Optimize this: "Literally just a dude with a sword"

[H_H_F_F]

Hey, remember this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629343-Best-quot-mundane-quot)? How 'bout this one (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629348-Martial-builds-that-are-entirely-Ex-zero-magic)?

Well, let's combine the worst of all worlds: how would you try to optimize a build that cannot use spells, psionics, meldshaping... even maneuvers and stances are not allowed, as are any classes which grant them. No [su] and no spell likes either.

Any way to optimize this concept beyond "barbarian with good feats"?

[Maat Mons]

What's your stance on magic items? How about races like Dragonborn and Necropolitan, which have magic rituals in their backstory? Or Warforged, who are kind of magic items themselves?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Well, probably ubercharger. Or centaur war hulk/hulking hurler. If we're only talking optimization, then there are a few (Ex) only builds that already exist.

[RaiKirah]

Jotunbrud Human Lion Spirit Totem Wolf Totem Whirling Frenzy Barbarian 2/Fighter 2/Feat Rogue 1/Foresaker 10/War Hulk 5

Feats:
F: Lightning Reflexes
F: Iron Will
H: Jotunbrud
1: Power Attack
2B: Improved Trip
3: Great Fortitude
3B: Blind Fight
4B: Leap Attack
5B: Cleave
6: Shock Trooper
9: Knock Down
12: Mage Slayer
15: Pierce Magical Concealment
18: Pierce Magical Protection

If an Otyugh Hole is available get Extra Rage

[Gruftzwerg]

thread number one did already exclude ubercharger, for those to lazy to click the links..^^
and with stances and maneuver also excluded, there is lil room left..

maybe an Iaijutsu Focus build?

edit: a knockback + large & in charge build could be another option. Knockdown as extra if you want it.

[H_H_F_F]

What's your stance on magic items? How about races like Dragonborn and Necropolitan, which have magic rituals in their backstory? Or Warforged, who are kind of magic items themselves?If anyone has a cool idea using one of these templates or this race, sure. Heart aspect is [su] IIRC, but the others are [ex] for sure. Magic items can recreate anything, I'd rather ignore them for this. Note that VoP is mostly [su], so it wouldn't be of help here.


Well, probably ubercharger. Or centaur war hulk/hulking hurler. If we're only talking optimization, then there are a few (Ex) only builds that already exist.Well, I think most ex only builds rely on initiators. As for ubercharging... yeah, that's what I meant by barbarian with good feats. I was hoping we could find more interesting stuff.

Why minotaur? If you're just looking to be big and strong, wouldn't anthro-baleen be preferable?

Edit: I legit thought pounce barb was Su for some reason, and it's not. I was going to edit right after I posted and ask if we could ignore it here, but luckily Gruftzwerg reminded us that ubercharging was excluded from thread 1.

[daremetoidareyo]

Swash rogue with that daring outlaw feat is another option

[mattie_p]

Edit: I legit thought pounce barb was Su for some reason, and it's not. I was going to edit right after I posted and ask if we could ignore it here, but luckily Gruftzwerg reminded us that ubercharging was excluded from thread 1.

It is, in fact, a supernatural ability.


Spiritual Totem
Choose a spiritual totem: bear, eagle, fox, lion, or wolf. Once you do so, you are forever bound to that animal spirit. Your connection grants you special abilities based on the totem you have chosen (or that has chosen you, as some see it).

The DM can add more totems to the above list as desired, using those presented here as guidelines.

Level: 1st.

Replaces: This benefit replaces the fast movement class feature.

Benefit: You gain one of the abilities described below, depending on the chosen totem. Each of these effects is a supernatural ability.

[Doctor Despair]

If anyone has a cool idea using one of these templates or this race, sure. Heart aspect is [su] IIRC, but the others are [ex] for sure.

What about a Dragonborn Telthor X? You end up with no supernatural abilities thanks to Dragonborn, but you are incorporeal. Briefly, you have Su abilities by merit of the Telthor template before they're taken away.

[noob]

I believe four handed swords do add a lot of times your strength modifier to damage(so if you play that low LA creature with 4 arms it could be interesting).
Then you combine it with some feats that boosts charges such as battle jump and the like and you can ubercharge properly.
Now something that is harder to get is iterative attacks on the charge since totem barbarians are SUR it is excluded and I do not know any non magical sources of iterative attacks on charging.
Iterative attacks are a must because you must deal with miss chances and the more attacks you have the more likely you are to hit.

[H_H_F_F]

It is, in fact, a supernatural ability.Thanks, Mattie. I guess my eyes just glazed over that.

What about a Dragonborn Telthor X? You end up with no supernatural abilities thanks to Dragonborn, but you are incorporeal. Briefly, you have Su abilities by merit of the Telthor template before they're taken away.I guess that would work... interesting. Not at all "dude with a sword"ish, but a clever way to overcome the explicit limitations at hand. It's also just a great way to get rid of the downside of telthor which I haven't thought of before. Is this a well known exploit?

[Gruftzwerg]

Troll-Blooded feat + Crimson Scourge (8) prc

Crimson Scourge becomes immune to non-lethal damage at lvl 8. Thus by character lvl 13 you could be immune to anything but fire and acid.

[Doctor Despair]

I guess that would work... interesting. Not at all "dude with a sword"ish, but a clever way to overcome the explicit limitations at hand. It's also just a great way to get rid of the downside of telthor which I haven't thought of before. Is this a well known exploit?

I got it off Anthrowhale a million years ago, but I hadn't seen it anywhere before that. He likes it on a caster using AMF so that the creature is immune to nonmagical attacks (as an incorporeal creature) and immune to magical attacks (as a creature in an AMF). Throw on Initiate of Mystra or a generous reading of a shaped AMF for more shenanigans.

I personally like it better with regards to stealth-based builds, as it's a very low-LA way to access incorporeality, and most detection modes rely on line of effect. I use it in my "Phantom of the Opera" build in my sig to place a Dirgesinger with Subsonics underground where no one can detect their music at work.

With regard to the "guy with a sword," being incorporeal grants us a number of benefits normally restricted to magical effects. We ignore natural armor, armor, and shield bonuses to AC. Additionally, we are immune to nonmagical attacks including tripping and grappling, giving us a yes-level advantage against many enemies. We have a 50% chance to ignore magical damage from most corporeal sources, and we have a deflection bonus to AC equal to our charisma bonus. What's tricky is getting the sword, as if we are ruling out magical gear, we can't rely on ghost touch to get them. Iirc there are some materials available in Ghostwalk that may or may not be helpful for that, but one huge quality of life feat that solves the issue is Ghostly Grasp, letting us pick up corporeal gear (thus rendering it incorporeal). This lets us be a ghostly guard/spooky swordsman/incorporeal Inigo Montoya with a large bonus to attack and defense for the low cost of LA+2.

In addition to those strict combat buffs, we get nonmagical flight, we can walk through walls to find our foes, and can safely retreat underground if the fight is not to our advantage, among other things.

Edit:

To add onto an idea from upthread, an Iaijutsu Focus build could be interesting. The Dragonborn Telthor could make an Iaijutsu Focus attack on a corporeal foe from underground, then wait until the opponent exits initiative, then attack again. There's a 50% miss chance due to the opponent having total concealment relative to the Telthor, but no resources expended and relatively no risk due to this strategy either.

For a strategy like this, I'd recommend the Telthor also invest in the detection feat Keen-Eared Scout, as the listen skill is one of the only detection modes that ignores line of effect (and so would let the Telthor pinpoint their foes with relative ease from underground).

Edit:

I suppose Blindfight would be good, too... So maybe something like:

Dragonborn Telthor Human

ECL 3/HD 1: Fighter (Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Gnomeish Quickrazor, Skill Focus: Listen, Ghostly Grasp)
ECL 4/HD 2: Human Paragon
ECL5 /HD 3: Human Paragon (Skill Focus: Iaijutsu Focus, Keen-Eared Scout)
ECL6 /HD 4: Fighter (Blind-Fight)

[Firechanter]

One time quite a few years ago, I wanted to build "literally just a dude with a sword" as a benchmark character for level 12. The idea was to build characters that could keep going for enough encounter to gain a full level without resting and without using a lot of healing consumables.
It was a regular human, making heavy use of Combat Stamina feats. Damage output was "so-so" (or actually rather pitiful for level 12), but he was primarily built for endurance, not nova spikes. ^^

The feats were:

R Luck of Heroes
1 Combat Reflexes
B1 Weapon Focus (Warhammer)
B2 Combat Focus
3 Improved Shield Bash
B4 Weapon Specialization (WH)
6 Shield Specialization
B6 Agile Shield Fighter
B8 Melee Weapon Mastery (B)
9 Combat Vigor
B10 Blind-Fight
12 Robilar's Gambit
B12 Combat Awareness

Only notable piece of gear was a Vampiric Warhammer (the rest of the WBL would be spent on the usual mix of Big Six and Necessary Magic Items). That and the Stamina feats gave him a pretty good pool of self-healing, and a reasonable Will save to keep him from running away screaming.

[ben-zayb]

While an AoO build has already been proposed in the previous thread, I'd recommend a specific popular AoO build: Jack B. Quick (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6944.0)

Other than that, either a sword-throwing version of Hulking Hurler or just missed the clause forbidding infamous builds

How about a heavily optimized thrown-weapons rogue build that also optimizes skill-monkeying? We're talking Changeling Rogue substitution levels (ignoring the Su ability) that get you 10+INT skill points per level.


Also, what exactly are we optimizing for? Because, you know, there are mundane concepts like Trouserfang Dwarf (https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-trouserfang-dwarf.471110/) (with Steadfast Determination) that optimize healing and nothing else, but can still be appended easily to existing mundane builds. I don't think it should count as an infamous build simply only having 2 main components (Poison Healer and Steadfast Determination).

[Seerow]

I don't know how optimized they are, but couple of my favorite mundane builds:

-Generic knockback dungeoncrasher fighter. Boost that str check and knock people all over for fun and profit. This one is fairly common but haven't seen dungeoncrasher mentioned here yet, so here we go

-The Incredible Hulk. Halfling into Goliath stoneblessed. Takes Goliath barbarian sub level, now turns large while raging. Goes into frenzied berserker. Now his rage triggers randomly, and can't be stopped at will. Then go warhulk, which has prerequisite large size. So you only qualify while raging. This means while raging you get a ton of extra str, are better at smashing, and lose all int, cha, and wisdom based skills. But soon as the rage ends you're small again and able to use them normally. Bonus points if your halfling base is very high int and low str.

-Google the fighting defensively handbook and just stack as much of that on one character as you can. I played an e6 character once who gained like 20 ac when fighting defensively and shared half that to adjacent allies, it was an interesting thing to try if not super useful.


I do think that spheres of might is probably the best thing out there who wants more interesting options for mundanes to enjoy explore while still feeling mostly like traditional D&D mundanes in terms of resources and synergies go.

A couple of my most recent mundane only characters there have been:
-a Captain America fighter who would draw aggro and throw a bouncing shield around the battlefield to punish enemies who attack his allies and block attacks.
-A crossbow sniper who could set up a massive threatened area and cause all sorts of penalties to enemies acting within that area in addition to regular aoo shenanigans.
-A ranger with a focus on trapmaking and alchemical healing/bombs with a ton of mobility tricks
-A whip based swashbuckler who was probably the most boring of the bunch, focusing on regular combat maneuver shenanigans. His coolest thing was his whip was created using a couple of tech talents and was basically a light saber whip hybrid.

[Maat Mons]

I guess you could do some sort of Singh Ranger / Drunken Master build for the charging idea. Singh Ranger 4 gets you Pounce, and Drunken Master 2 gets you the ability to charge even when you start your turn adjacent to your opponent. Show the world the power of your Drunken Lion style! … Or maybe Tipsy Kitty style?

[Saintheart]

I'd optimise critical hits. Maybe Minotaur Greathammer (if it's not just an upgrade of the Goliath Greathammer), but Jovar and Great Falchion both have the sweet 18-20 threat range that forms the best base for it and a decent damage dice.

Fighter 4/Ranger 1 (or any full-BAB class)/Weapon Master (Kensei) 1/Disciple of Dispater 8/Weapon Master (Kensei) 6: Threat range of 9-20, can increase his critical multiplier 5/day. All of the abilities dealing with threat range are (Ex) abilities, even if the (Su) or (Sp) abilities in the classes are shut down. Murderous Intent (EoE), autoconfirm on favored enemies, Staggering Critical (DoTU), Slow your enemies (no save) on a critical hit, Eviscerator (LibMort), Supremely Confident (Dragon 335), work a fear build on the side.


Same goes for Arcane Duelist's threat-affecting abilities, albeit it's off-concept since you have to be able to cast spells to get into it.

[Doctor Despair]

Also, what exactly are we optimizing for?

That's probably the most productive question of the thread so far. Obviously there's a myriad of ways to deal damage, be tanky, or sometimes both at once. Part of what drew me to the incorporeal build was that it gets the ability to fly and walk through otherwise impassable physical obstacles -- both being things that a purely mundane build could struggle with -- while being very survivable in combat, but as a result of the LA its damage will lag behind dedicated builds. Should we be optimizing for raw damage? I think OP should weigh in here.

[Particle_Man]

I am noodling with a thug fighter that switches out feats for sneak attack. I might go as far as paired kusari gama (so twf, itwf, gtwf) And maybe adaptable flanker as a feat depending on how you feel about it allowing flanking all by yourself with reach weapons.

Since level 20 is dead, exotic weapon master 1 could be a nice capstone.

I know people think sneak attack is suboptimal but to be fair if we are banning spells, spell like abilities, supernatural abilities, etc., I am imagining a setting where there are fewer things immune to sneak attack or that make you immune to sneak attack. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, after all!

Welcome to Dudeworld!

[Jervis]

Jotunbrud Human Lion Spirit Totem Wolf Totem Whirling Frenzy Barbarian 2/Fighter 2/Feat Rogue 1/Foresaker 10/War Hulk 5

Feats:
F: Lightning Reflexes
F: Iron Will
H: Jotunbrud
1: Power Attack
2B: Improved Trip
3: Great Fortitude
3B: Blind Fight
4B: Leap Attack
5B: Cleave
6: Shock Trooper
9: Knock Down
12: Mage Slayer
15: Pierce Magical Concealment
18: Pierce Magical Protection

If an Otyugh Hole is available get Extra Rage

No one allows them but if they do grab Titan Bloodline for Use Oversized Weapon. For items grab a nonmagical Alchemical Gold Fullblade. Exoticist Fighter ACF to trade martial weapon profs for Fullblade and Gold Fullblade profs

[Anthrowhale]

The Team Mundane (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635794-Team-Mundane) builds dip the initiator classes but otherwise qualify.

Damage comes from strength, windup, sneak attack (which is reliably triggered via Double Team + Lightbringer Rogue), and Iajutsu Master 5. Touch attacks (which are worth ~+30 to hit) come from Poison rings and Master Thrower 5. Armor class comes from Allied Defense, grafts, and plain old armor. Saves are optimized via a multiclass rainbow and a Marshal aura for reflexes.

[H_H_F_F]

Great ideas all around, gang!


Troll-Blooded feat + Crimson Scourge (8) prc

Crimson Scourge becomes immune to non-lethal damage at lvl 8. Thus by character lvl 13 you could be immune to anything but fire and acid.
Troll blooded is from Dragon Mag, which thread 1 has forbidden. I'd say if you have a good idea from dragon compendium, go for it, but if we start diving into Dragon Mag we won't come back.

A wendigo has Su abilities all over... The shriver is a real stretch to get to every 99 days, and I'm unsure if it gives Ex or Su. Any other ways to get Ex regeneration without having Su abilities? Anything that would work for a warforged would be superior, of course, as warforged juggernaught is strictly better than crimson scourge for this.



-The Incredible Hulk. Halfling into Goliath stoneblessed. Takes Goliath barbarian sub level, now turns large while raging. Goes into frenzied berserker. Now his rage triggers randomly, and can't be stopped at will. Then go warhulk, which has prerequisite large size. So you only qualify while raging. This means while raging you get a ton of extra str, are better at smashing, and lose all int, cha, and wisdom based skills. But soon as the rage ends you're small again and able to use them normally. Bonus points if your halfling base is very high int and low str.That's a fun idea. Sort of problematic ("I rage before leveling up") but fun. Anyone suggesting war hulk shoul consider uncanny trickster, but I'd say that's especially true for you - there are way more skill tricks which would be accesible for this build, and it's more likely to have the skill ranks.
-A crossbow sniper who could set up a massive threatened area and cause all sorts of penalties to enemies acting within that area in addition to regular aoo shenanigans.
could you elaborate on this one?


I'd optimise critical hits. Maybe Minotaur Greathammer (if it's not just an upgrade of the Goliath Greathammer), but Jovar and Great Falchion both have the sweet 18-20 threat range that forms the best base for it and a decent damage dice.

Fighter 4/Ranger 1 (or any full-BAB class)/Weapon Master (Kensei) 1/Disciple of Dispater 8/Weapon Master (Kensei) 6: Threat range of 9-20, can increase his critical multiplier 5/day. All of the abilities dealing with threat range are (Ex) abilities, even if the (Su) or (Sp) abilities in the classes are shut down. Murderous Intent (EoE), autoconfirm on favored enemies, Staggering Critical (DoTU), Slow your enemies (no save) on a critical hit, Eviscerator (LibMort), Supremely Confident (Dragon 335), work a fear build on the side.


Same goes for Arcane Duelist's threat-affecting abilities, albeit it's off-concept since you have to be able to cast spells to get into it.

We're trying to do rhis without having access to Su or Sp, not just without using them actively.


[S]Also, what exactly are we optimizing for? Because, you know, there are mundane concepts like Trouserfang Dwarf (https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-trouserfang-dwarf.471110/) (with Steadfast Determination) that optimize healing and nothing else, but can still be appended easily to existing mundane builds. I don't think it should count as an infamous build simply only having 2 main components (Poison Healer and Steadfast Determination).
Personally, I think you whould optimize for whatever you like. The point of this thread was to see what interesting things could be done with these limitations.

If you really want some direction, I'd say achieving anything one would not think is possible without all the banned material is a good direction - whther it would be optimizing AOE or healing others or whatever else. I liked the telthor dragonborn, for instance, because it provided incorporeality which you wouldn't think you could do here.

[Seerow]

could you elaborate on this one?

Sure!


So I mentioned this one was using Spheres of Might (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/). The core of what I described is all done using the spheres, meaning it can be done by almost any class picking the right spheres/talents. In this case the character was a Conscript (basically the Spheres Fighter equivalent) to get everything online faster and access to the Sphere Specialization for Leadership, just because it had some fantastic synergy (see below).

The Crossbow itself was mostly just flavor, it could be done with any ranged weapon. Crossbow was nice because of the higher base range, since first range increment matters here. Couple basic talents to make the Crossbow a functional weapon.

Equipment:Expert Reloading-Decreases reload time for ranged weapons. Light Crossbow becomes free action. Heavy Crossbow/1h Firearm Move Action. 2h Firearm Standard Action.
Equipment:Mechanical Savant-Add half your BAB to damage for attack actions and AoOs with crossbows/firearms.

If you prefer a Firearm or a Heavy Crossbow to a Light Crossbow, you can get the reload down further with the Tech Talent Speed Lever, assuming tech is available.

The core trick originally described is made up of these talents:

Barrage:Close Combat Specialist- Do not provoke an attack of opportunity when using a ranged weapon while threatened. If you also have Vigilant Sharpshooter, you can flank an opponent within your threatened area with a ranged weapon
Barrage:Vigilant Sharpshooter- While you have martial focus, you threaten a 5ft area around yourself with your ranged weapon. Take a second time to increase to 10ft.
Sniper:Covering Fire- As a standard action, choose an area with a 5ft radius, you threaten this area until the beginning of your next turn. (this area scale an extra 5ft per 4 BAB. So at level 20 it is a 25ft radius area)
Guardian:Patrol-As a full round action, increase your threatened area by 5ft, increasing 5ft per 4 BAB. Apply a [Zone] talent to your threatened area.
Guardian:Swift Guardian-You can Patrol as a Standard Action. By expending martial focus, you can patrol as a move action instead.

Then a couple of feats:
Overwatch-The threatened area from Covering Fire is treated as starting a Patrol and can benefit from a Zone Talent.
Great Focus-You can maintain 2 Martial Focuses that are gained/expended independently.


So basically, normal walking around threaten a 10ft area around you, and you can basically play it up as a melee tank since you can fire from melee without penalty, and that's all well and good. Similarly you can use Patrol by itself to bump your threatened area up significantly (35ft radius at level 20)

Or you can spend a Standard action to set up Covering Fire, and now you threaten the 10ft area around you and a 25ft radius area somewhere in your first range increment.

Or you can spend a Standard Action to set up Covering Fire, then expend martial focus to Move Action patrol, which increases the threatened areas of both, so you cover a 35ft area around you, and a whopping 60ft radius area somewhere in your first range increment.

Which of these three options is going to be best will vary by situation, sometimes you're in close quarters and just don't need that kind of threatened area. Even as low as level 4-7 you've got a 20ft area around you with a 20ft radius somewhere in range, which is just overkill for a lot of maps. But here's some of the options I took advantage of to utilize that threatened area:

Warleader:Aggressive Flanking(Tactic)-As a move action, all allies within 10ft+5ft/lvl are considered flanking if they both threaten the same creature, regardless of positioning. Maintaining this takes a swift action each round. Remember Close Combat Specialist allowing us to flank within our threatened area? Now the entire party is basically always flanking.
Warleader:Focusing Tactics-Any ally affected by a (Tactic) talent can spend a move action to restore your martial focus for you. In any situation where you absolutely need to maintain a huge threatened area this is great, because move action patrol is eating a martial focus each round.
Guardian:Steel Hedge(Zone)-Hostile creatures within your threatened area treat it as difficult terrain.
Guardian:Iron Wall-Allies other than yourself gain 20% miss chance while within your patrol
Guardian:Mageguard-Enemies attempting to cast defensively in your threatened area take a penalty to concentration checks equal to half your BAB.

Conscript also lets you give up a few bonus feats for a Sphere Specialization, which gives some fun abilities depending on the sphere you chose. In this case I had picked Warleader, which gave a series a bonus Teamwork Feats that are shared with anyone under the effects of a Tactic. A couple of fun ones:
Outflank-As long as you and an ally who have this feat are flanking the same creature (remember: Everyone we threaten is basically always going to be flanked), the bonus to hit from flanking increases to +4. Additionally if you score a critical hit against a creature, it provokes an AoO from your ally.
Paired Opportunist-Anytime an opponent provokes an AoO from you, it also provokes from your allies (and vice versa). If you and your ally are adjacent to each other you get an additional +4 circumstance bonus to attacks of opportunity.

Last thing, to the attacks of opportunity you get a bit more oomph, a few talents to make your attacks a bit more meaningful.
Fencing:Fatal Thrust-Fatal Thrust gives you quasi-sneak attack that works on attack actions and attacks of opportunity. Remember, you're basically always flanking! Also lets you apply one [Exploit] talent anytime Fatal Thrust damage is applied.
Fencing:Leg Slash(Exploit)-An enemy hit by your Fatal Thrust has their move speed halved. Combined with most enemies being in perpetual difficult terrain, most enemies are going to be stuck with 10-15ft move speed, which is pretty great.
Fencing:Wide Open(Exploit)-If mobility crippling isn't relevant, this is a good backup. Give affected enemy -2 AC, penalty increases by 1 for every 5 BAB (so -6 at 20 BAB)
Sniper:Hindering Projectiles(Snipe)-Snipe talents you get to apply when you take an attack action to use the Deadly Shot ability from Sniper Sphere. Hindering Projectiles is my favorite here, providing a penalty to hit, AC, and CMD, that stacks with itself, and lasts until the enemy wastes actions to remove the penalty.

Pretty much everything described above, I had as an 8th level conscript when the campaign ended. Had things progressed, I was looking at dips into Sentinel (5 levels gets Wisdom mod to attacks of opportunity per round and the ability to make one AoO per round into an attack action, among other things) and potentially Marshal Controller Mage Knight.

[Anthrowhale]

I noticed the Dragonborn Telthor combo myself, but I wasn't the first. This is the earliest Dragonborn Telthor (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/telthor.shtml) reference I found on the web.

For level 20 build, the exorbitant cost of a Dragonborn Telthor Incarnate Construct Warforged is interesting at LA+0. At low levels, just taking one level of ghost savage progression (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a) gives you undead type and incorporeal subtype. Unfortunately, I think the Dragonborn trick doesn't work because a ghost without Manifestation (Su) is simply a creature on the ethereal plane.

[Wildstag]

I'd probably do something like "Goliath Barbarian (w/ sub level) and Reckless Rage" to get +8 Str in Rage. Starting at level 2, you 12+Con+3 hp during rage (so reasonably something like 18 HP with only one hd). However, if you start with 18 Str, then post-racial you get 22 Str, and during rage you hit 30 Str. The size increase is an extraordinary ability, so it works with the restrictions.

With a greatsword in hand, you can easily do 3d6+15 damage per swing.

And then from there you just optimize around that foundation. Uber-charging is out of the question, but there's other ways you can make this one do shenanigans. I'm not great at thinking of them though.

[Zarvistic]

I would like to sometime play a charlatan (prc from dragon 335). Pretty easy to enter and gets effectively "mass" diplomacy as a capstone. But also some ex spellcasting: burning hands, flare, glitterdust, obscuring mist, pyrotechnics, charm person, command, scare, hideous laughter, atonement, remove curse, remove disease, bestow curse, crushing despair, fear suggestion. It gets some other small things, including some foiling against divination, some fear effect using bluff vs sense motive and counterspelling. It would be 5 levels of something like rogue, ranger, fighter, barbarian or such with acfs and then 5 levels of this class.

[noob]

I'd probably do something like "Goliath Barbarian (w/ sub level) and Reckless Rage" to get +8 Str in Rage. Starting at level 2, you 12+Con+3 hp during rage (so reasonably something like 18 HP with only one hd). However, if you start with 18 Str, then post-racial you get 22 Str, and during rage you hit 30 Str. The size increase is an extraordinary ability, so it works with the restrictions.

With a greatsword in hand, you can easily do 3d6+15 damage per swing.

And then from there you just optimize around that foundation. Uber-charging is out of the question, but there's other ways you can make this one do shenanigans. I'm not great at thinking of them though.

You can do uber charging you will just lack iterative attacks(there is multiple ex feats that multiplies damage on charges (it stacks so it does not go too far but you can also get str modifier multipliers)).
There is however tricks to be able to do multiple charges in one turn to compensate a bit(battle jump is a feat and ex).

[Wildstag]

You can do uber charging you will just lack iterative attacks(there is multiple ex feats that multiplies damage on charges (it stacks so it does not go too far but you can also get str modifier multipliers)).
There is however tricks to be able to do multiple charges in one turn to compensate a bit(battle jump is a feat and ex).

I said ubercharging is out of the question because the OP pointed out that it was already focused on in one of the threads he linked to already. Ubercharging is a valid path for the build I suggested, but it isn't the only path.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Jack B. Quick (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6944.0) is a classic TWF build, taking advantage of Robilar's Gambit, Karmic Strike, Double Hit, and High Sword Low Axe to counterattack 6-8 times (depending on whether you can retrip an already prone opponent) at full BAB, for double damage, every time he's hit. The build as-is is Fighter 20, but noteworthily, subbing in two levels of Decisive Strike Monk saves you several feats and makes the double damage come online earlier, even if you wait until level 13 so you don't delay Robilar's Gambit.

Another purely mundane class I'm quite fond of is Devoted Defender, though it synergizes best with Crusader.

[Doctor Despair]

So building on the idea of annoying things we can do while incorporeal in a low-to-no magic setting... What about using Master Pickpocket from the City of Stormreach?

In Stormreach, there are thieves and there are masters of the craft. You fall into the latter category. You can steal anything from anyone at any time.

Prerequisites: Dex 15, Sleight of Hand 8 ranks.

Benefit: Your mastery of Sleight of Hand allows you to steal an object from an adjacent opponent in combat as a standard action without provoking attacks of opportunity. You can take anything the character has on his or her person provided it is not held in hand. If you are in a grapple, you gain a +4 bonus on the attempt. In addition, when you make a Sleight of Hand check as a free action, you take a –10 penalty rather than a –20 penalty on the attempt.

As we can reach out from inside of solid objects, we should be able to reach through walls/from underground to attempt to "pickpocket" an otherwise adjacent target. If we pump Sleight of Hand, we can take a -10 to our check to free-action steal everything a creature has. When we grab the items using Ghostly Grasp, the items should become incorporeal and vanish into the ground, object, or wall, leading to a hilarious situation where an unsuspecting creature is walking down the street and is just suddenly naked (possibly while being none the wiser) with no recourse whatsoever to try to get their items back.

___

Edit

So here's another synergy. Being incorporeal underground, as I touched on before, leaves you largely immune to any means to detect you (except for folks with a burrow speed passing directly through your square, the listen skill if you choose to make a sound, arguably Mind Sight as there's no protection from that, and Nemesis for those who hate Fey). However, you would struggle to locate your own enemies and allies.

Keen-Eared Scout is a feat that comes in handy for allowing an underground character to detect those on the surface:

Your sharp sense of hearing allows you to determine much more about your surroundings.

Prerequisite
Alertness (PH) (or) , Skill Focus (PH) (Listen) , Listen 6 ranks,

Benefit
When you make a Listen check, you might learn more than normal about a source of noise.

If you beat the Listen DC by 5 or more, you determine the size, speed, and direction of the source of noise.

If you beat the DC by 10 or more, you determine the precise, current position of the creature or object that caused the sound.

If you beat the DC by 15 or more, you determine the type of armor the creature wears and what it carries, if anything.

If you beat the DC by 20 or more, you learn the creature's type and subtypes.

The information you learn is cumulative. For example, if you got a Listen check result of 35 against a DC of 23, you gain the information for beating the check by 10 and by 5. These benefits apply to both standard and opposed Listen checks.

Also, you gain a +5 bonus on Listen checks to pinpoint invisible creatures.

While this grants you an effective +15 to pinpoint creatures on the surface, it also has a mode that is very synergistic with the pickpocketing strategy: the mode that lets you automatically determine the type of armor a creature wears and what it is carrying. This gives you a realistic reason to WANT to pickpocket the person in the first place.

So far this is more or less class-agnostic, but we have some feat pre-reqs...

Ghostly Grasp (requires 15 cha)

Skill Focus: Listen
Keen-Eared Scout (requires SF and 6 listen ranks)

Master Pickpocket (requires 15 dex, 8 sleight of hand ranks)

[Wildstag]

For peak "dude with a sword" energy, you could also *shudder* invest in the Combat Focus feats.

[Doctor Despair]

Continuing on that train of thought, I put together a would-be build stub. We have great mobility with flight and incorporeality. We have great defense with incorporeality, and the ability to hide underground. We have great stealth with incorporeality, and the ability to hide underground. We have great detection modes with Keen-Eared Scout. We can bypass most traps and many puzzles with incorporeality. To my initial thoughts, that leaves:

Healing
Damage
Party Face

Damage and Party Face can both be helped respectively by pushing charisma for Iaijutsu Focus (as well as increasing "guy with sword"-iness), so we could see something like:


https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/443bd3fa-1e22-4c10-9e0b-d7b1ddf8e398/dcsx8tj-b81791c9-31ee-4c5d-b21c-97e1907567af.jpg/v1/fill/w_900,h_1286,q_75,strp/ghost_samurai_by_montjart_dcsx8tj-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI 1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNh NWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMT g4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7 ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTI4NiIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQ0M2JkM2 ZhLTFlMjItNGMxMC05ZTBiLWQ3YjFkZGY4ZTM5OFwvZGNzeDh0 ai1iODE3OTFjOS0zMWVlLTRjNWQtYjIxYy05N2UxOTA3NTY3YW YuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTkwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46 c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.Z9Fheu8fRS-z4-AS7q86QjjO1szTWtbNXuVHDPSI3VM





Dragonborn
Telthor
Half-Elf






Stat
Array
After Racial/ Template Modifiers
4th
8th
12th
16th
20th
Final


Str
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


Dex
17
15
-
-
-
-
-
15


Con
8
10
-
-
-
-
-
10


Int
14
14
-
-
-
-
-
14


Wis
8
8
-
-
-
-
-
13


Cha
17
17
+1
+1
+1
+1
+1
22





HD
ECL
Class
BAB
Notable Skills
Feats
Class Features


1
3
Half-Elf Paragon
+0
4 ranks in Iaijutsu Focus, Listen, 2 ranks in Sleight of Hand
Aereni Focus: Iaijutsu Focus, Ghostly Grasp
Divided ancestry, elven vision


2
4
Human Paragon
+0
5 ranks in Iaijutsu Focus, Sleight of Hand, Listen
-
Adaptive learning (Sleight of Hand)


3
5
Human Paragon
+1
6 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
Skill Focus: Listen, Keen-Eared Scout
-


4
6
Marshal
+1
7 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
Skill Focus: Diplomacy
Minor aura


5
7
Fighter
+2
8 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
EWP: Katana
-


6
8
Fighter
+3
9 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
Improved Initiative, Master Pickpocket
-


7
9
Half-Elf Paragon
+4
10 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
-
Persuasion


8
10
Ranger
+5
11 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
Urban Tracking
Favored Environment (Underground), Wild Empathy


9
11
Ranger
+6
12 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
Quick Draw, Weapon Focus: Katana
-


10-19
12-21
Iaijutsu Master
+7 - +16
13-22 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
Skill Focus: Iaijutsu Focus, Weapon Finesse (Katana), Combat Expertise, Blind Fight, Improved Disarm, Snatch Weapon
Iaijutsu Stuff


20
22
Scorpion Wraith
+17
23 ranks in Sleight of Hand, Iaijutsu Focus, Listen
-
Poison use, sudden strike +1d6, wild empathy



Should push through decent damage, have huge bonuses to diplomacy and other cha-related skills, and avoids any cross-class penalties. Also throws in Improved Disarm and Snatch Weapon to let the character attempt to filch all held, worn, and carried gear.

[vasilidor]

For pathfinder I would do a Slayer class. Optimize the heck out of getting Sneak attack on as many attacks as possible.
One of the best ways of doing that is probably with spheres of might Using the Fencing sphere, which also gives more damage dice to use in those scenarios.
Is spheres of might of the table?

[Anthrowhale]

...

This seems nice. Is there any way to squeeze in the 'Word Given Form' martial art to reliably trigger IF?

Edit: I think you can switch to Human with Human Paragon and avoid Aereni Focus? That frees up two levels which could be used for a feat rogue, effectively freeing up 3 feats.

[Doctor Despair]

This seems nice. Is there any way to squeeze in the 'Word Given Form' martial art to reliably trigger IF?

Edit: I think you can switch to Human with Human Paragon and avoid Aereni Focus? That frees up two levels which could be used for a feat rogue, effectively freeing up 3 feats.

Word Given Form just denies dex, right? Sadly doesn't seem like it would let us trigger IF.

Losing HE Paragon and Aereni Focus is a net -5 to our IF check. Is that worth losing, do you think?

[Anthrowhale]

Word Given Form just denies dex, right? Sadly doesn't seem like it would let us trigger IF.
It's a pretty long chain of reasoning, but I think it works.


Word Given Form provides total concealment.
Total concealment means that you can hide for free.
Hidden implies that creatures are flat-footed w.r.t. your attacks per RC page 92.
Flat-footed and drawing a melee weapon implies Iajutsu Focus applies damage.



Losing HE Paragon and Aereni Focus is a net -5 to our IF check. Is that worth losing, do you think?
It's easy for me to imagine that losing 1d6+cha damage is worth being able to reliably trigger IF damage.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

For iaijutsu focus (and Sneak Attack), I'm a big fan of Mercurial Strike + Robilar's Gambit. Now every time someone attacks you, you get to draw a weapon and attack for full Iaijutsu Focus and SA damage.

And yeah, enemies you are hidden from are flatfooted versus your attacks, so total concealment will do the trick.

[Doctor Despair]

It's a pretty long chain of reasoning, but I think it works.


Word Given Form provides total concealment.
Total concealment means that you can hide for free.
Hidden implies that creatures are flat-footed w.r.t. your attacks per RC page 92.
Flat-footed and drawing a melee weapon implies Iajutsu Focus applies damage.



Looking at the RC page, it seems you're right that attacking from hiding allows you to treat an opponent as flat-footed. Every IF page I've looked at thusfar has talked as though being hidden and/or invisible merely denied the dex bonus, not that it rendered them flat-footed. That RC reference is very clear on the matter though. Interesting.

We can already have total concealment by merit of being underground. If we attack (outside of the surprise round), even though we retain full concealment, we technically won't be "hiding" anymore, and we should probably need to hide again. There are rules for sniping that allow an attempt to hide as a move action after attacking; that's not helpful to us for trying to make a second attack though. Hiding is usually no action, and is done as a part of movement. Arguably, if we take a five-foot step, that should satisfy the requirement to allow an automatically successful hide check, then attack again. However, I'm reading the RotG clarified that hiding is at least a move action, so if the five-foot step reading is arguably RAW or non-RAW, that should clarify the RAI.

Still, hiding guarantees at least the surprising round for attacks, then one solid IF attack/round. That's not nothing. With 8 levels in Iaijutsu Master, that also means we can make two attacks with a katana with one standard. I'm not certain if both attacks would benefit from the pseudo-flat-footedness of hiding though, or just the first one...

I glanced through this handbook (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?186283-Flat-footing-compendium-(3-5)) for other means to trigger flat-footedness, and it looks like the most reliable other ways to trigger flat-footed are:

Off Limits or Impractical for this Exercise:

Grease (balancing, spell)
Sleet Storm (balancing, spell)
Distract Assailant (Spell)
Confound the Big Folk (feat, requires us to be tiny to be realistically useful)
Sapphire Nightmare Blade (maneuver)
Death from Above (maneuver)
Ghost Blade (maneuver)
Strike of the Broken Shield (maneuver)
Blurstrike (magical, weapon enhancement)
Escape Attack (maneuver, requires us to escape a grapple, which is problematic when incorporeal)
Toss out marbles (hard to do as an incoporeal creature)


Options

Acrobatic Strike (skill trick, requires DC25 tumble, 1/encounter)
Flick of the Wrist (1/encounter)
Hidden Blade (draw weapon as a move-action, then get one attack where they are flat-footed)
Dagger Surprise (RC, extra SoH modality: force flat-footed for a single attack with a dagger after 2 rounds of combat with an empty hand. Works 1/encounter).
Raptor School (standard-action feint with BAB instead of bluff, then get 1 attack)
Surprising Riposte (cause flat-footed after successful feint until next round)



So Dagger Surprise, Hidden Blade, and Flick of the Wrist are essentially the same effect, but increasingly expensive. They all work 1/encounter though, so ideally we'd have some other method of making this work, as if we're staggering out encounters, we're already able to surprise round our foes to death given enough time to stalk them from underground. Acrobatic Strike is also 1/encounter, and requires us to tumble through enemy squares, a relatively high-DC feat for a skill-starved character.

Raptor School and Surprising Riposte are real possibilities. They have no use limit, and funnily enough, the SRD and the RC both seem to lack any language that requires an opponent to SEE you for you to feint against them.

Raptor School requires us to fudge our ability scores a bit, and will be relatively unreliable, as it's our BAB vs their BAB and Sense Motive. Indeed, they can't even nat 1 on this, as it's a skill check.

Surprising Riposte, on the other hand, only flat-foots them AFTER we deal damage in the SAME round that we feint, so we're already shoehorned into Improved Feint.

Indeed, in order to actually get an IF attack off with this, we need to either have extra move actions or free-action feint. Invisible Blade 5 gives us the latter, but only when using daggers/kukri, which is kind of a nombo with the benefits of Iaijutsu Master or Gnomeish Quickrazors. I suppose technically we could feint with a cheap dagger, drop it as a free action, then use that same hand to draw/attack/sheathe/etc with a Quickrazor... Or just draw and attack with a katana. We'll go through a lot of daggers that way. Still, that's not a bad routine, given daggers are cheap. It also should slap on a bleeding wound for some DOTs. However, the feat prereqs are somewhat steep with Far Shot and Point Blank Shot (both pretty much dead) and weapon focus: dagger.

Scarlet Corsair 3 grants a free-action feint once every 2-8 rounds though, which should be preferable to just waiting through the encounter to see if they give up. There are much fewer prereqs for this, although there's more fluff, and you need to get a sneak attack die. Still, as we can already reliably trigger IF once per round just by merit of hiding underground, Corsair probably isn't worth the level investment just for that. It does grant Improved Feint though, saving us a feat slot...

That leaves us looking at:

Ghostly Grasp (General)

Skill Focus: Listen (General)
Keen-Eared Scout (General)
Master Pickpocket (General)

Combat Expertise (Fighter)
Improved Feint (Fighter)
Surprising Riposte (Fighter)

Weapon Focus: Dagger (Fighter)
Far Shot (Fighter)
Point Blank Shot (Fighter)

Quick Draw (Fighter)
Improved Initiative (Fighter)
Weapon Focus (Katana) (Fighter)

Alternatively, we can skip out on Invisible Blade entirely if One Strike, Two Cuts both have the benefit of hiding wrt flat-footedness, as we'll only ever have three attacks in a round, so if we have to spend one on the non-IF feint, it's probably not worth the investment when we can just make two attacks normally.

Edit: Well, One Strike, Two Cuts only comes online at level 17... Three iteratives comes online as early as level 11, technically, although it'll be a little later from missed BAB. Maybe if we could cram everything in, it'd be worth it regardless... Still, I don't know that I wanna put the work into a whole second build until I find out whether or not the second attack from One Strike, Two Cuts would be eligible for the IF.

[Saintheart]

Still, I don't know that I wanna put the work into a whole second build until I find out whether or not the second attack from One Strike, Two Cuts would be eligible for the IF.

If the cheesemongery of iterative weapon draws all getting Iaijutsu Focus damage is valid then I find it hard to work out the rationale for saying a blurringly fast second strike within a single second or two of the first would not get Iaijutsu Focus damage, especially given it's on a guy who is expressed as a master of the very skill in question. Certainly the opponent is still flatfooted after the first cut. It's just whether you have "attacked immediately" after drawing a weapon. Since it isn't possible to attack without taking a standard action, and the two cuts are part of the same standard action, I think most reasonable DMs would allow that to pass. Especially if you've suffered through 18 levels of a class that literally gives you less to work with than Fighter 18. At least for that price I would've gotten 9 feats and qualified for stuff like Melee Weapon Mastery.

[Doctor Despair]

If the cheesemongery of iterative weapon draws all getting Iaijutsu Focus damage is valid then I find it hard to work out the rationale for saying a blurringly fast second strike within a single second or two of the first would not get Iaijutsu Focus damage, especially given it's on a guy who is expressed as a master of the very skill in question. Certainly the opponent is still flatfooted after the first cut. It's just whether you have "attacked immediately" after drawing a weapon. Since it isn't possible to attack without taking a standard action, and the two cuts are part of the same standard action, I think most reasonable DMs would allow that to pass. Especially if you've suffered through 18 levels of a class that literally gives you less to work with than Fighter 18. At least for that price I would've gotten 9 feats and qualified for stuff like Melee Weapon Mastery.

To be fair, the name is literally called "One Strike, Two Cuts," and in the fluff for the ability, it says you can attack twice in the strike phase of an iaijutsu duel, seeming to suggest the idea that it should proc... Let's be conservative though. By a strictly RAW reading, it is two attacks, so the second one shouldn't benefit from the hide. Unfortunately, that means that even if we could cheese the "just drawn" limit by quick drawing some second weapon, the opponent wouldn't be flat-footed anymore.

So the build above will get a surprise round where it can draw a katana as a free action, strike twice as a standard action (triggering IF once), then sheath the katana as a move-action. Then, on its turn in initiative, it can take a move action to hide, then a free action to draw the katana, and a standard-action to strike twice with it. Then, on its next turn in initiative, it can hide as a move-action, then draw a SECOND katana as a free-action, and strike twice with the new katana (avoiding the penalties for two-weapon fighting by being careful to only attack with the new katana). The following round must involve two move-actions to sheath both katanas or, if we're being extra wasteful, two free-actions to drop both katanas, assuming we have two more katanas sheathed on our person ready to use in the melee. Each of these attacks will be at a 50% miss chance, but with a reroll on a miss, so a 75% chance to hit.

Fortunately, I've realized you don't need to actually ATTACK with the dagger with the alternative build; you only need to be armed with it to be able to free-action feint.

The Invisible Blade build would, assuming we can cram everything in, start with 4 iteratives with a Gnomeish Quickrazor, each triggering IF. Then, the character would free-action draw a dagger, free-action feint, then strike with the dagger, triggering a bleed. If the strike with the dagger is successful, the opponent will be rendered flat-footed for the 3 Gnomeish Quickrazor strikes to follow; otherwise they will not trigger IF. Each of these attacks would still be at a 25% miss chance on top of lapsing BAB with each iterative. Each round, the character could then feint, then attack with full iteratives with the Quickrazor, triggering IF on any successful hit after the first.

The Scarlet Coursair build would, assuming we can cram everything in in a pleasing way, start with 4 iteratives with a Gnomish Quickrazor, each triggering IF. Then, the character would free-action feint, then attack four more times in this fashion, triggering IF on any successful attack after the first. Then, the character would hide as a move-action, and attack once with the quickrazor, and repeat that until Corsair's Feint has recovered.

For the first two rounds of combat, the Corsair and Blade build are more or less identical in terms of their results. After that, the Scourge build gets to use IF only once per round, limiting us to a little better than 50% of the IF strikes that the Invisible Blade build gets. On the other hand, Corsair is supremely less build-intensive than Invisible Blade, actually netting us 1 feat instead of costing us 3 dead feats, and it accrues sneak attack damage that will proc in addition to our IF damage.

If we can fit 10 levels of Corsair, 5 levels of IF master (for the +cha to IF damage), toss in Craven for the extra damage... I think that would probably average out better than Blade. If we're on Quickrazors, I don't think there's much point in pursuing the last 5 levels of I. Master.

Edit: I'm not sure we can do all 5 levels of IF master, which kind of obviates its use. We really want Human Paragon to get the bonus feat, sure, but also for Adaptive Skill for IF. That means we can't enter Scarlet Corsair at 6...

Edit2: It occurs to me that I'm an idiot and sneak attack damage can't proc while the opponent has concealment relative to us anyway.

[Saintheart]

Unfortunately, that means that even if we could cheese the "just drawn" limit by quick drawing some second weapon, the opponent wouldn't be flat-footed anymore.

If we're talking about the surprise round, I thought an opponent remains flat-footed until they get the chance to act (which I read as "take actions") in the round. During all of your initiative count, they haven't acted, so although we still have the problem of what's "immediately attack" in this context, don't they remain flat-footed throughout your action?

[Doctor Despair]

If we're talking about the surprise round, I thought an opponent remains flat-footed until they get the chance to act (which I read as "take actions") in the round. During all of your initiative count, they haven't acted, so although we still have the problem of what's "immediately attack" in this context, don't they remain flat-footed throughout your action?

For the surprise round, yes. I'm moreso discussing an attack routine for subsequent rounds. Ideally, a combat with a katana-based build could go something like:


Surprise Round: draw a katana, attack once. Free-action draw and drop a melee weapon. Attack with the katana. Free-action draw and drop a melee weapon. Attack with the katana. Free-action draw and drop a melee weapon. Attack with the katana.

Beat the enemy in initiative; go first. Repeat the surprise round.

Enemy dies.

However, if the enemy lives, or beats us in initiative, ideally we'd have a way to reliably trigger our IF damage by making them flat-footed.

By hiding, we can get one attack where they are flat-footed/round. That's the bar. Hiding doesn't allow the use of quickrazors to get 4x attacks after the enemy has taken a turn though.

By feinting, we can get 3x IF attacks if we hit with the first one.

Corsair lets us do it once every ~5 rounds. On the off rounds, we can hide. This means we get ~1.6 IF attacks/round, not counting the rounds before the enemy has acted.

Invisible Blade lets us do it once every round, but is prohibitively expensive to enter if we are trying to make a clean build with epic-level progression.

The Corsair build is... messy though. The sneak attack die is hard to get, and it's going to end up as a dead level, as we don't get to use sneak attack damage when our opponent has full concealment against us. We want two levels of Human Paragon, two levels of fighter, a level of marshal... We're already at level 5 with only 3 BAB and no sneak attack. Two levels of Ranger gets us another fighter feat and gets us to 5 bab, but we still don't have sneak attack. If we're taking regular fighter, we can't take sneak attack fighter (as they're variant classes). We could dip rogue, but it's almost entirely a dead level... I'm not really seeing any other way though. Taking the rogue level means giving up a level of marshal though, which leaves me thinking it might be best to just rely on hiding. That means sticking with the original build.

We could toss out Aereni Focus in favor of another feat. The only one that seems urgently beneficial is Blind Fight for the x2 chance to hit. Honestly, that might be worth it over a +3 to IF. It would make our skill ranks a little annoying, as we'd have to use IF as our adaptive skill instead of Sleight of Hand, but we do have some extra ranks around... Suppose we did it. We could shuffle our classes around just a hair...

1. Half-Elf Paragon (Skill Focus: Listen, Ghostly Grasp)
2. Fighter (Blind Fight)
3. Marshal (Keen-Eared Scout, Skill Focus: Diplomacy)
4. Human Paragon
5. Human Paragon (Master Pickpocket)
6. Ranger (Improved Initiative)
7. Ranger (Quick Draw)
8. Half-Elf Paragon
9. Fighter (EWP: Katana, Weapon Focus: Katana)

10. Iaijutsu Master (Weapon Finesse: Katana)
11. Iaijutsu Master
12. Iaijutsu Master (Skill Focus: Sleight of Hand)
13. Iaijutsu Master (Skill Focus: Iaijutsu Focus)
14. Iaijutsu Master
15. Iaijutsu Master (Combat Expertise)
16. Iaijutsu Master
17. Iaijutsu Master
18. Iaijutsu Master (Improved Disarm, Snatch Weapon)
19. Iaijutsu Master

20. Scorpion Wraith

Although we end up wasting a TON of skill points with this build keeping Sleight of Hand max'd, I like this a lot better for a few reasons. We get Blind Fight at level 2 instead of in the teens, doubling our average accuracy across the cast majority of the campaign. We get Master Pickpocket a level early for quality of life. We also enter Marshal a level early, giving us the massive cha to cha buff when it matters most: early game. As a down-side: we don't really get to use Iaijutsu Focus until level 4 when it becomes an adaptive skill. To be fair, we need a 15 to get even 1d6 extra damage, so it doesn't matter so much.

[H_H_F_F]

Very cool, and seems workable without buying off the LA, too.

[Soranar]

How about this guy

Race: anthropomorphic baleen whale (for large size)

STATS (32 pts)

STR 26 (maxed out, main stat, 40 STR by level 17)
DEX 18
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 12
CHA 8

1 Monstrous humanoid Power Attack
2 Monstrous humanoid
3 Monstrous humanoid Cleave
4 Decisive Strike Monk bonus feat:
5 Decisive Strike Monk bonus feat:
6 Decisive Strike Monk Weapon focus (Kama)
7 War Hulk
8 Exotic Weapon Master Uncanny Blow
9 War Hulk
10 War Hulk
11 War Hulk
12 War Hulk
13 War Hulk
14 War Hulk
15 War Hulk
16 War Hulk
17 War Hulk

Tricks

-Uncanny blow makes the Kama usable 2 handed and doubles your STR bonus, you can use a 2 handed quarterstaff until then
-Scorpion kama enchant makes your kama's base damage= your unarmed strike damage which makes it really easy to optimize
-Decisive strike works in armor (so no need to invest in WIS or DEX)
-Monstrous humanoid should give you at least light armor proficiency, arguably even heavy armor
-Skillful weapon enchant gives you 3/4 BAB
-your ridiculous STR and your extra reach works really well with decisive strike
-this build still has a few open feats to work with, you could go for a mage slayer build or something like it

While not as mobile as an ubercharger, difficult terrain doesn't affect you. 10 ft reach + 5ft step is good enough to keep you useful for most of a fight. Sudden leap would certainly help but anklets of translocations can get the job done if you're out of reach.

All in all, as far as bruisers go, you're pretty tough and you hit like the hulk.

[Saintheart]

How about this guy

Race: anthropomorphic baleen whale (for large size)

STATS (32 pts)

STR 26 (maxed out, main stat, 40 STR by level 17)
DEX 18
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 12
CHA 8

1 Monstrous humanoid Power Attack
2 Monstrous humanoid
3 Monstrous humanoid Cleave
4 Decisive Strike Monk bonus feat:
5 Decisive Strike Monk bonus feat:
6 Decisive Strike Monk Weapon focus (Kama)
7 War Hulk
8 Exotic Weapon Master Uncanny Blow
9 War Hulk
10 War Hulk
11 War Hulk
12 War Hulk
13 War Hulk
14 War Hulk
15 War Hulk
16 War Hulk
17 War Hulk

Tricks

-Uncanny blow makes the Kama usable 2 handed and doubles your STR bonus, you can use a 2 handed quarterstaff until then
-Scorpion kama enchant makes your kama's base damage= your unarmed strike damage which makes it really easy to optimize
-Decisive strike works in armor (so no need to invest in WIS or DEX)
-Monstrous humanoid should give you at least light armor proficiency, arguably even heavy armor
-Skillful weapon enchant gives you 3/4 BAB
-your ridiculous STR and your extra reach works really well with decisive strike
-this build still has a few open feats to work with, you could go for a mage slayer build or something like it

While not as mobile as an ubercharger, difficult terrain doesn't affect you. 10 ft reach + 5ft step is good enough to keep you useful for most of a fight. Sudden leap would certainly help but anklets of translocations can get the job done if you're out of reach.

All in all, as far as bruisers go, you're pretty tough and you hit like the hulk.

I like the idea, but I don't think the Uncanny Blow trick works for the default kama. Uncanny Blow functions that way for one-handed exotic weapons. The kama is exotic, but it's a light melee weapon.

[Anthrowhale]

I like the idea, but I don't think the Uncanny Blow trick works for the default kama. Uncanny Blow functions that way for one-handed exotic weapons. The kama is exotic, but it's a light melee weapon.

You could wield a huge kama, perhaps? It's a -2 penalty, but that might be worth it. At level 20, a huge skillful kama would have +15(BAB)+15(Str)+1(weapon focus)-2(oversize)+5 enhance=+34 to hit. That's reasonable, but will miss at times. The damage would be (2d6+30(str)+5(enhance))x2(decisive strike) ~= 84 damage to every opponent in reach. As an area of effect it's decent. As an anti-boss attack it is perhaps a bit low.

Maybe you could optimize a bit further? Unorthodox Flurry[Heavy Poison Ring] allows you to switch to a touch attack making you basically always hit. You can also take the Half-ogre template for +4 str. With a huge heavy poison ring, you could power attack with two hands for something like (1d4+34(str)+5(enhance)+30(power attack))x2 ~= 143 damage to every opponent in reach.

[H_H_F_F]

How about this guy

Race: anthropomorphic baleen whale (for large size)

STATS (32 pts)

STR 26 (maxed out, main stat, 40 STR by level 17)
DEX 18
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 12
CHA 8

1 Monstrous humanoid Power Attack
2 Monstrous humanoid
3 Monstrous humanoid Cleave
4 Decisive Strike Monk bonus feat:
5 Decisive Strike Monk bonus feat:
6 Decisive Strike Monk Weapon focus (Kama)
7 War Hulk
8 Exotic Weapon Master Uncanny Blow
9 War Hulk
10 War Hulk
11 War Hulk
12 War Hulk
13 War Hulk
14 War Hulk
15 War Hulk
16 War Hulk
17 War Hulk

Tricks

-Uncanny blow makes the Kama usable 2 handed and doubles your STR bonus, you can use a 2 handed quarterstaff until then
-Scorpion kama enchant makes your kama's base damage= your unarmed strike damage which makes it really easy to optimize
-Decisive strike works in armor (so no need to invest in WIS or DEX)
-Monstrous humanoid should give you at least light armor proficiency, arguably even heavy armor
-Skillful weapon enchant gives you 3/4 BAB
-your ridiculous STR and your extra reach works really well with decisive strike
-this build still has a few open feats to work with, you could go for a mage slayer build or something like it

While not as mobile as an ubercharger, difficult terrain doesn't affect you. 10 ft reach + 5ft step is good enough to keep you useful for most of a fight. Sudden leap would certainly help but anklets of translocations can get the job done if you're out of reach.

All in all, as far as bruisers go, you're pretty tough and you hit like the hulk.
Cool direction, with a couple of issues. First, Kamas are light, not one-handed. Second, I did say this:
Magic items can recreate anything, I'd rather ignore them for this.
So heavy reliance on a magical Kama seems like a bit much to me here. That is one reason I suggested uncanny trickster on a war hulk earlier - get some utility and BaB while you're at it. Even so, it's a worthy contribution to the discussion.

Finally, a war hulk is considered to have 0 points in Int based skills, and therefore cannot qualify for exotic weapon master. You'd have to reshuffle the levels.

[Soranar]

Cool direction, with a couple of issues. First, Kamas are light, not one-handed. Second, I did say this:
So heavy reliance on a magical Kama seems like a bit much to me here. That is one reason I suggested uncanny trickster on a war hulk earlier - get some utility and BaB while you're at it. Even so, it's a worthy contribution to the discussion.

Finally, a war hulk is considered to have 0 points in Int based skills, and therefore cannot qualify for exotic weapon master. You'd have to reshuffle the levels.

-I guess we can add another monk level to fix the no time for thought problem but do I lose the prestige class benefit if I no longer qualify for it?
-uncanny blow is problematic too, I always though a 1 handed exotic weapon just meant that, a weapon you hold in one hand. Didn't realize there were 2 categories for those. Sometimes dnd 3.5 is needlessly complex. Uncanny blow is +7 damage essentially (+15 x2 = 30 instead of 15x 1.5 for 23-24 damage), more with magic items. It'd be annoying not to use it but I guess I can just optimize normal unarmed strikes instead and forget about exotic weapon master. If that's the case then I'd go for a quarterstaff build instead
-If you'd like to have more reach you can use aberrant blood+ inhuman reach
-finally if you need more damage you can always add snap kick