calling all minmaxers. lets hear your fiendish attempts at harming DM sanity

[fireborn6074]

i myself am a minmaxer, have been since i first started playing. I'm also a DM myself, and can adjust myself to minmaxers by using my own creations. as such

Niel, a level 12 Zen Archer Monk with 18 attacks per turn, all attacks with his bow deal 1D20+1D8+7 damage, and he has +295 stealth skill check.

Breyn, a normal level 20 psionic. except he can deal 393D10's psychic damage with a DC 212 will save.

Shade, a level 21 arcanist, with 300 known spells and a total of 145 spell slots per day, an AC of 34, and has SR 44.

Wit, with metamagic galore. he doesn't have many spells, but he can stand upto a CR 39 encounter by himself at level 9 because of his thinking.

Mercer, a halfling bloodhunter that carries 11 weapons at any given time and changes weapons every round of combat. though he is 5e, which is harder to minmax. his intimaidation is +15 at level 5. "Fear The Tiny Tank"

also, in all my years of playing 3.5e, 5e and PathFinder, I have never broken a single rule in the games. these all follow the system rules to the dot

[StevenC21]

Tell me how to create Shade.

[MeimuHakurei]

i myself am a minmaxer, have been since i first started playing. I'm also a DM myself, and can adjust myself to minmaxers by using my own creations. as such

Niel, a level 12 Zen Archer Monk with 18 attacks per turn, all attacks with his bow deal 1D20+1D8+7 damage, and he has +295 stealth skill check.

Breyn, a normal level 20 psionic. except he can deal 393D10's psychic damage with a DC 212 will save.

Shade, a level 21 arcanist, with 300 known spells and a total of 145 spell slots per day, an AC of 34, and has SR 44.

Wit, with metamagic galore. he doesn't have many spells, but he can stand upto a CR 39 encounter by himself at level 9 because of his thinking.

Mercer, a halfling bloodhunter that carries 11 weapons at any given time and changes weapons every round of combat. though he is 5e, which is harder to minmax. his intimaidation is +15 at level 5. "Fear The Tiny Tank"

also, in all my years of playing 3.5e, 5e and PathFinder, I have never broken a single rule in the games. these all follow the system rules to the dot

It's easy to make these claims but I want to see the actual builds to confirm they're actually legal. There might also be some complications such as requiring pre-buffing to accomplish.

[Segev]

I’m not sure what you’re looking for , here. Generic powergaming and heretical optimization builds? Something that is sneaky and more powerful than the mechanics initially look that you could trick a DM into accepting?

[noob]

Like few gms thinks to look at all the skills on a class that does not usually have skillmonkeying as a role so you might do some sneaking optimization on a non conventional character and then hide from most things and hide your hiding(do not forget dark tracker or wathever was the name of the feat to sneak through more senses)
(Avoid going over 2 digits or else it will be noticeable)

[TalonOfAnathrax]

What you're looking for is a link to those "famous optimized builds" threads. I'm on my phone though, so I won't post it now. Google it?

[Buufreak]

How did you get a d20 for a damage die?

[Kurald Galain]

also, in all my years of playing 3.5e, 5e and PathFinder, I have never broken a single rule in the games. these all follow the system rules to the dot

So show us your builds. Pics or it didn't happen.

[RoboEmperor]

Artificer with the feat Assume Supernatural Ability:Animate Objects. Used a phylactery of change at level 5 with a scroll of lesser holy transformation to turn into a ravid 24/7 and perpetually animate a Gargantuan Animated Object 24/7.

It's unbeatable hardness coupled with it's unbeatable grapple modifier coupled with it's 20ft reach trivialized all of my DM's fights and made the rest of my party feel useless.

[jdizzlean]

What you're looking for is a link to those "famous optimized builds" threads. I'm on my phone though, so I won't post it now. Google it?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258580-Famous-optimized-character-builds

[lolcat]

Has any of those ever been used in a pre-epic setting that was more than a one-shot? I can't imagine having to play with, or against, such characters and it being very rewarding, but maybe i'm wrong.

[Snowbluff]

I have a story that broke my Dm...

I was playing an Iaijutsu Master Factotum archer (arrows are improvised MELEE weapons, drawing them for an attack triggers Iai). So the DM is like "A kraken shows up next to your ship! Roll init!" I roll init, win, then dump inspiration into some actions to spam multishot until it dies. The DM goes "Okay, one, wow, secondly, WTF?" :smalltongue:

[upho]

Is this serious?


Niel, a level 12 Zen Archer Monk with 18 attacks per turn, all attacks with his bow deal 1D20+1D8+7 damage, and he has +295 stealth skill check.Is this Paizo PF content only? If so, then I'm afraid you've misinterpreted a few rules. (And btw, that Stealth bonus alone is also far too high to be optimized. At least unless enemies in your games can actually be expected to more often have a similarly absurd Perception bonus than they're to have any one of a number of common spells and/or special senses able to render your Stealth check rather irrelevant.)


Breyn, a normal level 20 psionic. except he can deal 393D10's psychic damage with a DC 212 will save.You really sure it's 393d10, not 392, 394 or the more common 397d10's for a PF psionic?


Shade, a level 21 arcanist, with 300 known spells and a total of 145 spell slots per day, an AC of 34, and has SR 44.Why 300 known spells and not all 1,200+ spells on the PF wiz/sorc list?


Wit, with metamagic galore. he doesn't have many spells, but he can stand upto a CR 39 encounter by himself at level 9 because of his thinking.Because he happens to be Pun-Pun's less famous twin or just any plain old PC with an arbitrary number of epic levels?


also, in all my years of playing 3.5e, 5e and PathFinder, I have never broken a single rule in the games. these all follow the system rules to the dotGreat, then please show us the builds. Every little detail that matters for the above to be true.

In other words, some people here (myself included) sure like to fool around a bit with stupidly broken build ideas from time to time, but we've unfortunately also got plenty of reason doubt posters who make grandiose claims without backing them up with details. (Search for "Sorerer King" and you'll probably find enough to understand.) So:
So show us your builds. Pics or it didn't happen.This.

[StevenC21]

I think OP is lying.

[Segev]

I think OP is lying.

Why should we care, if he is? I'm still not sure what the purpose of this thread is; what is the expected response to it? What is the OP seeking, here?

I mean, would you like my build path to get into Beholder Mage by level 6 on a character who starts level 1 as an Elan? No sane DM is going to permit this, so it's not going to "damage a DM's sanity," since he'll just laugh and say "no." It's legal by the RAW, but so is Pun-Pun.

[StevenC21]

Because he's claiming that he has all these optimized characters to show his skills. But he won't actually give us stats for them.

He's talking himself up with zero evidence we should believe him, and it's annoying me.

[Crake]

I'm personally quite a big fan of my level 12 chameleon dual 9s caster with access to literally every spell in existence at the cheapest level possible.


Because he's claiming that he has all these optimized characters to show his skills. But he won't actually give us stats for them.

He's talking himself up with zero evidence we should believe him, and it's annoying me.

I don't know about won't, the OP hasn't responded once. Looks like he's intimidated all of a sudden by the responses.

[StevenC21]

Or he bailed on the thread once he realized people wanted proof.

Anyways, could *you* share your build please?

[Buufreak]

I don't know about won't, the OP hasn't responded once. Looks like he's intimidated all of a sudden by the responses.

He also posted the OP last night. He might not have had a chance to check his computer/phone/device-what-have-you today. I'm willing to give benefit of doubt until we hit around the 24hr mark.

[StevenC21]

Fair enough. I'm probably not being fair enough to him.

[Segev]

To be fair, the hostility level in this thread is pretty high for a guy who's posted exactly once. It might scare him off. Seriously, guys, being civil can't be this hard. "I made this claim, because I think I have something cool!" being responded to with "How dare you make such a claim without a fully-annotated bibliography that would make a Master's Thesis seem light reading in your very first post to discuss stuff you think is cool!?" is hardly inviting.

[StevenC21]

We are being civil.

I don't think we've once insulted OP, except to perhaps say he flaked on us.

If he left, that's his choice. I regret nothing.

[Crake]

Or he bailed on the thread once he realized people wanted proof.

Anyways, could *you* share your build please?

It's honestly pretty simple. (Edit: In retrospect, maybe it's not that simple)

The first 5 levels require nothing but at least 1 level of eidetic wizard, then basically your pick of things. Personally I go with 1 level of wizard, 1 level of cleric for domain powers/domain feats/turn undead for turn-based shenannigans, and 3 levels of factotum for a bunch of int synergy.

Along the way, you pick up snowcasting, sanctum spell, heighten spell, earth sense, and earth spell, this lets you cast spells as 3 levels higher than what you could normally cast, and I believe you also need to pick up practised spellcaster for either wizard or cleric, to qualify for extra spell slot since that requires CL4 to qualify for (chameleon can't qualify for things using it's abilities, but things that you qualify for can still be applied to chameleon). That's 6 feats by level 6, so you need to use all of your feats as a human (need to be a human to get into chameleon), and 2 flaws. Then at level 7, as a chameleon, you unlock a floating bonus feat which you can use to get extra slot for a spell slot 2 levels higher than what you can normally cast (2 levels higher because you have the feats to cast 3 levels higher, and extra spell slot is one level lower than the highest spell level you can cast). At level 8 (3rd level of chameleon) you can cast 3rd level spells, +3 levels from feats, so 6th level spells, so you can use your floating bonus feat for extra slot to get a 5th level spell slot. Then when you advance to level 9 and get a proper, permanent feat, since you're able to cast 8th level spells, you can get a permanent extra slot feat for a 7th level slot, then immediately use your floating bonus feat to leapfrog up to a 9th level spell slot, which means yes, you can cast 9th level spells at level 9 with this build. Then at level 12, you can get yourself a permanent 11th level spell slot, and unlock chameleon's dual aptitiude ability, which lets you use arcane and divine focus, getting you double 9s. Chameleons can prepare any divine spell, and with an eidetic spellbook and a floating bonus feat, you can slowly keep getting extra spell every day until you have access to literally every arcane spell in the game in your eidetic spellbook. Yes, you need good wisdom and intelligence for this to work, but thankfully chameleons have the ability to boost two scores by +4 at this point (not an enhancement bonus, so it stacks with ability boosting items), so at worst you need a 15 in int and a 15 in wis by level 12.

As an aside, since chameleon uses the same spells per day table for both arcane and divine focus, getting extra slot for chameleon actually nets you double the spell slots. For extra credit, since you can cast it natively now, use the dark chaos shuffle to swap out all those excess feats into extra slot (except one, so you can still qualify for the ones you have, i recommend snowcasting because it has no prerequisites), to end up with something like 14 9+th level spell slots before taking into account bonus slots from high ability scores. If your scores are high enough, I would probably recommend you get a 7th and 8th level slot, just to get the extra slots from ability scores.

[RoboEmperor]

It's honestly pretty simple.

The first 5 levels require nothing but at least 1 level of eidetic wizard, then basically your pick of things. Personally I go with 1 level of wizard, 1 level of cleric for domain powers/domain feats/turn undead for turn-based shenannigans, and 3 levels of factotum for a bunch of int synergy.

Along the way, you pick up snowcasting, sanctum spell, heighten spell, earth sense, and earth spell, this lets you cast spells as 3 levels higher than what you could normally cast, and I believe you also need to pick up practised spellcaster for either wizard or cleric, to qualify for extra spell slot since that requires CL4 to qualify for (chameleon can't qualify for things using it's abilities, but things that you qualify for can still be applied to chameleon). That's 6 feats by level 6, so you need to use all of your feats as a human (need to be a human to get into chameleon), and 2 flaws. Then at level 7, as a chameleon, you unlock a floating bonus feat which you can use to get extra slot for a spell slot 2 levels higher than what you can normally cast (2 levels higher because you have the feats to cast 3 levels higher, and extra spell slot is one level lower than the highest spell level you can cast). At level 8 (3rd level of chameleon) you can cast 3rd level spells, +3 levels from feats, so 6th level spells, so you can use your floating bonus feat for extra slot to get a 5th level spell slot. Then when you advance to level 9 and get a proper, permanent feat, since you're able to cast 8th level spells, you can get a permanent extra slot feat for a 7th level slot, then immediately use your floating bonus feat to leapfrog up to a 9th level spell slot, which means yes, you can cast 9th level spells at level 9 with this build. Then at level 12, you can get yourself a permanent 11th level spell slot, and unlock chameleon's dual aptitiude ability, which lets you use arcane and divine focus, getting you double 9s. Chameleons can prepare any divine spell, and with an eidetic spellbook and a floating bonus feat, you can slowly keep getting extra spell every day until you have access to literally every arcane spell in the game in your eidetic spellbook. Yes, you need good wisdom and intelligence for this to work, but thankfully chameleons have the ability to boost two scores by +4 at this point (not an enhancement bonus, so it stacks with ability boosting items), so at worst you need a 15 in int and a 15 in wis by level 12.

Too much of a blob for me to comprehend without dissecting it for an hour, so I'll just ask you this, are you using any of the chameleon's class features for prerequisites? Because it explicitly says you can't use the chameleon's class features for prerequisites of prcs and feats.


You can’t use any abilities gained from your aptitude focus, ability boon, or mimic class feature abilities to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other option.

[Crake]

Too much of a blob for me to comprehend without dissecting it for an hour, so I'll just ask you this, are you using any of the chameleon's class features for prerequisites? Because it explicitly says you can't use the chameleon's class features for prerequisites of prcs and feats.

I will take a little snippet from the blob for you to answer this:


you also need to pick up practised spellcaster for either wizard or cleric, to qualify for extra spell slot since that requires CL4 to qualify for (chameleon can't qualify for things using it's abilities, but things that you qualify for can still be applied to chameleon).

As an edit, you could actually remove the need for both practised spellcaster and flaws by going wizard 5 instead of wizard 1, cleric 1, factotum 3, and use the 5th level wizard feat to grab sanctum spell, but that's less fun, and wasn't the build I used for it when it was in play, but that's a way you could streamline it if you didn't want to use flaws. You also don't need to be an eidetic wizard, I just prefered it for the build, since it allowed you to store all the spells known in your head rather than in a spellbook which could be taken, so that's a way you could remove dragon magazine content from it as well.

The hardest part of the build is the ability scores honestly. At the very minimum you need 13 con, 13 wis and 14 int (or 14 int and 13 wis), then put your 3 level up points into wis and int to get 19 int/wis at level 12 before ability boosting items. More feasably, you could do 13 con, 15 wis, 15 int, boosting them to 14, 20, 20 at level 12, plus a +4 booster to int/wis for 14, 24, 24, which is quite reasonable. If literally everything else is 8, you need at least 21 point buy to achieve that. 25 point buy could get you 8 str, 12 dex, 14 con, 24 int, 24 wis, 8 cha by level 12

[Segev]

We are being civil.

I don't think we've once insulted OP, except to perhaps say he flaked on us.

If he left, that's his choice. I regret nothing."I think he's lying" is a pretty direct insult. It's not a civil response to a claim that, while unsubstantiated, is not demonstrably made in bad faith. "I think he's wrong" or "I have to see this to believe it" are both civil. "I think he's lying" (which may be a paraphrase, but has been said) is quite uncivil.


Along the way, you pick up snowcasting, sanctum spell, heighten spell, earth sense, and earth spell, this lets you cast spells as 3 levels higher than what you could normally cast

I'll confess a lack of system mastery, here, but wouldn't this just be +3 CL, not "you can cast spells 1 level higher than normal?"

[Snowbluff]

I'll confess a lack of system mastery, here, but wouldn't this just be +3 CL, not "you can cast spells 1 level higher than normal?"

Earth Spell basically lets you have a +1 spell level if you're on the ground. Free heighten, effectively, which opens a lot of cheese for requirements.

[Crake]

I'll confess a lack of system mastery, here, but wouldn't this just be +3 CL, not "you can cast spells 1 level higher than normal?"

Snowcasting is +1 CL and [cold] descriptor to normal spells, but +1 spell level to spells that already have the [cold] descriptor, sanctum spell is +1 spell level inside sanctum, -1 outside (but you still have the capability to cast at +1 spell level), and earth sense and heighten spell let you qualify for earth spell, which gives heighten an extra +1 spell level, so heightening to your max level gives you max level +1. All these three combined give you the capability to cast spells at +3 spell level in ideal circumstances. You have the capability, not always, but you still can, so extra spell slot lets you grab one level lower than that, which is your highest spell slot +2.

Chameleon's floating bonus feat is the crux to the whole thing though, because you can use it to leap frog, meaning when you get a feat, you're already 2 levels up from the floating bonus feat, then the permanent feat is 4 levels up, and then you can swap the floating bonus feat the next day to end up a whopping 6 levels up, and chameleon lines up all too perfectly, since level 3 chameleon (level 8 overall) gets you 3rd level spell slots as long as you have at least 16 int/wis by that point, which means level 9 lets you leapfrog all the way up to 9th level spells if you dedicate your floating bonus feat (though you could use dark chaos shuffle at level 9 to alleviate the burden off your floating bonus feat and start using it to accrue literally every arcane spell in your spellbook, getting a new spell every day).

The initial concern was that you couldn't get the spell slots for chameleon, since, well, the line about chameleon not being able to qualify, but the part about gaining a slot 1 level lower than what you can normally cast isn't part of the prerequisites, it's part of the benefit, so you just need CL 4 in some way to get the feat, then you can use it how you want.

[Segev]

So the key is that you're not using the Chameleon feat to qualify for Extra Spell, but to set your maximum spell level for Extra Spell. That's...questionable, but it probably does work by a fine reading of the RAW, since, as you said, it's not a prereq, just a limit to the benefit. Interesting.

[martixy]

ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴇᴍᴘᴛʏ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍs ʜᴏʟᴅ ɴᴏ sᴡᴀʏ ᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇsᴇ ʙᴏᴀʀᴅs, ᴍᴏʀᴛᴀʟ.

Moving past my hooded companion's words(disregard the scythe), I too would call for a show of builds.
All while realizing such an event is unlikely to happen.

To that end, seeing as how I'm in sort of an archery binge lately, I'd be interested in theorycrafting the Zen Archery build OP mentioned.
Any ideas how one might acquire 18 ranged attacks per turn? The damage is trivial. The stealth check is unlikely to pose significant issue, though I admit, I am out of the loop on skill optimization atm.

[Segev]

ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴇᴍᴘᴛʏ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍs ʜᴏʟᴅ ɴᴏ sᴡᴀʏ ᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇsᴇ ʙᴏᴀʀᴅs, ᴍᴏʀᴛᴀʟ.

Moving past my hooded companion's words(disregard the scythe), I too would call for a show of builds.
All while realizing such an event is unlikely to happen.

To that end, seeing as how I'm in sort of an archery binge lately, I'd be interested in theorycrafting the Zen Archery build OP mentioned.
Any ideas how one might acquire 18 ranged attacks per turn? The damage is trivial. The stealth check is unlikely to pose significant issue, though I admit, I am out of the loop on skill optimization atm.

Well...

Full Attack gives a base of 5 attacks if BAB is at least 20; this is hard to get with Monk levels, but if you can sneak Divine Power as a useable ability, that'll bring BAB up to HD. Fully running the two-handed tree of feats doubles that to 10, if we assume javelins or crossbows (light or hand). Haste (or anything else that fails to stack with it) is another attack, bringing us to 11. Rapid Shot brings us to 12. Using Greater Flurry of Blows, that adds another 2 attacks (which we can do with Zen Archer, since it makes bows monk weapons...but now we're back to not using the two-handed fighting tree). Girallon's Blessing or other extra-arm tricks can let us dual-wield bows, making all of this valid with bows.

This is still only 14 attacks, though.

[Crake]

So the key is that you're not using the Chameleon feat to qualify for Extra Spell, but to set your maximum spell level for Extra Spell. That's...questionable, but it probably does work by a fine reading of the RAW, since, as you said, it's not a prereq, just a limit to the benefit. Interesting.

Well, the floating bonus feat isn't actually included in the list of things that chameleon can't use to qualify for things either way.

[noob]

Well...

Full Attack gives a base of 5 attacks if BAB is at least 20; this is hard to get with Monk levels, but if you can sneak Divine Power as a useable ability, that'll bring BAB up to HD. Fully running the two-handed tree of feats doubles that to 10, if we assume javelins or crossbows (light or hand). Haste (or anything else that fails to stack with it) is another attack, bringing us to 11. Rapid Shot brings us to 12. Using Greater Flurry of Blows, that adds another 2 attacks (which we can do with Zen Archer, since it makes bows monk weapons...but now we're back to not using the two-handed fighting tree). Girallon's Blessing or other extra-arm tricks can let us dual-wield bows, making all of this valid with bows.

This is still only 14 attacks, though.

While haste adds only one extra attack there is a spell (Sakkratar's Triple Strike) that gives 2 extra attacks(and it is not said to not stack with haste)
so you get to 16 attacks(only 2 more to go)
Then you can probably add in mouthpick sheanighans or something.
Ex: get 6 heads with bite attacks that you can use together(example: being an hydra) and use a mouthpick bow that also counts as a melee weapon(any weapon counts as an improvised melee weapon) in each mouth then get like 6*3 attacks.

[martixy]

Well...

Full Attack gives a base of 5 attacks if BAB is at least 20; this is hard to get with Monk levels, but if you can sneak Divine Power as a useable ability, that'll bring BAB up to HD. Fully running the two-handed tree of feats doubles that to 10, if we assume javelins or crossbows (light or hand). Haste (or anything else that fails to stack with it) is another attack, bringing us to 11. Rapid Shot brings us to 12. Using Greater Flurry of Blows, that adds another 2 attacks (which we can do with Zen Archer, since it makes bows monk weapons...but now we're back to not using the two-handed fighting tree). Girallon's Blessing or other extra-arm tricks can let us dual-wield bows, making all of this valid with bows.

This is still only 14 attacks, though.

Indeed, in my current line of thought, I was thinking of multi-arm shenanigans.
Now, we can list a ton of sources for extra attacks (which I will do shortly), but the problem remains incorporating them in the build itself.
Multi-arm sources:
Girallon's blessing (cheapest, in a sense - a spell)
Obah-blessed template (LA+2/+3 for +2/+4 arms and some nice ability bonuses)
Aberrant limbs (unique ability from DMG2, p. 157, LA+2, Obah-blessed strictly superior, unless going for both Nitpick: The DMG2 unique abilities are stupendously over-LAd anyway.)

Extra attacks:
Rapid shot
Haste
Flurry of blows (I guess)
Dancing Mongoose / Raging Mongoose maneuvers (from ToB, one of the few that do not explicitly stipulate melee attacks - unlike, say, Avalanche of Blades, which does say they need to be melee attacks).
Time Stands Still maneuver (ToB, Diamond Mind capstone)
Lightning maces shenanigans
Action economy abuse, et al.

Note, I'm not looking for Bloodwind / Bloodstorm blade shenanigans which turn melee attacks into ranged.
Sakkratar's Triple Strike doesn't qualify on the same grounds - it explicitly states melee attacks.


However I don't see an obvious way to obtain 18 attacks at level 12, apart from Pun-pun level cheesery/TO.

P.S. While we're on this subject feel free to drop by my recent Ranged Gish thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?581312-Ranged-gish-spells) and help out.

[noob]

Indeed, in my current line of thought, I was thinking of multi-arm shenanigans.
Now, we can list a ton of sources for extra attacks (which I will do shortly), but the problem remains incorporating them in the build itself.
Multi-arm sources:
Girallon's blessing (cheapest, in a sense - a spell)
Obah-blessed template (LA+2/+3 for +2/+4 arms and some nice ability bonuses)
Aberrant limbs (unique ability from DMG2, p. 157, LA+2, Obah-blessed strictly superior, unless going for both Nitpick: The DMG2 unique abilities are stupendously over-LAd anyway.)

Extra attacks:
Rapid shot
Haste
Flurry of blows (I guess)
Dancing Mongoose / Raging Mongoose maneuvers (from ToB, one of the few that do not explicitly stipulate melee attacks - unlike, say, Avalanche of Blades, which does say they need to be melee attacks).
Time Stands Still maneuver (ToB, Diamond Mind capstone)
Lightning maces shenanigans
Action economy abuse, et al.

Note, I'm not looking for Bloodwind / Bloodstorm blade shenanigans which turn melee attacks into ranged.
Sakkratar's Triple Strike doesn't qualify on the same grounds - it explicitly states melee attacks.


However I don't see an obvious way to obtain 18 attacks at level 12, apart from Pun-pun level cheesery/TO.

P.S. While we're on this subject feel free to drop by my recent Ranged Gish thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?581312-Ranged-gish-spells) and help out.
Polymorphing into an hydra then using mouthpicks(ranged weapons are also improvised melee weapons)

[Buufreak]

Well, judging by OPs activity of looking and not posting about 4 hours ago, I'm thinking he bailed.

[StevenC21]

Yes... I am very upset by this turn of events, but at the end of the day I am inclined to believe that OP is full of it.

[Crake]

Breyn, a normal level 20 psionic. except he can deal 393D10's psychic damage with a DC 212 will save.

I figured it out guys. Level 20 Psions have 343 power points, with 20 int at ML 20, you'd get a bonus 50 power points, which is 393 power points. This guy thought he could blow all of his power points into a mind thrust in one go! It matches perfectly, 20 int makes a DC16 base mind thrust, with 1/2 of 392 power points = 196 extra will save, so 16+196 = 212 will save, and 393 power points spent on a mind thrust.

This guy legit didn't realise you're capped on spending power points on a single power equal to your ML, unless he somehow found a way to increase his ML to arbitrarily high levels that nobody else seems to know about.

[Manyasone]

I figured it out guys. Level 20 Psions have 343 power points, with 20 int at ML 20, you'd get a bonus 50 power points, which is 393 power points. This guy thought he could blow all of his power points into a mind thrust in one go! It matches perfectly, 20 int makes a DC16 base mind thrust, with 1/2 of 392 power points = 196 extra will save, so 16+196 = 212 will save, and 393 power points spent on a mind thrust.

This guy legit didn't realise you're capped on spending power points on a single power equal to your ML, unless he somehow found a way to increase his ML to arbitrarily high levels that nobody else seems to know about.

As I expected. This, however, is also a DM flaw. He needs to know the rules as well

[RifleAvenger]

Yes... I am very upset by this turn of events, but at the end of the day I am inclined to believe that OP is full of it.He popped into the Immortal Bestiary Thread to show off his psionic blaster, claiming he could kill a Nexus Dragon with it. When any number of the UNIMPORTANT aspects of the creature (for starters, a 60,000ft aura of 64 negative levels, from a WYRMLING) rendered his build somewhere between "instantly dead" and "nigh useless" against it, and he had no way of dealing with the IMPORTANT ability (alter reality, AKA Epic Wish+).

His response was to claim that it was only the one character, and he'd totally have backup from his party, who are equally as powerful. Barring an epic level full caster with epic magic, I'm disinclined to believe that said party could beat even a wyrmling Nexus Dragon.

I'm actually inclined to believe that OP might be young, and meant well (even if "full of it") while not anticipating the degree of actual scrutiny his claims would come under. Or that his group is playing well and truly fast and loose with the rules. Or what truly matters at the truly high end of optimization (which raw BIG numbers are NOT the end all, be all of). All things that, again, I'd expect from a younger player who aspires to be an optimizer w/o knowing HOW.

[StevenC21]

Yeah. Sounds like it.

I certainly hope that he learns how to play the game properly...

[Menzath]

Indeed, in my current line of thought, I was thinking of multi-arm shenanigans.
Now, we can list a ton of sources for extra attacks (which I will do shortly), but the problem remains incorporating them in the build itself.
Multi-arm sources:
Girallon's blessing (cheapest, in a sense - a spell)
Obah-blessed template (LA+2/+3 for +2/+4 arms and some nice ability bonuses)
Aberrant limbs (unique ability from DMG2, p. 157, LA+2, Obah-blessed strictly superior, unless going for both Nitpick: The DMG2 unique abilities are stupendously over-LAd anyway.)

Extra attacks:
Rapid shot
Haste
Flurry of blows (I guess)
Dancing Mongoose / Raging Mongoose maneuvers (from ToB, one of the few that do not explicitly stipulate melee attacks - unlike, say, Avalanche of Blades, which does say they need to be melee attacks).
Time Stands Still maneuver (ToB, Diamond Mind capstone)
Lightning maces shenanigans
Action economy abuse, et al.

Note, I'm not looking for Bloodwind / Bloodstorm blade shenanigans which turn melee attacks into ranged.
Sakkratar's Triple Strike doesn't qualify on the same grounds - it explicitly states melee attacks.


However I don't see an obvious way to obtain 18 attacks at level 12, apart from Pun-pun level cheesery/TO.

P.S. While we're on this subject feel free to drop by my recent Ranged Gish thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?581312-Ranged-gish-spells) and help out.

So a neraph monk transformed into an arrow demon via polymorph or some such, with the standard archery feats, and mayhaps a generous reading of flurry, monk weapons, and elvencraft bows. Add on splitting enchant, and you can most likely get to over 20 attacks without to much crazy.

Add in the other stuff you have and well...

[RoboEmperor]

I'm actually inclined to believe that OP might be young, and meant well (even if "full of it") while not anticipating the degree of actual scrutiny his claims would come under. Or that his group is playing well and truly fast and loose with the rules. Or what truly matters at the truly high end of optimization (which raw BIG numbers are NOT the end all, be all of). All things that, again, I'd expect from a younger player who aspires to be an optimizer w/o knowing HOW.

I suspected as much but it's disappointing to actually confirm it.

[upho]

I'm personally quite a big fan of my level 12 chameleon dual 9s caster with access to literally every spell in existence at the cheapest level possible.So am I now! Why have you kept this delicious pile of cheese hidden from us? Don't you love us anymore? :smallfrown:

More seriously, I find this build is interesting from a more PO perspective, since its particular trick doesn't have to result in a stupidly OP character, but can also be used to turn otherwise hopelessly UP but coneptually interesting builds viable.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

I will take a little snippet from the blob for you to answer this:



As an edit, you could actually remove the need for both practised spellcaster and flaws by going wizard 5 instead of wizard 1, cleric 1, factotum 3, and use the 5th level wizard feat to grab sanctum spell, but that's less fun, and wasn't the build I used for it when it was in play, but that's a way you could streamline it if you didn't want to use flaws. You also don't need to be an eidetic wizard, I just prefered it for the build, since it allowed you to store all the spells known in your head rather than in a spellbook which could be taken, so that's a way you could remove dragon magazine content from it as well.

The hardest part of the build is the ability scores honestly. At the very minimum you need 13 con, 13 wis and 14 int (or 14 int and 13 wis), then put your 3 level up points into wis and int to get 19 int/wis at level 12 before ability boosting items. More feasably, you could do 13 con, 15 wis, 15 int, boosting them to 14, 20, 20 at level 12, plus a +4 booster to int/wis for 14, 24, 24, which is quite reasonable. If literally everything else is 8, you need at least 21 point buy to achieve that. 25 point buy could get you 8 str, 12 dex, 14 con, 24 int, 24 wis, 8 cha by level 12

Interesting build. Why is Practised Spellcaster necessary if you multiclass? You get a floating feat at Chameleon 2. Extra Slot requires CL 4. Chameleons have a CL of their level*2, so when you get the floating feat you have a CL of 4.

I'd play the build with something like this:
Human Paragon 1/Wizard 1/Human Paragon +2/??? 1/Chameleon 7/Mystic Theurge 4/ ??? 4
With this build, meeting the skill prerequs is easy. It's possible to take metamagic feats before having caster levels, so no problems at level 1. And Human Paragon brings a bonus feat and a +2 to an aptitude, which are convenient for this build.
I'm not sure what the ??? should be yet, but it shouldn't really matter. Pick things tailored to the campaign. Probably something that makes for a good dip, like Swordsage, Binder, Warlock... Or maybe just more wizard levels if I really want to go all-in with the spellcasting. I like the idea of going Witch Hunter later, for a character who's really really versatile!

[Crake]

Interesting build. Why is Practised Spellcaster necessary if you multiclass? You get a floating feat at Chameleon 2. Extra Slot requires CL 4. Chameleons have a CL of their level*2, so when you get the floating feat you have a CL of 4.

Chameleons cant use their CL from divine/arcane focus to qualify for feats/prestige classes, it's noted in the class blurb which isn't included on the-site-that-shall-not-be-named. I'm also not entirely sure how mystic theurge would interact with chameleon honestly, but I would carry chameleon on to 10 for the increased ability bonus, and for the increased caster level capping at 20 by level 15.

Thinking about it, i don't even think mystic theurge could be used to advance chameleon casting, because it's not technically the "spellcasting" ability.


So am I now! Why have you kept this delicious pile of cheese hidden from us? Don't you love us anymore? :smallfrown:

More seriously, I find this build is interesting from a more PO perspective, since its particular trick doesn't have to result in a stupidly OP character, but can also be used to turn otherwise hopelessly UP but coneptually interesting builds viable.

I've mentioned it a few times here and there on the boards over the last few years, but never really made a thread about it, just kinda explained the build in the individual threads here and there.

[RoboEmperor]

I've mentioned it a few times here and there on the boards over the last few years, but never really made a thread about it, just kinda explained the build in the individual threads here and there.

You should make a build thread about it. More organized, legible, and detailed like I do. As your build removes the spellbook weakness of wizards I am interested in possibly dissecting and modifying it for myself. Probably won't use it though as it probably can't support level 1 minionmancy, but making possible builds is a fun past time.

[Crake]

You should make a build thread about it. More organized, legible, and detailed like I do. As your build removes the spellbook weakness of wizards I am interested in possibly dissecting and modifying it for myself. Probably won't use it though as it probably can't support level 1 minionmancy, but making possible builds is a fun past time.

I honestly mostly just thought it was too cheesy to bother. Level 9 spells at level 9 is just insanely strong, and access to literally every spell at level 12, I mean, is that not just too much in your opinion?

The whole build is honestly nothing special up until level 7 when the floating bonus feat lets you access 4th level spells, which basically puts you on par power wise, but way behind endurance wise, then 8th level you get a 5th level slot, which now puts you one level ahead in terms of spell level access, and then 9 you skyrocket through the straosphere to being 8 levels ahead in spell level progression.

You can actually do a more mild version (which is actually what the initial version was, the 9th level spells at level 9 version was done purely as a thought exercise later on), where you basically omit one of the feats to give increased spell level, my preference would be earth spell, since it has 2 other feat pre-requisites, though it means you need to pick up another metamagic feat to qualify for sanctum spell, but either way, it alleviates 2 feat slots, which means flaws become optional, the character in question actually picked up magic in the blood (was half fey, so a bunch of extra SLAs/day) and wedded to history (using the atrophied backstory, and fluffing the build as the character remembering all their power, which is why it was coming back so quickly).

Feats only giving you 2 levels above means that at level 9, you actually only get 6th level spells (I say "only", that's still 2 levels ahead of when a wizard would normally get them), and at level 12 you only get 8th level spells, BUUUT, since the dark chaos shuffle divine, you can quite easily dark chaos shuffle to hoist yourself up to 9th level spells at that point, so you still end up with dual 9s at level 12, with more early game flexibility, and without the absolutely redonk power spike at level 9.

[Segev]

There's a faster way to it if you can gather yourself a gaggle of Slaymates. Take heighten spell and have as many Slaymates as you can gather. Prepare necromancy spells Heightened by the number of Slaymates you have. You now have prepared a spell that is that many levels above your normal maximum.

[Crake]

There's a faster way to it if you can gather yourself a gaggle of Slaymates. Take heighten spell and have as many Slaymates as you can gather. Prepare necromancy spells Heightened by the number of Slaymates you have. You now have prepared a spell that is that many levels above your normal maximum.

Yeah, but that's arguable to allow you to use extra slot to give you high level spells lots, because it's not a spell level that you can cast, but rather a spell level that you and a bunch of slaymates can cast.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I've brought optimized characters to a table... of other optimized characters. I've brought downright abusive characters to the table... as a thought exercise, to prove a point; then I use my actual character.

I try not to deliberately harm my DM's sanity. That's rude.

[noob]

Yeah, but that's arguable to allow you to use extra slot to give you high level spells lots, because it's not a spell level that you can cast, but rather a spell level that you and a bunch of slaymates can cast.
So arguably you and a buch of slaymates can with that feat as a group take high level spells?

[Crake]

So arguably you and a buch of slaymates can with that feat as a group take high level spells?

Maybe? I dunno, it's not really a debate I'm particularly interested in, but I'll be honest, it doesn't look particularly promising trying to argue that using an external character's ability to claim you can do something would count.

[noob]

Maybe? I dunno, it's not really a debate I'm particularly interested in, but I'll be honest, it doesn't look particularly promising trying to argue that using an external character's ability to claim you can do something would count.

It could be a feat that works only while you are in the group?
Maybe we could make a teamwork feat with that concept.

[RoboEmperor]

This guy reminds me of another guy i briefly knew. He acted like he was top ****, saying rogues are the most broken class, and that frost mages were the most op wizard. Something about unresistable cold damage aoe or something like that. And he wouldn't share his build when i demanded proof. Considering he prepared only magic missile in all of his spell slots, i knew he was full of ****, and either what he claimed to do probably didn't work, and even if it did it would perform incredibly subpar compared to something like an incantatrix, or just a normal wizard grabbing metamagic reducers.

The important lesson here is, if someone doesn't share his build, he's full of ****.

I used to be like that with Yugioh. After making a few decks by myself for a year against AI decks, i acted like this against ppl online only to get my ass handed to me just like that. That's how i know people who try to keep their secret tricks to themselves are trash, not because they don't share, but because people who don't share don't engage in crowd sourcing and crowd sourcing always beats the individual so the individual secret guy is always inferior and totally full of **** when they act like they're better than you.

[martixy]

So a neraph monk transformed into an arrow demon via polymorph or some such, with the standard archery feats, and mayhaps a generous reading of flurry, monk weapons, and elvencraft bows. Add on splitting enchant, and you can most likely get to over 20 attacks without to much crazy.

Add in the other stuff you have and well...

Hm... Let me see.

Arrow demons, dual-wielding bows. Girallon Arms to triple-wield. Splitting yields another doubling. That yields a x6 multiplier. Just from BAB+11 you can get 18 attacks. OP mentioned L12, which fits just fine.
I suppose the rest is just gravy.

I don't see how monk helps us, unless you're just referring to OP's original stipulation. In which case, I suppose a psychoactive skin of proteus would do just as well.
And not sure how Flurry interacts with dual/triple-wielding...
What is this generous reading you mention?


@RoboEmperor
Let's not be too harsh on OP, as noted he might just be young and full of it.
Besides, showing your build doesn't mean you can't still be full of ****. Case in point: Lord Drako (he became a bit of a meme on these forums a while ago, go look him up).

[upho]

I've mentioned it a few times here and there on the boards over the last few years, but never really made a thread about it, just kinda explained the build in the individual threads here and there.It's absolutely fine, really. (I don't even play 3.5 anymore, I just steal goodies from it when needed.) Just remember to immediately send me a PM the next time you have a brilliant idea, OK?


I honestly mostly just thought it was too cheesy to bother. Level 9 spells at level 9 is just insanely strong, and access to literally every spell at level 12, I mean, is that not just too much in your opinion?Yeah, I absolutely understand this. I personally also hesitate to make separate threads for obviously OP and cheesy build ideas. I typically only mention them in most relevant threads (often class guides), and only make detailed example builds to showcase any combos which can be toned down and incorporated into builds for real games.


You can actually do a more mild version (which is actually what the initial version was, the 9th level spells at level 9 version was done purely as a thought exercise later on), where you basically omit one of the feats to give increased spell level, my preference would be earth spell, since it has 2 other feat pre-requisites, though it means you need to pick up another metamagic feat to qualify for sanctum spell, but either way, it alleviates 2 feat slots, which means flaws become optional, the character in question actually picked up magic in the blood (was half fey, so a bunch of extra SLAs/day) and wedded to history (using the atrophied backstory, and fluffing the build as the character remembering all their power, which is why it was coming back so quickly).This was what I was thinking of. It allows for a lot of MC freedom while retaining up to at least full casting power, which can definitely be great in at least more high-op games, or for creating truly unique(ly) badass NPC villains.


This guy reminds me of another guy i briefly knew. He acted like he was top ****, saying rogues are the most broken class, and that frost mages were the most op wizard. Something about unresistable cold damage aoe or something like that. And he wouldn't share his build when i demanded proof. Considering he prepared only magic missile in all of his spell slots, i knew he was full of ****, and either what he claimed to do probably didn't work, and even if it did it would perform incredibly subpar compared to something like an incantatrix, or just a normal wizard grabbing metamagic reducers.

The important lesson here is, if someone doesn't share his build, he's full of ****.I think you may be jumping to conclusions here. The guy may be used to be the "King of Char-Op" in his gaming group/circles and unfamiliar with forum etiquette and norms, as well as the level of system mastery required in order to be able to present builds as "optimized" (or "minmaxed" in the OP). So maybe they simply didn't realize that the OP could easily be read like a thinly disguised and unsubstantiated bragging list of builds which don't even follow RAW.

Although I'll give you that it's not very smart to not even bother with checking up what people expect or the more famous builds already found online before posting. Not to mention doing a simple quality control by checking FAQs and similar to see whether your rules interpretations appear to be correct before claiming you "have never broken a single rule in the games" and that your builds "all follow the system rules to the dot". So I also believe this is most likely just someone young and inexperienced.

[Menzath]

Hm... Let me see.

Arrow demons, dual-wielding bows. Girallon Arms to triple-wield. Splitting yields another doubling. That yields a x6 multiplier. Just from BAB+11 you can get 18 attacks. OP mentioned L12, which fits just fine.
I suppose the rest is just gravy.

I don't see how monk helps us, unless you're just referring to OP's original stipulation. In which case, I suppose a psychoactive skin of proteus would do just as well.
And not sure how Flurry interacts with dual/triple-wielding...
What is this generous reading you mention?


Having an elven craft bow count as a club/staff when used as range so you can flurry with it and use monk damage dice progression.
Not the best way to go about getting another attack and more base damage, but it makes use of being a monk. And with zen archery takes off part of the monks mad.

[AmeVulpes]

Having an elven craft bow count as a club/staff when used as range so you can flurry with it and use monk damage dice progression.
Not the best way to go about getting another attack and more base damage, but it makes use of being a monk. And with zen archery takes off part of the monks mad.

If this can be done with Elven Double-Bows (A&EG), that's an extra attack per bow, albiet with a move action to load it.

[ben-zayb]

Hm... Let me see.

Arrow demons, dual-wielding bows. Girallon Arms to triple-wield. Splitting yields another doubling. That yields a x6 multiplier. Just from BAB+11 you can get 18 attacks. OP mentioned L12, which fits just fine.
I suppose the rest is just gravy.

I don't see how monk helps us, unless you're just referring to OP's original stipulation. In which case, I suppose a psychoactive skin of proteus would do just as well.
And not sure how Flurry interacts with dual/triple-wielding...
What is this generous reading you mention?


@RoboEmperor
Let's not be too harsh on OP, as noted he might just be young and full of it.
Besides, showing your build doesn't mean you can't still be full of ****. Case in point: Lord Drako (he became a bit of a meme on these forums a while ago, go look him up).Let's try to not summon Pazuzu here

[Segev]

Yeah, but that's arguable to allow you to use extra slot to give you high level spells lots, because it's not a spell level that you can cast, but rather a spell level that you and a bunch of slaymates can cast.

Technically, once you prepare it, you can cast it. You don't need the Slaymates anymore. So as long as you don't cast it, it remains one you can cast. Which means that, whenever you're ready to take the feat, you just set yourself up right to maximize its impact.

[Crake]

Technically, once you prepare it, you can cast it. You don't need the Slaymates anymore. So as long as you don't cast it, it remains one you can cast. Which means that, whenever you're ready to take the feat, you just set yourself up right to maximize its impact.

I mean, again, you can make that claim, but I generally focus my builds around things that I would allow at my table (and yes, I did allow the mild version mentioned a few posts ago at my table), and getting access to a slaymate in the first place is quite DM dependant anyway, so I wouldn't center my builds around it.

[Segev]

I mean, again, you can make that claim, but I generally focus my builds around things that I would allow at my table (and yes, I did allow the mild version mentioned a few posts ago at my table), and getting access to a slaymate in the first place is quite DM dependant anyway, so I wouldn't center my builds around it.

Fair enough. However, getting access to a slaymate is technically no more DM-dependent than a wizard accessing more spells than his 2-per-level. If you build right, and deliberately seek out questing for them, you can find the little darlings. Or, if evil enough, arrange their creation. We know what causes them to spontaneously arise; find some guardians or caretakers of small children and bribe them to abandon them in woods or something, possibly places of particular necromantic power, and wait for one or more to arise as slaymates. Show up and use command undead to get in good with them and make friends.

I will say that some of your own rulings seemed on the iffy end to me for what I'd expect a DM to allow, so it's good to know you'd allow them, yourself, at a table.

[Crake]

Fair enough. However, getting access to a slaymate is technically no more DM-dependent than a wizard accessing more spells than his 2-per-level. If you build right, and deliberately seek out questing for them, you can find the little darlings. Or, if evil enough, arrange their creation. We know what causes them to spontaneously arise; find some guardians or caretakers of small children and bribe them to abandon them in woods or something, possibly places of particular necromantic power, and wait for one or more to arise as slaymates. Show up and use command undead to get in good with them and make friends.

I will say that some of your own rulings seemed on the iffy end to me for what I'd expect a DM to allow, so it's good to know you'd allow them, yourself, at a table.

My chameleon build actually solves that dilemma by using the floating bonus feat and extra spell to slowly accrue every single arcane spell in it's eidetic spellbook, granting it access to any and all spells.

Honestly though, I actually rarely do builds like this, mainly because I don't see the point of building overly strong characters (my players are deliberately mid-to-low op, because they don't enjoy the headache of high op), so anything overly strong will almost never actually see any play in my games that I DM. The main reason I allowed the build in the first place was because the trade off of early 6th level spell slots was basically that they had a single (maybe 2 if their casting stat was high enough) spell of that power level per day, making their staying power terrible pretty much all the way up to level 12, which is actually pretty much when the character retired, before even casting a single 9th level spell. It was basically "yeah, ok, I can cast a stupid amount of very powerful spells, my character's regained most of her former glory, I'm gonna retire them now".

They have since become quite a staple in my campaign setting, as the character was actually also quite important amongst the fey courts, being the inheritor for the mantle of Unseelie Queen of Winter, and has a finger in many pies around the world, but I've never really had the chance to play with that mechanical might, and nor did the player in question.

[martixy]

Let's try to not summon Pazuzu here

Oh, yea, guess I already name-dropped twice. Fair point, I'll try not to mention Lord D... oops... heh heh... close one. :smalleek: