Invincible Melee Build?

[Galvicus]

Hi everyone,

I am a relatively new 3.5 player, and I was wondering whether there is any way to make a melee build literally invincible? I hope that your greater knowledge will help me here. Sorry for the vagueness of the question, but due to my unfamiliarity with the less well-known splatbooks e.t.c., I can not think of any suggestions to get the ball rolling.

Thanks,

G

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Half red dragon warforged with blueshine-enhanced armored body, Human Heritage, and Troll Blooded? Just take a level of crusader for infinite healing, and you're set.

[ColorBlindNinja]

How melee are we talking? Can this build have spellcasting?

[Andor13]

Short answer, no, of course not.

To slightly expand on that, a high level caster can banish someone to Hell. There is no amount of sword that beats that.

Now if you mean "Unkillable in a fight" then I think there is some combination of splat-stuff that can do that (I think Troll-blooded factors into it.) But note that that won't stop the Tarrasque from swallowing you, it just means in its belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years.

[sleepyphoenixx]

No.
There are various ways to become immune to hp damage, generally by getting regeneration, immunity to that regenerations weakness and immunity to nonlethal damage.
You can stack various immunities on top of that, but the right spell will still kill you, as will anyone who packs a few doses of Trollbane.

[Galvicus]

How melee are we talking? Can this build have spellcasting?

It can have some spellcasting, but should still be melee-centric.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It can have some spellcasting, but should still be melee-centric.

So, a Cleric build would be fine? Because you can use Miracle to get Favor of the Martyr and Shapechange into an Elemental Weird to be immune to damage, since nothing bypasses its regeneration.

Cast Dweomer of Transference or Selective/Initiate of Mystra Antimagic Field spell/magic immunity and you're immune to most attack forms in the game.

You'd still want spells like Death Ward and Mind Blank, but aside from that, you're nigh invincible.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Psion/metamind 10 who uses font of power, timeless body, and temporal reiteration to become immune to everything but dead magic areas and null psionic fields. Just stay away from dispels.

Alternatively, three levels in illithid savant would allow you to eat a metamind to get font of power without metamind.

[Galvicus]

So, a Cleric build would be fine? Because you can use Miracle to get Favor of the Martyr and Shapechange into an Elemental Weird to be immune to damage, since nothing bypasses its regeneration.

Cast Dweomer of Transference or Selective/Initiate of Mystra Antimagic Field spell/magic immunity and you're immune to most attack forms in the game.

You'd still want spells like Death Ward and Mind Blank, but aside from that, you're nigh invincible.

Yes, Cleric would be fine. Thanks for your help!

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yes, Cleric would be fine. Thanks for your help!

No problem. As a bonus, Clerics get plenty of buffs to make them effective in melee. :smallsmile:

[Jack_Simth]

You can get close with something like an Emerald Legionnair (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?101587-D-amp-D-3-5-The-Emerald-Legion-Mass-Producing-Ikea-Tarrasques) with antimagic shackles.

[ExLibrisMortis]

There's a funky combo that consists of forced dream, Delay, and Share Powers (with a psicrystal, generally, but a few hundred symbionts is better (thralls, dominate, shapechange, that sort of thing)) that lets you "scout ahead" in time and reset to the start of your or one of your allies' turns if things transpire that you don't like. Forced dream is only a third-level power, so you can technically bolt all of that onto a melee build.

[bean illus]

I am a relatively new 3.5 player,

<snip>
Sorry for the vagueness of the question, but due to my unfamiliarity with the less well-known splatbooks e.t.c. ... G


Yes, Cleric would be fine. Thanks for your help!

I think some of the advice here might quickly exceed what the o p needs.

Galvicus, how advanced is the rest of your table? What level are you starting at? And do you know how High a level you will be playing to?

Straight core cleric is a great melee option. It only gets stronger with splat books and prcs.

[Jack_Simth]

Let's see... a few other options... warning: Heavy cheddar!


1) Use Eschew Materials (core) to cast Ice Assassin (Frostburn, spell) to get an Aleax (Book of Exalted Deeds, template) of a Psion(Telepath) -17 (Expanded Psionic Handbook) (or better).
2) Get a Powerstone of True Mind Switch (Expanded Psionic Handbook).
3) Have the Ice Assasin Aleax True Mind Switch with you.

Normally, Ice Assassin requires a piece of the creature you're duplicating. Technically, however, this has no value, so Eschew Materials bypasses it. An Aleax is immune to all attacks, save from the target, thanks to Singular Enemy (Ex), so you can't attack it. However: Nothing stops it from doing things to you. True Mind Switch works both ways, and leaves Ex abilities with the body... which includes Singular Enemy. You now have immunity to all attack forms, save those from the original Psion you copied (who doesn't need to still be alive).

Requires a 9th level Sor/Wiz spell, but you could be a Gish. Or just cast Tensors Transformation. The drawback isn't going to be overly problematic for you after you do this.



1) Be a Sorcerer-10/Master of Transmorgifist-10 (Complete Arcane).
2) Get the Reserves of Strength (Dragonlance Campaign Setting, copyright Wizards of the Coast) feat, to boost CL by three, as well as spell caps.
3) Have one of your favored forms be the Ocean Giant (Monster Manual II - 3.0, but has a 3.5 update booklet)
4) Realize that Polymorph Any Object removed type restrictions, and can thus do Constructs.
5) Look up the Zodar (Fiend Folio - 3.0, but has a 3.5 update booklet) for it's Invulnerability (Ex).
6) Cast Polymorph Any Object to turn yourself into an Ocean Giant, using Infinite Variety from Master Transmorgifist to nab the Zodar's Invulnerability.

The Zodar's Invulnerability applies to everything except bludgeoning weapons. The Ocean Giant has immunity to bludgeoning weapons. Master Transmorgifist adds Ex abilities to what you get from Polymorph spells. The net effect is straight-up immunity to everything. As a bonus, you have the Invulnerability(Ex) trait, by name. And that PaO spell should last a long time (Kingdom and same or Lower Int are trivial here, and that's a +7 duration factor between them; Giants are vaugely humanoid, or you might get related by having the cold or aquatic subtypes for the remaining +2 to get to +9 and Permanent- talk to your DM)

You're a Huge caster with 39 Strength (before items or other spells to increase that). You only have a BAB of +10/+5, but with the strength mixed in, you can melee just fine against most of the monster manual.

[Goaty14]

Does Pun-Pun count as a melee-centric build? He is a paladin after all :smallamused:


Straight-up immunity to everything

Still not immune to a deity reforming reality without you in it. :smallamused: The real question is if you really died?

[Psyren]

For the second one, can't the PAO just be dispelled/disjoined/suppressed?

[Jack_Simth]

For the second one, can't the PAO just be dispelled/disjoined/suppressed?

That would, itself, constitute an attack. You're immune. The DM may not see it that way, though.

Deific intervention amounts to DM fiat, and there can be no rules based defense against such.

Posting from mobile is annoying.

[sleepyphoenixx]

That would, itself, constitute an attack. You're immune. The DM may not see it that way, though.

Deific intervention amounts to DM fiat, and there can be no rules based defense against such.

Posting from mobile is annoying.

You can target a dispel directly at a spell if you can see magic. And the spell isn't you, so that would definitely work.
Someone with an active AMF on them walking next to you isn't an attack either.

[DeTess]

Op, will there be other pc's in your group to which one or more of the following words apply: 'invincible', 'unstopable', 'immortal', 'godlike'?

If yes, go right ahead with using this thread's advice.

If not, roll a straight cleric or a straight crusader (which is significantly easier to play for a beginner) and call it a day. You, your dm and your fellow players will have a lot more fun that way.

[Psyren]

You can target a dispel directly at a spell if you can see magic. And the spell isn't you, so that would definitely work.
Someone with an active AMF on them walking next to you isn't an attack either.

^ that, and I would dispute a disjunction going off in your vicinity as an attack too - it doesn't target you.

[sleepyphoenixx]

^ that, and I would dispute a disjunction going off in your vicinity as an attack too - it doesn't target you.

According to the definition in the Invisibility spell any AoE spell that includes an enemy in its area of effect and isn't a pure buff counts as an attack, and that's the only definition i know of.
Not that it matters. Disjunction doesn't target creatures, it targets magical effects and items directly. So again any immunity a creature might have doesn't apply.

[tricktroller]

Invincibility is boring! I've played a warforged juggernaut with troll blood before and while it was funny at first, the DM and monsters quickly just started to ignore me.

Now playing something potent that is hard to hit is a lot of fun!

Depending on what level you are going to get you can play some really fun builds!

Fighter 2/Swordsage 4/Lion Totem Barbarian 1/Exotic Weapon Master 1/Champion of Corellon Larethian 2\ Eternal Blade 10

ACF
Drow hit and run fighter

If Flaws are allowed
Fl1 Expertise
Fl2 Mounted combat

Feats
1 EWP Elven Thinblade
F1 Weapon Focus Thin blade
F2 Dodge
3rdExpertise *(Exotic Armor Prof Gnomish Twistcloth)
6th Mounted *Combat (Shadow hand)
9th Shadow Hand *(Power Attack)
12th Power Attack *(Imp UAS)
15th Imp UAS *(Snap Kick)
18th Snap Kick *(Flying Kick)


Equipment
+1 to +5 gnomish twistcloth
+1 to +5 animated heavy steel shield
crystal of arrow defelction, lesser (Cheese! adds +5 to AC vs all ranged attacks, even ranged touch)
Feycrafted aptitude Elven Thinblade
Ring of blinking
ghost shroud
gloves of dex +6
belt of giant strength +6

With this build you'll do triple dex to anyone flatfooted (I.E. everyone without see invis or true seeing) and double strength to damage, with double power attack returns on your thin blade you are two handing.

Feycrafted gives you weapon finesse and aptitude allows you to use the sword with shadow hand.

Ring of blinking makes you attack as though you are invisible and gauntlets of ghostfighting makes your sword ghost touch and lose the 20% miss chance.

With the pounce ability you get to swing full attacks at enemies. Including the snap kick which is low damage for an UAS but still gets all of your dex bonus to damage twice and with flaws will also get the benefit og flying kick for an extra d12 to damage.

You'll also have a pretty high AC that is almost the same as your touch ac.

So you're swinging a sword around and kicking people and laying on the hurt and not just being a charger or a TWF-er and you have an Initiator level of 16 which gives you 8th level maneuvers on a sword sage chassis.

[Psyren]

According to the definition in the Invisibility spell any AoE spell that includes an enemy in its area of effect and isn't a pure buff counts as an attack, and that's the only definition i know of.
Not that it matters. Disjunction doesn't target creatures, it targets magical effects and items directly. So again any immunity a creature might have doesn't apply.

That's what I meant by "doesn't target you." Apologies for not being clear.

[Jack_Simth]

You can target a dispel directly at a spell if you can see magic. And the spell isn't you, so that would definitely work.
Someone with an active AMF on them walking next to you isn't an attack either.
If an NPC warlock with "Walk Unseen" was dispelling your buffs and sundering your items, but not breaking invisibility "because he's not attacking you", would you be upset with the DM?

[Endarire]

Chrono Trancer (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=17550.msg330260#msg330260).

Hood (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=7200.0).

"Invincible" is probably too strong a term for these. "Game winner" is likely more accurate.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If an NPC warlock with "Walk Unseen" was dispelling your buffs and sundering your items, but not breaking invisibility "because he's not attacking you", would you be upset with the DM?

Not really. Shatter only works on nonmagical objects anyway and is a sonic spell, so it's not like you wouldn't notice the noise it makes the first time he uses it. And any wizard with Improved Invis could do the same (or a lot worse).
Walk Unseen is also a lesser invocation so he'd have to be at least 6th level. At that point your weapon is unlikely to be nonmagical and he'd be giving up an invocation that's actually dangerous.

Dispel is presumably invisible and silent, but a dispel from invis is a legitimate opener and a lot less dangerous than other possibilities.
Not to mention that he'd have to target each buff individually instead of all of them with a targeted dispel at a creature so it's hardly an efficient strategy.

[Jack_Simth]

Not really. Shatter only works on nonmagical objects anyway and is a sonic spell, so it's not like you wouldn't notice the noise it makes the first time he uses it. And any wizard with Improved Invis could do the same (or a lot worse).
Walk Unseen is also a lesser invocation so he'd have to be at least 6th level. At that point your weapon is unlikely to be nonmagical and he'd be giving up an invocation that's actually dangerous.

Not Shatter. Sunder. Possibly via the Ranged Sunder feat (Complete Warrior). Works just fine on magical items.


Dispel is presumably invisible and silent, but a dispel from invis is a legitimate opener and a lot less dangerous than other possibilities.
Not to mention that he'd have to target each buff individually instead of all of them with a targeted dispel at a creature so it's hardly an efficient strategy.
Depends on how long it takes you to notice. Some things have obvious effects, sure, but Mage Armor, for instance, is invisible. How quickly would you actually notice it's gone?

[Heliomance]

Isn't this what the goal of the Ikea Tarrasque was?

[jdizzlean]

the only way to be truly immune to everything is to sufficiently bribe your GM IRL, otherwise, rocks fall and you die is still a thing.

as are custom magic items, artifacts, or intelligent items created solely to destroy you.

especially as a new player, stop trying to be "THE BEST THING EVER" and just play the game. there is no such thing as the best thing ever when your fate is ultimately decided by the roll of the dice. go ahead and make the immune to everything build, and then watch in horror as the DM opens up a mile wide hole in the ground under your feet and you fall to your death.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Not Shatter. Sunder. Possibly via the Ranged Sunder feat (Complete Warrior). Works just fine on magical items.
Ah, i thought you meant the Baleful Utterance invocation. So Ranged Sunder with Eldritch Blast?
Even if he's invisible his Eldritch Blast is not. So he gets one shot at one of your items, at a quarter damage before hardness (EB does half against objects, as does Ranged Sunder), before you know where he is and can retaliate. That's not going to do much. And keep in mind he'd have to be level 6 at least. By that time countering invisibility isn't much of an issue.

For reference, he'd have to do more than 40 damage to ranged sunder a non-magical iron sword or armor like that. That's... rather unlikely.

And yeah, i know people talk about sundering holy symbols and spell component pouches to neutralize casters, but that's armchair strategists.
In an actual game that tactic works maybe once against players who don't know enough to counter it.
Sanctified armor/shields are a thing you can afford at level 1, as are backups. And a lot of spells don't even need components.

So unless you have a super-effective sunder target i'm not thinking of you're blowing your surprise attack on maybe inconveniencing one player for a bit and costing him 1-25gp. At level 6+. That's not exactly a lethal alpha strike. I certainly wouldn't call it unfair.

I suppose you could be a **** and target someone's Handy Haversack, but aside from making no sense IC and violating the "don't be a ****" rule that kind of thing also only works exactly once before players take precautions and start casting Hardening and Augment Object on everything they own.


Depends on how long it takes you to notice. Some things have obvious effects, sure, but Mage Armor, for instance, is invisible. How quickly would you actually notice it's gone?
Since Warlocks don't have move silently and we're talking level 6+? Probably not too long. Invisible opponents are a thing after all, and most of them do more dangerous things.
Sure, dispelling buffs from invisibility before attacking is a good tactic - for warlocks, other casters can hardly afford to use a dispel for every single buff - but it's hardly gamebreaking.

[Ruethgar]

You can target a dispel directly at a spell if you can see magic. And the spell isn't you, so that would definitely work.
Someone with an active AMF on them walking next to you isn't an attack either.

If you make it based off of Ravenloft Device “magic” then it cas’t be dispelled, disjoined, and can function in a dead magic zone. They are, however Ex abilities at that point which I think can be suppressed/removed some other way though you are probably immune.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If you make it based off of Ravenloft Device “magic” then it cas’t be dispelled, disjoined, and can function in a dead magic zone. They are, however Ex abilities at that point which I think can be suppressed/removed some other way though you are probably immune.

Ravenloft Device Magic is 3rd party. Obscure, unbalanced, crappy 3rd party. So i give it the same consideration that i give to the homebrew on D&D Wiki. Which is none.

[Calthropstu]

Wield a ghost touch artifact weapon.
Become incorporeal.
Be immune to the effects of your own antimagic field.
Get an antimagic field.
Immune to nonmagical weapons.
All magical weapons become nonmagical.
All spells can't target you.

Unless another artifact weapon comes into play, you're almost invincible. Unless a ghost comes along.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Wield a ghost touch artifact weapon.
Become incorporeal.
Be immune to the effects of your own antimagic field.
Get an antimagic field.
Immune to nonmagical weapons.
All magical weapons become nonmagical.
All spells can't target you.

Unless another artifact weapon comes into play, you're almost invincible. Unless a ghost comes along.

Serren bows, crossbows and arrows have non-magical ghost touch. There's also alchemical items like Ghostblight that work in AMF.

[Calthropstu]

Serren bows, crossbows and arrows have non-magical ghost touch. There's also alchemical items like Ghostblight that work in AMF.

Ok. 80% invincible.