Iron Chef Optimization Challenge in the Playground CXVIII

[The Viscount]

Welcome to Optimization Stadium, the field of combat for our storied competition. Here the contestants will be transmuting lead into gold as we showcase the overlooked, underused, weird, wild, and wonky prestige classes.

Now it's time for something completely different. Crack open Savage Species and start doing your warmups, because this round we're cooking with Siren!

Welcome, contestants, judges, and guests to Iron Chef. Here in Optimization Colosseum, contestants will endeavor to create an optimized and flavorful character using a specified D&D 3.5 prestige class as a "Secret Ingredient".

Contestants: You will need to present a full 20-level build for your entry. Also required is a rundown of how your build works at lower levels, to demonstrate that it is a functional character that could be played from 1-20 in a real game. Traditionally contestants give "snapshots" of tactics and abilities at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. The purpose of these snapshots is not just to showcase your use of the SI, it is to demonstrate that your character is playable at every level. For this reason, it's still worth giving a snapshot before you have entered the SI.

Menu: The "special ingredient" can be drawn from any legal source. Originally, the plan was to mostly use Core and Completes, but that was a long time ago, and we've started running out of interesting classes to use if we restrict ourselves to those.

32 point-buy is the presumed creation method.
If you do use a different point-buy, please make your case for its necessity in your entry. Keep in mind that for using exceptionally large or small point-buys may warrant deductions in elegance and/or power.

Kitchen: Competitors will be free to use any official 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon magazine is disallowed, and Unearthed Arcana is allowed; but see Elegance below. Web-exclusive 3.0 or 3.5 materials by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion. Here's a guide to most of what has and hasn't been updated. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20050110x) Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Also, item familiars are forbidden. Please refrain from using Taint unless it's necessary for the Secret Ingredient.
NB: Official Errata and 3.5 updates to 3.0 content are considered valid regardless of whether their sources would otherwise be legal. This includes the 3.5 update of Oriental Adventures given in Dragon Magazine, and the 3.5 updates of Dragonlance Campaign Setting content given in later third party Dragonlance books.

Cooking Time: Contestants will have until 13:59 GMT on Sunday February 13th, 2022 to create their builds and PM them to the Chairman, The Viscount. You may submit build by email if it is too large for a single PM. Please put the name of your build in the subject line of your PM. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges will have until 13:59 GMT on Sunday February 27th, 2022 to judge the builds and submit their scores. If no judges have scored by that point, only the scores of the first judge to submit will be counted.

Judging: Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each build rated on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (exemplary) in each area: Originality, Power, Elegance, Use of Secret Ingredient.

Power level is up to you. Cheese is acceptable, but should be kept to a sane level unless you're showcasing a new TO build you've discovered. In the words of one of my predecessors, a little cheddar can be nice, but avoid the mature Gruyere unless you're making a cheese fondue.
Elegance could bear a little elaboration. It basically measures how skillfully you put your build together, and whether you sacrificed flavor for power. We're cooking here - if your dish doesn't taste good, it doesn't matter how well-presented it is. Use of flaws is considered in poor taste, and judges are asked to take a dim view of this option, taking it into account while grading. Other things that will cause penalties here are excessive multi-classing, and classes that don't fit the concept.Please note the following: a legal source's relative obscurity should not be considered as penalizing Elegance, excepting the aforementioned issues with Unearthed Arcana. Using conflicting setting material may result in a penalty to Elegance at the judges' discretion, but a book's relative obscurity may not. In that same vein, drawing solely from the Core 3 (and the d20 SRD) should not be punished for lacking Originality.
Presentation: Builds will be posted anonymously, in order to avoid the potential of bias towards a particular competitor. For this reason, please don't put your name in the build, as I'm likely to miss it when reviewing the entries!

Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, I'd like everyone to try to use the following table for their entry. (A fillable, pre-formatted version found here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG0-5sq4dL9Ooh7-QfXuyHzO4rXSz-CRcj29t6BeUVE/edit#gid=0))NAME OF ENTRY


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


7th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


8th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


9th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


10th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


11th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


12th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


13th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


14th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


15th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


16th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


17th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


18th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


19th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


20th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities



Code immediately below (spoiler).

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


7th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


8th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


9th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


10th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


11th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


12th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


13th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


14th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


15th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


16th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


17th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


18th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


19th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


20th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities



For entries with spellcasting, use the following table for Spells per day and Spells Known. (Spells Known only if necessary, i.e. Sorcerer or Bard, but not Wizard or Warmage)Spells per Day/Spells Known


Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th


1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


Code immediately below (spoiler)Spells per Day/Spells Known


Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th


1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-



For other systems (Psionics, ToB, Incarnum, etc.) keep track of PP/maneuvers/essentia separately, preferably in a nice neat list.
Speculation: Please don't post or speculate on possible builds until the "reveal," in order to avoid spoiling the surprise if a particular competitor is producing a build along those lines.

Leadership is banned; we're producing a meal, not a seven-course banquet for a hundred diners. If your entry includes a prestige class or ACF that grants Leadership or a Leadership-like ability as a bonus feat, the feat should be ignored and is not eligible to be traded away for another feat or ACF through any means.

So! Who wants to sign up as a contestant, and who wants to sign up as a judge? Looking for as many contestants and judges as feel like playing!

We will award 1st through 3rd places, as well as a shout-out for honorable mention. The honorable mention prize is given to the most daring or unexpected build. Judges, contestants and guests alike are invited to vote for honorable mention via PM. If there are no votes, Honorable Mention will go to the chairman's favorite build.

Past Competitions

Courtesy of some wonderful volunteers, there is a handy-dandy spreadsheet guide to all previous builds here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oyjVU5JmeCnC8YTMqDArDqE5PszHl0Ysadz630kuTGk/edit?ts=59a4835f#gid=0). PM if you'd like to contribute to the spreadsheet for access.

Iron Chef I: Entropomancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142470)
Iron Chef II: Psibond Agent (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146583)
Iron Chef III: Cancer Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148584)
Iron Chef IV: Stonelord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150595)
Iron Chef V: War Chanter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152543)
Iron Chef VI: Master of Masks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156876)
Iron Chef VII: Green Star Adept (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158633)
Iron Chef VIII: Pyrokineticist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160266)
Iron Chef IX: Animal Lord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162702)
Iron Chef X: Mythic Exemplar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164381)
Iron Chef XI: Blade Bravo (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166539)
Iron Chef XII: War Mind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9426386)
Iron Chef XIII: Vigilante (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172233)
Iron Chef XIV: Seeker of the Song (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174434)
Iron Chef XV: Drunken Master (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176049)
Iron Chef XVI: Assassin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=178202)
Iron Chef XVII: Ardent Dilettante (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182492)
Iron Chef XVIII: Unseelie Dark Hunter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=186097)
Iron Chef XIX: Dread Pirate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=190607)
Iron Chef XX: Incandescent Champion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10976416)
Iron Chef XXI: Ghostwalker (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198921)
Iron Chef XXII: Dervish (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=206576)
Iron Chef XXIII: Divine Crusader (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210071)
Iron Chef XXIV: Tactical Soldier (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214198)
Iron Chef XXV: Scion of Tem-Et-Nu (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217441)
Iron Chef XXVI: Shadowdancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=220956)
Iron Chef XXVII: Mindbender (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224008)
Iron Chef XXVIII: Cryokineticist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227304)
Iron Chef XXIX: Consecrated Harrier (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229688)
Iron Chef XXX: Initiate of Pistis Sophia (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=233346)
Iron Chef XXXI: Shadow Sentinel (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=236908)
Iron Chef XXXII: Temple Raider of Olidammara (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239786)
Iron Chef XXXIII: Drow Judicator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243052)
Iron Chef XXXIV: Dragon Disciple (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=246072)
Iron Chef XXXV: Death Delver (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249542)
Iron Chef XXXVI: Acolyte of the Skin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252923)
Iron Chef XXXVII: Justiciar (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?255215-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XXXVII)
Iron Chef XXXVIII: Hand of the Winged Master (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=255215)
Iron Chef XXXIX: Renegade Mastermaker (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260333)
Iron Chef XL: Nightsong Infiltrator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263173)
Iron Chef XLI: Geomancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266709)
Iron Chef XLII: Shadowblade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=270196)
Iron Chef XLIII: Bladesinger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=274122)
Iron Chef XLIV: Urban Soul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279116)
Iron Chef XLV: Talon of Tiamat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15216595)
Iron Chef XLVI: Cipher Adept (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=287314)
Iron Chef XLVII: Cold Iron Warrior (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291294)
Iron Chef XLVIII: Shadow Sun Ninja (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=297327)
Iron Chef XLIX: Thrall of Orcus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=302487)
Iron Chef L: Corrupt Avenger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307823)
Iron Chef LI: Black Flame Zealot (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312773)
Iron Chef LII: Anointed Knight (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=317934)
Iron Chef LIII: Zerth Cenobite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=325164)
Iron Chef LIV: Osteomancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330890)
Iron Chef LV: Mountebank (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?336373-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LV)
Iron Chef LVI: Dwarven Defender (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?342807-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LVI)
Iron Chef LVII: Darkrunner (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?349040-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LVII)
Iron Chef LVIII: Spellsword (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357412-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LVIII)
Iron Chef LIX: Fleet Runner of Ehlonna (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?364667-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LIX)
Iron Chef LX: Lasher (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?371835-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LX)
Iron Chef LX(II): Acolyte of the Ego (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?372145-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LX)
Iron Chef LXII: Dungeon Lord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?376810-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXII)
Iron Chef LXIII: Witchborn Binder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?382632-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXIII)
Iron Chef LXIV: Slime Lord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?387166-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXIV)
Iron Chef LXV: Thunder Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?394981-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXV)
Iron Chef LXVI: Dwarven Chanter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?400810-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXVI)
Irogn Chef LXVII: Gnome Giant Slayer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?406613-Irogn-Chef-Optimisatiogn-Challegnge-ign-the-Playgrougnd-LXVII)
Iron Chef LXVIII: Fang of Lolth (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?412530-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXVIII)
Iron Chef LXIX: Shiba Protector (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420165-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXIX)
Iron Chef LXX: Order of the Bow Initiate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?425634-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXX)
Iron Chef LXXI: Silver Key (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?431484-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXI)
Iron Chef LXXII: Spellfire Channeler (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?439020-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXII)
Iron Chef LXXIII: Flux Adept (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?448596-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXIII)
Iron Chef LXXIV: Crinti Shadow Marauder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?458711-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXIV)
Iron Chef LXXV: Thief of Life (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472831-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXV)
Iron Chef LXXVI: Legacy Champion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477153-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXVI)
Iron Chef LXXVII: Great Rift Skyguard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?482249-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXVII)
Iron Chef LXVIII: Risen Martyr (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?487560-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXVIII)
Iron Chef LXXIX: Black Blood Hunter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?492923-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXIX)
Iron Chef LXXX: Master of Many Forms (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?498359-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXX)
Iron Chef LXXXI: Serene Guardian (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?502666-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXI)
Iron Chef LXXXII: Elocator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?505762-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXII)
Iron Chef LXXXIII: Winterhaunt of Iboorighu (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?510581-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXIII)
Iron Chef LXXXIV: Waverider (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?514631-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXIV)
Iron Chef LXXXV: Astral Dancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?519296-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXV)
Iron Chef LXXXVI: Twisted Lord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?525401-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXVI)
Iron Chef LXXXVII: Shadowsmith (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?528361-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXVII)
Iron Chef LXXXVIII: Arboreal Guardian (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533367-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXVIII)
Iron Chef LXXXIX: Thrall of Demogorgon (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?536247-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXXIX)
Iron Chef XC: Bloodstorm Blade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?542380-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XC)
Iron Chef XCI: Fatemaker (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?550203-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCI)
Iron Chef XCII: Eye of the Xanathar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?556092-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCII)
Iron Chef XCIII: Hoardstealer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560330-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCIII)
Iron Chef XCIV: Doomlord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?564804-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCIV)
Iron Chef XCV: Gnomish Artificer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?571065-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCV)
Iron Chef XCVI: Oozemaster (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?576075-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCVI)
Iron Chef XCVII: Aerial Avenger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?579553-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCVII)
Iron Chef XCVIII: Visionary Seeker (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?583331-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCVIII)
Iron Chef XCIX: Life Eater (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?589964-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XCIX)
Iron Chef C: Swiftblade (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?601292-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-C)

Iron Chef CI: Night Mask Deathbringer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610308-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CI)
Iron Chef CII: Blade Dancer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?613031-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CII)
Iron Chef CIII: Psion Uncarnate (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?614461-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CIII)
Iron Chef CIV: Atavist (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615697-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CIV)
Iron Chev CV: Primeval (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?618136-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CV)
Iron Chef CVI: Disciple of Mammon (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?620730-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CVI)
Iron Chef CVII: Insidious Corruptor (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?622560-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CVII)
Iron Chef CVIII: Crimson Scourge (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?624099-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CVIII)
Iron Chef CIX: Tattooed Monk (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?626458-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CIX)
Iron Chef CX: Rage Mage (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?628809-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CX)
Iron Chef CXI: Watch Detective (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?630421-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CXI)
Iron Chef CXII: Spinemeld Warrior (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632291-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CXII)
Iron Chef CXIII: Celebrant of Sharess (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?633637-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CXIII)
Iron Chef CXIV: Thayan Gladiator (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635212-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CXIV)
Iron Chef CXV: Shining Blade of Heironeous (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637097-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CXV)
Iron Chef CXVI: Peregrine Runner (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?638522-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CXVI)
Iron Chef CXVII: Imaskari Vengeance Taker (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?640260-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CXVII)

[The Viscount]

FAQ:
Q: What's this even about?
A: I'm glad you asked, actually... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15415117&postcount=1)

Q: Is Dragon Compendium Allowed?
A: Yes (as well as its Errata), but individual issues of Dragon Magazine are not.

Q: What about 3.0 materials?
A: 3.0 materials, whether online or in printed form, are allowed unless they've been officially updated to a 3.5 edition.

Q: Are Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Planescape, Dark Sun, or Kingdoms of Kalamar allowable sources?
A: The Dragonlance Campaign Setting is allowed, but the subsequent books for Dragonlance are considered 3rd party, and are therefore not eligible, despite the "WotC approved" status of those books. The same holds for Oriental Adventures (1st party) and the subsequent Rokugan books (3rd party). Materials from Ravenloft, Planescape, Dark Sun, and Kingdoms of Kalamar are considered 3rd party for purposes of this contest, and are therefore not allowed.

Q: What about online sources in general?
A: If the online source is a) published by WotC, and b) not replaced by an updated version at a later time, it is eligible. Use it, link it.

Q: Where's the line drawn with "acceptable/unacceptable" for Unearthed Arcana? This will likely vary a bit from Chairman to Chairman. Item Familiars and Gestalt have always been verboten, since before IC migrated to GitP; don't expect that to change. Flaws have similarly always been noted as warranting a deduction; while I am Chairman, I'm extending that to Traits, though they warrant 1/2 the penalty in Elegance that a Flaw would because they're roughly 1/2 as useful. Alternate spell systems, alternate skill systems and alternate crafting rules all create an uneven playing field, and as such, will be disallowed for as long as I am Chairman. In a similar vein, LA buyoff and fractional BAB are also disallowed. Bloodlines and the Retraining options presented in the PHB2 are ripe for abuse, and will be strongly discouraged as long as I am Chairman. Note that judges are allowed to look askance at any use of Unearthed Arcana not specifically mentioned above, at their discretion, and otherwise penalize Elegance according to their preference.

Q: What, exactly, does the ban on Leadership mean?
A: As folks have started to try to work around the edges of this one, I'm forced to spell it out more plainly. No Leadership, Draconic Cohort, or Feats that grant a similar ability are allowed EXCEPT Wild Cohort. Any PrC you choose with Leadership or a Leadership-analog has that ability entirely ignored for this contest, as it may neither be used nor traded away via any means whatsoever.

Q: What's the minimum score in a category?
A: Assuming an entry is legal, the minimum score in any category is 1. If a judge is convinced that an entry is mechanically illegal by the RAW, the judge may give the build a score of 0 in Elegance, and proceed to judge the entry as if the offending material was not included. Failing to meet a special requirement for a prestige class does not merit a 0, but may qualify for a penalty, at the judge's discretion. Because this contest focuses on Player Characters, an entry that is not technically allowed for a PC, but is viable as an NPC, counts as a legal entry, but may receive a minimum score at the judges' discretion.

Q: Creatures and templates with no listed LA are playable, right?
A: No. No listed LA is equivalent to LA: -. It is not suitable for PCs. If you use it, expect judges to look extremely disfavorably on it.

Q: So what's the deal with equipment, anyway?
A: There is no official policy on how much equipment you should list. Historically, judges have frowned upon "item dependent" builds, but unfortunately the definition of that has been applied to mean anything from builds that don't function if you remove one very specific item, to builds that so much as mention a particular weapon. Builds that don't list gear should be assumed to buy useful generics - items to boost their primary stats, cloaks of resistance, appropriate magical weapons and armor, and so forth. If a build would find particular items useful, they should be listed, but experience suggests that the more generic you keep them, the more favorably judges are likely to look upon them, as a build being shut down because the Thundering Bagpipes of Urist McTrumpetbritches were unavailable is considered a weakness. Similarly, requiring items in order to be able to qualify for things tends to be frowned upon.

Q: Do you have any other rules and guidelines on how to judge?
A: We do, actually, designed to try and avoid unpleasantness we've encountered in past contests. The things we've come up with to avoid repeating this are given below.

One Mistake, One Penalty

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:

Penalizing 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 penalize if a fluff prereq is not addressed at all, but not for how well it is addressed.
Please don't base your scores off the scores of another judge.


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.

Q: Do you have any contest house rules or clarifications to ambiguous rules?
A: Some that have come up in previous contests and needed answers to:

All creatures are proficient with any natural weapons they may have or acquire.
Bonus feats that are granted even if you do not meet the prerequisites do not require you to meet the prerequisites in order to use.
Able Learner's benefit applies to the level you take it.
Weapons from soulmelds are considered to be magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming DR.
Unarmed Swordsage grants Improved Unarmed Strike at level 1.
Not finishing Savage Progression is subject to a penalty to Elegance
One dispute per entry. Submit disputes by PM to the Chair.
Ghostwalk ghost is banned
Gold, silver, and bronze are awarded regardless of ties (e.g., 2 silvers does not preclude bronze)
Spelltouched feats are legal and can be taken just like any other feat when you meet the prerequisites and have the feat slot available.

Q: Can I submit more than one entry?
A: You may submit up to two entries into a given competition.

Q: What does "innate" mean?
A: For the purpose of this round, disregard the word "innate" in Siren's prerequisites.

[The Viscount]

I know that this issue can cause some consternation, so I'm going to get ahead of it.

For the purpose of this round, disregard the word "innate" for Siren's prerequisites. Any sonic, mind-affecting ability from any source will suffice.

[loky1109]

Oh, yeah!

I don't now what do with it, but oh, yeah!

Okay. I have questions.
1.

DC to resist this effect is 12 + the siren’s level + the siren’s Cha modifier.
12 means 10+2 from Reverberation feat, right?

2.

Once per day, she can overlay a despair effect on her sonic attack identical to that of an emotion spell.
This means Crushing Despair spell, yes?

3. Can siren use many her abilities with single sonic attack simultaneously?

[The Viscount]

1. Yes

2. Yes, as Crushing Despair. (3.0's emotion got fractured into crushing despair, good hope, and rage)

3. As long as you have the uses per day to support it, you may use more than one class feature at the same time on a single ability. For the sake of clarity, overlaying an effect from one of your class features does not change the activation time of your sonic ability. You use your sonic ability and the class feature overlay with the same action.

[Seward]

I don't have Savage Species, so I'll skip this round. Will still lurk to see what others do though.

[WhamBamSam]

Strapping myself in on the mast of my optimization ship, this is gonna be a fun one.

[Venger]

In to cook.

[Paragon]

Got an idea for something nice to do with this, let's see if I can optimize the hype out of this.

[AsuraKyoko]

Does the "sonic attack" referenced by the class features have to be mind affecting, or would any sonic attacks you possess qualify for use? (assuming, of course, that you have at least one sonic, mind-effecting ability to actually qualify for the class)

EDIT: Another question:

The abilities state that they "affect all creatures within range of the siren's sonic attack". Does that mean for a single-target sonic attack that it only affects the target, or that it affects any creature that the attack could hit?

EDIT 2: Yet another question

A number of abilities say that they affect "all creatures within range of the siren's sonic attack". For sonic effects centered on yourself, are you subject to those additional effects?

[NinjaGuy]

LA -- counts as unplayable, what about LA +X (cohort)?

[Wildstag]

LA -- counts as unplayable, what about LA +X (cohort)?

I was thinking the same thing, and now hope we don't bring two of the same race to the table. But I second the question.

[The Viscount]

Does the "sonic attack" referenced by the class features have to be mind affecting, or would any sonic attacks you possess qualify for use? (assuming, of course, that you have at least one sonic, mind-effecting ability to actually qualify for the class)

EDIT: Another question:

The abilities state that they "affect all creatures within range of the siren's sonic attack". Does that mean for a single-target sonic attack that it only affects the target, or that it affects any creature that the attack could hit?

EDIT 2: Yet another question

A number of abilities say that they affect "all creatures within range of the siren's sonic attack". For sonic effects centered on yourself, are you subject to those additional effects?

If you have sonic attacks besides the sonic, mind-affecting ability used to qualify for the class, you can also use the class features on it.
I'll take this opportunity to add that "your sonic attack" as referred to in the class features can be the ability you used to qualify for the class, including if it is not strictly called an attack.

For single target abilities, the add-ons only affect the target. For the 10th level feature, it would affect the targeted creature, not an area.

If your sonic ability affects you, you are also affected by the add-ons. If your sonic ability does not affect you, you are not affected by the add-ons.


LA -- counts as unplayable, what about LA +X (cohort)?

LA +X (cohort) is not playable.

[Gemini476]

I got a bit confused about what exactly the Siren's "sonic attack" rule might apply to, specifically, but just for reference it's actually defined in the Monster Manual glossary:

Sonic Attacks (Su): Unless otherwise noted, a sonic attack follows the rules for spreads (see Aiming a Spell, page 175 of the Player’s Handbook). The range of the spread is measured from the creature using the sonic attack. Once a sonic attack has taken effect, deafening the subject or stopping its ears does not end the effect. Stopping one’s ears ahead of time allows opponents to avoid having to make saving throws against mind-affecting sonic attacks, but not other kinds of sonic attacks (such as those that deal damage). Stopping one’s ears is a full-round action and requires wax or other soundproof material to stuff into the ears.

So here's my question: does this mean that only supernatural abilities count as "sonic attacks", or what? Does an (Ex) sonic ability count, or a [Sonic] spell(-like ability), or a +1 Thundering weapon?
I'm going to assume that only special attacks count, but if it's broader then I've got plans.

[loky1109]

Well, what can I say, thank you that didn't select Slaad Brooder. )))
UPD: I think I have an idea.

And question.

If you have sonic attacks besides the sonic, mind-affecting ability used to qualify for the class, you can also use the class features on it.

With +2 from reverberation* or without?
* - Reverberation as written works only for single ability with single feat taking.

[The Viscount]

I got a bit confused about what exactly the Siren's "sonic attack" rule might apply to, specifically, but just for reference it's actually defined in the Monster Manual glossary:


So here's my question: does this mean that only supernatural abilities count as "sonic attacks", or what? Does an (Ex) sonic ability count, or a [Sonic] spell(-like ability), or a +1 Thundering weapon?
I'm going to assume that only special attacks count, but if it's broader then I've got plans.

The ability need not be a supernatural ability or special attack. As long as it's sonic and mind affecting, it can be used to enter the class and benefit from the class features.


Well, what can I say, thank you that didn't select Slaad Brooder. )))
UPD: I think I have an idea.

And question.

With +2 from reverberation* or without?
* - Reverberation as written works only for single ability with single feat taking.

Reverberation as a bonus feat only applies to one ability. If using the class features on a different ability, the DC uses 10+, not 12+.

[loky1109]

Again questions.
If my sounds, mind-affecting ability has some target limitations, are this limitations applied to siren's abilities?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Again questions.
If my sounds, mind-affecting ability has some target limitations, are this limitations applied to siren's abilities?

From the Siren's despair ability: "Those affected by the sonic attack make their saving throws for that attack before resolving the despair effect."

If your sonic attack doesn't affect a creature, the secondary effect will not trigger for it. However, the text doesn't say that if the creature saves against the sonic attack, then they don't resolve the despair effect. So even if a creature makes their saving throw against your attack, they will still be affected by your Siren abilities.

If you weren't limited to target that are affected by the sonic attack, then something like the Flesh to Stone effect could affect creatures immune to mind-affecting, since it isn't mind-affecting itself, only a rider on a mind-affecting effect.

[loky1109]

From the Siren's despair ability: "Those affected by the sonic attack make their saving throws for that attack before resolving the despair effect."
Thanks. I missed this.

[The Viscount]

Confirming Beni-Kuujaku's read here.

[loky1109]

Okay. One build is ready, need story. And there is idea of second. Firstly, I think this is natural Vizziny, but it was harder that I think.

[NinjaGuy]

Sorry to have to do this, but I'm really just trying to get the specifics right. I know it may feel like you're answering the same question repeatedly, buuuuuuuuuut in replying to AsuraKyoko's question you wrote:


If you have sonic attacks besides the sonic, mind-affecting ability used to qualify for the class, you can also use the class features on it...

My reading of that implies that if you had a [Sonic][Mind-affecting] "attack" to enter Siren, as well as a [Sonic] ability, either can be used in conjunction with the Siren's abilities that "can overlay a[n] ... effect on her sonic attack," as it's not specified in the text for those abilities that the ability they're being linked to must be [Mind-Affecting]. And, that either the [Sonic][Mind-Affecting], or the [Sonic], ability could benefit from the Reverberation feat, but not both.


Buuuuuuut in your response to Gemini476's question, you wrote:


The ability need not be a supernatural ability or special attack. As long as it's sonic and mind affecting, it can be used to enter the class and benefit from the class features.

And that in my mind implies that if you have the entry prerequisite [Sonic][Mind-Affecting] ability, as well as another [Sonic][Mind-Affecting] ability that you could use either of them, but that [Mind-Affecting] does in fact have to be involved. So firstly, is [Mind-Affecting] needed to benefit from the other abilities that "can overlay a[n] ... effect on her sonic attack?"

If [Mind-Affecting] isn't needed to apply those abilities, what constitutes an acceptable sonic attack? Anything with the [Sonic] descriptor? Anything dealing sonic damage? Anything with a verbal component? (Bard's music for example, is clearly a sound based ability, and yet I can't find a [Sonic] descriptor anywhere in the rules relating to it...)


I used the [brackets] in hopes of making the question as clear as possible, so it never has to come up again!

Things that quite are clear include:

Reverberation applies to 1 ability.
(Su) is not a defining factor.
Why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch.


Thanks again, and while I do feel bad that I'm reiterating the same question again, these things are bound to happen when you pick an SI out of SS. :smallwink:

[Wildstag]

Okay. One build is ready, need story. And there is idea of second. Firstly, I think this is natural Vizziny, but it was harder that I think.

Ditto, that's always the hardest part, but I got the rest figured out.


Why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch.

I dunno, I still don't get why kids love cinnamon toast crunch.

[The Viscount]

1. You must have a sonic, mind-affecting ability to fulfill the prerequisite and enter the class. This ability you use to qualify for the class benefits from the class features even if it is not strictly characterized as an "attack" because that's a pretty hazy definition anyway.

2. A sonic ability does not have to be mind-affecting in order to benefit from the class features.

3. A sonic ability must have the [sonic] descriptor or something to the extent of "this is a sonic effect" in the description to benefit from the class features.

[Gemini476]

Quick double-check: the "innate sonic, mind-affecting ability" obviously has to be an ability (even if we're ignoring the "innate"), but does the "sonic attack" referred to in the class features have to also be an ability?

[The Viscount]

Quick double-check: the "innate sonic, mind-affecting ability" obviously has to be an ability (even if we're ignoring the "innate"), but does the "sonic attack" referred to in the class features have to also be an ability?

No. (Ability is rather a broad term that to my knowledge doesn't have a definition, but just in case I'm missing something, I'll be permissive here.)

[AsuraKyoko]

Well, I definitely have an idea I'm building right now, and I'm pretty excited about it; hopefully it'll be pretty unique...

[Paragon]

Just checking here, but if we have an ability that is suited for the Siren class features and that said ability has a duration of rounds per level, does the rider effect lasts rounds per level as well ?
On the off chance it does, does it cost you "per day slots" of the Siren's class features ?

On an unrelated note, the first and last abilities are "once per day" the rest is "once per day per level". Is that correct ?

[mattie_p]

I don't forsee having a character concept ready for this competition. Put me down as a tentative judge. Potential competitors, please review my previous judgements, as you desire, as my judgment here will be largely aligned with previous recent judgements.

[The Viscount]

Just checking here, but if we have an ability that is suited for the Siren class features and that said ability has a duration of rounds per level, does the rider effect lasts rounds per level as well ?
On the off chance it does, does it cost you "per day slots" of the Siren's class features ?

On an unrelated note, the first and last abilities are "once per day" the rest is "once per day per level". Is that correct ?

Rider effects from Siren's class features all have their own durations as listed. The duration of the ability you used is immaterial.

The first and last class features are indeed once per day.

[H_H_F_F]

How is everyone doing? I've got an idea, but I'm not sure if it's interesting enough to justify doing it. We'll see.

Does anyone feel like hopping over to Junnkyard Wars (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?641168-Junkyard-Wars-XXXV-Complete-Class-Complete-PrC-PHB-Classes)and seeing if you'd like to judge the entries? We've already got one judge, apparently, but more is always better.

Also, if anyone would like to join me in judging the skill tricks E6 round, that'd be nice. Life's been busy and they've been waiting far too long for my judgement - I'm hoping to finish judging this weekend, but might be nice if someone else judges.

Good luck with your sirens!

[loky1109]

Question!
If I have sonic ability which works several rounds (more that one), can I use SI's abilities with it more than once with single use of my sonic ability?

[The Viscount]

Yes, you can.

[Korahir]

Just submitted. This was an incredible fun ingredient to work with. Took some time to warm up to it but it has so much potential.

[Paragon]

I second that. Really fun to build. I submitted one, had another but the latter's so messed up I don't want to touch it anymore...

[loky1109]

First entry sent.

[H_H_F_F]

Fluff and full table are ready! All that's left is writing the breakdown, and...


The ability need not be a supernatural ability or special attack. As long as it's sonic and mind affecting, it can be used to enter the class and benefit from the class features.


2. A sonic ability does not have to be mind-affecting in order to benefit from the class features.

Darn. Missed the "not" on the first quoted clarification, and entirely missed the second quoted clarification. I was building as if we had to use SU, mind affecting sonic stuff only. Well, this makes my build far less valuable and interesting. I'm out of this round. If anyone's interested, I can share the "SU only, mind-affecting only" build after the reveal.

[Wildstag]

First and only for this round is in. I'm not certain it'll be the strongest, but it was a fun one to work with. Viscount chose an interesting PrC this time around.

[loky1109]

Second entry almost ready! There are stab and story. Needs some playtips, sources, and good presentation. And double check all. I think, I'll keep up.

[The Viscount]

Fluff and full table are ready! All that's left is writing the breakdown, and...





Darn. Missed the "not" on the first quoted clarification, and entirely missed the second quoted clarification. I was building as if we had to use SU, mind affecting sonic stuff only. Well, this makes my build far less valuable and interesting. I'm out of this round. If anyone's interested, I can share the "SU only, mind-affecting only" build after the reveal.

I'd say it's still probably worth submitting.

[Gemini476]

I suspect that a stricter DM would require it to be all the things the contest is handwaving, so your entry would probably be an interesting thing to reference later if nothing else.

...Also, having briefly fallen down that rabbit hole myself, trying to find specifically sonic and mind-affecting effects was tricky enough that personally I'd be interested in seeing what your solution to that puzzle was. There's a lot of stuff that's language-dependent but not sonic (or sonic and language-dependent but not mind-affecting), or sonic but only do damage rather than having a mind-affecting component.

[Seward]

There's a lot of stuff that's language-dependent but not sonic (or sonic and language-dependent but not mind-affecting),


And also things that are sonic, language affecting and mind affecting aren't popular with charop people because of all the ways people can be immune. So we all have to remember such options exist :smallsmile:

[loky1109]

And... Second done!

[AsuraKyoko]

Working on finishing up my entry, hopefully I'll have it done tonight; if not I'll finish it tomorrow.

[NinjaGuy]

Got my entry in! Good luck to everyone and thanks in advance to all judges!

[loky1109]

Hm... I see we already sent many entries. I expect very nice and interesting round!

[Wildstag]

Now for the hard part: prayer that noone else used the same entry point as me.

[loky1109]

Only 2 hours, yes?
I'm very eager to see!

[AsuraKyoko]

If it's possible, I need a couple more hours to submit; things came up so I was unable to finish up my writeup yesterday. If not, that's fine, I did miss the deadline.

[Beni-Kujaku]

If it's possible, I need a couple more hours to submit; things came up so I was unable to finish up my writeup yesterday. If not, that's fine, I did miss the deadline.

In general‚ you can still submit until the reveal‚ so hurry up and it should be fine.

[The Viscount]

I've had a couple messages from chefs asking for extensions. I have no problem waiting.

[AsuraKyoko]

Submitted! Just made it!

[loky1109]

When is new release time?

[daremetoidareyo]

Probably a combo of when the last few competitors send it in and the viscount has a clear hour. Could be tonight… might be tuesday

[Paragon]

Any update ?

[daremetoidareyo]

Hear me out: Cryokineticist

10 levels that don't advance manifesting, but require you to have 3 or 4 levels in manifesting classes to enter. A seemingly random demand to be lawful for some reason. And a whole bunch of badly worded abilities.

Oh, and the kicker: you need craft (alchemy) but like...only spell casters can take ranks in that.

[The Viscount]

Any update ?

Not yet.


Hear me out: Cryokineticist

10 levels that don't advance manifesting, but require you to have 3 or 4 levels in manifesting classes to enter. A seemingly random demand to be lawful for some reason. And a whole bunch of badly worded abilities.

Oh, and the kicker: you need craft (alchemy) but like...only spell casters can take ranks in that.

The perfect choice for a secret ingredient.
It was round 28. Some excellent builds on display. The Smashing Good Architect of the Curb-Stomping Platinum Dragon is a masterclass in dedication to the bit.
The Antipode is one of my favorite character concepts I've seen in Iron Chef.

[The Viscount]

It's time for the reveal! (Please hold off on posting until the all clear.)

[The Viscount]

He always sings twice.



Postman Pat
"Early in the morning, just as day is dawning, he casts all the spells in his mind.”


https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/postman-pat_1552035270.jpg?quality=90&strip=all

CN Human Sorcerer6/Incantatrix4/Siren10




Alignment : Chaotic Neutral
Race : Silverbrow Human
Level 1 : Least Dragonmark (Passage), Mark of the Dauntless, Draconic Heritage (Battle Dragon)
Level 3 : Iron Will
Level 6 : Invisible Spell
Level 7 ; Energy Substitution (Electricity)
Level 9 : Rapid Metamagic
Level 10 : Born of the Three Thunders
Level 12 : Arcane Thesis (Zone of Glacial Cold)
Level 15 : Twin Spell
Level 18 : Practical Metamagic (Twin Spell)



Point Buy at level 20
(4, 8, 12, 16, 20 in Cha), Siren’s +5 to Cha included
STR 8
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 14
WIS 8
CHA 28


Watchuget
- Flavorwise : House Orien, bearer of the Mark of Passage, is renowned for its control over the Couriers Guild and funnily enough, this is cooking inspired from the Mailman build. To top it all off there is a movie about Pat where he discovers that not only is he good at delivering mail but also talented at singing. I swear I’m not making this up, it’s hilarious.
Second, you’re allowed to use Fireball. That in itself is great
Lastly the Dragonblood Sorcerer substitution levels and Domain access finally get used ! Amazing stuff.

- Powerwise :
Mark of the Dauntless makes us immune to daze/stun which allows for deliberate uses of the Celerity spell line and, more importantly, Born of the Three Thunder metamagic.
Add in Twin Spell, Arcane Thesis, Rapid Metamagic and Celerity and you end up with a potential 4 Siren’s rider effects in one turn ; delivering mail while being the ultimate Diva.



LevelClassBase Attack BonusFort SaveReflex SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features
1stDragonblood Sorcerer 10002Bluff (+4) 4; Know (Arcana) (+4) 4; Perform (+4) 4; Spellcraft (+4) 4; Least Dragonmark (Mark of Passage), Mark of the Dauntless, Draconic Heritage (Battle Dragon)Arcane Insight +2
2ndSorcerer 21003Bluff (+1) 5; Know (Arcana) (+1) 5; Perform (+1) 5; Spellcraft (+1) 5;
3rdSorcerer 31113Bluff (+1) 6; Know (Arcana) (+1) 6; Perform (+1) 6; Spellcraft (+1) 6; Iron Will
4thDragonblood Sorcerer 42114Bluff 6; Concentration (+1) 1; Know (Arcana) (+1) 7; Perform (+1) 7; Spellcraft (+1) 7; Arcane Insight +4, Spell-like Ability
5thSorcerer 52114Bluff 6; Concentration (+1) 2; Know (Arcana) (+1) 8; Perform (+1) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 8; Spell Focus (Enchantment)Domain Access (Domination)
6thSorcerer 63225Bluff 6; Concentration (+2) 4; Know (Arcana) 8; Know (Nature) (+1 CC) 0.5; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+1) 9; Invisible Spell
7thIncantatrix 13227Bluff 6; Concentration 4; Know (Arcana) 8; Know (Nature) (+3 CC) 2; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+1) 10; Energy Substitution (Electricity) (Bonus)Bonus Metamagic Feat, Focused Study (Ban Necromancy)
8thIncantatrix 24228Bluff 6; Concentration 4; Intimidate (+1) 1; Know (Arcana) 8; Know (Nature) (+2 CC) 3; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+1) 11; Cooperative Metamagic
9thIncantatrix 34338Bluff 6; Concentration 4; Intimidate (+1) 2; Know (Arcana) 8; Know (Nature) (+2 CC) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+1) 12; Rapid MetamagicMetamagic Effect
10thIncantatrix 45339Bluff 6; Concentration 4; Intimidate (+4) 6; Know (Arcana) 8; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft 12; Born of the Three Thunder (Bonus)Bonus Metamagic Feat
11thSiren 153311Bluff 6; Concentration (+2 CC) 5; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) (+2 CC) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 13; Reverberation
12thSiren 263312Bluff 6; Concentration (+2 CC) 6; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+4 CC) 15; Arcane Thesis (Zone of Glacial Cold)Song of Despair
13thSiren 374412Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 8; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 16; Charisma Bonus +2
14thSiren 484413Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 10; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 17; Song of Nightmare
15thSiren 584413Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 12; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 18; Twin SpellSong of Idiocy
16thSiren 695514Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 14; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 19; Charisma Bonus +4
17thSiren 7105514Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 16; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 20; Song of Weakness
18thSiren 8115515Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 18; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 21; Practical Metamagic (Twin Spell)Charisma Bonus +5
19thSiren 9116615Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 20; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 22; Song of Stone
20thSiren 10126616Bluff 6; Concentration (+4 CC) 22; Intimidate 6; Know (Arcana) 9; Know (Nature) 4; Perform 8; Spellcraft (+2 CC) 23; Song of Death



LevelClass0th1st2nd3rd4th5th
1stSorcerer 153
2ndSorcerer 264
3rdSorcerer 365
4thSorcerer 4652
5thSorcerer 5653
6thSorcerer 66642
7thSorcerer 76653
8thSorcerer 866543
9thSorcerer 966554
10thSorcerer 10665553
Notice the spell slot cost for the Sor4’s SLA. First on a 1st level spell, then, at Sor6, on a 2nd level one


Known
LevelClass0th1st2nd3rd4th5th
1stSorcerer 142
2ndSorcerer 252
3rdSorcerer 353
4thSorcerer 4621
5thSorcerer 562+11+1
6thSorcerer 673+110+1
7thSorcerer 774+121+1
8thSorcerer 884+121+10+1
9thSorcerer 984+132+11+1
10thSorcerer 1094+132+11+10+1
The “+1”s account for the domain spells. There is also the -1 spell known from Sor4 that is a 1st level spell for Sor4 et 5th and then we switch it to the domain spell of 2nd level spells, hence the absence of “+1”s in that column

Selection
Bold for the Siren’s riders seeds and Italic for the domain spells
0th: Launch Bolt, Message, Electrical Jolt, Detect Magic, Sonic Snap, Resistance, Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Amanuensis
1st: Command, Kelgor’s Fire Bolt, Ice Dagger, Grease, Shield
2nd: Enthrall, Scorching Ray, Wings of Cover, Zone of Glacial Cold
3rd: Fireball, Fly, Suggestion
4th: Dominate Person, Celerity
5th, Command, greater





Pat is the slow witted brother in a family of 4, all mages, but at least he is spontaneous and charismatic. His parents had big plans for him, they hoped to make him one of the next leaders of the Couriers Guild but Pat was happier just delivering the mail. Seeing he at least found a way to contribute to the family business they decided to let him be. Pat uses most of his time reciting poetry which is a much appreciated way of delivering messages to his customers.

Human type lets you qualify for the Mark of Passage (1/d 10ft/lvl teleport as an SLA can really save the day) and gives you an additional feat you spend on Mark of the Dauntless that solves a lot of problems down the road. You also get Feather Fall and Disguise as a class skill, take it it’s free.
You exchange that useless cat (again, from the movie) for dragonblood sorcerer substitution levels which give you Draconic Heritage (Battle Dragon) netting you Perform as a Sorcerer class skill and a +1 vs Sonic spells and, later on, an SLA you need to qualify for Siren, very thematically appropriate.
Launch bolt is a standard action so you save up on the reloading and can actually move and shoot, life saver really. Grease, Command, Shield, Feather Fall (racial SLA) & Wings of Cover are here to make sure you get through those early levels without a hiccup. The good ones are Kelgor’s Fire Bolt since it doesn’t need an attack roll and still deals damage if SR is involved, and Ice Dagger which is useful against people that have evasions (I’m looking at you monks) and remains an AoE. Scorching Ray’s main argument is the massive damage via multiple attacks and Zone of Glacial Cold is close to the perfect seed for our riders and metamagic shenanigans ; SR: No, 20ft radius and rounds/lvl (which you can decide to cast at CL1).
Dragonblood Sorcerer 4th level lets you trade a spell known and 2 spell slots for a 3/d SLA. At 4th you’re limited to 1st level spell and anyone of your known spells will do.
We pick Domination Domain for our Domain Access ACF because we’ll need it later which gives us Spell Focus (Enchantment) for a free +1 DC to those domain spells.



Pat is studying magic intently and, even though it usually comes naturally to him, he has to admit that focused studying is worth his time. To keep up with the massive intake of data both from his studies and the logistics of his mail deliveries, he uses mnemonics in the form of storytelling or odes ; who would have known his performance would have found their use here !
His aura grows along with his self-confidence and he finds it a lot easier to deal with customers’ grievances since he can use enchantments to befriend them.

Domain Access ACF replaces your spell known by domain spells
From now on, you know one less sorcerer spell that you can cast at each subsequent level (not counting the domain spells from this alternative class feature). This implies you know those domain spells. Now that that’s out of the way, at Sor6, we can switch the spell we chose at Sor4 to be our SLA and pick Enthrall in its stead making it a standard instead of a full round spell (paying a 2nd & 3rd level slot to do so).
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get a Sonic, mind affecting ability
Getting into Incantatrix nets us 2 metamagic feats. Our signature mechanic is in place : Casting a spell with an energy descriptor makes it eligible for Energy Substitution [Electricity] which allows us to use Born of the Three Thunders. What’s more, Mark of the Dauntless negates the setbacks from it as well as from the Celerity spell, which we can now abuse.
BotTT tells us
the spell concludes with a mighty thunderclap meaning we’re looking for the biggest AoE possible, duration instantaneous (1 round is fine), and possibly SR: No.




Pat graduated and finally let his inner siren express herself : he wants to be a karaoke singer ! Old habits die hard so he always delivers the mail and his delivery method keeps getting better : he can now send multiple packages to several clients in a heartbeat singing as he does it ! Hell, sometimes customers get double what they ordered, no extra charge ! Everybody loves Pat and he revels in it.
The End.

Entering the SI right on time to have every level of it. Since we used our Enthrall SLA to qualify, we increase its DC by 2 ; the mailing service has never been so reliable.
Next comes our first song (1/d urgh…) and Charisma boost. I’ll take it ! Factoring in the +3 from ability increases by level 12, we’re looking at a solid +5 which means more spells and less lost packages in the mail.
Now the fun begins.
Picture it, as a standard action (thanks to Rapid Metamagic), casting a huge AoE spell that will deal hitpoint damage. Since it is specifically mentioned that the despair effect comes after the sonic attack, it is safe to assume that, by default, it works the other way around for the other songs. So basically, if they don’t die, get reallllly stupid, get weaker or turn to stone, they still face having to possibly be stunned and prone.
You dreamt about being able to do it all over again in the same round, celerity makes that dream come true.
Better still, as you continue progressing the SI, you gain deadlier abilities as well as Arcane Thesis, Twin Spell and Practical Metamagic and it is a BIG deal.
You see, Arcane Thesis errata in PHBII confirms that it reduces each metamagic feat’s cost you add to your Thesis spell by one. The limit is the spell’s original level.
Let’s take Arcane Thesis (Zone of Glacial Cold) since it is SR:No and requires a Fort which means no Evasion so it deals AoE damage 99% of the time.
We have Invisible +0, Energy Substitution +0, Born of the Three Thunder +0 and Twin Spell +4 for a total of +1 level adjustment, which is dealt with by Practical Metamagic; it’s +0.
Or you could pick Fireball to spite your sorcerer friends because you look cool & might even do something with it (just make sure enemies don’t have evasion).
Twin spell reads
[...]Any variable characteristics (including attack rolls) or decisions you would make about the spell (including target and area), are applied to both spells
Since you “can overlay” your sonic attacks with Siren effects, it’s actually a decision you would make about the spell meaning Twin Spell should double it at no cost!
This doubles the class abilities of the SI, madness I tell you !
Now Domain Access sure is annoying since the only 5th level we can cast is supposably Greater Command (which has no energy descriptor but see Snowcasting…) and only 1/d.
Enter, Runestaves.
They’ve never been more worth the cost; they use your DC and you can apply your metamagic mechanics on them and they allow you to use your 5th level spell slots.
Knowstones would be better since you could actually pick a 5th level spell as your Arcane Thesis (which you can’t because of Domain Access).





Must have wands
1st: Nerveskitter, Mage Armor, Grease
2nd: Web, See Invisibility, Glitterdust
3rd: Alter Fortune, Primal Instinct, Heart of Water
4th: Assay Spell Resistance, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility
You are trained in Use Magic Device and your massive Charisma should help you activate wand 50% of the time, sky’s the limit

Runestaves
4th: Ice Storm
5th: Firebrand (AoE), Acid Rain (AoE, SR:No), Boreal Wind (HUGE AoE)

Rods of Metamagic
Widen (Good one)
Enlarge



Domain Access
We need it (unless Divine Sorcery is available) to qualify for Siren but MAN this is bad. If they could have one of those “(minimum 1)” clauses on the spells known that would lessen the blow at least…

Magical locations
* Iron Will is a really annoying prereq that has the good taste of being obtainable through spending some time in an Otyugh Hole.
* Metamagic Storms are another cool magical place to visit (very flavorful way of getting Born of the Three Thunders btw) they give you a metamagic feat for a year, gotta go back afterwards.
Fun fact, you need Invisible Spell to qualify for Energy Substitution and Incantatrix but once you get BotTT, you self qualify for both, even if you lose Invisible Spell later.

What to do with freed up feat slots ?
This is the nasty-straight-out-of-France cheese, be warned.
Get Snowcasting. This feat applies the [cold] descriptor to any spell you can if you find some snow (or create it). If it’s got a cold (pun intended) you can turn it into electricity but you need it to actually do hitpoint damage to apply BotTT which is necessary for the rider effect of the Siren class.
(While we’re at it, Snilloc’s Snowball is a 2nd level spell that makes snow magically appear every round in your hand but since it’s evocation it doesn’t function as the material component needed by Snowcasting by RAW… which is stupid and I just wanted to vent here).

I give you, Nightmare. (More like, “runestaff/knowstone gives you” but you get it)
An unlimited range spell that does 1d10 damage. Grab snow, it’s 1d10 [cold] damage which means it’s BotTT compatible and you can actually use your Twinned Songs of X on living creatures from anywhere up to 5 times a day ! (Get Assay SR or True casting to punch through SR if need be, you got all the time in the world anyway).

Other Snowcasting candidates are :
0th: Launch Bolt (gotta use them cantrips)
1st: Hail of Stone, Jet of Steam
2nd: Magical Backlash, Scourge of Force
3rd: Arcane Maul, Junglerazer
4th: Vortex of Teeth, Doom Scarabs, WIngs of Flurry (+1CL since Dragonblood)
5th: Shard Storm

Other candidates for free feat slots are :
1) Spontaneous spellcaster. Obviously
2) Reserves of Strength just because you can flaunt your stun immunity once more and justify having Iron Will.
1) & 2) + Arcane Thesis together mean you can reach CL19 (even better, a bead of karma increases it to 23 thanks to Reserves of Strength going beyond the HD cap)
3) Versatile Spellcaster is always a nice addition for more high level spells.
4) Extra Spell could help you get a nice 4th level spell (Ice Storm comes to mind). You can even trade Practical Metamagic for it since Twin Spell will be a +1, effectively making your Ice Storm use a 5th level slot.
5) Draconic Power. +1 CL and DC on spells with [sound] ? Yes please

Sorcerers can’t have nice things…
…but they do in Dragon Mag. If your DM allows it, Divine Sorcery at level 1 is enough to qualify AND doesn’t eat up 5 spells known.
Also, if Knowstones are on the table, get’em all.




SRD - Sorcerer, spells, Iron Will
Player’s Guide to Faêrun - Incantatrix
Savage Species - Siren
Complete Divine - Domain Access ACF
Races of the Dragon - Dragonblood Sorcerer
Complete Scoundrel - Magical Locations (Otyugh Hole, Metamagic Storm)
Magic Item Compendium - Item list, wands
Dragon Mag - Knowstones (#333), Divine Sorcery (#343)

Feats
Dragonlance Campaign Setting - Reserves of Strength
Races of the Dragon - Versatile Spellcaster, Practical Metamagic, Draconic Heritage/Power
Complete Arcane - Twin Spell, Practiced Spellcaster, Born of the Three Thunders, Energy Substitution
Complete Mage - Rapid Metamagic
Cityscape - Invisible Spell
Eberron Campaign Setting - Least Dragonmark of Passage
Dragonmarked - Mark of the Dauntless
Frostburn - Snowcasting

Spells
Spell Compendium - Most spells, Domination Domain
Frostburn - Zone of Glacial Cold, Boreal Wind
Secrets of Sarlona - Arcane Maul
Champions of Ruin - Scourge of Force
Complete Mage - Jet of Steam, Heart of Water
Unapproachable East - Snilloc’s Snowball
Drows of the Underdark - Magical Backlash
Player’s Handbook II - Doom Scarabs, Alter Fortune, Kelgor’s Fire Bolt, Celerity
Underdark - Hail of Stone, Kelgor’s Fire Bolt, Celerity
Dragon Magic - Primal Instinct, Wings of Cover

[The Viscount]

Only half, mind you.



Valerion the half-mad Champion of Milil
Link to the picture because it is rather large:
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/6f9ae728-9170-43c4-bb84-153df8dd0174/dd5mjkc-ded170b8-a6a6-4cb3-9a34-9e5d7dd31469.jpg/v1/fill/w_800,h_1132,q_75,strp/dnd_aasimar_paladin_colour_by_hodahcity_dd5mjkc-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI 1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNh NWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMT g4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7 InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzZmOWFlNzI4LTkxNzAtNDNjNC1iYjg0LT E1M2RmOGRkMDE3NFwvZGQ1bWprYy1kZWQxNzBiOC1hNmE2LTRj YjMtOWEzNC05ZTVkN2RkMzE0NjkuanBnIiwiaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD 0xMTMyIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTgwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46 c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS53YXRlcm1hcmsiXSwid21rIjp7InBhdG giOiJcL3dtXC82ZjlhZTcyOC05MTcwLTQzYzQtYmI4NC0xNTNk ZjhkZDAxNzRcL2hvZGFoY2l0eS00LnBuZyIsIm9wYWNpdHkiOj k1LCJwcm9wb3J0aW9ucyI6MC40NSwiZ3Jhdml0eSI6ImNlbnRl ciJ9fQ.He5cgIQumwY193ObfEmbslYiVEd3qu8gGQncWEoE3aw

LG lesser aasimar binder 3/paladin (harmonious knight of milil) 2/siren 10/knight of the sacred seal 5
Deity: Milil


Ekmar Thundersong knew Valerion since the day he came to join the Harmonious Knights. Valerion was a remarkable aspirant and proofed to be a formidable member of the organisation. He quickly rose to fame. On a good day he was an inspiring leader and fearsome fighter. On a bad day he was a lunatic without any focus but still the same fearsome fighter. Ekmar stood next to Ylvi. She was a newer member of the Harmonious Knights. Still she knew Valerions quirks already. Everybody new.
"Good day or bad day?" Ylvi inquired. "Bad" Ekmar said. "He made the pact and instantly chanted the first 6 seconds of Breinhart the brave. Then he stopped and wandered off to look at a curious stone before regaining focus and looking at the gathering off enemies outside the gate. He asked me if the defenders are ready and when I tried to answer he already gathered his gear. As always I helped him don his armor which took quite some time but he is battle ready now." Ylvi smirked and shook her head. "Since we already know Valerion always adresses the enemy to give them a chance to retreat. What do you think will happen?" Ekmar looked over the gathered army of hobgoblins outside the walls. "Usually he has a pretty epic speech for such occasions. Ekmar impersonated Valerions deep voice: 'If you cross this line, I must consider you a mortal enemy and will not shy away from mortal attacks. If you attack, be aware that you face the Harmonious Knights of Milil and will be punished by the voice of our god.' But today is a bad day and I have seen some very odd things happening in the prebattle exchange. So your guess is as good as mine." In this very moment Valerion climbed the battlement and the gathered Harmonious Knights watched him with a mixture of awe and excitement. Anything could happen. Outside the walls a hobgoblin came forward. Obviously the leader of the warband. "You ready to die for this hamlet?", he snarled in common. Valerion said nothing but glared at the hobgoblin. Ekmar was sure this was not intentional but it had an effect. The hobgoblin seemed to get angrier. "I said: are you ready to die?" Valerion turned around and showed his back to the hobgoblin. "As always: keep at least 30 feet away from me." Then he turned again and yelled: "Milil's voice will be the death of you if you attack! Flowers of the south are greener in winter." The Hobgoblin looked utterly confused. Ylvi laughed but immediately stopped when Ekmar pulled at her sleeve. "Come at once to the south gate. Bring your division." Ylvi did as she was told. When she had caught up to Elkmar, she asked panting: "What just happened?" Ekmar explained rushing up the battlement. "Valerion's madness has a method. He sometimes works hidden messages in his speeches. What he really said, was: 'Check the south.'" Just as they reached the battlement a small group of Hobgoblins tried to scale the battlements. They were repelled easily. When Ekmar and Ylvi returned to Valerion the Hobgoblins had retreated. Obviously their plan was foiled and they didn't want to risk a full scale attack without an advantage. Ylvi looked at Valerion in awe. "How did you know?", she asked. Valerion just shrugged. "I didn't. The leader kept looking south. That was all." Ekmar clapped Valerion on his shoulder. "I am glad we established our secret code a long time ago."



Attributes




Base
Racial modifiers
Character level increase
Siren
Final


Strength
14

-

14


Dexterity
14

-

14


Constitution
14

-

14


Intelligence
12

-

12


Wisdom
8
+2
-

10


Charisma
16
+2
+5 (4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 20th)
+5 (8th, 11th, 13th)
28




Table



Level
Class
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
Binder
+0
+0
+0
+2
Intimidate 4, bluff 4, knowledge (arcana) 4, knowledge (planes) 4, perform (chanting) 2
Nymph's Kiss
Soul binding (1 vestige)


2nd
Binder
+1
+0
+0
+3
Intimidate 5, bluff 5, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 4, knowledge (religion) 1, perform (chanting) 2
-
Pact augmentation (+5 HP), suppress sign


3rd
Binder
+2
+1
+1
+3
Intimidate 6, bluff 6, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 4, knowledge (religion) 1, perform (chanting) 3
Favored vestige (Dahlver-Nar)
-


4th
Paladin (Harmonious knight)
+3
+3
+1
+3
Intimidate 6, bluff 6, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 4, knowledge (religion) 1, perform (chanting) 7
-
Aura of good, inspire courage +1, smite evil 1/day


5th
Paladin (Harmonious knight)
+4
+4
+1
+3
Intimidate 6, bluff 6, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 4, knowledge (religion) 4, perform (chanting) 8
-
Divine grace, lay on hands


6th
Siren
+4
+3
+1
+5
Intimidate 9, bluff 7, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 4, knowledge (religion) 4, perform (chanting) 8, Never outnumbered
Imperious command, Reverberation (B)
Bonus feat


7th
Siren
+5
+3
+1
+6
Intimidate 10, bluff 10, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 4, perform (chanting) 8, Never outnumbered
-
Song of despair


8th
Siren
+6
+4
+2
+6
Intimidate 11, bluff 11, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, Diplomacy 2, Never outnumbered
-
Cha +2


9th
Siren
+7
+4
+2
+7
Intimidate 12, bluff 12, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, Diplomacy 6, Never outnumbered
Rapid Recovery
Song of nightmare


10th
Siren
+7
+4
+2
+7
Intimidate 13, bluff 13, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, Diplomacy 10, Never outnumbered
-
Song of idiocy


11th
Siren
+8
+5
+3
+8
Intimidate 14, bluff 14, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, Diplomacy 14, Never outnumbered
-
Cha +4


12th
Siren
+9
+5
+3
+8
Intimidate 15, bluff 15, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, Diplomacy 15, Gather information 3, Never outnumbered
Combat Panache
Song of weakness


13th
Siren
+10
+5
+3
+9
Intimidate 16, bluff 16, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 16, gather information 6, never outnumbered
-
Cha +5


14th
Siren
+10
+6
+4
+9
Intimidate 17, bluff 17, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 17, gather information 9, never outnumbered
-
Song of stone


15th
Siren
+11
+7
+4
+10
Intimidate 18, bluff 18, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 18, gather information 12, never outnumbered
Weapon Focus (Glaive)
Song of Death


16th
Knight of the Sacred Seal
+12
+9
+4
+10
Intimidate 19, bluff 19, knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (planes) 6, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 19, gather information 12, never outnumbered
-
Aligned Strike, patron vestige (Dahlver-Nar), soul binding +1


17th
Knight of the Sacred Seal
+13
+10
+4
+10
Intimidate 20, bluff 20, knowledge (arcana) 6, knowledge (planes) 6, knowledge (religion) 5, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 20, gather information 12, never outnumbered
-
vestige protection, soul binding +2


18th
Knight of the Sacred Seal
+14
+10
+5
+11
Intimidate 21, bluff 21, knowledge (arcana) 6, knowledge (planes) 6, knowledge (religion) 6, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 21, gather information 12, never outnumbered
Widen supernatural ability
Vestige protection aura, soul binding +3


19th
Knight of the Sacred Seal
+15
+11
+5
+11
Intimidate 22, bluff 22, knowledge (arcana) 7, knowledge (planes) 6, knowledge (religion) 6, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 22, gather information 12, never outnumbered
-
Vetige's power, soul binding +4


20th
Knight of the Sacred Seal
+16
+11
+5
+11
Intimidate 23, bluff 23, knowledge (arcana) 7, knowledge (planes) 7, knowledge (religion) 6, perform (chanting) 8, diplomacy 23, gather information 12, never outnumbered
-
Apotheosis, vestige's surge, soul binding +5





Siren is rather peculiar prestige class. Asking myself why would I want to enter the class, I came to one conclusion: Siren has a 3/4 BAB and no spell progression, therefor I didn't want to enter via a spellcasting class. Incidentally the first sonic mind-affecting ability that wasn't a racial ability I remembered was maddening moan. Binder seemed a viable entry: Bluff and Intimidate as class skills, 3/4 BAB and enough support for maddening moan to be relevant until Siren's overlays matter more. The last 5 levels also came rather obvious in the form of Knight of the Sacred Seal, which has a capstone that is really great with a vestige power that has a cooldown like maddening moan. Dahlver-Nar already has the frontline flavor and I wasn't quite happy with Binder 5 and apprentice (entertainer) as a 1st level feat. So I looked into Paladin and Harmonious Knight made the Perform skill prerequisite easy. It also locked in Aasimar as a race because they have Paladin as a favored class which makes the first 5 levels more convenient and of course Aasimars have a Charisma bonus without a Constitution penalty which IIRC is a unique feature of Aasimars. Already being an Aasimar and LG also opened up exalted feats and Nymph's Kiss was the last piece to the puzzle that made my stat array very easy and skill ranks allocation convenient. Regarding Bluff and Paladins: working a secret message into something trivial is one possible use of bluff according to the PHB and I cannot imagine anyone declaring that as not honorable.
Dalhver-Nar's influence offers a unique roleplaying ability which i tried to display in the story above. Using perform for 6 seconds and then stop and wander off watching the sky speaks volumes of the madness conferred by Dahlver-Nar. Since you cannot concentrate for longer than one round ranks in diplomacy and gather information only make sense when your able to hit the DC of 17 more regularly. Knight of the sacred seal solves that problem at level 16 by simply making bad pacts impossible.

Level 1-2: Since I didn't want to waste a feat on Improved Binding and Binder 1/Paladin 2/x2 didn't help my build in any way, these 2 levels are a little tough. Mostly you will bind Amon or Aym (if you wear medium armor). Your weapon of choice would be the best simple weapon you find (probably a spear or Morningstar/heavy Mace). Demoralizing is an option other that hitting enemies in combat. Pact Augmentation for 5 HP seems the best option to me.


Level 3-5: Dahlver-Nar's maddening moan is a sonic mind-affecting supernatural ability. It is a standard action 30 feet radius will save or be dazed for 1 round which you can use every 5 rounds (save DC 10+ 1/2 effective binder level + Cha mod). There is a catch though: it affects everyone. So there are two solutions to this problem: 1. Your allies are all immune to mind-affecting abilities (which will happen at some point if mindblank is available). 2. They don't come near you. Since the build is meant to frontline, option 2 is doable. Inspire courage has no hard range cap which means all you need to do is sing loud enough. Shield-Self is a great frontline ability. Either force it onto someone else or share your hp loss with an ally. +1 Natural armor isn't great but there are worse vestige powers. The immunities to wisdom damage and drain, insanity, madness and confusion effects are something I feel get not enough credit. Allips have wiped the floor with many parties. Being flatout immune to their drain attack is absolute invaluable when it comes up.
At level 4 Paladin proficiencies allow wearing the heaviest armor possible and switching to a Glaive or Sword and Board whichever you prefer. Divine Grace, Smite Evil and lay on hands are nice to have on a high charisma build

Level 6 is remarkable in bringing together the Intimidate combo of Imperious command and never outnumbered. Since Never outnumbered again works against every enemy within 30 feet, doing this first and then follow it up with maddening moan is serious battlefield control at level 6. Reverbation increases the DC of maddening by two which is the equivalent of four effective binder levels.
Level 7 adds the first overlay effect and crushing despair is another debuff to throw at enemies.
At Level 8 Charisma jumps from 18 to 22. Rapid recovery at level 9 reduces the cooldown of maddening moan. Song of nightmare and song of idiocy are two new options. The former being a little underwhelming, the latter being flat-out amazing vs arcane casters.
At level 10 my goal in combat would be to go for maddening moan + crushing despair on the first turn enemies are in range. Follow it up with Imperious command and never outnumbered (or in the same turn if you got your hands on fearsome armor from Drow of the Underdark and demoralize as a move action). Then you probably have one (or two) turn(s) to either use shield self on an enemy or simply hitting them before you can moan again in round 4 overlaying either nightmare or idiocy or both.
Diplomacy finally has enough ranks to be an option out of combat but remember those days where you made a bad pact ;)

Level 11-15:
Improving the tactics with more options: Combat Panache is one of my favorite feats. Now there may be doubts whether Combat Panache violates a Paladin's code of conduct. To me the options in Combat Panache have nothing to with fighting without honor but using your brain. If your DM disagrees go for planar touchstone instead (increase ranks in knowledge the planes) and pick up any domain power you like. I considered the war domain for the feat tax of Knight of the sacred seal but I like Combat panache better. Glaive is my favorite frontline weapon because of the reach. Therefor it was chosen as a weapon focus.
Song of weakness, song of stone and song of death all are amazing overlay effects for maddening moan. At level 15 the DC against any song is 28 (without any item enhancement bonus). That is a high number. Song of death probably is even the weakest versus a BBEG but boy will it wipe the floor with mooks.
The last skill to get some ranks is Gather information solely because it is charisma based and therefor benefits from the charisma score and nymph's kiss.

Level 16-20:
Aligned Strike is everything smite evil would like to be. Patron vestige finally gets rid off Dahlver-Nar's sometimes annoying influence. Vestige's protection adds Cha to AC and reflex saves as an insight bonus. Very handy. One level later all in 30 feet can enjoy this bonus. Vestige's power is a great buff for your hitting people round in your routine. Lastly vestige's surge is amazing. Maddening moan with overlay effects in two consecutive rounds. Welcome to my 60 feet (widen supernatural ability) circle of pain (or death). Apropos widen supernatural ability: at level 18 I expect allies to be protected by mindblank or so mobile that they never get within 60 feet.

Gear:
Other than the aforementioned fearsome armor enhancement, a sudden stunning weapon (DMG II p. 261) is an amazing weapon for Valerion to wield.


Sources:
Binder: Tome of Magic
Paladin Harmonious Knight sub level: Champions of Valor
Knight of the Sacred Seal: Tome of Magic
Nymph's kiss: Book of Exalted Deeds
Favored Vestige: Tome of Magic
Imperious Command: Drow of the Underdark
Rapid Recovery: Tome of Magic
Combat Panache: Player's Handbook II p.92
Widen Supernatural Ability: Tome of Magic
Never Outnumbered: Complete Scoundrel

[The Viscount]

Cryin' like a Lion.


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/39/ee/7539eef21fb5d557054d2055d2decc20.jpg

Simon was the son of a Cirque owner. On the one hand this gave him many different skills: he knows how to take care of animals, can do something in acrobatics, and knows how to work a room. But his main duty almost always was to be a guard, looking on in public during the show, sometimes he needed to calm drunks with his look or even his club.
Simon's father wasn't a good person, on the contrary, he was a tyrant. He ruled his Cirque with iron hand and cruelty. And he raised his son in the same way - total respect for the law and ruthlessness. Even more, Simon became almost zealot of this philosophy. Because of his eagerness he became a worshiper of Bane. Not as a cleric, but as a paladin.
With his father’s management style, it wasn’t surprising that one day, Simon found himself orphan in a prison on the charge of murdering his father. The troupe just got impatient and poisoned both son and father. After this it wasn't too hard to put all parts together to show scene of the murder in way that them needed.
Simon had to put on all his eloquence to avoid falling into the deepest and smelliest pit in the prison. Oratory skills weren't enough, but Simon was lucky. The prison commander turned out to be Banite, too, and Simon managed to get his attention. With his help Simon cleared his name and left the prison. But by this time ungrateful backstabbers… they had time to run away.
Simon chased them for more than a month and when overtaken them he was very angry and frightening! When he punished murderers, Simon found himself alone with five wagons between of nothere. He couldn’t just leave it there - it was his inheritance, but he couldn’t operate all wagons alone.
- Oh, I see you have some problems here, - there was a mocking voice from one of the zoo cells. It was a circus harpy - Simon’s father got her several years ago. Her beautiful singing and ugly appearance combined were getting some good coins, - Good shouting, by the way.
- Shut up monster! I'm thinking!
- About what? What is the first thing to get rid of? I’ll give you a hint: the most problematic asset here is me.
- You are right, but why did you start this talk? Wanna die?
- Opposite, - harpy laughed, - I have the solution for your dilemma that works for all of us.
- I listening.
- You can’t drive all carriages at the same time, but I can captivate all horses at once and draw them away in the needed direction. But I require freedom for this.
- It isn't a fair deal. You’ll do this anyway. Otherwise you’ll die, you said yourself, you are my most problematic asset.
- Well, I can add something on my part of the deal. Your voice. Do you know the limits of its power? It is something far more that just scares the peasants down their pants. It’s power above minds and deaths! And I can show you the way.
Simon thought about this offer.
- If it is true… I promise you freedom, but if you lie, you’ll die! And your death will not be easy, I swear to Bane!

LE Human Paladin of Tyranny 4/Marshal 1/Siren 10/Singh Rager 5
Abilities Initial 4th 8th 12th 16th 18th 20th Total
STR 13 13
DEX 10 10
CON 12 12
INT 14 14
WIS 13 13
CHA 16 1 3 1 3 1 1 26
Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Paladin of Tyranny (Unholy Warrior)-1 1 2 0 0 22: {+3 CC} Bluff: 1.5; {+4} Diplomacy: 4; {+2} Handle Animal: 2; {+3 CC} Intimidate: 1.5; {+4} Perform (Oratory): 4; {+2} Tumble: 2; {+4} Sense Motive: 4; Apprentice (Entertainer), Power Attack (H) Aura of evil, detect good, smite good 1/day
2nd Paladin of Tyranny-2 2 3 0 0 5: {+1 CC} Bluff: 2; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; Handle Animal: 2; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 2; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 5; Tumble: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 5; Divine grace, deadly touch
3rd Paladin of Tyranny-3 3 3 1 1 5: {+1 CC} Bluff: 2.5; {+1} Diplomacy: 6; Handle Animal: 2; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 2.5; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 6; Tumble: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 6; Kiai Shout Aura of despair, divine health
4th Paladin of Tyranny-4 4 4 1 1 5: {+1 CC} Bluff: 3; {+1} Diplomacy: 7; Handle Animal: 2; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 3; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 7; Tumble: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 7; Divine Might (B) Rebuke undead
5th Marshal-1 4 6 1 3 7: {+3} Bluff: 6; Diplomacy: 7; Handle Animal: 2; {+3} Intimidate: 6; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 8; Tumble: 2; Sense Motive: 7; Skill Focus (Diplomacy) (B) Skill Focus (Diplomacy), minor aura (Over the Top)
6th Siren-1 4 6 1 5 7: {+2} Bluff: 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 8; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 7; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 9; Tumble: 2; Sense Motive: 7; {+2} Social Recovery; Iron Will, Reverberation (Kiai Shout) (B) Reverberation
7th Siren-2 5 6 1 6 7: {+1} Bluff: 9; Diplomacy: 8; {+5} Gather Information: 5; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 8; Perform (Oratory): 9; Tumble: 2; Sense Motive: 7; Social Recovery; Song of despair
8th Siren-3 6 7 2 6 7: {+1} Bluff: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 9; Gather Information: 5; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 9; {+2} Perform (Oratory): 11; Tumble: 2; {+2} Sense Motive: 9; Social Recovery; Charisma bonus +2
9th Siren-4 7 9 2 8 7: {+1} Bluff: 11; {+1} Diplomacy: 10; {+1} Gather Information: 6; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 10; {+3} Listen: 3; Perform (Oratory): 11; Tumble: 2; Sense Motive: 9; Social Recovery; Combat Focus Song of nightmare
10th Singh Rager-1 8 10 2 9 5: Bluff: 11; Diplomacy: 10; Gather Information: 6; {+1} Handle Animal: 3; Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 1; Listen: 3; Perform (Oratory): 11; {+1} Tumble: 3; Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 1; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 1; Social Recovery; Greater Kiai Shout (B) Lion's roar, Great Ki Shout
11th Singh Rager-2 9 10 3 9 5: Bluff: 11; Diplomacy: 10; Gather Information: 6; {+1} Handle Animal: 4; Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 2; Listen: 3; Perform (Oratory): 11; {+1} Tumble: 4; Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 2; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 2; Social Recovery; Lion's fury 3/day
12th Singh Rager-3 10 11 3 10 5: Bluff: 11; Diplomacy: 10; Gather Information: 6; {+1} Handle Animal: 5; Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 3; Listen: 3; Perform (Oratory): 11; {+1} Tumble: 5; Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 3; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 3; Social Recovery; Combat Vigor, Diehard (B) Lion's courage, Diehard
13th Singh Rager-4 11 11 3 10 5: Bluff: 11; Diplomacy: 10; Gather Information: 6; {+1} Handle Animal: 6; Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 4; Listen: 3; Perform (Oratory): 11; {+1} Tumble: 6; Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 4; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 4; Social Recovery; Lion's pounce
14th Singh Rager-5 12 11 3 11 5: Bluff: 11; Diplomacy: 10; Gather Information: 6; {+1} Handle Animal: 7; Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 5; Listen: 3; Perform (Oratory): 11; {+1} Tumble: 7; Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 5; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 5; Social Recovery; Roaring strike
15th Siren-5 12 11 3 11 7: {+1} Bluff: 12; {+1} Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Gather Information: 7; Handle Animal: 7; {+1} Intimidate: 11; Jump: 5; {+2} Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 12; Tumble: 7; Sense Motive: 9; Sleight of Hand: 5; Iaijutsu Focus: 5; Social Recovery; Blind-Fight Song of idiocy
16th Siren-6 13 12 4 12 7: {+1} Bluff: 13; {+1} Diplomacy: 12; {+1} Gather Information: 8; Handle Animal: 7; {+1} Intimidate: 12; Jump: 5; Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 13; Tumble: 7; Sense Motive: 9; Sleight of Hand: 5; Iaijutsu Focus: 5; {+2} Listen to This, Social Recovery; Charisma bonus +4
17th Siren-7 14 12 4 12 7: {+1} Bluff: 14; {+1} Diplomacy: 13; {+1} Gather Information: 9; Handle Animal: 7; {+2} Intimidate: 14; Jump: 5; Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 14; Tumble: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 10; Sleight of Hand: 5; Iaijutsu Focus: 5; Listen to This, Social Recovery; Song of weakness
18th Siren-8 15 12 4 13 7: {+1} Bluff: 15; {+1} Diplomacy: 14; {+1} Gather Information: 10; Handle Animal: 7; {+2} Intimidate: 16; Jump: 5; Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 15; Tumble: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 11; Sleight of Hand: 5; Iaijutsu Focus: 5; Listen to This, Social Recovery; Combat Awareness Charisma bonus +5
19th Siren-9 15 13 5 13 7: {+1} Bluff: 16; {+1} Diplomacy: 15; {+1} Gather Information: 11; Handle Animal: 7; {+2} Intimidate: 18; Jump: 5; Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 16; Tumble: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 12; Sleight of Hand: 5; Iaijutsu Focus: 5; Listen to This, Social Recovery; Song of stone
20th Siren-10 16 14* 5 14 7: {+1} Bluff: 17; {+1} Diplomacy: 16; {+1} Gather Information: 12; Handle Animal: 7; {+2} Intimidate: 20; Jump: 5; Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Oratory): 17; Tumble: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 13; Sleight of Hand: 5; Iaijutsu Focus: 5; Listen to This, Social Recovery; Song of death

* - +1 Fortitude on 10th Siren's level is obvious typo, but it is in book, so let it be here.

Simon is Paladin of Bane. With some cross-class skills and Divine Might feat instead of spellcasting. Apprentice (Entertainer) represents Simon's circus background and Kiai Shout gives not bad combat debuff. Level of Marshal opens some skill diversity and a second way to add Charisma to damage.
Simon's weapon of choice is anything two-handed. There is greatsword or greataxe? Good. Only longsword or longspear? Ok, use it. Quarterstaff? Well, if there are nothing more...
With guidance of the harpy Simon starts his way of Siren. And latter take the first level of the Singh Rager. Simon always loved big cates, especially lions. Their pride and dignity are part of Simon's purpose in life. Even his favorite battle tactics - frightening roar - was looked up from the circus lion. Now he improves this ability with free Greater Kiai Shout feat, additional numbers of uses and +4 to DC. More important, with Lion's Roar's text:

...and the Difficulty Class of the fear effect is increased by 4.
this +4 DC should be added to Song of nightmare, too.
Four more levels of Singh Rager give Simon Rage 3/day, Pounce, fear immunity, free Diehard, and possibility to use Kiai Shout (and therefore Siren's rider effects, too) with free action! Combat Vigor and especially Blind-Fight are mostly prerequisites, although fast healing 2 (later 4) is a nice bonus.
Simon goes into Siren to the very end. Very good attacks: Enervation, Flesh to Stone and Power Word, Kill. With earlier Feeblemind, Phantasmal Killer and Crushing Despair it can be a very dangerous combo. PWK and CD are usable only once, but CD is always used with first charge - doesn't matter should it work or not - and PWK when Combat Awareness notices that there are the right number of HP.
With Charisma 26 Simon has 12 uses of Kiai Shout, and this is sufficient for all Siren's songs. DC is 30, 34 for Song of nightmare and Kiai Shout itself.
If Simon will encounter somebody who is immune to fear, he anyway could charge opponent with 4 attacks with +16 damage on each.

Kiai Shout doesn't have in text something like "sonic" or "mind-affecting," but it definitely is fear ability and Rules Compendium says us:

Fear attacks can have various consequences, but all of them are mind-affecting fear effects.
so mind-affecting is in game. Sonic is another story. I have no any points but feat name and "Opponents who can hear your shout" sentence in feat benefit.

I should mention. There are feats (Greater) Kiai Shout in Complete Warrior and (Greater) Ki Shout in Oriental Adventures. It looks like it are the same feats with a bit different names, but there are difference in benefits, too. One time per day or three. This isn't important for this build, because on 10th level he anyway gets four + Cha mod times per day.

Element Book Page
Paladin Players Handbook 42
Paladin of Tyranny Unearthed Arcana 53
Holy Warrior Complete Champion 49
Marshal Miniatures Handbook 11
Siren Savage Species 84
Singh Rager Oriental Adventures 48
Singh Rager update Dragon #318 32-48
Apprentice Dungeon Master's Guide II 176
Power Attack Players Handbook 98
Kiai Shout Complete Warrior 102
Divine Might Complete Warrior 106
Skill Focus Players Handbook 100
Iron Will Players Handbook 97
Reverberation Savage Species 39
Combat Focus Players Handbook II 87
Greater Kiai Shout Complete Warrior 99
Combat Vigor Players Handbook II 88
Diehard Players Handbook 93
Blind-Fight Players Handbook 89
Combat Awareness Players Handbook II 86
Listen to This Complete Scoundrel 87
Social Recovery Complete Scoundrel 89

[The Viscount]

He's following you, about thirty feet back.


The Shrieking Terror, Nimluth the CN Forestfolk

You hear a shriek in the woods in the middle of the night, and you’re immediately paralyzed with fear. As you stand frozen in shock, little creatures descend from the trees, surround you, and stab at you with daggers. This keeps up until your fright ends or until you die. Your parents always told you to avoid the woods at night because faeries will kidnap you or that you’d age 50 years in one night, but they never prepared you for this. If they leave you alive, it will only be so that you can run home and warn your friends and family: deadly fey creatures live in those woods, and you’re lucky you got out alive.

A dragon moved into the forest, and it took a lot of negotiating to NOT be considered food or nuisances. Nimluth dreamt of a time when he and his folk wouldn’t need to cower in fear of the winged beast nearby. With this concern looming large in his mind, he grew to be especially skillful at deterrence, and eventually left home to gain strength and learn new skills, hoping to grow stronger than any encroaching reptile.

32 Point Buy: Strength 12, Dexterity 10, Constitution 14, Intelligence/Wisdom 10, Charisma 18
Forestfolk Racial Adjustments: Strength 8, Dexterity/Constitution 16, Intelligence/Wisdom 8, Charisma 16
Level 4: Strength 8, Dexterity/Constitution 16, Intelligence/Wisdom 8, Charisma 17
Level 8: Strength 8, Dexterity/Constitution 16, Intelligence/Wisdom 8, Charisma 20
Level 10: Strength 8, Dexterity 16, Constitution 18, Intelligence/Wisdom 10, Charisma 20
Level 12: Strength 10, Dexterity 16, Constitution 19, Intelligence/Wisdom 10, Charisma 20
Level 15: Strength 10, Dexterity 16, Constitution 19, Intelligence/Wisdom 10, Charisma 22
Level 16: Strength 10, Dexterity 16, Constitution 20, Intelligence/Wisdom 10, Charisma 22
Level 18: Strength 10, Dexterity 16, Constitution 20, Intelligence/Wisdom 10, Charisma 24





Level

Class

Base Attack Bonus

Fort Save

Reflex Save

Will Save

Skills

Feats

Class Features


1st

Fey 1

0

0

2

2

Bluff 1, Climb 2, Hide 4, Move Silently 4, Spot 4, Survival 4

Weapon Finesse, Hunting Cry

Bonus Feat (Weapon Finesse), Racial Features


2nd

Fey 2

1

0

3

3

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 5, Move Silently 5, Spot 5, Survival 5








3rd

Fey 3

1

1

3

3

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 6, Move Silently 6, Spot 6, Speak Language (Draconic) 1, Survival 5

Goad





4th

Fey 4

2

1

4

4

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 7, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5








5th

Battle Dancer

3

1

6

4

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 7, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 3, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Improved Unarmed Strike

AC Bonus, Unarmed Strike


6th

Warblade 1

4

3

6

4

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 7, Intimidate 3, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 3, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Force of Personality

Maneuvers, Weapon Aptitude, Battle clarity (reflex saves)


7th

Warblade 2

5

4

6

4

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 7, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 3, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5




Uncanny Dodge


8th

Dragon Devotee 1

5

6

6

4

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 7, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 4.5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5




Natural Armor, Ability Increase (+2 Charisma)


9th

Dragon Devotee 2

6

7

6

4

Bluff 1.5, Climb 2, Hide 7, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Sudden Ability Focus, Weapon Focus (Handaxe)

Draconic Resistance, Combat Technique


10th

Dragon Devotee 3

7

7

7

5

Bluff 4, Climb 2, Hide 7, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5




Ability Increase (+2 Constitution), Ignore Spell Failure


11th

Dragon Devotee 4

8

8

7

5

Bluff 5.5, Climb 2, Hide 7, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Improved Toughness

Claws, Combat Technique


12th

Dragon Devotee 5

8

8

7

5

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 8, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Martial Stance (Absolute Steel)

Ability Increase (+2 Strength), Draconic Creature Template


13th

Siren 1

8

8

7

7

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 9, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 7.5, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Reverberation

Bonus Feat (Reverberation)


14th

Siren 2

9

8

7

8

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 10, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 8, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5




Song of Despair


15th

Siren 3

10

9

8

8

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 11, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 8.5, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Sudden Ability Focus

Charisma Bonus +2


16th

Siren 4

11

9

8

9

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 12, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 9, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5




Song of Nightmare


17th

Siren 5

11

9

8

9

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 13, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 9.5, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5




Song of Idiocy


18th

Siren 6

12

10

9

10

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 14, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 10, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5

Vital Recovery

Charisma Bonus +4


19th

Siren 7

13

10

9

10

Bluff 6, Climb 2, Hide 15, Intimidate 7, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Move Silently 10, Perform (Chant) 5, Spot 7, Speak Language 1, Survival 5




Song of Weakness





Spells Known (5 0th-lvl; 2 1st-lvl)(Spells/day: 6 0th-lvl; 6 1st-lvl):
0th Level: Light, Disrupt Undead, Ray of Frost, Daze, Prestidigitation
1st Level: Lesser Orb of Sound, Endure Elements


Maneuvers per Day/Maneuvers Known
3 readied, 4 maneuvers known, 1 stance known
Stance: Punishing Stance (Iron Heart)
Maneuvers Known: Mountain Hammer, Steel Wind, Steely Strike, Wolf Fang Strike





So at these levels, our intrepid hero is just a lowly fey, a member of his forestfolk brethren with a stronger cry than normal and a swashbuckling personality in battle. He’s committed to the defense of his homeland, and has trained in the art of hiding from foes. His ranks in Hide, Move Silently, and Spot are crucial for his hit-and-run style. He’s also taken some lessons from the forest’s dragon in the hopes of being better able to serve it. A contented dragon is less likely to eat the 3-foot tall critters nearby than a displeased dragon.

Nimluth has learned some warrior techniques to better defend his kind. He’s more Intimidating than before, which he uses to scare people before his terrifying shriek. Not much to say, he’s just a tad bit better at fighting, that’s it. At least he has proficiency with stronger weapons, which makes for more efficient Coups de Grace.

By now, his devotion to the local dragon has earned him a measure of power. Mechanically speaking, the PrC gets him a couple bonus combat feats, +2 Con/Cha/Str (each useful for increasing valuable DCs), a natural armor bonus, and a couple levels of sorcerer casting. He’s dabbling in martial and arcane techniques, and it’s helping him be slightly better at defense of his forest home. Nimluth is tougher and better with an ax than ever before. From a story perspective, not much has changed. Nimluth has grown stronger as a warrior and more skilled but he’s not at the height of his strength. He’s ready for the final stage of development.

So for a while now he’s been leaning on his deathly shriek as his weapon of choice. And as he hits level 19, he can now weaken his foes even more. With his Hunting Cry, he leads with a Feeblemind effect first, and if he survives between 10 and 50 seconds (the recharge), Nimluth can follow it up with a blast of negative levels. Additionally, if he wants to do something between Hunting Cries, he can lob a Lesser Orb of Sound at a single target to tack on the benefits of another spell-effect. All of this to better serve his ability to defend his home from foes. He knows his defenses are low, so he relies on Hide rolls to duck in and out of concealment, hoping that he’s inflicted an effect or two on them.




At level 19 (ecl 20), his Hunting Cry has a DC of 28 Fortitude (10 + half-HD + Con-Mod + Ability Focus + Reverberation), though with a +6 Con Belt, it’s a 31, and with a +4 inherent bonus it’ll come out to 33. That’s strong enough that a Pit Fiend fails about half the time, and a Balor slightly more than half the time. His Siren abilities have a DC of 26 Fortitude or Will (or a 29 with enhancement circlet), which are more easily resisted by the Pit Fiend and Balor. Sadly, there’s not much that’ll increase the DC of a supernatural ability. However, looking at dragons with CRs near 20, those DCs are competitive. The build does what it sets out to do: maximize the potential of the Hunting Cry while also highlighting the potential of Siren.


PHB, PHB 2, Races of the Dragon, Races of Stone, Dragon Compendium, Tome of Magic, Tome of Battle, Savage Species (of course), Complete Adventurer, Monster Manual, Complete Arcane, and Fey Feature (Energy Fey: Forestfolk)(Rip archives)

[The Viscount]

The last crack you'll ever need.



The Chiro Pterackter




Lawful Neutral Nycter (MM3 p.113)




3 RHD/Savant 2/Siren 10/Fighter 1/Citadel Elite 2


“By Moradin’s beard, this is the third one this week! I’m gonna need to call in the professionals.” The Dwarven Sheriff indicated at the massacre in front of him. Over the last few weeks, some vigilante or something had been rooting out and laying waste to the various scabrous men who plagued this part of the world. Old man Johnson’s boy was amongst the dead, and not that he was a good kid or anything, but that meant that the town was in for another off-kilter old prospector going nuts in agony as their kin got mangled.

Same modus operandi each time. Men loading or moving carts found dead, slumped over on themselves as if there was a sudden butchering. This involved some sort of monster, the Sheriff thought, so he went home and issued a missive to the river delta brigade for some funds to hire some contractors that specialize in monster hunting. The sheriff kicked back in a rocker smoking some dwarven nightlichen. No one was going to make life hard for this Sheriff. It was bad enough that the Elf/gnome trade consortium took a disliking to the influx of dwarven smiths displacing their elven silver racket. It was likely them behind the rousing up of trouble in the region. And now monster attacks? It was Sheriff Splinterbeard’s charge to keep these dwarves safe and rich and he knew when he needed reinforcements. Now was one such a time

The sending stone oh his desk kicked up a tinny little voice: “Alright sheriff, the leviathan hunters should be teleporting in within an hour.”

And sure enough, They did.

A dwarf and a human man arrived with a waft of teleportation magic. The armored dwarf extended a professional handshake, “Sheriff Splinterbeard, I’m Josiah Witness, and this is my intern, Randy. We’re ready to investigate the attack site.”

“Actually sir, Mr. Sheriff, sir, I’m from the paragnostic apostles and I’m commemorating the monster hunting techniques of Mr. Witness in my thesis for future generations to learn from.”

Sheriff Splinterbeard liked the confident moxy of the Leviathan Hunter, and decided to ignore the human until they proved their value. Frontiersmen interpersonal triage is what he called it to the mining foremen that he routinely collaborated with. The sheriff identified the pushovers and powerbrokers quite well.

The sheriff led the investigators out of the town to the attack site. The leviathan hunter walked around the carriage, peering inside. He stooped at a corpse and moved its foot. The hunter looked around on the ground, searching for clues or footprints. He wrote something down in a little book he kept in his rear pocket. On what looked like an intuitive hunch, the Leviathan Hunter looked up at the sky and marched some 15 paces away before calling for his intern.

“Yes, Mr. Josiah?”

“Son, I’m gonna need to get 15’ up to look down over there. What do you have that can help me?”

The human chanted a few magical words and summoned a 15’ collapsable ladder.

“Careful sir, that will only exist for 45ish seconds.”

“By Moradin’s kob-hairs, boy, that ain’t a haft worthy of stone.” The leviathan hunter complained in the old dwarf analogy about using substandard tools. But he climbed up assuredly nonetheless. He looked down at the attack site for less than three seconds.

“Sheriff, It looks like we have a flyer!”

“No scuffling under the men, just a few strange tracks near them on either side of the cart. The men didn’t seem to know what got them. From up here, I can see there was no way to ambush these men except from above and behind.

The leviathan hunter climbed down and, as if on cue, the staircase popped out of existence.

Josiah glared at Randy for a split second.

“Boy, you got that animate objects scroll?”

“But sir, I have speak with dead memorized.”

“Boy, I don’t want to speak with the dead if they don’t know what happened. I want to speak to the corpse. The object that is that corpse there.”

“Sir, I…”
“Randy! Read the flippin scroll! The whole scroll.”

“Ok, sir.”

Randy cast animate objects, bringing the corpse to an animated state that wasn’t undead, but a magical marionette with a corpse as the subject.

“Keep on reading, boy.”

“Sir, this is greater humanoid essence spell, sir. It is expensive to make.”

“Shut yer yap boy, unless you need it to get this information, cast it!”

The boy imbued the corpse marionette with a semblance of human life.

“And now the last one, Randy.”

“You’ll kill him, sir!”

“He’s already dead. Plus we know for a fact that this way we get the information we need.”

“Ok. sir.”

Randy finished the incantation, and just stared at the animated human corpse, neither undead nor truly human, but very much alive. Standing there, mechanically. After a long silence, the corpse started writhing until it fell over. From its head materialized a small gem.

Josiah walked over to Randy and manifested a mindlink with Randy.

‘’’Look into the gem, Randy’’’



It was evening and the boys were hustling to get the stolen goods to the fence. When out of nowhere there was a soft trilling sound. And then they heard it.

A Screech that pierced your head and ripped your sinews into tight knots (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yNPCBFqnOVW0OrQ6b4dYSRed9hrmUP7V/view?usp=sharing)


The crystal shatters in Randy’s hand, And both Josiah and Randy stand there, silent, unmoving, for a whole minute. Like statues made out of both of them.

Coming around suddenly, Josiah clapped Randy on the back “By Moradin’s poodle, that was intense! Whelp, this is a new one. Werebat maybe?”

Randy’s face was white.

Lighting a cigar with an old phosphorus match, “Desmodu? This far outdoors?”

“No sir. This…is…new.”

“Whelp sheriff, looks like we’re hunting something new. It Flies. sounds like a bat from the abyss. It stops people dead in their tracks and murders them in one strike. And Randy here ruled out the more common options.”

“So, what am i supposed to do with that?” The sheriff brustled at the sudden complexity he witnessed.

“Well, Sheriff, i believe its time to rustle up some bait” The Leviathan Hunter pulled a map out that was stashed under the driver’s cushion, “and dangle it here.”

Josiah pointed at a spot on the map. Marked in a gnomish rune used by thieves in their cant that means, “meeting place.”



Ability score increase indicated in red.


Abilities
Initial
Race / Template
Level 4
Level 8
Level 12
Level 16
Level 20


Str
12
10
10
10
10
10



Dex
11
15
15
15
16
16



Con
15
15
16
16
16

16



Int
12
12
12
12
12
12



Wis
8
10
10
10
10
10



Cha
17
15
15
18
20
22




NYCTER RACIAL TRAITS (Siren ability highlighted)


+4 Dexterity, -2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma.
Small size. +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, -4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits 3/4 those of Medium characters.
A nycter's base land speed is 20 feet. It has a fly speed of 40 feet with good maneuverability.
Blindsense: A nycter uses echolocation to pinpoint creatures within 60 feet. Opponents still have total concealment against the nycter unless it can actually see them.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Racial Hit Dice: A nycter begins with three levels of monstrous humanoid, which provide 3d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +3, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +1, Ref +3, and Will +3.
Racial Skills: A nycter's monstrous humanoid levels give it skill points equal to 6 × (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1). Its class skills are Craft, Listen, Spot, and Survival. Nycters have a +4 racial bonus on Spot and Listen checks. These bonuses are lost if their blindsense is negated.
Racial Feats: A nycter's monstrous humanoid levels give it two feats.
+3 natural armor bonus.
Hunting Cry (Su): A nycter can emit a high, piercing shriek that damages and paralyzes its prey (30-foot cone, once every 2d4 rounds, damage 2d4 sonic plus paralysis for 1d4+1 rounds, a Fortitude save halves damage and negates paralysis). This is a sonic mind-affecting ability. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same nycter's hunting cry for 24 hours. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Vulnerability to sonic.
Automatic Languages: Nycter. Bonus Languages: Common, Draconic, Dwarven, Giant, Goblin, Orc.
Favored Class: Druid.
Level adjustment +2.





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


1st
Monstrous humanoid HD 1 (MM3 p.113)
1
0
2
2
Perform (Melody) (+4) 4; Survival (+4) 4; Spot (+4) 4; Bluff (+2 CC) 1;
Apprentice (Entertainer) (Dungeon Master's Guide II, p. 176)
fly speed 40, small size, +3 nat armor


2nd
Monstrous humanoid HD 2
2
0
3
3
Perform (Melody) (+1) 5; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+2 CC) 2;

Hunting Cry, vulnerability to sonic


3rd
Monstrous humanoid HD 3
3
1
3
3
Perform (Melody) (+1) 6; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+2 CC) 3;
Flyby Attack(Monster Manual V, p. 204)
Blind sense


4th
Savant 1 (Dragon comp 45)
3
1
3
5
Perform (Melody) (+1) 7; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+2) 5; intimidate (+4) 4;

Academic lore, skill assistance (5 feet), trapfinding


5th
Savant 2
4
1
3
6
Perform (Melody) (+1) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 6; intimidate (+2) 6; K. geography (+2) 2; Forgery (+2) 2;
Contagious Paralysis (Libris Mortis p. 25)
Talent lore


6th
Siren 1 (Savage Species p.84)
4
1
3
8
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 7; intimidate 6; K. geography (+2 CC) 3; Forgery 2; Diplomacy (+1) 1; Craft (Nest) (+1) 1;
Reverberation (Hunting Cry), Empower Supernatural Ability (Tome of Magic p. 73)

Reverberation


7th
Siren 2
5
1
3
9
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 8; intimidate (+1) 7; K. geography 3; Forgery (+2 CC) 3; Diplomacy (+1) 2; Craft (Nest) 1;

Song of despair


8th
Siren 3
6
2
4
9
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 9; intimidate (+1) 8; K. geography (+2 CC) 4; Forgery 3; Diplomacy 2; Craft (Nest) (+1) 2;

Cha Bonus +2


9th
Siren 4
7
2
4
10
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff 9; intimidate (+1) 9; K. geography 4; Forgery (+2 CC) 4; Diplomacy (+1) 3; Craft (Nest) (+1) 3;
Widen Supernatural Ability (Tome of Magic p. 75)

Song of nightmare


10th
Siren 5
7
2
4
10
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 10; intimidate 9; K. geography (+2 CC) 5; Forgery (+2 CC) 5; Diplomacy 3; Craft (Nest) 3;

Song of idiocy


11th
Siren 6
8
3
5
11
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 11; intimidate (+1) 10; K. geography 5; Forgery (+2 CC) 6; Diplomacy (+1) 4; Craft (Nest) 3;

Charisma bonus +4


12th
Hit and run (Drow of the Underdark p.58) Fighter 1
9
5
5
11
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff 11; intimidate 10; K. geography 5; Forgery 6; Diplomacy 4; Craft (Nest) 3; Handle Animal (+3) 3;
Improved Initiative, Death Blow (Complete Adventurer p. 106)

Bonus Feat, Armor and towershield prof.


13th
Siren 7
10
5
5
11
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 12; intimidate (+1) 11; K. geography (+2 CC) 6; Forgery 6; Diplomacy 4; Craft (Nest) (+1) 4; Handle Animal 3;

Song of weakness


14th
Siren 8
11
5
5
12
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff 12; intimidate (+1) 12; K. geography 6; Forgery (+2 CC) 7; Diplomacy (+1) 5; Craft (Nest) (+1) 5; Handle Animal 3;

Charisma bonus +5


15th
Siren 9
11
6
6
12
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 13; intimidate (+1) 13; K. geography (+2 CC) 7; Forgery 7; Diplomacy (+1) 6; Craft (Nest) 5; Handle Animal 3;
Life Drain (Libris Mortis p. 28)

Song of stone


16th
Siren 10
12
7
6
13
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff (+1) 14; intimidate 13; K. geography 7; Forgery (+2 CC) 8; Diplomacy (+1) 7; Craft (Nest) (+1) 6; Handle Animal 3;

Song of death


17th
Citadel Elite 1 (Sharn City of Two towers p.163)
13
7
6
15
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 4; Bluff 14; intimidate 13; K. geography 7; Forgery 8; Diplomacy 7; Craft (Nest) 6; Handle Animal 3; Search (+5) 5;

Citadel Training, bonus Action Points


18th
Citadel Elite 2
14
7
6
16
Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot (+5) 9; Bluff 14; intimidate 13; K. geography 7; Forgery 8; Diplomacy 7; Craft (Nest) 6; Handle Animal 3; Search 5;
Extend Supernatural Ability (Tome of Magic p. 73) Harvester of Souls (Elder Evils, p. 13)

Combat Sense (defense), bonus feat


19th
LA 1 Swordsage if buyoff is allowed




Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 9; Bluff 14; intimidate 13; K. geography 7; Forgery 8; Diplomacy 7; Craft (Nest) 6; Handle Animal 3; Search 5;




20th
LA 2 Swordsage if buy off is allowed




Perform (Melody) 8; Survival 4; Spot 9; Bluff 14; intimidate 13; K. geography 7; Forgery 8; Diplomacy 7; Craft (Nest) 6; Handle Animal 3; Search 5;







Level 5
3 Racial Hit dice and +2LA.
What we have is a nycter with the perform skill and flyby attack. Despite a kind of Low HP, this makes for a pretty good glass cannon. Fly in, use hunting cry during a flyby attack, and then coup de gras anyone that is paralyzed. It’s not rocket science.


Level 10
At 6th and 9th, you can buy off the +2 LA if that optional rule is permitted. That means that this 5 level jaunt includes two levels of savant and 5 levels of Siren. Savant gives ample skill points as well as a bonus feat at the 2nd class level. For this bonus feat, contagious paralysis is chosen. If anyone touches someone that you’ve paralyzed, well…they too become paralyzed and may be additionally affected by the Siren’s add on abilities. At level 6 and 9 empower and widen supernatural abilities feats are obtained. With reverberation adding +2 to the save DC, the hunting cry is further augmented by the ability to add 50% more duration or double the cone area of the hunting cry. Siren is adding the ability to add the phantasmal killer spell or feeblemind effect to your hunting cry, both of which are arguably transmissible via contagious paralysis.

Level 15:
Death blow allows coup de gras as a standard action, which is something you can do during a flyby attack after paralyzing a group of your enemies for 1d4+1 rounds. Improved initiative and deathblow arrive via a fighter dip at level 12. At level 15, The nycter has song of stone and song of weakness.

Song of weakness pairs with the feat, life drain. This turns your paralytic cry into something that deals 1d4x11 damage to everything in the area of your hunting cry, and that number increases even more, if empowered. Plus the temporary hit points you gain, are they cumulative per instance of attack? or is each victim a separate pool of temp hit points?


Level 20
Here we finish off with the last siren level and two levels of citadel elite, nabbing an additional bonus feat at level 15, some 1/day ability that’s ok, and a favorable amount of skill points. That bonus feat is used for the elder evil feat: harvester of souls. This feat lets you murder people so well. You get 2 temp HP per HD, so one could expect up to 36 temp hp, and those corpses can’t be rezzed without wish or miracle.

Also, at level 18 if you’ve been permitted to buy off Level adjustments, you absolutely should have done so by now.

Optional bonus content:

But, moving forward, we are going to take two levels of swordsage

Here is why: Ballista throw + contagious paralysis. Once one has been affected by the paralysis cry, they are immune for 24 hours. So if you paralyze your morning chicken or fish or whatever, and inoculate yourself by getting paralyzed for a bit, you become immune to your own cry. So later in the day, you can use the empowered hunting cry and then ballista throw the paralyzed beings into other beings, relying on contagious paralysis to carry rider effects from your hunting cry, like the whole level drain jawn or the feeblemind jawn or the phantasmal killer jawn, or all three of them jawns.

[The Viscount]

He's here to lay down some pipe.



Pu-chan

https://i.imgur.com/vRsZ2di.png


I imagined this build before all the questions and chair rulings we have here. It is supposed to be able to work even with the most restrictive ruling for the Siren (notably, that all the mentions of ‘your attack’ in the Siren abilities refer to the one sonic, mind-affecting ability which you used to qualify for Siren). This build really only uses the satyr’s Attune Pipe ability to put the riders on. This was so that if somebody wants to play a Siren someday and comes here with a DM not allowing any sonic spell or even non mind-affecting abilities to be used with Siren, then that person could still find a build idea here. I am supposing for this build that the Satyr's Attune Pipes is a sonic ability for the purpose of qualifying for Siren. It explicitly uses music, and follows the same rules as sonic attacks, requiring the target to hear you and not functioning in an area of silence.


-Come one, come all, and welcome to the show ! Today, we once again welcome the greatest satyr musician this world has ever known ! Coming from the deepest darks of Kara-tur, this Milil-to-be will amaze you with his skills ! Have you ever heard a satyr with a pipe ? They can play so beautifully that you can’t help but feel joy, fear or sadness ! Well, what if I told you…

Outside of Circus Faericus, the voice of the announcer could still reach the ears of Pu-chan. Tonight was the night. He obviously would perform well, and leave the spectators with stars in their eyes and memories that they would remember fondly for months, but that was only usual for him. The real reason he was nervous was because his target would be in the public : Antonio Subtle-hands, the tyrannical ambassador of the kingdom. With him out of the picture, the king might be able to take his own decision without oppressing half the kingdom to feed the wealthiest. Or another one would take his place. Pu-chan didn’t really care, as long as he got the money he was promised.
He couldn’t fail, this mission was the result of too much preparation. First, give progressively better performances so that the reputation of the Circus grew and reached the ambassador’s ears. Then spread rumors that an enemy of the crown lurked in the circus while ‘encouraging’ rebellious groups in the west to start rebelling. The royal guard was busy with the rebellion, and the ambassador would go investigating the circus. Undercover, but alone. Good. The circus controlled the identity of those who bought tickets, and Antonio would sneak in without waiting in line. That allowed Pu-chan to render all regular spectators in the line immune to the effect of his music. He had only played a happy tune to make them a bit more eager to come in, but that was all they needed. He had to kill Antonio only, and the fewer innocent casulaties there was, the better. The problem was time. Even fascinated, Pu-chan estimated that Antonio would start panicking quickly after exposure. Pu-chan would have to silence him before that. No Flesh to Stone, no Finger of Death. Those are very obvious, and Pu-chan wanted the night to be perfect. No one would notice one person falling asleep and getting quickly weaker until they couldn’t wake up anymore.

-Please give thunderous applause for the satyr, the legend, the one-man-pan-piped band, the magnificent Puuuuuuuuu-chaaaaaaaan !

Pu-chan entered the stage, danced for a few seconds to make people and children laugh, then started playing. He alternated between his multiple sets of pan pipes, each with a very slightly alterred tune, so that together they really sounded like a whole band was playing in the hands of only one satyr.
The ambassador resisted being fascinated, as well as the charm effect, and even the enervation effect. Of course. If he was so easy to affect, he wouldn’t be that much of a problem.
The crowd, amazed, started clapping their hands with the rythm.
The ambassador looked suspiciously at Pu-chan. He was realizing that this wasn’t only regular bardic music. If Pu-chan let him do anything, he would cast some sort of resistance spell. So he did his best. In rapid succession, he played three different tunes on three sets of pan pipes. Fear and despair, then fear and idiocy (finally, with the reduced will, it affected the guy), then fear and enervation.
Before he could utter a word, the ambassador was cowering on his seat, incapable of casting a spell, too stupid to understand what really happened, and ever so slightly weaker.
The performance went on, the satyr changing styles in a matter of seconds, weaving the music of his twenty pan pipes into an entrancing air.
Enervation after enervation, the ambassador lost grip on this world, paralysed by fear, incapable of even speaking. But killing him now wasn’t the best way. It needed to look like he just fell asleep.
The last tune was a calming one, like saying to everyone that it is time to go home.
And the ambassador was now weak enough for a sleep effect to affect him. He closed his eyes immediately, his mental defenses now so low that even an apprentice wizard could take him down. And with the last note, the last breath of Antonio Subtle-hands calmy left his body.
Pu-chan saluted under the applause, and suggested that everyone goes their way now after they buy a few souvenirs in the circus shop. After a few minutes, only the ambassador, seemingly asleep, remained. Pu-chan took the body. Tonight, the circus’ hieracosphinxes would eat their fill.



CN Monster Class Satyr Bard 2 (Lore Song ACF) Warblade 1 Siren 10

Abilities Initial Race / Template 4th 8th 12th 16th 20th
STR 8 8 8 8 8 8
DEX 14 2 16 16 16 16 16
CON 14 14 16 (+2) 16 16 16
INT 12 14 (+2) 14 14 14 14
WIS 8 8 10 (+2) 10 10 10
CHA 18 2 20 21* 24* (+2) 27* (+2) 29* (+1)



ECL Number of HD Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st 1 Satyr 1 0 0 2 2 28: {+4} Bluff: 4; {+4} Craft (Pan Pipes): 4; {+4} Hide: 4; {+4} Move Silently: 4; {+4} Perform (Pan Pipes): 4; {+4} Listen: 4; {+4} Perform (Dance): 4; Shape Soulmelds (Mage's Spectacles) gore 1d6, +2 natural armor
2nd 2 Satyr 2 1 0 3 3 7: {+1} Bluff: 5; {+1} Craft (Pan Pipes): 5; {+1} Hide: 5; {+1} Move Silently: 5; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 5; {+1} Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Dance): 5; +4 racial bonus to Perform
3rd 3 Satyr 3 1 1 3 3 8: {+1} Bluff: 6; {+1} Craft (Pan Pipes): 6; {+1} Hide: 6; {+1} Move Silently: 6; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 6; {+1} Listen: 6; {+2} Spot: 2; Perform (Dance): 5; Quick Draw +2 Int, +4 to Hide
4th 4 Satyr 4 2 1 4 4 8: {+1} Bluff: 7; {+1} Craft (Pan Pipes): 7; {+1} Hide: 7; {+1} Move Silently: 7; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 7; {+1} Listen: 7; {+2} Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; +4 to Move Silently
5th 4 Satyr 5 (LA 1) 2 1 4 4 0: Bluff: 7; Craft (Pan Pipes): 7; Hide: 7; Move Silently: 7; Perform (Pan Pipes): 7; Listen: 7; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Attune Pipes
6th 5 Satyr 6 2 1 4 4 8: {+1} Bluff: 8; {+1} Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+1} Hide: 8; {+1} Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 8; {+1} Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; {+2} Shrouded Dance; +4 natural armor
7th 5 Satyr 7 (LA 2) 2 1 4 4 0: Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; Hide: 8; Move Silently: 8; Perform (Pan Pipes): 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; +2 Con, +2 Wis
8th 6 Bard 1 (Lore Song ACF) 2 1 6 6 8: {+8} Use Magic Device: 8; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; Hide: 8; Move Silently: 8; Perform (Pan Pipes): 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Extra Bardic Music Bardic Music, Spells
9th 7 Bard 2 3 1 7 7 8: {+2} Use Magic Device: 10; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; Hide: 8; {+4} Concentration: 4; Move Silently: 8; {+2} Perform (Pan Pipes): 10; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance;
10th 8 Siren 1 3 1 7 9 6: Use Magic Device: 10; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; Hide: 8; Concentration: 4; Move Silently: 8; Perform (Pan Pipes): 10; {+6} Intimidate: 6; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Reverberation
11th 9 Siren 2 4 1 7 10 6: {+2 CC} Use Magic Device: 11; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; Hide: 8; Concentration: 4; Move Silently: 8; {+2} Perform (Pan Pipes): 12; {+2} Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Doomspeak Song of despair
12th 10 Siren 3 5 2 8 10 6: {+4 CC} Use Magic Device: 13; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+1 CC} Hide: 8.5; Concentration: 4; Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 13; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Charisma bonus +2
13th 11 Siren 4 6 2 8 11 6: {+2 CC} Use Magic Device: 14; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+3 CC} Hide: 10; Concentration: 4; Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 14; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Song of nightmare
14th 12 Warblade 1 7 4 8 11 5: Use Magic Device: 14; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; Hide: 10; {+5} Concentration: 9; Move Silently: 8; Perform (Pan Pipes): 14; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Song of the White Raven Battle clarity (Reflex saves), weapon aptitude
15th 13 Siren 5 7 4 8 11 6: {+2 CC} Use Magic Device: 15; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+2 CC} Hide: 11; Concentration: 9; Move Silently: 8; {+2} Perform (Pan Pipes): 16; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Song of idiocy
16th 14 Siren 6 8 5 9 12 6: Use Magic Device: 15; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+2 CC} Hide: 12; {+3 CC} Concentration: 10.5; Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 17; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Charisma bonus +4
17th 15 Siren 7 9 5 9 12 6: Use Magic Device: 15; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+2 CC} Hide: 13; {+3 CC} Concentration: 12; Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 18; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Shrouded Dance; Epic of the Lost King Song of weakness
18th 16 Siren 8 10 5 9 13 6: Use Magic Device: 15; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+3 CC} Hide: 14.5; Concentration: 12; Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 19; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; {+2} Swift Concentration, Shrouded Dance; Charisma bonus +5
19th 17 Siren 9 10 6 10 13 6: Use Magic Device: 15; Bluff: 8; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+5 CC} Hide: 17; Concentration: 12; Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 20; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Swift Concentration, Shrouded Dance; Song of stone
20th 18 Siren 10 11 6 10 14 6: Use Magic Device: 15; {+1} Bluff: 9; Craft (Pan Pipes): 8; {+4 CC} Hide: 19; Concentration: 12; Move Silently: 8; {+1} Perform (Pan Pipes): 21; Intimidate: 8; Listen: 8; Spot: 4; Perform (Dance): 5; Swift Concentration, Shrouded Dance; Chant of Fortitude Song of death



At this point, Pu-chan is a regular Satyr. The Satyr monster class from Savage Species clarifies what satyr pan pipes are and how they’re created. Any set of pipes that is in the possession of a satyr for at least a day becomes a magical pan pipes with which the satyr can activate its Attune Pipes ability. There is no limit to the number of sets of pan pipes a satyr can own. Using Quick Draw (any item can be considered an improvised weapon, so Quick Draw allows you to draw them as a free action) and the fact that dropping an item is a free action, this effectively nullifies the 1/day on Attune Pipes while allowing Pu-chan to make all his allies immune to his music at the beginning of the day. In a fight, Pu-chan mostly tries to make his opponent panicked by spamming Fear effects. His great Hide modifier (+18) and DR 5/Cold Iron should allow him to easily stay alive. Mage’s Spectacles allow Pu-chan to make basic Spellcraft checks, and will become much more useful later on.

That’s where there is a bit of cheese. The Satyr’s Attune Pipe is not technically activated. Indeed, the ability says ‘when it plays, all creatures within 60ft are affected by …’. This means that every ability which explicitly allows you to play can trigger your Attune Pipe ability and affect all creatures within 60 ft. Such abilities include notably bardic music, and possibly even a bard’s spells’ verbal component (singing, reciting, or music). At ECL 10, Pu-chan has 1st level bard spells, including Swift Invisibility and Stay the Hand. These two spells allow Pu-chan to cast Fear or Charm Person on his opponents by a swift or even immediate action while gaining advantage himself. Reverberation also helps the ability’s DC to stay relevant (DC 20 at this point. He can also Fascinate a creature with an average DC of 30). Bard also gives UMD as a class skill, which means Pu-chan can now activate wands three quarters of the time, which helps a lot to patch his fighting style against things immune to mind-affecting effects.

Pu-chan is now well into Siren. He gets a new way to use Attune Pipes by a swift action, with Song of the White Raven, but most importantly, he gets some fun riders to put on his Attune Pipes abilities. The fact that any single set of pipes has a 24h-immunity means Pu-Chan can play every one of his pipes each morning to make all his allies immune, and not risk hitting them with Siren riders later. His main strategy is to Hide to approach his enemies, then, when he’s less than 60ft from them, use several of his pipes to apply at least terrified on all of them (that is, if you consider different sets of pipes are considered different sources for the purpose of applying fear effects. If not, it’s not really a problem, since what you really want is the -2 to saving throws from shaken, but it’s a bit of a step down in power.). For each use of his pipe, he can put a Phantasmal Killer effect on a 60ft radius, or a feeblemind effect if he thinks there are casters among his opponents. Doomspeak serves to complete his playstyle against mind-affecting immune opponents, and reduces their saving throw to abysmal levels to allow for Pu-chan’s allies to cast a SoL on them (or Pu-chan uses a wand, since he now can activate a wand on even a natural 2 with the help of Mage’s Spectacles).
Warblade maneuvers help Pu-chan boost his allies against mind-affecting immune enemies and gain a bit of protection:
Stance : Leading the Charge
Maneuvers : Douse the Blades, White Raven Tactics, Action Before thought

Mostly more of the same. Epic of the Lost King allows Pu-chan to activate Attune Pipes by a move action, which means he can activate it 4 times before the enemy can react (swift : Swift Invisibility/Inspire Courage ; move : Epic of the Lost King ; standard : just play the pipes, or use Doomspeak ; then immediate at the beginning of the opponent’s turn : Stay the Hand/Chant of Fortitude. The DC for his Siren effects is now 31, 41 for Doomspeak, and ~44 for Fascinate.



Beyond regular +Charisma items, Pu-chan would like to get as many Joyous Star Songs as possible (Magic of Faerun, gives an additional bardic music per day, seemingly permanenty). This would allow him to be able to nova all day long without having to care too much about his bardic music uses.

A Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis to gain Hide in Plain Sight and approach his enemies easily would also be much appreciated, although simply wands of Fly and Invisibility may also do the trick.

Wands to bypass immunities to mind-affecting would also be much appreciated, like Spark of Life, Greater Humanoid Essence… Pu-chan can function against mind-affecting immune opponents, but he is still much better if he can use his Siren abilities.


Magic of Incarnum : Shape Soulmeld, Mage’s Spectacles
Savage Species : Satyr monster class, Reverberation, Siren,
Tome of Battle : Warblade, all stances and maneuvers, Song of the White Raven
Complete Adventurer : Chant of Fortitude
Complete Scoundrel : Epic of the lost king
Champions of Ruin : Doomspeak
Dungeonscape : Lore Song ACF

[The Viscount]

Some places are best left alone.



Faer Gweriador, the Muttering Menace


https://img.filmsactu.net/datas/fiches/f/i/films-d-horreur-fantastique/xl/films-d-horreur-fantastique-5e2b27676fbce.jpg
When you were younger, you were afraid of the dark, weren’t you ? You were right.



- So, you’d want to know about the Menace, huh ? You can call him by his name, you know. You’re not the first ones to ask me. They say I’m the only one who ever survived him, but I’m sure I’m not. There must be dozens of them all around the country, quaking in their boots in fear that he might come back for them. No, I’m not the only one, but I may be the only one who dares to speak his name in public. Faer Gweriador… I’m sure he’s laughing on his own right now about all these stories and how if you utter his name, he will whisper back in your ear someday. Even if that’s true, I’m now immune, haha ! What ? The story ? Oh, yeah.
It was ten years ago. I was already quite famous at that time. Me and my party, we went from dungeons to dragon’s lairs. Nothing could resist our blows or our spells. Until someone told us about that ghost living on a nearby mountain and terrorizing shepherds. 5 had disappeared the last week. We went there to gain our weekly gold pieces, you know how it is. The mountain was covered in mist. We ventured at random, half expecting all of this to be a joke, until we found the lost shepherds. They moved as if they were alive, coming to us as if seeking help, but as they came close, we realized they were only statues made in their resemblance, attacking us with their fists of stone. We quickly dispatched these mockeries. I never knew if they were the real shepherds turned to stone or simply the stones of the mountain shaped in their image. But as we destroyed them, the whole floor seemed to animate. Boulders popped out of the ground and rolled towards us to crush us, trees unrooted themselves to grab us, and even the collar of fireballs of our sorcerer started levitating before exploding in a searing fire. And behind all this chaos, a voice rose, like a whisper of wind going straight from above us and into our ears :
-Nothing warms this long dead heart of mine like seeing strong people struggle for their lives. How long will you last ?
Now, we weren’t beginners, and we had prepared ourselves for such an opportunity. This was obviously the spellcaster behind all this, cocky enough to put himself just above us, in the mist. He would regret having revealed his position. Our ranger fired a volley of arrows at his position. The arrows fell back down after having followed their parabolic way. The villagers were right, this was some sort of incorporeal ghost. Our cleric cast a Flame Strike, which dispersed the mist, revealing… nothing. Any teleportation would have been detected by our sorcerer’s arcane sight, and she was positive the voice wasn’t magical. The guy really was here. Was it both invisible and incorporeal ? Or even with some spell resistance to not react at all to the Flame Strike ? But we prepared for this, too. Our sorcerer cast Fly on me, and I activated my belt of battle. With one hand, I cast True Strike and flew up to the position from where the voice came. Then, in a mighty swing of my ghost touch weapon, I cut… Nothing. It was as if there really was nothing to cut. But the voice came back. Now that I was so close to it, I could hear another voice behind it, as if a bird made from mist was trying to talk.
-Good effort, good effort, but you can only cut what exists, and I haven’t been real for centuries. Now listen closely to me as I tell you the story of Faer Gweriador…
From below, our sorcerer warned me that he was trying to cast a spell, but stopped in the middle of her sentence. Not only that, but I didn’t hear any combat going on underneath me. I looked down, and what I saw still terrifies me to this day. Our ranger laid dead on the ground, our cleric had been turned to stone, and our sorcerer was looking at her own hands with empty eyes. In a sentence, Gweriador had vainquished an entire party, all strategically standing more than 30ft away from each other. And in my ears, that cold whisper, those disembodied words echoed :
-This is the part where you run away.



CN Changeling->Haunting Presence (LM) Necropolitan (LM) Wizard 5, Harper Mage 3, Recaster 2, Siren 10

Abilities Initial Race / Template 4th 8th 12th 16th 20th
STR 8
DEX 8
CON 8
INT 18 1 2
WIS 8
CHA 18 1 2 3



Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Wizard 1 0 0 0 2 24: {+4} Concentration: 4; {+4} Knowledge (Arcana): 4; {+4} Knowledge (Local): 4; {+4} Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+4} Scry: 4; {+4} Spellcraft: 4; Scribe Scroll, Extend Spell Summon familiar
2nd Wizard 2 1 0 0 3 6: {+1} Concentration: 5; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 5; {+1} Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Scry: 4; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 1; {+1} Spellcraft: 5;
3rd Wizard 3 1 1 1 3 6: {+1} Concentration: 6; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 6; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Scry: 4; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 2; {+1} Spellcraft: 6; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 0.5; Daunting Presence
4th Wizard 4 2 1 1 4 6: {+1} Concentration: 7; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 7; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+1} Spellcraft: 7; {+3 CC} Intimidate: 2;
5th Wizard 5 2 1 1 4 6: {+1} Concentration: 8; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 8; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; Spellcraft: 7; {+4 CC} Intimidate: 4; Still Spell
6th Harper Mage 1 2 1 1 6 8: {+1} Concentration: 9; Knowledge (Arcana): 8; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2} Spellcraft: 9; Intimidate: 4; {+5} Perform (sing): 5; Quicken Spell, Skill Focus (Knowledge (Arcana)) Harper's knowledge, Oghma's insight
7th Harper Mage 2 3 1 1 7 8: {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 9; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+1} Spellcraft: 10; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 5; {+3} Perform (sing): 8; Skill Focus (Spellcraft) Arcane theory
8th Harper Mage 3 3 2 2 7 9: {+1} Concentration: 11; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 10; Knowledge (Local): 5; {+4} Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+1} Spellcraft: 11; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 6; Perform (sing): 8; Extend Spell
9th Wizard 9->Recaster 1 3 2 2 9 7: {+4} Bluff: 4; {+1} Concentration: 12; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 11; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+1} Spellcraft: 12; Intimidate: 6; Perform (sing): 8; Stitched flesh familiar-> Baleful Moan Metamorphic spell (components)
10th Recaster 2 4 2 2 10 7: {+4} Bluff: 8; {+1} Concentration: 13; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+1} Spellcraft: 13; Intimidate: 6; Perform (sing): 8; Expanded knowledge (Enthrall, Cl 2), sudden metamagic
11th Siren 1 4 2 2 12 9: {+5} Bluff: 13; {+2 CC} Concentration: 14; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 14; Intimidate: 6; Perform (sing): 8; Reverberation
12th Siren 2 5 2 2 13 9: {+2} Bluff: 15; {+2 CC} Concentration: 15; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 15; {+3} Intimidate: 9; Perform (sing): 8; Arcane Thesis (Enthrall) Song of despair
13th Siren 3 6 3 3 13 8: {+1} Bluff: 16; {+2 CC} Concentration: 16; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 16; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Perform (sing): 8; {+2} Collector of Stories; Charisma bonus +2
14th Siren 4 7 3 3 14 9: {+1} Bluff: 17; {+2 CC} Concentration: 17; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 17; {+4} Intimidate: 14; Perform (sing): 8; Collector of Stories; Song of nightmare
15th Siren 5 7 3 3 14 9: {+1} Bluff: 18; {+2 CC} Concentration: 18; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 18; {+4} Intimidate: 18; Perform (sing): 8; Collector of Stories; Practiced Spellcaster Song of idiocy
16th Siren 6 8 4 4 15 9: {+1} Bluff: 19; {+2 CC} Concentration: 19; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 19; {+1} Intimidate: 19; Perform (sing): 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 1; {+2} Distracting Taunt, Collector of Stories; Charisma bonus +4
17th Siren 7 9 4 4 15 9: {+1} Bluff: 20; {+2 CC} Concentration: 20; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 20; {+1} Intimidate: 20; Perform (sing): 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 2; {+2} Swift Concentration, Distracting Taunt, Collector of Stories; Song of weakness
18th Siren 8 10 4 4 16 9: {+1} Bluff: 21; {+2 CC} Concentration: 21; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 21; {+1} Intimidate: 21; Perform (sing): 8; {+3} Diplomacy: 5; Swift Concentration, Distracting Taunt, Collector of Stories; Transdimensional spell Charisma bonus +5
19th Siren 9 10 5 5 16 9: {+1} Bluff: 22; {+2 CC} Concentration: 22; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 22; {+1} Intimidate: 22; Perform (sing): 8; {+3} Diplomacy: 8; Swift Concentration, Distracting Taunt, Collector of Stories; Song of stone
20th Siren 10 11 5 5 17 9: {+1} Bluff: 23; {+2 CC} Concentration: 23; Knowledge (Arcana): 12; Knowledge (Local): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 8; Scry: 4; Sense Motive: 2; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 23; {+1} Intimidate: 23; Perform (sing): 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 9; {+2} Rethorical Flourish, Swift Concentration, Distracting Taunt, Collector of Stories; Song of death



What, you never met a wizard ? Okay, this one can change their face, likes to have their spells last a bit longer and has a higher than average charisma, but overall it’s just a wizard with enchantment specialization. Likes to buff their allies and debuff their opponents, so add a bit of transmutation in there too. Forbidden schools Illusion and abjuration.

Here is the turning point of Gweriador’s life. Or, let’s say, of their existence. Harper mage, qualified for with the familiar giving Alertness, is mostly there to grant Perform as a class skill and qualify for Siren later. Interestingly, you have to put 4 ranks in Scry, a skill that was deleted when going from 3.0 to 3.5, so it’s just a skill tax now. At level 9, Faer takes a level of wizard, giving them 5th level spells. He chooses Haunt Shift, and immediately makes a scroll of it. He also takes Stitched-Flesh Familiar and kills the previous one to get a new undead familiar. This loss of XP doesn’t really matter, since it is overshadowed by the fact that Faer then undergoes the Ritual of Crucimigration to become Necropolitan. The benefit of Stitched Flesh Familiar isn’t that your familiar becomes undead, it’s that you’re able to choose an undead familiar when you would normally be able to choose a regular familiar. So, when Faer loses a level, and the feat, their familiar should stay undead, and they only lose the ability to choose a new one that would be undead, should this one be destroyed. Faer Gweriador now only has 8HD, as does their familiar. Which means they can be affected by their own scroll of Haunt Shift. Faer activates it, and both them and their familiar become Haunting Presences. Haunting Presences are really weird undead, but they can be limited to a few characteristics :
1) In general, they can’t be affected by anything, except when they manifest. They’re not incorporeal, they’re just ‘not there’.
2) They can speak, even saying intelligible things.
3) Nothing says they can’t cast spells in Haunting Presence form, but they don’t have a body, so somatic and material components are a bit hard to come by.
4) They can become corporeal or incorporeal a few times per week, seemingly even if the original undead is corporeal.
5) They can haunt an object or a location. Nothing in Haunt Shift defines or limits what the location should be. So, when casting Haunt Shift, Faer Gweriador chooses ‘the whole world’ as their haunting location. (If the DM forbids this, they’ll instead choose to haunt a small riverin item that will be carried around by their party, but RAW, I don’t see anything preventing this. You could also buy an eternal wand of Acorn of Far Travel so that you always count as being in your haunted location. At higher levels, this is how you can travel the Planes, even with "the world" as your haunted location.). Impermanent Home specifies that you can take form anywhere within the location you haunt, which is equivalent to a greater teleport in Gweriador’s case.
They can also animate up to 10 Huge Animated Objects, if I understand Poltergeist well. That will help a lot to tank in fights and help Faer’s allies get by. This is also a great way to attract attention for Enthrall (see below).
So, Faer is now almost completely invincible and has an army of golems (?), but they will have a hard time casting their spells, and will probably spend their 8th level manifesting a lot, just to be able to cast the spells they want, or simply hitting their enemies with animated objects. Ten CR 5 creatures can hardly be ignored. However, starting with level 9, and the first level of recaster, they don’t have to worry about material components anymore, and can use Still Spell without increasing the spell level a few times a day. They can now cast almost normally, while retaining their ability to not be affected by anything. Recaster 2 gives Faer a new spell to add to their list : Enthrall.


Using the Baleful Moan, for which Faer Gweriador qualifies everytime they manifest as incorporeal, or when they cast Permeable Form, Faer qualifies for Siren. To note is that they only need to qualify to take the first level by RAW, and can then continue progressing in the class without any problem. If you rule that every prestige class works like the Complete Adventurer ones (you lose every class feature if you don’t qualify anymore), then Faer works much less, but you can still cast Extended Permeable Form on yourself. Permeable Form allows you to become incorporeal, but contrary to the Haunting Presence ability to become incorporeal, you don’t lose your ability to be unaffected by everything. So you can use Baleful Moan (since you can speak, you can moan) while being nothing more than a presence. Alternatively, since Gweriador has Quicken, they can become incorporeal, cast a Quickened spell, then move action back into haunting presence.

Siren gives Faer a way to very efficiently affect their opponents. Enthrall can affect any number of creatures in a huge radius (medium range AoE), and Siren allows to affect them with Phantasmal Assassin, or Feeblemind for casters. All that from the cover of Haunting Presence, if you use Still Spell on it. And you have no reason not to, since Arcane Thesis makes Still Spell cost nothing. At this point, you have 4/7/6/5/4/3 spell slots. In general, most of Faer’s 2nd, 3rd and 4th spell slots should be full of Still Enthralls, and at least one or two Still Quickened Enthrall in the 5th level slots. The rest would be Still Dissonant Voice (similarly huge area and effective on people immune to mind-affecting, but affects your allies as well, so not ideal in general.) and spells to buff your allies that don’t require touch (something like Haste, or Summoning Spells), and Assay Spell Resistance. Practiced Spellcaster and Assay Resistance are there so that your Siren abilities can affect opponents with high SR. You can also sprinkle a few Stilled Lesser Orb of Sound to hit enemies with really high SR. If you want to prepare other spells, you may also prepare spells with no somatic components, so that you can cast them all day without worrying about increased level. Teleport may help to move the party (manifest as corporeal to touch them), Suggestion is always useful, and maybe some Power Words.

More of the same. You get lots of new riders to put on your sonic spells, and you can now affect Ethereal and Astral enemies, which can start to be annoying at these levels, with Transdimensional spell. The Distracting Taunt Skill Trick is great, since you can be close to your opponents while they can’t perceive you, hence you get some opportunity to use Distracting Taunt without wasting an action (normally, using Distracting Taunt like that would put you in melee, which you don’t want, but since you are a haunting presence, you have nothing to fear).



Magic of Faerun : Harper Mage
Savage Species : Reverberation, Siren,
Libris Mortis : Haunt Shift, Haunting Presence rules, Daunting Presence, Baleful Moan, Stitched Flesh Familiar
Complete Arcane : Transdimesional spell
Complete Scoundrel : All Skill Tricks
Races of Eberron : Recaster
Spell Compendium : Dissonant Chant, Assay Spell Resistance

[The Viscount]

Things really echo down in the caves.


- Xi, remember, don’t pass the line, if you’ll not enter the circle he can’t hurt you.
- I know, I know, Eregul, I'll be ok. We’ll just have a little talk. You can go, I need it privately.
Named Eregul went out of the chamber, the door closed and a big winged greenskined humanoid opened his mouth.
- We have nothing to talk about, maleficent, - his eyes were filled with contempt.
- I see, - a little woman with blackfeather wings and horns on her forehead took a chair and with it stepped over the circle line, - But maybe you’ll listen to me, though?
- Brave, - on planetar’s face came surprising, - Well, I listen to you. But I'm warning you maybe I’ll kill you after. Or not.
- I heard the same so many times… Well, what do you think, for what reason I paid for calling you? Good money, to say, the scroll of Greater Planar Binding isn’t cheap. I know who you are and what you can, so I didn’t want to fool you for some “maleficent” work.
- Yes, I see your evil nature and I’ll see every lie that you’ll say. I’ll not guess what you need, you’ll tell me yourself, willn’t you?
- Of course I shall. You’re so boring. Well, I need your help…
- Just as I thought! - planetar interrupted Xi.
- I don’t think so. Please, let me talk. I have to start at the beginning…

https://data.whicdn.com/images/339503045/original.gif

NE Unseelie Gloura Bard 1/Siren 9/Zhentarim Skymage 1
Abilities Initial Gloura Unseelie Fey 8th 11th 12th 14th 16th Total
STR 12 -2 10
DEX 8 10 2 20
CON 14 4 -2 16
INT 14 14
WIS 8 2 10
CHA 18 6 2 1 2 1 2 2 34
ECL(+2LA) Class BAB Fort Refl Will Skills Feats Class Features
3rd Gloura-1 0 0 2 2 24: {+2 CC} Bluff: 1; {+2} Diplomacy: 2; {+4 CC} Handle Animal: 2; {+4 CC} Knowledge (Geography): 2; {+4} Perform (Sing): 4; {+4 CC} Ride: 2; {+4 CC} Spellcraft: 2; AlertnessB, Iron Will Unearthly grace, Spells, Summer Caress, Iron Vulnerability, Damage Reduction
4th Gloura-2 1 0 3 3 6: Bluff: 1; {+1} Diplomacy: 3; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Heal: 1; {+1} Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; {+1} Perform (Sing): 5; Ride: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 1; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Survival: 1;
5th Gloura-3 1 1 3 3 6: Bluff: 1; {+1} Diplomacy: 4; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Heal: 2; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; {+1} Listen: 1; {+1} Perform (Sing): 6; Ride: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 2; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Survival: 2; Combat Casting
6th Gloura-4 2 1 4 4 6: Bluff: 1; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Heal: 3; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; {+1} Listen: 2; {+1} Perform (Sing): 7; Ride: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 3; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Survival: 3;
7th Gloura-5 2 1 4 4 6: Bluff: 1; {+1} Diplomacy: 6; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Heal: 4; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; {+1} Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 8; Ride: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 4; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Survival: 4;
8th Gloura-6 3 2 5 5 6: Bluff: 1; Diplomacy: 6; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 4; {+5} Intimidate: 5; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 9; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 4; Spellcraft: 2; Survival: 4; Martial Study (Foehammer)
9th Gloura-7 3 2 5 5 6: Bluff: 1; {+1} Diplomacy: 7; Handle Animal: 2; {+1} Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 6; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 10; Ride: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Survival: 5;
10th Bard-1 3 2 7 7 8: {+5} Bluff: 6; Diplomacy: 7; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; Intimidate: 6; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; Perform (Sing): 10; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; {+2} Spellcraft: 4; {+1} Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Bardic music, bardic knowledge, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1
11th Siren-1 3 2 7 9 4: Bluff: 6; {+2} Diplomacy: 9; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; Intimidate: 6; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+2} Perform (Sing): 12; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Melodic Casting, Reverberation (Spells)B Reverberation
12th Siren-2 4 2 7 10 4: {+1} Bluff: 7; {+1} Diplomacy: 10; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 7; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 13; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Song of despair
13th Siren-3 5 3 8 10 4: {+1} Bluff: 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 11; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 14; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Charisma bonus +2
14th Siren-4 6 3 8 11 4: {+1} Bluff: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 12; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 9; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 15; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Clap of Thunder Song of nightmare
15th Siren-5 6 3 8 11 4: {+1} Bluff: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 13; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 16; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Song of idiocy
16th Siren-6 7 4 9 12 4: {+1} Bluff: 11; {+1} Diplomacy: 14; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 11; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 17; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Charisma bonus +4
17th Siren-7 8 4 9 12 4: {+1} Bluff: 12; {+1} Diplomacy: 15; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 12; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 18; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Mounted Combat Song of weakness
18th Siren-8 9 4 9 13 4: {+1} Bluff: 13; {+1} Diplomacy: 16; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 13; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 19; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Charisma bonus +5
19th Siren-9 9 5 10 13 4: {+1} Bluff: 14; {+1} Diplomacy: 17; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 14; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+1} Perform (Sing): 20; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Song of stone
20th Zhentarim Skymage-1 9 7 10 13 4: {+1} Bluff: 15; {+1} Diplomacy: 18; Handle Animal: 2; Heal: 5; Intimidate: 14; Knowledge (Nature): 1; Knowledge (Geography): 2; Listen: 3; {+2 CC} Perform (Sing): 21; Ride: 2; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 4; Use Magic Device: 1; Survival: 5; Extra Music Bonus scrolls, flying mount
Level Class 0th 1st 2nd 3rd
1st Bard-1 2 (4) Lullaby, Songbird, Ghostharp, Detect Magic
2nd Bard-2 3 (5) Mending 0 (2) Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Ironthunder Horn
3rd Bard-3 3 (6) Percussion 1 (3) Amplify
4th Bard-4 3 (6) 2 (3) 0 (2) Detect Thoughts, Invisibility
5th Bard-5 3 (6) 3 (4) Joyful Noise 1 (3) Suggestion
6th Bard-6 3 (6) 3 (4) 2 (3)
7th Bard-7 3 (6) 3 (4) 3 (4) Fortissimo 0 (2) Creaking Cacophony, Phantom Steed
8th Bard-8 3 (6) 3 (4) 3 (4) 1 (3) Summon Monster III
18th Bard-9 3 (6) 3 (4) 3 (4) 2 (3)
Several words about spells.

Fortissimo - How could I pass it by? +2 to all my sonic attack's DC!
Joyful Noise - Ability to negate magical silence? Yes, please! There are some action economy problems, but it can be resolved by buying a Sonorous Hum wand.
Creaking Cacophony - I need 3rd level sonic spell to work Clap of Thunder and Siren's attacks. And this spell, while doesn't do damage itself, has at least a very good combination of Range, Area, and Duration. Plus it isn't Mind-Affecting.
Amplify - What did I say about Creaking Cacophony? Forgot! I have Amplify! Long and 1 minute/level!
Ironthunder Horn - Close fighting option with different shape can be useful.



My name is Xyλena, I was born in Underdark deeps. My kind is gloura, but as you can see, I differ from regular glouras much. Feather wings instead of moth’s, horns instead of antennae. It looks like my mother danced too much with unseelie courters. I tried to be against my nature. Really! But they didn’t help! All others. “Devious!” “She wants to fool us!” Of course I want! To fool, to kill, to charm and enslave! But I understood that this is a bad way. And by “bad” I mean not amoral, but bad for me. I actually am devious gloura and am selfish, greedy, and whatever telling about us. If I could charm, enslave, kill, and do all other things, I would do that. But look at me: I’m so obviously guilty! It wouldn’t have ended well. So I consciously learned another things. I learned sounds. Magical and musical. Yes, yes, I know, I couldn't resist and I have a pair of poorly mental tricks. But its are only Suggestion, Tasha’s Laughter, and Lullaby. And Detect Thoughts, but It’s for defending myself! I should know what they are planning against me!
Xyλena is unseelie devious gloura. Nothing very special for this creature. Big Charisma gives +8 to AC and all saves, bardic spellcasting and social skills help to avoid combats. Martial Study mainly taken for class Intimidate.

One day I decided to leave Underdark. You know, too many dangers, too little space to fly, you should understand, and too many those who know what I am. The surface is a different story. I was so pleased the first few years! Got involved with one bard, Stiven if I remember right, he was so sweet and so clever! I learned a lot from him. About my voice, about magic! He played, I sang, we had fun. Uh!
But it wasn’t forever. Don’t think! I didn’t do anything with him, we just got sick of each other and peacefully split up. Well, there was a scandal. Burnt tavern… But we paid for this! Half to half.
After leaving him I took care of myself. Stive always told me I have a magical voice. Literally, I mean. So I took my voice, my sounding magic and started to experiment! You know, at first it didn’t go well, I just didn’t know what exactly I tried to do. But I didn't give up… Well I definitely gave up! Many times, but always started again. And clearly I've succeeded! At the beginning it was only a despair effect. Too weak, I almost missed it. But next! Oh! It was beautiful! Frightfully, but so beautiful! I was able to kill with my magic! Not how wizards do it, with their fireballs and lightnings. But applying fear to the sounds of my spells! Next was mind crashing! I am not afraid panish anymore! I could stand up for myself!
One level of bard gives Bardic music, one 3-rd level known spell and class Bluff to enter Siren! With Melodic Casting I'll never worry about lack of Concentration and can combine music and cast spells.
Several words about Siren qualification. I think I found one of the few full RAW entry options with playable creatures. Gloura's spells definitely is innate ability and there are sonic, mind-affecting in bard's list.
Siren gives me more Charisma - now +10, two very good rider effect to my sonic spells and one not so good, additional +2 to All sonic spells via Reverberation. Spells ability is located in special attacks line in Gloura's description, so this is legitim choice. And the icing on the cake - Clap of Thunder! Now I'll never be out of ammo.

But I started to realize - it’s way to the end. Yes, my power was big, but there is always more power, you know, don’t you? I needed in ballance, harmony. Firstly I started working with people. Soon I had been in good standing with Zhentarim. My skills were well placed with their needs. But skills started to become more powerful and more malevolence: life force draining, petrification! I think, next step is instant death, for anybody. Here I got, I need the conscience! I have no mine, so I ask my good Zhentarim friend to call you - powerful, creature of poor good. You’ll be able to tell me to stop, when I’ll go too far, and at least part of my petrified victims are still intact. I know, you can cancel this, am I right? So I ask you: please, be my companion!
Four more Charisma (+12 mod), two more good overlays, four more uses/day for all (except the very first) overlays. Mounted Combat is only requirement.

Planetar stayed in silence. It was seemed he was thinking.
- You surprised me. Several times. When you enter the circle. When you didn’t lie, well, mostly didn’t. And when you voiced your request. So, you want my help to become Good, yes?
- No, of course I don’t want to become a good one! I like me as I am! Greedy and selfish! But who wants? Children don’t want to learn their lessons, they want to play! The peasants don’t want to plow the fields, they want to do nothing, have food and neighbour's wife. But some of the children do their lesson and some of the peasants plow fields and are satisfied with their wifes.
- I see, - angel thought again, - Your call turned out to be important. You are the powerful evildoer. With a big list of the Sins, but you aren’t hopeless. I, Hadramael, will become your companion and your conscience!
- Perfect! - Xyλena smiled, - Take this.
- What is it? - Hadramael frowned.
- It’s a saddle for you. Did I forget to say? I’m Zhentarim Skymage and you are my mount now.
- What?!!
Yeah! I have my personal Planetar now! He has 14 HD, I have +12 Cha mod, 1 level of Zhentarim Skymage and there is +1 in ability calculation! Holy 17-th level cleric casting! 9 level spells! Wow! I won't talk long about what I can do with it. There are so many options, and they would eclipse the main character herself.
Several words about cooperation with. In case of close fighting, when my Planetar (and I actually, too) can be in the area of my sonic attacks I'll protect him (and myself, and any other ally) with countersong. I succeed on my Perform against my siren's ability saves DC with natural 1. This is the reason to take the Extra Music feat.
In the rare case of Planetar's death I should do some devious smart trick.
There is these line in Flying Mount ability:

Should a flying mount die, the character can replace it after gaining two levels in any spellcasting class.
but I'm 20th ECL now. It's lucky for me that I have Song of weakness. I need to drain 1 last level (Zhentarim Skymage-1) and level-up it again. And repeat this. Nobody told me that I need to gain two different levels.
Aside from Planetar I get a scroll of two spells. It's good to be a Hymn of Praise or Sonorous Hum.

1) It is a shame I couldn't do Xyλena without Unseelie Fey. Only 2 Charisma wasn't enough.
2) I want to thank Beni-Kujaku for opening me Zhentarim Skymage PrC (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25276244&postcount=70)!
3) Firstly it was Succubus Fiend of Blasphemy-3/Zhentarim Skymage-5 riding the Solar, but I rewrote something for this round. Solar doesn't worth the Mass.

Element Book Page
Gloura Underdark 88
Unseelie Fey Dragon Compendium 222
Bard Players Handbook 26
Siren Savage Species 84
Zhentarim Skymage Lords of Darkness 102
Alertness Players Handbook 89
Iron Will Players Handbook 97
Combat Casting Players Handbook 92
Martial Study Tome of Battle 31
Foehammer Tome of Battle 59
Melodic Casting Complete Mage 44
Reverberation Savage Species 39
Clap of Thunder Complete Mage 40
Mounted Combat Players Handbook 98
Extra Music Complete Adventurer 109
Lullaby Players Handbook 249
Songbird Spell Compendium 195
Ghostharp Spell Compendium 104
Detect Magic Players Handbook 219
Mending Players Handbook 253
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter Players Handbook 292
Ironthunder Horn Spell Compendium 126
Percussion Song and Silence 94
Amplify Spell Compendium 10
Detect Thoughts Players Handbook 220
Invisibility Players Handbook 245
Joyful Noise Spell Compendium 127
Suggestion Players Handbook 285
Fortissimo Song and Silence 91
Creaking Cacophony Spell Compendium 55
Phantom Steed Players Handbook 260
Summon Monster III Players Handbook 286
Hymn of Praise Spell Compendium 117
Sonorous Hum Spell Compendium 196

[The Viscount]

He's got wings, but he's no angel.



Sca’varn Barra


https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/dark-fairy-alex-ruiz.jpg

CE Unseelie Pixie Savage Bard 1/ Hit and Run Fighter 2/ Savage Bard 1/ Warblade 1/ Sonokineticist 1/ Siren 10

Save a few trips across the Thunder Sea, Sca'varn Barra spent his youth, and then some, in Xen’drik amongst the Drow, watching them, following them on their raids of the ruins in search of anything truly powerful, and learned much from them. Their use of poisons, their battle tactics and even their choice of weaponry appealed to him greatly and in dealing with them for long enough, considering their ideological overlap, eventually they even grew to respect him too. Sca'varn Barra means “screaming shadow” in the drow tongue, and was the name they called him after they saw him take out a giant single-handedly, and he liked the sound of it or, more accurately, the story of it, so he adopted it moving forward. Though they respected him, Sca'varn knew they’d never welcome him amongst them, or truly trust him- nor should they. They are too many in numbers to spurn haphazardly, but if they ever found any artifact among the ruins of immense enough power, he would do his best to take it from them, and leave no survivors. Finding powerful artifacts that will help him bend the world to his will is his goal and no matter how friendly he gets with the local tribes, he’d never let them get in the way of that. Xen’drik was truly a playground for him; no rules, no authority, just pure unadulterated freedom, if not a bit rustic.


Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Savage Bard 0 2 0 2 Bluff 4, Concentration 4, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 4, Hide 4, Intimidate 4, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 4, Perform (Melody) 4, Use Magic Device 4. Literacy. Dodge, Weapon Finesse, Hidden Talent (Minor Psionic Creation) Bardic Music, Deadly Knowledge, Mimicking Song, Healing Hymn, Inspire Courage +1, Spells, Greater Invisibility, SLAs, Spell Resistance, Winter Chill
2nd Hit and Run Fighter 1 4 0 2 Bluff 4, Concentration 4, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 4, Hide 4, Intimidate 5, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 4, Perform (Melody) 5, Use Magic Device 5. Weapon Focus (Xen’drik Boomerang) Initiative +2, Dex to damage vs. flat footed foes within 30ft.
3rd Hit and Run Fighter 2 5 0 2 Bluff 4, Concentration 4, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 4, Hide 4, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 4, Perform (Melody) 6, Use Magic Device 6. Point Blank Shot, Dead Eye
4th Savage Bard 3 6 0 3 Bluff 6, Concentration 7, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 4, Hide 4, Intimidate 7, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 5, Perform (Melody) 7, Use Magic Device 7.
5th Warblade 4 8 0 3 Bluff 6, Concentration 8, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 5, Hide 4, Intimidate 8, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 5, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 8. Battle Clarity, Weapon Aptitude, Maneuvers
6th Sonokineticist 4 10 2 3 Bluff 6, Concentration 9, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 6, Hide 4, Intimidate 9, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 5, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 9. Boomerang Daze Sound Lash
7th Siren 4 10 2 5 Bluff 7, Concentration 10, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 7, Hide 4, Intimidate 10, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 5.5, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 10. Reverberation (Sound Lash)
8th Siren 5 10 2 6 Bluff 7, Concentration 11, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 8, Hide 4, Intimidate 11, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 6, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 11. Song of Despair
9th Siren 6 11 3 6 Bluff 7, Concentration 12, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 9, Hide 4, Intimidate 12, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 6.5, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 12. Darkstalker Charisma +2
10th Siren 7 11 3 7 Bluff 7, Concentration 13, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 10, Hide 4, Intimidate 13, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 7, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 13. Song of Nightmare
11th Siren 7 11 3 7 Bluff 7, Concentration 14, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 11, Hide 4, Intimidate 14, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 7.5, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 14. Song of Idiocy
12th Siren 8 12 4 8 Bluff 7, Concentration 15, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 12, Hide 4, Intimidate 15, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 8, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 15. Rapid Shot Charisma +4
13th Siren 9 12 4 8 Bluff 7, Concentration 16, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 13, Hide 4, Intimidate 16, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 8.5, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 16. Song of Weakness
14th Siren 10 12 4 9 Bluff 7, Concentration 17, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 14, Hide 4, Intimidate 17, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 9, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 17. Charisma +5
15th Siren 10 13 5 9 Bluff 7, Concentration 18, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 15, Hide 4, Intimidate 18, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 9.5, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 18. Boomerang Ricochet Song of Stone
16th Siren 11 14 5 10 Bluff 7, Concentration 19, Craft (Alchemy) 1, Craft (Poisonmaking) 16, Hide 4, Intimidate 19, Knowledge (Psionics) 2, Move Silently 10, Perform (Melody) 8, Use Magic Device 19. Song of Death
17th Pixie LA - - - - - - -
18th Pixie LA - - - - - - -
19th Pixie LA - - - - - - -
20th Pixie LA - - - - - - -

Abilities Point Buy incl. Racial 4th 8th 12th 16th
STR 12 6
DEX 14 24 25 26 27
CON 16 14
INT 10 16
WIS 8 12
CHA 16 24 25

Pixie SLAs (Caster level 8th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.):
Lesser Confusion 1/day (DC 14), Dancing Lights 1/day (DC 15), Detect Chaos 1/day (DC 15), Detect Good 1/day (DC 15), Detect Evil 1/day (DC 15), Detect Law 1/day (DC 15), Detect Thoughts 1/day (DC 15), Dispel Magic 1/day (DC 14), Entangle 1/day (DC 15), Permanent Image 1/day (DC 19)(Visual and auditory elements only).

Bard spells known:
Level 0 (5): Detect Magic, Know Direction, Light, Message
Level 1 (2): Inspirational Boost, Healthful Rest
Spells per day: (0 lvl) 3, (1st lvl) 0+2(3@12th)

Warblade Maneuvers:
Moment of Perfect Mind, Emerald Razor, Mountain Hammer
Stance - Bolstering Voice (or Leading the Charge if there’s a charger on the team)

This build starts on all cylinders right out of the gate, getting a lot at 1st level due to the +4 LA of a Pixie. Dodge is nice early, when scrambling for AC, and Weapon Finesse stays useful for the entire build, but Greater Invisibility at will is very important, due to the Con penalties involved with virtually any race or template that increases Cha, as well as the Siren’s d4 HD. The other SLAs have their uses, but Dispel Magic is infinitely useful, Entangle is great at CL 8, especially early on, giving you some battlefield control and Permanent Image is so much fun with an invisible creature, having it to lure the enemies into a trap… DR and SR both help keep the squishy little evil fairy alive. Finally, with the Unseelie template, Sca’varn gets one of his most powerful abilities. Winter’s Chill is a 5ft radius debuff of his Cha bonus. His abilities are, and will all be, Cha based, so if ever he’s worried about a DC not hitting, he can just sidle up to whoever he wants to affect with his beauty and use his ability from point blank and have an effective 2*Cha to the DC. Very nice.

Class levels start with Savage Bard for the thematic connection to Xen’drik, an uncivilized land, and the strong Fort save doesn’t hurt. Deadly Knowledge, for poison use, fits with growing up amongst the Drow, and synergizes perfectly with Hidden Talent (Psionic Minor [Poison] Creation). Bardic Knowledge wasn't going to be that useful and 1 fewer uses of Bardic Music aren’t going to hurt this build, minimum 1 is all that’s needed. That’s where Healing Hymn comes in. Fascinate is fun, but Sca’varn prefers to stay invisible and in case a DM were to rule that you need to be seen for it to work, to keep him safe he swaps it for Healing Hymn which only really works well for the first few levels if there’s a healer in the group, otherwise it’s just the 24hr bedrest for HD to healing overnight. Level 0 spells aren’t normally notable, but with 60ft. Flight, Greater Invisibility and Message, Sca’varn makes a pretty damn good scout out of the gates.

Having studied Drow battle tactics for so long, he then decides to employ them for himself, taking his next 2 levels as a Hit and Run Fighter. With his Greater Invisibility now all his attacks with his Xen’drik Boomerang are going to be adding Dex to damage within 30ft., as everyone’s flat-footed to his attacks and as of level 3, it becomes 2*Dex to damage thanks to Dead Eye. The initiative bonus is just icing on the cake.

The next level of Savage Bard is notable for a few reasons. Firstly, He gets his 1st level spells, though he can only cast them twice a day for now. The first of which Inspirational Boost, is both Sonic and Mind-affecting, which helps qualify him for Siren in a few levels, and the second of which, Healthful Rest, combines perfectly with his bedtime ritual of Healing Hymn which doubles the healing received for resting (albeit for only the two most damaged party members) and scales well for the entire build.

The next four levels of the build see the addition of 3 new classes. The first of which, Warblade is always a nice dip for melee characters, and even though Sca’varn’s weapon of choice is definitely the Xen’drik Boomerang, he has a tendency to get up close and personal, as he understands how his beauty affects people. Warblade affords him a nice d12 HD, helping his squishy self, Battle Clarity which isn’t negligible, and Weapon Aptitude, which becomes useful as soon as next level and only gets more useful as the levels roll in. Moment of Perfect Mind helps him shore up his less than stellar Will save, and no more instafail rolls of 1. Emerald Razor is very useful to ensure that certain attacks hit, especially if the DM were to rule that Winter’s Chill only works if you’re visible to the opponent as beauty is written as the catalyst. But given that the Greater Invisibility is always active and merely suppressed by a free action, you could turn it off, Emerald Razor with some poison on it, and turn it back on again. Mountain Hammer is always a useful strike, both in combat against constructs, or out of combat to break locks, doors, etc. (And how great is the mental image of a 2½ ft. tall pixie smashing through stuff) Finally his Bolstering Voice (or Leading the Charge if there’s a charger or two on the team) is a welcome boost for his allies.

The Sonokineticist dip nets a 1d6 Sound Lash, Sca’varn’s new sonic weapon of choice, which he’ll continue to use for the rest of the build. The whip, thanks to Warblade’s Weapon aptitude, can benefit from all of the feats chosen for the Xen’drik Boomerang, but is limited to 15 ft. (20ft./25ft. If you can get your hands on a pair of Horizon Goggles, and depending on how your DM rounds 22.5) So your Sound Lash, does 2*DEX ignoring armor on flat footed opponents, so don’t roll 1s and you should be fine, and thanks to Boomerang Daze the have to make a save against the damage or lose a turn. Notably, ranged (or even melee) touch attacks don’t draw AoOs so you can use it from 5ft without fear of repercussions, making Winter’s Chill combine well with it.

To start the SI a level late is a no-no, but Sound Lash is a yes-yes, and can only be taken as early as 6th, so it had to be done. Siren starts by offering the Reverberation feat (which I apply to Sound Lash) and, if I'm not mistaken, should boost the DC of Boomerang Daze when used through the whip to 12+damage dealt, which isn’t the worst way to start off the SI, but it only gets better from here. Song of Despair, at 2nd is a nice debuff, but only works once a day, for as many rounds as Sca’varn has levels in Siren, so should definitely be saved for the hardest thing he’s likely to fight that day.

These next levels are where Sca’varn becomes more than a debuffing battlefield controller and begins to harness the power of his sonic lash for more sinister purposes. At first I was a bit sad that 3/10 levels are dedicated to boosting the Cha of the Siren, but it saves you an effective (almost) 5th of your WBL at 20th, so that’s definitely not a negligible amount. At 9th level, he gets the first +2 boost to Cha, as well as Darkstalker, which should be self-explanatory; an invisible character without Darkstalker is incomplete.

The 10th level brings the Song of Nightmare, or Siren level/day Phantasmal Killer, which is Sca’varn’s first save or die ability (or more accurately save or save or die). It gives 2 saves, but those two saves are Cha based, and when he wants to ensure they’re at their most efficacious, Winter’s Chill comes into play. At 11th he gets Song of Idiocy, aka Siren level/day Feeblemind, another debuff to add to the bag of tricks, which works wonders against enemy spellcasters. It also happens to work as a pseudo save or die in combination with one of the few poisons that can do Int or Cha damage, freeing you up to make the coup de grace on them. Illithid Mindscorch or Slow-swarming are nice ones (although it can’t be made as easily as with psionic minor creation and costs a pretty penny per dose) especially if placed in a mister of which he carries a few, given their price and fantastic utility for a poison connoisseur such as himself. Finally, Level 12 nets him another +2 to Cha, and Rapid Shot; combined with his underwhelming +8 BAB, Sca'varn can now attempt to daze three foes every round, without the use of a custom wand or minor schema of Divine Power. (which he should probably add to his Heward’s Handy Haversack)

Rounding out Sca’varn’s progression he gets his final three songs, the first of which is Song of Weakness, a Siren level/day Enervation, which is another useful debuff and can help other more deadly sonic enhancements (or poisons) land more easily. He also gets his final boost to Cha, making it +5 over the course of 8 levels of Siren, saving him a whopping 137,500 gp he’d otherwise be shelling out for a Tome of Leadership and Influence. Not a negligible saving to say the least, it’s slightly under ⅕ of WBL at 20th level, and can now be put toward other things to make him more deadly.

Song of Stone, or Siren level/day Flesh to Stone, makes its appearance at 15th, which once again isn’t exactly a save or die, because they’re “alive” just extremely statuesque. But Sca’varn is no dummy and above all else looks out for number one, so as soon as the roar of a battle has died down he’ll take his trusty Mountain Hammer out of his repertoire and defaces the new statues, quite literally, to ensure no retaliation from them. At the same time he picks up Boomerang Ricochet, which will help him double up on his attacks and abilities should enemies be too tightly knit on the battlefield. Finally, at 16th (or ECL 20th, depending how you look at it) he grabs a true save or die in Song of Death. Maybe a good ol’ fashioned Black Lotus Extract and Song of Weakness, or two, first to soften his target up for the final blow.


Tome of Leadership and Influence, 137.5k gp, DMG, pg. 227.
Manual of Quickness of Action, 137.5k gp, DMG pg. 221.
Gauntlets of Energy Transformation, 1k gp, MIC pg. 102.
Horizon Goggles, 8k gp, CM pg. 133.

Rod of the Viper, 19k, DMG pg. 192.
Assasination, +1, CS Web enhancement.
Toxic, +1, DotU, pg. 96.
Virulent, +1, DotU, pg. 96.
Triple Weapon Capsule Retainer, 450 gp, CAdv, pg. 121.
Hilt Hollow, 200 gp, DS, pg. 33.
Rod of Magical Precision, 12k gp, CM pg. 128.

Tooth of Leraje, 21.6k gp, ToM pg. PAGE. OR Minor Schema of Greater Magic Weapon CL 20, 24k, MoE, pg. 122.
Schema of Nixie’s Grace, 26.4k gp, MoE, pg. 122. & SC, p. 148.
Eternal Wand of Devil’s Ego, 10.9k gp, ECS, pg. 265. & FCII pg. 101.
Amulet of Tears, 2.3k gp, MIC pg. 70.

Pixie, Race, MM pg. 236.
Unseelie Fey, Template, DMC pg. 222. +Errata. (https://paizo.com/download/dragon/compendium/DragonCompendiumVolumeIErrata.pdf)

Bard, Class, PHB pg. 27.
Savage Bard, ACF, UA pg. 50.
Deadly Knowledge, Bard ACF, DotU pg. 57.
Mimicking Song, Bard ACF, DS pg. 8.
Healing Hymn, Bard ACF, CC pg. 47.
Hit And Run, Fighter ACF, DotU pg. 58.
Sonokineticist, Prestige Class, Pyrokineticist variant, web. (https://web.archive.org/web/20190818133015/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625e)
Siren, Prestige Class, SS pg. 84.

Dodge, Feat, PHB pg. 93.
Weapon Finesse, Feat, PHB pg. 102.
Hidden Talent (Minor Psionic Creation), Feat, EPH pg. 67.
Weapon Focus, Feat, PGB pg. 102.
Point Blank Shot, Feat, PHB pg. 98.
Dead Eye, Feat, DMC pg. 95. +Errata. (https://paizo.com/download/dragon/compendium/DragonCompendiumVolumeIErrata.pdf)
Darkstalker, Feat, LoM pg. 179.
Reverberation, Feat, SS pg. 39.
Boomerang Daze, Feat, RoE pg. 108.
Rapid Shot, Feat, PHB pg. 99.
Boomerang Ricochet, Feat, RoE pg. 108.

Xen’drik Boomerang, Weapon, ECS pg. 119.
Mister, Item, 150 gp, DotU pg. 92.
Illithid Mindscorch, Poison, 1k gp, DotU, pg. 94.
Slow-swarming, Poison, 1.2k gp, DotU pg. 94.

[The Viscount]

Dead meme? Nah, son, this is an undead meme.


Ziz


"I remember it so clearly: for a moment I felt a terrible sorrow, like the world was ending... and then, moments later, it did."
- Survivor from the Brightvale Massacre

Ziz was a musical prodigy. He attended the Brightvale Bard College, dual majoring in Music and Tapdance, and made many friends with his charming wit and smile. Until, that is, one day he scored higher on a test than his roommate, who could not stand that Ziz had upstaged him in all ways, and so plotted revenge against Ziz.
The wicked roommate, who had connections to the criminal underground, killed Ziz’s family, hired someone to reanimate them as zombies and then use those zombies to forcibly perform the Ritual of Crucimigration on Ziz. Having lost everything, Ziz decided that, rather than spread joy with his song and dance, he would use them to make the world suffer as he had suffered.




Ziz, tap dancing ahead of his entourage
https://i.imgur.com/vda0c2G.png

CE Human Necropolitan Bard 1/Battle Dancer 1/Paladin of Slaughter 2/Marshal 1/Dirgesinger 1/Siren 10/Dirgesinger 4


Initial Stats:
Str 8
Dex 16
Con 10
Int 12
Wis 8
Cha 18 (All boosts go to Charisma)

Final Stats:
Str 8
Dex 16
Con -
Int 12
Wis 8
Cha 28



Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Bard 0 0 2 2 32: {+4} Bluff: 4; {+2} Intimidate: 2; {+4} Perform (Storytelling): 4; {+4} Perform (Wind Instruments): 4; {+4} Perform (Dance): 4; {+4} Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+4} Diplomacy: 4; {+4} Craft (Instruments): 4; {+1} Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 1; Wild Talent (Adon), Able Learner Bardic Music, Bardic Knowledge, Countersong, Fascinate, Inspire Courage +1
2nd Battle Dancer 1 0 4 2 6: {+1} Bluff: 5; Intimidate: 2; {+1} Perform (Storytelling): 5; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 5; {+1} Perform (Dance): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; {+1} Craft (Instruments): 5; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Improved Unarmed Strike AC bonus, Unarmed Strike, Bonus Feat (Improved Unarmed Strike)
3rd Paladin of Slaughter 2 2 4 2 4: {+1} Bluff: 6; {+2} Intimidate: 4; {+1} Perform (Storytelling): 6; Perform (Wind Instruments): 5; Perform (Dance): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Diplomacy: 5; Craft (Instruments): 5; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Skill Focus (Diplomacy) Aura of Evil, Detect Good, Smite Good 1/day
4th Paladin of Slaughter 3 3 4 2 4: Bluff: 6; {+2} Intimidate: 6; {+1} Perform (Storytelling): 7; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 6; Perform (Dance): 5; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Diplomacy: 5; Craft (Instruments): 5; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Divine Grace, Deadly Touch
5th Marshal 3 5 4 4 6: {+1} Bluff: 7; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+2} Perform (Wind Instruments): 8; {+2} Perform (Dance): 7; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Diplomacy: 5; Craft (Instruments): 5; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Requiem Minor Aura (Master of Tactics), Bonus Feat (Requiem)
6th Dirgesinger 3 5 4 6 6: {+1} Bluff: 8; Intimidate: 6; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 9; {+2} Perform (Dance): 9; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Diplomacy: 5; {+2} Craft (Instruments): 7; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Extra Music Dirgesong, Song of Sorrow
7th Siren 3 5 4 8 6: {+1} Bluff: 9; Intimidate: 6; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 10; {+1} Perform (Dance): 10; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Diplomacy: 5; {+3} Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Reverberation Bonus Feat (Reverberation)
8th Siren 4 5 4 9 6: {+2} Bluff: 11; {+2} Intimidate: 8; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 11; {+1} Perform (Dance): 11; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Diplomacy: 5; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Song of Despair
9th Siren 5 6 5 9 6: {+1} Bluff: 12; {+3} Intimidate: 11; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 12; {+1} Perform (Dance): 12; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Diplomacy: 5; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Subsonics Charisma Bonus +2
10th Siren 6 6 5 10 6: {+1} Bluff: 13; {+2} Intimidate: 13; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 13; {+1} Perform (Dance): 13; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 6; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; Use Magic Device: 1; Song of Nightmare
11th Siren 6 6 5 10 6: {+1} Bluff: 14; {+1} Intimidate: 14; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 14; {+1} Perform (Dance): 14; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 7; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 2; Song of Idiocy
12th Siren 7 7 6 11 6: {+1} Bluff: 15; {+1} Intimidate: 15; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 15; {+1} Perform (Dance): 15; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 8; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 3; Extra Music Charisma Bonus +4
13th Siren 8 7 6 11 6: {+1} Bluff: 16; {+1} Intimidate: 16; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 16; {+1} Perform (Dance): 16; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 9; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 4; Song of Weakness
14th Siren 9 7 6 12 6: {+1} Bluff: 17; {+1} Intimidate: 17; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 17; {+1} Perform (Dance): 17; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 10; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 5; Charisma Bonus +5
15th Siren 9 8 7 12 6: {+1} Bluff: 18; {+1} Intimidate: 18; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 18; {+1} Perform (Dance): 18; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 11; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 6; Snowflake Wardance Song of Stone
16th Siren 10 8 7 13 6: {+1} Bluff: 19; {+1} Intimidate: 19; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 19; {+1} Perform (Dance): 19; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 12; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 7; Song of Death
17th Dirgesinger 11 8 7 14 6: {+1} Bluff: 20; {+1} Intimidate: 20; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 20; {+1} Perform (Dance): 20; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 13; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 8; Song of Bolstering
18th Dirgesinger 12 9 8 14 6: {+1} Bluff: 21; {+1} Intimidate: 21; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 21; {+1} Perform (Dance): 21; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 14; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 9; Doomspeak Song of Grief
19th Dirgesinger 13 9 8 15 6: {+1} Bluff: 22; {+1} Intimidate: 22; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 22; {+1} Perform (Dance): 22; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 15; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 10; Song of Horror
20th Dirgesinger 13 9 8 15 6: {+1} Bluff: 23; {+1} Intimidate: 23; Perform (Storytelling): 8; {+1} Perform (Wind Instruments): 23; {+1} Perform (Dance): 23; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+1} Diplomacy: 16; Craft (Instruments): 10; Tumble: 1; {+1} Use Magic Device: 11; Song of Awakening


Bard Spells Known: Prestidigitation, Summon Instrument, Mage Hand, Detect Magic

Psionic Power: Psionic Minor Creation



Levels 1-9:
At these levels, Ziz primarily acts as a support character. Bardic Music and the Marshal’s Master of Tactics aura provides solid combat value to a party, and Ziz can make a solid party face (provided he keeps his undead nature largely hidden).
Taking Marshal at level 5 allows him to take the Requiem feat, since Marshal allows you to take any feat you qualify for if you already have Skill Focus (Diplomacy); this allows him to enter Dirgesinger at level 6, and thus apply Reverberation to Song of Sorrow, which will be his workhorse from here on out. Once he hits level 6, he can start debuffing enemies with Song of Sorrow, as well. At level 8, he can also layer Song of Despair from Siren on top of it, making for a pretty nasty debuff.

Levels 10-16:
When Ziz hits level 10, he is ready to start taking his revenge on the world. He uses Psionic Minor Creation with his Craft (Instruments) skill to create an Alphorn. (This works because of the nature of an alphorn: while it is incredibly long at 12-20 feet, it only weighs 4 lbs, because it is made out of birch bark. Psionic Minor Creation can absolutely create enough Birch Bark to create an alphorn, since it creates far more than 4 lbs worth.) He then finds an alley close to the center of a city, and uses the Alphorn to play his Song of Sorrow, affecting every enemy within 1d10 miles. Subsonics means that they cannot actually hear him, but they are still affected by the song. He then layers Song of Despair and Song of Nightmare on top of the Song of Sorrow, subjecting every resident of the city to a Crushing Despair followed by a Phantasmal Killer. This kills approximately 95% of the population.
As he levels up, he gets more options: at level 11 he can just reduce the entire populace to animal intelligence with Song of Idiocy, at level 13 he can kill them with Enervation (which also causes them to rise as wights the next night - bonus points for doing it a minute or so before sunset), at level 15 he can turn them to stone (sending a particular kind of message), and then, at level 16 he can simply kill anyone with 100 hp or less with Song of Death, allowing no save.

Levels 17-20:
After finishing Siren, Ziz then finishes Dirgesinger, getting some value out of the various abilities, until he reaches the capstone: Song of Awakening. This allows him to reanimate any creature with 20 HD or less, and said creature keeps all of its abilities (aside from racial Ex abilities). The creature also stays animate for as long as Ziz keeps performing, which, since he is undead, is as long as he wants. Ziz uses Perform (Dance) to do this, using his tap dancing shoes to include the (arguably) necessary auditory component of the song. Tap dancing is excellent for this because it doesn’t really do much to impede Ziz’s activities: it doesn’t use his hands or mouth, and he can still move while doing it.


Ziz has no particular need for any specific magic items, but there’s a few things he would certainly benefit from.
Quintessence - Song of Awakening only works on something that has been dead for less than an hour, so carrying around a coffin full of quintessence to store a particularly powerful corpse is definitely a good idea, if it is possible.
Undead Creation - Purchasing undead creation services, or an item that can create undead for him is valuable to Ziz, because they can tapdance along with him, and carry more coffins full of quintessence. Additionally, having more creatures to benefit from his Marshal aura is nice to have, too.



Ziz’s theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLBBRuVDOo4



Feature Source
Necropolitan Libris Mortis, p. 114
Battle Dancer Dragon Compendium, p. 26
Paladin of Slaughter SRD
Marshal Miniatures Handbook, p.11
Dirgesinger Libris Mortis, p. 43
Siren Savage Species, p. 84
Able Learner Races of Destiny p. 150
Wild Talent (Adon) Complete Psionic p. 142
Requiem Libris Mortis, p. 29
Extra Music Complete Adventurer, p. 109
Reverberation Savage Species, p. 39
Subsonics Complete Adventurer, p. 112
Snowflake Wardance Frostburn, p. 50
Doomspeak Champions of Ruin, p. 20
Alphorn Song and Silence, p. 42
Psionic Minor Creation SRD

[The Viscount]

Great story, no notes.



https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/647393639886094337/942939780155576340/Primal_Scream_small.jpg
Ulat, the Screaming Shadow
CE dark-templated forestlord half-elf rogue 4 / sorcerer 1 / wildrunner 4 / siren 10


Abilities Initial Race / Template 4th 8th 12th 16th
STR 12
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 8
CHA 16 1 1 1 1



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*inhale*
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Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Wilderness rogue 1 0 0 2 0 40: {+4} Hide: 4; {+4} Move Silently: 4; {+4} Balance: 4; {+4} Bluff: 4; {+4} Intimidate: 4; {+4} Perform (buffoonery): 4; {+4} Survival: 4; {+4} Knowledge (Nature): 4; {+4} Tumble: 4; {+4} UMD: 4; Endurance Alternate class skills, sneak attack +1d6, trapfinding
2nd Dragonblood sorcerer 1 0 0 2 2 4: {+1} Hide: 5; Move Silently: 4; Balance: 4; {+1} Bluff: 5; Intimidate: 4; Perform (buffoonery): 4; {+1} Survival: 5; Knowledge (Nature): 4; Tumble: 4; UMD: 4; {+1} Knowledge (Arcana): 1; B: Draconic Heritage (Howling) Arcane insight, spells (Known: nerveskitter, sniper's shot, detect magic, no light, launch item, ghost sound. Slots w/o bonus: 3/day for first, 5/day for cantrip)
3rd Wilderness rogue 2 1 0 3 2 10: {+1} Hide: 6; {+1} Move Silently: 5; {+1} Balance: 5; {+1} Bluff: 6; {+1} Intimidate: 5; {+1} Perform (buffoonery): 5; {+1} Survival: 6; {+1} Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+1} Tumble: 5; {+1} UMD: 5; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Weapon Finesse Evasion
4th Wilderness rogue 3 2 1 3 3 10: {+1} Hide: 7; {+2} Move Silently: 7; Balance: 5; {+1} Bluff: 7; {+2} Intimidate: 7; {+2} Perform (buffoonery): 7; {+1} Survival: 7; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+1} Tumble: 6; UMD: 5; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Sneak attack +2d6, penetrating strike
5th Wilderness rogue 4 3 1 4 3 10: {+1} Hide: 8; {+1} Move Silently: 8; Balance: 5; {+1} Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 8; {+1} Perform (buffoonery): 8; {+1} Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+1} Tumble: 7; {+1} UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; {+2} Never Outnumbered; Uncanny dodge
6th Wildrunner 1 4 3 6 3 6: {+1} Hide: 9; {+1} Move Silently: 9; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 9; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+1 CC} Tumble: 7.5; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; {+2} Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Darkstalker Fast movement, trackless step
7th Wildrunner 2 5 4 7 3 6: {+1} Hide: 10; {+1} Move Silently: 10; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+1 CC} Tumble: 8; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; {+2} Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Primal scream, scent
8th Wildrunner 3 6 4 7 4 6: {+1} Hide: 11; {+1} Move Silently: 11; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 11; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+1 CC} Tumble: 8.5; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; {+2} Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Endure elements
9th Wildrunner 4 7 5 8 4 6: {+1} Hide: 12; {+1} Move Silently: 12; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 12; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+3 CC} Tumble: 10; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Dragonfire Strike (sonic) Primal scream (enemies shaken)
10th Siren 1 7 5 8 6 6: {+1} Hide: 13; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 13; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; Intimidate: 12; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; Tumble: 10; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; {+3} Perform (Dance): 3; Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; B: Reverberation (primal scream)
11th Siren 2 8 5 8 7 6: {+1} Hide: 14; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 14; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 13; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; Tumble: 10; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; {+2} Perform (Dance): 5; Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Song of despair
12th Siren 3 9 6 9 7 6: {+1} Hide: 15; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 15; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 14; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; Tumble: 10; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; {+2} Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Terrifying Strike CHA + 2
13th Siren 4 10 6 9 8 6: {+1} Hide: 16; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 16; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 15; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+2 CC} Tumble: 11; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Song of nightmare
14th Siren 5 10 6 9 8 6: {+1} Hide: 17; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 17; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 16; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+2 CC} Tumble: 12; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Song of idiocy
15th Siren 6 11 7 10 9 6: {+1} Hide: 18; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 18; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 17; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; Tumble: 12; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; {+2} Acrobatic Backstab, Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Maiming Strike CHA + 4
16th Siren 7 12 7 10 9 6: {+1} Hide: 19; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 19; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 18; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; Tumble: 12; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; {+2} Back on Your Feet, Acrobatic Backstab, Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Song of weakness
17th Siren 8 13 7 10 10 6: {+1} Hide: 20; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 20; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 19; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+2 CC} Tumble: 13; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; Back on Your Feet, Acrobatic Backstab, Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; CHA + 5
18th Siren 9 13 8 11 10 6: {+1} Hide: 21; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 21; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 20; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+2 CC} Tumble: 14; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; Back on Your Feet, Acrobatic Backstab, Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Widen Supernatural Ability Song of stone
19th Siren 10 14 8 11 11 6: {+1} Hide: 22; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 22; Balance: 5; Bluff: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 21; Perform (buffoonery): 8; Survival: 8; Knowledge (Nature): 5; {+2 CC} Tumble: 15; UMD: 6; Knowledge (Arcana): 1; Perform (Dance): 5; Back on Your Feet, Acrobatic Backstab, Cloak Dance, Collector of Stories, Twisted Charge, Nimble Stand, Never Outnumbered; Song of death



Siren is all about adding nasty save-or-lose rider effects to a sonic attack, and the rider effects don't take a second action. How can we get an even better action economy? By making the sonic attack one that's already a free action! After all, if we know anything about sonic attacks, it's that they gotta go fast.

Wildrunner is a fun PrC in Races of the Wild. It's kind of like a barbarian who's based on yelling. You ever play 4e? You know the thunderborn barbarian? I'm pretty convinced it was based on the wildrunner. Anyway, at 4th level it gets the ability to turn its "primal scream" rage-analogue (which is a free action usable 3+CHA times per day!) into a sonic mind-affecting ability that works in an AoE and that only targets enemies without assuming that your allies are or are not a specific creature type. This is an excellent platform on which to build. Requires one tax feat (Endurance, sigh) and some nature-y skills.

Wilderness rogue, found in Unearthed Arcana, gets all the skills needed both for wildrunner and for siren, which is very convenient. It functions just like a normal rogue does (before 10th level, which Ulat won't reach) except for a different skillset. Cool beans.

Let's talk about racial stuff for a minute! Ulat is a dark-templated forestlord half-elf, and all of that is chosen very specifically.


Dark template
LA + 1
Speed +10 ft
Extraplanar subtype when away from Plane of Shadow
Darkvision 60 ft
Hide in Plain Sight (even when observed)
Cold resist 10
Superior low-light vision
Hide +8
Move silently +6
Keep all abilities from base creature
Tome of Magic pg. 161

Forestlord half-elf
As PHB half-elf except as noted
Dragonblood subtype
Hide as permanent class skill
Treewalk 1/day + 1/day per 5 HD
No bonus on Gather Info or Diplomacy
No bonus vs enchantments
Takes penalties if attacking green dragons
Favored class: sorcerer
Dragon Magic pg. 8



Why half-elf? Simple, because wildrunner requires elf or half-elf and I didn't want a penalty to CON. Why forestlord half-elf? Because I wanted Hide as a permanent class skill and because I wanted the dragonblood subtype. Why dark? Two reasons: one, it makes hiding way easier (it's the cheapest way to get hide in plain sight and it gives a big bonus; remember that per Rules Compendium pg. 92, "you can take a -20 on your Hide check to hide while attacking," potentially allowing for re-hiding even after you break stealth by attacking or screaming), which enables sneak attacks, and that's awesome. Two, the idea of a screaming character who's really good at hiding is really funny to me.

So why did I need the dragonblood subtype, you may ask? Well, I wanted to take the dragonblood sorcerer racial substitution level from Races of the Dragon so I could get Draconic Heritage (Howling) for free. Why do I care about that? Well, first because it gives Survival as a class skill so the progression stays a tiny bit cleaner as I'm building up to enter wildrunner, second because the fluff is completely on-point, and third because it's sonic-aligned. And the fact that it's sonic-aligned means that Dragonfire Strike deals sonic damage, making my sneak attack into a sonic attack. (Don't forget that Dragonfire Strike adds +1d6 to the sneak attack, too!)

The actual spells of sorcerer aren't a huge deal, but nerveskitter is always useful even with CL 1, no light is great for a sneak attacker with darkvision, and the ability to use sorc wands without rolling UMD is not a bad thing.

A few more levels of setup and then Ulat can get into wildrunner. Weapon Finesse is chosen because primal scream gives a bigger bonus to DEX than it does to STR, and that just felt right. (Any finesse weapon will do, and having a ranged option as a backup is probably wise.) Darkstalker is chosen because it's a critical feat tax for any stealth-focused character, which Ulat is. Penetrating strike is a must-have ACF that makes immunity to sneak attack a bit less of an issue.

There's some minor bonuses from wildrunner. Fast movement +10 means that Ulat has an impressive 50' base land speed (30 from half-elf, +10 from dark), which doesn't suck. Trackless step is mostly a flavor ribbon, but considering that Ulat mostly operates via stealth, it's cute. Scent and endure elements are primarily just ribbons as well, though I suppose endure elements is certainly nice to have. But ultimately, the real benefit is from opening up and SCREAMING.

Primal scream can be used 3 + CHA times per day, so it's already got a decent number of uses and siren levels increase those uses. It's a free action and it gives stat buffs (+2 STR, +6 DEX) and a bite attack. Ulat doesn't have a lot of resources dedicated to the bite attack specifically, but it's effectively free as another d20 in a full attack, so I'll take it.

At wildrunner 4, the primal scream becomes a sonic mind-affecting attack that forces enemies within 30' to save or become shaken! Behold, a sonic mind-affecting attack! Siren, here we come!

Terrifying Strike is here because I wanted to stick a little bit closer to the spirit of the rules than to the letter. By RAW, siren's songs piggyback on just your "sonic attack" and doesn't require that that sonic attack be a mind-affecting one. I wanted to have a way to make sure that Ulat's sneak attack is both sonic and mind-affecting, so I took Terrifying Strike. Remember that Dragonfire Strike makes it sonic, so Terrifying Strike turns it from a sonic attack into a sonic mind-affecting attack. This is a choice based on vibes! If you want to wring out every drop of power, then Terrifying Strike could be swapped out for Craven or something similar. The fact that Terrifying Strike's shaken effect doesn't stack with primal scream's shaken effect is slightly disappointing, but again, this is a choice for vibes. It feels right to make my sonic attack mind-affecting. Use it when it makes sense; lose it when it doesn't.

Song of despair is only 1/day, so honestly I'm not terribly invested in it. Still, before the other tricks come online, it's still fun to slap down more penalties on top of already making enemies shaken, and since it works in a burst, that's great. An entire encounter could easily be disrupted by a combination of primal scream and Never Outnumbered making everyone within 30' frightened, and song of despair would help there.

The CHA bonus is useful for fueling additional uses of primal scream, getting a bonus slot for another nerveskitter, making Intimidate and UMD checks easier, and of course improving save DCs of primal scream and of the siren songs themselves. I decided that starting with an odd number for CHA so that the boost from +4 to +5 does something wasn't worth the extra fuss (since it comes so late).

Song of nightmare is usable more than 1/day, so that's when Ulat's strong action economy comes in. Sure, when there's 4/day, maybe it makes sense to assume you're gonna use about 1/encounter… but that scales, and it scales fast. You're almost certainly going to have way more uses of primal scream than you will encounters, and as Ulat indicated up in the fluff section, there's no reason why you can't use it multiple times in the same encounter. Or hell, even in the same turn, if you just want enemies to roll and roll and roll until they fail a crucial save or two. And if you don't want to use primal scream over and over for some reason (maybe you don't like screaming multiple times per turn, I dunno), you can also piggyback siren songs onto sneak attacks, which are sonic (satisfying RAW) and mind-affecting (satisfying the flavor, if you like), easily getting two, three, or even four chances to force more saves in a given turn, plus however many screams you use. This also opens up the possibility of using different songs in one turn; opening up with a nice save penalty from song of despair (plus shaken!) and then forcing the saves against song of nightmare seems very nice indeed, and Ulat can keep attacking while doing it. Also remember that even if they succeed on the Fort save against song of nightmare, they still take damage, and every little bit counts!

My favorite aspect of the combo comes online with song of idiocy. Feeblemind reduces the victim's CHA to 1. Maiming Strike allows a sacrifice of 2d6 sneak attack to deal 1 CHA damage. In my opinion, 1 - 1 = 0, and a character with 0 CHA is unconscious, meaning No Longer Your Problem. Ulat can do this all at once even within a single turn! Maiming Strike also does not offer a save, so the victim really only gets the save against song of idiocy and then they're just a single attack away from being ruined.

Song of weakness is, in my opinion, a bit weaker than song of idiocy no matter what you do with it, but it can still be used to soften up high-Will, low-Fort targets before laying them out with song of idiocy. This is one reason why it's really nice to be able to use siren abilities on arbitrary sneak attacks as well as on primal screams: you've got a lot of uses per day!

Song of stone is simply a beautiful ability that works as-is, really. Wish that I could say more than that, but I'd be lying. It's great when spammed over and over with repeated free-action screaming, at least! Also, Widen Supernatural Ability works on primal scream (it is, strangely enough, supernatural) to make it potentially catch more victims in the area.

Song of death is a little harder to love than some of the other abilities, but I think that this is why it's valuable to also be able to put it on a sneak attack instead of ONLY on a primal scream (since a sneak attack will be reducing their HP, and once you feel that they're down low enough, unleash it). The RAW about exactly how it turns the effect into an "area spell" is a little murky, to be honest, since it doesn't say that it matches the area of the triggering sonic effect. Weird, right? Not honestly sure what to make of that. Could potentially be a thing if you make a long-distance sneak attack (with sniper's shot) and hit someone far away from you, almost like an arcane archer? It's just a strange ability.

But to sum up, you scream, and scream, and scream some more, then hide and attack and make everyone regret everything.


Category Thing Source Page
Class Wildrunner Races of the Wild 140
Class Siren Savage Species 85
ACF Wilderness rogue Unearthed Arcana 56
ACF Dragonblood sorcerer Races of the Dragon 107
Feat Draconic Heritage Races of the Dragon 103
Feat Darkstalker Lords of Madness 179
Feat Dragonfire Strike Dragon Magic 18
Feat Terrifying Strike Drow of the Underdark 54
Feat Maiming Strike Exemplars of Evil 25
Feat Widen Supernatural Ability Tome of Magic 75
Feat Reverberation Savage Species 39
Race Forestlord half-elf Dragon Magic 8
Template Dark creature Tome of Magic 158
Spell Nerveskitter Spell Compendium 146
Spell Sniper's shot Spell Compendium 194
Spell No light Book of Vile Darkness 100
Spell Launch Item Spell Compendium 130
Formatting Entry table mattie_p

[The Viscount]

Just gals being pals.



https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/647393639886094337/943167816692011048/siren_portrait.png

Clementine: the Odd Woman Out


Clementine steadied herself on the side of a tree older than she had words to describe. She’d been hiking for hours, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. The secret knot carved with a distinctive pattern stood out to her watchful eye.

“I’m here for the Delta Alphas meeting?” Clementine said. It wasn’t really a question, but she wanted to fit in with the girls from the city.

The tree nodded its slow boughs and parted its trunk, revealing a door of golden light.

Clementine stepped within to a space far too large to fit within the tree. Either a special space secreted inside, or the tree had teleported her somewhere. She was hazy on the distinctions between the two. Hopefully that was something this mystic order would help educate her on.

Clementine held her hand over her eyes to shade them. It was still night within the space in the tree, but bright light from a bonfire cast deep shadows in the clearing. Before she could take her second step, someone handed her a drink in half a coconut shell.

“Welcome,” she said. They hadn’t been introduced, but Clementine could tell who she was from her headdress.

“Den mother Hecuba,” Clementine said and bowed her head, even if it felt a little off to do so with a drink in her hand.

“Oh, please, ‘Heck’ is fine. You’re just in time. We’re about to start the chant of changing.” The women around the bonfire reached out and joined hands. Clementine slurped down her drink and looked for somewhere to put the shell.

“Just toss it in the fire, hon,” Heck said. Clementine obeyed.

“What shape should I take?” Clementine asked.

The first woman broke from the circle and ran toward the fire. She got a running start and leapt through the flames, emerging as a lioness. The rest of the circle cheered.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. All are welcome in the Delta Alphas. C’mon, you’ll go after me.” Heck let go of her hand and did a forward roll through the flames, emerging as an enormous bird of prey.

Clementine relaxed her muscles. Her tentacles shifted around her stomach, underneath her loose caftan. Normally, she kept them wrapped around herself. Maybe this time would be different.

Clementine sprinted into the flames to the cheers of those around her. she took her first step up into the air with nothing beneath her feet. The next step collapsed her legs up into her hips. Her tailbone extruded into a long stinger and her hands dissolved into claws. The gap between her wrist and hip filled with leathery wings and she flattened herself into the shape of a cloaker, buoyed into the sky from the fire’s hot air. She emitted a shriek of delight.

The women standing around the fire stopped their chanting.

Heck landed on someone’s arm and spoke despite her avian form.

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s, uh, it’s my shape,” Clementine said, not really knowing what to say.

“I thought it’d be clear from the clues on the way here, but we’re devoted to preserving the natural world.”

Clementine drifted up higher, safely out of reach as some of the women below slithered into predatory forms. One took the shape of a serpent with fangs formed from blue crystal she knew would cut her to the bone.

“No abominations, she means. Get the hell out of our magic tree,” it said.

That answered that, at least. Clementine soared back toward the entrance and dodged empty cups from those below her. No one was chasing her, at least.

She took her human shape on the other side of the tree, her feet touching down on the forest floor. She let her tentacles shift around freely. It didn’t matter now. Clementine knelt by the tree and left a mark on the soil in front of it with her magic that this was not a friendly place.

She couldn’t have been the first one ejected, given how long the party within seemed to have been going on. Clementine knelt by the trail and found a wide, spongy set of footprints from a shape she didn’t recognize. Nothing with paws or hooves, so likely to have been excluded from the druidic circle. After a few steps, they narrowed and deepened into something more bipedal. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

Clementine didn’t have any trouble following the tracks. Whoever had left them hadn’t made any effort to hide them. Soon enough, she emerged from the woods and made her way toward the coast where there was a small town. The footprints became harder to follow and eventually impossible once she got to the paved roads.

She stopped in at the grocer’s. It was the first place someone else would need to go after the trek.

Clementine greeted the clerk.

“Oh, good evening, miss. You here hunting?” she asked, noticing the ranger’s camouflage Clementine wore. That was as good an angle as any.

“You could say that,” she said. “Have you seen anything around here lately that might get expelled by your average druidic circle? Anything ‘unnatural?’”

The clerk shivered. “Oh, anything like that, you probably don’t need to worry about. This is a safe place. Any of those kinds of things tend to stick to their own in those grottoes over by the cove. They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them. Just stay away when you hear drums.”

Clementine thanked her and bought some dried squid for the walk down to the beach.

It was dark enough by now no one from town should see her or give her any trouble. She waded into the water and let it lap around her ankles. Her tentacles uncoiled from around her stomach and dipped into the brine. They got so dry bound up all day. The moisture crept up the waxy flesh on them to the roots where they joined to the small of her back.

She couldn’t hear much from the surface over the crash of waves, but through the water, she felt vibrations out of sequence with the tide. The beat of drums from the deep.

The entrance to a cave nearby gaped out in the night, a glow from within that didn’t come from fire. Clementine waded toward the mouth of the cave until the water lapped against her knees and then her hips. The gills along her ribs dilated open as she unbuttoned the vents on the sides of her caftan.

Just before she was about to make the choice about whether she’d need to take the shape of a shark to go deeper beneath the surface, she heard a low chittering noise from the ceiling of the cavern. A dozen pairs of predatory eyes shone from within, reflecting the dim light from luminescent grubs that swam through the shallow water and fungus that clung to the walls.

Clementine pulled up the hem of her dress and wrapped her tentacles around a column. She crushed herself into the compact shape of a choker and shimmied upwards to the many pairs of eyes from things she had no name for.

“Welcome!” said one of the creatures from within the darkness as Clementine’s eyes adjusted. “You’re just in time. Would you like something to drink?”

She smiled with her sharp teeth. “That sounds wonderful.”



TN human shape-changing ranger 5/nature’s warrior 5/siren 10



str 10
dex 10
con 14
int 14
wis 14
cha 16





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


1st
Shape-changing ranger 1
+1
+2
+2
+0
bluff 4 (2), diplo 4, hide 3, k (arcana) 2 (1), listen 4, perform (sing) 4, spot 4, survival 4, tumble 4
apprentice (entertainer), aberration blood (flexible limbs)
fast movement, favored enemy (arcanists), track, wild empathy


2nd
Shape-changing ranger 2
+2
+3
+3
+0
k (nature) 5, survival 1 (5), tumble 1 (5)




3rd
Shape-changing ranger 3
+3
+3
+3
+1
k (nature) 1 (6), k (planes) 4 (2), survival 1 (6), tumble 1 (6)
deepspawn
endurance


4th
Shape-changing ranger 4
+4
+4
+4
+1
bluff 2 (3), k (nature) 1 (7), perform (sing) 2 (6), survival 1 (7), tumble 1 (7)

distracting attack


5th
Shape-changing ranger 5
+5
+4
+4
+1
bluff 2 (4), k (nature) 1 (8), perform (sing) 2 (8), survival 1 (8), tumble 1 (8)

wild shape 1/day, favored enemy (magical beasts)


6th
Nature’s Warrior 1
+6/+1
+6
+4
+1
intimidate 3
aberration wild shape
nature’s armament (wild growth), wilding


7th
Nature’s Warrior 2
+7/+2
+7
+4
+1
intimidate 3 (6)

+1 spellcasting


8th
Nature’s Warrior 3
+8/+3
+7
+5
+2
bluff 2 (5), intimidate 1 (7)

nature’s armament (serpent’s coil)


9th
Nature’s Warrior 4
+9/+4
+8
+5
+2
bluff 2 (6), intimidate 1 (8)
inhuman reach
+1 spellcasting


10th
Nature’s Warrior 5
+10/+5
+8
+5
+2
diplo 3 (7)

nature’s armament (claws of the grizzly)


11th
Siren 1
+10/+5
+8
+5
+4
bluff 5 (11)

reverberation


12th
Siren 2
+11/+6/+1
+8
+5
+5
diplo 5 (12)
assume supernatural ability (choker’s quickness)
song of despair


13th
Siren 3
+12/+7/+2
+9
+6
+6
intimidate 3 (11), never outnumbered

charisma bonus +2


14th
Siren 4
+13/+8/+3
+9
+6
+7
intimidate 5 (16)

song of nightmare


15th
Siren 5
+13/+8/+3
+9
+6
+7
diplo 5 (17)
extended reach
song of idiocy


16th
Siren 6
+14/+9/+4
+10
+7
+8
bluff 5 (16)

charisma bonus +4


17th
Siren 7
+15/+10/+5
+10
+7
+8
listen 5 (9)

song of weakness


18th
Siren 8
+16/+11/+6/+1
+10
+7
+9
listen 5 (14)
combat reflexes
charisma bonus +5


19th
Siren 9
+16/+11/+6/+1
+11
+8
+9
listen 5 (19)

song of stone


20th
Siren 10
+17/+12/+7/+2
+11
+8
+10
bluff 5 (21)

song of death





You begin play as a ranger and wild shape is up. You also have fast movement and favored enemy against arcanists, opening up your extra damage to a lot more opponents than normally possible. Aberration blood and deepspawn enhance your melee capability, especially when grappling. Since deepspawn, being a feat, is an extraordinary ability, it in fact persists even when you are wild shaped, so your tentacles can offer extra attacks and enhance your grappling, alongside your flexible limbs. Distracting attack lets you help out your allies in combat as well.



Nature’s warrior enhances your melee prowess. It provides fast healing at surprisingly low levels, letting you shake off any combat you walk away from in one piece. You gain the constrict special ability and a boost to your natural attack damage in addition to beefing up your spellcasting. Your aberration wild shape is now online. Shapes you will favor especially are the cloaker (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/cloaker.htm) for its various moans to help you get into siren. Aberration offers many novel interesting wild shapes though such as the ever popular choker (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/choker.htm) to grant extra actions down the line. Inhuman reach improves the reach of your attacks including the tentacles you get through deepspawn.



You’re in siren now and have half your songs available to you. Extended reach is up with works in tandem with your other abilities extending the reach of your tentacles or other appendages depending on what wild shapes you’re implementing. Your charisma is boosted to enhance your DCs further.



Combat reflexes and the rest of your songs are active. Depending on your wild shape, you can have plenty of attacks of opportunity out to a great range due to your reach enhancing feats and abilities, giving you useful things to do for times when your songs can’t be brought to bear.




skilled city dweller: cityscape web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a)
srd: shape changing ranger, cloaker, choker, combat reflexes
dmg2: apprentice
phb2: distracting attack
complete mage: arcane hunter
complete scoundrel: skill tricks
lords of madness: aberration blood, aberration wild shape, inhuman reach
savage species: assume supernatural ability, extended reach

[The Viscount]

That's our entries this round! Judges, do your stuff!

[MinimanMidget]

The one idea I had that isn't in some way represented here was Dragonfire Adept. Thunder Breath, Charm, Enthralling Voice, various roars...it just felt too boring to be worth submitting, and I couldn't come up with a hook to make it more interesting.

[The Viscount]

I'm surprised we didn't get a Krenshar mask user.

[loky1109]

Wildrunner - check.
Binder with Dahlver-Nar - check.
Satyr - check.
Born of the Three Thunder - check.
Kiai Shout - check.
Nycter - check.
Pixie - check.
Aberration wild shape - check.

Nobody took Sirine from MMII. It isn't strictly RAW, but this shouldn't stop all.
And nobody is literal Ghost. And sapphire dragon, too.

I'll post one my unused draft of cheese latter.

[Wildstag]

I'm surprised we didn't get a Krenshar mask user.

Is this where you reveal you had ANOTHER totemist-plus-SI build on the backburner?

[Paragon]

Other build I had in mind was a Warlock with Baleful Utterance (which is an at will Sonic Effect) and since this is a "single syllable of Dark Speech" I wanted to use said Dark Speech/Whispers to convey the Siren's Riders but Viscount pointed out it'd be a tough sell.
Plus some gloves of Eldritch Admixture can give your Eldritch Blast a sonic component and Eldritch Spear make it a 250ft ranged touch + siren effects. Would have been nice

[loky1109]

Table

Name Alignment / Race Class Levels
Postman Pat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366310&postcount=59) CN Human Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 4/Siren 10
Valerion (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366315&postcount=60) LG Lesser Aasimar Binder 3/Harmonious Knight Paladin 2/Siren 10/Knight of the Sacred Seal 5
Simon (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366323&postcount=61) LE Human Paladin of Tyranny 4/Marshal 1/Siren 10/Singh Rager 5
The Shrieking Terror (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366326&postcount=62) CN Forestfolk Battle Dancer 1/Warblade 2/Dragon Devotee 5/Siren 7
The Chiro Pterackter (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366337&postcount=63) LN Nycter Savant 2/Siren 10/Fighter 1/Citadel Elite 2
Pu-chan (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366342&postcount=64) CN Satyr Lore Song Bard 2/Warblade 1/Siren 10
Faer Gweriador (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366347&postcount=65) CN Haunting Presence Necropolitan Changeling Wizard 5/Harper Mage 3/Recaster 2/Siren 10
Xyλena (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366359&postcount=66) NE Unseelie Gloura Bard 1/Siren 9/Zhentarim Skymage 1
Sca’varn Barra (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366364&postcount=67) CE Unseelie Pixie Savage Bard 1/Hit and Run Fighter 2/Savage Bard 1/Warblade 1/Sonokineticist 1/Siren 10
Ziz (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366370&postcount=68) CE Necropolitan Human Bard 1/Battle Dancer 1/Paladin of Slaughter 2/Marshal 1/Dirgesinger 5/Siren 10
Ulat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366372&postcount=69) CE Dark Forestlord Half-Elf Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1/Wildrunner 4/Siren 10
Clementine (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366375&postcount=70) TN Human Predator (Ranger) 5/Nature’s Warrior 5/Siren 10

[loky1109]

And draft.
Level Class Feats
1st Half-Ogre LA-1
2nd Half-Ogre LA-2
3rd Warmage-1 Human Hieritage
4th Human Paragon-1
5th Human Paragon-2 Abberant Blood, Improved Unarmed Strike (B)
6th Human Paragon-3
7th Divine Minion of Set LA-1
8th Divine Minion of Set LA-2
9th Warmage-2
10th Warmage-3 Abberant Wild Shape
10th Drider Template
11th Siren-1
12th Siren-2
13th Siren-3 Proportionate Wild Shape
14th Siren-4
15th Siren-5
16th Siren-6 Power Attack
17th Siren-7
18th Siren-8
19th Siren-9 Thunderclap
20th Siren-10

Divine Minion (https://web.archive.org/web/20201112041907/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a)
Drider (https://web.archive.org/web/20161101150824/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20011118a)

It's too cheesy to use 3.0 template as LA +0, so I abandoned it. But without it build didn't work.
My goal was to be Huge to Wild Shape into the Cloaker Lord.
And due Divine Minion's Fast Wild Shape I could transforming between attacks during full attack, this means very many natural attacks in every full attack in addition to Cloaker Lord's free action sonic mind-affecting Moans.

[mattie_p]

Thanks for the table, loky. An even dozen entries. I will be starting my efforts shortly. As usual I will be juggling other responsibilities but I promise to give everyone here my usual thorough efforts in judgment.

[The Viscount]

Is this where you reveal you had ANOTHER totemist-plus-SI build on the backburner?

Not really. Siren is one of the very small number of SI's for which I had a concept sketched out for when it popped up (dating back to when I was just a chef), and my plan was Krenshar. I had neglected in this plan that Krenshar's LA is for cohort. When it came to my attention as I posted this round, I realized the mask existed and would satisfy the widened entry. Then I held off on using it because I didn't want to make a build with a gimmick someone else was doing, and then I got busy with work stuff 2 weekends in a row and didn't have anything beyond the vague concept of a Sparrow Hengeyokai who would use the size mod to hide from targets while hitting them with effects that I was going to call the Lonesome Whipporwill.

I've only done like 2 Totemists, unless I'm forgetting something.

[Wildstag]

Not really. Siren is one of the very small number of SI's for which I had a concept sketched out for when it popped up (dating back to when I was just a chef), and my plan was Krenshar. I had neglected in this plan that Krenshar's LA is for cohort. When it came to my attention as I posted this round, I realized the mask existed and would satisfy the widened entry. Then I held off on using it because I didn't want to make a build with a gimmick someone else was doing, and then I got busy with work stuff 2 weekends in a row and didn't have anything beyond the vague concept of a Sparrow Hengeyokai who would use the size mod to hide from targets while hitting them with effects that I was going to call the Lonesome Whipporwill.

I've only done like 2 Totemists, unless I'm forgetting something.

Disregard, I had Totemist in mind when it's apparently Soulborn that you jokingly(?) suggested as an entry a couple competitions ago. But as a person that wouldn't mind taking a shotgun to a Whipporwill, I'd be intrigued by that build. Those are evil birds that have kept me up later than I'd like for a couple summers.

And yeah, the cohort LA is a thing that has long annoyed me. For some reason Krenshars and Blinkdogs have that (cohort) level adjustment, but Pseudodragons don't. If I can play the latter, I'd rather play one of the former.

[Curbludgeon]

I was fiddling with Kreshar Mask before life got in the way.

Now that submissions are over I have a general question. In the guidelines it states that Ghostwalk ghosts are banned (which in at least this situation is a bit of a shame), but it's unclear if other material from the book is frowned upon or ineligible. There are a couple of feats that would have applied in this contest, and a couple of others which I'd have expected to come up fairly often.

[The Viscount]

I was fiddling with Kreshar Mask before life got in the way.

Now that submissions are over I have a general question. In the guidelines it states that Ghostwalk ghosts are banned (which in at least this situation is a bit of a shame), but it's unclear if other material from the book is frowned upon or ineligible. There are a couple of feats that would have applied in this contest, and a couple of others which I'd have expected to come up fairly often.

The remaining content of Ghostwalk is legal.
Though of course you still have to qualify for the [ghost] feats by being a regular ghost, and regular ghosts can just pick frightful moan as a base ability, or pick up baleful moan from Libris Mortis for essentially the same effect.

[Seward]

Yup. Smart to stay out of this round, I don't think I would have discovered any of that stuff. Another good diverse assortment.

[NinjaGuy]

On first read: very cool builds, everyone! Can't wait to sink my teeth into these a bit more when I have more time.

I had thought of using the Krenshar mask, but was worried losing 10 levels of meldshaper would make it a joke to dispel. DC wouldn't be the easiest to pump either. I was actually considering using the Thunderstep Boots as an easy way to apply the Siren's abilities; 10d4 hp doesn't exactly scream (pun intended) "Charge!" however...

I'm pretty surprised nobody used Half-Fey to grab Enthrall as an SLA, considering all the other good available to them and the Cha synergy. I actually had an idea for a build involving one, but thought it'd be too unoriginal so I moved away from it.

[Zaq]

I like that just about everyone kind of went ham on the fluff this round. Cool stuff! I don't think I'm gonna place well this time, which is fine. Though of course I've been surprised before!

[AsuraKyoko]

I like how diverse the builds are. As far as I can tell, the builds are pretty unique, with a wide variety of races and classes. Bard is the most common entry class, and it's only in 4 of the builds. There's a number of entry methods that I was curious if they would get used, and almost all of the ones I though of were used, with the one exception being Half-Fey. I'm excited to see what the judge(s) think.

[daremetoidareyo]

This was a difficult one for me.

Dragonlance has the evangelist PRC which was perfect for the round, but like, I didn’t want to be in an evangelical mindset while writing out an entry that really just amounted to “look at a predictable set of optimizations on an obscure thing”.

Not enough dopamine in that mine

[loky1109]

There's a number of entry methods that I was curious if they would get used, and almost all of the ones I though of were used, with the one exception being Half-Fey.

Half-Fey was my third fourth entry idea.

[H_H_F_F]

While we're waiting, I'll drop by and mention that we are awaiting judgement on this round of Villainous Competition, found in my signature. Five unyielding sheriffs are waiting for you to enact your own justice upon them!

Even if you're not intending to judge, I think they're worth reading.

[The Viscount]

Considering some options for the next round. Choose carefully. Each one carries a terrible price.

Marked for Death
Great '70s Music
Doing Everything Wrong

[Zaq]

Let's be Dionysus.

https://pics.me.me/dionysus-doing-everything-wrong-like-that-9774963.png

[Venger]

How could I pick anything but "doing everything wrong?" That one.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Obviously we're right to pick the wrong choice‚ and it would be wrong to pick the choices left.

[H_H_F_F]

I'll do everything wrong by voting for marked for death

[Paragon]

Marked of Death here

[loky1109]

Marked for Death from me.

[Korahir]

Doing everything wrong.

[H_H_F_F]

The spreadsheet has been updated with your entries. Looking forward to judgement and the reveal!

Also, do we have anyone interested in judging this round of the villainous competition? Like the spreadsheet, it can be found in my signature.

[Beni-Kujaku]

The spreadsheet has been updated with your entries. Looking forward to judgement and the reveal!

Also, do we have anyone interested in judging this round of the villainous competition? Like the spreadsheet, it can be found in my signature.

I'm gonna try judging VC, probably by the end of the week.

[H_H_F_F]

I'm gonna try judging VC, probably by the end of the week.

Incredible. Thanks a lot, Beni!

[daremetoidareyo]

here's my guesses

marked for death: ghostface killa
great 70s music: highland stalker
doing everything wrong: malconvoker

im going with marked for death

[H_H_F_F]

here's my guesses

marked for death: ghostface killa
great 70s music: highland stalker
doing everything wrong: malconvoker

im going with marked for death

I wouldn't have thought ghostface killer (though I did suggest it at some point...)

I'd think either bloodhound or (and more likely IMO) some atrocious dragonmark prc.

[Seward]

I want 70s music. I actually liked Dazzler when she did an X-men cameo back when she was created to cash in on the Disco craze that ended just before she hit print. Sound-to-light is a better power than you think, when in the Marvel universe which contains sonic projectors like Black Bolt (that can break a mountain range by an accidental whisper, much less a shout), and targets like Galactus, when your power has no top limit as hers did not. I think she ended up as a herald for Galactus for a while.

There are also unfortunate tween pictures of me in that era, a time when I actually knew how to do the LA Hustle, and had performed "A Fifth of Beethoven" in an orchestra with my violin...which thankfully are mostly in my mom's albums, and she's pushing 80 so not very many more people will ever see them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-sBYt1UWmk

Of course the ACTUALLY great 70s music was Fleetwood Mac Rumors, basically anything from Heart in that era, Led Zepplin, etc. Pick your favorites there was a lot of good stuff, not just disco. I hear it was a good time in Country music too, but I wouldn't know. So maybe I'm imagining the wrong SI here.

[Venger]

here's my guesses

marked for death: ghostface killa
great 70s music: highland stalker
doing everything wrong: malconvoker

im going with marked for death

I could've sworn we did ghost-faced killer like 8 years ago but that doesn't appear to actually be true. What a dog's lunch of an ingredient that would be. What music does highland stalker represent? I'm drawing a blank.

Your guesses are good. In the interest of keeping myself occupied as we await judgement, my thought process was something like

marked for death: monk of the long death since it has that peculiar class disability that if you ever leave, they send progressively stronger evil ninjas after you until you defeat 5 waves of them and they conclude you are too powerful and awesome to be defeated

great 70s music: I couldn't for the life of me tell you why, but I felt certain for whatever reason this referred to Electric Lights Orchestra's "Turn to Stone" and it was some class with the ability to petrify enemies. Since we've already done siren, I can't imagine what it would actually be, but I feel like there's probably some 3.0 class out there that lets you turn an enemy to stone 1/week or something at 8th level.

doing everything wrong: I had initially thought it would be some class built around a single central mechanic which for whatever reason is completely dysfunctional without some adjudication but couldn't think of one like that we haven't already done. Instead, I thought perhaps it's some kind of class based on decadence and iniquity like one of the thralls or disciples we haven't done or some drow-focused class, as in doing everything unethical/immoral instead of doing things incorrectly.

Whichever way it shakes out, I can't wait to see what we have to deal with next.


I want 70s music. I actually liked Dazzler when she did an X-men cameo back when she was created to cash in on the Disco craze that ended just before she hit print. Sound-to-light is a better power than you think, when in the Marvel universe which contains sonic projectors like Black Bolt (that can break a mountain range by an accidental whisper, much less a shout), and targets like Galactus, when your power has no top limit as hers did not. I think she ended up as a herald for Galactus for a while.

There are also unfortunate tween pictures of me in that era, a time when I actually knew how to do the LA Hustle, and had performed "A Fifth of Beethoven" in an orchestra with my violin...which thankfully are mostly in my mom's albums, and she's pushing 80 so not very many more people will ever see them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-sBYt1UWmk

Of course the ACTUALLY great 70s music was Fleetwood Mac Rumors, basically anything from Heart in that era, Led Zepplin, etc. Pick your favorites there was a lot of good stuff, not just disco. I hear it was a good time in Country music too, but I wouldn't know. So maybe I'm imagining the wrong SI here.

Dazzler was a pretty cool character and is surprisingly important to Claremont run era continuity for X-men. She was much more than a cameo and had her own solo series for quite some time, and Marvel was even going to make a live-action film tie-in only a year or two after it launched but, as you said, disco was not popular enough in 81/82 to justify the expense and nothing ever materialized. I would've loved to see what kind of "Xanadu" like schlock they'd have turned out at that time, I bet it would've been hilarious.

She does have a really good power, but one thing I always thought was interesting about her is she's one of the few mutants of that era who was largely not interested in superheroics/crimefighting and wanted to live a normal life as a singer. As much of a cliche as this archetype is now, it wasn't especially common when she debuted.

She was in fact one of Galactus's heralds and is probably my favorite obscure herald after May Parker who was deputized into the Golden Oldie and used her power cosmic to bake Galactus delicious pies so he did not need to destroy planets.

Definitely true. I like to listen to "Rumors" while working on iron chef entries.

[Seward]

In college a friend of mine had the Dazzler run, which is how I know about Galactus etc, but for me there was many years gap between when she appeared a few times as an X-men guest star and when I saw her do her thing in her own series.

My favorite part was Kitty Pryde in her pre-Shadowcat-ninja-etc period trying to incorporate roller skates (and some unfortunate fashion choices) based on Dazzler into her own outfit, immediately pratfalled in front of everybody she was trying to impress, then used air walk the rest of the book till she could change outfits. Roller skates in a superhero costume is not for those who are not already expert.

Regarding petrification - Stonelord has several ancillary effects that sort of do that for you or your victim, but that was one of the earlier secret ingredients. My wife actually played a Stonelord with the earth grasp power (constitution-dc based hold monster 1/d), a ditzy dwarf barbarian who just wanted to become a rock. (her rage was when she actually paid attention to a threat instead of speculating on the stalactites while waving her axe in the general direction of the enemy) We eventually got shares in a gold mine, and she kept feeding her profits to visiting Xorns....things sometimes got strange in Living Greyhawk. She was intended as an "end of convention" character, somebody you play on the last day when you are utterly braindead, as a break from the complexities of her summoner-druid and her highly intelligent sacred exorcist of Pholtus. She liked her meld into stone power best. It was the closest she ever got to actually being a rock. We didn't quite make it to the levels where she could speak with rocks...I can only imagine what adventuring with her after that would have been like.

[mattie_p]

Hi everyone. Judge here. So I'm going to level with everyone. I got way incredibly busier than I expected since I promised to judge. I'm delayed.

It's been incredibly busy and rewarding both professionally and personally, but that left approximately 2 hours in the past weeks that I could make progress. So I'm about 2 hours into a probably 24 hour process.

My sincere apologies.

I should have a decent amount of time this upcoming weekend and into next week. I will give everyone my usual best efforts and will not unnecessarily delay.

[The Viscount]

Real life comes first; we understand. Thank you for the update and your dedication!

[daremetoidareyo]

I was doing some e-file cleaning and I found this delightful adventure down what I'm gonna call "what the heck was i thinking, no really, i'm curious to find out" alley.



1
artificer
negotiator, business savvy




2
ranger
track


3
ranger
favored in guild, rapid shot




4
human paragon



5
human paragon
skill focus (merchant)




6
merchant prince
heighten spell


7
merchant prince



8
merchant prince



9
merchant prince
sanctum spell


10
IVT 1



11
IVT 2



12
IVT 3
spell mastery


13
IVT 4



14
IVT 5



15
IVT 6
uncanny forethought




16
IVT 7



17
IVT 8



18
IVT 9
rapid spell


19
IVT 10



20





I vaguely remember some sense that i could add any 1st or 2nd level spell from any list to my spellbook by artificer scrolling them. due to some screwing wording in the merchant prince's spellcasting language.

What was i rapid shotting?

I think it was favored in guild entertainer's guild for doubling of profession checks that are made for a profit.

And then IVT could carry along this multi-list artifcer scroll to merchant prince -casting. I think maybe that was the only synergy? And Then i thought, wouldn't it be cool to choose from all of those lists! Sure, they're low level spells, but you got variety.

And I didn't choose a capstone!

[The Viscount]

I read this and thought "Oh he's doing the Count of Monte Cristo."

[H_H_F_F]

Do we know if anyone is judging?

[loky1109]

Do we know if anyone is judging?

mattie_p was, but he wrote about been irl busy several comments earlier.

[Paragon]

At this point i'm tempted to judge myself.
Can I do it even though I participated ?

[H_H_F_F]

At this point i'm tempted to judge myself.
Can I do it even though I participated ?

You can, but you'll have to withdraw your entry. It's more advisable to wait for a judge who hasn't entered, if possible.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Hi everybody!

Zinc Saucier (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?641758-Zinc-Saucier-XL-Our-Little-Loving-Friends) is still looking for judges. There are only three entries, it shouldn't be long to judge these cooks trying to emulate playing as a wizard's familiar. If anybody could give a few hours to it, we'd be really grateful!

[Paragon]

Anyone up to judge this round so we can continue the competition ?

[NinjaGuy]

It seems that across competitions the judgement portion has become a bit of an issue, no offense meant to anyone who offers to do so and has life get in the way. I realize it might not be the way things are normally done, but I think it's more likely the people who take the time to come up with a build have more invested in the outcome and might be more likely to judge the contests as well as participate.

It might take a bit of extra effort from the moderator to ensure nobody's judging their own build, but if we all judge each other it would likely lead to a quicker time of judging, with a more "fair" outcome as well, having more judges involved. Thoughts?

Also, I'm really not trying to point any fingers, just trying to help find solutions.

[Paragon]

I think this would be better than nothing as well.
Count me down if the chair chooses to test this out

[Beni-Kujaku]

I'm okay too. I'd guess we'd need at least 4 people to uniformize the scores a bit.

[AsuraKyoko]

How would we handle judging our own entries? Would we skip them? I know that I would find it basically impossible to judge my own elegance score, and difficult to remain objective for the other categories, too.

[Eldonauran]

How would we handle judging our own entries? Would we skip them? I know that I would find it basically impossible to judge my own elegance score, and difficult to remain objective for the other categories, too.
Same goes for me. I'm already compromised as far as bias goes.

[Seward]

If we only have one judge from the participants, the participant score should probably be done as one of those "here is what I would have submitted" public entries and not scored. Or you can score it as best you can trying to be objective, but it doesn't count for winning, the score is just a reference.

If we have more than one judge from the participants, just don't judge your own entry. People get the average score of the judges who scored their entry. If we have four participant-judges, each judge gets rated only 3 times, scores averaged.

Make sense?

As a side note, this would be a way to encourage more folks to learn how to judge. I might have stepped up in an earlier challenge just to see how many disputes got raised against my rulings :smallcool: But also to see how my scores stacked up against others so I could learn, and being willing to recuse myself if I botched the whole thing. But I wouldn't be willing to be the only judge, I don't think I'm up to it based on how often I'm surprised by other people's entries. I think there is a solid third of 3.5 content I don't even have cursory knowledge of, and my solid grounding and play experience is mostly pre-2008 splatbooks, and even that has some gaps because stuff got banned from campaigns I was in, often for cause, often for reasons that escape me. (Living Greyhawk reserved a lot of splatbook content as "not banned but you can't use it unless you encounter it in an adventure or get it as a favor somehow", and if I didn't encounter it either as a gm with players/monsters using it or as a player, I tended to only have a "glanced at it" familiarity, and the banned stuff is entirely theoretical. My home campaigns were even worse, as the GMs tended to not have a lot of splatbooks so tended to run mostly core games with a handful of other stuff that caught their fancy).

I did GM a lot, authored an adventure and playtested a hell of a lot of stuff. So I know more than the average player did, but I have been noticing the gaps from other people's entries (Faerun and Eberron content tended to not be included, likewise along with everything from Dragon except Greyhawk feats, plus the later splatbooks were rare just because the last year only had so many adventures to cram dragon magic, draconomicon etc content into play. BOED stuff was almost never seen, ditto most UA stuff, LM content made it in for bad guys and very rarely pc's etc. Complete Champion, Planar Handbook and ToB didn't happen at all)

[The Viscount]

I would rather not unless we have to.
We've had longer judging periods (I hold the record in round 100).

[Wildstag]

On a related note, but I've only submitted in this and a previous one because I want to have practice submitting before I offer to judge. With the other threads of this nature being more technical (emulate this, or don't use Y to achieve X), I figure this is the best way to do it.

I dunno, is there like an apprenticeship y'all do, or notes on thought process beyond just the score explanation?

[The Viscount]

Something I found really helpful when I started judging was having a set of criteria set out from the beginning that you use to measure the builds. This helps standardize things and kept me from comparing builds to each other as I was writing up my thoughts. Here's an example (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24283651&postcount=150) of the criteria I used. I started out with something closer to the criteria OMG PONIES created many rounds ago to speed up the judging process (anyone who submitted before those criteria were made can tell you that ponies was absolutely punishing before that as a judge. At the very beginning I just went with starting at 3, +0.5 for "yes" to one of the questions, -0.5 for "no" to one of the questions because the concept of scoring seemed daunting. As I did more rounds, I tweaked the criteria questions more and added the possibility of 0.25 score adjustments to add more nuance to what I was saying.

That's my take at least. I know some judges have a looser approach to it. Of course even my interpretation of the questions in my criteria still makes for a subjective judgement, and adding in more granularity means more play for my tastes. It's more structured, but it's not necessarily more objective.

[Zaq]

There's no "official" way to judge, aside from making sure that you go through the four categories and follow the super basic ground rules in the OP. That said, here's my take.

Not everyone judges the way I do, and not everyone has to judge the way I do, and that's okay. But here's my advice.

Also, here's the last time I judged: 1 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25008479&postcount=125) 2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25008482&postcount=126)

First and foremost, judge the way you want to be judged. This doesn't mean "give everyone a super high score!" or anything, but it does mean to think what the chefs are going to get back from you. I personally want the judge to look at the build as deeply as I do, so that's what I do when I judge. That's why I go into such ridiculous detail: because I want the chef to know that no matter what, I did indeed look at all of their choices and I gave them real consideration. Maybe that's not your style, and that's okay! Maybe you want a judge who accentuates the positives, or who goes off of vibes, or whatever. And that's okay as long as you're reasonably consistent about it (within a given round)!

The very first thing I do is just read through all of the builds. Don't write anything down yet. Don't judge them (as much as you can, at least!). You're just trying to establish a baseline. Maybe a trick that seems really cool in one build ends up being really common, or maybe a build that seems kind of tame at first ends up being noticeably less weird than the others once you see where they're going.

Then it's time for numbers! One of the first things I do once I get down to numbers is check for legality. I go deeper than most judges do and check skill points; most people don't do this, and that's okay, though mattie_p's excellent spreadsheet (which I haven't used while judging yet) probably helps. But check the feats and the PrCs, at least. Hopefully they all match up, but if not, that's worth mentioning!

Then you basically just want to go through each category in whatever order makes sense to you. Does it do what it says it can do? Can it punch at or above its weight class? Does it feel fresh? Does it feel smooth? Does it feel like it needs to be the SI?

Is it possible for you to summarize, just to yourself, what each build "does" and what it's "about"? I mean sure, sometimes there will be a build that's just so poorly presented that you can't really make it seem logical to yourself, but in general, you should at least be able to briefly self-summarize what each build's core deal is. That helps you keep them apart in your head, and the act of doing it is a good check to make sure that you understand what's on the plate!

I tend to look up all the important stuff that the build claims it can do and see if it matches the text. You don't have to do this, but it works for me.

Sometimes I'll focus hard on one build at a time, finish it, and move on to the next; sometimes I'll do all the builds in one category, then all the builds in the next category, and so on. Advantage of the first method is that, for me, it's easier to stay focused this way. Advantage of the second method is that it's easier to directly compare the builds, making it a little easier to be consistent. Neither is right or wrong. Neither is the sole possible method. They're just methods. What matters is that the job gets done, not necessarily how it's done.

Many years ago, I used to score as I was writing. I'd see something I liked, comment on it, and assign it a bonus; I'd see something I disliked, comment on it, and assign it a penalty. Then I'd tally them all up and move on. I haven't done that in a while; nowadays I just talk about what I see and then go for a gut feeling of an overall score for the category. Neither is right or wrong. Advantage of the first method is that you don't really have to make a big judgment all at once. Advantage of the second method is that you don't necessarily need to agonize about calling out every single plus and minus. There are other methods. Stretch your skills and try something. It's all cool.

Now, I admit to my own biases here: I am a verbose SOB and I tend to explain in exhausting detail, which not everyone does. But I feel like if you do that, there's less chance of someone having a valid dispute against you for just not getting the build or for not applying the same logic to two different builds--you've already explained yourself, so everyone can see where you're coming from! Doesn't mean that people won't angle for the extra points, but you can tell the difference between "I want more points" and "you messed up" pretty easily.

Write down as much as you can as you're going, because that way, the work is there and it can't really be taken away from you (barring computer trauma). Thinking about the builds is necessary and important, but just getting everything on the page is ultimately where you're going.

One thing i tried last time that I definitely intend to do again is using a bullet-point-heavy format. This isn't a narrative and you don't need to be necessarily building up a layered paragraph. Each observation can, if appropriate, stand on its own and that's okay.

Ultimately, you will simply have some choices to make that kind of just come from the gut. The numbers are arbitrary at the end of the day, which is why we have judges at all instead of just feeding the builds into some kind of automated scoring program. Your gut is usually right! If it doesn't feel right then it doesn't feel right, and if it feels cool then it's probably cool! The subjectivity is the point. Sure, explain it, defend it, explore it, but don't try to pretend it's not there, and don't try to fight yourself over it. Builds are intended to evoke reactions from judges: sure, don't swing wildly between extremes without a good reason, but it's okay to let yourself react!

Do your very best to treat builds with an even hand instead of just obviously playing favorites, but as long as you're trying on that front, it's usually pretty obvious and you're gonna be fine.

But ultimately, kind of like cooking, there isn't a formula to follow per se. You just have to do it and get your hands dirty. It's hard, but hard in the sense that it takes time and energy, not in the sense that it takes special skills or that any given motivated person can't do it.

[Seward]

Yeah, that's very helpful. I still don't feel qualified to judge this round, as Savage Species was both before my time (I exited home-mostly-core3.0-game-only play right as 3.0 was converting to 3.5) and I never owned the book (unlike many of the other 3.0 splatbooks, purchased right before the conversion).

This point I found pretty interesting



Power
1 Is the build capable of doing what it claims to do?
2 Does the build function at the same power level throughout an entire adventuring day, rather than relying on "nova" powers?
3 Does the build thrive without requiring specific magic items, templates, or other "add-ons" to qualify for anything?
4 Does the build contribute significantly in terms of offense, defense, and utility?


My #2 would actually give points for performing well in the three basic adventuring days (many encounters, attacking a hardpoint with time to buff - call it a 1 hr adventuring day, and a nova "prep for the boss fight" kind of thing), also I always look for what happens if they have an "oh crap" moment when not prepared for a fight - the reactive ambush encounter that turns out to be really dangerous, possibly because a key party member was dropped and suddenly an easy fight got dangerous.

That means I do actually like a bit of nova on almost any character, a sign they can turn it up to 11 beyond their base capability if the situation demands.

So if I judge, my #2 would look more like this

2 - Can the character participate well in a long adventuring day, a prepared assault on a hardpoint or a kick-down-the-door with max buff boss fight with appropriate increasing scaling of power assuming usual buffs either via party or consumables if not a caster or if such spells aren't known/prepared. Furthermore if the party is surprised by a dangerous encounter, how good is he at either helping to even the odds quickly or extract the party from the situation. This category is easier to judge if I have a sense of your prepared spell loadout on a typical day with notes on how you'd adjust it when you know you're assaulting a hardpoint that day.

If your character is incredibly hard to surprise/ambush, you'd get points in the "dangerous encounter" category beyond your base contribution, and if you are incredibly good at scouting you get points in the "attack hardpoint" category, although you need to exceed with a party of your level can ordinarily do with usual tools. If you are taking Mialee's place as a primary arcane caster, you need to have something as effective as what a familar and spells like rope trick, alarm etc provide to bet a +0 in the ambush category, and what invisibility, familiar, clairvoyance etc can do in the scouting category. This can be hard on sorcerers who didn't take some utility spells and is the kind of thing that helps out beguilers in the power category and dings warmages in the power category even though the latter is way, way better at melting faces in straight up combat than a beguiler against a wide range of enemies. (of course most beguilers are going the skillmonkey/utility route rather than "arcane caster" route but I'll base this on how you describe your party role at a given level range, and compare you to an iconic-level simple build doing something similar as a baseline)

In the Elegance section, one of my criteria would be "does this character fill a useful role from level 1 to 20? I will give a small bonus if it fills the SAME role from 1-20, as I find such characters appealing."

Obviously not every secret ingredient lends itself to that one. (the Vengeance Taker usually transitioned from primary caster to Gish although some of the builds, like the Drider build, would have got an extra bump from me in this category for being pretty consistent even in baby levels, largely due to their unusual entry method)

[NinjaGuy]

I'm okay too. I'd guess we'd need at least 4 people to uniformize the scores a bit.

Just to clarify what I had meant, not that it really matters as the chair has spoken... But I was thinking that by submitting a build, an entrant would also be accepting the duties of judging the other entrants' builds as well, but not their own. Judges would already be intimately familiar with the SI that way, and there would be more judges which would allow for more opinions, and a less subjective podium.


...The subjectivity is the point.

I'd agree, except I've been reading through past competitions and there have been instances where I would have either rearranged the placement of the top 3 or swapped in someone who didn't place on it all together. Of course that is my subjective opinion, but I doubt I'm the only one. It seems to me that the competitions with more judges are the ones where I am least likely to think that way. I was even about to message someone who I thought got robbed, clearly put effort into their entry, maybe even moreso than some who placed ahead, and wasn't even an honorable mention. Decided against it, because I thought they might think I'm weird. I am, but I generally don't send out PMs to people to advertise it.:smallbiggrin:

Would you guys be happy to get a message praising an entry to an old competition you had entered and your entry flopped?


...I wouldn't be willing to be the only judge, I don't think I'm up to it based on how often I'm surprised by other people's entries.

I feel the exact same way. I come here mostly to learn, and when applicable offer advice. I know I'm not the least knowledgeable person on the subject of DnD 3.5, but I also know even more definitely that I am not the most knowledgeable! Hahahah

Well at least having broached the subject seems to have gotten people thinking about judging!

[Venger]

On a related note, but I've only submitted in this and a previous one because I want to have practice submitting before I offer to judge. With the other threads of this nature being more technical (emulate this, or don't use Y to achieve X), I figure this is the best way to do it.

I dunno, is there like an apprenticeship y'all do, or notes on thought process beyond just the score explanation?
We made a thread on this a while back (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?287603-Handy-Tips-for-the-Iron-Chef-in-the-Playground-Noob[/url). What you mention is interesting. If the next round is something I am interested in cooking, I might keep a diary of my thoughts as I create the build and post it after the reveal, a kind of "iron chef cookbook." It might be a fun idea for a companion thread for people to share thoughts after the fact to help out people in your position.


Would you guys be happy to get a message praising an entry to an old competition you had entered and your entry flopped?

Speaking for myself, this would be lovely.

[H_H_F_F]

Would you guys be happy to get a message praising an entry to an old competition you had entered and your entry flopped?

I think everybody here would!

I very much doubt that you and I have been the only ones to ever read through past competitions. I've entered the arena here knowing that there must be other lurkers and future readers, like myself - and knowing that someone in that audience appreciates your work is always nice.

[Wildstag]

We made a thread on this a while back (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?287603-Handy-Tips-for-the-Iron-Chef-in-the-Playground-Noob[/url).

You people and your weird perceptions of time. 2013 being "just a while back" is strange, makes me think this forum's more in the 35-45 age range than something younger like 25-35. I guess that fits given the discussion of 3rd edition, but still...

Regardless, thanks. Part of my query that I forgot to mention earlier is: do people actually stress-test these builds? Do they run one-shots to test the builds out, or do some judges prefer on-paper analysis more than anything else?

And further, the last few look like they've had few judges and long waits for judges that have gone past the "if no judge has submitted by this time, the first reviews decide" point. We all gotta start somewhere, but I wouldn't want to my first to also be the only set of reviews on a round.

[Seward]

Regardless, thanks. Part of my query that I forgot to mention earlier is: do people actually stress-test these builds? Do they run one-shots to test the builds out, or do some judges prefer on-paper analysis more than anything else?

It's funny, I actually have a set of playtest material that goes from average party level L1-15 and every time I get a party worth of weird character ideas and am in the mood, I run them through it for fun (it's similar in time to playing one a CRPG of the size of Balder's Gate (first game) or an XCom Enemy Within game after you've mastered the CRPG). I've been doing that more recently because these iron chef challenges produce such interesting characters.

When I was actively playing in organized play, I used those resources both to test modules for balance at different expected party levels (lets just say scaling elementals has a sudden jump in danger around level 8 that not all authors realize) and to preview my own ideas at later levels to help decide on build directions.

In spite of that I wouldn't do that to judge. It would take way too long, and the outcomes would depend way too much on the party mix. (I had a random party generator too, with what in pathfinder would be called "iconic" builds - core only single class generic feat and gear choices etc to allow for the variety of skill levels in organized play, which usually had some highly skilled and very weak players at the same table. The randomly generated often unbalanced parties were really helpful for exposing author assumptions. When playtesting battle interactives I'd mix in more optimized characters from my own or my wife's actual stable of PCs as those were intended to be a significant step up in difficulty Part of why the builds were generic was to counter my own system mastery - some would represent better builds but not played as optimally under the strain of a con-setting).

Instead I'd rely on my own judgement of what the chef was trying to do and role they're trying to fill against basics of what actually works at that levels (how high skills need to be, attack mods, damage/round if they all hit, ac/saves etc) to give bonuses for unusually effective parts of the character and dinging for weaknesses outside of normal ranges. If they had both I'd generally assume they'd gear or arrange party buffs etc to cover the holes and not push the strengths quite as high to get everything into the baseline effective ranges and probably give a +0 in that category.

I'd try to show my work if I did anything but give out a +0, as I've seen judges do. (eg, in the IVT challenge we just did I realized the judge was giving credit for tracking utility in the 1-5 range but not after that on both of my characters because I didn't keep up with Survival, or finally caught up way after there were better tools than the track skill for the role of "find the enemy and learn about them" that I ALSO wasn't able to use very well. Basically I got dinged for having the capabilities but not developing them. I'd probably be dinged even more if I had really tanked it - like not spending a single skill point on survival+negative wisdom modifier and taking some prc/feat that ruined the spell-like abilities provided by the IVT class etc).

[WhamBamSam]

I had the tables all done before the deadline, but just didn't have the wherewithal to finish the write-up. Sapphire Dragons have a sonic breath weapon that causes panic, so the wyrmling qualifies for Siren out of the box if you can wrangle the skills, which the Passion's Flame Sovereign Archetype and Criminal Background manage. Artificer was there to get access to Breathbarb (http://rpg.nobl.ca/archive.php?x=dnd/wn/20030423a).

HD Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st RHD 1 1 2 2 2 32: {+4} Bluff: 4; {+4} Climb: 4; {+4} Intimidate: 4; {+4} Listen: 4; {+4} Perform (Buffoonery): 4; {+4} Use Magic Device: 4; {+4} Sense Motive: 4; {+4} Sleight of Hand: 4; Criminal Background Sapphire Dragon Racial Traits, Passion's Flame Sovereign Archetype
2nd RHD 2 2 3 3 3 8: {+1} Bluff: 5; {+1} Climb: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 5; {+1} Listen: 5; {+1} Perform (Buffoonery): 5; {+1} Use Magic Device: 5; {+1} Sense Motive: 5; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 5; - -
3rd RHD 3 3 3 3 3 8: {+1} Bluff: 6; Climb: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 1; Intimidate: 5; {+1} Listen: 6; {+1} Perform (Buffoonery): 6; {+1} Use Magic Device: 6; Sense Motive: 5; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 6; {+2} Speedy Ascent; Flyby Attack -
4th RHD 4 4 4 4 4 8: {+1} Bluff: 7; Climb: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 7; {+1} Perform (Buffoonery): 7; {+1} Use Magic Device: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 6; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 7; Speedy Ascent; - -
5th RHD 5 5 4 4 4 8: {+1} Bluff: 8; Climb: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 3; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 8; {+1} Perform (Buffoonery): 8; {+1} Use Magic Device: 8; {+2} Sense Motive: 8; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 8; Speedy Ascent; - -
6th Siren 1 5 4 4 6 6: {+1} Bluff: 9; Climb: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 4; {+1} Gather Information: 1; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 9; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 9; Speedy Ascent; Flyby Breath, ReverberationB -
7th Siren 2 6 4 4 7 6: {+1} Bluff: 10; Climb: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; {+1} Gather Information: 2; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 10; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 10; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 10; Speedy Ascent; - Song of Despair
8th Siren 3 7 5 5 7 6: {+1} Bluff: 11; Climb: 5; Diplomacy: 5; Gather Information: 2; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 11; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 11; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 11; {+2} Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; - Charisma Bonus +2
9th Siren 4 8 5 5 8 6: {+1} Bluff: 12; Climb: 5; Diplomacy: 5; {+2} Gather Information: 4; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 12; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 12; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 12; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; Strafing Breath Song of Nightmare
10th Siren 5 8 5 5 8 6: {+1} Bluff: 13; Climb: 5; Diplomacy: 5; {+2} Gather Information: 6; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 13; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 13; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 13; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; - Song of Idiocy
11th Siren 6 9 6 6 9 6: {+1} Bluff: 14; Climb: 5; Diplomacy: 5; {+2} Gather Information: 8; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 14; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 14; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 14; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; - Charisma Bonus +4
12th Siren 7 10 6 6 9 6: {+1} Bluff: 15; Climb: 5; Diplomacy: 5; {+2} Gather Information: 10; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 15; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 15; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 15; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; Clinging Breath Song of Weakness
13th Siren 8 11 6 6 10 6: {+1} Bluff: 16; Climb: 5; Diplomacy: 5; {+2} Gather Information: 12; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 16; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 16; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 16; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; - Charisma Bonus +5
14th Siren 9 11 7 7 10 6: {+1} Bluff: 17; Climb: 5; Diplomacy: 5; {+2} Gather Information: 14; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 17; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 17; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 17; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; - Song of Stone
15th Siren 10 12 7 7 11 6: {+1} Bluff: 18; Climb: 5; {+1} Craft (Weaponsmithing): 1; Diplomacy: 5; {+1} Gather Information: 15; Intimidate: 6; {+1} Listen: 18; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; Use Magic Device: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 18; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 18; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; Lingering Breath Song of Death
16th Artificer 1 12 7 7 13 6: Bluff: 18; Climb: 5; Craft (Weaponsmithing): 1; Diplomacy: 5; Gather Information: 15; Intimidate: 6; Listen: 18; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; {+6} Use Magic Device: 14; Sense Motive: 18; Sleight of Hand: 18; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; Scribe ScrollB Artificer Knowledge, Artisan Bonus, Disable Trap, Item Creation
17th Artificer 2 13 7 7 14 6: {+2} Bluff: 20; Climb: 5; Craft (Weaponsmithing): 1; Diplomacy: 5; Gather Information: 15; Intimidate: 6; Listen: 18; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; {+2} Use Magic Device: 16; Sense Motive: 18; {+2} Sleight of Hand: 20; Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; Brew PotionB -
18th Artificer 3 14 8 8 14 6: {+1} Bluff: 21; Climb: 5; Craft (Weaponsmithing): 1; Diplomacy: 5; Gather Information: 15; Intimidate: 6; Listen: 18; Perform (Buffoonery): 8; {+2} Use Magic Device: 18; Sense Motive: 18; {+1} Sleight of Hand: 21; {+2} Listen to This, Social Recovery, Speedy Ascent; Exceptional Artisan, Craft Wonderous ItemB -

ECL 1st 2nd
18th 2 -
19th 3 -
20th 3 1


Anyhow, since I didn't get an entry in, I can judge. Criteria are as follows.

OriginalityStart from a baseline score of 3.

Up to 1 point of bonus or penalty based on whether the classes and such you used were things I expected and whether they were used by other entrants. Known cheese or standard handbook fare will see a deduction here (though I don't penalize Human or similar default race choices). Note that I don't reward "shameless originality grabs." If you use something that's unique or unusual for its own sake (rather than because it actually does something relevant for your build), you won't get points for it.

Up to 1 point of bonus or penalty to a build doing something interesting or something we've all seen it before respectively. You can fill a common niche without incurring my wrath, but I'd like to see a new spin on it. Cool factor in your crunch may see a bonus here.

A 0.25 point bonus if I find your fluff to be entertaining. An additional +0.25 for the "best in show."

PowerStart from a baseline score of 3.

Up to a 0.5 point bonus or penalty based on whether the SI enhances the build or seems to be significantly ineffective compared to further progression in entry classes.

Up to a 0.5 point bonus or penalty based on whether the build is capable of doing what it claims to do.

Up to a 0.5 point bonus or penalty based on the build's ability to meaningfully contribute to level-appropriate encounters.

Up to a 0.5 point bonus or penalty for gear independence or item reliance.

EleganceStart from a baseline score of 4.

Each failure to qualify for a non-SI class or feat results in a 0.5 point deduction.

Up to 1 point of penalty for questionable rules interpretations and for extremely stinky cheese.

Up to 1 point of bonus or penalty based on the overall flow of the build and how well everything fits together. A clean, flowing progression will score more points, whereas something that feels awkward may be penalized. As with cheese, I'm not going to try to be especially punitive toward dipping, unless you're really asking for it. Note that I try not to reward "shameless elegance grabs" any moreso than I will "shameless originality grabs." For example, I may consider 2/3/5/10 more elegant than 5/5/10 depending on circumstances.

I'll assign a 0.25 point penalty for incurring multiclass penalties that can't be easily resolved by rearranging levels. They're a stupid, stupid rule, but they are a rule.

Up to 0.5 points of bonus or penalty if the build just screams classy or is especially distasteful in a way not quantified by the above.

Use of Secret IngredientStart From a Baseline Score of 1.

I'll assign a score between 0 and 0.75 in increments of 0.25 for use/handling of each of the following: The collective prereqs/class chassis, Charisma Bonus/Reverberation/DC optimization generally, and each of the Song abilities. Some will be easier to score higher in than others.

Failure to qualify for the SI will result in a -0.25 point penalty to each class ability, to a minimum of 0. So abilities that you neither use nor qualify for don't hurt you, but you need to qualify for the things you do use to get rewarded for them. Some abilities will be harder to score highly in than others, and in all cases, a +0.75 in a category requires that you go "above and beyond" and really floor me with how you've optimized the feature in question.

If you leave the SI early, but provide a convincing explanation as to why this is a better use of the secret ingredient (better use of the ingredient, mind, not just making your build better), then you will receive partial credit for abilities you miss (+0.25 each).

[Akal Saris]

Making good use of your Handbook knowledge there, Sam! ;)

[Seward]

Up to a 0.5 point bonus or penalty for gear independence or item reliance.


Question about this one for purposes of learning as a future chef/judge.

I get a penalty for a build that requires specific magic items (that it can't reliably craft on its own) to function. (indeed it is why I took craft rod on my Queen of Swords build in the prior challenge).

But WBL is a part of the rules and expectations of any build. I don't see why not needing WBL used in normal ways would give a bonus. Any build uses gear although what gear it needs varies by build chasse (what a generic sorcerer tends to save on weapons, armor and stuff he can do with repeated castings of long duration buffs instead of permanent magic items he tends to spend on other stuff that does things like fill gaps in spells known or metamagic, stuff to boost caster level/save dc etc)

Can you expand a bit on what you'd give a bonus for in this category?

[NinjaGuy]

I don't think the case you gave is item dependency, if anything it's the opposite. You're not expecting your character to find a specific rod, you're allowing your character to create rods as needed. If your build were to have relied on the use of rods to be useful, and didn't have Craft Rod, then it would be at the whim of the DM. You're specifically circumventing that whim, and are going to be able to have access to rods, regardless.

An easier example of "item dependency" would be taking levels in a class that needs Evasion, and using a Ring of Evasion to qualify. If as soon as the ring gets sundered your build goes under, it's dependent. Also, given the time needed to make a ring of evasion, even with Forge Ring it should be considered dependent. 25 days without the use of everything that had Evasion as a prerequisite would leave your character extremely vulnerable. Hope that helps.

[WhamBamSam]

Question about this one for purposes of learning as a future chef/judge.

I get a penalty for a build that requires specific magic items (that it can't reliably craft on its own) to function. (indeed it is why I took craft rod on my Queen of Swords build in the prior challenge).

But WBL is a part of the rules and expectations of any build. I don't see why not needing WBL used in normal ways would give a bonus. Any build uses gear although what gear it needs varies by build chasse (what a generic sorcerer tends to save on weapons, armor and stuff he can do with repeated castings of long duration buffs instead of permanent magic items he tends to spend on other stuff that does things like fill gaps in spells known or metamagic, stuff to boost caster level/save dc etc)

Can you expand a bit on what you'd give a bonus for in this category?Items that you can self-craft do not constitute item reliance. That refers more to needing access to spells that you can only get with a wand, or a very specific item that you can only acquire through a magic mart.

[Seward]

I realize I wasn't clear in my first post. When I said "I get" I meant "I understand" not "I was penalized by".

My build was stronger if I could fit in a "quicken level 5 spells" without high enough spell slots to do that, even with metamagic reduction. The solution was a quicken rod. To avoid getting dinged for needing a specific item, I took craft rod feat. That all makes sense to me.

It was the other half of the criteria I didn't understand - what kind of build gets a bonus for item independence? I don't see "not benefitting from WBL" as something that makes a build stronger than the +0 default assumption for generic gear so an example where you would give a bonus for item independence would probably help clarify this for me.

[WhamBamSam]

A +0.5 is what I'll give most builds in that category unless some people are doing noticeably better with abilities to craft/acquire specific items or something and I need to make more space for them at the top. Under normal circumstances it's just a build that doesn't need an all-access magic mart to work as presented. In that case, a 0 would be something like a build whose numbers don't really hold up without Slippers of Battledancing due to mediocre to low Str, and doesn't have a way to get a hold of the item other than the DM providing access to a suitable crafter or magic mart. A -0.5 is, like, if the build only works with multiple specific items like that, or an especially specific item, like a weapon with multiple specific enhancements that require magic mart access.

And of course, a penalty is sometimes worth it. If your build is only functional with a Mouthpick Ethereal Reaver, but the thing you're doing with it is cool enough, it may be worth it.

[Seward]

A +0.5 is what I'll give most builds in that category unless some people are doing noticeably better with abilities to craft/acquire specific items.

Ok I get it. If the build functions fine purely without needing any specific magic items (just basic enhancement bonuses to attributes/weapons, resistance item, wizards working mostly with spells they could get at levelup or enough crafting feats to significantly impact WBL and increase odds of getting specific but less common items they need) you get a +.5

If you need something not unusual but kind of essential (like a bunch of wilding clasps for a druid who spends all his time in wildshape and shifts forms in combat so can't just unload gear and put it back on and who also didn't take craft wonderous, or a really big spellbook stuffed with noncore spells for a wizard that assumes well stocked magic marts+friendly wizards or convenient enemy wizards who die leaving just the spells you need in your spellbook, or say my quicken rod by level 15 on my master of the unseen hand without also taking quicken spell+craft rod first) they get a +0ish, depending on the impact of not having it. Most PCs can get some help from the GM to meet their concept if it doesn't go too far, or will make roleplay efforts to seek out what they need, giving GM's easy adventure hooks, and your default assumption is most builds will have an item or three in those lines by higher levels.

A stingy GM would just mean the druid would accept some melded items if he had to shift to a new form in combat and could still deck out properly if he had time and party member help to rearrange items that work in both forms. The build would still function pretty well most of the time. Likewise if the wizard had to use less esoteric spells, well, he is STILL a wizard and anything essential would be taken with levelup spells, he just might not have chain nerveskitter or whatever as a secondary bonus to the build.

If your build just doesn't work without a specific item or items, as much as -.5 (Like a TWF/Brutal throw guy I built that absolutely needed gloves of endless javelins to function, as he lacked quickdraw or the two crafting feats needed to create it, much less their crafting levels and did even better if he got farshot from a specific MIC helm) then you get dinged, but as you say, maybe worth it, as without it that guy at best takes quickdraw and quiver of ehlonna and tosses mostly nonmagical javelins....can still put up impressive numbers but DR takes a big chunk out of his power, as do longer range engagements with his accuracy, or anything that lasts more than a few rounds (although I guess for cost of gloves of endless javelins he could buy 3 quiver of Ehlonna and have an ammo supply of 63 javelins if he used his bow slots. If he had quickdraw he'd last a while even with 7ish attacks a round, but of course the proposed build example didn't take quickdraw so he'd be screwed without the gloves of endless javelins and reduced to throwing nonproficient shuriken, probably mostly doing melee combat and tossing a single shuriken with his rapid shot attack. -.5 With quickdraw maybe only a -.25 penalty)


I don't think the case you gave is item dependency, if anything it's the opposite. You're not expecting your character to find a specific rod, you're allowing your character to create rods as needed. If your build were to have relied on the use of rods to be useful, and didn't have Craft Rod, then it would be at the whim of the DM. You're specifically circumventing that whim, and are going to be able to have access to rods, regardless.

Actually to be specific, for those who didn't get deep into the Queen of Swords build, a quicken rod at L15 would literally double my damage output per round, on an assassin build that was getting bonuses per attack (from enhancement to int bonus on damage to vengeance taker PRC bonuses on favored target = prc level, going from 15 to 30 attacks.) It went from "likely to kill anybody in the surprise round" to "kill a balor in the surprise round at level 15 even allowing for his 15dr not being bypassed". While it wasn't weak at L15 without a quicken rod by any means, in its primary role, it turned it's ambush round into a sure thing, from only "pretty good". The way hitpoints scale she was starting to fall a bit behind the curve on beefier potential targets by then.

So while a quicken rod isn't unlikely for a L15 caster to get her hands on, it is a lot of their WBL at that level if not reduced by crafting feats and is far from a sure thing (lesser quicken I'd accept by then as pretty normal to purchase, quicken not so much).

And it needed to be that specific rod. So I also needed the metamagic feat to craft it. I literally took the feat for only that rod (although I'd been using quicken spell on whirling blade since level 8ish using metamagic reducing feats). Obviously after taking the feat, churning out a lesser twin rod for whirling blades might have also got crafted on the side, along with non metamagic utility rods of various kinds that she might have been able to do.

Without it, I'd probably have dinged her a little in the higher levels for not doing what the build said it could do. But given it is only in the 15-20 level range not a big penalty, especially since her damage was decent and the odds of finding a rod got better each level after 15, due to the kinds of favors/contacts and wealth near-epic characters acquire. Using the above scale, +0 or +.25 overall rather than the full bonus for item independence (she could craft every tk toss item by herself using fabricate, her own poisons with minor creation etc and her essential spells were all levelup so she'd otherwise fit the criteria for the +.5 bonus, she didn't need anything specific to function she couldn't create herself in a few days, except that metamagic rod)



An easier example of "item dependency" would be taking levels in a class that needs Evasion, and using a Ring of Evasion to qualify. If as soon as the ring gets sundered your build goes under, it's dependent. Also, given the time needed to make a ring of evasion, even with Forge Ring it should be considered dependent. 25 days without the use of everything that had Evasion as a prerequisite would leave your character extremely vulnerable. Hope that helps.

Yeah, qualifying for classes using items is a big weakness, worth a -.5. Accepting the risk of losing feat/feats qualified for with attribute boosters (like a TWF guy lacking enough dexterity, or losing top end feats by being enlarged) is a risk but you aren't completely boned if you lose the item (that TWF guy still is full bab with other feats, martial chasse etc, about like giving up barbarian rage by shifting lawful). Losing all PRC class features is on par with losing paladin features due to alignment shift, which is brutal barring a dip that doesn't have huge impacts downstream, but is just "nice to have" or there primarily to boost saves or something similar.

[AsuraKyoko]

Do we have a status update with regards to judging progress? Just curious where things are, not trying to rush things or be pushy.

[loky1109]

Any update?

[Paragon]

Are we still waiting on a judge ?

[The Viscount]

Yes, we are.

[Paragon]

Can we maybe move on ?

I mean it's been 4 months since we posted our builds meaning we'd have had at least 2 others competitions by now.

While waiting for a judge can we move onto the next one ?

[AsuraKyoko]

I definitely still want there to be judging; I want to see what people think of my build. I don't mind the idea of starting the next contest, but I'm worried that it might distract from the judging of this one.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I really like these builds. I'd like them to be judged. If anybody could step up, that would be great. Otherwise, we wait.

[H_H_F_F]

I've tried, and failed, to find the time - and this will probably stay the case for the foreseeable future.

[The Viscount]

I have it on authority that Sam is judging and should be finished this week. I plan to give ~ 48 hours for the dispute process and then go to the next round. I appreciate everyone's patience.

[daremetoidareyo]

It is hilarious that the siren round is failing to attract wayward judges

[Seward]

I wish this challenge wasn't one so far out of my experience.

I honestly don't understand these builds well enough to judge, savage species as a secret ingredient is kind of a nonstarter for me.

I'll say this though, should the next ingredient be something I do understand I'll volunteer to judge and save any builds I come up with that actually seem interesting as "that's what I would have submitted"

[Malphegor]

I wanna chuck in as a driveby note that it looks like on checking myself just now haunting presences can only occupy a object up the huge in shape so something colossal like an entire planet is probably not possible to do as in the Faer Gweriador entry, but given you also give an alternative of haunting a smaller possession of the party’s or just golems, you’ve covered that issue anyway. (I wanted that to work myself but on checking the haunting presence template to see with my own eyes, I was saddened to see it was size limited)

[Beni-Kujaku]

I wanna chuck in as a driveby note that it looks like on checking myself just now haunting presences can only occupy a object up the huge in shape so something colossal like an entire planet is probably not possible

As I understand it, this limitation only applies to items, not to locations. They even mention "the location they inhabit", which implies a haunted house, much bigger than Huge. The presence can then animate items within its haunted location.

[Malphegor]

As I understand it, this limitation only applies to items, not to locations. They even mention "the location they inhabit", which implies a haunted house, much bigger than Huge. The presence can then animate items within its haunted location.

ah yeah, some of the stuff later on about location based haunting makes that seem explicit too. Neat

[WhamBamSam]

Apologies for the wait. Judging is finally done.

Postman Pat – 13.75Originality – 2Incantatrix is old cheese, though I like seeing a Bo3T mailman over Persistomancy. (-0.5)

Mailman is a well-trodden field of optimization. Bo3T and Siren abilities for debuff riders instead of pure damage output is sort of an interesting wrinkle, but nothing that groundbreaking. (-0.5)

Fluff is pretty much the bare minimum. (0)
Power – 4Even with mailman tactics tending towards lower level spells, you would obviously be getting more out of further casting progression. (-0.5)
That said, you do the mailman thing and do it well. (+0.5)
You should be just fine contributing at any level. (+0.5)
The build functions without undue item reliance. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4Vanilla human does not qualify for Dragonblood Sorcerer, but since you didn’t use the extra skill point I’m going to assume you meant to use Silverbrow. (0)
Invisible Spell requires another metamagic feat. This is something of a problem to fix, as your other metamagic feats have a similar requirement, but you avoid further penalization due to one mistake one penalty. (-0.5)
You avoid egregious cheese and questionable rules interpretations. (0)
Your progression is a clean 5/5/10. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 3.75You qualify for Siren but don’t enter until ECL 11. You don’t invest further in the prerequisite skills and the chassis seems to work against you, as you take a lot of skills cross-class after entering. (0)
You invest heavily in Cha and save DCs, and the Cha bonus also helps you as a Sorcerer. (+0.5)
You have a wide array of good delivery mechanisms with spells, and Crushing Despair softens targets up for Bo3T. (+0.5)
You have good delivery mechanisms, but no specific synergy for Phantasmal Killer. (+0.25)
You have good delivery mechanisms and Feeblemind is good enough on its own to get points there. (+0.5)
You have good delivery mechanisms, but no specific synergy for Enervation. (+0.25)
You have good delivery mechanisms and Song of Stone is good enough on its own to get points there. (+0.5)
You make it to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)


Valerion – 15.75Originality – 4.25Binder/KoSS and a Harmonious Knight dip aren’t totally out of left field for a Cha-based PrC that needs Perform, and feats seem pretty generic, but much as I love Binder I hadn’t thought of it as a vector for Siren. Excited to see where you’re going with this. (+0.5)

Approach is fairly straightforward and includes staples like Imperious Command, but Dahlver-Nar optimization is fun and Combat Panache is cool to see. (+0.5)

I liked the fluff. Incorporation of Bluff/Sense Motive skills and I enjoyed how pact-making and the potential for friendly fire with Dahlver-Nar were engaged with. (+0.25)

Power – 4.5Between losing out on some nice things from further Binder progression and using an EBL-based save DC (though you do a pretty good job of keeping said DC up with high Cha) I think you have a bit less of a case for going Siren over your previous progression than some of the competition, though better than some. (0)
You function as advertised. (+0.5)
I would expect the build to hold up well with level-appropriate challenges throughout its career. (+0.5)
The build functions without undue item reliance. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4You appear to have too many skill points, even with the extra ones from Nymph’s Kiss. You may have forgotten that your character is not human. (-0.5)
You have a clean progression that I don’t see any reasonable DM taking issue with. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 3You qualify for Siren and I don’t think that a skill point contraction is going to be too big of a problem in that regard. You enter at the earliest possible point, invest in the prerequisite skills, and get to your 4th iterative with the medium BAB. (+0.5)
You invest pretty heavily in Cha and save DCs, can debuff saves further with intimidation, and get additional value from Cha through Soul Binding and Divine Grace. (+0.5)
You can stack debuffs with intimidation or use Crushing Despair to set up a SoL with Imperious Command. However, your delivery mechanism leaves some things to be desired, including being basically 1/encounter even with Rapid Recovery. (+0.25)
You don’t have a great delivery mechanism or any specific synergy with Phantasmal Killer. (0)
Song of Idiocy is strong enough on its own, but you’re limited by the shortcomings of your delivery mechanism. (+0.25)
You don’t have a great delivery mechanism or any specific synergy with Enervation. (0)
Song of Stone is strong enough on its own, but you’re limited somewhat by the shortcomings of Maddening Moan as a delivery mechanism. (+0.25)
You make it to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)

Simon – 17Originality – 4.5PoT and Marshal are staples for Cha-based mundanes, and PoT especially makes sense with all the SoL effects the SI grants. Kiai Shout as your sonic attack and Singh Rager have me interested. (+0.5)

I really like the interactions at play here. A free action vector for Siren abilities and a way to identify HP totals for PWK are very neat. (+1)

I like the idea of the fluff, but grammar issues and weird punctuation make it a little awkward to read. (0)
Power – 4The back half of Singh Rager has some nice things, but you’ve got the important stuff and I think Siren is doing more for you. (+0.5)
You mostly function in the role that you set out to, but I think that never getting a sonic attack that can affect enemies with equal or higher HD to you is a consequential enough problem that I can’t give you points here. (0)
You should still hold up pretty well in level-appropriate challenges against multiple lower level enemies, and many higher HD enemies will tend to be the sort where falling back on melee stuff isn’t as bad, but the limitations on Kiai Shout are going to be a persistent problem given how central it is to your tactics. (0)
The build functions without undue item reliance. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4.5You qualify for everything. (0)
You avoid questionable rules interpretations. (0)
You have one dip but are essentially not objectionable to a reasonable DM. (0)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 4You need to burn a feat on Apprentice (Entertainer), but you qualify for Siren and enter at the earliest possible point, largely maintain investment in the prerequisite skills, and get to your 4th iterative with the medium BAB. (+0.5)
You heavily emphasize Cha and have other abilities to capitalize on it, including your sonic attack. You can debuff opposing saves with Aura of Despair and the shaken condition, and get other bonuses to the save DC of your Kiai Shout. (+0.5)
You have good action economy on your delivery mechanism for Siren abilities, allowing you to potentially deliver Crushing Despair and another Siren ability to capitalize on it in the same round, and have other debuffs that you can stack with it. (+0.5)
Against enemies who are susceptible to Kiai Shout, who tend to also be the sort prone to being picked off with Phantasmal Killer, you have a good delivery mechanism, which is enough for partial credit, though you don’t really have any special synergy for Song of Nightmare specifically. You also have a specific bonus to Song of Nightmare's DC as a fear effect. (+0.5)
Feeblemind is pretty good on its own, but not being able to hit the targets you most want to (casters who are CR-equivalent or boss characters) seems like a pretty significant problem to me. (0)
Similar to Feeblemind, the enemies you most want to hit with Enervation are the ones that it takes potentially dangerous spells away from, so Kiai Shout’s limitations are a problem. (0)
Song of Stone isn’t as specifically anti-caster, and on targets where it works Kiai Shout is an efficient delivery mechanism, so I’ll give you points here. (+0.5)
You get to the Song of Death capstone and have additional synergy with Combat Awareness keeping you abreast of what you can potentially use it on. (+0.5)


The Shrieking Terror – 12.25Originality – 3.5This was a class meant to be entered by weird Fey moreso than any regular PC build, Warblade seems to mostly be filler, and Battle Dancer is gonna show up in any Cha-based non-caster, but even for such a character I like seeing Goad show up, and between an obscure monster I hadn’t heard of before and Dragon Devotee seemingly being totally out of left field, you’ve got my attention. (+0.5)

The actual mechanics seem pretty in line with what I expect from a baseline Siren build though. Use sonic attack, staple riders to it. Not much in the way of really interesting synergies or tricks. (0)

Fluff doesn’t really give me much to go on. (0)

Power – 3Siren seems a natural trajectory for the build, to the point where I’m surprised you didn’t take more of it. (+0.5)
You lack Darkstalker for hiding, have a penalty to intimidate (which you don’t really invest in) from being small, and your melee stuff is underwhelming with small size and no source of bonus damage. (-0.5)
You take a long time to get going with LA and taking your time in Dragon Devotee, and the payoff seems underwhelming. You seem to me like you’ll struggle to contribute in level-appropriate adventures. (-0.5)
The build functions without undue item reliance. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4.5You qualify for everything and avoid questionable rules interpretations. (0)
Your progression has a few dips, but that’s mostly imposed by being a high ECL race. A reasonable DM will be fine with it. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 1.25You do not qualify for Siren as you have insufficient ranks in Perform. You will receive a -0.25 penalty to all class ability marks, to a minimum of 0.
Even if you did qualify, you don’t enter until ECL 14, and don’t get very much out of the prerequisite skills or chassis. (0)
You invest pretty heavily into Cha, further improve it with Dragon Devotee, use a sonic attack with a Cha-based DC, and get additional value out of Cha from Battle Dancer. You also improve your save DCs further with Sudden Ability Focus. (+0.25)
You don’t really have much that’s all that exciting in terms of delivery mechanism or synergy with Crushing Despair. (0)
With a vanilla delivery and no special synergy with Phantasmal Killer, you don’t really do enough to get credit for Song of Nightmare. (0)
Feeblemind is pretty good all on its own, but with a pretty ordinary delivery mechanism and FtQ penalty, you’re not really doing enough to get credit here. (0)
As before, you don’t do anything all that special with delivery, or have any Enervation synergy for Song of Weakness. (0)
You don’t take enough of the SI for Song of Stone. (0)
You don’t take enough of the SI for Song of Death. (0)


The Chiro Pterackter – 17.5Originality – 5Another monstrous entry, but another neat obscure creature. Citadel Elite and a Savant dips are somewhat interesting, even if they just seem to be for unrestricted bonus feats, especially as there’s a long list of feats that I’m always thrilled to see in here. Looks at first glance like a lot of fun. (+1)

Contagious Paralysis also carrying Siren rider abilities is neat. I wish the build had some further way to weaponize it without needing LA Buyoff, but it’s still fun. Getting a Life Drain trigger off of Song of Weakness is cool as well. (+0.75)

Fluff is entertaining. I like the crime scene as a way to play up the weirdness of the Nycter and use of other mechanical weirdness in the investigation is a nice touch. (+0.25)

Power – 4I honestly can’t imagine any other progression for you than Siren. (+0.5)
You accomplish what you set out to do. (+0.5)
LA hurts you early on and your MAD from having both Con and Cha-based save DCs could your schtick a little less reliable than some of the others, but I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble contributing to level-appropriate adventuring once you get going. (0)
The build functions without undue item dependence. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4.25 I am of the opinion that per Libris Mortis’ text on Paralysis is broad enough – referencing both Ghouls and Liches specifically despite their paralytic abilities being differently named – that paralyzing attacks not specifically called ‘Paralysis’ still qualify for Contagious Paralysis. (0)
I think that the book’s wording on Energy Drain has less of a case in this regard. There isn’t as much to go on to suggest that a (Su) ability that emulates Enervation qualifies you for Life Drain. (-0.25)
You have some dips, but nothing that a reasonable DM would take umbrage at. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 4.25You qualify for Siren and enter relatively early even with LA+2. You only make moderate investment into the prerequisite skills, however, and even with Savant giving you class skills, need to burn a feat on Apprentice (Entertainer). The chassis doesn’t seem to do much for you either. (0)
Hunting Cry having a Con-based DC and Nycter’s racial Cha penalty are a little sad, but you still make a decent investment into Cha and save DCs despite that, get some further value from your Cha mod from Life Drain, and get additional payoff from boosting your Hunting Cry save DC by using it to set up Flyby Death Blows. (+0.5)
You have a cool secondary delivery mechanism via Contagious Paralysis, which is enough for some credit, and can capitalize on tanking enemy saves against your Hunting Cry with Death Blow. (+0.5)
Similarly, Contagious Paralysis is good enough for partial credit on Song of Nightmare, but there’s no synergy apart from a good delivery mechanism. (+0.25)
Feeblemind is powerful enough on its own that a good delivery mechanism is all you need to make Song of Idiocy pop. (+0.5)
You really go above and beyond on Song of Weakness, with Empower Supernatural Ability and Life Drain on top of Contagious Paralysis as a delivery option. (+0.75)
Song of Stone, like Song of Idiocy is pretty darn good with just a solid delivery mechanism. (+0.5)
You make it to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)


Pu-Chan – 17.5Originality – 5As with previous entries, monstrous builds are somewhat expected for this ingredient, but I’m curious enough to see where you’re going with it that you come out ahead. Bard is probably the most expected class here, but you’re using some intriguing Bard feats, including a few that I hadn’t heard of before in the later levels, so you’re looking good on that front as well. (+0.75)

We might have to have a little talk about the Attune Pipes action economy stuff in Elegance, but I appreciate you going for it, and repeatedly Quick Drawing pipes and dropping them for new ones is amusing. (+1)

Really liked the fluff. Use of widespread immunity to kill in plain sight is a really cool idea for a bard-type character and I’m always happy when weird mechanics facilitate something like that. (+0.25)

Power – 4.25As a functional Satyr Bard base, you’re definitely improving as a result of the SI’s inclusion. (+0.5)
Your main tricks work the way you say they do and reliably. I wouldn’t invest as much as you do into Hide without Darkstalker, but it doesn’t seem (+0.5)
Once you get into the SI you’re good, and I like seeing WRT on characters that rely on mind-affecting abilities for when that option gets foreclosed on, but Satyr monster class into Bard will struggle early on. You have a few clunky levels, but the Satyr monster class is not as bad early on as I'd have thought with where it places the LA and DR/Cold Iron being a relevant protection at low levels. (+0.25)
The build functions without undue reliance on magic items. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4.25You qualify for everything. (0)
I think you have a strong case by RAW on both fronts, but as fun as it is, having Satyr pipes trigger automatically on Bardic Music abilities is indeed kind of cheesy, and using Quick Draw to pull arbitrary items on the grounds that they’re improvised weapons is, I would say, contrary to RAI. (-0.25)
You have a few dips, but mostly due to playing a high ECL race. A reasonable DM will have no trouble with your progression. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 4You qualify for Siren, but don’t enter until ECL 10. None of the prerequisite skills are maxed with only Perform getting any further investment. Instead you seem to be fighting against the chassis by taking a bunch of skills cross-class. (0)
You invest heavily in Cha for high DCs, can debuff opposing saves, and get some other benefits out of a high Cha besides Siren abilities (mainly the save DC for Doomspeak and Pipes itself, but also bonus Bard spells I suppose). (+0.5)
You have a good delivery mechanism and Doomspeak and Fear from the Pipes ability itself to stack with Crushing Despair. (+0.5)
You have a good delivery mechanism, which is good enough for partial credit, but no special synergy for Phantasmal Killer outside of the aforementioned save DC stuff. (+0.25)
You have a good delivery mechanism, and Feeblemind is good enough on its own for credit without further specific synergy. (+0.5)
You have a good delivery mechanism, which is good enough for partial credit, but no synergy with Enervation beyond that and action economy specifically to pump out negative levels helps the ability specifically. (+0.5)
Song of Stone is good enough for credit with just a good delivery mechanism. (+0.5)
You make it to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)


Faer Gweriador – 16.75Originality – 4.5Another caster build, though I expected Wizard less than Cha-based casting classes. A changeling wizard that’s not a Changeling Wizard but rather a regular Enchanter going Recaster is a little unexpected. Lot of cool feats that you don’t see all that often, including Baleful Moan as a Siren vector, and becoming a Haunting Presence through Haunt Shift is pretty fun. (+0.75)

We’ll be talking about it in Elegance, but the trick to be able to Haunt Shift yourself and your familiar is cute. I like the thought put into having a wide variety of spells to use to deliver Siren abilities, even if Wizard is a pretty easy toolbox to work with in that regard. (+0.5)

Fluff works, and gives a good sense of the character’s abilities in action. (+0.25)

Power – 4The stuff you do with the SI is cool and you’ll get credit for it in UoSI, but you clearly would have been more powerful by continuing to progress Wizard casting. (-0.5)
That said, the things you talk about doing very much work. (+0.5)
And they will indeed be very effective against level-appropriate encounters. (+0.5)
There is an important item component to the build (the scroll of Haunt Shift), but said item is self-crafted. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4.5You’re one rank in Spellcraft short of qualifying for Harper Mage at the level you enter, but the 3.5 update should actually remove the need for ranks in skills that no longer exist, like Scry, so you should have those ranks free and I’ll be nice. Otherwise you qualify for everything. (0)
They work by RAW, but some DMs will take issue with the exp manipulation and feat shuffle shenanigans around Haunt Shift and Stitched Flesh Familiar will rub DMs the wrong way and I feel like it’s a little unfair to other participants to make use of more exp than they do. However, yours wasn't the only exp manipulation trick, and I didn't catch the other one to penalize it, so you're off the hook. (0)
Apart from the aforementioned level shuffle, your build progression is pretty unobjectionable. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 3.75You qualify for Siren but only enter at ECL 11. You maintain 2/3 prerequisite skills which most of your other classes don’t grant, but don’t get very much else from the chassis and in fact are forced by it to keep an important skill up through cross-class ranks. (0)
You make a notable investment in Cha for save DCs, but outside of a few face skills don’t have that much use for the ability. (+0.25)
You care a good deal about targeting saves, have other debuffs to stack with Crushing Despair, and have strong defensive abilities that can make even a 1-2 punch of standard actions to soften and then neutralize more viable. (+0.5)
Good delivery mechanisms are enough for partial credit on Song of Nightmare, though I don’t see much particular Phantasmal Killer synergy. (+0.25)
Feeblemind is good enough on its own to get credit for Song of Idiocy with just good delivery mechanisms. (+0.5)
You can do a little more than most to make use of negative levels (like casting regular Enervation to stack them) due to being a Wizard, which I guess is enough for credit beyond just having good delivery mechanisms when it comes to Song of Weakness. (+0.5)
Song of Stone is good enough on its own to get credit with just good delivery mechanisms. (+0.5)
You make it to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)



Xyλena – 15.5Originality – 3.25Again, I’m not completely blindsided by a weird Fey monster build, since that’s what the SI is for, and Gloura in particular just seems not to do much that Bard doesn’t aside from providing some numbers, and that’s even more true for the staple cheese of Unseelie Fey. Zhentarim Skymage is cool to see though, as is Clap of Thunder. (0)

Mechanically this is pretty much what I’d expect from a Bard/Siren build, with the differences mostly amounting to pumping Cha. That said, pumping Cha does get some payoff from Skymage which keeps it to a wash. (0)

I enjoyed the framing of the Planetar becoming Xyλena’s Skymage mount and the phrasing being slightly off has a certain charm that gives the character a distinct, feyish voice. (+0.25)

Power – 4You’re getting comparably powerful effects to what more Bard would do for you, but more Skymage more quickly seems like it might have been a better option than Siren. (0)
You can basically do what you say you can. (+0.5)
Gloura is mostly worth the ECL with its decent flight, stats, and casting = RHD, but I still think you might struggle a bit to keep up, as there’s nothing all that explosive about the build until the Skymage level. (0)
The build functions without undue item reliance. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4.5You qualify for everything and avoid questionable rules interpretations. (0)
You have a few dips, but your high ECL race doesn’t leave room for much else. Your progression is fine. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 3.75You qualify for Siren, but only enter at ECL 11. You care about and invest in the prereq skills, but otherwise don’t get much out of the chassis. (0)
You invest heavily in Cha for high DCs, and also use it for face skills, Gloura racial bonuses to AC and saves, and to achieve a better Skymage mount. (+0.75)
You’ve got good enough delivery options to get partial credit, but I don’t see the action economy or heavy debuffing emphasis to really make Song of Despair pop. (+0.25)
Good delivery mechanisms, but no special synergy for Phantasmal Killer means, again, partial credit. (+0.25)
Feeblemind is good enough on its own to get credit with just a good delivery mechanism. (+0.5)
You have a good delivery mechanism, but no special synergy for Enervation [i]and you can potentially use negative levels on yourself to regain your Skymage mount. (+0.5)
Song of stone is good enough on its own to get credit with just a good delivery mechanism. (+0.5)
You miss the 10th level and don’t get Song of Death. (0)

Sca'varn Barra – 15.25Originality – 3.75Fey monster builds are somewhat expected, as are many of the dips on display. Aptitude Boomerang Daze is not super new as a martial archetype, but is fun to see. Finding a Mind’s Eye article that was hitherto unknown to me for a sonic vector keeps your head above water. (+0.25)

Hit-and-Run Fighter+Deadeye is a combo I’m fond of, and Pixie invisibility to improve the reliability of Hit-and-Run Fighter is cool. Sound Lash as a vector for both Boomerang Daze and Siren abilities is cool, as is Boomerang Ricochet making it better at both, though we may have some things to talk about when we get to Elegance. (+0.5)

Fluff is pretty much the bare minimum and seems mostly there to convince me that you should get to use Drow stuff when I don’t really sweat that at all when it comes to Hit-and-Run Fighter. I understand that some DMs and judges can be obnoxious about it, but I’m still left without much of a feel for the character. (0)
Power – 4.5 Since you can layer the Siren riders over your regular MO, and aren’t really looking for anything more that’s super important out of a conventional martial progression. You do lose out on some utility abilities that you could have gotten from more Warblade, but I’m more or less comfortable saying you’re improving on your chassis with the SI given how dangerous some of its abilities are. (+0.5)
You stealth like you say you can and do indeed force a lot of saves against debilitating stuff with your attacks. (+0.5)
Pixie is one of the monsters that’s closest to being worth the LA, since it protects itself with flight and invisibility somewhat, but there are definitely going to be levels where you struggle to keep pace with a standard party because of things like fragility against AoE attacks or lagging damage output. (0)
The build functions without undue item reliance. (+0.5)

Elegance – 3.5The Xen’drik Boomerang is exotic, and you are non-proficient. This makes you not qualify for Weapon Focus (and in turn the other Boomerang Feats, but one mistake one penalty). (-0.5)
Some people don’t like Aptitude Boomerang Daze, but I think the rules are pretty clearly on your side. (0)
You are starting to push it in terms of dippiness, with 4 distinct classes over 6 non-SI levels. (0)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 3.5You qualify, but don’t enter the SI until ECL 11, and don’t really care about the prereqs (including the sonic attack, as you qualify with a different one from your actual vector for Siren abilities). Medium BAB gets you to your third iterative on a LA+4 base, but that’s not really enough for points here. (0)
You have a good Cha, but don’t get much out of it outside of the Siren save DCs. Reverberation applying to Boomerang Daze’s DC is cool though, and bumps you up to at least partial credit. (+0.25)
Your delivery mechanism is good and comes with another save against Daze, giving you immediate value from Crushing Despair. (+0.5)
A good delivery mechanism is enough to get partial credit for Song of Nightmare, though you don’t have any special synergy with the Phantasmal Killer effect. (+0.25)
You have a good delivery mechanism and Song of Idiocy is good enough on its own to get points. (+0.5)
You have a good delivery mechanism, enough for partial credit, but no special synergy with Enervation. (+0.25)
You have a good delivery mechanism and Song of Stone is good enough on its own to get points. (+0.5)
You make it to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)


Ziz – 17.75Originality – 4.25Bard and a lot of staple dips for Cha-based martial characters. Dirgesinger is cool as a Siren vector though, and I don’t think I’ve seen Subsonics used before, so call it a wash. (0)

Boy do you do something cool with those pieces though. Psionic Minor Creating an Alphorn to hit a whole city with Siren effects is hilarious, and making it an undetected brown note with Subsonics is a wonderful little flourish. I like the martial emphasis with Dirgesinger and ability to use your undead flanking buddies with Master of Tactics as well. (+1)

Fluff is right on the verge of not being enough for points, but between finding a picture and theme music that give off some personality and a quotation that captures the perplexing nature of Ziz’ MO, you get there. (+0.25)
Power – 4.5The closest thing to a ‘base’ you have outside of Siren is Dirgesinger, which you complete, so generic progression would be something like more Bard, which isn’t getting you effects as powerful as Siren is for the same investment. (+0.5)
The build functions as described. (+0.5)
You’re a little shaky in low levels before you really come online. You keep yourself alive pretty well and can face, but your buffing/debuffing is a little underwhelming before Siren gets going. (0)
The build functions without undue item reliance. (+0.5)
Elegance – 4You qualify for everything and avoid questionable rules interpretations. (0)
Dipping 4 classes over 5 levels is just a bit much. (0)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 5You qualify and enter the SI almost as early as possible, care about and maintain investment in all of the prerequisite skills (except, I guess for the specific version of Perform that you need to use to qualify). (+0.5)
You invest heavily in Cha, have several other abilities that key off it, and can aggressively tank opposing saves with Doomspeak. (+0.75)
You have many other stacking debuffs with Crushing Despair, good action economy to put out multiple effects in a turn so you can get value out of it on the same turn, and the ability to maybe get away with a full debuff round without provoking a response through Subsonics. (+0.75)
Having such an impressive AoE does a lot to help a somewhat shaky SoD effect like Phantasmal Killer shine by casting such a wide net, on top of having good delivery for Siren abilities. (+0.5)
You don’t have any special synergy with Feeblemind that I can see, but it’s debilitating enough on its own and you’re generally good at delivering Siren abilities. (+0.5)
Having generally good delivery mechanisms and a huge AoE that opens up potential chaos like a Wightocalypse from killing a bunch of low level targets with Enervation give you a lot of potential value from Song of Weakness. (+0.5)
Generally good delivery and the strong effect from Song of Stone are enough for credit. (+0.5)
You get to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)


Ulat – 18Originality – 4.5Didn’t see Wildrunner coming as a means of entry. Rest is a pretty conventional Rogue build, including the Dark template (honestly you’d get another quarter point here if you’d just gotten HiPS from Wildrunner 5 instead), but sonic Dragonfire Strike for an additional Siren vector is rad and I actually rather like getting Survival from Howling Heritage (I’d thought there might be a build with Battle Heritage for sonic something or other and perform, but something about that one more degree removed of going Howling instead appeals to me). I always like seeing Forestlord Elves and Half-Elves as well as they don’t seem to get enough love. (+0.5)

Primal Scream being a free action vector is neat, and I really like Dragonfire Strike Feeblemind+Maiming Strike as a stylish one-shot option. (+0.75)

I lol’d. (+0.25)
Power – 4.75Sorc dip notwithstanding, you’re a Rogue/Wildrunner, and you definitely get an edge in action economy and raw power from Siren abilities that a standard progression wouldn’t have afforded you. Coming up just short of Pounce and your 4th iterative is a little disappointing, but not enough to not give you credit. (+0.5)
You can hide with Darkstalker and pump out Siren vectors with Sneak Attacks and Primal Screams, just like you say you can. I don’t think you can affect things inside an AMF with Primal Scream, since it’s (Su), but that’s more of an aside and not critical enough to penalize you. (+0.5)
You take a little while to get going, but only in the Wildrunner levels do I have any real concern of you falling behind too much. (+0.25)
The build functions without undue reliance on equipment. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4.5You qualify for everything and avoid questionable rules interpretations. (0)
With only one dip, I can’t see a reasonable DM taking issue with your progression. (+0.5)
With Sorcerer as the Favored Class for Forestlord Half-Elves, you avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 4.25You enter the SI a little late. Intimidate is the only prerequisite skill that you really care about or maintain, but you get pretty good value out of it. Medium BAB keeping you shy of your 4th iterative is a little sad when you have sneak attacks are a Siren vector for you, but being basically in line with a straight medium BAB character is fine I guess. Nothing super exciting, but enough for partial credit. (+0.25)
You make a decent investment in Cha to buff save DCs and can debuff opposing saves with fear effects (which Cha and Reverberation on Primal Scream also help). Cha gives you bonus spells for your Sorc dip as well, I suppose. (+0.5)
Having other ways to stack save debuffs, including one that you deliver at the same time as you do the Crushing Despair effect as a free action is good value from Song of Despair. (+0.5)
You have good action economy for Siren vectors with your Primal Scream and sneak attack which is enough to get partial credit for Song of Nightmare. (+0.25)
Being able to one-shot people by combining Song of Idiocy with Maiming Strike is super cool on top of the baseline good stuff for Siren ability delivery. (+0.75)
Generally good Siren-effect delivery is enough to get partial credit for Song of Weakness, though you don’t really have a reason to ever use it over Song of Idiocy. (+0.25)
Generally good Siren effect delivery and Flesh to Stone being a powerful effect is enough to get credit for Song of Stone. (+0.5)
You make it to the Song of Death capstone. (+0.25)


Clementine – 13.25Originality – 3.5I should have expected a wild shaper more than I did, what with monster abilities being the intended entry, but even with some staples like the reach-op shell alongside Aberration Wildshape you’ve still got me intrigued. Interested to see which form ability you’re using to qualify for Siren, especially as you have ASA for Choker’s Quickness in the mix as well. (+0.5)

Wild Shape thrives on versatility and options, but I don’t see a whole lot of novel synergy or tricks here. (-0.25)

Fluff is fun and well-written. (+0.25)
Power – 3.5WS Rangers get somewhat diminished returns on continued WS progression barring something like MoMF due to their size restriction, but I still think you’d have been better off without the SI. (-0.5)
Because of those size restrictions, you also can’t take the form of a Cloaker, though I’m sure there is some medium or small aberration with an appropriate (Ex) sonic mind-affecting attack whose form you can assume. You mostly focus on the WS side, which you do well enough, but your tactics need some updating. (0)
You shouldn’t have any real trouble contributing in level-appropriate encounters at any point in the progression. (+0.5)
The build functions without undue gear reliance. (+0.5)

Elegance – 4You don’t qualify for Deepspawn when you take it. You could resolve the issue by switching its position with Inhuman Reach. (-0.5)
You only qualify for Combat Reflexes in certain forms and not in your human form, but that’s fine with me. (0)
You avoid questionable rules interpretations and egregious cheese. (0)
You have a clean 5/5/10 progression with which I can’t imagine anyone taking issue. (+0.5)
You avoid multiclass penalties. (0)

UoSI – 2.25You *probably* qualify for Siren, as there are a zillion screaming monsters in 3.5, so there should be a small or medium aberration that has a mind-affecting sonic attack that you can access, but you have to burn a feat to make Ranger/Nature’s Warrior entry work. The chassis at least gets you to 16 BAB, but as a natural attacker you don’t care that much about iteratives. (0)
You make a decent Cha investment, which helps your DCs, but don’t really get anything else from Cha except for some face skill investment. I also don’t *really* know what your DCs look like since I don’t know what’s replacing the Cloaker. (+0.25)
You don’t target saves with anything except other Siren abilities, so you don’t have much synergy with Crushing Despair. (0)
You don’t really have much special synergy with Phantasmal Killer and I don’t know enough about your vector to go on. (0)
Feeblemind is a debilitating enough effect on its own and is specifically useful against the sort of enemies that reach-op tactics will struggle with, which is enough for partial credit. (+0.25)
Similarly, negative levels are a nice option against caster types who your AoO tactics won’t be as effective against. (+0.25)
Song of Stone is a pretty good effect on its own, but I don’t see any special synergy for you. (+0.25)
You make it all the way to the capstone. (+0.25)

[Venger]

Thanks for judging. No disputes.

[The Viscount]

Thank you so, much Sam!

Chefs, you have 48 hours for disputes, if any.

[daremetoidareyo]

No sputes here

[Zaq]

Name
Alignment / Race
Class Levels

Score

Place



Postman Pat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366310&postcount=59)
CN Human
Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 4/Siren 10
13.75

10th



Valerion (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366315&postcount=60)
LG Lesser Aasimar
Binder 3/Harmonious Knight Paladin 2/Siren 10/Knight of the Sacred Seal 5
15.75

6th



Simon (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366323&postcount=61)
LE Human
Paladin of Tyranny 4/Marshal 1/Siren 10/Singh Rager 5
16.75

4th



The Shrieking Terror (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366326&postcount=62)
CN Forestfolk
Battle Dancer 1/Warblade 2/Dragon Devotee 5/Siren 7
12.25

11th



The Chiro Pterackter (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366337&postcount=63)
LN Nycter
Savant 2/Siren 10/Fighter 1/Citadel Elite 2
17.5

3rd



Pu-chan (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366342&postcount=64)
CN Satyr
Lore Song Bard 2/Warblade 1/Siren 10
16.75

4th



Faer Gweriador (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366347&postcount=65)
CN Haunting Presence Necropolitan Changeling
Wizard 5/Harper Mage 3/Recaster 2/Siren 10
16.5

5th



Xyλena (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366359&postcount=66)
NE Unseelie Gloura
Bard 1/Siren 9/Zhentarim Skymage 1
15

8th



Sca’varn Barra (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366364&postcount=67)
CE Unseelie Pixie
Savage Bard 1/Hit and Run Fighter 2/Savage Bard 1/Warblade 1/Sonokineticist 1/Siren 10
15.25

7th



Ziz (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366370&postcount=68)
CE Necropolitan Human
Bard 1/Battle Dancer 1/Paladin of Slaughter 2/Marshal 1/Dirgesinger 5/Siren 10
17.75

2nd



Ulat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366372&postcount=69)
CE Dark Forestlord Half-Elf
Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1/Wildrunner 4/Siren 10
18

1st



Clementine (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366375&postcount=70)
TN Human
Predator (Ranger) 5/Nature’s Warrior 5/Siren 10

14.25

9th





Thank you for judging, Sam! I have no disputes.

My HM vote goes to Pu-Chan.

[H_H_F_F]

Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Sam

[AsuraKyoko]

No disputes here. Thank you for judging!

[The Viscount]

Four disputes for you, Sam.


WhamBamSam, thank you for judging!

Sorry for my grammar, I am trying to be better. )
I mostly agree with all that you wrote, but one thing.

Phantasmal Killer, you have a good delivery mechanism, which is enough for partial credit, though you don’t really have any special synergy for Song of Nightmare specifically. (+0.25)
How about the synergy between SoN and Lion's Roar? I quoted this in the ECL 10 breakdown.


Lion's Roar: The singh rager's fury in battle sends fear into her opponents' hearts. A singh rager can use a Ki Shout or Great Ki Shout a number of times per day equal to four plus her Charisma modifier, and the Difficulty Class of the fear effect is increased by 4.
SoN definitely is fear effect and it is activated by Ki Shout. So it should work.


WhamBamSam! Thanks!

I'm glad you like the story.
I have a couple themes to discuss.


You invest heavily in Cha for high DCs, and also use it for face skills and to achieve a better Skymage mount. (+0.5)
I remind you that Gloura adds her Cha to AC and saves.


You have a good delivery mechanism, but no special synergy for Enervation. (+0.25)
How about using SoW for retaking Zhentarim Skymage for retaking flying mount? It isn't combat synergy, but it still looks like synergy.

And I want to point out my choice for Reverberation. Gloura has spells as SA and it opens a pretty unique opportunity here.


First, thank you very much WhamBamSam for judging, even after so long. I would have been sad to see such a round go unjudged. Still, I have a few disputes for Pu-Chan:

Originality: Thanks, originality was my main goal for my builds for this comp, and I appreciate this high score.

Power:
"Once you get into the SI you’re good, and I like seeing WRT on characters that rely on mind-affecting abilities for when that option gets foreclosed on, but Satyr monster class into Bard will struggle early on. (0)"

Being a satyr gives a few nice perks that can really make the difference at low levels. Monsters basically never carry weapons to bypass DR 5/Cold Iron, which changes everything when monsters still do little damage, and basically at-will Charm Person and Fear mean Pu-Chan will be able to contribute more than decently. The bonus to perform and Charisma also synergize with bard, and maxxed UMD means you can use any wand to widen your capabilities. The build becomes much better with the SI, but it can function properly at low level with no problem.

Elegance:
"using Quick Draw to pull arbitrary items on the grounds that they’re improvised weapons is, I would say, contrary to RAI. "

I'd have to disagree that it is not RAI. The "draw a weapon" paragraph from the SRD mentions:

This action also applies to weapon-like objects carried in easy reach, such as wands.
If they mention wands (which are not hard, or pointy, or whatever) as weapon-like, it means that weapon-like only means "that you can use in combat", which pan pipes definitely are for Pu-Chan. Now, there is no real definition for weapon-like, which is why I also provided a RAW argument, but I believe RAI allows this too.

UoSI:
I know this category is always subjective, but I don't feel like the fact that the whole build is based on applying the Siren effects as many times as possible is much rewarded here. The build doesn't work at all at high level without Siren, and makes every one of the PrC's abilities that much better by applying them several times per round on all opponents at the same time.

Also, more specifically, I think that applies to Enervation the most, since applying up to 16 negative levels, and more realistically 10 per round can make an opponent lose a fight more surely than anything else.


Whatever your decision regarding these disputes, thank you again for your judging!


Thanks for judging, WhamBamSam! Here are a few disputes for Faer Gweriador:

First, about the Power, the "you clearly would have been more powerful by continuing to progress Wizard casting.". Offensively, maybe, but being able to use only one main spell for a variety of effects and to affect enemies in a large radius means you can enjoy the whole perfect defensive power of being a Haunting Presence without having to put Still Spell on everything you do (or, technically, you do, but you don't pay the price with Arcane Thesis). And really, Siren gives a lot of power to this one spell.

About Elegance, and getting more exp than other participants: In a real game, You can catch up to the rest of the party by getting more exp for the same encounters when you're a level late. Indeed, technically, Faer got more exp during their career, but they had the same battles. And the feat shuffle is not really necessary to the build, just a fun thing to do. You could also keep your original familiar, it's just way less epic.

Thanks for your consideration.

[WhamBamSam]

Simon - That's fair. You have a specific boost to the save DC of Song of Nightmare specifically as a fear effect, so you have synergy for that ability specifically outside of the general area of Cha/save DC optimization. +0.25 to UoSI

Xyλena - Making note of the other Cha synergies as well and the wide application Reverberation (which isn't actually unique to Gloura, as spells being put under special attacks is a common thing in statblocks, Faer and/or Pat could arguably have this as well though their tables don't specify) is enough to get you in line with the 'above and beyond' score for the subcategory that Ziz achieves. +0.25 to UoSI

That is a neat use for Song of Weakness, and is noted in the write-up so you should get credit for it, though I'd have liked to see native access to a way to restore the level without just relying on exp being a river. I might have said something about it in Elegance as well, as I did with Faer, but I suppose it's too late now for anything except maybe helping him with his dispute. +0.25 to UoSI

Pu-Chan - It is profoundly annoying to me that Savage Species doesn't mention the DR/Cold Iron either in the Satyr base race or savage progression table, but it's a thing that Satyrs get, so it's a thing you should get. Between that and the way that the savage progression pushes the LA somewhat late, your low levels look a bit better than I thought. I had been trying to keep that subcategory in increments of 0.5, but looking back, I gave Ulat a +0.25 for being in more or less the same position as I now recognize you to be in, so +0.25 to Power

Yeah, that's a pretty clear case in the text. If you can draw a wand, you can draw a pipe. +0.25 to Elegance

I agree that having better action economy specifically in your delivery vector helps you more in optimizing Song of Weakness compared to SoD/SoL effects. +0.25 to UoSI

Faer - You do interesting things with the Siren riders on top of spells and I at least tried to reward you for them elsewhere, but we're talking about an opportunity cost including but not limited to Contingency, Limited Wish, Polymorph Any Object, and Gate. No change to Power

In my experience 'exp is a river' tends to be overstated on forums, since the increased exp you get from being a level behind takes a while to actually catch you up, so you'll be behind the rest of the party at least some of the time for longer than we often give credit for. Mostly I'm just trying to create a level playing field for this between builds, but since I just gave Xyλena credit for a similar trick that I didn't catch and didn't penalize her elegance, that level playing field means you shouldn't be penalized either. +0.5 to Elegance

These adjustments have been edited into the original judging post.

[Venger]

Name
Alignment / Race
Class Levels

Score

Place



Postman Pat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366310&postcount=59)
CN Human
Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 4/Siren 10
13.75

9th



Valerion (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366315&postcount=60)
LG Lesser Aasimar
Binder 3/Harmonious Knight Paladin 2/Siren 10/Knight of the Sacred Seal 5
15.75

5th



Simon (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366323&postcount=61)
LE Human
Paladin of Tyranny 4/Marshal 1/Siren 10/Singh Rager 5
17

4th



The Shrieking Terror (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366326&postcount=62)
CN Forestfolk
Battle Dancer 1/Warblade 2/Dragon Devotee 5/Siren 7
12.25

10th



The Chiro Pterackter (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366337&postcount=63)
LN Nycter
Savant 2/Siren 10/Fighter 1/Citadel Elite 2
17.5

3rd



Pu-chan (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366342&postcount=64)
CN Satyr
Lore Song Bard 2/Warblade 1/Siren 10
17.5

3rd



Faer Gweriador (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366347&postcount=65)
CN Haunting Presence Necropolitan Changeling
Wizard 5/Harper Mage 3/Recaster 2/Siren 10
17

4th



Xyλena (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366359&postcount=66)
NE Unseelie Gloura
Bard 1/Siren 9/Zhentarim Skymage 1
15.5

6th



Sca’varn Barra (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366364&postcount=67)
CE Unseelie Pixie
Savage Bard 1/Hit and Run Fighter 2/Savage Bard 1/Warblade 1/Sonokineticist 1/Siren 10
15.25

7th



Ziz (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366370&postcount=68)
CE Necropolitan Human
Bard 1/Battle Dancer 1/Paladin of Slaughter 2/Marshal 1/Dirgesinger 5/Siren 10
17.75

2nd



Ulat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366372&postcount=69)
CE Dark Forestlord Half-Elf
Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1/Wildrunner 4/Siren 10
18

1st



Clementine (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366375&postcount=70)
TN Human
Predator (Ranger) 5/Nature’s Warrior 5/Siren 10

14.25

8th




Updated table

[The Viscount]

Name
Chef
Alignment / Race
Class Levels

Score

Place



Postman Pat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366310&postcount=59)
Paragon
CN Human
Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 4/Siren 10
13.75

9th



Valerion (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366315&postcount=60)
Korahir
LG Lesser Aasimar
Binder 3/Harmonious Knight Paladin 2/Siren 10/Knight of the Sacred Seal 5
15.75

5th



Simon (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366323&postcount=61)
loky1109
LE Human
Paladin of Tyranny 4/Marshal 1/Siren 10/Singh Rager 5
17

4th



The Shrieking Terror (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366326&postcount=62)
Wildstag
CN Forestfolk
Battle Dancer 1/Warblade 2/Dragon Devotee 5/Siren 7
12.25

10th



The Chiro Pterackter (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366337&postcount=63)
daremetoidareyou
LN Nycter
Savant 2/Siren 10/Fighter 1/Citadel Elite 2
17.5

3rd



Pu-chan (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366342&postcount=64)
Beni-Kujaku
CN Satyr
Lore Song Bard 2/Warblade 1/Siren 10
17.5

3rd



Faer Gweriador (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366347&postcount=65)
Beni-Kujaku
CN Haunting Presence Necropolitan Changeling
Wizard 5/Harper Mage 3/Recaster 2/Siren 10
17

4th



Xyλena (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366359&postcount=66)
loky1109
NE Unseelie Gloura
Bard 1/Siren 9/Zhentarim Skymage 1
15.5

6th



Sca’varn Barra (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366364&postcount=67)
NinjaGuy
CE Unseelie Pixie
Savage Bard 1/Hit and Run Fighter 2/Savage Bard 1/Warblade 1/Sonokineticist 1/Siren 10
15.25

7th



Ziz (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366370&postcount=68)
AsuraKyoko
CE Necropolitan Human
Bard 1/Battle Dancer 1/Paladin of Slaughter 2/Marshal 1/Dirgesinger 5/Siren 10
17.75

2nd



Ulat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366372&postcount=69)
Zaq
CE Dark Forestlord Half-Elf
Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1/Wildrunner 4/Siren 10
18

1st



Clementine (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25366375&postcount=70)
Venger
TN Human
Predator (Ranger) 5/Nature’s Warrior 5/Siren 10

14.25

8th




Here is the reveal! Congratulations to everyone! Thanks for cooking in this round where I was playing a little fast and loose with the rules. Thank you all for your patience. Next up, something normal.

[H_H_F_F]

ICO spreadsheet is fully up to date.

[AsuraKyoko]

Well, I'm certainly satisfied with this! It was a very fun round for me, and when building Ziz, things just fell into place so nicely, it's like it was meant to be.

As a side note, qualifying for Dirgesinger is kinda awkward, because of the Requiem prerequisite. Requiem is a feat that can be qualified for at level 5, but normally can't be taken until level 6, due to that being when the next feat slot comes along; which meant that normally you wouldn't be able to enter Dirgesinger until level 7. Luckily, Marshal let me take Requiem at level 5 itself, and thus enter Dirgesinger "on time".

As a slight lore note, Ziz was Bard 2/Battle Dancer 1 when the right of Crucimigration was performed on him. When he levelled up again, he elected to go into Paladin of Slaughter instead of Bard to reflect his new worldview.

Fun fact: Ziz's name is a reference to the web novel Worm, in which there is a giant monster that destroys cities and sings a song that drives the inhabitants insane.

[daremetoidareyo]

In the spirit of name etymology: the chiro pterackter is a portmanteau of chiroptera: the family name for bats and chiropractor, the folks who coup de gras your nervous system when you’re helpless.

[loky1109]

It was a long run and now it ends.

Thank you WhamBamSam!

I glad to see how cool entries we have it this round and even between them I up to 4th and HM.
It's fun, both my entries were in my head before this round. Simon is that problem build for Shining Blade, Xyλena as I said in the entry was idea that was born in response on the Beni-Kujaku's suggestion for Junkyard Wars theme. I think it's good when ideas get the chance to gain flesh.

Thanks for all participants and my congratulations for winners!

[Zaq]

I really, honestly, truly did not expect to walk away with gold this time. This was a weird round, but in a fun way! I really enjoyed seeing all the different approaches we all took to the same problem.

Thank you so much for judging, Sam!