The Humanoid Optimization

[Aniikinis]

This is something that was done a few years ago and I figured I might wanna see how stupid this can get. Previous thread from 2014 here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?336130-Optimization-Challenge-The-Humanoid&p=17152718#post17152718)


So was playing around with the monster advancement rules and it registered to me how ridiculous it was that 4 humanoid hit dice = 1 CR. This is a problem that typically is true of all of the hit dice CR advancement, but the idea that 4 blank hit dice is equivalent to a class level is... well kind of silly. I mean, obviously it's still worse than a caster... but if you took nothing but hit dice, you're almost certainly beating the snot out of any fighter or rogue type character.

So I decided to turn it into a class table and see what happens.


The Humanoid


Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 +3 +1 +4 +1 Bonus Hit Dice
2 +6/+1 +2 +6 +2 -
3 +9/+3 +4 +8 +4 -
4 +12/+7/+2 +5 +10 +5 -
5 +15/+10/+5 +6 +12 +6 -
6 +18/+13/+8/+3 +8 +14 +8 -
7 +21/+16/+11/+6 +9 +16 +9 -
8 +24/+19/+14/+9 +10 +18 +10 -
9 +27/+22/+17/+12 +12 +20 +12 -
10 +30/+25/+20/+15 +13 +22 +13 -
11 +33/+28/+23/+18 +14 +24 +14 -
12 +36/+31/+26/+21 +16 +26 +16 -
13 +39/+34/+31/+24 +17 +28 +17 -
14 +42/+37/+32/+27 +18 +30 +18 -
15 +45/+40/+35/+30 +20 +32 +20 -
16 +48/+43/+38/+33 +21 +34 +21 -
17 +51/+46/+41/+36 +22 +36 +22 -
18 +54/+49/+44/+39 +24 +38 +24 -
19 +57/+52/+47/+42 +25 +40 +25 -
20 +60/+55/+50/+45 +26 +42 +26 -

Hit Die-d8
Class Skills-The Humanoid has no skills treated as class skills.
Skill Points at first level 14+7*intelligence modifier
Skill Points at each additional level 8+4*intelligence modifier
Weapon and Armor proficiency-The Humanoid is proficient with all simple weapons, and all armor and shields, including tower shields.

Class Abilities:

Bonus Hit Die-Every level of Humanoid grants 3 additional bonus humanoid hit dice. These hit dice provide all normal benefits. The bonuses to BAB, Saves, and Skill Points are accounted for on the Humanoid's class table. Each hit die also gains the Humanoid's constitution modifier as a bonus to HP as any other hit die. These bonus hit dice also grant stat increases and bonus feats as normal. As normal, a humanoid that exceeds 20 hit dice qualifies for epic feats. For a single classed humanoid, this happens at level 6.

Short, simple, to the point. He gets one class feature, but it makes enough impact to singlehandedly render everyone without spellcasting obsolete.

So a single classed humanoid gets 80 hit dice, with 60 BAB, ridiculous saves, gains effectively 1 bonus feat every level (including 15 epic feats) in addition to his normal level up feats, and gains 1 stat boost every level.

As far as I can tell, the BAB and Saves are legitimate, as the Epic BAB/Save progression only kicks in above level 20, not above 20 hit dice. See: Numerous examples of monsters with more than 20 hit dice with normal BAB and saves. though changing that drops the BAB down from 60 to 45, it brings the 'bad' saves up from +26 to +36.

It also doubles as a pretty decent skill monkey despite having no class skills. At 4hd per level its cross class skills still grow at double the rate of any other class's class skills, and getting 8+4*int mod points per level lets it have effectively 4+2*int skills being increased to the normal cap, or half that number being brought up to absurd levels. Good feat selection and/or a dip into rogue/factotum makes the skills far more effective.

My knowledge of optimization and feats aren't quite up to the task of breaking this baby wide open, so I was wondering how bad it can get.

[AvatarVecna]

The Humanoid




Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special


1
+3
+1
+4
+1
Bonus Hit Dice


2
+6/+1
+2
+6
+2
-


3
+9/+3
+4
+8
+4
-


4
+12/+7/+2
+5
+10
+5
-


5
+15/+10/+5
+6
+12
+6
-


6
+18/+13/+8/+3
+8
+14
+8
-


7
+21/+16/+11/+6
+9
+16
+9
-


8
+24/+19/+14/+9
+10
+18
+10
-


9
+27/+22/+17/+12
+12
+20
+12
-


10
+30/+25/+20/+15
+13
+22
+13
-


11
+33/+28/+23/+18
+14
+24
+14
-


12
+36/+31/+26/+21
+16
+26
+16
-


13
+39/+34/+31/+24
+17
+28
+17
-


14
+42/+37/+32/+27
+18
+30
+18
-


15
+45/+40/+35/+30
+20
+32
+20
-


16
+48/+43/+38/+33
+21
+34
+21
-


17
+51/+46/+41/+36
+22
+36
+22
-


18
+54/+49/+44/+39
+24
+38
+24
-


19
+57/+52/+47/+42
+25
+40
+25
-


20
+60/+55/+50/+45
+26
+42
+26
-



Hit Die-d8
Class Skills-The Humanoid has no skills treated as class skills.
Skill Points at first level 14+7*intelligence modifier
Skill Points at each additional level 8+4*intelligence modifier
Weapon and Armor proficiency-The Humanoid is proficient with all simple weapons, and all armor and shields, including tower shields.

Class Abilities:

Bonus Hit Die-Every level of Humanoid grants 3 additional bonus humanoid hit dice. These hit dice provide all normal benefits. The bonuses to BAB, Saves, and Skill Points are accounted for on the Humanoid's class table. Each hit die also gains the Humanoid's constitution modifier as a bonus to HP as any other hit die. These bonus hit dice also grant stat increases and bonus feats as normal. As normal, a humanoid that exceeds 20 hit dice qualifies for epic feats. For a single classed humanoid, this happens at level 6.

Alright, so: a quick check with a spreadsheet tells me that your maximum cross-class skill ranks starts pulling ahead of a regular character's maximum class skill ranks at level 3 and just continues getting worse (at level 20, their max is 23 and yours is 41). However, if you can get skills as class skills, you'll be ahead at level 1 and just gain even more ground the further you go. This means you're going to be an absolute god at opposed checks, and you're gonna be actually playing around with epic skill uses way before anybody else. The "Mad Grenadier" feat lets you use a readied action to throw a thunderstone at somebody casting to force a "your Craft (Alchemy) vs their Concentration" opposed check to make them flub their spell. If you invest in Craft (Alchemy), you can use it at a penalty to make poisons powerful enough to be relevant at your level - oh yeah have a Poison Handbook (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=2714.0). Of course, this works a whole lot sooner (and for a lot more skills) if you can find ways to add skills to your class skill list, so have a handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?451088-Alternative-ways-to-get-new-Class-skills) for that too.

Oh, and checking out epic feats, while there's some nice options, it's hard to beat Epic Leadership. Heck, even regular Leadership could get you a pretty solid caster buddy. Of course, the deflection line of epic feats are really solid defense for anybody, so that's nice.

[WhamBamSam]

Martial Study/Stance is low hanging fruit. You'll consistently have twice the IL of a full initiator. They also make discipline skills into class skills, which is potentially helpful.

If you have enough Wis, you can cast a spell off a Cleric domain that your character level is high enough to cast once per day with the higher order ability from Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment).

Other Touchstone abilities should also have this sort of scaling, the breath weapon from Touchstone (Blue Dragon's Graveyard) is one off the top of my head

Tangentially related to that, the Humanoid could presumably go Dragonborn to get its breath weapon (or any of the other aspects) rapidly accelerated.

[SimonMoon6]

This to me is simply indicative of the tier system and how CR has to be calculated by guesswork since levels and HD aren't very good judges of threat level.

To be more clear: a lot of monsters that can't do anything but fight are given CRs that are way lower than their HD* because someone that can only fight just isn't much of a threat (they are a low tier class, in a sense). But, on the other hand, one level of a character class is supposed to be the same as one CR, so both a 15th level wizard and a 15th level fighter are supposed to be CR 15 even though the wizard is a serious threat and the fighter isn't. But if a monster has the same capabilities as a 15th level fighter, that monster will be given a CR that is way less than 15 because obviously such a character/monster is no threat for a 15th level party. And that's just weird to me.

*usually at higher levels. At low levels, you might still get things like That Damned Crab with low CR and high effectiveness.

[Zaq]

Hmmm. If we lean really hard on the glossary entry for HD on pg. 309 of the PHB, we might be able to qualify early for stuff like the Open X Chakra feats. Kind of ambiguous, really, but it might work. For that matter, just a few "levels" in this class will max out your normal essentia cap pretty well. There's rules for epic essentia cap progression, but you lose the diminishing returns game pretty fast. In a totally different vein, get a single die of Sneak Attack and then the Craven feat starts looking really nice.

The problem is that if we start using "HD" as synonymous with "character level" and try to use that to qualify for stuff with a prereq of a specific character level, it's hard to argue that we wouldn't be breaking our own ECL and therefore getting way less XP than one might expect. (Yes, the whole joke is that 4 humanoid RHD allegedly equals 1 CR, but PCs don't have CR, they have ECL.) I can see a consistent reading of "your character level, including your ECL, is still your number of actual class levels, including 1 per "humanoid" level" and I can see a consistent reading of "your character level, including your ECL, is your number of HD," but I can't see a consistent reading of "your character level is your number of HD but your ECL is your number of actual class levels." Double-edged sword.

Also worth mentioning is that if we're really counting folks with 20+ HD as "epic," it's hard to argue that we don't use the epic save/attack bonus rules on pg. 6 of the ELH. Though actually rereading that page, it does use the term "character level" a bit, so that might force our collective hands in terms of answering the "does HD = ECL or not" question. If that is indeed the case, it may be best to use this Humanoid class to simply bootstrap up to an obnoxiously fast start, then take real classes after taking 6-8 "levels" in Humanoid.

[BowStreetRunner]

I was thinking the interaction with feats like Improved Toughness (1 extra hp per hit die) would be nice here, but am having trouble finding many such feats.

Also, what happens here if you apply a template?

[Crake]

This is the same reason why CR and RHD+LA don't always (or rather, rarely ever) match. It's because CR generally covers the scope of a single fight, wheras ECL covers the scope of an entire campaign. Having 4 RHD is less valuable in a single fight than over a whole campaign, which is why 4RHD equals 4 levels vs 1 CR. That said, I don't actually know of a single humanoid that advances by HD.

[Zaq]

Abilities that mimic Frightful Presence are usually limited to affecting critters with fewer HD than you, so this would help with that. (I guess Dreadful Wrath is the most popular one because it's available at level 1 and also maybe doesn't have this problem, but I suppose there are other methods of getting FP other than Dreadful Wrath, right?)

[WhamBamSam]

Also, what happens here if you apply a template?I sorta touched on that when I mentioned Dragonborn, but I think it's getting a little outside the intent of the exercise to get too fancy on that front. I see the Humanoid as it's presented here as a sort of racial class, like the Dragon Magazine Dragon classes, for an ultra-generic humanoid - a perfectly smooth boy with nothing but a big bucket of HD to work with.

If we can pick any humanoid race and muck about with templates that don't change type, then I could think of some things. Lesser Tiefling into the Half-Fiend transition class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040319a) with Half-Fiendish Variety (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a) comes to mind off the top of my head.

[Aniikinis]

I'm really enjoying reading these and it's definitely giving me lots of inspiration and help.


This to me is simply indicative of the tier system and how CR has to be calculated by guesswork since levels and HD aren't very good judges of threat level.

To be more clear: a lot of monsters that can't do anything but fight are given CRs that are way lower than their HD* because someone that can only fight just isn't much of a threat (they are a low tier class, in a sense). But, on the other hand, one level of a character class is supposed to be the same as one CR, so both a 15th level wizard and a 15th level fighter are supposed to be CR 15 even though the wizard is a serious threat and the fighter isn't. But if a monster has the same capabilities as a 15th level fighter, that monster will be given a CR that is way less than 15 because obviously such a character/monster is no threat for a 15th level party. And that's just weird to me.

*usually at higher levels. At low levels, you might still get things like That Damned Crab with low CR and high effectiveness.

Agreed, the CR system is flawed to Dis and back and dnd is an unbalanced game made by freelancers with starry eyes and little oversight. Also Monte Cook.



The problem is that if we start using "HD" as synonymous with "character level" and try to use that to qualify for stuff with a prereq of a specific character level, it's hard to argue that we wouldn't be breaking our own ECL and therefore getting way less XP than one might expect. (Yes, the whole joke is that 4 humanoid RHD allegedly equals 1 CR, but PCs don't have CR, they have ECL.) I can see a consistent reading of "your character level, including your ECL, is still your number of actual class levels, including 1 per "humanoid" level" and I can see a consistent reading of "your character level, including your ECL, is your number of HD," but I can't see a consistent reading of "your character level is your number of HD but your ECL is your number of actual class levels." Double-edged sword.

That's the thing though, you can't really bypass level requirements, only HD, feat, and skill requirements. Additionally, as far as I can tell the only thing that really matter for the ECL calculation in this case is the level number, not the hit dice since they simply add numerical advantage and are given as the benefit of the class itself.


Also worth mentioning is that if we're really counting folks with 20+ HD as "epic," it's hard to argue that we don't use the epic save/attack bonus rules on pg. 6 of the ELH. Though actually rereading that page, it does use the term "character level" a bit, so that might force our collective hands in terms of answering the "does HD = ECL or not" question. If that is indeed the case, it may be best to use this Humanoid class to simply bootstrap up to an obnoxiously fast start, then take real classes after taking 6-8 "levels" in Humanoid.

This was touched upon in the original thread for this class, located here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?332557-Silly-Idea-The-Humanoid&p=17039941#post17039941). The epic progression only activates once the character hits 21 levels. The tarrasque and solar use the normal progression for their type since they're only bags of HD with no class levels.


I sorta touched on that when I mentioned Dragonborn, but I think it's getting a little outside the intent of the exercise to get too fancy on that front. I see the Humanoid as it's presented here as a sort of racial class, like the Dragon Magazine Dragon classes, for an ultra-generic humanoid - a perfectly smooth boy with nothing but a big bucket of HD to work with.

If we can pick any humanoid race and muck about with templates that don't change type, then I could think of some things. Lesser Tiefling into the Half-Fiend transition class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040319a) with Half-Fiendish Variety (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a) comes to mind off the top of my head.

I'd just like to point out that there is no race or type requirement to the class, meaning you can take the Humanoid class as any type. In the original thread, Vaynor mentioned this and then joked about a beholder taking the class.