion feet without provoking AoOs (against the golem's 6+ billion feet). With his 22 trillion temp HP, Hotrod nonchanlantly absorbs the measly millions of damage the golem can dish out.

Hotrod then uses a standard action to trigger Sapphire Nightmare Strike, and rolls a Concentration check to attack golem. (2+ trillion luck bonus to skill check from Machoism, with no auto failure on 1. Against the golem's 932 AC)

The Neutronium Golem takes 22 trillion damage and goes down (against 2+ million HP).

Hotrod absorbs the measly millions of damage from the golem's death throes with his 21.999 trillion temp HP.



‎Notes:
Assumption:
Up to ECL20 WBL is available earlier from any of the infinite money tricks (eg auto resetting trap of fabricating gold bars).

Explanation of Race:
Warforged is used because it has no max age, plus I want to fluff making a hidden engine compartment in his chest.

Incarnate Construct is used to qualify for Necropolitan.

As before, the build is possible using a commoner, but will need more than 2 flaws for Martial Study/Stance, plus Extra Readied Maneuver. (Or Otyugh Hole + DCFS cheese).

Using Stump Knives will boost the crit rate from 30% to 40%. 22 trillion will become 29 trillion.

[OldTrees1]

Round 3:
ECL 1 mundane character using even more brute force (and even more ridiculously large numbers.)


Tally of bonus:
Initiative = 25+ quadrillion (+20 to initiative, multiplied by 5,256,000,000,000 rounds, divided by 2 since we have to alternate between triggering/recovering Moment of Alacrity on every other round)
quadrillion

Luck bonus from Machoism to Attacks/Saves/Skill checks = 2+ trillion

Attack/Damage bonus from Blood in the Water = 22+ trillion



Showdown
Hotrod, with his V12 engine hammering furiously in his chest, wins initiative (25 quadrillion against the golem's 79)

He uses a swift action to activate Sudden Leap, rolling a Jump and Tumble check to travel 2+ trillion feet without provoking AoOs (against the golem's 6+ billion feet). With his 22 trillion temp HP, Hotrod nonchanlantly absorbs the measly millions of damage the golem can dish out.

Hotrod then uses a standard action to trigger Sapphire Nightmare Strike, and rolls a Concentration check to attack golem. (2+ trillion luck bonus to skill check from Machoism, with no auto failure on 1. Against the golem's 932 AC)

The Neutronium Golem takes 22 trillion damage and goes down (against 2+ million HP).

Hotrod absorbs the measly millions of damage from the golem's death throes with his 21.999 trillion temp HP.

Chance of failure: Too low to calculate(chance to not crit anything or hit the golem for a long enough window)
Distance to ground zero: Within 20ft(closest range).
Bypasses:
Part 3 - Bypassed Stun/Unconciousness/Death saves of Gravitic Aura(via Necropolitian) 3/5
Part 5 - Bypassed Suffer & Survive and Healing the Con damage(via Necropolitian) 2/4
Total golf score: 1.1 (Victory, but an even lower score must be possible right?)

The saves are boosted high enough that removal of Necropolitian would only require figuring out how to tank and heal the Con damage.

[ben-zayb]

Chance of failure: Too low to calculate(chance to not crit for a long enough window)
Distance to ground zero: Within 20ft(closest range).
Bypasses:
Part 3 - Bypassed Stun/Unconciousness/Death saves of Gravitic Aura(via Necropolitian) 3/5
Part 5 - Bypassed Suffer & Survive and Healing the Con damage(via Necropolitian) 2/4
Total golf score: 1.1 (Victory, but a lower score must be possible right?)

The saves are boosted high enough that removal of Necropolitian would only require figuring out how to tank and heal the Con damage.Alright, two easily replicable win-cons there! I did edit Karma Chameleon to be possible at ECL1 if LA buyoff is on the table

[shaikujin]

Chance of failure: Too low to calculate(chance to not crit anything or hit the golem for a long enough window)
Distance to ground zero: Within 20ft(closest range).
Bypasses:
Part 3 - Bypassed Stun/Unconciousness/Death saves of Gravitic Aura(via Necropolitian) 3/5
Part 5 - Bypassed Suffer & Survive and Healing the Con damage(via Necropolitian) 2/4
Total golf score: 1.1 (Victory, but an even lower score must be possible right?)

The saves are boosted high enough that removal of Necropolitian would only require figuring out how to tank and heal the Con damage.

Yay!!
I see what you mean by bypass. Yup, I can have a new version up inn a bit :D

[shaikujin]

Round 3:
ECL 1 mundane character using even more brute force (and even more ridiculously large numbers.)



‎Hotrod, the level 1 Warforged Warblade
‎(If Incarnate Construct allows this to be considered as ECL 0, then it can be added to make this an ECL 0 build)


Feats:‎
Lvl1 -‎ Multiweapon Fighting


Manuevers Known
1/3 - ‎Sudden Leap (Tiger Claw 1). Make a Jump check as a swift action and move the distance determined by the check result. The language seems to imply you just move whatever distance the result shows.
2/3 - Moment of Perfect Mind (Diamond Mind 1)
3/3 - Sapphire Nightmare Strike (Diamond Mind 1). Standard action to make 1 attack using a Concentration check instead of a normal attack roll

*/* (Bonus from ring) - Moment of Alacrity (Diamond Mind 6). Swift action boost to improve initiative by 20 for subsequent rounds. Prerequsite is to already know 2 Diamond Mind maneuvers, hence, the maneuver selections above


Manuevers Readied:
1/3 - ‎Sudden Leap
2/3 - Sapphire Nightmare Strike
3/3 - Moment of Alacrity

Stance:
1/1 - Blood in the Water
‎
‎
Grafts:‎
‎12 x Mighty Arms grafts (For fluff reasons, preferably fine sized, painted bright yellow, and grafted in a hidden compartment in the left chest).
‎The words "V12 Engine" is emblazoned in bright yellow on the lid of the recessed compartment.

Note: The size is purely for fluff reasons. If the rules do not allow for fined-sized grafts on a medium sized character, normal sized ones grafted on the back is fine.‎ Just wear a fake backpack to cover the arms and chain the fine sized troll in the backpack.
‎

Gear:
2 x normal sized +1 Blessed/Bodyfeeder/Morphing/Sizing Arrows made from Razor Feather (from the Steel Wing in MM5). Arrows made from Razor feather is treated as made from Adamantine and has a non-magical Keen effect.
‎
12 x similar arrows as above, but sized for the 12 grafted Mighty Arms.

Ring of Diamond Mind (Scholar Level). Scholar level grants knowledge of a maneuver up to 6th level. The maneuver chosen for this ring is Moment of Alacrity.

Auto-resetting trap of Machosim (level 2 sor/wiz spell from BOVD). This spell have the effect of granting a +1 stackable luck bonus to attack rolls, saving throws and skill checks on the next round, for every 10 points of damage taken.

Auto-resetting trap of Greater Restoration.

2 Auto-resetting traps of Wish (these will be sold off later to reduce WBL, just using it for the preparations stage for brevity's sake)



Preparation for getting minions:‎
Wish for 3 x +1 sling bullets, and 3 x 1 gp gems.
Use wish to replicate Nybor's Psychic Imprint on self (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20041215a) to make the sling bullets into an intelligent items with 11 to Int/Wis/Cha.
They are now fine sized constructs which are absolutely loyal to Hotrod.

Use wish Ritual in Savage Species to change 1 into a Troll.
Use wish to replicate Return to Nature and make it fine sized. (to fit inside Hotrod's engine compartment).
Secure it inside the engine compartment with manacles.

Use wish Ritual in Savage Species to change the second into a Steel Dragon.
Use wish Ritual in Savage Species to change the last into a Gem Dragon (any will do).


Preparation for boosting Con score:‎
Pass the Wish traps to the dragons. Have them use it to replicate Aspect of the Wolf (level 1 Druid/Ranger spell from SpC) to change it's type to animal. Then use it to replicate Awaken on itself every round. Each time Awaken is cast, the dragon gains 2 HD.

Once they hit 36 HD in 18 rounds, they will reach Great Wyrm status. Every 3 HD gained after that, the dragons gains a Virtual age category (ELH pg 179).

For every 2 virtual age categories, they get
- 4 Str
- 4 Con
- 2 Int
- 2 Wis
- 2 Cha
- 2 CL
No dex. That will involve more steps.

Around 1200 rounds later (2 hours), it would have gained 2400 HD.
That gives 800 virtual age categories. Stats gained will be
1600 Str
1600 Con
800 Int
800 Wis
800 Cha
800 CL


Gem dragon Greater Metamorphosis into a demon, then manifests Fusion with the Steel dragon. We now have a demon with 1600 Con.
Have the fused demon/dragon cast Extract Gift to grant Hotrod a permanent +200 enhancement to Con. (Extract gift is limited to 1/4 of the CL).
Same can be done to the other stats.
The 2 dragons can now go guard Hotrod's stronghold somewhere. Or they can continue to gain ~9,600 age categories a day for a million years. Hotrod can visit them daily for a recast of Extract Gift and get an extra 2,400 to his stats every day.

‎
‎Preparation for boosting damage to obscene levels:‎
Morph all the arrows into Kukris (Stump Knives will work even better, but we'll use Kukris for now). Equip all.
‎
Enters Blood in the Water stance. This gives a stackable untyped bonus to attack and damage every time he crits.
‎
Kukris have a threat range of 18-20.
The non magical Keen property increases this to 15-20.
The Bless weapon property says that it doesn't work with MAGICAL properties which increases the threat range, but since we are getting Keen from a non-magical source, the Bless property works fine. The bonus we are looking for is its ability to auto confirm crits on Evil creatures.
‎
Those 2 properties means we will score a crit 30% of the time.
Hotrod has 14 attacks a round. (an average of 4.2 attacks will crit per round)
‎There are 14,400 rounds a day.
5,256,000 rounds in a year.
5,256,000,000,000 rounds in a million years. That's 5 quadrillion rounds (OldTrees capped prep time to 1 million years or age of character, whichever is lower)

That's 60,480 (14 x 14400 x 0.3) crits a day‎
Hotrod doesn't need to sleep.
He has 1 million years to do this. (fast time plane of 1 year : 1 round recommended. Festering anger can do this as well from strength damage, but that's been done before and is slower, only 365 million damage.)
‎
That's ‎22,075,200 crits a year (using the above fast time plane, only 1 round has passed in the material plane).

‎22,075,200,000,000 crits in 1 million years (using the above fast time plane, only 69.4 days have passed in the material plane. Useful number to know in case Hotrod ever needs to drop out of combat for more than a min - the bonus from Blood in the Water is lost if he goes for 1 minute without scoring a crit).

Due to Blood in the Water stance, that number translates to attack and damage bonus.
Due to the Bodyfeeder WSA, that 22 trillion damage also translates to 22 trillion temp HP. Which is refreshed on every crit (~4.2 times a round).


Perpetual combat every round for 1 million years:‎
Round 1
Auto-resetting trap triggers Machosim
Hotrod uses a Swift action to trigger Moment of Alacrity to increase Initiative by 20
Hotrod uses a Full round attack to stab the troll with the Kukris. Especially with the 12 bright yellow V12 Mighty Arms, each arm pumping like a piston.
‎
Since Hotrod gets a crit an average of 4.2 times a round, the first crit will be used to get 22 trillion temp HP.
Then he attacks himself to deal 22 trillion damage (doesn't matter if it doesn't crit), wiping out the temp HP.
The 22 trillion done to himself triggers Machoism's effect - for every 10 points of damage taken in a given round, he gains a +1 luck bonus on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks made in the following round.
Second crit will be used to restore his temp HP back into 22 trillion.


Round 2
Same as above, except Hotrod uses the Swift action to recover his Moment of Alacrity maneuver instead of triggering Moment of Alacrity.


Round 3 onwards
Repeat rounds 1 and 2
‎

Tally of bonus:
Con = 10 + 200

Initiative = 25+ quadrillion (+20 to initiative, multiplied by 5,256,000,000,000 rounds, divided by 2 since we have to alternate between triggering/recovering Moment of Alacrity on every other round)
quadrillion

Luck bonus from Machoism to Attacks/Saves/Skill checks = 2+ trillion

Attack/Damage bonus from Blood in the Water = 22+ trillion



Showdown
Hotrod, with his V12 engine hammering furiously in his chest, wins initiative (25 quadrillion against the golem's 79)

He uses a swift action to activate Sudden Leap, rolling a Jump and Tumble check to travel 2+ trillion feet without provoking AoOs (against the golem's 6+ billion feet). With his 22 trillion temp HP, Hotrod nonchanlantly absorbs the measly millions of damage the golem can dish out.

Hotrod then uses a standard action to trigger Sapphire Nightmare Strike, and rolls a Concentration check to attack golem. (2+ trillion luck bonus to skill check from Machoism, with no auto failure on 1. Against the golem's 932 AC)

The Neutronium Golem takes 22 trillion damage and goes down (against 2+ million HP).

Hotrod absorbs the measly millions of damage from the golem's death throes with his remaining 21.999 trillion temp HP, and stoically tanks the Con damage.

Auto-resetting trap of Greater Restoration heals all ability damage.


‎Notes:
Assumption:
Up to ECL20 WBL is available at earlier ECLs from any of the infinite money tricks (eg auto resetting trap of fabricating gold bars).

Explanation of Race:
Warforged is used because it has no max age, plus I want to fluff making a hidden engine compartment in his chest.

As before, the build is possible using a commoner, but will need more than 2 flaws for Martial Study/Stance, plus Extra Readied Maneuver. (Or Otyugh Hole + DCFS cheese).

Using Stump Knives will boost the crit rate from 30% to 40%. 22 trillion will become 29 trillion.

[Karl Aegis]

So you just ignore the fact that masochism, bodyfeeder and extract gift are penetrated, leaving you dead before you get to the golem with however many temporary hit points? Nice.

[shaikujin]

So you just ignore the fact that masochism, bodyfeeder and extract gift are penetrated, leaving you dead before you get to the golem with however many temporary hit points? Nice.

I might have missed something. The penetration you are talking about is the Divine Fire Effect portion that you have posted earlier, right? (quoted below)
None of the above (masochism, bodyfeeder and extract gift) can be interpreted as barriers. Is there a passage which I missed?






33. DIVINE [EFFECT] (SU)
You can create quintessence based effects
Benefit: The effect causes d3 divine damage per hit dice of the immortal. Divine damage penetrates any type of magical defense (including a force field, prismatic sphere, wall of force etc.), destroying the barrier in the process.

e.g. A lesser deity (45hit die) taking Divine Beam would gain a ray attack dealing 11d3 bane damage...

...Special: This effect can be taken multiple times and its effects stack...



I interpret this to mean magical defenses are ignored and anything blocking line of effect is destroyed until you do have line of effect to whatever is taking the damage. Since Force Field (Su) is included in the types of magical defenses it could penetrate (it isn't a barrier) and Force Field (Su) doesn't normally defend against non-physical damage, divine damage penetrates things that don't normally defend against it. Whether it also destroys the magical effect depends on if your DM/Supernal rules that magical defense and barrier are synonyms in this case.

[OldTrees1]

So you just ignore the fact that masochism, bodyfeeder and extract gift are penetrated, leaving you dead before you get to the golem with however many temporary hit points? Nice.

Would you expand on this claim? Only the temporary hp Bodyfeeder granted when used on the pet troll is being used to combat the divine fire damage. I would expect the divine fire to deplete those temporary hp as it would normal hp (aka based on the result rolled).


@shaikujin
The enhancement bonus to Con and the Greater Restoration look like they would handle the Con damage without problem.

However that is enough wealth being thrown around on permanent benefits that I can't eyeball the WBL. Can you afford all those casts with only 20th level WBL?

[shaikujin]

@shaikujin
The enhancement bonus to Con and the Greater Restoration look like they would handle the Con damage without problem.

However that is enough wealth being thrown around on permanent benefits that I can't eyeball the WBL. Can you afford all those casts with only 20th level WBL?


Ah, sorry I was being lazy. I was halfway into detailing the my old re-usable psionic tattoo circuit of wish, but I found myself getting carried away and was constantly adding stuff. Instead of detailing the use of psionic tattoo circuits, demi-planes of timeless repeating magic, Candle of Invocation/chain gating Solars for free wishes etc, I just used 2 temporary auto-resetting Wish traps.

For the sake of brevity, I have 2 temporary auto-resetting Wish traps that are powering the effects in the preparation section. These will be sold off to reduce WBL once preparations have been made. By then the 2 dragons will have sufficient power to cast the spells themselves.

These temporary items will be paid for via Dark Craft gold and XP by using the sacrifice rules in BOVD. (I think in my last build stub, I left out the part about Machoism allowing a boosted skill check that will give several billion Dark Craft Gold and GP)



Final WBL 353,645 gp from the following:

Grafts: 12,000 gp

12 Mighty Grafts costs 12,000 gp


Arrows: 28,141 gp

14 Arrows cost less than 1 gp (1 gp for 20)
14 Razorfeathers cost 700 gp (50 gp each)
14 WSA on arrows cost 27,440 (properties add up to +7, so 98,000/50*14)


Worn: 15,000 gp

Ring of Diamond Mind: 15,000 gp


Resetting Traps: 298,500 gp
Costs for auto-resetting traps = 500 gp * CL * Spell Level

1 Auto resetting trap of Machoism costs 3,000 gp (500 gp * 3 * 2)
1 Auto resetting trap of Greater Restoration costs 45,500 gp (500 gp * 13 * 7), plus 250,000 gp for the XP component


Minions: 4 gp

3 x Sling bullets
3 x 1 gp gems

[ben-zayb]

Though with all that methodology, can you still honestly say it's a mundane build?

[Calthropstu]

Btw, my six walls can use contingent contingent time stop to go off without a hitch. I do not think you take the golem's damage in time stop, so "timestop as soon as I become aware of a threat directed at me" would allow me to teleport to the golem, trap it with wall of force + quickened wall of force in 3 rounds.
I realize I never said how my walls got off.

Another way of beating it is to BECOME it. 2 contingencies on each of 1000 copies of yourself using abilities to bypass its immunity to mind affecting and magic then hit it with 1000 scryes and 1000 true mind switches.

[Goladar]

Btw, my six walls can use contingent contingent time stop to go off without a hitch. I do not think you take the golem's damage in time stop, so "timestop as soon as I become aware of a threat directed at me" would allow me to teleport to the golem, trap it with wall of force + quickened wall of force in 3 rounds.
I realize I never said how my walls got off.

Another way of beating it is to BECOME it. 2 contingencies on each of 1000 copies of yourself using abilities to bypass its immunity to mind affecting and magic then hit it with 1000 scryes and 1000 true mind switches.

How are you doing the top and bottom?


The caster can form the wall into a flat, vertical plane whose area is up to one 10-foot square per level. SRD: Wall of Force (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfForce.htm)

[Karl Aegis]

It's a defense from a magical source, a magical defense. Divine damage penetrates magical defenses. Wall of Force is something specifically called out as being penetrated, so I don't know why it keeps being brought up. But, yeah, it goes through (penetrates) any magical defense on your person and also goes through any magical defense between you and them not on your person (barriers) and destroys the barriers. The troll would probably be fine due to the engine hood not exactly being a magical defense. I don't actually know if warforged with a bunch of templates count as a magical defense or not.

[OldTrees1]

We have a valid entry for round 3. Someone should make a new thread with a new victim target.




It's a defense from a magical source, a magical defense. Divine damage penetrates magical defenses. Wall of Force is something specifically called out as being penetrated, so I don't know why it keeps being brought up. But, yeah, it goes through (penetrates) any magical defense on your person and also goes through any magical defense between you and them not on your person (barriers) and destroys the barriers. The troll would probably be fine due to the engine hood not exactly being a magical defense. I don't actually know if warforged with a bunch of templates count as a magical defense or not.

Wall of Force was a round 1 build.

Based upon the examples of magical defenses it lists, I expect it to penetrate and destroy/suppress things like Blur, Mage Armor, Energy Immunity, or Wall of X (because those are barriers to dealing damage). I don't think temporary hp would count as a magical defense in this context because it not does not prevent the damage, it merely allows the person to take that much damage (in contrast to all the example defenses).

So for Round 3 I am going to allow temporary hp.


Ah, sorry I was being lazy. I was halfway into detailing the my old re-usable psionic tattoo circuit of wish, but I found myself getting carried away and was constantly adding stuff. Instead of detailing the use of psionic tattoo circuits, demi-planes of timeless repeating magic, Candle of Invocation/chain gating Solars for free wishes etc, I just used 2 temporary auto-resetting Wish traps.

For the sake of brevity, I have 2 temporary auto-resetting Wish traps that are powering the effects in the preparation section. These will be sold off to reduce WBL once preparations have been made. By then the 2 dragons will have sufficient power to cast the spells themselves.

These temporary items will be paid for via Dark Craft gold and XP by using the sacrifice rules in BOVD. (I think in my last build stub, I left out the part about Machoism allowing a boosted skill check that will give several billion Dark Craft Gold and GP)

Final WBL 353,645 gp from the following:

Sounds good. That is a round 3 victory.

High Initative, Movement, Temp Hp, Saves, Attack, Damage, Con, with the ability to heal the Con damage
Chance of failure: 1141/8000 (chance of not making the 3 saves)
Distance to ground zero: Within 20ft(closest)
Golf Score: 0


Btw, my six walls can use contingent contingent time stop to go off without a hitch. I do not think you take the golem's damage in time stop, so "timestop as soon as I become aware of a threat directed at me" would allow me to teleport to the golem, trap it with wall of force + quickened wall of force in 3 rounds.
I realize I never said how my walls got off.

Another way of beating it is to BECOME it. 2 contingencies on each of 1000 copies of yourself using abilities to bypass its immunity to mind affecting and magic then hit it with 1000 scryes and 1000 true mind switches.

Time Stop does not prevent aura effects. You might even suffer the aura effects per effective round depending on your DM.

Also since round 2 (round 3 now) Wall of Force is broken by the Heat Aura.

[Calthropstu]

We have a valid entry for round 3. Someone should make a new thread with a new victim target.





Wall of Force was a round 1 build.

Based upon the examples of magical defenses it lists, I expect it to penetrate and destroy/suppress things like Blur, Mage Armor, Energy Immunity, or Wall of X (because those are barriers to dealing damage). I don't think temporary hp would count as a magical defense in this context because it not does not prevent the damage, it merely allows the person to take that much damage (in contrast to all the example defenses).

So for Round 3 I am going to allow temporary hp.



Sounds good. That is a round 3 victory.

High Initative, Movement, Temp Hp, Saves, Attack, Damage, Con, with the ability to heal the Con damage
Chance of failure: 1141/8000 (chance of not making the 3 saves)
Distance to ground zero: Within 20ft(closest)
Golf Score: 0



Time Stop does not prevent aura effects. You might even suffer the aura effects per effective round depending on your DM.

Also since round 2 (round 3 now) Wall of Force is broken by the Heat Aura.

hmmm, well if we are simply trying to beat it numbers wise, the only option is infinite cheese. Still, having 1k simulacrums bypass its magic and mind affecting immunities in order to switch minds with it should be valid. It has to roll a nat 1 eventually.

But lets go by the numbers.

Double contingency, one crafted. First activate wall of force blocking line of effect, next activate planeshift to a realm where time is not a factor. Begin cranking out simulacrums of yourself. The goal here is 200 million simulacrums. Craft a portal for each one going to the location of the golem.

Each of your simulacrums stand by their portal and casts summon monster 5 getting multiple lantern archons which fire through the one way portals, bypassing the golems dr, hitting on 20s. 200 million x 1d3 = 400 million lantern archons firing through the portals which should equate to 40 million d6 damage.

[shaikujin]

Sounds good. That is a round 3 victory.

High Initative, Movement, Temp Hp, Saves, Attack, Damage, Con, with the ability to heal the Con damage
Chance of failure: 1141/8000 (chance of not making the 3 saves)
Distance to ground zero: Within 20ft(closest)
Golf Score: 0



Woot!! *Happy dance*

For reference purposes, my first thought was a level 1 DWK Kobold with Epic distance shot using Blood in the Water. Before I posted, you mentioned wanting to avoid the DWK argument :p

The V12 engine thingy came about coz I was recently looking at Gnome contraptions in Races of Ansalon (that's why I asked about that book). Was working on a couple of clockwork steampunk gadgets that have a crit range of 17-20, and also steampunk vehicles that can travel at the speed of light or faster.

Unfortunately, the craft check was the speed of light, so that drove me to look at obscene ways of boosting skill checks (such as the Omnificer). I was trying very hard to stay away from the established TO tricks, but it's so hard to look for another more convoluted method when you already know there's an existing TO method that would do exactly what I want...so most of the tricks I used are elements from TO builds others have posted before (including a couple from my older builds).

Saw this challenge and thought it would be cool to have an unstoppable steampunk'ish automaton with a magical V8 or V12 engine that's powered by a hamster!

Glad I could get it to work, and thanks for posting this challenge :D



Also, if temp HP didn't work, my plan for the next upgrade would be to cop-out and simply have a few thousand construct-turned-dragon minions cast Wish-Awaken (to bring casting time down to 1) every round on 1 dragon. After a million years in a fast time plane, its ability scores will be in the trillions. Then apply Petitioner template and Fusion -> Astral Seed. It's way more efficient than extract gift.

[OldTrees1]

hmmm, well if we are simply trying to beat it numbers wise, the only option is infinite cheese. Still, having 1k simulacrums bypass its magic and mind affecting immunities in order to switch minds with it should be valid. It has to roll a nat 1 eventually.

But lets go by the numbers.

Double contingency, one crafted. First activate wall of force blocking line of effect, next activate planeshift to a realm where time is not a factor. Begin cranking out simulacrums of yourself. The goal here is 200 million simulacrums. Craft a portal for each one going to the location of the golem.

Each of your simulacrums stand by their portal and casts summon monster 5 getting multiple lantern archons which fire through the one way portals, bypassing the golems dr, hitting on 20s. 200 million x 1d3 = 400 million lantern archons firing through the portals which should equate to 40 million d6 damage.

1)No mention about initiative? Bypassing initative(say with celerity or contingency) would increase golf score by 1.
2)Bypassing Heat Aura, Gravitic Aura, and Death Throes results in a minimum golf score of 2.
3)You would need to expand on the one-way portals. Those cannot be merely handwaved.
4)Do those castings of simulacrum exceed the 20th level WBL rule? Likewise do you have enough xp to pay all those xp costs? (Remember you must show your work if you use thought bottles).
5)Bypassing rather than overflowing DR would increase your golf score further.

[Calthropstu]

1)No mention about initiative? Bypassing initative(say with celerity or contingency) would increase golf score by 1.
2)Bypassing Heat Aura, Gravitic Aura, and Death Throes results in a minimum golf score of 2.
3)You would need to expand on the one-way portals. Those cannot be merely handwaved.
4)Do those castings of simulacrum exceed the 20th level WBL rule? Likewise do you have enough xp to pay all those xp costs? (Remember you must show your work if you use thought bottles).
5)Bypassing rather than overflowing DR would increase your golf score further.

Yes, using thought bottles and infinite money engines.

As for the one way portals, I am using the crafting of one way portals described in forgotten realms. The crafting costs a whopping 50k gold, requiring numerous castings of true creation to completely obliterate wbl, although it could be argued that you no longer own the simulacrum or portal once crafted... it becomes stationary. As such, it would be you reacquiring wbl. It would be similar to a mage using true creation to build bridges all over the world and charging for it.

I am well aware my golf score will be the pits, but damnit I just want to kill it reliably.

[OldTrees1]

Yes, using thought bottles and infinite money engines.

As for the one way portals, I am using the crafting of one way portals described in forgotten realms. The crafting costs a whopping 50k gold, requiring numerous castings of true creation to completely obliterate wbl, although it could be argued that you no longer own the simulacrum or portal once crafted... it becomes stationary. As such, it would be you reacquiring wbl. It would be similar to a mage using true creation to build bridges all over the world and charging for it.

I am well aware my golf score will be the pits, but damnit I just want to kill it reliably.

Rule 2 is still in effect. The Material Components used in simulacrum and the value of the portals are not exempt.

Also if you are using thought bottles, Rule 1 requires you to show your work.

If you don't care about the golf score, you could just tag it as a round 2 build.

[Calthropstu]

Ok, fair enough. I'll chalk that as r2 and figure something else for r3.