"I only hit on a natural 20!"

[EliDupree]

So, this isn't a serious idea, but I'm curious how far the playground can go with it.

What if you made a build based on making ordinary attacks, but completely sacrificed your attack rolls for other benefits, and relied on natural twenties to hit at all?

So far, I've got:
– always fight defensively (+2 AC)
– always max Power Attack
– you're free to use weapons you're not proficient with
– you're free to dual wield
– critical threat range doesn't matter, so you can take the weapon with the highest critical multiplier (although it's still hard to confirm crits)

And I'm still looking for:
– ways to make the highest number of attacks per round, for more opportunities to roll 20
– other ways to make 20s more likely (luck reroll type stuff?)
– ways to auto-confirm crits
– good exotic weapons for this build
– additional ways to take penalties on your attack rolls for other benefits
– anything else suitably humorous or clever for this situation

Thoughts? :smalltongue:

[Bucky]

You lose less than others from fighting at extreme ranges since the extra range increments don't matter.

[ericgrau]

It is good for some lulz, but we have to ignore the rule where the DM is supposed to say, "This is too crazy to hit even on a 20". A -50 to hit might be considered a good reason. Though I did find it interesting that I saw this in the PHB yet don't seem to see it in the SRD. Unless it's in another section outside of the start of the Combat section. I only see "always" hit on a 20, miss on a 1. There must be some pretty dysfunctional things you can do with that. For example throw an ally at the Earth until you miss.


You lose less than others from fighting at extreme ranges since the extra range increments don't matter.
Hmm, brilliant energy bow and a magical way to remotely view an area. Far shot. Fly over and snipe everyone in the dungeon from 2,200' away. If there's some kind of phase enchantment that would be better so you can hit non-living creatures. Greater invis is nice too, since true seeing has a limited range. See invisibility's range limit is your normal vision, but not a lot of monsters have it. Or simple hiding. a -20 to hide isn't bad when foes have up to a -400 distance penalty to spot. Or if you're completely covered they'll need to follow the arrows back or something. I mean in case monsters panic and pour out of the dungeon looking for the attacker. Though taking them away from their barricades is nice already.

[Quertus]

IIRC, the "aggressive" trait gives you -1 attack, +1 damage.

[Uncle Pine]

You can also use a cursed -2 adamantine weapon to always have access to it, even when it's stripped from you or after attempting a ranged attack against a shark while standing on a boat.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Combat Expertise to push fighting defensively to -5 hit +5 AC
Improved Combat Expertise to push it to BAB don't see any rules conflict in using CE and PA both for a number equal to your BAB.

Defending weapon property if we can't find something better.

You can take Noncombatant and Shaky as painless flaws.

[flappeercraft]

Maybe use Lightning Mace which makes you get an extra attack every time you hit with a build like this.

[daremetoidareyo]

There is a scorpion Clan ancestor feat in the 3.5 update of Oriental Adventures found in Dragon magazine number 318. It is called audacious attempt. Once per ENCOUNTER you may roll two dice for any role that can only be succeeded through a natural 20.

Luck feats. Luck domain. And there is a shadow hand maneuver at first level that allows you to roll two D20 as an attack. Pair it all together!

Use power attack, stone power and combat expertise to always make your attack only succeed on a nat 20.

[Torpin]

stay entangled, i suppose you could be exhausted and panicked

[daremetoidareyo]

Here's a stub i built 6 months ago



human
feats to think about
other?


psychic warrior
1: Audacious attempt [Ancester] You are descended from the famous Scorpion daimyo Bayushi Tangen, author of Lies and Little truths. You share that ancestor's incredible audacity. Clan: Scorpion. Benefit: Once per encounter, when you are attempting a nearly impossible task (any task at which you need to roll a 20 on a 1d20 to succeed, you may roll two dice instead of one, taking the better result. You can use this ability when you choose, whether you are making an attack roll, saving trhow, skill or ability check, level check or any other 1d20 roll that you make, as long as you can succeed on that particular check only by rolling a 20 on the die.

B: power attack

B: martial study, shadow blade technique




psychic warrior
B: Psychic Renewal (Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, p. 32) [Psionic] Your mental strength and psionic abilities allow you to focus your mind on combat and use your most devastating maneuvers more frequently. Prerequisite Benefit As a swift action, you can recover any expended maneuver by expending your psionic focus and spending power points equal to the maneuver's level.
exotic weaon proficiency (heavy mercurial sword?):


psychic warrior
3: Victors luck
"LUCKY Price: +1 bonus Property: Weapon Caster Level: 15th Aura: Strong; (DC 22) divination Activation: Free (mental) The golden sheen on this weapon raises your spirits and fi lls you with confi dence in your fi ghting prowess. A lucky weapon offers a second chance at success. Once per day, you can reroll a single failed attack roll. Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, moment of prescience or fate of one (EPH 107). Cost to Create: Varies."


psychic warrior
hustle
GLOVES OF FORTUNATE STRIKING Price (Item Level): 2,000 gp (6th) Body Slot: Hands Caster Level: 3rd Aura: Faint; (DC 16) divination Activation: Immediate (mental) Weight: — These supple white leather gloves are embroidered with blue symbols of luck. You can activate gloves of fortunate striking to reroll an attack roll that you’ve made before you know whether the attack succeeded. You must use the second result, even if it’s lower. You can’t use this ability if you have already rerolled the attack for any reason. This ability functions once per day. Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, true strike. Cost to Create: 1,000 gp, 40 XP, 2 days.


psychic warrior
B: psionic meditation
GREATSWORD, MERCURIAL - ARMS AND EQUIPMENT GUIDE (3.0) - SWORD AND FIST (3.0) Exotic Two-Handed Melee Weapon Cost: 600 gp Damage (s): 1d10 Damage (m): 2d6 Critical: x4 Weight: 17 lb Type: S This huge blade hides a secret reservoir of quicksilver (also called mercury by alchemists) that runs along the interior of the blade in a slender channel. When the blade is vertical, the mercury swiftly fills an interior bulb in the haft, but when swung, the heavy liquid flows out into the blade, making it heavier. In nonproficient hands, this shifting mass penalizes the wielder by an additional –3 penalty on attack rolls, beyond the normal –4 non-proficiency penalty for using an exotic weapon untrained.


fortunes friend
Instant Clarity (Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, p. 31) [Psionic] You have sharpened your concentration to the point that you can focus your psionic abilities with just an instant's thought. Prerequisite Concentration 7 ranks, Benefit You can take a swift action to become psionically focused after successfully initiating a martial strike. You can use this ability three times per day. Special Instant Clarity can be used in place of the Psionic Meditation feat (see Expanded Psionics Handbook) to qualify lor a feat, prestige class, or other special ability. You can take both this feat and Psionic Meditation. Normal A character without this feat must take a full round action to become psionically focused.
GOLD, ALCHEMICAL- MAGIC OF FAERÛN (3.0)Armor: +5,000 gpWeapon (Up to 1d3): 1,500 gpWeapon (1d4 to 1d6): 2,500 gpWeapon (1d8 or higher): 7,000 gpWhile most use gold as a currency, spellcasters know of gold’s magical properties. When magically refinedand treated, gold can be made as hard as steel. The following information refers to magically treated gold.Armor made from treated gold grants acid and fire resistance 2. Gold armors are one category heavier thannormal for purposes of movement and other limitations (for example, whether a barbarian can use his fastmovement ability while wearing the armor or not). Light armors are treated as medium, and medium andheavy armors are treated as heavy. Spell failure chances for armor and shields made from gold areincreased by 10%, maximum Dexterity bonus is decreased by 2 (which may bring it below 0), and armorcheck penalties are increased by 3. Gold weapons are considered heavy weapons (see the sidebar on HeavyWeapons). Magically treated gold weighs twice as much as steel, has hardness 10, and has 30 hit points perinch of thickness.Editor (Heavy Weapons): Heavy weapons, such as those made from gold or platinum, or unwieldy, butinflict additional damage. Without the property exotic weapon proficiency feat, you suffer a -4 penaltyon attack rolls with the weapon. Only weapons made largely of metal can become heavy weapons. Youcan wield a heavy weapon with one more hand than is needed to avoid the penalty. Basically a lightweapon becomes a one-handed weapon. A one-handed becomes two-handed. You can never use theweapon finesse feat with a weapon made of heavy metal. Heavy metal weapons inflict increaseddamage. Increase the damage by one step as if the weapon were one size class bigger.Editor: Why is it alchemical Gold? Because it has to be “treated” before it can be used as armor or aweapon. Note about the weapons. Let’s say you take an exotic weapon and make it into gold. Do youneed to take two exotic weapon feats? No. Take the orc double axe, for instance. If you make it out ofgold, then you have to take Exotic Weapon (Heavy Orc Double Axe) feat. However, you cannot wieldan orc double axe that is not made of gold. So for the cost of a feat (that you may have had to buyanyways) you can increase the dice of damage for your weapon by one size class. Nice.


fortunes friend






fortunes friend






fighter
cleave,
Instinctive Consummator ( Complete Psionic, p. 55) [Psionic] You always make good on your threats. Prerequisite Power Attack (PH) , Cleave (PH) , STR 13, Benefit You must expend your psionic focus to use this feat. Whenever you threaten a living foe with a critical hit on a melee attack, you can choose to automatically confirm the critical hit. Normal All hits that threaten a critical hit must be confirmed with an additional successful attack roll.
MANTLE OF SECOND CHANCES Price (Item Level): 12,000 gp (13th) Body Slot: Shoulders Caster Level: 10th Aura: Moderate; (DC 20) divination Activation: Immediate (mental) Weight: — This mantle is made of brilliant blue cloth that is smooth to the touch, like silk. Symbols representing various elements of good fortune are embroidered along its hem in white and silver. Once per day you can tap into the power of good fortune. When you do so, you can reroll one roll that you have just made before the DM declares whether it resulted in success or failure. You must accept the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. You can access the mantle’s power even if you already have a similar ability from a class feature (such as the granted power of the Luck domain).


fortunes friend
"Better Lucky than Good ( Complete Scoundrel, p. 74) [Luck] You can succeed where others would surely fail. Prerequisite Character Level 6, any two luck feats, Benefit If you roll a natural 1 when making an attack roll, you can expend one luck reroll as a swift action to instead treat the roll as a natural 20. You can use this feat once per day. You gain one luck reroll per day"

[Thedez]

What you need to be is a wizard for...Oh, one level. This'll grant you 1st level spells. Take four levels in Warblade, then five levels in Abjurant Champion. Why did we go through all that effort, you might ask?
Well, now we have third level spells, and a caster level equal to our BaB, which we're already looking to pump. Guess what's a third level spell?
Dolorous Blow. Minutes/level auto-crit confirm. Third level spell. That's 19 minutes/level as long as you keep your BaB up, and you'll have two castings of it.

EDIT: Now, that being said, I'd actually recommend is Wizard 1/Soulknife 3/Soulbow 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Kensai 5/Peerless Archer 3.
What is all of this giving you, you might ask? Well, if we do the math for all of this, in order for you to crit regularly, you're going to need to roll 20 times per round in order to score one hit. The most effective way to do so would be by maximizing the rerolls you can throw out there. The lucky enhancement does that, to an extremely limited degree. But that limitation is removed for Soulbow, which means you can throw out as many attacks as you want while maximizing the odds of hitting. In this case, with the end-result BaB of:
+2(Soulknife)
+2(Soulbow)
+1(Mindarrow's Wording on enhancement bonus, per raw)
+5(Abjurant Champion)
+3(Kensai)
+3(Peerless Archer)
16 BaB, we have the maximum number of iterative attacks--Four--Plus we can manifest an attack for every extra arm we have. And you could reasonably max that, say, eight. Two for Arms of Plenty, two for Girallon's Blessing, two for an Alter Self into a four-armed form, and two for a pair of ethereal arms from...Libris Mortis, I think? Which would cost, like, 16,000 GP total. The mindarrows are going to be force, so no worries about whether they could hold them or not. That means with no further feat investment, we could get 12 attacks + 1 reroll for each = 24 rolls = an average of 1 crit per round.
But we're not done. With the addition of 5 levels of Kensai, we can add the splitting and force enhancements to the arrows, allowing for your arrows to ignore a lot of stuff and split into two. This raises your rolls to a total of 48, or an average of 2 crits per round. With the addition of Peerless Archer, we get the ability to power attack with ranged attacks. Since so many parts of this are really just dependent on what you want to do first, rather than what this build needs, a lot of it can be shifted around. The only part I'd say you really, really want ASAP is Soulknife 3 and Soulbow 3.

Edit Edit: Oops! Mathed wrong. Kensai'd only be getting +3 total, but still, you get the magical 16 BaB!

[Thurbane]

Be a Binder, fail your binding check, and keep breaking the conditions of the vestiges influence.

-1 penalty to hit (and saves, and checks) that stacks with itself, without limit.

If you don't want to take a level of Binder, just grab a Tooth of Dahlver-Nar and do the same thing.

[Endarire]

Does wraithstrike spoil this? What about Luck feats from Complete Scoundrel?

[animewatcha]

If we are sinking the attack roll for max damage, then might as well use colossalish-sized weapons using the sizing penalties.

[ericgrau]

If we are sinking the attack roll for max damage, then might as well use colossalish-sized weapons using the sizing penalties.

It also changes the handedness so you can only go so far. For example a one handed dwarven waraxe dealing 1d10 becomes a two handed large dwarven waraxe dealing 2d8. Yeah there's a non-proficiency penalty but... good.

We could see how far we can take this with light or one handed exotic weapons. Either a size huge light weapon or a size large one handed weapon. Whatever gives the most damage. To beat the dwarven waraxe we need a light weapon dealing 1d8+ or 2d4+ or more, or a one handed weapon dealing 1d12 or more

[Saintheart]

There's the incomplete Critfishing Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569192-D-amp-D-3-5e-For-Massive-Damage!-A-Critical-Hit-Handbook) which might be handy for some of this. Should give you most of what you need on raising damage multipliers, along with weapons and materials to do precisely that.

[daremetoidareyo]

It requires bending your definition a little, but there are piety feats that allow for the addition of a d6 to a d20 roll in complete divine

[Anthrowhale]

A Cleric 9 can use an immediate action to discharge a precast Surge of Fortune (cleric level 5 spell) to automatically roll a 20. Combine with Sense Weakness (cleric level 2 spell) to get autohit+autocrit. Unlike Dolorous Blow, this critical hit does work with special effects of weapons, including Vorpal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#vorpal). Altogether, this means that a Cleric 9 can be a mortal threat to (say) a Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/dragonEpic.htm#prismaticDragon).

[Caudex Capite]

Consider stacking up your number of attacks to ridiculous levels with Multiweapon Fighting. To take an extreme example, consider an epic-level caster with Reserves of Strength, Perfect Multiweapon Fighting, Shapechange, and Trait Removal available to him. Shapechange into a Hecatoncheires (you'll need a bunch of CL boosters for this), Trait Removal away your new Superior Multiweapon Fighting Ex ability (which limits your attacks considerably), then get full iteratives on 100 separate weapons. PMWF allows you to make as many attacks with each offhand weapon as with your mainhand weapon, in fact, so you should be able to stack this with effects that give you extra attacks. Season with extra action/turn effects for even more attacks per round. Baseline, with just Haste and Divine Power as additional buffs, you're making 500 attacks per full attack action. Stack up your crit multiplier to x4 or so, and wield 100 Gargantuan or Colossal weapons (call it 4d6 base), and you'll hit about 25x for 4x damage each, so about 400d6 damage per round against infinite AC before accounting for anything but weapon dice.

Obviously, as an epic level combo that requires the broken interpretation of Reserves of Strength, Trait Removal being used in ways it was never intended, and a whole lot of feats, this is way on the crazy side of things. I think it does serve as an illustrative example of how broken attacks per round stacking can be, though.

[Thedez]

Okay, so I'm gunna go ahead and start by saying this is solidly TO that I'm about to step into.
So, the most efficient manner of reliably hitting 20 on a D20 is to roll twenty times in a round. And for every twenty rolls we add, we get one more hit! So, with that in mind, the more times we can roll for one attack, the better. However, the number of abilities that will allow you to reroll regularly. Choose Destiny, a 9th level Domain Spell from the Destiny Domain, is one such source. The Soulbow's Luck Enhancement is another source. If you can get both of them on the same person, then the probability of a nat 20 will be about 14%, or you'll hit once in about every 7 attacks. This means that, with this trick(not an easy to pull off, mind you, but we're getting there) and the addition of a full BaB and the Improved Two-Weapon Fighting Feat, you can hit exactly once per turn.
We'll get to how we're going to achieve this feat soon, but first we must know how to maximize our attacks per turn, because while one nat 20 per turn means you can technically infinitely scale against AC, you still are presented with how you're going to make that hit matter.
There are countless ways to increase the number of attacks you can achieve, but before we get too far into that, we need a solid base for our build. To that end, we will be gaining more actions, as the more actions you can take in one turn, the more efficiently you can increase your attacks through other actions.

An 8th level spell at 17th caster level is only 1360 gold to have cast for you. For the purposes of this exercise, we're going to be getting Polymorph Any Object. However, prior to our getting this cast, we're going to want a Phylactory of Change, allowing us to Polymorph into a Lammasu. We can now be any starting race we want.
Before we continue further, we will also want the Assume Supernatural Ability feat. We will now choose the race Dvati, Polymorph into two Lammasus, and then spend 2720 GP to PAO both Lammasus into Chronotyryns, assuming the Supernatural Ability of Dual Actions. We now have two bodies with two full turns of actions each, totaling to four actions per turn. This is permanent, meaning that you only need to worry about getting it recast whenever someone dispels it.

With this as a basis, we can now strive toward the goal of outstripping anything else for number of attacks per round. Primarily, we will want a permanent source of additional arms. Grafts are no longer a possible choice, due to the fact that, unfortunately, this form is ultimately still temporary. Until you can find a way to make such a change instantaneous, you cannot rely on body alterations. However, we can cast several spells to increase the number of arms available to us. Arms of Plenty and Girallon Blessing will do the trick, both are 3rd level spells, so for our purposes two Eternal Wands will do the trick. We now have the actions and the arms, now we need the two abilities.

Believe it or not, the easiest will be Choose Destiny. All we need for that one is the Leadership feat and Improved Cohort feat, although it will come into play later on. We need a cohort with 2 levels of a +2/+3 will class with full BaB, and 1 level in a +2 will class with full BaB, and 4 levels in Fiend of Possession.(We don't need this, but it's handy.) Now we can take our 2 levels in Fiend of Corruption. See where I'm going? Not yet? That's okay. Now we take 9 levels in Divine Crusader, and finally, a level in Hierophant. Now you have a 19th level Cohort capable of giving you Choose Destiny as an SLA. The race doesn't mean terribly much, as long as it meets the prereqs, since otherwise this Fiend will spend the rest of its time inside of you, giving you power. We will call this Cohort, the Power of Friendship.

Next up, we will be using, yes, the Soulbow from before. So, we'll be using Cleric 1(Elf and Magic, +Knowledge Devotion)/Fighter 1/Soulknife 3/Soulbow 3/Kensai 9/Peerless Archer 3. This gives us five bonus feats, and we have five feats required, so this build is ultimately feat-neutral. Of your six feats, two are taken up with Leadership/Improved Cohort, so now you'll want to also grab Multiweapon Fighting, Improved Multiweapon Fighting, and Greater Multiweapon Fighting, for an additional two attacks per hand, totaling to 3 per hand. Finally, you'll want Woodland Archer.
With your Kensai levels, you'll be grabbing Splitting(3), Force(5), Enfeebling(7), and then whatever else you want. I, personally, would take something like Phasing and literally anything else you'd want, but that's up to you. The second Soulbow level will be adding in Lucky, Cleric will enable us to use wands, Peerless Archer will give us Ranged Power Attack, and the other levels just fill in requirements.
I'd further recommend Chaos Shuffling Rapid Draw out, and grabbing Rapid Shot instead.

With all told, you'll have 40 attacks per full-round action, meaning you'll get a total of 160 attacks per turn. Of those 160 attacks, 22 will hit. They are virtually impossible to resist or defend against, they deal 29(+9 for maxed wisdom, +20 power attack damage when combined with Divine Power)x3 = 87 damage per hit, plus strength damage, plus whatever else you might want to add on there, with auto-confirms coming from Dolorous Blows, per a wand used via the Magic Domain. Moreover, since only 5-6 out of your 40 attacks are auto-hitting, you have 35 attacks which are cumulatively giving you +2 to attack per miss, meaning you're pretty likely to also get in an extra hit or two just 'cause.