Let me help

[Malapterus]

I have been posting more crap than usual lately due to a big campaign I am putting together and I really appreciate the helpful responsed I have been getting.

If anyone needs help with something I would love to return the favor. I could go through the posts, but most of them have already been answered.

If you need a class tweaked or a custom item or a weird build I am good at that sort of thing, or if you just want to know if there is a spell for this or that I will try to find it.

Anything you don't feel warrants starting a thread, just post here and I will check back.

[bean illus]

Well I'd be surprised if i had every helped you, but i might have tried to help someone. lol.

I have a project* ... it's here ...
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559394-Help-me-optimize-BoB-Fact5-Cham10-Please&p=23089609#post23089609
Actually you may have helped me some already.
Trying to write this has pushed me closer. Here's some of my thought process, though the build is edited to my new attempts (guesses, lol).
.........

The goals are to use Brains Over Brawn (BOB) with max INT, to build a grapplemancer/tripper with great skillz, and fairly good spell access.
I also hope to have a VoP option, so there goes two feats.

Plan is role play, utility, trip, and grapple casters with silent+still when the opportunity presents.

I have several iterations, but here is the most recent.

(Edited to include this post's ideas)
Human/Half Minotaur
Factotum 3/Passive Way Monk 2/Abruptjaunt acf 1/ Chameleon 10

Feats:
1 Factotum 1: Able Learner, Font of Inspiration1, Cunning Insight
2 Monk 1-Passive way: Combat Expertise, Improved Unarmed Strike
3 Monk 2: Carmendine Monk, Improved Trip
4 Factotum 2:
5 Factotum 3: Brains Over Brawn
6 Wizard 1-Conjurer Abrupt Jaunt ACF, Fighter Feat ACF: Improved Grapple, FoI2
7 Cloistered Cleric 1: Boccob- KnowDevo, Extend Spell/Ff, Open Domain/Ff

8 Chameleon 1
9 Chameleon 2: FLOATING FEAT (DMM Extend), Font of Inspiration3
12 Silent Spell
15 Still Spell
17 Chameleon 10:
18 Ordained Champion 1: Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Combat Reflexes (/Sacred Vow
19 Human Paragon 1:
20 Human Paragon 2: Quicken Spell(/VoP

?? Here's where I'm losing it. I still dont have Still Spell. Are my goals too big? Is swashbuckler wrong? Can i squeeze in PA? Should i drop both the CC and Wiz1 dips (leaving 5 open levels)? High level ToB dip?

Or patch together some silly bonus feats thing at the end ... ? Human Paragon 2 + Ordained Champion 1 why? 2 fighter feats and an open feat (I kinda like that)

18 Swashbuckler 1:
20 Swashbuckler 3: INT to dam.

**
Of course FoI 3 would let me spam +Int to both hit and damage 3x per encounter with Cunning Insight, while BoB adds + Int also to the trip and grapple checks. Without FoI 3 the concept starts to fall apart.

And of course touch spell attacks with Chameleon, and + ability boon ties in well.

But i can't find an elegant way to tidy it up. Though writing it for you has made me see it a bit clearer.
......

Any ideas, or does it look better with the new edits? Next question would be what feats at 18 and 20 if no VoP? and what 3rd domain either way? (Obviously DMM Persist if DM allows, but what else?)

There are 2 'any' feats, as many as 2 Ff (trade PA or Extend Spell), and a floating feat. That's got potential. Is Eschew Materials worth it on a grapplemancer? Or Extra Turning ... combat reflexes?

Damn ... Does Ability Boon stack with VoP Ability Score Enhancement?

Wow, it's got about everything i wanted. I've worked on this for years, and even hours today. It's never looked this tidy, or complete.
Do any of the levels look like they should be rearranged?

Well, believe it or not you've helped me quite a bit, even if you never read this. LOL

[Malapterus]

You've got a lot going on here. What part of it is important? Brains over Brawn is useful to a grappler or tripper but not -that- useful compared to other ways to improve your checks. You're baling out of Factotum before you get anything good anyway.

Half-Minotaur is a badly-written overpowered template that I honestly would not allow in any game for just the +1 LA.

So, if either of those things are vital, let me know, but if you want to go to town with a Large super-tripper-grappler that can throw spells, let me suggest this:

Since we don't care about an ugly mug, let's dabble into starting with an Ettin. If you dare borrow my Level Adjustment rules, to deal with the +5 LA, your first 5 levels would be creature levels of Giant - but it would be worth it.

Based on my calculations, the stat changes would be:

+12 Str, +4 Con, -2 Dex, -4 Int

This includes the racial mods plus the size mods for being Large.

A 10 HD Ettin has 4 feats, same as a level 10 character, so we shall presume none of his Feats are racial.

You're going to get:

Large Size, so that's +4 to all the stuff you want to do.
40 foot move speed
+7 Natural Armor
+2 Spot, Listen, and Search
Low-Light Vision

and!

Superior Two-Weapon Fighting (Ex)
-An ettin fights with a morningstar or javelin in each hand. Because each of its two heads controls an arm, the ettin does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with two weapons.

Now, I read that as each arm gets a full attack when making a full attack. I'd presume some issue with a two-handed or double weapon, but we're not worried about that here.

If your DM states it only covers the one free attack and you have to get the feats, we shall worry about that anon.

We're also getting 5d8 HD, 5 levels of Cleric BAB, 5 levels of good Fort saves, and 2+int/hd Skill Pints, which would probably be 5 but we're going to try to get around that.

Okay, now for more homebrew.

Templar Monk variant;

Lose, Flurry of Blows, Movement Speed Bonus

Gain; Casting as a Cleric, 1 domain, cannot sacrifice prepared spells for healing spells.

Monk 1 - Unarmed Strike. We're going to want both of these feats so let's take Stunning Fist as a class feat and come back for Improved Grapple later. Unarmed Strike is now 1d8 damage. You'll pick your Domain now and you're going to pick the Spell domain, trust me.

Monk 2 - Evasion. Combat Reflexes, definitely; you're too fast to worry about ranged attackers.

Monk 3 - Still Mind, whoop de doo.

Monk 4 - Ki Strike, useful for your unarmed style, and Slow Fall, which I guess is good to have and will get better here at level 19. Unarmed Strike is 2d6 here I believe.

Monk 5 - Purity of Body will help with the sort of things you eat as an Ettin.

Monk 6 - Improved Trip, of course.

Monk 7 - Wholeness of Body! Lay on Hands, but only on yourself, just like me

Monk 8 - Some more Slow Fall I guess

Monk 9 - Improved Evasion, which has to be fun to watch for a two-headed giant

Monk 10 - More Ki Strike and Slow Fall

Monk 11 - Diamond Body. Monks are more concerned about their body than John Mayer. I suppose this means you can smear contact poison on your fists, though. We do not get greater Flurry because of the class mod, but we DO get Greater Anyspell, which means we can now technically cast Polymorph. This is going to sort of permanently use up our Greater Anyspell but it is worth it because we can now get into WARSHAPER!
*Also, on your non-combat days you can prepare any spell of level 5 or lower; not picking Polymorph will kill your Warshaper features, but if you're not picking fights this is really, really useful.
**Oh, and our unarmed strike damage is now 2d8.

Warshaper 1 - Right out of the gate this prestige class gives you Morphic Immunities. You're throwing stuns as a Monk, but you can't be Stunned back! If someone tries to stab you in the liver, your liver instinctively crawls out of the way, making you immune to critical hits.
You also get Morphic Weaponry, which is way more complicated than what it does, but it means you can have Piercing or Slashing damage when you need it, or turn your fists into Huge Slam attacks, which is probably worse than your 2d8 unarmed strike but able to be enhanced with Magic Fang.

Warshaper 2 - Morphic Body - +4 Str and +4 Con, just for free. No strings.

Warshaper 3 - The Spell domain has a lot of great stuff in it for enhancing your limited spellcasing ability, and Warshaper 1 and 2 are awesome, but none of that is the reason we selected them. We are now ar Warshaper 3 and we get:
Morphic Reach - Stretchy Piccolo arms. RaW, this gives you an extra 5 feet of melee reach, but classes are written for small and medium characters. If I was your real dad DM I would say it doubles your Reach, giving the Ettin 20 feet, but even 15 feet is pretty cool for a grapple-tripper.

Warshaper 4 - We're not allowed back at the monastery after what we did in the donation box taking non-Monk levels, so let's just grab Warshaper 4. Fast Healing 2, and unlimited ability to spend a fill-round action to heal 10 more damage with a Con check.

If you can get your DM to let you make a custom Shapeshifting domain you can knock 2 levels off this and get something else, probably Fighter, but we're already pushing pretty hard.
Your spells are:
Mage Armor - insanely good for a Monk
Silence - a good giant grappler does not like to be interrupted
Anyspell - lets you prepare ANY Arcane spell of level 2 or lower so long as you have a spellbook or scroll or somesuch to read it from.
Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer - Extra spells or repeated spells. Greaty for cheesing your first three Domain spells so you can use them more times per day.
Break Enchantment - always good to have in your back pocket.
Greater Anyspell - works like Anyspell, but up to level 5 spells.

We're cut off there because we dumped our casting class, but that's a hell of a spread on top of your Cleric spells.

Let's assume now, a Point Buy for your stats, and further assume 32 points.

As we gets a total of +16 Strength through our careerer, we can capitalize on it or dump it and come out on top, I expect a middle ground.

Wisdom adds to your armor class and your spells and your save DCs and so much for you, and Dex adds armor class.

I'm going to give you:
Str- 14
Dex- 14
Con- 14
Int- 12
Wis- 16
Cha- 8

Which, at level 20, translates to:
Str- 30
Dex- 12
Con- 22
Int- 8 (you didn't want any Skill, (right?)
Wis- 16
Cha- 8

And we'll use the leveling bonuses for 1 more Str and 4 more Wis so:
Str- 31 (+10)
Dex- 12 (+1)
Con- 22 (+6)
Int- 8 (-1)
Wis- 20 (+5)
Cha- 8 (-1)

So, bare naked with naught to our name but a scroll of Polymorph, we have:

Attacks +24, +19, +14 then another +24, +19, +14 from the other arm dealing 2d8+20 or a Huge Slam, Gore, or Claw attack subject to enhancing with Magic Fang for two attacks at +24. In general, though, 6 Magic Lawful 2d8+20 attacks per round with no penalty.

Cleric Spells 0-6 with virtually unfettered access to lower-level Arcane spells that would make a Wizard wet himself.

15 or 20 foot reach depending on DM

Improved Grapple and Improved Trip, and a +4 to all related checks from being Large

+7 natural armor, +4 more from Mage Armor, +1 Dex, +5 Wis, -1 Size (boo) so AC 26, which is NOT bad for a naked guy.

Fast Healing 2, make a check at +6 to spend a full-round action gaining 10 HP, then more healing from Monk stuff.

Speed 40, don't forget that.

Immune to stun, poison, and critical hits.

Random Monk stuff.



Okay, so this is all before we picked any feats or spent any money, so at this point we're going to do a favor for a Wizard and get him to inscribe the spell for Polymorph onto the back of your hand as a tattoo. It's a little magical, but it doesn't DO anything, and you can't really sell it; it just lets you (or someone else) prepare the spell by looking at the back of your hand. If you want to go with Vow of Poverty, I can't imagine a DM would deny you this tattoo. Hell, since you're an unarmed attacker and can deal Nonlethal damage you could also go with Vow of Nonviolence, but I don't think you should chase that tail.

If we're skipping VoP, we can get some items, I am going to pitch this custom item which I will not bother pricing:

Tendriculos Wraps-
Taking up the Glove slot, these are hand bindings made from the tendrils of the Tendriculos plant. The wearer gains the Improved Grab ability when making unarmed strikes with their hands. Additionally, the wraps have 3 charges per day, ala the Spell Compendium discount bargain bin. A charge can be used for one of the following uses:
Spending a charge (command word) while successfully grappling an opponent causes the two sets of wraps to reach out and bind together. This prevents the user from separating their arms, granting them a +10 circumstance bonus to checks made to maintain their grapple and opposed grapple checks made by their victim.
Spending a charge (command word) causes the wraps to bind around any weapons in the user's hands. This makes the user unable to let go of the weapon(s) but grants them a +10 circumstance bonus to avoid being disarmed.
Returning the wraps to their normal state is a Command Word that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

You also want to get some Spell Storing Stuff so you can dump Anyspells into them during your vacation days.


I'm going to skip over the gear and feats for now, because this is probably WAY off from what you wanted - but if you like, then I'll flesh that out too.

If not, then tell me where I want wrong and what you're after and I shall try anon.

[bean illus]

I'll save my jokes till after i say thanks, and hey what's up.


You've got a lot going on here. What part of it is important? Brains over Brawn is useful to a grappler or tripper but not -that- useful compared to other ways to improve your checks. You're baling out of Factotum before you get anything good anyway.

Half-Minotaur is a badly-written overpowered template that I honestly would not allow in any game for just the +1 LA.

So, if either of those things are vital, let me know, ...

Wow, my build is so bad all you could say was "You got a lot going on"? lol

Half minotaur might be a bit over for +1, but not much. Are we using the same one? Dragon 313?
A large creature with scent and gore ... What's over powered? Darkvision?
I'm pretty sure it's the cheesiest thing in the build, but


... but if you want to go to town with a Large super-tripper-grappler that can throw spells, let me suggest this:
... Ettin. If you dare borrow my Level Adjustment rules, ...

I haven't read your LA rules, and i assume they're impressive, but I was thinking 1st party.


A 10 HD ... so we shall presume none of his Feats are racial.

and!

Superior Two-Weapon Fighting (Ex)


Half minotaur is too much so you suggest a better than epic feat that represents TWF, ITWF, GTWF, PTWF, and STWF.
No dm i know would give STWF before pre-epic levels.


Okay, now for more homebrew.

Templar Monk variant;

Lose, Flurry of Blows, Movement Speed Bonus

Gain; Casting as a Cleric, 1 domain, cannot sacrifice prepared spells for healing spells.

*...* Greater Anyspell, which means ... WARSHAPER!

I bet your a fun dm, where do you live?
Honestly, I think that's too much. I would say 1/2 casting while keep both domains and healing is a fair trade.


Okay, ... inscribe ... tattoo. It's a little magical, but it doesn't DO anything. If you want to go with Vow of Poverty, I can't imagine a DM would deny you this tattoo.

I've thought about that, but would need dm approval, since i think it's raw a magic item ...

If you noticed, i did make the build with both vop and nonvop options. That's important to me.


If we're skipping VoP, we can get some items, I am going to pitch this custom item ...

Tendriculos Wraps- ...

You're full of creativity.

As i go on, i would love some item advice for the no vop version, but no custom .. at least till after the builds done.


I'm going to skip ... because this is probably WAY off from what you wanted - but if you like, ...

If not, then tell me ...

Well if my sense of humor hasn't soured you, then I'll try to be less defensive and tell you where I'm comin' from.

In my entire dnd career since '78 there has ALWAYS been someone who wanted to be primary caster. And likewise there has always been someone who wanted to play primary melee. Which is fine because one takes SO much bookkeeping and the other becomes one dimensional or inconsequential.

And more, personality wise I'm more of a skills person. A jack-of-all-trades. A rugged individualist.
I started rogue, but rogue is more popular than cleric, and low level healbot is maybe a bit simpler than Wiz casting, so that became my spell introduction.

I alternately found myself often as the 5th/last person to join a group, or the 1st/2nd/only person. And i enjoy the 5th wheel/jack-of-all-trades/solo adventurer role (lame, i know).

As well, most games have been level 1-12, and rarely above, and never above 7th level spells.


So for numerous reasons, including lack of fluency and the cheese allergies of my peers, i always build with a few guidelines and preferences* ...


1 Only 1st party sources.
2 Mostly core + the standards. In a full build a few books are allowed, but try to keep cherry picking to a minimum.
3 Avoid polymorph/natural spell etc as the base of a build.
4* Limit cheese, RAW, and RAI arguements as much as possible by accepting the common opinions on this board in advance of expectations.
5 A 20th level build without 5th+ level spells (or equivalent) can be irrelevant at even moderate optimization at higher levels.
6 Limit LA to +2 and buy-off

Preferences (usual and/or this build)

1 I really don't know how to not play face.
2 I love the (impossible dream) Jack-of-all-trades. A small solo mission at any level 1-20. Anti-magic field, or avoid detection and do some spying, but no 9ths or bookkeeping nightmares. Chameleon is an accepted go to for these levels.

What's intrinsic to this build?
A chameleon tripping grapplemancer, Int focused. Probably facto3 and monk2.
* I would like to cast during grapple. DMM quicken, and silent still during grapple* is an action economy advantage (of course vop frees from nearly all material components).

Am i wrong? Is it silly? Is there 0 use on the field for a tattooed factomeleon grapplemancer with 0 spell components and dmm quicken?

The wiz1 is for 12+ teleports a day. CC/OC/HP is for +5 to hit and dam on most anytime and 2 needed martial feats + 1 any feat, and dmm quicken, but neither is intrinsic to concept.


The vop is sorta a different project that i think is best used on this character. An option for if the perfect campaign arose. "What would this look like"?

The finished build (next huge step) will spend half wbl before taking vop on wishes and ...
Tattooing geometer? spells all over his body. I think somehow there's an faq that says 88 spells? I don't yet know how to calculate that cost.

I also plan to cheese vop with permanencys on my staff, which by definition is not a magic item but a spell on my staff.

If your bored, or see any suggestion on how to slightly tweak or rearrange the current build, or can help with the 88 arcane tatoos, I'd be interested.
Or LA options +0 to +2 that are humans (i kinda like minotaur, don't know why)?

I really think quicken silent still tattooed grapplemancer chameleon vop sounds super cool, and if i could get it optimized to a tier 2-3 table i would be thrilled.