Iron Chef Optimization Challenge: E6 Appetizer Edition (Round XIX)

[Zaq]

Welcome back to the Iron Chef Optimization Challenge E6 Appetizer Edition! This round's ingredient is a personal favorite of mine (especially, but not only, in E6), so I've got very high hopes indeed for what you come up with.

The form of this challenge is to take a particular D&D 3.5 base class (our "secret ingredient," or SI) and turn it into a functional E6 (https://esix.pbworks.com/f/E6v041.pdf) build, which must feature the SI as heavily as possible. (The only hard rule about this is that you must take at least one level in the SI, though judges are encouraged to look favorably on builds that take as many levels as possible in said SI.) Your final build submission should consist of your 6 regular levels and your first 10 epic bonus feats, though providing a snapshot at earlier points through the progression is heartily encouraged. Entries are to be PM'd to the Chair (that would be me!), and they will be posted anonymously; our volunteer judges will then grade each build on a 1-5 point scale in four categories: Originality, Power, Elegance, and Use of the Secret Ingredient. The builds with the highest three scores will be awarded medals, with the Honorable Mention award going to the non-medaling build that the Chair likes best and/or that receives the most votes for HM in this thread. (HM may not always be awarded, particularly if the number of builds is very small.) And then we all have cake!*

*Note: You must provide your own cake.

This is basically like the regular Iron Chef, and let's be brutally honest with ourselves here: this isn't a gargantuan community, and we basically all know what we're talking about at this point. Make the builds, send 'em in, post some scores, and have fun. If you've got questions, lemme know. Still, let's lay out a few rules!

Cooking Time: Builds must be submitted via PM to the Chair by 4:59 PM GMT - 9 on Friday, August 30, 2019 (1:59 AM GMT on Saturday, August 31). The reveal shall be on the first evening the Chair has free following the cooking deadline, which is hoped to be that evening or the immediately subsequent one—I'll do my best, anyway. Judging is then encouraged to go as quickly as possible; if multiple judges volunteer, we'll set about a two-week window, but if we only get one judge, we'll try to wrap up as soon as possible after that judge presents scores. (I will admit that the deadline time may not be an exact science, but don't hide from me and we'll probably be cool.)
Kitchen: Let's break this one down a bit.



ALLOWED: Almost all D&D 3.5 material published by WotC: Core, Completes, monster books, Races Of books, alternate power source books (Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic, etc.), Spell Compendium, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, Eberron material, Forgotten Realms material, and other WotC-published 3.5 material. (This list is NOT exhaustive and there are many other legal books that I did not mention by name!)
ALLOWED: Material from the 3.5 archives of the Wizards of the Coast website (including, but not limited to, the Mind's Eye articles). If you use it, link it.
ALLOWED: Official errata from WotC. If you're relying on this in a material fashion, it's a good idea to link it and to discuss it.
NOT ALLOWED: Unofficial errata, including "class fixes" (regardless of the source, including from the original author if not published in a WotC book) or fan-created content.
ALLOWED: Unupdated WotC-published 3.0 material (e.g., Sword and Fist, Masters of the Wild, etc.) except for 3.0 psionics. No 3.0 psionics allowed. If you are using 3.0 material, use the general-purpose skill updates (Wilderness Lore becomes Survival, Innuendo becomes Bluff, etc.) and the general-purpose rules updates (spells with a casting time of "1 action" become "1 standard action," etc.) when appropriate.
NOT ALLOWED: 3.0 material for which a direct 3.5 update exists. Use the updated material instead.
ALLOWED: Dragon Compendium and its errata (http://paizo.com/download/dragon/compendium/DragonCompendiumVolumeIErrata.pdf).
NOT ALLOWED: Content from Dragon Magazine and/or Dungeon Magazine unless said content appears in an otherwise allowed source.
ALLOWED: Oriental Adventures, including the 3.5 update to Oriental Adventures from Dragon Magazine #318. This is a specific exception to the "no Dragon" rule!
NOT ALLOWED: Pathfinder content, regardless of whether it is "D&D 3.5 OGL" or not. If it didn't come from WotC, we don't want it.
ALLOWED: From Unearthed Arcana: racial paragon classes, alternate class features/variant classes, spelltouched feats, and variant races. (Traits and flaws are technically legal, but traits warrant a -0.5 point penalty in Elegance, and flaws warrant a -1 penalty in Elegance.)
NOT ALLOWED: Other Unearthed Arcana content, including (but not limited to) bloodlines, LA buyoff, fractional BAB/saves, alternate casting systems, alternate skill systems, item familiars, prestigious character classes, generic classes, gestalt, etc. When you're wondering if UA content is allowed, err on the side of caution and don't mess around with it.
NOT ALLOWED: Leadership, regardless of source. Game elements functionally equivalent to Leadership (including, but not limited to, Dragon Cohort, Undead Leadership, and Thrallherd) are similarly banned. (Familiars, Improved Familiar, animal companions, Wild Cohort, psicrystals, elemental envoys, and similar game elements are allowed, and they are not considered to be "Leadership." If the difference isn't obvious, feel free to contact the Chair with specific questions.)
NOT ALLOWED: Third-party content, homebrew, or other non-WotC content.
NOT ALLOWED: Epic feats from the Epic Level Handbook. Just because you're "epic" in E6 after 6th level doesn't mean that you're that kind of epic.
NOT ALLOWED: Any race or template with a level adjustment other than +0. (Or any other source of LA other than a race or template, if any such things exist.)
NOT ALLOWED: For our judges: penalizing solely based on legal sources used, regardless of whether those sources are plentiful, sparse, common, obscure, or something in between. If the material is legal, then it doesn't matter how many or how few books it came out of.
ALLOWED: Also for our judges: penalizing for using a source (other than material in Core; don't be vindictive about genuinely obvious stuff) that isn't listed in the build writeup. The chef may choose to present the sources in-line with the text, in a consolidated source list, or somewhere else, but if the source is listed (and is otherwise legal), it counts. If the source is not listed, you may choose to penalize for that.

If you have questions about anything in this section (or hell, in this ruleset), feel free to ask the Chair.

Character Creation: 32 point buy is assumed. For the purposes of this contest, Level Adjustment greater than +0 is banned. (This may be revised at a later point, but I don't feel that the E6 LA rules are conducive to fun in the context of this contest.) No more than two entries per chef per contest, please; if you submit two builds and somehow are so overcome with inspiration for a third that you can't help yourself, PM me and tell me which two you care about the most.
Highlighted because of past issues: It is not enough for your build to end with a level adjustment of +0. You must be +0 from start to finish. No using ANY build elements with a level adjustment above +0, even if they then get mitigated or reduced somehow.
Speculation: Please do not post any form of speculation before the reveal. Just don't do it, guys. It's not cool. This means NOT posting any of the following or anything substantially similar: what you think is going to be common, significant elements of your planned build or of other potential builds, or anything else that could directly influence someone else's build choices for good or for ill. (It's acceptable to ask for rules clarifications as appropriate, but try to avoid tipping your hand too much.) Speculation is bad because it can discourage people from posting builds and can also "taint the judging pool" when it comes to Originality, so please just try to be aware of how other people might react to your speculation.
E6: Here's how E6 works for the purposes of this contest. Build your character normally for the first six levels. After you reach level 6, you stop gaining levels and start gaining bonus feats every time you would gain 5,000 XP. Since we aren't actually tracking XP, you'll basically list your first ten epic bonus feats in the order that you take them, and we think of them as being kind of like levels. We will not use the LA-equals-reduced-point-buy rules, instead preferring to just ban races with LA, at least for now. We will not use the "capstone feats"; all feats that you take must be normal legal 3.5 feats, not homebrew E6 ones. You may not use the Epic feats from the Epic Level Handbook, though if for some reason there are non-Epic feats from the ELH that you qualify for, you may take those. (I don't think there are any, but I'm sure someone will prove me wrong.) It is up to the discretion of each judge whether this is a "hard E6" (magic above 3rd level spells is simply beyond mortal reach, items that have a listed CL above 6th are just plain not available, etc.) or a "soft E6" (if you can somehow get the magic on your character, it's yours, regardless of level), though I honestly don't expect it to come up. Don't go crazy with making assumptions about items and we probably won't have to find out.
Presentation: Please use the table found below in the spoiler. List your epic bonus feats (in clear order) after the table. If you find a clever way of formatting that that isn't annoying and that doesn't break anything, have fun; if it's portable, I may steal it for the next round. When sending your build or any disputes to the Chair, clearly include your build's name in the subject of the PM, and please present your build exactly as you want the Chair to copy and paste it into the thread.
If you're using a picture, cite the source and follow any relevant citation rules. Because we have had issues with this in the past, when listing your skills, please make it very clear how many ranks you have at each level. There are multiple ways to do this and we do not wish to cramp anyone's individual style by dictating exactly how this must look, but make sure that somewhere in your entry there's an explanation of how many actual skill ranks you have. It's still fine to list total skill bonuses, if that's your style, but don't only list bonuses; make sure that there is a clear listing somewhere of your ranks alone.

Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


2nd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


3rd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


4th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


5th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


6th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


Code for the table:

Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


2nd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


3rd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


4th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


5th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


6th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

Contest houserules: Nearly the same as the main contest's rules here: all creatures are proficient with natural weapons they have or may acquire, bonus feats that are explicitly granted without meeting prereqs are usable even without those prereqs, and feats that affect which skills are class skills for you and/or how you spend your skill points (Able Learner, Martial Study, Truename Training, Apprentice, etc.) apply immediately at the level at which you take them (even though you normally spend skill points before taking a feat). When taking Open Minded as an epic feat, any skill that has ever been a class skill for you (including through your class, your race, your feats, or similar game elements, though please don't muck around with retroactively making something stop being a class skill for some stupid reason) is a class skill when determining how the 5 granted skill points may be spent. All usual rules about HD-related skill caps apply. When taking Open Minded as a non-epic feat, treat it as normal; the class skills of the class you took at the level you gained Open Minded (plus race, feats, etc.) are your class skills for those skill points, similar to if Open Minded's skill points came straight from your class.
Judging guidelines: The minimum score in a category is 1, and the maximum is 5. Judges are expected to be fair, consistent, and open-minded, and they are expected to make a good-faith effort to engage with any reasonable disputes that arise, especially when RAW is in question. That said, contestants are asked to not dispute more than necessary; let's do everything in good faith and really only dispute when a judge is being inconsistent, being unfair, or is otherwise grossly misinterpreting a build.
Judges may not penalize Originality solely because a build is a tribute or homage to an existing creative work (in or out of D&D canon; note that this is not the same thing as penalizing Originality for using well-known optimization tactics), nor may judges penalize based solely on sources used (whether those sources are plentiful, sparse, common, obscure, or something in between, you should judge the build elements and how they work together rather than what book or what books they came out of, as long as those books are legal for this contest and are cited in the entry).
As with the main contest, we will follow the "One Mistake, One Penalty" guideline, and it is very important that the judges adhere to it. I'm going to directly copy and paste this from the main thread, and hopefully the original author won't mind too much:
Judges are only allowed to penalise once for a given mistake. If someone messes up their skills and doesn't qualify for a PrC, ding them as hard as you like. Once. In one category. You don't then get to declare that because they didn't qualify for that PrC, they don't get those levels, and thus don't qualify for anything else. If Ranger is a common ingredient, ding them for Originality. Once. Don't also take off points for Two-Weapon-Fighting being a common ingredient.

Non-exhaustive list of examples:

Skills
Allowed:

Giving a penalty for miscalculating the number of skill points gained
Giving a penalty for not having enough ranks to meet a prerequisite
Increasing the harshness of a skill miscalculation penalty if it affects critical skills including prereqs


Not allowed:

Giving separate penalties for miscalculating skill points and for non-qualification where the non-qualification is solely caused by the miscalculation



Prereqs
Allowed:

Giving a penalty for not meeting prereqs
Scaling the penalty depending on how important the item that the build failed to qualify for is
Giving minimum score in UotSI for not qualifying for the SI
Not giving credit for (note: not the same as penalising for) tactics using feats or classes other than the SI that were not qualified for (but see below)


Not Allowed:

"Cascading" failures to qualify - declaring that because a build doesn't qualify for a feat, for example, it also doesn't qualify for anything using that feat as a prereq
Treating a build as having fewer levels than it does because of FtQ for classes



Other general things that are no longer allowed:

Penalising because someone has chosen to build a tribute to an existing creative work
Deciding that a backstory has not met a fluff prerequisite well enough, or because its method of meeting it is "unrealistic". You may penalise if a fluff prereq is not addressed at all, but not for how well it is addressed.


Note that these are protections, not licenses. Deliberately taking a feat that you know you don't qualify for hoping to just suck up the judging penalty for a feat that you couldn't normally take is not okay, and may lead to your build being disqualified.
Other bits and bobs: If there's something major and relevant I haven't mentioned, assume that the way I handle it will probably be the same as the main contest unless stated otherwise or unless doing so would be an obviously absurd result. If you've got questions, I'll give you answers.




This round's secret ingredient:
the SCOUT, from Complete Adventurer!
Allez Optimizer!

The Builds:


Namel
Race/Alignment
Stub
Level at which improved skirmish was taken
Jdizzlean judgment
Position
Chef


The Exiled (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120695&postcount=38)
NE Desert Kobold
Scout 5 / Hunter Barbarian 1
Epic 10
17
First
Quentinas


Hit Me (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120690&postcount=37)
?? Whisper gnome
Scout 6
-
16.5
Second
Quentinas


Octopus Man (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120676&postcount=33)
LG Amphibious Strongheart Halfling
Monk 1/Scout 5
5
15.25
Third
PoeticallyPsyco


Amira (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120698&postcount=39)
CG Whisper Gnome
Scout 3/ rogue 2/ Fighter 1
Epic 1
15
Fourth
DEMON


Mahleiza (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120681&postcount=35)
(?? Some Chaotic or Evil) Human
Scout 5/Warlock 1
6
15
Fourth, Honorable Mention
MinimanMidget


The Kraken (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120686&postcount=36)
LE Amphibious Strongheart Halfling
Monk 1 /Scout 3 /Totemist 2
6
14.75
Sixth
PoeticallyPsyco


Watcher (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120670&postcount=32)
TN Dragonborn Warforged Scout
Scout 4 /Ranger 1/ Scorpion Wraith 1
Epic 2
12.5
Seventh
Gauntlet


A Moon Elf from Silverymoon who worships Sehanine Moonbow (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120678&postcount=34)
(?? within 1 step of CG) Moon Elf
Cloistered Cleric 1 /Scout 5
6
7
Eighth
Maat Mons





Round 4: Knight (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?542333-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(IV))
Round 5: Ninja (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?548763-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-V))
Round 6: Racial Paragon Classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?551174-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-VI))
Round 7: Hexblade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?553767-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-VII))
Round 8: Shugenja (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?555626-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-VIII))
Round 9: Swashbuckler (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559135-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-IX)")
Round 10: Crusader (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562183-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-X))
Round 11: Soulknife (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?565669-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XI))
Round 12: Factotum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569723-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XII))
Round 13: Prestige Classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?572441-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XIII))
Round 14: Mountebank (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?576318-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XIV))
Round 15: Sorcerer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?582751-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XV))
Round 16: Dragon Shaman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?585121-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XVI))
Round 17: Lurk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?588149-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XVII))
Round 18: Paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?591516-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XVIII))



Round 1: Divine Mind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?197000-Iron-Chef-Appetizer-Edition!-(e6))
Round 2: Monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?201548-Iron-Chef-Appetizer-Edition!-(e6)-II)
Round 3: Marshal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?235221-Iron-Chef-Appetizer-Edition-(E6)-III)

[Zaq]

Here's a few gentle recommendations that are intended to improve scores and make things easier for the judges. As always, THE RECOMMENDATIONS IN THIS POST ARE NOT RULES. Judges and contestants are free to honor them or ignore them; my intent here is only to help, and NONE of what I'm saying here is required.

Recommendations:
Double-check ALL of your prereqs. Every. Single. One. Feats, PrCs, whatever. You might even go so far as to spell out when you meet each one, but again, that's not a requirement. But one of the single biggest causes of point loss is failure to meet prereqs.
Tell the judges what's cool about your build! You spent hours or days on this (y'know, probably) and know it inside and out, but the judges are getting a whole bunch of these dishes all at once and don't know the build history of each one. You're significantly more likely to score well if you spell out exactly what makes you awesome than if you try to just let it stand on its own.
Make it easy to read! Skill tables are awful, though they're an incredibly necessary evil. Full Monster Manual-style statblocks are occasionally useful but are also insanely dense if not formatted well. Judges are very likely to miss something if you aren't careful with how you present your info. Remember that judging takes a lot of time, energy, and focus, so don't rely on the judge being willing/able to decode something in order to see what makes you interesting!
Be memorable. Remember that we're all using the same ingredient here. What makes you different?

A few things to keep in mind: First, remember that Complete Adventurer has errata (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata). This both applies a nerf to skirmish (boo, but it's RAW) and adds Disable Device as a class skill (potentially useful!).

Second, remember that you're in an E6 environment, but so is everyone else! Scouts kind of shine in E6 because a lot of their baked-in problems don't really crop up until a bit later, but the fact remains that if you're using that as justification for something, it's still on you to differentiate yourself somehow, because everyone gets that same benefit.

Third, I hope that no one treats this as me pushing anything on anyone (I'll be happy if these are used, and I'll also be happy if they're ignored), but scout actually does have a handful of ACFs scattered hither and yon. What you see isn't always what you get. No pressure, though! Just taking what's in CAdv might also be a perfectly viable option.

Fourth, scout has a ton of skill points (not enough, never ever enough, but still a ton). This is really cool in actual play and really annoying when making skill tables, so you're very, very likely to end up with a big old mess on your hands if your tables aren't formatted nicely. I imagine that anyone judging your build will be happier the cleaner your table is, so do yourself a favor and make it easy for judges to read your skills!

Finally, as usual, I feel like your tactics are going to be where you live and die. Sure, everyone's got skills and everyone's got a pretty similar batch of class features. What do you do that not every other scout does? Again, this is a suggestion and not a rule, but if I were judging (note: I am not judging) and comparing two similar-looking builds, I'd give the edge to the one that gives me a more interesting or more clever description of what they actually do.

I love the scout perhaps more than is actually warranted by its mechanical features, so I'm really looking forward to your wild and wonderful ideas. What are you waiting for? Get in there and build for me!

[MinimanMidget]

Oooooooh. I've had some ideas floating around for this for a while, I'm definitely going to try building.

[Maat Mons]

Ideas? Plural? I'm can only think of one way to build an e6 Scout.

[Zaq]

Ideas? Plural? I'm can only think of one way to build an e6 Scout.

That’s enough for an entry! Also you might be surprised.

We also always need judges!

[thorr-kan]

I can think of...three discrete ideas for scouts. Huh. Never really looked the class too closely before.

[Empyreal Dragon]

I have something in mind.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I have a quite cool idea, but I wasn't actually its original progenitor. I think I need to track down that thread again...

[MisterKaws]

I can see a couple builds, but none of them are really unique or showcase the class.

Completely swamped till at least mid-September though, so I'm not likely to join.

[Zaq]

I've been asked to ponder something interesting. Thanks to [REDACTED] for bringing this interesting edge case to my attention!

Basically, the feat Open Minded falls into a rules hole when taken as an E6 epic feat, since it's not clear what should be treated as your class skills for the purposes of spending the 5 skill points it grants. It requires a ruling, and so that's my job!

Incoming ruling: when taking Open Minded as an epic feat, any skill that has ever been a class skill for you (including through your class, your race, your feats, or similar game elements, though please don't muck around with retroactively making something stop being a class skill for some stupid reason) is a class skill when determining how the 5 granted skill points may be spent. All usual rules about HD-related skill caps apply. When taking Open Minded as a non-epic feat, treat it as normal; the class skills of the class you took at the level you gained Open Minded (plus race, feats, etc.) are your class skills for those skill points, similar to if Open Minded's skill points came straight from your class.

Note for judges: since it's necessary for me to make this ruling publicly ahead of time, please do not consider the presence or absence of Open Minded in a build when assessing Originality. You may, of course, rate it in any other category if you see fit to do so.

[DEMON]

Okay, gotta dug out my old E6 Scout build... Hopefully it's up to snuff.

[Quentinas]

Maybe i will join , but i'm in a place without internet for another week so i don't know if i will be able to do a build ( i have an idea for now)

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I find myself struggling with the fact that the best way to make use of my build's cool, unique trick also makes them capable of a different, far less unique, but pretty much objectively more powerful trick.

[tterreb]

I've come up with 4 separate ideas so far, and all of them have ended up requiring at least 5 bab...

[Inevitability]

It's been a long while since I last participated in one of those, but who knows? I might just have something in mind.

[Zaq]

Roughly one week left, so keep cooking and get me some builds!

Anyone committed to judging yet?

[Quentinas]

Now i have returned and i have an idea with all feats , but i have to write tactics , fluff, and other things so i don't know if i will have enough time to submit

[Zaq]

Roughly 72ish hours remain, ladies/gents/others! How’s the cooking going?

[daremetoidareyo]

Roughly 72ish hours remain, ladies/gents/others! How’s the cooking going?

Vizzini gots me. All my ideas seem so obvious

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I've got two builds in the works. Should be able to polish them into submissible shape over the next few days.

[Quentinas]

I have one build missing fluff , and another one thinked but which need so much work that maybe i will not finish that

[Vrock Bait]

I just want to note that I’m secretly cooking in the background.

[Zaq]

Roughly 24 hours remain! Keep ‘em coming!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I think I need to beg for an extension. My builds are done, but I need to finish the breakdowns and fluff.

[Zaq]

How long do ya need?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Hopefully just one day. I might even be able to get them done tonight.

[Zaq]

I'd really like to post them tonight. See how swift you can be, sir!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Okay, crunch time.

[Zaq]

I’m going to bed. You’ve all got until I get up tomorrow.

I don’t know when that will be. It’s been a long week, which might mean I sleep in. It also might mean I’m tired enough to actually fall asleep, meaning I wake up at a decent hour. No promises.

Make me proud, folks. Make me proud.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Both in. Booyah.

[Zaq]

For the record, I didn't sleep for 12 hours. Kinda wish that were possible. But no. I just decided to spend some time cleaning up around the house to give everyone a final chance to get the builds in. Because I love each and every one of you insane goofballs.

Pencils down! I'll be a few minutes arranging the builds, and we'll have some tasty dishes laid out presently.

[Zaq]

Dragonborn, warforged, humanoid (human)… what is a man? A miserable little pile of subtypes! But enough talk…
Rejected joke: "…I 'ardly know 'er!"


Watcher, Dragonborn Warforged Scout Scout 4 / Ranger 1 / Scorpion Wraith 1



Base Stat
Racial Mod
Level
Final


Str 10
-2

8


Dex 15
+2 -2
+ 1
16


Con 8
+2

10


Int 12
-2

10


Wis 14


13


Cha 13
-2

11




Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
Scout 1
+0
+0
+2
+0
Hide 4, Move Silently 4, Survival 4, Spot 4, Listen 4, Search 4, Craft(Poisonmaking) 4, Knowledge (Nature) 4
Hidden Talent (Psionic Minor Creation)
Skirmish +1d6, Trapfinding


2nd
Scout 2
+1
+0
+3
+0
Hide 5, Move Silently 5, Survival 5, Spot 5, Listen 4, Search 5, Craft(Poisonmaking) 5, Knowledge (Nature) 4, Concentration 1
-
Battle Fortitude +1, Uncanny Dodge


3rd
Scout 3
+2
+1
+3
+1
Hide 6, Move Silently 6, Survival 6, Spot 6, Listen 5, Search 5, Craft(Poisonmaking) 6, Knowledge (Nature) 4, Concentration 2
Blind-Fight
Skirmish +1d6/+1, Dungeon Specialist [climb 10ft.]


4th
Scout 4
+3
+1
+4
+1
Hide 7, Move Silently 7, Survival 7, Spot 7, Listen 5, Search 5, Craft(Poisonmaking) 7, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Concentration 3
Improved Initiative
Bonus Feat


5th
Ranger 1
+4
+3
+6
+1
Hide 8, Move Silently 8, Survival 7, Spot 7, Listen 5, Search 5, Craft(Poisonmaking) 7, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Concentration 7
Track
Favored Enemy (Arcanist) +2, Wild Empathy


6th
Scorpion Wraith 1
+5
+3
+8
+1
Hide 9, Move Silently 9, Survival 7, Spot 9, Listen 5, Search 5, Craft(Poisonmaking) 9, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Concentration 7
Flyby Attack
Poison Use, Sudden Strike +1d6


Watcher has some skill monkey skills, isn't particularly accurate. However, they can create Drow Poison with Psionic Minor Creation twice a day, with a huge number of doses that last for an hour. Being a construct, there's no need to worry about poisoning yourself.
With their new climb speed and ability to glide as a dragonborn, you now have more options for enabling Skirmish damage. You're still mainly relying on poison to be useful in a fight, however.
We have 5 HD, which enables actual flight from Dragonborn. Fatigue kicks in after a while and stops us, but you're a Warforged, so you don't care. It also makes up for our low land speed. Favored Enemy bonuses against anyone with spellcasting or SLAs opens up a lot of options for damage bonuses. Ranger is our only level with Concentration as a class skill, so we pick it up here to enable regaining psionic focus later on and qualify for Psionic Meditation. Wild Empathy lets us qualify for Scorpion Wraith, and Swift Hunter will let us avoid losing a second point of BAB while maintaining access to Improved Skirmish later.
Scorpion Wraith gives us more precision damage, qualifies us for Craven for more again, and grants Poison Use to qualify us for Poison Expert. It's full BAB so we can pick up Fell Shot, and lets us fill our our skill list. Flyby Attack is great for moving into range, loosing a shot, and then falling back into some cover to hide in again.



Epic Level
Feat
Notes


1st
Swift Hunter
Increases the bonus provided by Favored Enemy (Arcanists) to +4, grants Favored Enemy (Construct) as well to expand precision damage targets. Skirmish bonus becomes +2d6/+1.


2nd
Improved Skirmish
Qualified through Swift Hunter, increases Skirmish bonus to +4d6/+3.


3rd
Point Blank Shot
Improves hit and damage, but mainly here because it's a prereq.


4th
Psionic Shot
First shot of combat does another 2d6 damage, and if we're able to sneak and snipe we can apply it repeatedly.


5th
Fell Shot
Huge to-hit bonus by making shots touch attacks. Guarantees poison application.


6th
Psionic Meditation
Lets us use Fell Shot every turn if we need the to-hit bonus, using gliding/falling as a Dragonborn to enable Skirmish, or regain focus while moving to help with stealth.


7th
Psicrystal Affinity
Artiste personality ups our Craft check bonus to more reliably make Black Lotus Extract, along with Aid Another on important checks and great scouting options, since it inherits our ranks and has a +12 size mod to Hide.


8th
Able Sniper
Helps our hide checks and attack rolls when sniping and moving - most of the time we'll be using Flyby Attack to move up to exactly 30ft away, shooting and then falling back into cover.


9th
Craven
Extra +6 to damage output.


10th
Poison Expert (Injury)
Increases DC of saves against Unconsciousness from Drow Poison and others.




Watcher
N Medium humanoid (human)
Init*+7*Senses*Listen +8, Spot +12
Languages*Common

AC*15,*touch*13,*flat-footed*12, uncanny dodge, Skirmish +3
HP*25 (6 HD)
Fort*+4,*Ref*+11,*Will*+2
Speed*20 ft. (4 squares), Fly 30ft., Climb 10ft. ; Flyby Attack
Melee*Glaive +4 (1d8-1/x3)
Ranged Masterwork Longbow +12 touch (1d6) plus Skirmish, Sudden Strike, poison, Fell Shot, Black Lotus Extract DC20/3d6 Con/3d6 Con, Drow Poison DC14/Unconsciousness/Unconsciousness
Space*5 ft.;*Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk*+5;*Grp*+1
Atk Options Skirmish +4d6/+3, Sudden Strike +1d6+6, Psionic Shot +2d6, Fell Shot (touch)
SLAs (ML 1st) - psionic minor creation 2/day
Abilities*Str 8, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 11
Feats*Hidden Talent, Blind-Fight, Improved Initiative, Track, Flyby Attack, Swift Hunter, Improved Skirmish, Point Blank Shot, Psionic Shot, Fell Shot, Psionic Meditiation, Psicrystal Affinity, Alertness, Able Sniper, Craven, Poison Expert (Injury)
Skills Hide +20 (+24 sniping), Move Silently +14, Survival +10, Spot +14, Listen +10, Search +8, Craft(Poisonmaking) +25, Knowledge (Nature) +7, Concentration +9; psicrystal aid another included
Equipment Mwk Tools (Hide, Craft, Concentration), Use Activated item of CL3 Diving Insight 2/day, whatever offensive/defensive items are appropriate



Dragonborn [Wings] - Races of the Dragon
Warforged Scout - Monster Manual III
Scout - Complete Adventure
Ranger - PHB
Scorpion Wraith - Secrets of Xen'Drik
Hidden Talent - Expanded Psionics Handbook
Dungeon Specialist - Dungeonscape
Favored Enemy [Arcanist] - Complete Mage
Flyby Attack - various Monster Manuals
Swift Hunter - Complete Scoundrel
Improved Skirmish - Complete Scoundrel
Psionic Shot - Expanded Psionics Handbook
Fell Shot - Expanded Psionics Handbook
Psionic Meditation - Expanded Psionics Handbook
Psicrystal Affinity - Expanded Psionics Handbook
Able Sniper - Races of the Wild
Craven - Champions of Ruin
Poison Expert - Complete Scoundrel

[Zaq]

Input: Jotunbrud
Input: Octopus
Synthesizing 90s kid nerd joke…
Output: Looks like Heavy Troopa's ready to Launch Octopus!
Analysis: Nailed it.
Get it? Jotunbrud makes him heavy? It's kind of an extended play on words and what I want to pretend are well-known phrases? Eh? Eh? Oh, shut up, you laughed. Yeah, you did. Nerd.



Octopus Man, Grappling Halfling FOR JUSTICE!
Halfling Monk 1/ Scout 5


“Age: about 22. Town of birth: Shell Beach (dominant race Shoal Halfling), Northwest Faerun. Hey, that’s about the same latitude as my old home. Grow up there, anywhere else the water feels warm.”

Her boss sat behind a desk, a file in his hands and a fond smile on his face. Not that the smile was unusual. No one was sure if the man known as Smyler had been so named because of his ever-present expression, or if it was just an astonishingly appropriate birth name. Most people did assume that the scars that formed looping swirls and lines all over his body limited the range of his facial motion, that he was literally incapable of lowering the corners of his mouth into neutrality or displeasure, but she knew better. Occasionally a situation was so dire, so important, or simply so infuriating that the Pirate King lost his eternal grin… and when that happened, death inevitably followed. Sometimes on a national scale.

“Height, weight, gender, blah blah blah.” He tossed the parchment onto the desk, leaning forward. “He’s called Octopus Man, he has a flair for the bombastic, and he and his less interesting friends have been wreaking merry havoc on the ships I have enforcing my – ah, what’s the word – edicts in the northern waters.” His grin sharpened suddenly, and she felt a chill run down her spine. “But then, you knew that already, didn’t you?”

Fear. Her heart was hammering, her limbs tightening and twisting with tension. “B-boss, you know I would n-never–“

“Betray me? I know. Relax. Everyone on my crew has secrets.” He paused, staring off into space as her body and mind settled down. When Smyler decided someone had become a liability, he dealt with it personally, often beginning with meetings just like this. He apparently made a decision, focusing back in on her. “This Octopus Man is exactly the kind of person I like to recruit, interesting and competent in equal measure. Normally, I’d take my personal crew up to meet him and make him an offer.”

She was better at hiding her frustration than her fear; her fingers didn’t twitch, her tentacles didn’t writhe, but she was nonetheless convinced that her boss could hear every word she thought. No, he’ll refuse, and you’ll kill him, and he’s mine mine mine to kill to rend to hate–

“However. You’ve served me faithfully and well, and I know you have a personal investment in this character. I leave the matter to your discretion.”

And just like that, the meeting was over, and she was free to pursue the one thing her heart had desired above all others… the violent demise of the boy she had once known, who was now called Octopus Man.






Level
Str
Dex
Con
Int
Wis
Cha


Pre-Racial
17
12
12
12
12
8


1st
16
12
12
12
12
8


4th
17
12
12
12
12
8





Octopus Man, Grappling Halfling For Justice!
LG Small Humanoid (aquatic, halfling, human)
Amphibious Strongheart Halfling Monk 1/ Scout 5


Level
Class
BAB/Grapple
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features
Breakdown


1st
Halfling Monk RSL 1
+0/+11
+2
+2
+2
Balance 4, Climb 4, Jump 4, Listen 4, Search 2, Spot 4, Tumble 4
Human Heritage (B), Improved Grapple (B), Improved Unarmed Strike (B), Jotunbrud
AC Bonus (+0), Denying Stance Fighting Style (tumble), Skirmish (+1d6), Unarmed Strike (1d4)
We’re using the Halfling Monk RSL to get Skirmish instead of Flurry of Blows, as well as boosting our skill points. From a gameplay standpoint it would make more sense to take Scout for a few extra HP and skills, but narratively this is a lot simpler.

Plus, just at level 1, Improved Grapple as our monk bonus feat and Jotunbrud (which lets us count as Large for opposed rolls, including grapples) already make us pretty good at our primary shtick. Why grappling? Firstly, because I find the idea of grappling halflings hilarious. Secondly, with a +10 bonus we can shut down a lot of opponents, doing our full unarmed damage (+ Skirmish if we moved first) and targeting touch AC. While we can’t establish a hold against a foe two or more sizes larger than us, the unarmed strike damage occurs before that and isn’t dependent on being able to establish a hold (Jotunbrud doesn’t specifically mention increasing size for that, but hopefully a lenient DM would say it lets us grapple as if we are Large size; otherwise, we’re stuck with Medium foes).

Denying Stance fighting style also gives us small but nice bonus to Tumble essentially for free.


2nd
Scout 1
+0/+11
+2
+4
+2
Balance 5, Climb 5, Jump 5, Listen 5, Search 5, Spot 5, Tumble 5

Skirmish (+2d6), Trapfinding
The lovely thing about Scout’s Skirmish is that it explicitly stacks with Skirmish from other sources.

Try to get your hands on a pair of scorpion claws (Sandstorm). We’re not proficient in them, but we don’t actually need to be to get the typeless +4 to grapple checks per claw you’re wearing. This actually makes a fair amount of sense; putting the claw on someone and holding on seems way less complicated than actually using these things as effective weapons. We don’t need a hand free for a real weapon because we’ve got Improved Unarmed Strike, so there’s no reason not to use both of them (they always come in pairs).

We’re also proficient in light armor now. Studded leather armor gives us better AC than our lost unarmored monk bonuses (don’t do this while swimming unless you’ve got magic armor; water does not play nicely with steel or leather, especially over long periods of time. Cord armor (Stormwrack) is a decent alternative, but only offers +2 AC).


3rd
Scout 2
+1/+11
+2
+5
+2
Balance 6, Climb 6, Disable Device 2, Jump 6, Listen 6, Search 6, Spot 6, Tumble 6
Scorpion’s Grasp
Battle Fortitude +1, Uncanny Dodge
Battle Fortitude and Uncanny Dodge are lovely, making up for some weak points in the build (relatively low Fortitude and Dex). Did you know that while Uncanny Dodge normally just lets you keep your Dex bonus to AC while flatfooted, Scout’s Uncanny Dodge makes you entirely immune to the flatfooted condition? YMMV on whether your DM treats this as a typo or not, but if not we just became immune to one of the main sources of Sneak Attack (and the less common Iaijutsu Focus) and also gained the ability to make opportunity attacks even when surprised or before having acted yet.

That’s pretty sweet, but Scorpion’s Grasp may be even better. There are two ways of reading the line “you can use [the light weapon] in each round to make an attack against the creature you are grappling without taking the normal -4 penalty”. The first is that it only obviates that -4 penalty 1/round. The second is that it grants you an extra attack with the weapon 1/round. This build assumes the second interpretation, as it is directly comparable to a similar three feat chain, Combat Expertise>Improved Trip>Knock-Down (yes Knock-Down was errata’d, but they then re-released the unerrata’d version in a later sourcebook, so the most recent iteration of the feat does grant an extra attack). This feat is pretty similar to the Improved Grab special attack, but it has one key difference: Improved Grab drags the enemy into your square, but grappling normally (even via Scorpion’s Grasp) moves you into their square. This doesn’t actual do all too much yet, though you can 5ft step towards an opponent, punch/kick/headbutt them, grapple them (moving into their square), and then get that extra attack with Skirmish damage, all without provoking an opportunity attack (no Skirmish damage on the grapple damage, sadly; as mentioned above, that happens before you establish a hold and move into their square). Situational, but kind of cool.


4th
Aquatic Scout 3
+2/+13
+3
+5
+3
Balance 7, Climb 7, Disable Device 5, Jump 6, Listen 7, Search 7, Spot 7, Tumble 7

Fast Movement (+10ft swim speed), Skirmish (+2d6, +1 AC), Trackless Step
More Skirmish. Lovely, lovely Skirmish.

Taking the Aquatic Scout variant lets us add our Fast Movement to our swim speed (10ft to 20ft) instead of our land speed. This is preparing for Improved Skirmish next level; now we can use it in either environ.

Trackless Step is incredibly situational, especially since it doesn’t shelter your party. That said, when you’re bleeding in the ocean, you’re going to be real happy that hungry sharks can’t track you down by Scent unless they’re already most likely within visual range.


5th
Scout 4
+3/+14
+3
+6
+3
Balance 8, Climb 8, Disable Device 8, Jump 6, Listen 8, Search 8, Spot 8, Tumble 8
Improved Skirmish (B)
Bonus Feat (Improved Skirmish)
This build is pretty feat-starved; getting one of the best Scout feats as a bonus feat is just perfect. Thank you once again Halfling Monk RSL for boosting our Skirmish by effectively two levels.


6th
Scout 5
+3/+16
+3
+6
+3
Balance 9, Climb 9, Disable Device 9, Jump 8, Listen 9, Search 9, Spot 9, Tumble 9
Aberration Blood (flexible limbs)
Evasion, Skirmish (+3d6, +1 AC)
Moar Skirmish! Don’t need to explain why that’s great.

Aberration Blood is Octopus Man’s weirder heritage really starting to show itself. +2 to grapple is of course welcome, but the best part of this feat is that it qualifies you for the rest of the Aberration [Heritage] feats (and Extended Reach, but this build won’t be taking advantage of that).

If your DM rules that Psychic Rogues can take Swift Ambusher, it may be worth it to take a level of that here instead. This requires some reshuffling of ability scores (you need a 14 in Int), but nets you a free power and a d6 of Sneak Attack at the cost of Evasion. Alternatively, a level of Psychic Warrior costs you a d6 of Skirmish, but nets you a bonus feat and +1 BAB/Grapple. Note that Evasion has a nice synergy later on, so think carefully before dropping it.


E1






Inhuman Reach

You know what’s always great? Reach. That may seem like an odd sentiment for a grappling build, but this lets us pull off the 5ft step combo I discussed at level 3 on an opponent up to 15ft away. And we’ve got plans for this feat, oh yes we do.


E2

+3/+18




Deepspawn

You know what’s also always great? Natural attacks and bonuses to grapple (racial bonuses stack). The awesome thing about the 5ft step combo is that it lets full attack. Even if the DM ruled against my interpretation of Scorpion’s Grasp, that feat is now letting us deal Skirmish Damage without using the move action.


E3






Wild Talent

So, if you’re playing a campaign that allows flaws, instead of this you take Hidden Talent at 1st level to get an actual power. As is, this is a feat tax for Illithid Heritage, which requires a PP reserve. Or if your DM allowed Psychic Rogues to take Swift Ambusher, you take that instead (though probably as your E10; awesome as extra damage is, more attacks is more awesome).


E4






Illithid Heritage

I initially viewed this as a feat tax, too, but actually we end up with enough Illithid feats that the bonus to all saves becomes very worthwhile. Right now, that bonus is +1.


E5






Illithid Skin

Wow, there are not a lot of Illithid feats out there. +1 natural armor is nice (if not feat-worthy), and it’s also the only Illithid feat we can actually use.


E6






Illithid Grapple x1

Extra natural attack, frickin’ booyah. It gives us Improved Grab, which for the most part we won’t be using (the tentacle is fully capable of using Scorpion’s Grasp, which is usually the better option), but it does qualify us for…


E7






Multigrab

This one is really important]Oh how I struggled on how to make this build pull together (pun intended). The idea is to grapple from one enemy to another, racking up distance until we can use Improved Skirmish. But for the longest time I just couldn’t make it work. Grappling reduces your reach to 0, so moving past the 10ft to the first target is impossible. Taking Illithid Grapple 4x was my next idea; that lets you make a separate grapple attempt with each tentacle, and since initiating the grapple is a free action it could theoretically be delayed until after each tentacle had hit a separate opponent… but then I found an official WotC web archive clarifying the grappling rules (All About Grappling) and it turns out that grappling takes no time and is part of the attack that initiates it. Poop. And then it hit me. I was overthinking it. Octopus Man’s grapple is already higher than most monsters of ECL 6 by a not insignificant amount; most Medium enemies are going to be outclassed by a very wide margin. So even a significant penalty to grapple is not actually a huge deal.

Enter Multigrab. Taking a -10 penalty to grapple (still +16 with scorpion claws before any magic enters the picture), Octopus Man holds the grappled foe with just one limb and is not considered grappled himself. That means his reach is still 10ft, and he can continue his full attack onto another opponent, dragging his hapless first victim along with him as he moves into the second victim’s space (hopefully that’s enough for Improved Skirmish already, but if not we’ve got a total of four attacks at this point). The Grappling Halfling is now officially on a roll! An extra attack against each victim from Scorpion’s Grasp (hopefully), which can be done at the end of the turn after Improved Skirmish has been proc’ed. And next turn he can just walk or swim 20ft as a move action, dragging all his victims along with him (assuming he can carry that much weight), and then use a Scorpion’s Grasp granted attack against all of them for full Improved Skirmish damage. What happens to multiple victims if he drops them all in the same square as a free action is unknown, but probably hilarious.

Obviously, this works best if the DM rules Octopus Man counts as Large for grappling in general (rather than just the opposed checks), but fear not: you can still pull this off by using trained sparrows, fish, cats, or any other Tiny or smaller animal (or party member). Have them spread out across the battlefield; use a normal, non-Scorpion’s Grasp grapple to move into the square of one 10ft away (and forgo the grapple damage unless you don’t mind a high turnover rate from your helpers), then a second one 10ft from the first. Now use Improved Grab from Illithid Grapple (instead of Scorpion’s Grasp) on the Medium+ creatures you actually want to grapple. This also works if your DM rules you do count as Large, for grappling Large or Huge creatures; it can also be used to get around your carry weight when hauling multiple or heavy creatures around (hilariously).

If you went with Psychic Rogue (or otherwise acquired a source of bonus damage that keys off opponents denied Dex to their AC, e.g. Iaijutsu Focus), grappling opponents are denied their Dex to AC against opponents not in a grapple… and Octopus Man doesn’t count as being grappled by them when using Multigrab.

Last but not least, you’re high Reflex, Evasion, and generally high concentration of enemies sharing your space, you can team up with a spellcaster or alchemist to blast you with AOE damage for fun and profit.


E8






Illithid Grapple x2

More natural attacks means more attempts to grapple, and ideally more opponents grappled. At the very least it means an extra attack against an opponent you already have grappled.

Octopus Man’s bonus to saves versus magic is now +2.


E9






Illithid Grapple x3

See above.


E10






Illithid Grapple x4

And here we are; at the end of the build we get one last trick. Now you can layer multiple grapples onto a single opponent, making it take multiple turns for them to individually break free from each grapple unless they can teleport (only using your tentacles, but that only costs you 1 of 7 attacks). Don’t forget that you can still spread these layered grapples between multiple opponents who are either already grappled and in your square, or who you’re using Multigrab on.

Save bonus is now +3.




I left Octopus Man’s origin story deliberately ambiguous. That’s because there are multiple ways it could go.

The first is that he is child found washed up on the shore and adopted by a family of shoal halflings. This makes him a human, most likely a child of the slaves of Aboleths or some other underwater civilization, and that’s the explanation for his weird heritage biology. So he’s genetically human(ish) (with Powerful Build but slow speed due to his weird biology), but culturally halfling, which is how he qualifies for Halfling Monk (and giving him effectively Slight Build as well). Honestly, this is my preferred explanation, because it’s narratively elegant, and allows for some easy story hooks for quests. However, there is little if any support for ‘culturally a different race’ as a mechanic in D&D. I recall something about a dwarf raised among humans, but couldn’t find it again, and there was Half-Human Elves for Half Elves raised by elves, but that was explicitly a variant rule. So the ‘canonical’ explanation is the second one.

Octopus Man just has a couple of weird ancestors, including at least one human. I’ve seen it theorized several times that Halflings are descended from humans; one of those times was in the BoEF. This would make all Halflings qualify for Human Heritage as a Human-descended race. If the DM doesn’t buy it, you can upgrade “human ancestor” to “human parent”. There is no “Half-Halfling” race, so the child would be one or the other, in this case Halfling. Obviously these options are less than satisfying from a narrative (with the exception of the touching love story between a Human and Halfling), but they hold up mechanically to qualify Octopus Man for Human Heritage, which itself qualifies him for Jotunbrud.

From a gamist perspective, this is an attempt to create an octopus-flavored grappling halfling. I think using Human Heritage>Jotunbrud and the Amphibious template (since Shoal Halfling had to be replaced with Strongheart to take Human Heritage, Amphibious replaces those features mechanically) is a solid way of representing a Shoal Halfling that’s unusually good at grappling.


“Avast, ye pirates, and despair, for I – Octopus Man, Grappling Halfling For Justice! – am here to save the day!” He put action to word, shooting from one pirate to another, grabbing them and holding the screaming villains suspended around him in his tentacles.

As his friends followed suit, swinging from their boat to this one to join in the rout, a panicking pirate lunged for one of the hostages and dragged her over to the rail. “Not a step further,” he wailed, “or she goes in the drink!” As if to punctuate his point, a shark leapt from the waves, snapping at the air beneath the railing. “Where the devil is the captain?!” he cried despairingly.

“Very well, ruffian! But I need not come any closer to deal with the likes you!” Octopus Man lashed out with his tentacles, bludgeoning the man into unconsciousness with repeated righteous blows, and then snatched the female hostage to safety as she overbalanced and began to go over the rail.

“Don’t worry, madam!” he bellowed cheerfully, as his friends cleaned up the last of the standing pirates. “You are safe now, for you are in the hands of Octopus Man, Grappling Halfling For J–”

*CLAP*

*CLAP*

*CLAP*

*CLAP*

A woman heavily shrouded in cloaks stood upon the boom where none had stood seconds prior, clapping slowly, derision ringing from every impact of hands.

“Who dares to slow clap Octopus Man, Grappling H–” He froze. “You,” he whispered, recognition and horror making his body rigid as a tombstone.

“You’ve grown so much since I last saw you. I have to admit, I’m impressed,” the mysterious figure said. The words were polite, though perhaps a little too familiar, but tone... the tone was pure, undiluted hatred, and the cloaks that shrouded her stirred as though something writhed underneath.

“You’re dead,” Octopus Man stammered, white as ghost now. “I killed you.”

“What can I say?” The figure ripped off her robes, casting the aside to reveal long, flexible arms, and stretching tentacles sprouting from her ribcage beneath them, both illuminated with eerie blue light… and identical to those sported by the hero Octopus Man. But while his face was a mass of tentacles, hers was humanoid and covered by a mask depicting a stylized kraken.

“I guess you just can’t keep a good Halfling down,” The Kraken intoned. “It’s been a long time, brother mine.”



Complete Adventurer – Scout.
Complete Psionic – Illithid Grapple, Illithid Heritage, Illithid Skin.
Complete Scoundrel – Improved Skirmish.
Lords of Madness – Aberration Blood, Deepspawn, Inhuman Reach.
Races of Destiny – Human Heritage.
Races of Faerun – Strongheart Halfling. Jotunbrud.
Races of the Wild – Halfling Monk.
Sandstorm – Scorpion’s Grasp. Scorpion claws.
Serpent Kingdoms – Multigrab.
SRD – Halfling. Denying Stance Fighting Style, Monk. Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, Wild Talent. Studded leather armor.
Stormwrack – Amphibious Creature. Aquatic Scout. Cord armor.
Web -- http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070911

[Zaq]

Yes, that is actually the name. Nine words long. I checked with the chef.

You'll have to imagine your own cleverly 'shopped "Hello, My Name Is" badge here.
I can't wait to see what goofy nicknames this one ends up with…


Moon! (https://xkcd.com/1300/)

Elf Cloistered Cleric 1 / Scout 5

Str: 10
Dex 18 (base) +2 (race) = 20
Con: 15 (base) -2 (race) +1 (level) = 14
Int: 12
Wis: 8
Cha: 10


Char. LvlClassACFs &c.FeatsClass Feat.Skirmish
1Cleric 1Cloistered Cleric, trade Knowledge domain for Knowledge Devotion feat, trade Travel domain for Travel Devotion featEducation, Knowledge Devotion (bonus), Point Blank Shot (bonus), Travel Devotion (bonus)Elf Domain, Knowledge Domain, Travel Domain, Turn Undead-
2Scout 1Trapfinding+1d6
3Scout 2Rapid ShotUncanny Dodge+1d6
4Scout 3Fast Movement (+10 ft.), Trackless Step+1d6, +1 AC
5Scout 4Improved Initiative (bonus)+1d6, +1 AC
6Scout 5Improved SkirmishEvasion+2d6, +1 AC (+4d6, +3 AC)


Skill Ranks: Concentration 4, Knowledge (arcana) 9, Knowledge (dungeoneering) 9, Knowledge (nature) 9, Knowledge (religion) 9, Knowledge (the planes) 9, Listen 5, Spot 5, Tumble 5, Spellcraft 4, Survival 5

Run around. Shoot things. Know things. Moon! (https://youtu.be/e9NIrkSi8UY)

Sources
Cleric: PHB
Clerics and Domain Feats: CC
Cloistered Cleric: UA
Education: PGtF
Elf: PHB
Elf Domain: SC
Improved Initiative: PHB
Improved Skirmish: CS
Knowledge Devotion: CC
Point Blank Shot: PHB
Rapid Shot: PHB
Sehanine Moonbow: F&P
Travel Devotion: CC

Moon! (https://youtu.be/dPIJLU1DkiI?t=429)

[Zaq]

I'll do the fluff for you: Once upon a time there was a Chair who decided for some stupid reason that doing full-time grad school with a full-time professional day job was a good idea. The reason for this is because the Chair was very foolish, and accordingly, the Chair couldn't manage time well. The Chair tired himself out one day and fell asleep, and as he slept, he dreamed of a scout with a dark pact…


Mahleiza
Human Scout 5/Warlock 1

No time for fluff, I don't know when Zaq is going to wake up. The important point is that he has a fire laser that charges as he moves.



Ability
Score
Modifiers
Final Score


Strength
8
-
8 (-1)


Dexterity
15
+1 (Level 4)
16 (+2)


Constitution
14
-
14 (+2)


Intelligence
14
-
14 (+2)


Wisdom
12
-
12 (+1)


Charisma
11
-
11 (+0)





Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
Scout 1
+0
+0
+2
+0
Balance +4, Hide +4, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +4, Knowledge (nature) +4, Listen +4, Move Silently +4, Sense Motive +4, Search +4, Spot +4, Survival +4, Tumble +4
Dragontouched, Able Learner (human)
Skirmish (+1d6), trapfinding


2nd
Warlock 1
+0
+0
+2
+2
Balance +4, Hide +5, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +4, Knowledge (nature) +4, Listen +5, Move Silently +5, Sense Motive +4, Search +4, Spot +5, Survival +4, Tumble +5

Eldritch blast (1d6), See the unseen


3rd
Scout 2
+1
+0
+3
+2
Balance +5, Hide +6, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +4, Knowledge (nature) +4, Listen +6, Move Silently +6, Sense Motive +6, Search +6, Spot +6, Survival +5, Tumble +6
Dragonfire Strike
Battle fortitude +1, uncanny dodge


4th
Scout 3
+2
+1
+3
+3
Balance +5, Hide +7, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +5, Knowledge (nature) +5, Listen +7, Move Silently +7, Sense Motive +7, Search +7, Spot +7, Survival +7, Tumble +7
-
Fast movement +10 ft., skirmish (+1d6, +1 AC), trackless step


5th
Scout 4
+3
+1
+4
+3
Balance +5, Hide +8, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +5, Knowledge (nature) +5, Listen +8, Move Silently +8, Sense Motive +8, Search +8, Spellcraft +3, Spot +8, Survival +8, Tumble +8
Quick Reconnoiter (Scout)
-


6th
Scout 5
+3
+1
+4
+3
Balance +5, Hide +9, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +6, Knowledge (nature) +6, Listen +9, Move Silently +9, Sense Motive +9, Search +9, Spellcraft +4, Spot +9, Survival +9, Tumble +9
Improved skirmish
Evasion, skirmish (+2d6, +1 AC)


E6 Feats:

Expeditious Dodge
Darkstalker
Practiced Spellcaster (Warlock)
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Mortalbane
Martial Study (Shadow Jaunt)
Martial Stance (Child of Shadow)
Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot





We start off as a pretty normal Scout, probably running around plinking at things with a shortbow.


At level 2, we get our primary attack method. If you're committing to making one attack per round, you want that attack to hit, so touch attacks are extremely helpful. We also get the See the Unseen invocation, boosting our scouting abilities with darkvision and the ability to see invisible and ethereal foes.


Back to Scout, and Dragonfire Strike is a nice boost to our skirmish damage. We won't be able to use it on everything, of course, but it'll generally be worth having.


Fast movemement doesn't matter much right now, but we'll be glad we have it soon enough. +1 to AC from Skirmish will pretty much be always-on for us.


Scout gives us a bonus feat from a fairly crappy selection, but Quick Reconnoiter is nice to have.


We get our final skirmish numbers just in time to take Improved Skirmish, doubling our skirmish damage and tripling our skirmish AC.


Right on the heels of Improved Skirmish, Expeditious Dodge gives us another +2 to AC as long as we move 40 feet - thanks to Fast movement, we should be able to do this every round. The requirement to stay within 30 feet of our enemies means we'll spend a lot of time literally running circles around people, though.


Needs no introduction, it's the feat that makes stealth possible.


I'm not going to pretend Practiced Spellcaster boots eldritch blast damage, although a generous DM might allow it. The real reason we take it is because Spell Resistance is actually a real problem for us. With all 3 feats, our total bonus is +9, which isn't exactly ideal since opponents with SR will generally have around 15, but it's enough to keep us operable.


A nice boost to damage - doesn't work against all opponents, and 5/day is a little less than we'd like, but it'll help often enough to be worthwhile.


Shadow Jaunt is generally useless to us in combat (although you never know when it might come in handy), but outside of combat reusable teleportation is often handy. Anyway, the real prize here is the stance we can get.


One more "move on your turn for extra stuff" ability, this gives us concealment as long as we move 10 feet - so it should be always-on for us.


+1 to attack and damage isn't anything special, but if we have to be within 30 feet anyway it's not completely terrible. Also it's a pre-req, obviously.


It's not as important to us as most archers, but shooting into melee is common enough, and a -4 penalty is big enough, that Precise Shot is still worthwhile.




Eldritch blast: +7 (with Point Blank Shot) to hit touch AC, 1d6 + 2d6 (skirmish) + 2d6 (improved skirmish) + 1d6 (dragonfire strike) + 2d6 (mortalbane) + 1 (point blank shot)
HP: 8 + 12 + 1d6 + 4d8 = average 41.5
AC: 10 + 3 (Dex) + 1 (skirmish) + 2 (improved skirmish) + 2 (expeditious dodge) + ~4 (whatever light armor we can get, probably a chain shirt) = 22
Fort: 1 + 2 (Con) + 1 (Battle fortitude) = 4
Ref: 4 + 3 (Dex) = 7
Will: 3 + 1 (Wis) = 4
Initiative: 3 (Dex) + 1 (Battle fortitude) = 4




Scout, Quick Reconnoiter: Complete Adventurer
Dragontouched, Dragonfire Strike: Dragon Magic
Able Learner: Races of Destiny
Warlock, Practiced Spellcaster: Complete Arcane
Improved Skirmish: Complete Scoundrel
Expeditious Dodge: Races of the Wild
Darkstalker: Lords of Madness
Mortalbane: Book of Vile Deeds
Martial Study, Martial Stance: Tome of Battle
Everything else: SRD content

[Zaq]

Remember kids, kraken is wacken.




The Kraken, Grappling Halfling For Eeeeviiill!
Halfling Monk 1/ Scout 3/ Halfling Totemist 2



“My lord, while I don’t mean to… criticize your decision, the crew are pretty nervous, and it’s hard to blame them.”

“And that’s why the soldiers are at full watch despite not having seen a single ship besides that merchant vessel. I recognize the risk, and don’t intend to be caught with my pants down if anything does happen, but I’ll be damned if I let that grinning madman extort tribute this far north. Even his reach must have limits, and a refuse to believe he hasn’t reached them yet.”

*splash*

“… Did you hear that?”

“I did. Private Altez!” The sergeant jerked her head towards the source of the noise.

The private in question approached the railing, struggling mightily not to roll his eyes in front of his superior officer and lord. They were on a boat. Of course there were going to be occasional splashes. He looked over the edge. Nothing, of course. No movement, not even waves or wind.

“All clear!” he shouted, turning around to return to his post. Frickin’ nobles. Jumpin’ at shadows and waves. Wait… no waves?!

The sergeant, checking the other posts after receiving the all clear, missed what happened next. The young, confident lord did not, and he saw a silvery something whip around the poor private’s neck, yanking him backwards even as something shot over the rail to intercept him. It hit him hard, and then it was gone again in a flash of blue.

“Intruder! Enemy aboard!”

“Where’d it go?”

“It has to be down there somewhere!”

“No! Get away from the rails!”

A silvery chain with a blade on the end shot straight out of the water, impaling the female sergeant, and the figure, outlined in a few places with blue glow, shot out of the waves after it, wrapping around the sergeant and twisting the blade before vanishing again with a blue flash.

“Away! From! The rails!” the lord bellowed. “If it can’t see us, it can’t strike!”

“True enough,” an unknown feminine voice murmured from above him, and then the figure plummeted from the sky, tackling the luckless lord to the ground and striking him with fist and… tentacles? And yet again, the figure was gone, but almost instantly plunged down again, striking a private on the far end of the deck. This time it did not vanish, instead wrapping her – for now in the light of the lanterns it was unmistakably a “her” – two long, flexible arms and two long, flexible tentacles around the private. Holding the poor soul between her and the blades of his fellows, she spoke again.

“You really should have just paid the tithe. Is a few percent of your profits truly such an unbearable sum?”

“No one tells Waterdeep when we can or can’t sail,” the young lord choked out, staggering back to his feet.

“Of course not. Smyler places no bans upon travel or use of the sea; to do so would be absurd and unfair.” Her voice was confident, the tone of one who has heard and given this same speech countless times. “But if you want to carry goods through his kingdom, or conduct business within his realm, then you must pay a tithe as you would for any monarch of rock and soil.”

The young lord opened his mouth to retort, but with a flash of her chain she was on a different sergeant and then vanished again.

“Where is she?!”

“On the mast!”

*CRUNCH*

There was a brief pause as everyone but The Kraken realized that their attention had been too single-minded. And then the merchant ship the young lord had dismissed so cavalierly earlier in the evening, which was currently rammed into the side of the ship, disgorged dozens of hired brigands onto the lord’s ship. Surrender was almost immediate, and the whole operation was completely without a death on either side. Quick. Efficient. And effective. Just like Smyler would have wanted.

“What do we do with the prisoners, Cap’n?”

“Strip their armor and weapons. Go ahead and keep those as a bonus. Keep a few of the sailors on deck as hostages. I have the feeling we’ll be needing them before the night is out. Send the rest below decks.” We’re trying to catch a self-styled hero; best to play the part of villains. “This Octopus Man seems primarily concerned with disrupting the Pirate King’s operations; we should be fine. If he does show up, I’ll run interference for you like I did against these lads.”

In fact, I think I see his ship now. He always was punctual as well as trusting; gratifying to see I can still use those traits against him. Time to make myself scarce. I’ll take his measure as he chews through these chums.






Level
Str
Dex
Con
Int
Wis
Cha


Pre-Racial
17
14
13
12
12
8


1st
15
14
13
12
12
8


4th
16
14
13
12
12
8





The Kraken, Grappling Halfling For Evil!
LE Small Humanoid (aquatic, halfling, human)
Amphibious Strongheart Halfling Monk 1/ Scout 3/ Totemist 2


Level
Class
BAB/Grapple
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features
Soulmelds
Essentia
Chakra Binds
Breakdown


1st
Halfling Monk RSL 1
+0/+10
+2
+2
+2
Balance 4, Bluff 1, Climb 4, Jump 4, Listen 4, Spot 4, Search 1, Tumble 4
Human Heritage (B), Improved Grapple (B), Improved Unarmed Strike (B), Jotunbrud
AC Bonus (+0), Denying Stance Fighting Style (tumble), Skirmish (+1d6), Unarmed Strike (1d4)
0
0
0
We’re using the Halfling Monk RSL to get Skirmish instead of Flurry of Blows, as well as boosting our skill points. From a gameplay standpoint it would make more sense to take Scout for a few extra HP and skills, but narratively this is a lot simpler.

Plus, just at level 1, Improved Grapple as our monk bonus feat and Jotunbrud (which lets us count as Large for opposed rolls, including grapples) already make us pretty good at our primary shtick. Why grappling? Firstly, because I find the idea of grappling halflings hilarious. Secondly, with a +10 bonus we can shut down a lot of opponents, doing our full unarmed damage (+ Skirmish if we moved first) and targeting touch AC. While we can’t establish a hold against a foe two or more sizes larger than us, the unarmed strike damage occurs before that and isn’t dependent on being able to establish a hold (Jotunbrud doesn’t specifically mention increasing size for that, but hopefully a lenient DM would say it lets us grapple as if we are Large size; otherwise, we’re stuck with Medium foes).

Denying Stance fighting style also gives us small but nice bonus to Tumble essentially for free.


2nd
Scout 1
+0/+10
+2
+4
+2
Balance 5, Bluff 2, Climb 5, Jump 5, Listen 5, Spot 5, Search 2, Tumble 5

Skirmish (+2d6), Trapfinding
0
0
0
The lovely thing about Scout’s Skirmish is that it explicitly stacks with Skirmish from other sources.

Try to get your hands on a pair of scorpion claws (Sandstorm). We’re not proficient in them, but we don’t actually need to be to get the typeless +4 to grapple checks per claw you’re wearing. This actually makes a fair amount of sense; putting the claw on someone and holding on seems way less complicated than actually using these things as effective weapons. We don’t need a hand free for a real weapon because we’ve got Improved Unarmed Strike, so there’s no reason yet not to use both of them (they always come in pairs).

We’re also proficient in light armor now. Studded leather armor gives us better AC than our lost unarmored monk bonuses (don’t do this while swimming unless you’ve got magic armor; water does not play nicely with steel or leather, especially over long periods of time. Cord armor (Stormwrack) is a decent alternative, but only offers +2 AC).

3rd
Scout 2
+1/+11
+2
+5
+2
Balance 6, Bluff 3, Climb 5, Jump 5, Listen 6, Spot 6, Search 5, Tumble 6
Scorpion’s Grasp
Battle Fortitude +1, Uncanny Dodge
0
0
0
Battle Fortitude and Uncanny Dodge are lovely, making up for some weak points in the build (relatively low Fortitude and Dex). Did you know that while Uncanny Dodge normally just lets you keep your Dex bonus to AC while flatfooted, Scout’s Uncanny Dodge makes you entirely immune to the flatfooted condition? YMMV on whether your DM treats this as a typo or not, but if not we just became immune to one of the main sources of Sneak Attack (and the less common Iaijutsu Focus) and also gained the ability to make opportunity attacks even when surprised or before having acted yet.

That’s pretty sweet, but Scorpion’s Grasp may be even better. There are two ways of reading the line “you can use [the light weapon] in each round to make an attack against the creature you are grappling without taking the normal -4 penalty”. The first is that it only obviates that -4 penalty 1/round. The second is that it grants you an extra attack with the weapon 1/round. This build assumes the second interpretation, as it is directly comparable to a similar three feat chain, Combat Expertise>Improved Trip>Knock-Down (yes Knock-Down was errata’d, but they then re-released the unerrata’d version in a later sourcebook, so the most recent iteration of the feat does grant an extra attack). This feat is pretty similar to the Improved Grab special attack, but it has one key difference: Improved Grab drags the enemy into your square, but grappling normally (even via Scorpion’s Grasp) moves you into their square. This doesn’t actual do all too much yet, though we can 5ft step towards an opponent, punch/kick/headbutt them, grapple them (moving into their square), and then get that extra attack with Skirmish damage, all without provoking an opportunity attack (no Skirmish damage on the grapple damage, sadly; as mentioned above, that happens before you establish a hold and move into their square). Situational, but kind of cool.


4th
Scout 3
+2/+13
+3
+5
+3
Balance 7, Bluff 3.5, Climb 5, Jump 6, Listen 7, Spot 7, Search 7, Tumble 7

Dungeon Specialist, Go To Ground, Skirmish (+2d6, +1 AC)
0
0
0
4th level is when The Kraken and Octopus Man start to diverge (mechanically, that is; they literally went their separate ways while still level 1). While Octopus Man went for Fast Movement (aquatic) so he could get Improved Skirmish while swimming, we trade that in for a climb speed (I think you still need one hand free though, so we have to lose one of the Scorpion Claws if we’re planning to climb), and trade Trackless Step for the ability to be immune to Urban Tracking via Gather Information. The reason for both of these will become apparent in a couple of levels (though climb speed hardly needs a justification; it’s very useful on any build without flight).


5th
Halfling Totemist RSL 1
+2/+13
+5
+7
+3
Balance 7, Bluff 4, Climb 5, Jump 6, Listen 8, Spot 8, Search 7, Tumble 8

Low-Light Vision, Meldshaping, Wild Empathy
2
1
0
Now that we’ve gotten our Skirmish up to the level of a Scout 5-6, it’s time for a change. Octopus Man stayed in Scout to maximize Skirmish damage, but we’re going to focus on mobility, grappling, and perception. The first level of Totemist is coming in strong right out of the gate, with Blink Shirt giving us at will short range teleportation (10ft, +10ft/essentia) and Girallon Arms giving us some solid grapple bonuses (+2 typeless, +2/essentia). Those are the soulmelds we’ll be shaping most of the time, but of course any others we happen to need are just 8 hours of rest away. Also, the Halfling Totemist RSL gives us Low Light Vision for the low cost of 1 HP on average. This also greatly increases how far we can see underwater.

Blink Shirt is the reason we don’t need Fast Movement or Trackless Step. While it’s not very fast yet, just next level it will be on par with Fast Movement applied to land speed and superior to Fast Movement applied to swim speed. Utility-wise at will teleportation can accomplish all the usual tricks of rendering walls irrelevant and avoiding AoOs, but logically it would also make us very hard to track. Even with Scent, what dog could track someone teleporting from treetop to treetop (climb speed, heyo!)? This won’t work as well underwater, but if you’re regularly being pursued by trackers utilizing trained sharks, it’s probably time to rethink your life choices.

Girallon Arms is our go-to essentia destination in combat, as +4 to grapple is quite significant. I haven’t included this BAB/Grapple column, as it’s not guaranteed we’ll have it shaped every day.

Side Note: if enough party members play Subnautica, I’d name this character Warper instead of The Kraken. This was actually my original name for her, but I didn’t think enough people would get it. (For those who don’t know, Warpers are teleporting psychic hunter-killer octopodes in the game, and they are… terrifying.


6th
Totemist 2
+3/+14
+6
+8
+3
Balance 7, Bluff 4.5, Climb 5, Jump 6, Listen 9, Spot 9, Search 8, Tumble 8
Improved Skirmish
Totem Chakra Bind (+1 capacity)
3
2
1
For now, Girallon Arms is our go-to totem chakra bind. Remember that 5ft step punch grapple Skirmish combo I mentioned back in level 3? It also lets you full attack, with all four claws, once you’ve moved into their space. That’s 2d6 damage five times (four if the DM rules against the extra attack interpretation of Scorpion’s Grasp); -4 to hit, but still.

Improved Skirmish is for the times when that’s not an option, greatly increasing our damage.

Alternatively, we can bind Blink Shirt to the totem chakra, letting us teleport as a move action and/or a standard action, and act afterwards (if we have actions left). This lets you do the 5ft step combo and then teleport away to safety that same turn, but this won’t become optimal (usually) for a few more levels. More useful is that this makes you much faster underwater.

The third soulmeld is flexible for now. Pick anything that works for the current situation or group. The Threefold Mask of the Chimera makes us completely immune to Sneak Attack, if that’s something the DM likes to throw at the players.


E1
+3/+16





Aberration Blood (flexible limbs)




Ah, our weird heritage is starting to show itself a bit more fully. +2 to grapple checks is nice, but what it qualifies you for is nicer.


E2






Inhuman Reach




Lovely, lovely reach. 5ft step combo now works on opponents up to 15ft away.


E3






Exotic Weapon Proficiency (kusari-gama)




And here… we… go. 20ft of reach with a light weapon. Proc Improved Skirmish with the 5ft step combo, dishing out absurd damage if we’ve got Girallon Arms bound or teleporting away to safety if we’ve got Blink Shirt bound (did you know that the surface of the water blocks line of effect, so you’re almost completely safe from reprisal from, say, enemies aboard a ship, until you poke your head out with a 5ft step to start the combo all over again?). Cling to walls and ceilings like Spider-Man, and shoot towards your prey like you’re playing Arkham City. Teleport 30ft into the air and then lasso a flying creature that’s another 20ft above you (if you’ve got Blink Shirt bound). Become awesomeness personified.

We can also use the kusari-gama to make trip and disarm attempts with some nice bonuses (from Jotunbrud and the kusari-gama itself respectively). We don’t have the necessary feats, so we provoke an AoO… that the opponent almost certainly can’t take because we’re out of their reach (AoOs are explicitly melee, barring some class ability or feat I am unaware of).


E4






Extended Reach




Everything I just talked about with Exotic Weapon Proficiency now works at 30ft range (35 if you count the 5ft step).


E5
+3/+18





Deepspawn




More creepy sea monster heritage! Tentacles, and another +2 to grapple (racial bonuses stack). Our full attack just became a lot deadlier; especially welcome when Blink Shirt is bound. A tentacle probably counts as a free hand for climbing (if other limbs didn’t count, how would any nonbipedal creature with a climb speed ever function?), so we can go back to using a scorpion claw in our off hand for another +4 to grapple.


E6






Open Least Chakra (hands)



1 (+1)
And bind Sphinx Claws! Pounce with natural attacks! You can’t use it with the kusari-gama, but unarmed strikes count. This is a highly useful alternative to the 5ft step combo (which doesn’t actually need the 5ft step anymore, but I like the name). We also get a +1 competence bonus to swim and climb checks, and of course should we require a more situation soulmeld than Sphinx Claws, it’s just 8 hours away.


E7






Midnight Dodge

4


A feat tax, but one that gives us +1 essentia. Needless to say, this will not be allocated to the feat itself, but to whichever soulmeld is bound to the totem chakra (which has 3 essentia capacity rather than the standard 2). If Girallon Arms, our 4 claws are now hitting as +3 magic weapons, and we’ve got +8 to grapple and climb checks. If Blink Shirt, we’ve got a teleportation that caps at 40ft and can be used as a standard and/or move action.


E8






Mobility




Another feat tax. At least we’re harder to hit while Pouncing.


E9






Roofwalker




This is actually pretty useful. Move at full speed while balancing, double the effectiveness of using jump to reduce fall damage (if you jump deliberately), and +1 dodge bonus to AC against any opponent at a different elevation than you. With a climb speed, a swim speed, and at-will teleportation, that is not a hard circumstance to arrange.


E10






Roof-Jumper




Now we’re cooking with gas! Or the pseudo medieval equivalent (alchemist’s fire?). Dropping onto an enemy lets us attack them, an attack that does extra damage, and counts as a charge.. and is therefore a full attack, because we’ve got Sphinx Claws bound to our hands chakra, granting us Pounce.

We can use this normally by using the 5ft step combo and Blink Shirting away onto a wall/ceiling, from whence we can leap upon our prey and make them regret the day they crossed a super villain (and then Blink Shirting away again; rinse and repeat as desired).

But the deadliest use of this feat requires the DM to agree that Blink Shirting into the air counts as deliberately jumping down. Now we bind Blink Shirt all the time. We use a move action to teleport 20ft above a foe, dropping down onto them for 3 attacks (unarmed strike and two tentacles) at +4d6 damage from (Improved) Skirmish and 1d6 from Roof-Jumper; if one of those hits, initiate a grapple for unarmed strike damage (arguably +5d6 again; grapple checks are after all keyed off BAB, which I think makes them count as an attack), smack them with the grappling weapon +4d6 damage again… and then use our standard action to do all of that a second time. Or teleport to safety, but that’s missing out on a lot of damage. This actually does theoretically more damage with Girallon Arms bound, with four +2 claw attacks making up for the three attacks you’re losing from the move action falling Pounce… but those 4 claws are secondary natural weapons and thus a lot less likely to hit, and you lose the flexibility of being able to teleport as a move action and attack normally (e.g. with the kusari-gama). YMMV.




I left Octopus Man’s and The Kraken’s origin stories deliberately ambiguous. That’s because there are multiple ways they could go.

The first is that they were children found washed up on the shore and adopted by a family of shoal halflings. This makes them humans, most likely children of the slaves of Aboleths or some other underwater civilization, and that’s the explanation for their weird heritage biology. So they’re genetically human(ish) (with Powerful Build but slow speed due to their weird biology), but culturally halfling, which is how they qualify for Halfling Monk (and giving them effectively Slight Build as well). Honestly, this is my preferred explanation, because it’s narratively elegant, and allows for some easy story hooks for quests. However, there is little if any support for ‘culturally a different race’ as a mechanic in D&D. I recall something about a dwarf raised among humans, but couldn’t find it again, and there was Half-Human Elves for Half Elves raised by elves, but that was explicitly a variant rule. So the ‘canonical’ explanation is the second one.

Octopus Man and The Kraken just have a couple of weird ancestors, including at least one human. I’ve seen it theorized several times that Halflings are descended from humans; one of those times was in the BoEF. This would make all Halflings qualify for Human Heritage as a Human-descended race. If the DM doesn’t buy it, you can upgrade “human ancestor” to “human parent”. There is no “Half-Halfling” race, so the children would be one or the other, in this case Halfling. Obviously these options are less than satisfying from a narrative perspective (with the exception of the touching love story between a Human and Halfling), but they hold up mechanically to qualify the two for Human Heritage, which itself qualifies them for Jotunbrud.

From a gamist perspective, this is an attempt to create two similar yet distinct octopus-flavored grappling halflings. I think using Human Heritage>Jotunbrud and the Amphibious template (since Shoal Halfling had to be replaced with Strongheart to take Human Heritage, Amphibious replaces those features mechanically) is a solid way of representing a Shoal Halfling that’s unusually good at grappling. The distinctions are of course covered in the Build & Breakdown section.


Octopus Man visibly composed himself. “So, –”

“Let me stop you there. You lost the right to call me by my old name when you killed our master and very nearly me alongside him. You can call me ‘Sister’ or ‘The Kraken’. I don’t care which.”

“Is that why you’re so mad at me? Our master was a madman bent on the death of hundreds; he had to be stopped!”

“Irrelevant. We swore to obey him, and he didn’t betray that trust. We were duty-bound to aid him however he saw fit. I did, and you fractured my neck for it. Do you know how long it took for me to recover? How close I was to never moving again? Oh right, you thought you’d actually done even more damage.”

“And now you’ve traded one mad master for another.”

That was it. Her rage and hatred bubbled over, past the point where she could contain it, and she leapt into an attack with a howl.

Punch, two slashes with tentacles. Can’t get a hold; warp back to the mast; balance on the narrow surface of the yard-arm. “Smyler is not mad!”

“He waffles between hero and villain, lawful and anarchic, honorable and despicable based on… based on who knows what! What would you call that if not mad?!”

Why isn’t he switching to a ranged weapon? He can’t reach me; he just looks like he’s getting ready for me to teleport back down… his friends! She ducked aside just in time as a bolt of energy shot through the space her head used to be. An archer was about to fire, too, and after a quick estimation of distances she seized the opportunity to attack, striking with her kusari-gama and tangling it around the archer’s bow and arms before synching it tight to bruise and slice.

“Tsk tsk. Still getting others hurt for your precious ideals, big brother?” He almost had me with that trick. I need to be more careful. And clearly I need to up my psychological game. “Oh wait. It never was about the ideals, was it. You only ever cared about looking like the hero. We both know all that bombastic tripe is just showmanship, and when push comes to shove it’s always what you want that comes first. I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

“Damn you!” he cried, and dropped his ready posture, preparing to charge.

Gotcha. Flick the kusari-gama, pull myself close, and follow through for another blow. More power to the Blink Shirt, warp above the… mage? And pummel him into the deck.

Octopus Man ran towards her and did land a blow, pulling her into a bear hug and then tightening his tentacle even more. But she was landing so many more blows total. With two allies in the way, the archer apparently couldn’t get a good enough shot.

Suddenly she was blindsided by pain. A swordsman. They had a swordsman too and I didn’t notice. Okay, nothing vital’s hit. I’m still good for a while yet. As long as I can avoid getting hit by my brother again, a few more blows should finish him off. But no, that’s too fast. He needs a little more suffering. I need for him to suffer a little more. She warped to the far side of the mast.

“You know what’s funny? Smyler’s exactly the same as you. His priority is showmanship, building his reputation in any and every way. That’s what makes him seem so mercurial, but there’s always a method to his madness, a reason to his rhyme. The difference between you is he knows what it means to be loyal to those that trust you. So you know what’s really, truly hilarious about this situation? When I measure the two of you against each other… it’s you that comes up wanting. For all you hate him, for all you disdain what he represents, between the two of you he’s the better man as far as I’m concerned.”

The swordsman edged closer to her, clearly unwilling to risk granting her an opportunity to hit him with the kusari-gama. The mage was already out for the count. The archer showed no such worry, moving for a clear shot, but she couldn’t take advantage of that without putting herself in range of her brother, and the archer was getting closer to him with each step. Besides, she’d only have one opening, and she needed to make it count… Wait. Why is she moving towards him? She had to go the other way to get a clear shot–

“You still don’t understand teamwork,” her brother was saying, and she allowed herself a moment to savor the bitterness and pain in his voice. Gone was his stupid bluster and bombast… but what was he on about? “Look where you’re standing.”

She looked. Him, the archer a short distance away from him, the swordsman a short distance away from her and then…. No. No! Her brother shot forward, grappling from the archer… to the swordsman… to her, and she was hit, her body exploding with pain as tentacle after tentacle connected.

No! It’s not fair! I was so close…. And with her last conscious thought, she teleported beneath the waves.


“While I appreciate you taking the time to inflict my will upon that recalcitrant Waterdeep noble, I have some serious reservations about your treatment of the troops and crew under your command. You used them as bait and then abandoned them to their fate when the mission soured. Where did you even find those guys anyways? I’m not missing any crews, which is the reason I’m still smiling, if you catch my drift.”

The only time she had seen him stop smiling was way back when he declared war on the Sahuagin Empire. He’d only had three ships at the time. She would be surprised if there were still 300 hundred Sahuagin alive within a thousand miles of the continent, and a hundred of those were only spared because they swore personal loyalty to both him and his consort.

She would have shuddered if she wasn’t so exhausted she could barely move. It was nothing short of a miracle she had even partially managed to evade the sharks that had been drawn by the impact of the ships. Had the cold of the water not shocked her back to wakefulness… had her brother not dove in after her to finish the job, distracting some of the sharks… her body actually tried to shudder as she remembered, and pain wracked her anew.

“Mercenaries. Brigands. Pirates. Killers and thugs. Basically… anyone I could find who could be swayed by the offer… of working against you.”

“Pff. Pffff-haha ha ha! Now that’s funny!” He wiped a tear out of his eye; it exploded into static electricity on contact with the air. “Healer! Come in, please, my agent is in need of succor.” He turned back to her, still wearing a particularly ear-to-ear grin. “So you humiliated your target, eliminated as many of my rivals as you could get your hands on, and inflicted my displeasure upon nobles attempting to defy my law, all in one fell swoop? You are rapidly becoming my favorite field operative!”

“My brother… got away.” The healer put his hands on her, and the recession of the pain in her body was ecstasy.

“Don’t worry, having a worthy enemy is good for your character. And you will have another chance at him. Why don’t you tell me about your next plan when you feel up to it, and I’ll make sure you have whatever you need.”


Cityscape – Roof-Jumper, Roofwalker.
Complete Adventurer – Scout.
Complete Scoundrel – Improved Skirmish.
Dungeon Master’s Guide – Kusari-gama.
Lords of Madness – Aberration Blood, Deepspawn, Inhuman Reach.
Magic of Incarnum – Halfling Totemist, Totemist. Midnight Dodge, Open Least Chakra. Blink Shirt, Girallon Arms, Sphinx Claws, Threefold Mask of the Chimera.
Races of Destiny – Human Heritage.
Races of Faerun – Strongheart Halfling. Jotunbrud.
Races of the Wild – Halfling Monk.
Sandstorm – Scorpion’s Grasp. Scorpion claws.
Savage Species – Extended Reach.
SRD – Halfling. Denying Stance Fighting Style, Monk. Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, Mobility, Wild Talent. Studded leather armor.
Stormwrack – Amphibious Creature. Aquatic Scout. Cord armor.
Web – http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070911

[Zaq]

If you laughed as hard as I did in sheer honest recognition of the thought process behind this one, you are a true Iron Chef.

No worries if you're not there yet. You'll get there. I have faith in you. Yeah, you.



HIT ME
He did not choose that name himself
Whisper gnome scout 6

So the Chairman asked a build using some variants of the scout so which variants there are ... Oh there are two variants of skirmish, let's read them and see if one is good . Sniping.. a full ranged attack from a long range , no it doesn't inspire me so let's see read the other one . Oh one which do more damage if the enemy try to hit you not bad let'see if there is a way to work around that. So now i will need an high AC , so feat like dodge are welcomed, and a small race is a good one, maybe one that permit me a free multiclass.. Hmm there is the gnome from dragonlance with a favored class first not bad, is a small sized and have a bonus to dexterity... Wait there wasn't a feat related to gnome that helped them with a dodge bonus.. Oh yes there is titan fighting! It substitute the dodge bonus with the bonus against giant against creature of a bigger size, whoa this is good.
But the gnome of dragonlance doesn't have a bonus vs giants.. Another type of gnome... Yes the whisper gnome, it have a very good stats for a scout ! But now how can i make the enemy attack myself? Hmm the knight mettle was a good way but it's too much for this contest, what there was else??? Let's see a handbook on knight , oh yes there was goad , not bad even with role-playing but it need a good charisma so no goad. Let's see think about an other way to made the enemy attack me....
*After about an hour and many book opened, when you have a very strange idea* Wait.. an enemy could attack me even with an AoO , so how can i provoke them ? I could move in their space without tumbling yes! And i could apply mobility to increase my AC for that! I already have dodge right ? Wait ... many feats count as dodge so i could apply titan fighting to all of these... I count dodge, expeditious dodge, midnight dodge , and that dodge related to the wind desert stance, but there is no stance useful (only one which give me fire resistance) and i should learn a maneuver first so no excluded. SO the other three, midnight dodge is easy, i need a shapemeld , maybe the wormtail belt i have seen that give a good AC.
I could even use combat expertise but my attack roll is low, well i will use weapon finesse surely, but which other thing i could use...? There is deadly defense which is good for damage but not for attack roll .
I need to make other attack but how? Wait there was a feat which give me an AoO when the enemy attacked me, karmic strike if i remember well , so i could use that!...Wait no that one only if they hit me , so is not good
So ... two weapon fighting maybe, i can combine that with other feat to gain a better AC but i still have the problem with the attack roll (more now that i have a -2) so no two weapon fighting without any way to boost my attack roll
What is that , chosen foe? It give me a bonus to attack roll and AC against one enemy but a malusagainst the other one, good i will focus mainly on one enemy and with that we can use two weapon fighting better...but doing two weapon require a complete attack so no....
Well let's work again on AoO now with a weapon with range i could do that so i will need exotic weapon proficiency(to gain a 0 10 feet reach weapon ) and combat reflexes, and deft opportunist so i will have a higher attack roll... but to do a good use of AoO the way should be to trip the enemy so no it's not a way by our size ...
*continue to think about that* Wait ! Even using a ranged weapon provoke AoO so i could use a ranged weapon in the range of the weapon of the enemy and take rapid shot... so no weapon finesse no mobility no expeditious dodge (sadly) no deadly defense and we take point blank shot , precise shot and rapid shot
2 dodge ,chosen foe, combat expertise, shape soulmeld, titan figthing, point blank shot, precise shot and rapid shot so 9 on 14.. So five feat...
Now the sixth level of scout is a passive ability that i never used so...Maybe i can multiclass at that level , But in what? Let's see whisper gnome preferred race, now where is my Races of Stone???
*after a half our searching the book and the information* Oh well it have rogue so how can i use a level of rogue in a good way a sneak attack dice is not useful in this build...*think for a minute* Wait there is the variant of the rogue who take feat as a fighter that one is good ! So now i can take a feat before, but i have another feat to choose in this way ...let's think maybe there is another dodge that i don't know? Internet research!
Mme there is a feat called deceptive dodge, what is that? Let's see .. From Dragon compendium good , it require combat expertise, dodge, int 13 and dex 13 , and bab 4 ... did i have all of these? No .. so this is not good ... Hmm wait expeditious dodge require 40 feet of movement, but it doesn't say from where, and if I'm blocked by terrain i cannot apply that so ... i can use the sixth level of the scout yeah ...wait now i don't take expeditious dodge... no problem i can still use that to explore in a better way (and maybe in some combat situation but i will think about that) and with 6 level of scout i have a bab of 4 so deceptive dodge
so 4 feat remaining... Hmm if they don't fight me i need to do damage , and dead eye is good, and weapon focus boost my attack roll so that
2 feat now what i can do.... Oh right whisper gnome so high hide and move silently so darkstalker! And because i use essentia i can take bonus essentia to boost wormtail belt (or midnight dodge if they don't take my readings on titan fighting)
So i need to make the stats, a fluff, and the table, source and tactics
*While rereading all* Wait deceptive dodge say will fighting defensively... so i can't utilize that, so what i can do now about that feat???....
*Search in internet*Hey one feat that i don't know about defensive archery... it give us a +4 against AoO that we provoke when we fire with a ranged weapon ...AWESOME! I will take this feat surely!
*after doing stats , table, tactics, and source* So what i can use as fluff... *He saw the notes that he wrote * Maybe this? Added with some line?
And so this is how the gnome Hit me see the creation , with his name made by an April fool made by the registry office (in game his birthday is the first of April), with a prophecy that one day one hit will kill him, and so he concentrate himself to dodge the strike of his enemies!
Because this build was made with haste i had not one idea for one background... so i have done this




Point buy
Final stats

Strength 8(0 points)
Strength 6(-2 racial)

Dexterity 17(13 points)
Dexterity 19(+2 racial)
Constitution 14(6 points)
Constitution 16(+2 racial)
Intelligence 13(5 points)
Intelligence 13(+0 racial)
Wisdom 12(4 points)
Wisdom 12(+0 racial)
Charisma 12 (4 points)
Charisma 10(-2 racial)
The 4th level point go to dexterity


Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
Scout 1
+0
+0
+2
+0
Skill point 36((8+int )*4)
Tumble 4,Search 4 ,Disable Device 4,Escape artist 4,Spot 4 ,Move silently 4,Hide 4,Listen 4 ,Survival 4
Dodge
Riposte (+1d6), trapfinding


2nd
Scout 2
+1
+0
+2
+0
Skill point 9(8+int )
Tumble 5,Search 5 ,Disable Device 5,Escape artist 5,Spot 5 ,Move silently 5,Hide 5,Listen 5 ,Survival 5

Battle fortitude +1, uncanny dodge


3rd
Scout 3
+2
+1
+3
+1
Skill point 9(8+int )
Tumble 6,Search 6 ,Disable Device 6,Escape artist 6,Spot 6 ,Move silently 6,Hide 6,Listen 6 ,Survival 6
Point Blank Shot
Riposte(+1d6 +1), fast movement +10ft, trackless step


4th
Scout 4
+3
+1
+4
+1
Skill point 9(8+int )
Tumble 7,Search 7 ,Disable Device 7,Escape artist 7,Spot 7 ,Move silently 7,Hide 7,Listen 7 ,Survival 7
Precise Shot
Bonus Feat


5th
Scout 5
+3
+1
+4
+1
Skill point 9(8+int )
Tumble 8,Search 8,Disable Device 8,Escape artist 8,Spot 8 ,Move silently 8,Hide 8,Listen 8 ,Survival 8

Riposte (2d6 +1), evasion


6th
Scout 6
+4
+2
+5
+2
Skill point 9(8+int )
Tumble 8,Search 9 ,Disable Device 9,Escape artist 9,Spot 9 ,Move silently 9,Hide 8,Listen 9 ,Survival 9, Skill trick learned Nimble stand
Titan fighting
Flawless stride


1° Rapid Shot
2° shape soulmeld (wormtail belt)
3° midnight dodge
4° bonus essentia
5° chosen foe
6° darkstalker
7° combat expertise
8° defensive Archery
9° weapon focus (shortbow)
10° dead eye



So now what we have at this level? One very strange ability , and the ability to discover trap, other than the spell from our race (this is why we put a 10 of total on charisma) , in combat we can't do so much (or in a better way we can but is risky now) because it is more convenient to use one ranged weapon in melee because it would provoke AoO before our action is completed so we can use riposte in this way, or moving away without tumbling then attacking (so it's only one AoO in the case the enemy have combat reflexes). But it is risky because for now our AC is low , but it's the main method for riposte now (standard action attack with a ranged weapon in melee, move action go away from here tumbling) so now this can be a risky game and so much of our wealth will be in protection for now (i don't know which number to give to our AC). Out of combat what can we do ? Well the main thing is scouting the way ahead of us because we have a good listen and spot (thanks to the racial bonus), a very good bonus on move silently and we can search trap and try to disable them (doing that within the silence spell of our race for example) We can guide our group in the wild, like a good scout would do , spotting the beast hidden in the wild. We have escape artist because we need to avoid grapple it is a bad beast for small character, and probably one of the way to block our big bonus in the future The bonus of our race is good because it give a bonus to two of the main stat and remove 2 from secondary stat (even if that will prevent goad in future) If we want to use melee weapon it is a more difficult thing because our low strength bonus. Our feat can help us to avoid the attacks of a single enemy
So now what is the big thing of this level? Probably uncanny dodge because preventing to lose dexterity in these situation is a good way to prevent to lose many dodge bonus which we can't have if we lose our dexterity. In the skill there is not so much to tell basically we will do the same thing we do at the first level with these, and if we want to tank in an early way we can fighting defensively with this we gain a +3 on AC for a -4 on attack roll (very bad but if the allies boost our attack rolls is good) Battle fortitude is a good thing to have to boost our second lowest save , and to boost our initiative to a neat +5 at this level , without improved initiative so very good (it is not so safe that we will start for first but if that happen we will make our turn after the turn of the enemy (or better after the first turn of the enemy creature who have an initiative higher than the rest)so we can provoke AoO to use riposte
Finally one feat about our ranged attack! So now we can fight in a better way, our ranged weapon will be used more now s and is starting to take a better form our riposte, the enemy attacking us when we attack with a ranged weapon and we do more damage (AoO resolve before our attack so more damage for us) But what if the enemy understand that is worst if they attack us? Well we will say that the strength after we hit was only luck , and that we don't know how tumble in a good way , and we have a bad aim, so we stay near them (or we can say that we are mad or we don't know the rules), so they will probably will make us blocked in a place, so attacking us , and only for "luck" our strike will do the same damage than before The competence bonus for our AC from riposte can be useful, while trackless step is used out of combat to explore the wilderness and don't be followed when we return to our companion, with fast movement making that in a less time (and making our jump even if not trained better)
Oh so now we have precise the feat we need to avoid these penalties while we are attacking an enemy in melee with one of our allies which is very good , and we have to thanks the bonus feat from the scout which have made possible this . Out of combat it doesn't change so much we still being some explorer even thanks to the dexterity which is arrived at 20 (without items) at this level so it is good and we can hope that our AC is starting to be at least good during AoO, with the enemy i hope not doing damage to us but attacking
So now Riposte is still better with more damage and this is good , we have evasion and this could be another thing which is good, because reflex is our higher save, but now what this level offer? Not so much but our skill are starting to be strong hide and move silently are starting to be around at 20 at this level , while spot and listen around 12 and we can surely use these numbers. At least at this level we gain another dice of riposte but we still have for now a single attack and we will have to wait for a while because without rapid shot we will not do any more attack (or well it can happen but with so big penalties with two weapon fighting)
Oh this is so good titan fighting the feat which can do so much for us if we fight bigger creature because our AC will have another boost by 3 against that enemy which is good ,the best of this feat if is applicable to the variants of dodge, because at the end it doesn't give a bonus only replace the number on the dodge bonus and dodge bonus are cumulative . Flawless stride is good to be able to explore area on which the other would take damage. I have taken Quick Stand because falling can be so common , if we think at the chained spike.
So first feat to take rapid shot because this is how we will start to make more than 10 damage for turn , now about 20 with two arrows, not so much but good, this is basically one of the few feat which able us to use riposte with full attack if the enemy will attack all time other members (but if we give them an AoO is possible that they will try to strike us)
These two feat improved our defense in two different ways, the first give us a +2 on our natural armor , so it is neat, the second is another feat that can substitute dodge, if one would be so bad could say that the + 0 of midnight dodge (without any essentia point) could be substituted by titan fighting , i will say that is should be at least a bonus so i will invest my essentia point in midnight dodge but is another little bonus to our AC which is starting to take a very good form . But not only this one but with bonus essentia we can boost our armor in a even better way , giving 2 essentia points to wormtail belt to arrive at 4 of natural armor and 1 point to midnight dodge to use titan fighting, so the essentia is a good thing, with a total bonus of 8 to our AC (considering midnight dodge as dodge to use titan fighting)
We take this feat because he does a similar function to doge (but titan fighting is not applicable sadly) and give us a bonus to the attack roll so is good , the attack roll can be low in the near future so we need something to boost that and is similar to our focus on a single enemy
Well we are whisper gnome, and our hide and move silently check is high, so why not taking darkstalker to be able to explore in a better way without the enemy discovering us (or if they will discover probably non magical enemy will not strike us for our AC) , so this is the last bonus on the things that we can do out of combat
Combat mastery, one of the things that reduce our attack roll , but it give us a good bonus reduce attack roll to boost our AC maybe a little risky (what if we don't strike ) and we can't apply that during the first turn of combat against the AoO we will provoke if we move around the enemy. We will use at +2 to remove the penalties on our AC from chosen foe (basically having a +3 on AC for one enemy and a -1 on attack rolls against that enemy and a -2 against other enemies).Defensive shot is perfect for us ... mobility made for ranged attack something that i have never seen so well this is the last defensive feat for us and our AC is high now .
Now we can defend ourselves in a good way but what about offense, our damage is not high so we take two feat to improve that , weapon focus (shortbow) to boost our attack roll, and dead eye to boost our damage (is precision damage so the same type of our riposte)

Hp=8+5d8+18=23+22.5=48.5
Ranged weapon attack = 4 bab+5 dexterity+1 size=10
Ranged weapon attack with point blank shot=10+1=11
Ranged weapon attack with point blank shot and a shortbow=11+1=12
Ranged weapon attack with point blank shot and a shortbow and chosen foe=12+1=13
Ranged weapon attack with rapid shot and all above=13-2=11
Ranged weapon attack all above with combat expertise(-2)=9
1° Base AC (considering a mithral chain shirt)=10+1 (size)+4 armor+5 (dexterity)+4 natural(wormtail belt) =24
2°AC considering combat expertise =26
3° AC number 2 considering chosen foe against that foe=26+1=27
4° AC number 2 considering chosen foe not against that foe=26-2=24
5° AC number 3° and all dodge against a medium size or bigger enemy =27+8=35
6° AC number 3° foe and all dodge against a same size or smaller enemy=27+2=29
The dodge are considered as if titan fighting apply to all of them but if not they are reduced (the one with the all dodge) by 3(at one titan fighting apply)
7° AC number 5° during AoO provoked by ranged weapon fighting=35+4=39 (this is our maximum AC not considering combat expertise -4 and fighting defensively)
8° AC number 6° during AoO provoked by ranged weapon fighting=29+4=33
9° AC number 4° during AoO provoked by ranged weapon fighting=24+4=28 (this is the general AC for the enemy that will near us when we fight )
Saves
Fortitude 2 base+1 battle fortitude+3 constitution=6
Reflex 5 base+5 dexterity=10
Will 2 base+2 wisdom=4
Damage from a full attack with riposte
2d4(shortbow)+10 (dead eye)+4d6(riposte)+2(point blank shot)=5+10+14+2=31


From Cityscape web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a): Riposte
From Lord of Madness: Darkstalker
From Races of the Wild: Defensive Archery
From Magic of Incarnum: Shape soulmeld , wormtail belt, bonus essentia, midnight dodge
From Complete Adventurer: Scout
From Races of Stone: Titan Fighting, Whisper Gnome
From Drow of the Underdark: Chosen foe
From Player Handbook: Point blank shot, dodge, precise shot, rapid shot, combat expertise, weapon focus
From Dragon Compendium: Dead Eye

[Zaq]

I kind of like "the Thingold." Makes you wonder if it's slender yellow metal or an object no longer young…



The Exiled

The kobold who was allergic to the classical kobold cheese
Desert Kobold Scout 5 / Hunter Barbarian 1 NE
I was born in a village of Desert kobold nothing so strange for now , except that they were all dragonwrough kobold and i was not ? Why i wasn't a dragonwrought kobold? They said that my family once gone with something strange but at least i could be a sorcerer and doing the rite of passage, but there wasn't any power within me! Why? I don't know that. And any other options that constitute the kobold cheese was inaccessible , i was allergic to the classical kobold cheese , so they exiled me because i could not put such shame on the village, not from where only kobold character come , so i started to travel learning how use my natural attack (one of the few thing about kobold which that i wasn't allergic) and i travel to gain experience and to have an answer to my question, i will demonstrate that a kobold can be strong even without being a sorcerer, or a dragonwrought kobold!
*After some time some voice about a strange kobold start to go around some inn*
"Have you heard Jack , it seems that the Thingold is around here , what do you think is he doing around here"
"Mhp , do you think that the Thingold is real Tom? You are still a child, the Thingold story is only an illusion made by someone to scary the people , or to cover some assassination , i don't believe at that story, and my guys doesn't believe that right ?' At that one four men sayed Aye getting up from their chair then sitted down again .So now i have some affair so goodbye Tom and the Thingold is only a story"
"But they say that is a monster that can fly , with an horrible skin and which body is disfigured in infinite arms"
"It is only a story i repeat and now good night"
They exited and not so far from the inn they found one in a very long cloak ,and his face was horrible
"Go away we don't want anyone on our road"
"And I think i will not move"
Then Jack drawed is rapier
"So you want to die"
"Let's see what will happen"
The first strike of the Jack's men cutted in two the cloak revealing the tentacles under that cloak and the aspect of that figure
"What are you ???"
"I have many names, the Aberration , the Thingold, The Horrible One, but i called myself ...The Exiled"
"The Thingold??? It is only a story and we will demonstrate that to you!"
The morning after that night Jack and his men were found dead on the road, two with the bones broke, one with a bite at the heart, and two with the throat cutted in two and in an alley not so far from here a figure with two tentacles, two claws and his teeths still red said
"Another challenge accomplished in my long journey so I'm not sorry for that men" Before going in the alley of that city without any remorse



Point buy
Final stats

Strength 11(3 points)
Strength 7(-4 racial)

Dexterity 17(13 points)
Dexterity 19(+2 racial)
Constitution 14(6 points)
Constitution 14(+0 racial)
Intelligence 14(6 points)
Intelligence 14(+0 racial)
Wisdom 12(4 points)
Wisdom 10(-2 racial)
Charisma 8 (0 points)
Charisma 8(+0 racial)
The 4th level point go to dexterity


Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
Scout 1
+0
+0
+2
+0
Skill point 40((8+int )*4)
Knowledge nature 4(4),Knowledge Dungeoneering 4(4),Tumble 4(4),Search 4(4) ,Disable Device 4(4),Escape artist 4(4),Spot 2(2) ,Move silently 4(4),Hide 4(4),Listen 2(2) ,Balance 4(4)
Multiattack
Skirmish (+1d6), trapfinding


2nd
Hunter Barbarian 1
+1
+2
+2
+0
Skill point 6(4+int )
Knowledge nature 4(0),Knowledge Dungeoneering 4(0),Tumble 5*(1),Search 5(2) ,Disable Device 5(2),Escape artist 4(0),Spot 2(0) ,Move silently 4(0),Hide 4(0),Listen 3(1) ,Balance 4(0)

Favored enemy (undead), Spiritual totem(lion) ACF


3rd
Scout 2
+2
+2
+3
+0
Skill point 10(8+int )
Knowledge nature 5(1),Knowledge Dungeoneering 5(1),Tumble 6(1),Search 6(1) ,Disable Device 6(1),Escape artist 5(1),Spot 3(1) ,Move silently 5(1),Hide 5(1),Listen 3(0) ,Balance 5(1)
Weapon Finesse
Battle fortitude +1, uncanny dodge


4th
Scout 3
+3
+3
+3
+1
Skill point 10(8+int )
Knowledge nature 6(1),Knowledge Dungeoneering 6(1),Tumble 7(1),Search 7(1) ,Disable Device 7(1),Escape artist 6(1),Spot 3(0) ,Move silently 6(1),Hide 6 (1),Listen 3(0) ,Balance 5(0), Skill trick learned (Nimble Charge)

Fast movement +10 ft., skirmish (+1d6, +1 AC), Go to ground ACF


5th
Scout 4
+4
+3
+4
+1
Skill point 10(8+int )
Knowledge nature 7(1),Knowledge Dungeoneering 7(1),Tumble 8(1),Search 8(1) ,Disable Device 8(1),Escape artist 7(1),Spot 3(0) ,Move silently 7(1),Hide 7 (1),Listen 3(0) ,Balance 5(0), Skill trick learned (Twisted Charge)
Swift Hunter (bonus)
Bonus feat


6th
Scout 5
+4
+3
+4
+1
Skill point 10(8+int )
Knowledge nature 8(1),Knowledge Dungeoneering 8(1),Tumble 9(1),Search 9(1) ,Disable Device 9(1),Escape artist 8(1),Spot 3(0) ,Move silently 9(2),Hide 9 (2),Listen 3(0) ,Balance 5(0)
Improved Multiattack
Evasion, skirmish (+2d6, +1 AC)

If flaws are permitted we will take one to gain Dragon tail at 1st level, but it's not necessary for this build
If Swift hunter is ruled that doesn't function as i think (read in tactics) i will take Iron Will
* I used Skilled city dweller to gain Tumble instead of Ride
Between () there is the number of skill point used for that level
Skill like this are cross classed for the level
1° Darkstalker
2° Travel Devotion
3° Travel Devotion
4° Travel Devotion
5° Travel Devotion
6° Aberration Blood(slimy skin )
7° Bestial Hide
8° Deepspawn
9° Starspawn
10° Improved Skirmish




Now , for me this feat function in a strange way, because what happen if i take it without having any ranger level? I think that i gain favored enemy progression as a ranger of the same level of my scout level so as a ranger level 5. If that is correct i gain two other favored enemy, in this case construct and elemental (i don't write the bonus because i do not know if i can boost favored enemy undead bonus)

The first level, one level where the most important thing is ... the skill points! Because we gain 40 points, not bad , but what we do with these points? We can hide, move silently and tumble enough well with our dexterity modifier, we can search in a good way thanks to the kobold bonus, if we take 10 on disable device we can remove some trap , we can know something on some common enemies, our listen and our spot is not so good, with only a 10 on wisdom, but we can't do anything no? They are a little better than our attack roll because is very bad, if we do close combat, with a -1 on the attack roll with a weapon. But we will use a ranged weapon for this level at least we can strike our enemy, even if we are not specialized without precise shot . Trapfinding is a good thing, and while skirmish is nerfed by the errata , we can still use it with a ranged weapon , maybe too much near to the enemy but we hope that our AC is good enough (without any armor is 16 so is good). How can we gain multiattack? Well there is the answer, because the kobold have natural weapon by this web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a)! And because we have sligth build our hide modifier is even higher, but grapple check are terrible for us so is better to have a higher modifier on escape artist rather than listen or spot
Now the 2nd level, if the first level skill table was so big f skill point, this level have lesser skill point and so many cross class skill , but give us some important thing! First the little bonus to fortitude save, an important save so is not bad, second an higher hit dice, more hit points are good no? Third favored enemy , instead of rage, and this will help us damaging enemy normally immune to our precision damage in future . Last thing very important the spirit totem lion, a way to make more damage with our natural attacks using all of them. Multiattack is starting to take a more useful form , because the charge bonus will take away the penalties from using more natural weapons. But our attack roll is still bad a +0 so we will fight with a ranged weapon even for this level , in combat probably we are not so useful for these level, but we try ,at the first level is not easy for anyone, at least our skills help us , detecting trap and being able to move silently and hide without so many problem .Our AC should be still good enough probably around the 20 with the equipment
Finally weapon finesse! Now we can fight in a better way in melee using our natural weapon in a good way, the charge is still the best way to do an high amount of skirmish damage , between our natural weapons which permit us to do 3d6 of skirmish. For the other bonus of this level , well they are useful uncanny dodge especially because a good portion of our AC is from dexterity, but what else give this level for us? Battle fortitude, a little bonus but good enough to be used in each combat, because a bonus to initiative is good no? It boost our fortitude save, and while it is not the lowest is a good thing. Our skill are the same, many are behind because the barbarian level, but we can use them in some way , at least to sneak around, or to escape from grapple check, or to know something about some enemies like animal!
Fast movement is the most important thing here, because more movement is a good thing , while we are charging and pouncing during our charge, the skirmish start to be a defensive tool , because we gain a bonus to AC , even a +1 is a boost to our AC is a good thing so now what is the last thing we gain ? Go to ground as a variant to trackless step. Now why we gain go to ground? Well it's writing is strange, because it say that if we choose to stay low we can't be find by non magical meaning, but what signifies to stay low? Well the feat say that Urban Tracking doesn't function , but it also say that you cannot be found without magical means, and if that means that we are undetectable is a good thing, if is only trackless step in an urban environment (preventing gather information rather than survival) well depend on a campaign (and within a city skirmish is more difficult to do so it can be an answer for that hiding and moving to strike the enemy then to stay low again helped maybe by hide). We learned a skill trick and with that our charge will be even easier
So now after weapon finesse we are good melee attacker, with our skirmish on many enemies even if the base damage is low , but who is the most difficult enemies? And you remember when i said that favored enemy will help us? Now is that moment, when we qualify for swift hunter, which (for me) give more favored enemies, and give the possibility to use skirmish against the enemy without a discernible anatomy if they are our favored enemy so for now undead and construct not bad , they are very common , the same for undead , so it is a big help if we will encounter these enemies. There is a strange combination but i have already write about that , but if that doesn't function i will take iron will , a way to boost our low will saves. We learn another trick to make our charge easier to do twisting them if needed
This level is a very big boost to our offensive , between improved multiattack which remove all of our penalties, and a boost to skirmish , 1d6 which is multiplied by the number of our natural weapons so is a very good thing, and the boost to our abilities nearly come to an end because we will not gain other skill points but at this point tumble is high enough to permit us to avoid any AoO while moving normally while the other abilities help us. We didn't boosted listen and spot because with our wisdom is easier to use other abilities which depend on dexterity or intelligence so we can listen and spot but not like an expert, but we can find trap and disable device in a good way , and moving silently and hiding in a very good way so out of combat we can still do something , scouting the way ahead searching for traps so is good at this level capable to do an high amount of damage in little time like an ubercharging build
Now we can hide even from the creature able to see us while hiding good thing , useful in many situations , mostly out of combat, especially if go to ground is only trackless step for urban tracking, it is necessary as feat so first we take it first we will be more useful in many situation
So now we have very few way to avoid difficult terrain which blocks our charge, but is the best thing to depend on the charge? There are some way to block a charge , and we would provoke AoO without a good roll on tumble so why not have another way to make a full attack and moving? This is where travel devotion come , and it does his work using our round moving around the enemy as quick action, and striking them with our five natural weapon in the future, without the bonus from the charge but with an easy bonus from the flanking if we have some companion , so we lose one bonus to have another one (we can still charge so we don't lose the other way to use skirmish in a good way with pounce) But we have only one use if we take travel devotion 1 time, so we take it 4 times so we have 4 use for day , which combined with pounce should be enough for the daily encounters. We can even use travel devotion to go in a position where we can charge and flank the enemy to have even a bigger bonus
4 aberrant feat, a choice which give us so many bonus, and for that go to ground is being useful if we stay low we will not make any panic attack in a city where our appearance is seen as bad ,but let's see them in this way. Aberrant Blood is a prerequisite but because we have chosen slimy skin our escape artist is even higher than before so probably we will escape easily from the grapple. Bestial Hide is another prerequisite, but give a bonus to AC so is good because to don't be hit is the best way to avoid damage. Deepspawn is the best feat among these because these two tentacle will do more skirmish damage, doing the same damage of our claw , giving us all of the three types of damage , so is a very good feat (it boost our damage of 66% compared to the previous damage) Starspawn is another feat which is good, which permit to have another +1 from Bestial Hide, and give us a flying speed of 20 feet . Now what can we do with a flying speed? Well we can use skirmish in a very small terrain , where we could not move, we can charge flying to avoid terrain similar to undergrowth which would block the charge. We can fight flying enemy so a flying speed is something very useful ,we can fight the flying enemy in some way , we don't need to jump anymore probably, and even climbing is rarer now if we fly (the last one only to rest the rounds between the use of the feat)
Improved Skirmish , another boost to our damage, the final huge boost to our damage. Is very easy moving 20 feet between tumble, pounce, travel devotion so that is not the problem, maybe is strike the enemy within that movement the big problem but we can't do that for medium creature, thanks to the errata, but if we are fighting larger creature our skirmish damage is doubled(or very near to double), which is around now 20d6 of skirmish , that should be enough for something usable each round (not considering any items that boost skirmish) We can use that even if we charge flying the speed is the same, thanks to fast movement which boost our base speed.


Hp=8+1d12+4d8+12=44 (average roll)
Melee attack roll with weapon finesse= 4(BaB)+5 (dexterity)+1(size)=10
Full attack damage with skirmish (not improved) =1d2-2+4d3-4+10d6=38
Full attack damage with improved skirmish=1d2-2+4d3-4+20d6=73
AC without skirmish ( i count a mithral chain skirt as armor and no shield i don't know the rule for a buckler and natural weapon attack)=10+4(armor)+5(dexterity)+1(size)+1 (natural armor kobold)+2(natural armor bestial hide)=23
AC with skirmish=23 (from before)+1=24
AC with improved skirmish =23+1+2=26
Escape artist check=9 (rank)+5(dexterity)+4(slimy skin)=18
Hide check =9(rank)+5 (dexterity)+4 (small size)+4 (slight build)=22


From Lord of Madness: Darkstalker, Aberration blood, Deepspawn, Starspawn, Bestial Hide
From Races of Dragon web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a) Kobold stat (natural weapon and slight build)
FromCityscape Web Enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) Go to ground , Skilled City Dweller
From Monster Manual: Multiattack
From Draconomicon:Improved Multiattack
From Complete Champion: Travel Devotion, Spiritual totem ACF
From Unearthed Arcana: Desert Kobold, Hunter Barbarian
From Complete Scoundrel: Improved Skirmish, Swift Hunter
From Complete Adventurer: Scout
From Player Handbook:Weapon Finesse
From Races of Dragon: Kobold (base race)

[Zaq]

"What's your average damage on a hit?"
"Lemme check my conditional bonus cheat sheet."
(Real talk: characters that need conditional bonus cheat sheets are 100% my jam. Do not let this influence your judgement.)


Amira „The Lady of The Forest“ Saeianna (formerly Belltinker)

“Daugther to a travelling Merchant – seeing the world while accompanying your parents on their business trips – what could be better?“. This was young Amira Belltinker’s last happy thought for quite some time.
…
Having killed all the marauders assaulting the caravan, the old Elven ranger was looking for survivors. Almost giving up hope, his trusty hound has caught a scent and drawn his attention to a seemingly innocuous barrel. Inside, instead of wine, was a scared little child, tears running down its cheeks.
…
Being raised from a young age by a centuries old woodsman was quite an experience for Amira. He taught her the only thing he really knew – his craft. Sneaking and stealth came naturally, climbing the trees was easy enough to learn, while archery was quite a pain – to use a longbow properly, she lacked the upper body strength and the centuries of practice the Elves have, but she made up for it with the Gnomes’ inventiveness and resourcefulness. While the longbow was pretty much completely beyond her abilities, she could use a shortbow somewhat acceptably, her true calling was discovered when Daether – her foster father – returned from a visit to the nearby town with a crossbow. What this training didn’t cover, however, were social skills... in fact, her overprotective foster-father actively had hurt any socializing Amira had attempted in her pre-teen and teen age and it shows even now.
…
Now, may years since the fateful assault by a random group of bandits on a random caravan, Amira is an adult, trained in many trades – combat, stealth, forestry – and she helps Daether to keep “their” piece of the world a bit safer. And to her friends and the people she helped throughout the years, she is known as “The lady of The Forest.”

Stub
CG Whisper Gnome Scout 3 / Rogue 2 / Fighter 1

ACFs
Rogue: Poison Use, Wilderness Rogue
Fighter: Sneak Attack Fighter, Hit-and-Run Tactics
Skilled City-Dweller: Trade Ride for Tumble
Disclaimer: If you’re of the persuation that DotU ACFs are Drow exclusive, please ignore these abilities in the build, as they are not key features, but rather minor cherries on top (to avoid duplicate Trapfinding and add a minor and conditional extra oomph in the Rogue’s and the Fighter’s case respectively).

Ability Scores
STR: 11 - 2 (racial) = 9 / -1 / (+3)
DEX: 17 + 2 (racial) + 1 (level) = 20 / +5 / (+13)
CON: 14 + 2 (racial) – 16 / +3 (+6)
INT: 14 = 14 / +2 (+6)
WIS: 12 = 12 / +1 (+4)
CHA: 8 - 2 (racial) = 6 / -2 (0)



Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
Scout 1
+0
+0
+2
+0
Balance: 4, Disable Device: 4, Hide: 4, Knowledge (Geography): 4, Listen: 4, Move Silently: 4, Search: 4, Spot: 4, Survival: 4, Tumble: 4
Point Blank Shot
Skirmish (+1d6), trapfinding


2nd
Scout 2
+1
+0
+3
+0
Balance: +1, Disable Device: +1, Hide: +1, Knowledge (Nature): 1, Listen: +1, Move Silently: +1, Search: +1, Spot: +1, Survival: +1, Tumble: +1

Battle Fortitude +1, uncanny dodge


3rd
Scout 3
+2
+1
+3
+1
Disable Device: +1, Hide: +1, Knowledge (Dungeoneering): 1, Knowledge (Nature): +1, Listen: +1, Move Silently: +1, Search: +1, Spot: +1, Survival: +1, Tumble: +1
Precise Shot
Fast movement +10ft, skirmish (+1d6, +1AC), trackless step


4th
Fighter 1
+3
+3
+3
+1
Jump: 4, Clever Improviser (2)
DodgeB
Sneak attack +2d6, Hit and Run Tactics


5th
Rogue 1
+3
+3
+5
+1
Disable Device: +1, Hide: +2, Listen: +1, Move Silently: +2, Search: +1, Spot: +1, Survival: +1, Tumble: +1

Sneak attack +2d6, Poison Use


6th
Rogue 2
+4
+3
+6
+1
Disable Device: +1, Hide: +1, Listen: +2, Move Silently: +1, Search: +1, Spot: +2, Survival: +1, Tumble: +1
Swift Ambusher
Skirmish (+2d6, +1AC)


Epic Feats
Improved Skirmish
Hand Crossbow Focus
Crossbow Sniper
Telling Blow
Far Shot
Darkstalker
Titan Fighting
Mobility
Shot on the Run
Quick Reconnoiter

A handful of d6s delivered with a bolt is the main idea here. Amira’s ranged combat gradually improves throughout her career, peaking at Epic 9 with Shot on the Run.
With several sources of extra damage (Skirmish, Sneak Attack, Hit and Run Tactics, Crossbow Sniper, poison?), she has options in how to approach the situation - sniping or skirmishing (and if luck is on her side and she scores a critical hit, Telling Blow means she can add the other one – be it Sneak Attack or Skirmish).
And on the defense, between the Skirmish bonus and Titan Fighting, she can be quite... uh, dodgy.
Of course the classic stealth and perception skills are present in the build, as is Trapfinding for the standard skill monkey package.
PS: Only 3 levels of Scout, but Rogue with Swift Ambusher is really a Scout in disguise.


SRD: Rogue, Fighter, Sneak Attack Fighter ACF, Wilderness Rogue ACF, feats
PHB2: Telling Blow, Crossbow Sniper
CAd: Scout, Quick Reconnoiter
CSco: Swift Ambusher, Improved Skirmish
CoR: Craven
DotU: Rogue & Fighter ACFs, Hand Crossbow Focus
RoS: Titan Fighting
RotW: Halfling substitution levels, Yondalla’s Sense
LoM: Darkstalker

[Zaq]

Name
Race/Alignment
Stub
Level at which Improved Skirmish was taken


Watcher (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120670&postcount=32)
TN Dragonborn Warforged Scout
Scout 4 / Ranger 1 / Scorpion Wraith 1
Epic 2


Octopus Man (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120676&postcount=33)
LG Amphibious Strongheart Halfling
Monk 1 / Scout 5
5


A Moon Elf from Silverymoon who worships Sehanine Moonbow (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120678&postcount=34)
(?? within 1 step of CG) Moon Elf
Cloistered Cleric 1 / Scout 5
6


Mahlezia (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120681&postcount=35)
(?? Some Chaotic or Evil) Human
Scout 5 / Warlock 1
6


The Kraken (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120686&postcount=36)
LE Amphibious Strongheart Halfling
Monk 1 / Scout 3 / Totemist 2
6


Hit Me (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120690&postcount=37)
?? Whisper Gnome
Scout 6
—


The Exiled (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120695&postcount=38)
NE Desert Kobold
Scout 5 / Hunter Barbarian 1
Epic 10


Amira (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120698&postcount=39)
CG Whisper Gnome
Scout 3 / Rogue 2 / Fighter 1
Epic 1




Look, I even made a table! Don't let the column about Improved Skirmish affect your Originality rating or anything. I merely found it amusing.

Judges, do your thing!

[MinimanMidget]

That's a heck of a batch. Hopefully we did you proud, Zaq.

[Zaq]

I'm proud of all of you! This really is an excellent crop.

Now we need to get some numerical opinions in the house. Who wants to judge?

[daremetoidareyo]

Dagnabbit. None of my ideas were used.

Harpoon, y'all. Harpooooooon! Double your skirmish damage in a hit!

And no burrowers? Badger hengeyokai y'all. Burrow!

[Zaq]

Never listen to Vizzini, dare.

[thorr-kan]

Eight. Quite a crop, indeed.

[Maat Mons]

I've seen The Princess Bride quite a few times, but I still have no idea what Vizzini has to do with anything.

[daremetoidareyo]

Never listen to Vizzini, dare.

Its really a time vs. Payout calculation.

My harpoon build was harpoon + hidden talent. Improved skirmish, ranged weapon boosters with psionic shot. Harpoon save is based on damage, or it gets stuck, and 4d6 extra damage is averaging a DC 25 save, 31 if you use psionic shot. And then, when removed, it does that damage again. Lesser crystal of return would be suggested, and the elegance for reliance on magic items would disappoint me. That amount of writeup would have been my entry.

The absence of harpoon in scout handbooks was disappointing though.

I thought burrow was so obvious that there would be one build exploiting it.

I did make an E6 optimization flow chart though instead of doing an entry writeup.

[MinimanMidget]

I thought burrow was so obvious that there would be one build exploiting it.

I thought about it, but it would've been extremely similar to the build I submitted for the Lurk round, and I didn't want to repeat myself. Even though it would've worked so much better with Scout.

[Zaq]

I've seen The Princess Bride quite a few times, but I still have no idea what Vizzini has to do with anything.

Chef: “I have such a cool idea for this round! Advanced Wickercraft goes so well with Faerunian Basketweaver. These pieces fit together in such an obvious and elegant way!”

Same chef: “But wait. It’s too obvious and elegant. Everyone’s going to bring in Advanced Wickercraft. I won’t stand out with something like that. I’ll be a face in the crowd of Advanced Wickercraft users. I can’t use it.”

Same chef: “But wait more. My fellow chefs are smart. They’ll be going through the same process as me. They’ll also expect that Advanced Wickercraft will be super common and talk themselves out of it. But if I’m one step smarter than them, I’ll be the only one to bring it in, and it’ll be great!”

Same chef: “No, no, everyone is thinking the same thing. No Advanced Wickercraft and that’s final.”

Same chef: “Okay, okay, what if I bring it in anyway, but... no, no, I just can’t risk the Originality hit.”

*repeat for way, way too long*

Reveal: *no Advanced Wickercraft users*

Chef: “Dagnabbit!”

*exit, pursued by bear*

[jdizzlean]

I'm proud of all of you! This really is an excellent crop.

Now we need to get some numerical opinions in the house. Who wants to judge?


i may have time tmw night to burn through all these, i'll be on vacation and out of town/afb from thurs-wed next week, so disputes will be delayed, but i can get a judging together at least

[Vrock Bait]

Sorry about the accidental Mod-life Crisis. I can judge, I guess.

[jdizzlean]

np, your post exists as a new thread in the homebrew forum if you care to follow it.

[Vrock Bait]

I’m probably just going to ignore it, since it was a joke. Thanks for letting me know, though.

[jdizzlean]

while a scout can be any alignment, and it wasn't an issue for anything this round, you should always include an alignment in your build, since that's a part of character creation.



11.25
3.5
Scorpion Wraith is interesting, I haven’t heard of this class before and will have to poke at it some more, however it doesn’t appear to be taken for any real reason. You can already use poison w/o fear as a construct, and the addition of a d6 of SS could’ve been better used by something like a rogue (more skill points, SA dice which would stack w/ skirmish, etc.) or psychic rogue if you wanted to tie back into hidden talent, pick up some powers and more pp. You get a minor bump to wild empathy, but that is one of the least used class features of all time imo.

Dragonborn was expected considering scout, as what movement speed enhancers.

2
Dragonborn requires you to lose a feat, meaning you don’t actually get Hidden Talent, and then later don’t qualify for Psionic Shot, Fell Shot, Psicrystal, etc, etc. Then that trickles down to Scorpion Wraith as now you have poison use w/ no inherent poison making ability beyond crafting. Sure you can still buy them, but that would introduce a minor equipment dependency. Also, you don’t gain flight from D’born until 6 HD.

Arcane Hunter requires Knowledge Arcane 1, which you don’t have.

Craven specifically by RAW requires you to have Sneak Attack. Sudden strike and Skirmish may stack with SA, but they aren’t sneak attack, so you can’t take it.

2.75
You only have a 25 point buy, so you could’ve pumped say DEX and CON both up another +1 bonus and been ok. That’s 6 more HP, higher Initiative, higher AC, better skill use, better attacks, etc.

I’m a big fan of Favored Enemy Arcanist, it’s easily the best of all the FE options. However, this is an ACF, not a standard feature, so be sure to list it on your build table as an ACF under the class features tab. However the bonus is only +1, not +2. It doesn’t become +2 until Epic 1st.

A climb speed, flight, and flyby attack are all great movement modes, and Dungeon Specialist allows you to still attack while climbing.
Blind Fight is a feat tax, but you’re also only getting marginal benefit from it. As a scout, you are pretty much never engaged in melee, so that benefit doesn’t help you.

You take care to list specific equipment out, however this is generally bad in any competitions because if you were to lose access to that equipment, your build doesn’t function. Take care to only list equipment that is essential to your build in the future, and otherwise leave “suggestions” out of your build.

A 2nd rank of ranger in lieu of scorpion wraith would’ve gotten you rapid shot, arguably better than another d6 of sudden strike.

3
You have ranks in search, but do nothing for trapfinding.

Battle fortitude is bumped w/ Imp Initiative, however I think that was more to qualify for scorpion than to optimize scout.

Dungeon Specialist is good for giving you more options, and being able to jump from a height and fly/glide is great.

4/6 ranks isn’t bad, but you lose out on Evasion.

Skirmish is optimized as much as possible, and that’s really what this build is about.

13.5
5
Mr Bombastic, Mr Fantastic. Oh the memories that tickles.

Picking up skirmish w/ a Monk level is hilarious as well.

I would never have seen a grappling scout coming. Ever.

2.5
Your point buy is also slightly off, you have a 29 point buy, so DEX or CON could’ve been raised another +1

You don’t qualify for Human Heritage, you’re a Halfling, not half-elf, not half-orc, not descended from a human. If you would’ve just built a human instead of a Halfling, you would’ve saved a feat, and could still do all these things other than being a grappling Halfling. You could’ve even likewise (because really there’s no restriction against it) simply been a child human, instead of an adult, and then could probably get away w/ the whole “I’m little” thing, however you would eventually grow up. That of course would’ve triggered a discussion on the age categories, for which human I don’t think has anything less than adult, so it would probably not have mattered to your stats.

Because of this, you don’t qualify for Jotunbrud as you aren’t human.

Amphibious imposes a -2 to your DEX stat, so that is off as well.

4
I don’t agree that Scorpion’s Grasp grants you a free attack, it simply lets you attack with your light weapon while in a grapple w/o the usual negative.

Inhuman Reach applies to your arms only, not all your tentacles, so unfortunately you don’t have that reach advantage to chain grapple to your hearts content to trigger skirmish.


2
Amphibious grants you a swim speed, and you boost that with Aquatic scout to allow you to activate skirmish.

Grappling and scout are not two things that mix naturally, but combining scorpions grasp, inhuman reach, and your grapples does move you the requisite distance needed to trigger skirmish, and that is hilarious.

As good as this is, this is much more of a grappling build than a scout build. Applying Sneak attack to grapples, or sudden strike to grapples would’ve accomplished much the same thing as skirmish in this build. The only upside to skirmish is it can apply to all attacks by you on your turn, and that at least is something.

Otherwise, there’s very little scout in this build, sadly.

7
3
Education and Knowledge Devotion are not two things I thought to see in this round. The rest is expected.

1
No skills breakdown per level. No BAB listed, no saves listed, no epic feats listed, making this an incomplete entry.

2
In terms of e6, you are grossly underpowered considering from this entry that you essentially “refuse” to take any epic feats, and so there for fall off in power exponentially as you level.

1
Scout 5 is the breakpoint for this round, but without a complete build, you are essentially an example character out of the book and therefor impossible to judge in this category as well.


14.5
4
I love warlock dips, but didn’t see it on this round either.

4
You also have a short point buy, at 27, meaning DEX could’ve been another +1 modifier

3
I don’t quite see the point of Spell Penetration/Greater. You don’t have any spell casting.

Practiced Spellcaster likewise does nothing for Warlock for you, since your invocation is not offensive in any way. It doesn’t progress EB at all either. All it does is boost the EB CL for the purposes of overcoming SR, but that’s it (and that’s being generous, because by RAW it doesn’t even do that), which seems a waste.

Mortalbane is nice for just extra damage, but it’s also only 5/day on your EB.

2.5
With no way for extra attacks, you have one good shot per round, and if it misses, all these other things you have do nothing at all for you.

I also think this could’ve been a lot of other things besides scout and still come to much the same build, especially since you’re using EB and applying skirmish to that. The big upside of skirmish is it applying to all attacks in a round, you have 1 attack, so it’s a misstep I think.

13.5
5
Totemist is almost exclusively used for manitcore belt, or girralon claws, so this is no surprise. This build is marginally different than the Halfling for justice, but only just.

2
You don’t qualify for Human Heritage, you’re a Halfling, not half-elf, not half-orc, not descended from a human. If you would’ve just built a human instead of a Halfling, you would’ve saved a feat, and could still do all these things other than being a grappling Halfling. You could’ve even likewise (because really there’s no restriction against it) simply been a child human, instead of an adult, and then could probably get away w/ the whole “I’m little” thing, however you would eventually grow up. That of course would’ve triggered a discussion on the age categories, for which human I don’t think has anything less than adult, so it would probably not have mattered to your stats.

Because of this, you don’t qualify for Jotunbrud as you aren’t human.

Amphibious imposes a -2 to your DEX stat, so that is off as well.

You have all this teleportation going on, but where are you getting that from?

4
Go To Ground seems pointless on a nautical character.

I don’t agree that Scorpion’s Grasp grants you a free attack, it simply lets you attack with your light weapon while in a grapple w/o the usual negative.

Inhuman Reach applies to your arms only, not all your tentacles, so unfortunately you don’t have that reach advantage to chain grapple to your hearts content to trigger skirmish.

I do think however that more attacks is better than more damage on less attacks, so you’ve got that going for you.

2.5
You drop out of Scout much earlier, sacrifice Skirmish progression for more attacks, and miss out on evasion.

16.5
4
The “backstory” of course is pretty much spot on, I go through much the same thing, but sometimes my notes are pages long…

The only full scout in this comp, and whisper gnome to boot.

5
You appear to qualify for everything

3.5
Shooting a bow in melee as a means of triggering riposte is great. However you’ll need a cleric standing by, or someone w/ wands of heals to keep you up since you aren’t a frontline bruiser, or at least aren’t meant to be.

Stacking dodge bonuses is one way of making yourself tougher, but you can be denied your dodge bonus, and then you are a pincushion.

4
Full scout, you actually take ranks in both search and disable device to use trapfinding. Riposte is great as long as your dodge bonus isn’t taken away, and rapid shot does give you more than one attack.

17
4
Kudos for turning away from the kobold cheese, but then you embrace the pouncebarian cheese.

I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone take Travel Devotion multiple times before.

5
You appear to qualify for everything.

4
Swift Hunter does nothing for you since you have no ranger levels. So your optional feat of Iron Will is the one you would take, however you have to be judged off the build as presented, not optional things.

Starspawn gives you limited flight, which is great, and since it’s half your landspeed, the boost to your land speed from scout also somewhat bumps this.

Finding a way however to have more natural attacks actually would work better w/ the pouncing.

4
Using charge to trigger skirmish is a neat interpretation, and with many, many, many uses of travel devotion combine w/ flight, you should have no issues getting around.

15
3.5
The Xbow use is the real standout for this entry

4
You took the sneak attack fighter ACF, which means you have to give up the bonus feat for fighter, you can’t have both

4
Xbow sniper really adds a lot of versatility to this build, and Xbow focus makes it usable each round, which is even better. It is unfortunate that as your main combat schtick, that they don’t come online til epic 2/3.

Telling blow seems a mismatch, ideally you’d want to be moving each round to trigger skirmish, so that damage would apply on a critical hit anyways. It doesn’t let you get to do it on the initial hit, and on the critical however, so unless you aren’t triggering it in the first place, it’s a wash.

Far shot gives you again more range, but this extra range doesn’t apply to skirmish or sneak attack.

A rank in fighter gets you presumably more HP, and another d6 SA.

3.5
Swift Ambusher helps you pick up lost class features for only taking 3 ranks in scout.

Xbow use, and the focus on it is great, especially doubling the range you can apply SA and Skirmish.

[Quentinas]

Whoa that was fast, well now i have to read , maybe this afternoon (for me at least) i will see if i have to dispute something (so with a quick see it seems to no)

[Zaq]

Thanks for a swift judgment, jdizz!

A response from a contestant:


A couple points on this one.

- Scorpion Wraith's poison use is required for Poison Expert, even if you're immune to poison otherwise. It's also a full BAB class which gets Sneak Attack - the BAB is required to qualify for Psionic Shot and Fell Shot.

- Sudden Strike is equivalent to Sneak Attack for qualification for feats and prestige classes, see Complete Adventurer pg8 sidebar.

- Where does Dragonborn cost a feat? It stops you gaining any racial bonus feats, so if you're Human or similar you don't get a feat, but Watcher is a Warforged Scout and doesn't have a level 1 bonus feat to lose. You may take a feat requiring the dragonblood subtype, but it's not mandatory.

- Favoured Enemy [Arcanist] is listed under Class Features in the table in exactly the same way as Dungeon Specialist is?

- The only listed equipment is stuff which is essential to a functioning statblock (i.e. weapon), and skill bumpers to allow for reliable creation of Black Lotus Extract (DC 35) and for regaining of Psionic Focus, all of which are reasonably 'essential'.

- Whoops, used Elite Array for stats.

[Zaq]

Another response, though the chef specified that it’s not really a dispute:



Hi jdizzlean,

1. Holy moly, that was quick :smalleek:
2. On the Fighter bonus feat: Haha, mesa fool! Nice catch :smallredface: (that's what I get for submitting the build less than an hour before leaving for vacation)
3. On the Telling Blow: It's part of the "conditional bonus damage cheat sheet" :smallsmile: Getting Skimirsh *or* Sneak Attack (especially Skirmish) is relatively easy (provided the target is not immune), but both at the same time can be tricky.
With Telling Blow I can add the second type of damage (which you didn't qualify for naturally) anytime you score a critical hit. And Xbows' extended crit range helps here, too.

Nothing else from me here, keep on rocking!

[Zaq]

One more that is stated to not be a dispute:


Thanks to the judge to be so quick i did not expected that and there are only some little things that i want to clarify but they are not real disputes
First about the pouncebarbarian cheese : He was only allergic to the classical kobold cheese , he could eat(use) other types of cheese!
Second about Swift hunter: because i did not known how the judges or the DM would have taken that (i have seen the two reactions in two different game) i listed even iron will (because some could argue that you can sum 0 levels of ranger + 5 levels of scout so i think that was the way, If it isn't i don't have any problem with that , this is only a clarification but maybe i should be judged with iron will(not that it change so much)
Third: I have think other ways to gain more natural weapons , but this build was made hastily, and the only other resource i could think was using dragon tail or soulmeld feats , but in each case i would have lost one feat (so no starspawn for example or lesser uses of travel devotion which can be useful if you can't charge) so i preferred some versatility than having more damage having more natural weapon.
And thanks these are not real disputes but only some clarification on some point of your judgment, even if you don't change my total points is good for me I'm happy with that

And here's one that is a dispute:


Hey, hey, "one mistake, one penalty." You're penalizing me for "incomplete build" in Elegance, Power, and Use of secret Ingredient. Pick one.

[jdizzlean]

watcherman

sorry, brain fart, i had thought you had poison use from something else :/
Elegance +.25

Sudden Strike: that specifically says the NINJA's SS counts, you aren't a ninja.
no change

Dragonborn: i could've sworn it was lose a feat regardless, but it's only lose a bonus feat, i stand corrected
Elegance +1

the rest were observations, not penalties
New total: 12.5

====================

Amira

the telling blow was a wash, either way. any benefit from another damage option was washed out by it probably being used almost never due to how scout works
no change
===========================

He of the incredibly long name

You submitted an incomplete build in every way, there is nothing complete about any 1 category. I chose to still attempt to judge each one, which is why your score isn't a 1 in each category.
no change

[Zaq]

Looks like we've got some back-and-forth here from Lunar McNinewordname:


If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that "incomplete build" is being used as a sort of catch-all term for several different deductions. If that is so, please list which aspects of incomplete build are being penalized in each category.

[jdizzlean]

Creation rules for E6:


E6: Here's how E6 works for the purposes of this contest. Build your character normally for the first six levels. After you reach level 6, you stop gaining levels and start gaining bonus feats every time you would gain 5,000 XP. Since we aren't actually tracking XP, you'll basically list your first ten epic bonus feats in the order that you take them, and we think of them as being kind of like levels. We will not use the LA-equals-reduced-point-buy rules, instead preferring to just ban races with LA, at least for now.

Please use the table found below in the spoiler. List your epic bonus feats (in clear order) after the table.

Because we have had issues with this in the past, when listing your skills, please make it very clear how many ranks you have at each level. There are multiple ways to do this and we do not wish to cramp anyone's individual style by dictating exactly how this must look, but make sure that somewhere in your entry there's an explanation of how many actual skill ranks you have. It's still fine to list total skill bonuses, if that's your style, but don't only list bonuses; make sure that there is a clear listing somewhere of your ranks alone.



you submitted an incomplete build, without the required content even for what you submitted. I could've chosen to disqualify your entry based on that alone. I didn't and at least gave you 'some' score. I realize you feel strongly about your entry, I feel the same about the ones I do. However, when you choose to do less than the bare minimum, you must also accept the consequences of your decision. It's perfectly fine for you to do an entry on some other kind of table such as you did, but you still have to include all the relevant information for it to be complete.

FINAL SCORE: NO CHANGE

[Zaq]

I think after this round is over I’m going to post some updated guidelines on disputes/responses. Let’s play nice, everyone.


I don't mean to be a bother. But I just want to make sure there is no miscommunication. I asked you if you would mind telling me which aspects of "incomplete build" were assigned to each category. You've given what I presume is meant to be a list of the aspects of "incomplete build." But there's nothing that could possible be construed as indicating which categories each of those aspects was assigned to. Just checking if you didn't understand my request, of if you're refusing it.



In order to speed up this conversation, I'm going to double up on this message.

Earlier, you said that you attempted to judge each category, and implied that the result of not even attempting this would have been a 1 in that category. When you judged me on Use of Secret Ingredient, you said it was impossible to judge this category, and gave me a 1. I'm having difficulty rectifying these two things.

I don't see any reason why, for purposes of Use of Secret Ingredient, you couldn't judge it as if I had taken only epic feats that had nothing whatsoever to do with Scout. The "worst case scenario," as it were. Even with no epic feats whatsoever, I still have 5 levels in Scout, and four feats that directly improve Skirmish. That just doesn't seem like a 1 to me, even if I could potentially have had 10 more feats that tied into Scout.

[Quentinas]

Here is a table with the temporarily position based on Jdizzlean after the disputes and Vrock bait judgement i will do again this table for now i have created this because i had time



Namel
Race/ALignment
Stub
Level at which improved skirmish was taken
Jdizzlean judgement
Position
Chef


The Exiled (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120695&postcount=38)
NE Desert Kodbol
Scout 5 / Hunter Barbarian 1
Epic 10
17
First
???


Hit Me (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120690&postcount=37)
?? Whisper gnome
Scout 6
-
16.5
Second
???


Octopus Man (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120676&postcount=33)
LG Amphibious Strongheart Halfling
Monk 1/Scout 5
5
15.25
Third
???


Amira (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120698&postcount=39)
CG Whisper Gnome
Scout 3/ rogue 2/ Fighter 1
Epic 1
15
Fourth
???


Mahleiza (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120681&postcount=35)
(?? Some Chaotic or Evil) Human
Scout 5/Warlock 1
6
15
Fourth
???


The Kraken (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120686&postcount=36)
LE Amphibious Strongheart Halflingl
Monk 1 /Scout 3 /Totemist 2
6
14.75
Sixth
???


Watcher[ (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120670&postcount=32)
TN Dragonborn Warforged Scout
Scout 4 /Ranger 1/ Scorpion Wraith 1
Epic 2
12.5
Seventh
???


A Moon Elf from Silverymoon who worships Sehanine Moonbow[ (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120678&postcount=34)
(?? within 1 step of CG) Moon Elf
Cloistered Cleric 1 /Scout 5
6
7
Eighth
???

[jdizzlean]

the normal process for disputes (which zaq may change or qualify, or update at his discretion) is 1 dispute, and 1 rebuttal so that there aren't 500 ongoing posts about the same thing that has been asked/answered already. this gives the chef ample opportunities to dispute/rebut something, and the judge ample time to answer/clarify.

that said, i'll answer you.

essentially i'm refusing to answer because it is to complicated based off what i have to work with.

originality: this is based off the entirety of your build, look at all the variance in this round for the same ingredient. you have 5 levels, your initial feats, but no other defining characteristic that makes your build stand out or be original in anyway. why elf, why cleric, why turn undead. you explain nothing and justify nothing

elegance: no bab, no skills, no saves, no epic feats, next to no fluff aside from 6 words and a link to some random thing. there's no way to check if any epic feats are qualified for, and all the above mentioned creation standards that were ignored.

power: as stated, throw you up against any of these other builds that have 10 more feats than you do, and you pale to compare. even in not comparing you to the others, take you standard 6 lvl build and put it in an e6 campaign that is at epic 10th, and you pale to compare

use of si: sure you have 5 levels and what i would consider to be the baseline feats to support the class with the exception of the devotion ones. you have no other defining characteristics (namely those 10 feats) to define your use of the SI.

in the end, this is an incomplete build. I'm sure you knew that when you submitted it. If not, take this as a learning experience, look at all the other builds, and in fact some of the other build competitions as to what a "standard" build should look like.

so, you can have the 7 points i gave you, or you can have a 1 in each category for failing to meet the metrics, or you can be disqualified and get 0

all this said, don't let this round discourage you. build again in the future, and even judge if you think you might have the time. in the end, you're competing for a few colored pixels on a website and possibly some small measure of bragging rights among a fairly small community.

[Zaq]

I'm a little embarrassed that I just now got the joke.


Sorry for the slow dispute.



You also have a short point buy, at 27, meaning DEX could’ve been another +1 modifier


Wow, that's embarrassing. I have no idea why I thought it was 27.



I don’t quite see the point of Spell Penetration/Greater. You don’t have any spell casting.

Practiced Spellcaster likewise does nothing for Warlock for you, since your invocation is not offensive in any way. It doesn’t progress EB at all either. All it does is boost the EB CL for the purposes of overcoming SR, but that’s it (and that’s being generous, because by RAW it doesn’t even do that), which seems a waste.


Complete Arcane is pretty explicit about this:


An eldritch blast is subject to spell resistance, although the Spell Penetration feat and other effects that improve caster level checks to overcome spell resistance also apply to eldritch blast.

And I can understand it seeming like a waste, but as I said in the build writeup, Spell Resistance is a serious problem for this build - one of its biggest weaknesses, even - so I tried to mitigate it.



With no way for extra attacks, you have one good shot per round, and if it misses, all these other things you have do nothing at all for you.


That's a completely fair criticism, but it seems to me like it belongs under Power rather than UotSI.



I also think this could’ve been a lot of other things besides scout and still come to much the same build, especially since you’re using EB and applying skirmish to that. The big upside of skirmish is it applying to all attacks in a round, you have 1 attack, so it’s a misstep I think.


That was actually the whole basis of the build. I firmly believe the intent behind Skirmish was that you would have to use a move action to trigger it, preventing you from making full attacks, and I decided to embrace that, and optimise around a single attack, rather than trying to circumvent it. I expected to get slammed in Power for it, of course, but a UotSI penalty is...surprising, at least to me.

[Vrock Bait]

Sorry, I totally forgot about judging! I’ll try to post a few now.
Scorpion Wraith and Dragonborn Warforged were both pretty original, though the latter is iffy on my part. Warforged, Dragonborn, and poison really make a good match together, however poison+Warforged is a known combo.
Score: 4The Dragonborn Warforged part really iffs me off, but it is technically possible by RAW(and Ebberron did exist at that time), so I won’t penalize. I like the combination of a climb and glide speed though, because you can now flying squirrel attack. However, most people haven’t heard of scorpion wraith, which won’t be penalized. Furthermore, Craven is FR material, so you’re kind of mixing campaign settings there. I really don’t want to play crazy Batman Planescape, here. You’re also missing some prereqs.
Score: 2.5 Quite powerful, with poison. However, when fighting undead, constructs, or oozes, you’ll be utterly ineffectual. You can’t attack the arcanist if you can’t get past his horde of wights.
Score: 3.0 You only have 4/6 scout progression, but Skirmish is optimized pretty well.
Score: 4.5 Final score: 14
I never really though a scout would make a good grappler, which it normally doesn’t. However, you’ve made quite a competent grappler with it. I enjoyed that you actually wrote a backstory, though.
Score: 5You don’t have the prereqs for several things. Other than that, pretty good.
Score: 3.5Ok, in the power department.
Score: 4You took 5/6, which was nice.
Score: 5Final score: 17.5

You used the stereotypical cleric dip, lightly seasoned with Travel and Knowledge Devotion. Your scout levels are also nothing special.
Score: 1You’re missing epic feats. And backstory. And there are Sailor Moon references for no reason. Need I say more?
Score: 1.5. I’m feeling vindictive.

Just as strong as any movement based build. Travel Devotion does tend to improve any mundane build.
Score: 4

You took 5 levels, but just did the WoTC recommended stuff.
Score: 3

Final score: 9.5


Warlock and scout synergize in a strange way. An original way, though.
Score: 4.5

I very much enjoyed how much detail you put into this. Excellent job. Also liked the use of
Score: 5

Eldritch Blast op. It works well with the Scout’s skirmish style.
Score: 4

5 levels, class feature optimization.
Score: 5

Final score: 18.5

Sorry I write so little so slowly.

[Quentinas]

When you have edited your post Vrock bait i will edit the table Is a problem if there isn't the sum of the judgment but only the average judgement ?If yes i will edit my table to add the total (probably removing the level at which improved skirmish was taken)

[Zaq]

A rare double-response:


First of all, thanks for stepping up to judge, and so quickly!

I think it’s pretty obvious that Octopus Man and The Kraken were submitted by one person (namely me), so in the interest of saving time I’ll talk about the racial stuff for the two in the same spot, since the same points apply to both of them. And because it's mostly just me admitting fault, anyway. (If you’d prefer them separate, just let me know and I’ll re-edit them).



You don’t qualify for Human Heritage, you’re a Halfling, not half-elf, not half-orc, not descended from a human. If you would’ve just built a human instead of a Halfling, you would’ve saved a feat, and could still do all these things other than being a grappling Halfling. You could’ve even likewise (because really there’s no restriction against it) simply been a child human, instead of an adult, and then could probably get away w/ the whole “I’m little” thing, however you would eventually grow up. That of course would’ve triggered a discussion on the age categories, for which human I don’t think has anything less than adult, so it would probably not have mattered to your stats.
… yeah I knew I was going to be losing some points here. I will note that if one of Octopus Man’s and The Kraken’s parents is human, they qualify for Human Heritage (because they are by definition “half-human”), but I don’t disagree that even that is highly inelegant.

As an aside, making them human wouldn’t work, as the Halfling Monk RSL was a crucial part of both builds. If the DM allowed the “culturally halfling” argument, even if you had to take a feat for it (something along the lines of “Halfling Heritage”), then that would totally work, but it would be very much homebrew. I did seriously consider making them both changelings with Racial Emulation, but that would require taking a flaw for Jotunbrud (or just forgoing that +4 to grapple), and Jotunbrud and changelings are from different campaign settings, and it’s questionable whether you can Emulate two races at once (human and halfling) during character creation… it still might have been a bit more elegant, but I really liked the idea of grappling halflings.



Amphibious imposes a -2 to your DEX stat, so that is off as well.
The racial penalty to Dexterity from Amphibious Creature is cancelled out by the racial bonus from Halfling.



Your point buy is also slightly off, you have a 29 point buy, so DEX or CON could’ve been raised another +1
On to Octopus Man specifically. The pre-racial Strength score is off by one point due to the late-in-the-build-process addition of Multigrab requiring an adjustment of stats; the level 1 and level 4 stats are both correct, but the pre-racial Str is listed as 17 instead of the 18 it should be. The 4th level boost to Str then qualifies him for Multigrab.



Inhuman Reach applies to your arms only, not all your tentacles, so unfortunately you don’t have that reach advantage to chain grapple to your hearts content to trigger skirmish.

You gain an additional 5 feet of reach. For most Small and Medium creatures, this benefi t increases natural reach to 10 feet. If you already have a reach of more than 5 feet for some reason, this feat extends your reach by another 5 feet. As described on page 112 of the Player's Handbook, a reach weapon doubles your normal reach; for example, if you have this feat and you wield a longspear, you can attack targets 15 or 20 feet away. Your elongated arms also grant you a +2 bonus on Climb checks.
I’m pretty sure the reference to arms is just fluff text (it is in the description section rather than the benefits section, after all), based on the assumption that a character taking this feat will be humanoid and thus have two arms. This sort of thing is all over the place, like Dread Necromancer’s Charnel Touch specifically mentioning hands. Regardless, the feat text explicitly states that “You gain an additional 5ft of reach” without any caveats; the only mention of arms in the benefit text is that “Your elongated arms also grant you a +2 bonus on Climb checks.” Even if RAI was that it only applied to arms, which I doubt, RAW it applies to all reach. (Side Note: I actually did quite a bit of searching for any ways of extending only part of your reach for a different build a while back; I couldn’t find any, but if you know any I’d love to hear them!)



As good as this is, this is much more of a grappling build than a scout build. Applying Sneak attack to grapples, or sudden strike to grapples would’ve accomplished much the same thing as skirmish in this build.
I have to disagree that this build could be pulled off using other forms of precision damage, at least not as effectively as Scout does it. A SA Fighter 1/ Rogue 5 or Rogue 1/ SA Fighter 5 would only have 4d6 extra damage to Octopus Man’s 5d6; you could perhaps add Craven to that, but the build is already incredibly feat-starved, so you’d have to sacrifice something (something other than Improved Skirmish, because you’re also not getting a bonus feat anymore). Which segues neatly into the next point in Scout’s favor: that bonus feat is super helpful. SA also depends on the opponent being denied Dex, which Octopus Man can only do when using Multigrab; as a Scout, he can forgo that -10 penalty to his grapple checks when beneficial without actually costing himself anything besides his reach. Finally, Scout’s extra HP, Fast Movement, bonuses to AC, Battle Fortitude, and even superior Uncanny Dodge all synergize better with Octopus Man’s fighting style than anything Rogue can bring to the table; those little bits of extra tankiness really matter when your strategy revolves around being as in-your-face with the enemy as it’s possible to be.

TL;DR, while it’s very much a grappling build, Scout was the best way I could find to pull off this delightful absurdity (and I did have so much fun putting it all together, once it finally clicked).



You have all this teleportation going on, but where are you getting that from?
Ah, that explains why you thought the two builds were only slightly different. I split The Grappling Halfling into two characters once I realized there were two wildly different ways of accomplishing it that couldn’t both be squeezed into one build (despite their similar starts). Octopus Man accomplishes his mobility by chain grappling, but The Kraken achieves mobility using the Blink Shirt soulmeld to teleport (and in fact can’t really chain-grapple effectively because she lacks the Multigrab feat). Shaping it lets you teleport a short distance (10ft + 10ft/essentia) as a standard action that ends your turn, and binding it to the totem chakra lets you teleport the same distance as a standard action and/or a move action and makes it so teleporting doesn’t end your turn, letting you attack in the same turn you teleport or teleport twice in the same turn.

While the tactic of grappling towards someone using the kusari-gama (as explained in the breakdown for E3) and then teleporting away to safety is hamstrung by the more conservative interpretation of Scorpion’s Grasp (without the extra attack, none of the hits do Skirmish damage), The Kraken can still do the opposite, teleporting away from a grapple (letting her break it instantly without any grapple checks or opportunity attacks) at the start of the turn for distance and then using her crazy reach and Scorpion’s Grasp to grapple again with Improved Skirmish damage (arguably also on the unarmed strike damage caused by the grapple itself, too). And, once she reaches E10, by teleporting above an opponent and deliberately falling on them she can Pounce-charge twice per turn (on her move action and on her standard action), with all hits doing Improved Skirmish damage and giving her the opportunity to initiate a grapple again; alternatively, she can teleport-Pounce-charge once and then teleport to safety.



Inhuman Reach applies to your arms only, not all your tentacles, so unfortunately you don’t have that reach advantage to chain grapple to your hearts content to trigger skirmish.
That actually doesn’t matter to The Kraken; she only needs the extra reach with her kusari-gama anyway. Like I mentioned in Elegance, her tricks revolve around teleporting and absurd reach on a single attack rather than chain grappling. I also think it’s worth repeating the sheer utility at-will teleportation brings to the table.



Go To Ground seems pointless on a nautical character.
Tracking a person on a ship is going to be impossible regardless, without access to relatively high-level magic. Go To Ground at least works when The Kraken is in port, and I’d argue that it would be much easier to track a creepy betentacled glowing-with-incarnum halfling by asking around town than it would be to track that same halfling conventionally while she’s climbing and teleporting around, and thus that Go To Ground is the more useful class feature for The Kraken.



You drop out of Scout much earlier, sacrifice Skirmish progression for more attacks, and miss out on evasion.
While it’s true that Octopus Man’s chain grapple strategy could be at least comparably effective with Sneak Attack (or other precision damage), The Kraken’s teleportation tricks could only work with Scout/Skirmish, because nothing about them makes the opponent flatfooted, but they inherently involve enough movement to proc (Improved) Skirmish. You could perhaps pull of a similar build with Power Attack, but since there’s no way to get both Shock Trooper and Totemist (BAB requirements), such a build would be woefully unlikely to hit, and would thus probably be doing a lot less damage than The Kraken is capable of, to say nothing of her other mobility tricks, or the higher AC she gets thanks to Skirmishing. I can’t deny that she drops out of Scout rather early, but it’s still Skirmish and mobility at the beating heart of the build.

[Quentinas]

When there are news from Vrock bait someone can send me a message so I put his number in the table? Thanks

[DEMON]

Vrock Bait wasn't kidding. He really went to be tired :smallsmile:

[jdizzlean]

Krak/Octo

+.5 on elegance to both for the DEX. it may just be me, but i'd prefer a simple stat block on builds that list the +'s and the -'s. without it, things like this misunderstanding happen. more info is better than less info :)

i see 'some' merit to your inhuman reach discussion, but i still don't agree that it's every single thing you have access to, +.25 ea on power

octo:

likewise, i see 'some' merit in your discussion on UoSI. I still feel this is showcasing grappling more than scout, however you do pull it off using scout, and that is at least more than nothing. +1

Krack:

ahh, i was confused because in your build you state that girallon arms is your goto bind, and that blink shirt is just an alternative option. sure you get 2 binds to totem, but its ill explained in the build text. no change here though.

on goto ground:

that makes sense, but again, isn't explained in the original build, so no change

UoSI:

again, I agree partially, have a +.5 there. in retrospect, you have no way to negate the damage you'd also take for falling 10 feet every time you blink up to "charge-pounce" someone, so that could be to your detriment as well. this is just a brain-fart i just had, so likewise has no bearing on your points since it also wasn't in the original judgement.




math was my least fav subject, someone else do math please :D

[Quentinas]

Edited... so now we have to wait vrock bait complete judgement , and the answer to the dispute for/from the Scout Warlock build

[jdizzlean]

Mahleiza

Power:

i can see some benefit to boosting your EB CL, but i still think 2 feats is an overinvestment into it, and a side tangent from the rest of the build as well. +.5

UoSI:

compared to some of the other entries this round that manage multiple attacks, your focus on 1 single strong attack is fine, but as i said, if you miss, everything in your build becomes irrelevant as you have no other options built in. are you using skirmish? yes, are you optimizing it, no. score stands.

[Quentinas]

Edited after the dispute

[Zaq]

Vrock Bait, any progress? We technically could move on, but since you started, I do want to give you a chance to finish if you’re still working.

[Quentinas]

If we move on (based on the judgement that there are) i would give HM to or Kraken (because is an interesting build) or to malheiza because is neat using eldritch blast to don't have problem with AC with a medium bab class

[jdizzlean]

Vrock Bait, any progress? We technically could move on, but since you started, I do want to give you a chance to finish if you’re still working.

i shot him a pm about it last night, he said he'd get the rest up today. if that doesn't happen, you could probably move on w/ a clear conscious

[Zaq]

Now is, as usual, a good time to start chattering about what you’d like to see next round.

I’ve got something in mind. We’re going to do a high-originality round next. But I always like hearing what you folks want.

[Quentinas]

I would like even the shadowcaster or the battledancer i had some idea about them now (i need only to have some clarification especially on the shadowcaster) or if we want to do another round like this one ... what about the marshal??? With an high originality i would like the bard , especially because i could recycle an idea that i have for the battledancer on the bard , for the warmage i would not like an high originality , yes is strong, but is very difficult to create an original warmage (for now i think i have... 3 ideas maybe?) The binder was already done as round?

[MinimanMidget]

If I'm being honest, I have no idea how to build or judge vancian spellcasters, so in general my preference is for not that.

[daremetoidareyo]

My top choices

1. Jester (dragon comp)
2. noble (dragonlance campaign setting)
3. arcane swordsage (ToB adaptation)

[jdizzlean]

found this while doing my own archer research. seems like Amira's chef might like to think about it if they ever play this character

Xaniqos School
( Drow of the Underdark, p. 57)

basically, move 10ft towards opponent, and all xbow attacks do an extra 1d6 dmg that round, be a nice stack w/ skirmish since you have to move :)
pre-reqs are killer though, wouldn't work in e6 unleess theres gestalt in play :( or you figure out how to get full BAB some other way

[Vrock Bait]

Sorry for the slow posts, usually it’s kind of hard to find enough time to judge. I’ll try to finish.
Anyway, here are my ideas for next round:
1. Mariner(Legend of the Twins)
2. Sohei(Oriental Adventures)
3. Eidolon(Ghostwalk)

[Vrock Bait]

Would you guys please move on without me? I’ll even promise to stop posting in this thread until the winner is announced, if that helps.

[Zaq]

Don’t feel bad, VB. It happens! Judging is hard and life comes first.

I’ll wrap this up and set up the next round as soon as I have a few minutes at my desktop computer. That will probably be tonight or tomorrow, but it might be a little later.

[Quentinas]

If you want Zaq i will adapt the table above removing Vrock bait judgement and putting the authors column

[Zaq]

Thanks for the table, Quentinas, and thanks for everyone's patience! Pro tip: balancing energy is, apparently, just as difficult as balancing time. Second pro tip: don't get a graduate degree in a subject you never liked.



Namel
Race/Alignment
Stub
Level at which improved skirmish was taken
Jdizzlean judgment
Position
Chef


The Exiled (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120695&postcount=38)
NE Desert Kobold
Scout 5 / Hunter Barbarian 1
Epic 10
17
First
Quentinas


Hit Me (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120690&postcount=37)
?? Whisper gnome
Scout 6
-
16.5
Second
Quentinas


Octopus Man (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120676&postcount=33)
LG Amphibious Strongheart Halfling
Monk 1/Scout 5
5
15.25
Third
PoeticallyPsyco


Amira (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120698&postcount=39)
CG Whisper Gnome
Scout 3/ rogue 2/ Fighter 1
Epic 1
15
Fourth
DEMON


Mahleiza (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120681&postcount=35)
(?? Some Chaotic or Evil) Human
Scout 5/Warlock 1
6
15
Fourth, Honorable Mention
MinimanMidget


The Kraken (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120686&postcount=36)
LE Amphibious Strongheart Halfling
Monk 1 /Scout 3 /Totemist 2
6
14.75
Sixth
PoeticallyPsyco


Watcher (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120670&postcount=32)
TN Dragonborn Warforged Scout
Scout 4 /Ranger 1/ Scorpion Wraith 1
Epic 2
12.5
Seventh
Gauntlet


A Moon Elf from Silverymoon who worships Sehanine Moonbow (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24120678&postcount=34)
(?? within 1 step of CG) Moon Elf
Cloistered Cleric 1 /Scout 5
6
7
Eighth
Maat Mons



Congrats to Quentinas for a double showing at the top of the podium with PoeticallyPsyco bringing in an extraordinarily entertaining third place! Honorable Mention goes to MinimanMidget for the sheer gumption displayed in clearly both starting and ending during the period of the last-minute extension. Excellent work on display, chefs!

Thanks as always to our judges. No one really gets how hard it is until they try it... so I encourage everyone to try it if you haven't yet! Gives you a real great dose of perspective (and, I argue, makes you a stronger contestant).

New round HERE! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?599279-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-E6-Appetizer-Edition-(Round-XX)) We've got another high-orig round coming up, so let's see that creativity on display!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Man the Grappling Halflings were fun to write. Though I will admit to being slightly concerned at how easy and entertaining it was to put myself into The Kraken's spiteful little head.

[DEMON]

Oh well, .25 short off the podium spot :smallbiggrin:

Grats Quentinas and Psyco.

[Quentinas]

I would not have think that i will gain the gold medal and the silver medal i admit that, it surprised me. The exiled was seems so obvious as build not so original but i tried charging to use skirmish, and Hit Me was made hastily with a very strange concept behind (who like to provokes attacks of opportunity ?)

[daremetoidareyo]

I would not have think that i will gain the gold medal and the silver medal i admit that, it surprised me. The exiled was seems so obvious as build not so original but i tried charging to use skirmish, and Hit Me was made hastily with a very strange concept behind (who like to provokes attacks of opportunity ?)

Hit me was my favorite.