Villainous Competition XLIV: It's The Sound of The Police!

[H_H_F_F]

Welcome to Round 44 of the Villainous Competition!

Previous Competitions

Round One: Leader of Armies (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?395046)
Round Two: Nature's Revenger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?400517)
Round Three: Double Agent (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?406015)
Round Four: Grave Keeper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?413480)
Round Five: Crime Lord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420704)
Round Six: Ultimate Predator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?430650)
Round Seven: Wicked Witch (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444478)
Round Eight: Master of the Tundra (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?461482)
Round Nine: The Power of Villainous Thinking (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?474230)
Round Ten: Henchman Are Villains Too (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?478068)
Round Eleven: The Higher They Rise The Harder They Fall (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?483052)
Round Twelve: Power Comes at a Price (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488846)
Round Thirteen: The Gadgeteer - You Are Not Batman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?491932)
Round Fourteen: The Thing That Should Not Be (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496091)
Round Fifteen: The Horsemen Are Drawing Nearer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?500829)
Round Sixteen: Burn Baby Burn (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503974)
Round Seventeen: It's Alive! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507768)
Round Eighteen: This is Heresy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?511933)
Round Nineteen: He Slimed Me! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516535)
Round Twenty: Elder Evil (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?521560)
Round Twenty-One: Yarr! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?527415-Villainous-Competition-XXI-Yarr!)
Round Twenty-Two: I Am The Night! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?531199-Villainous-Competition-XXII-I-Am-The-Night!)
Round Twenty-Three: Two Heads Are Better Than One! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?535437-Villainous-Competition-XXIII-Two-Heads-Are-Better-Than-One)
Round Twenty-Four: Wrong For The Right Reasons! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?541650-Villainous-Competition-XXIV-Wrong-For-The-Right-Reasons)
Round Twenty-Five: Keeper of the Gate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?550139-Villainous-Competition-XXV-No-Solicitors!)
Round Twenty-Six: Get In MY BELLY (Swallow Whole) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?556705-Villainous-Competition-XXVI-Swallow-Whole!)
Round Twenty-Seven: Multiple Personality Disorder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559748-Villainous-Competition-XXVII-Multiple-Personality-Disorder)
Round Twenty-Eight: Tiny Only! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?565176-Villainous-Competition-XXVIII-Bad-Things-Come-in-Small-Packages)
Round Twenty-Nine: Halloween Special (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?573496-Villainous-Competition-XXIX-A-Halloween-Special)
Round Thirty: One Feat to Rule Them ALL (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577930-Villainous-Competition-XXX-One-Feat-to-Rule-Them-ALL)
Round Thirty-One: In Cold Blood (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?582492-Villainous-Competition-XXXI-In-Cold-Blood)
Round Thirty-Two: oh HELL NO! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?586377-Villainous-Competition-XXXII-Oh-HELL-NO!)
Round Thirty-Three: The Do Over (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?589107-Villainous-Competition-XXXIII-The-Do-Over)
Round Thirty-Four: Sword and Board (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?600139-Villainous-Competition-XXXIV-Sword-and-Board)
Round Thirty-Five: I Shall Call Him Mini Me! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?605444-Villainous-Competition-XXXV-I-Shall-Call-Him-Mini-Me!)
Round Thirty-Six: The Broken Man (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612196-Villainous-Competition-XXXVI-The-Broken-Man)
Round Thirty-Seven: Yin and Yang (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?617485-Villainous-Competition-XXXVII-Yin-and-Yang)
Round Thirty Eight: Spooks and Spectres (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?621069-Villainous-Competition-XXXVIII-Spooks-and-Spectres)
Round Thirty Nine: Sorta Psuedo (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?625680-Villainous-Competition-XXXIX-Sorta-Psuedo)
Round Forty: Negative Nancy (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629291-Villainous-Competition-XL-Negative-Nancy)
Round Forty One: Gojira! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632587-Villainous-Competition-XL-1-Gojira!)
Round Forty Two: Caine?! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635461-Villainous-Competition-XLII-Caine-!)
Round Forty Three: The Big Dumb Brute (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?641088-Villainous-Competition-XLIII-The-Big-Dumb-Brute)


We're a little different than most of the optimization threads. We run on CR instead of ECL.

Contestants:
You will need to present a write-up of your build with at least one of the following points: 5 CR, 10 CR 15 CR, 20 CR, and a "sweet spot" that you feel is the high point of the build, as well as presenting a fully-fleshed out 20 CR build in the table below. Feel free to present as many of these as you like, and please give a rundown of the build's abilities and playability at all of the levels you didn't show. It is recommended for new contestants to look at previous rounds and see how things are usually done. The rules are as follows:

Secret Laboratory:
Competitors will be free to use any official 1st party (WotC) 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon Compendium is allowed, but Dragon magazine is disallowed. Unearthed Arcana is allowed. Unupdated 3.0 materials, as well as web exclusives 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. Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Item Familiars and Taint are also banned from the competition. Leadership and all similar abilities are banned for sanity reasons.
Builds that are fully monstrous are allowed at no penalty. All class levels are to be added on as associated class levels.

Elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is the assumed ability score generation method.
Monstrous characters can usually qualify for Epic feats as soon as their HD is over 20. While regular Epic feats will be allowed, Epic Spellcasting and all other Epic feats that affect spells, psionic powers, or item creation are not permitted. Including these would give an unfair advantage over standard characters. For Incarnum characters, Epic Open Chakra feats are allowed; other Epic Incarnum feats are not. The Essentia Capacity increases for Epic capacity as described on p. 212. For all characters, please note that Racial Hit Dice do not count towards Epic Progression of BAB and saves; use the regular progression even if the BAB ends up higher than 20.

Deadlines:
Contestants will have until February 21st, 10:00 AM GMT to create their builds and PM them to the Interim Chair. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges should strive to finish their judgement until March 9th. Deadlines are subject to extension as/if required.

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, Build Elegance, Competence and Power, Memorable Villainy.
Keep these questions in mind when judging each category:
Originality - Is it unexpected?
Build Elegance - Is it mechanically pretty?
Competence and Power - Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
Memorable Villainy - Is this a villain with style? Will it be the BBEG players long to finally kill and then talk about for weeks?
Unearthed Arcana can be penalized for elegance if the specific feature seems unnecessary or makes the playing field unfair (In this case, you can give a 1 if it makes the field unfair.)
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. As the Iron Chef competition states, a little cheddar can be nice, but avoid the mature Gruyere unless you're making a cheese fondue.
You may not judge if you entered the contest, unless you withdraw your submission.

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 the chair is likely to miss it when reviewing the entries.

Note:
There is a hard limit on two entries per competitor.

Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, everyone should try to use the following table for their entry. An easy way to do so is to go to the top left of the private message and click the little a/A icon. It allows you to see what you're writing.



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Code immediately below (spoiler).

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


You can use the table below for Spells.

Spells per Day/Spells Known
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,
Spells per Day/Spells Known
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
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-



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.
Once builds are revealed, please do not comment on errors or rules issues on entries unless you are a judge. If you have such a comment, wait until the final reveal to post it.

Get ready to share those Evil thoughts. This edition’s villain is:


The Sheriff!



https://img4.goodfon.com/wallpaper/nbig/b/8a/fantaziia-art-telega-rytsar-politsiia-politseiskii-zaderzhan.jpg


Limitations



Has to feature ways to find and hunt down the party.
Has to be able to take 'em back alive, if needed.
Must be Lawful – LE, LN or LG. Good-aligned villains meant for evil or chaotic-stupid parties are explicitly allowed (though not mandated, of course) for this round.

To clarify the concept – an antagonist for parties which tend to upset governments and rulers for good or bad reasons. You're building a specialist meant to kill or capture the party in the name of the law. If you end up building something that feels more like a cosmic manifestation of order than like a fantasy-cop, you've probably done something wrong.


Let the carnage begin!

Submission:
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:

PM: H_H_F_F
Subject: Villainous Competition 44, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mailbox.
More questions? PM me with Villainous Competition 44 Questions in the header.

We will award 1st through 3rd places, and a possible Honorable Mention.

Provided by Weaselguy:

- Use capitalization and punctuation correctly.
- Make good use of Spoilers, for cleanliness.
- Don't forget your sources. If it's something that can be found in the contents section, then book title seems to be fine. Obscure stuff, may want to include page number too.
- DeviantArt has about 9 billion pictures that you can reference, I can almost guarantee you can find one there to fit your character.
- Make good use of tables. In addition to the Build table and the Spells table, I like doing one for my Ability Scores, just to keep it neat.
- Do a build stub at the top of your Build Table, something like Wizard 2/Fighter 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 10

[H_H_F_F]

Clarifications

Unearthed Arcana variant rules are limited: The variant character options (such as Wildshape Ranger and Thug Fighter) should not be penalized. Flaws and traits may be penalized by judges, whereas item familiars, gestalt, alternate skill systems, alternate magic systems, alternate crafting rules, generic base classes, LA buyoff, fractional saves/BAB, and bloodlines are banned. Anything not mentioned here is up to individual judges.

d20 Rokugan is not allowed material.

The Dragon Magazine update for Oriental Adventures is in use.

Leadership is banned. Any material that grants you leadership without you specifically taking it should be ignored and may not be traded away for another feat or ACF. Undead Leadership and Dragon Cohort are likewise banned. Wild Cohort and Obtain Familiar are allowed. If you are not sure if a specific feat violates the 'no leadership' rule, err on the side of caution, or ask me.

However, Leadership may be taken to qualify for another feat or class (such as the Great Captain feat or Legendary Leader prestige class), though a character still doesn't get its usual benefit in those cases. This is to allow characters to access unproblematic material that'd otherwise be made unavailable because of the Leadership ban.

On the subject of messaging the chair (me), a few guidelines:
- You can ask for clarifications on the rules of the round or the competition, but I am not here to give critiques on your build or guess how the judges might score it.
- When submitting entries, please keep the entry to no more than 2 message, if at all possible. That way, it'll fit within one post.
- Also when submitting entries, don't expect me to search through your entry and edit in or out material. Entries should be sent to me complete - if there is a later revision, re-submit the full build. Do not include any text which you don't want posted in your submission.
- Please make sure the name of your entry is clearly present in the message.

[AvatarVecna]

I've been struck with inspiration.

[loky1109]

Okay...
There are some obvious choices... Hm... I need to use my book-fu!
Entry that didn't match previous round limitations... Well, this time isn't for him, too...

[AvatarVecna]

The super-fun thing I initially thought of is from a thread I participated in awhile back. I won't do that but I hope somebody does.

[Thurbane]

Very interesting...I'll see if I get time for an entry :smallsmile:

[Feldar]

Leadership is banned. Any material that grants you leadership without you specifically taking it should be ignored and may not be traded away for another feat or ACF. Undead Leadership and Dragon Cohort are likewise banned. Wild Cohort and Obtain Familiar are allowed. If you are not sure if a specific feat violates the 'no leadership' rule, err on the side of caution, or ask me.

However, Leadership may be taken to qualify for another feat or class (such as the Great Captain feat or Legendary Leader prestige class), though a character still doesn't get its usual benefit in those cases. This is to allow characters to access unproblematic material that'd otherwise be made unavailable because of the Leadership ban.


Not to be picky, but doesn't the sheriff need deputies? Cmon man!

[AvatarVecna]

Not to be picky, but doesn't the sheriff need deputies? Cmon man!

I too desire the ability to form a gang.

[Thurbane]

Dominate Deputize Person? :smallbiggrin:

[H_H_F_F]

Not to be picky, but doesn't the sheriff need deputies? Cmon man!

That's theoretically true for most rounds: most of the types of villains we've done here make more sense with lackeys. Leadership is messy, and the ban on it is universal across all optimization competitions in the playground. I think that's for a good reason.

Besides, I actually think this one, specifically, makes more sense without leadership than most. As the clarification said, what's being asked is a specialist law enforcer to hunt down the party and kill them or bring them to justice. Being a lone wolf makes sense for that concept. "Sheriff" doesn't fully get that across, but it felt more fitting than cop, policeman, constable or detective.

[loky1109]

I have idea, but it's very complicated and very hard to realize.
I have second, but I don't sure in it.

And I need to write good fluff to my two IC entries.
Need 12-extra hours in day.

And I should maintain my reputation: in last four rounds I had BRONZE, in last two - BRONZE and SILVER. )))

[Venger]

Oh this sounds fun. Down to cook.

[Elves]

I wonder if this would be a good time to start allowing Dragon mag, now that it's on the Internet Archive and easily viewable by everyone. I find that restriction is a reason I don't submit to these, and especially as the roman numerals climb higher, it would provide new options to keep the contest fresh.

[Venger]

No dragon magazine please.

[H_H_F_F]

Personally, I'd be against allowing Dragon Mag, but that's not the reason I'm not putting it up to a vote. That's a drastic change in the way things are done, and I don't feel that it's within my purview as interim chair. This would be a discussion to have when Jdizzlean comes back.

[loky1109]

I think Magazines material can be allowed, but only low doses accordingly to theme. Like in Gojira! round.

[zlefin]

I've got a couple ideas, I might try brewing something here, though I remain hesitant about the typical rules here re equipment.

At any rate, I'm not sure I can get the feats/skill build order to work right on my idea.

[3SecondCultist]

I have… several ideas for this. Most of which almost work, but not quite. Quite frustrated at the moment.

[AvatarVecna]

I have… several ideas for this. Most of which almost work, but not quite. Quite frustrated at the moment.

I've scrapped like three myself. Frustrating.

[Doctor Despair]

Well, if the judges could consider scrapped ideas, we'd have a full roster already! :smalltongue:

I've got one idea I know I'm not going to use (well, more of a concept, really, that I'm sure would get good fluff points, but I don't have any idea what to do with it beyond race).

I've got another idea I'll probably use if I end up making an entry.

[AvatarVecna]

Well, if the judges could consider scrapped ideas, we'd have a full roster already! :smalltongue:

I've got one idea I know I'm not going to use (well, more of a concept, really, that I'm sure would get good fluff points, but I don't have any idea what to do with it beyond race).

I've got another idea I'll probably use if I end up making an entry.

I won't lie, my initial thought was showcasing a particular combo from one of your threads, although I scrapped it pretty quick cuz plagiarism isn't cool. :smalltongue:

[Doctor Despair]

I won't lie, my initial thought was showcasing a particular combo from one of your threads, although I scrapped it pretty quick cuz plagiarism isn't cool. :smalltongue:

If it's the one I think you're referring to, that's absolutely a good fit. It was somewhat item-dependent as I recall though, which many judges frown upon, so it'd need some retooling. I'd like to say more on the subject, but I don't want to run afoul of the spirit of the "no speculation" rule. Regardless: I appreciate the courtesy, but I certainly don't own the concept. if you can't think of another well to go to, I'd be proud if it did well anyway. :smallsmile:

[Eurus]

So... since the 3.5 web articles by WotC were all officially deleted, what does that mean for their contest legality? It's still out there, but it's definitely harder to find, search through, and cite.

[Doctor Despair]

So... since the 3.5 web articles by WotC were all officially deleted, what does that mean for their contest legality? It's still out there, but it's definitely harder to find, search through, and cite.

I used a web article in the last competition with no penalty. Wayback engine keeps it accessible for judges and chefs. Much more annoying, yes, but accessible

[H_H_F_F]

So... since the 3.5 web articles by WotC were all officially deleted, what does that mean for their contest legality? It's still out there, but it's definitely harder to find, search through, and cite.

You're right about it being harder to find, but they're still legal. As long as you provide a working link, you're fine.

[Seward]

Hmm. I was just revisiting an adventure I wrote which had regional law enforcement, laws designed to both trip you up but also magic-enhanced courtrooms that were actually pretty fair (if you didn't DO the crime, you were pretty safe. If guilty, well...perhaps evading capture would be smarter if you can't pay the fine or do the time)

This included how exactly you capture and restrain PC-power level opposition (up to about ECL12) using the resources of a large city (and constraints of only a moderate civic budget) and balance the desire not to have your constables get killed arresting somebody with the desire not to burn thousands of gold in consumables to capture a pickpocket, however skilled that pickpocket might be. This would actually be easier with a bounty-hunter/"Justified"-style Marshall character than a NPC organization, especially scaling to higher levels.

So I just revisited my own thoughts on that topic from back in 2005 or so, heh. And I've been playing with another power set that covers much of the same ground but is doable with an individual. Getting to choose any monster/race as the chasse seems interesting. So I'm at the supermarket looking at 3 ingredients and thinking "I could probably do something with this".

It's been a while since I've tried to stat up a villain the players would love to hate. If I manage it in time, I'll submit something.

[Thurbane]

Just had an idea radically different than my first...now to see if I can get it to come together.

[3SecondCultist]

I finally have an idea that is workable! It's pretty silly, but I can't wait to put it together.

[loky1109]

My ideas are still mainly only in my head.
Try to do something in this three days (fourth is workday so it doesn't count).

[Doctor Despair]

My original idea never took off (or rather, the compulsory entry I put together took so much time that my creative energy was spent). I did get something in though :smallsmile:

[Thurbane]

Went down 2 possible paths, not entirely happy with either. I'll probably sit this one out, and judge depending on available down time.

[zlefin]

Im busy enough that I'm not interested in doing a writeup. My concept works passably, albeit a bit weak in some areas. Gl to all those who do submit.

[Venger]

Finished my build, working on my backstory. Can't wait to see what everyone else came up with.

[loky1109]

Entry is sent.
Maybe I'll write second. Maybe no.

[Seward]

I got mine fleshed out and decided I probably don't know how to do a CR based build for this kind of optimization. It came out ok, it would have been a pretty entertaining NPC for the right kind of party, it could mechanically do what it should be able to do and scaled pretty well across levels, but I noticed how much stronger it got if I just ignored the PC levels and went for advancement. I think I had a decent balance of that, I needed the class levels for some abilities and flavor, but it isn't up to the level of the kinds of things that did well in the Big Guy challenge.

Also real life has been busy and it got shelved for about 10 days, and I don't see really having time to format it right and do proper fluff.

So I'll hold it in my pocket until the reveal to try to learn from what others did. I probably will reveal the basic idea, as that was kind of fun, once the other stuff is out there, unless somebody did the same basic concept only way better.

[H_H_F_F]

Alright folks, about 24 hours 'till the reveal. If anyone is working on an entry and needs an extension, this is the time to ask.

[loky1109]

Alright folks, about 24 hours 'till the reveal. If anyone is working on an entry and needs an extension, this is the time to ask.
I am. I'll try to be on time, but maybe I'll need an extra day.

[Venger]

Yeah, same goes for me.

[loky1109]

Mine sent. It it turned out to be easier, than I thought.

[loky1109]

Do we have an extension or entries will start to come within counted minus?

[H_H_F_F]

Do we have an extension or entries will start to come within counted minus?

Oh yeah, we're still waiting. Apologies for not updating the OP.

[3SecondCultist]

I have a concept half-written but I've been busy this past weekend and not sure I'll have time to write it up to my standards. I'll share my ideas after the reveal.

[H_H_F_F]

I'll be able to post the reveal in 7 hours or so, if I get all the submissions I'm waiting for by then.

[Venger]

Got mine in. Can't wait to see what everyone else came up with.

[H_H_F_F]

Reveal incoming!

Please make sure you don't post while the builds are being posted.

[H_H_F_F]

She's ARMED to the teeth... I'm so sorry.


https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/431937476010180610/943795020857757737/cop_vc_portrait_.png

Jocasta: Arm of the Law


Jocasta shined up her badge for the hundredth time and walked past the front desk at the Deneith city guard post. The first time she’d been in the employees only section. She tried to contain her excitement.

“Help you, miss?” growled an orc behind the counter with a friendly, but decidedly firm hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you, but I was just going to go speak to your personnel manager,” she said as politely as she could while making sure he took her seriously.

“Not got one of them.”

“Your onboarding liaison then?”

“Uh uh.”

“Someone to notify that I’m here. I wouldn’t want head office to think I was running late.” Only one chance to make a first impression.

A look of realization crested the orc’s face.

“You’re the new blood from the capital then.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir,” she said with a salute as she noticed the bar on his uniform’s sleeve that had been hidden by a fold of his garment.

“Relax,” he said with a smile she assumed was meant to be good-natured, but she had trouble reading the expression of anything with tusks, despite her semester of sensitivity training at the academy.

“I’m sure you’ll find this out soon enough, but we do things a little differently than back in Korth. Not too much trouble on the docket today, Host be praised. I could take you down to the quartermaster and get you fitted for a uniform. Save you from having to explain who you are if you’ve got the local colors on.” He nodded at his drab green shirt, standing in contrast to the starched purple peaks of Jocasta’s robe.

“That’s very kind of you, sir, but I’d just as soon get started and help take some weight off your back. Maybe after I’m done my shift?”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Or don’t, haha. You want to get started, we got a report of disorderly conduct roundabout a half hour ago out in the woods about a mile off the road, toward the east.”

Jocasta pictured the landscape. She memorized the surrounding area on the ride over. There hadn’t been much else to occupy her.

“That’s bandit territory, isn’t it?”

“You’ve done your homework. Probably just a party that’s gone on a bit too long after a wedding or something. We figure they don’t want any trouble. They try to get cute with you just blow into this.” He tossed her a whistle for her to clip onto her belt.

“Does it summon reinforcements?”

“If there’s any that can hear it, yeah.”

“Thank you,” she said as sincerely as she could.

“Anyway, it’s probably nothing, but go check it out. Shouldn’t be anything you can’t handle.”

“Right away,” she said and saluted before she could stop herself. After that, she was off.

It didn’t take her long to find the place she’d been sent. Locals told her it was mostly safe during the day but to keep her wits about her. Lately, however, there had been more and more attacks on caravans passing through the area even before sundown.

Jocasta peace-bound her weapon with a piece of rope as a sign she was ready to handle things civilly, though in truth she hardly needed it. She thought of it more as part of her uniform than anything else.

The trees grew thick the further she went into the wood. She pushed aside the limbs with her staff, knowing better than to cut wood in an unknown forest. Too many otherwise intelligent officers’ stories ended that way.

She made her way into a clearing where a boy was hastily packing his things into a bindle, not bothering to pick up the stray coppers and tindertwigs that dropped from his shaking hands, though from the state of his clothes, he could hardly afford to spare them.

Jocasta cleared her throat loudly enough to be heard. You didn’t want the criminal element to think you were sneaking up on them.

The boy turned his head and reared back, falling on his back in the mud.

“L-look, we said we’d clear out, all right? Them’s the rules, we don’t want no more trouble,” he said with his hands up.

“You know me?” she asked. She hadn’t identified herself yet, and as her superior had said, he wouldn’t recognize her as local constabulary.

“You’re with him, ain’t you? Sir Joshua?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know him. What makes you think that?”

The boy nodded his chin at her robe.

“He had one of them on.”

Maybe she wasn’t the only new recruit from the academy who’d been assigned here. She hadn’t heard anything about it from dispatch, but he could’ve been coming from elsewhere.

“And he ordered you to disperse?” Jocasta asked.

The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve and Jocasta noticed he’d been crying.

“I mean, I guess you could say that. Look, I just want to get outta here before he comes back. Please don’t make me stay, miss.”

Jocasta looked around the clearing. There were deep tracks and drag marks in the mud, as though there had been a fight. She followed them a ways around the other side of a massive tree.

The shadow cast by a pair of swaying legs at the end of a rope answered questions she hadn’t wanted to ask.

“He challenged him to single combat and won fair and square, that’s the law for our kind, so we’ve got to move on, now please, miss.” The boy hefted his bindle up over his shoulder and took a step away from her.

“There’s only one law and this isn’t it. A man’s entitled to a measure of dignity when he dies. Help me cut him down,” she said and fumbled with the rope around her knife.

“I’d like to do that, really, but—“ he stopped talking when hoofbeats broke the silence of the wood.

“You’re on your own. Goodbye, pa, may the Six not scourge you too deep!” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran off.

Jocasta sighed. Nothing was ever easy.

She braced her arm behind the dead man’s knees to hold him steady and poked at the noose around his neck with her knife. His face looked exactly like one would expect. Upon his brow was a brand: “I have fallen upon hard times.” Curious thing for a bandit.

“What do you think you’re doing?” someone asked from behind her. She hadn’t heard him slow to a trot or come closer.

She peeked out from between the corpse’s thighs and saw someone standing there, decidedly not on horseback.

“Oh, sorry, miss. Thought you were one of those bandits screwing up my handiwork. I’ll save you the trouble; I already got everything good off him, but seeing as you’ve gone to all this effort, I’d be happy to use some of the silver in his purse to buy the two of us a nice dinner.”

He had the body of someone who’d seen a hundred battles, albeit more than a few years ago. His armor was pitted with nicks and dents showing it wasn’t mere ornamentation. He had a dozen medals stuck on with wax from half a dozen different armies. His boots were Riedran, his belt of Elven leather from Aerenal. Hanging from his shoulders like a specter was a tattered purple rag that scarcely reached his waist. The hem was irregularly marred by bites and burns and the dye had been leached in uneven little spots from some caustic substance. Even though it was no longer purple so much as the color of dust, Jocasta still recognized what it was and what it signified.

“What precinct you with? I have to call this in.” She kept nudging at the noose with her dagger.

“Huh? Oh, this. Don’t worry about it, I’m my own man, miss…”

“Officer d’Deneith,” she said.

“That’s a pretty name. You can call me Joshua if you like.”

“Impersonating a warden of House Deneith is a serious crime, Sir Joshua.”

He laughed, revealing a pinkish white scar that ran from the edge of his mouth up past his eye and got lost somewhere in his hairline, just starting to gray.

“I don’t remember saying I was in House Deneith.”

“Then you can’t have acquired that legitimately. We never give up our uniforms. You never know what someone might do with them.”

Joshua rested the palm of his hand on his belt, brushing the hilt of a sword big enough to fell the tree the bandit leader was hanging from.

“Perhaps I killed a Deneith warder and stole his uniform,” he said with a wink.

“Are you confessing to two murders today, sir?”

“Relax, It’s just a joke. Two? I wasn’t aware I’d confessed to one.” He said, sounding confused.

“You said this was your doing, did you not?”

“Yeah, and I can’t help but notice that you’re still messing with it. I’m going to have to ask you to leave it be: the order was pretty specific.” Joshua took a step closer to her.

Jocasta pushed the corpse’s knees so it swung towards Joshua and took a step back, keeping the trunk of the tree between them.

“So you’re confessing to murder for hire as well?” she reached to her belt for a wand of something nonlethal.

“Host, lighten up, would you? It’s nothing like that. Way I figure it is the law abiding citizens of this place got sick of getting stuck up while passing through, took up a collection, and hired me to take care of it and clear out these roaches.” He took the weight of the body on his shoulder and didn’t even seem winded. Joshua stabilized it and left it to hang. He reached up and rubbed pitch over the knot Jocasta had been cutting at.

“The way you figure it? So you don’t even know who bought this man’s death from you?” Jocasta pointed her wand at him and extended her free hand behind her to maintain her balance, like she’d practiced a hundred times before on the firing range at the academy, though never on someone who could fight back.

“Bought his— are you rehearsing a play? It was a dead drop, so someone like you wouldn’t get the wrong idea about all this and I couldn’t tell you whose idea it all was, even if I wanted to.”

“Sir Joshua, you are under arrest,” Jocasta said with as much authority as she could standing in the knight’s shadow.

“This is getting a little boring, miss Deneith. I’m going to be on my way now. And you’re welcome for taking care of this dump’s bandit problem.” He turned his back to walk away.

“Taking care of bandits is our job, not yours.” Black smoke lanced forth from her wand and shot toward Joshua.

He turned on his heel and before she could see it, unsheathed his great, iron club of metal, only barely thin enough to be called a sword and sliced her spell in half. The two twisting ropes of necromantic filth fell on the soil and coiled up like dead snakes.

“Heh. Say what you will about me, but at least I stabbed this guy in the front.” His blade was still wet with the bandit’s blood. It caught the light from the sun, drawing Jocasta’s eye to the etching on the blade’s forte. It read “Hard Times.”

“That is appalling.” Jocasta tilted her staff at Joshua and exuded a cloud of poisonous fog.

“Appalling is how much I paid for it.” A gem on his neck glowed and he didn’t seem any worse for the wear even as the fog ebbed and flowed from his nostrils.

“Look, like me, I know you’re just doing a job, but I really can’t stick around playing grabass. Just tell your boss I got away. Believe me, he’ll understand.” Joshua made a motion like pitching a ball toward the bandit’s corpse and bolted away. Before Jocasta could call out after him, a deafening explosion rattled her teeth and the bandit toppled from the branch bearing him, alongside the branch itself, pinning Jocasta under its weight.

It was nightfall before her colleague came looking for her.

“Rough first day?”

“I need to file an incident report,” Jocasta croaked.


Jocasta was debriefed and nearly out of the infirmary by the time her reinforcements from the capital arrived.

Or rather, reinforcement, singular.

Her arm was still in a sling when he checked in with her, not that it stopped her from saluting.

“Take it easy, kid,” he said, despite being only a few years older than her, if that. His hair wasn’t even beginning to gray. He introduced himself as Detective Landon d’Deneith and sat in a chair by her infirmary bed. He set his staff on the floor where it remained perfectly balanced on its tip with no sense it would ever fall, as though it were a nonmagical top spinning at an incredible rate.

“Oh, you’re an alumnus?” Jocasta recognized the markings on his staff from her training at Morgrave before her transfer to the academy.

“Why, yes,” he said. People must not have noticed if often.

“Where did you want to start our investigation, sir?” she asked.

“Please, Landon is fine. I feel old enough without you calling me ‘sir.’ I read your report. If our guy signs his work, it’ll make it that much easier for us to track him down. I figure we head down the road to Korth and check in with head office to see if there’s been anything else bearing his mark recently, organize it by date, and see if we can figure out what direction he’s traveling in from that. Sounds like a sellsword to me.”

“Good idea, but the Jorasco liaison said I need to rest a while longer.”

Just as Jocasta mentioned it, the doctor walked over. Landon patted her on the back. “What’s the word?”

“Oh, your partner can leave whenever she’s ready,” the doctor said with a glassy look in her eyes and walked away.

Jocasta stood up and Landon carried her staff, though it looked uncomfortable in his hands.

“That’s handy. I guess she changed her mind,” Jocasta said.

Landon helped her on with her cloak and led her outside.

“Well, someone did,” he said with a wink.

“What did you say you specialized in at Uni again?” Jocasta glanced at the crystal held at the head of Landon’s staff. It was a featureless sphere of clear glass, telling her nothing at all.

“Oh, can’t you see?” Landon asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“I must’ve banned it,” she said sheepishly.

“Ah. Well, don’t worry about it. Suffice it to say I can be very persuasive. We shouldn’t have too much trouble with our investigation, partner.” He led her to a carriage to begin their journey to the capital.

Enchantment had always made her nervous. She tried not to let it show as she climbed in.


Their hunt had led them here. Between the two of them, their divinations had pinned Joshua to the vicinity of this barn. Landon would lurk inside, hidden by his magic, and Jocasta would herd him in to be charmed so he could be brought in to answer for his crimes.

Joshua had a few new trophies since last time, some still fresh. He’d collected a new scar across his eye socket.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” He asked and drew his sword even quicker than before.

“I will ask you once to come quietly.” Jocasta stilled her breathing and prepared to cast a spell.

“I guess you haven’t heard of me. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, then. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and tell your boss I got away?” He reached to his belt and tugged a purse off it. He kicked it over, spilling gold coins with a serpent’s mouth on them.

Jocasta summoned a howling spirit from Joshua’s right to shepherd him into the barn. He took a strike at it, as she’d predicted he would. The enchanted watch she’d bargained for counted off his movements, if only for a few seconds, so she would know just where to direct the spirit’s claws, not enough to kill, but enough to scare him off.

Joshua’s strikes did nothing. He ran toward the barn and slammed and barred the door in a fluid motion. It wouldn’t be long now. Jocasta caught her breath just as the spirit vanished back to whatever afterlife awaited it. It had lasted just long enough. She didn’t like to think how things would’ve gone if Joshua knew she wasn’t as experienced as she acted.

The magic on her watch had run out, but it still kept time. The rendezvous time with Landon passed. He didn’t come out of the barn. Jocasta called out for him and heard only a quiet groaning from inside.

She levered the bar off the door with her staff and crept in. There wasn’t much to hide behind. Landon was laid out on his back with a slight trickle of blood seeping from his mouth.

“You all right?” Jocasta shouted.

“Uh huh,” Landon groaned.

“What happened?” Jocasta knelt by his side and handed him her handkerchief.

“He got away,” Landon said.

Jocasta nodded and conjured a cup for him and poured tea from a magic bottle. She poured herself one as well.

“What’s our next step, partner?” she asked.

“You don’t give up easy, do you? Well, I figure we ought to report in, tell head office what’s happened and wait for orders,” Landon said.

Didn’t sound like him. Had he been enchanted? It wasn’t something she knew how to look for. She sat on a bale of hay facing him and ran the tip of her finger around her cup counterclockwise while he drank his tea. His reflection cast in the surface of her cup laid back down on the ground, tossed and turned, and then leapt back to its feet as Jocasta glanced backwards in time.

Joshua appeared in the cup’s surface, his face turned where Jocasta could see it.

“You sure?” she saw Joshua’s lips form the words.

“Yeah, it’s gotta look real to fool my dumbass partner,” Landon said and put a purse full of foreign gold into his knapsack.

“Your funeral.” Joshua punched Landon in the side of the head as he turned around and knocked him to the ground.

Landon teleported Joshua away, rolled his staff to the other end of the barn and laid still until Jocasta saw herself come find him.

“Why don’t you tell me what you remember while it’s still fresh? For the report,” Jocasta said. She patted her pockets.

“Looking for something?” he asked.

“Oh, I must’ve just lost my pad.” She took a step toward him and reached into his bag before he could stop her.

“You don’t mind, do you?” She reached in and felt the foreign coins, cold on her fingers.

Landon sighed.

“If you think about it, our job’s really done. We were really only assigned to scare him outta town. Far as he’s concerned, he’s escaped.”

“But he has escaped!”

“Look, it’s not like he’s interested in coming back here; mission accomplished. This is the way things are done. Plus he gave us at least a thousand unarche. I was gonna give you half.”

“I think you know I can’t accept that.” Jocasta kicked his knapsack aside and watched it come to rest across his staff.

It leapt into his hand as if drawn by a lodestone. Someone trained in enchantment probably would’ve noticed the head glowing with power. Jocasta saw nothing.

“Are you sure I can’t change your mind?”

Jocasta braced herself against a wave of his power and almost threw up as she felt even if just for a moment that what she wanted more than anything was to take her share of the bribe and keep all this to herself. She muscled it down.

“Come on, partner, we can’t come outta this with two stories.” He gestured toward the door and barred it somehow. Another school she wished she knew more about just now.

“No. We can’t.”


Korth’s chief of police swallowed another magical draught to keep his nausea at bay, for all the good it did.

“What in the Nine possessed you to assign a rookie to bring someone like this in?” Councilman Gossamer demanded from the wingback chair on the other side of his desk.

“She was paired with someone more experienced. Our people have to learn somehow--“

“Do you know what you’re going to learn? What the department’s liability is to this girl. Has she given you a quote yet?”

“Is she—I mean, she’s awake?”

“Unfortunately. She’s due here any minute.”

“What should we—I mean, what should I offer her?” the chief asked.

“Anything she wants. If she had a mind to take this to Kundarak, she could own this department. Put her on a desk, pension her off, light duty, anything as long as the papers don’t hear about this.”

A forceful knock at the door got Gossamer to stop, if only for a moment.

“I told you not to bother me until the Deneith girl was here!” the chief shouted.

“Should I come back?” asked a voice he didn’t recognize. Just his luck. He got out of his chair for her. He didn’t get out of his chair for anyone.

“Oh, no, no, perish the thought, my dear,” the chief said and threw open the door.

He tried not to stare, but the poor thing didn’t make it easy. He couldn’t find a safe place to rest his eyes, so settled for the crown of her head, swathed in bandages that were only slightly pinkish with blood. He held out a hand to shake only to realize with dawning horror the corresponding hand was entirely absent, as was the arm where it had once been attached. Her sleeve held itself demurely by her side. She braced her weight on her staff with her remaining arm.

“Forgive me for not taking your hand, sir. I’m still getting used to the new center of gravity,” she said.

Gossamer stood and bowed.

“Please, take my seat, Detective d’Deneith,” he said.

“Oh, I think there’s been some mistake—“ she started.

“No mistake. It’s the least we can do for someone who’s shown such bravery in the call of duty. I’m sorry to hear about your partner.”

Jocasta sat down. “Thank you, sir.”

“About this case—“ the chief began.

“Yes, I’d had some thoughts on how we might pursue it if you have a minute,” Jocasta said.

“Well,” the chief started but didn’t finish when he saw the look Gossamer gave him from behind Jocasta’s chair.

“Please, go on.”

“I thought that instead of finishing my convalescence here, I could do my physical therapy at this job training center out by the Mournlands. It’s not too expensive. We don’t have any leads on apprehending Sir Joshua right now, but I can scry on him from anyplace. I can look for him following a basic grid pattern based on our last sighting of him. If I find anything actionable before I’m well enough to bring him in, I’ll send word to head office and they can send someone closer.” Jocasta reached to her empty sleeve out of habit. It mirrored the movements of her good arm. She went through the motion of wringing the hand that was no longer there for a moment before she stopped.

“I see. Are you quite sure? I mean I don’t want to say you’re lucky, but you might not make it out alive next time,” the chief said.

“Sir Joshua is— I mean, my partner’s dead because of him. If there’s any way I can finish what the two of us started, I want to do it.” She handed him a brochure from the pale masters and mistresses branch near Fort Zombie.

“Quite right,” said Gossamer. “When this is all said and done, we’ll make sure he pays to make you whole.” Trust a politician to deflect blame from the department when a soft target presented itself.

The chief bit his tongue when he saw the cost of the program and reminded himself the department was getting off easy. He put his seal on it and dashed off a note.

“Give this to my secretary on your way out and she’ll cut you a check,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.” Jocasta bowed her head.

She was still here.

“Was there, ah, anything else, detective?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, do you think I could requisition a necromantic cadaver? Nothing too exotic, just to help me with my bags and such.”

The chief couldn’t say yes quickly enough and told her to take whatever she needed from the morgue. She thanked him again and finally was off.

“Thank the Six that’s over with,” the chief said and steadied himself on his desk.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of ours that dedicated. Well, you know what they say about gift horses. Let’s go to lunch.”

The chief had no arguments about that.


Jocasta walked up the enormous staircase to the fortress that was the training facility of the pale masters and mistresses. She leant on her staff and rested her forehead on the polished sphere of its head, relishing the cool against her sweaty skin.

“Knock, please,” she said to the skeleton behind her with her suitcase in its hand.

It still had the signet ring on its hand that had marked its authority as bandit king. Jocasta had pinned a tin star to its shirt to let passersby know it was one of Deneith’s deputies.

An attendant made the door invisible, but didn’t open it.

“Help you, miss?” she asked.

“I’m here for the training program. I Civised ahead. Detective d’Deneith?”

“Oh, right, right.” She fiddled with some fastenings holding the door in place, evidently remembering where they were without needing to look and beckoned Jocasta inside.

“We’re happy to have you. If you’ll just follow me, I can show you where everything is. You can dump your skel in the armory if you want while you get settled and we can get him shined up for you. If you wanted to hand his reins to me or one of our staff to make room in your pool for your training, that’s included with the package your office paid for. You can pick him up whenever you like.” The attendant led her down a long hallway and counted off the doors they passed with a lightning rail driver’s clicker on her belt.

“That’s very generous, but I’d prefer it, uh, he stay by my side. He’s not part of my pool anyway, so it shouldn’t interfere with my training.” The bandit king kept pace with her a step behind.

The attendant shrugged and opened a door, beckoning Jocasta inside.

“Suit yourself. You call ‘em what you like, they’re your skels. That’s fancy. How’d you swing that? You a harbinger or something?” she asked and quickly glanced at Jocasta’s brow. Her hair hadn’t grown back. She doubted it ever would.

“I’m here in part to help avenge his death. He’s serving as a revenant until I bring his killer to justice.” Jocasta followed the attendant over to a three paneled mirror and took a step up onto a small pedestal.

“What then?” the attendant conjured a pincushion on her wrist and gestured for Jocasta to hold out her arm.

Jocasta did and made a conscious effort not to shrug as a tape measure slithered from the attendant’s sleeve and measured her arm.

“I suppose that’s up to him,” she said.

“Well isn’t that nice of you? You’re gonna nail the professional ethics class, let me tell you.” A ledger levitated by her side and wrote down the measurements she was taking.

“It’s something I’ve always felt strongly about. Part of why I never got into enchantment, I guess.” She raised her chin as the attendant crossed over and rested a hand on her stump.

“May I?”

Jocasta looked straight ahead and nodded.

“This isn’t idle curiosity. I’ve just got to check what kind of damage we’re working with here so I can make sure I make all the necessary preparations when it’s time to fit you for your prosthesis.” She unbuttoned Jocasta’s sleeve and rested her hand on the burns still left behind.

“I understand.” Jocasta turned her head away.

“I’m going to stick you with this pin now to figure out where you still have sensation. You tell me when you feel anything. If you don’t, don’t worry about it. It’ll just mean I need to earn my pay when I sew the new one on, all right?”

“All right.” Jocasta didn’t feel anything.

“Have you given any thought to what you might like? Matching your natural complexion should be easy enough if that’s what you want, though we can always do something in drow or Serren if you wanted to go a bit bolder. If nothing from the catalog caught your eye, we can always do something custom. It may take a little longer since it’d depend what we have in stock, though you could always speed the process along if it was something you felt like hunting down yourself.”

“Set Landon’s remains on the drafting table, please,” she said to the bandit king’s skeleton. It complied, as ever. The arm of her former partner inched out of the magic bag it carried for her, sealed in a canister of necromantic preservative fluid.

“Tell me about this,” the attendant said and went over to examine it.

“It belonged to my partner once. There’s this guy we promised to bring in together. I intend to hold him to his word.”

The attendant muttered to herself and the ledger turned a page in itself.

“All right. This shouldn’t be a problem. Had you thought about whether we’re doing flesh or no flesh? Looks like Landon was a little taller than you, so if you wanted flesh, I’d need to shrink it down before attaching it. If you wanted to go no flesh, it looks fine as-is. Works exactly the same, strictly a matter of personal preference.”

The thought of Landon’s skin touching hers made Jocasta feel uneasy. “No flesh, I think.”

“Great. I think that’ll about do it. I’ll clear the flesh off that thing around lunch and put it on the docket. It should be ready around the time you complete your training.”

“That long?”

Jocasta saw attendant frown in the mirror and worried she’d made a mistake.

“This is precision work, you know. It takes time. I’ve got to make sure your body won’t reject it, forge the connection between it and the universe so it’s considered a part of you, and there is a line.”

“Right, sorry.” Jocasta stepped off the pedestal, still unsteady.

The attendant came and slung Jocasta’s arm around her shoulder to steady her. She rebuttoned Jocasta’s sleeve.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. If you already knew everything, what’d there be for you to learn here? The next ten doors on your left are free. Pick any of them you like; they’re all the same. We’ll send a skel around sundown to take your dinner order, just write what you want on the slate on its neck and our kitchen will conjure it for you. You’re scheduled in the scullery tomorrow. Rota’s posted in the common area at the end of the hall. You’ll be mostly aerating the soil in the cemetery, mopping up the blood in the lab, making sure there’s meat on the hooks for the students to work with, stuff like that for a while to help you get the lay of the land.”

Jocasta nodded. “Make sure I’m not just here to steal trade secrets, huh?”

The attendant smiled. “Off the record, yeah. Plus I know it sounds corny, but it helps keep us humble. Good luck with the program. I hope you get your guy.”

“Me too.”


“This is the end of the line, Sir Joshua. You are under arrest.” Jocasta shouted across the clearing. Her voice carried over the storm thundering high above and the crashing waves lapping against the jagged rocks below. Joshua’s back was to the cliff’s edge.

“Is this something I should be concerned with?” asked a wealthy lord who was drinking a steaming cup of coffee with Joshua.

“Nah, idiots are always trying to give me crap. Her colors aren’t even local; she doesn’t have jurisdiction here. I’ll meet up with you at the rendezvous point after I smooth this over,” Joshua said.

The lord shrugged and teleported away.

“You must have me confused with someone else, miss. I can’t be under arrest. Haven’t you heard how I helped put the rightful king back on the throne? I don’t know if it’s even possible to arrest me anymore. Be on your way, all right?” He took a step away from the cliff’s edge to leave. Not this time.

A howling spirit rose up from Joshua’s shadow and rested its hands on his shoulders to gently begin strangling him.

A brooch holding the ill-gotten Deneith robe of Joshua’s shut burned with sunlight and the spirit’s hands melted into black slop and fell off.

“Come on, this is bush league. Just leave me alone; I don’t want any trouble.” Joshua took another step. He hadn’t even drawn his weapon.

Jocasta threw open her cloak and from the darkness within, the remains of a hellcat blasted out like a cannon ball and went for Joshua’s knees. It took him to the ground and began to maul him about the face and neck.

He hooked his thumbs into its eye sockets and crushed its skull into powder. The body staggered around and then collapsed.

“What’s your problem, you bald ass? You should be careful with those things, they might hurt someone, you elbow-looking moron.” He came closer to her.

“Hold him.” Jocasta said.

The bandit king’s skeleton sprinted toward Joshua, its strides aided by the magic boots she had given it. It clawed at Joshua’s neck and wrapped its legs around his torso.

Joshua put his arm across the bandit king’s back, took a deep breath, and flexed his bicep. The skeleton’s spine snapped in half and his top half collapsed into the soft mud. his hat fell off, revealing the brand, still etched into his polished bone.

“I have fallen on hard times.”

Joshua knelt to look at it, Jocasta forgotten.

“Hey, I know this guy! Man, that takes me back. Where’d you dig this up? I must’ve fought this guy like five years ago.”

“Six.” Jocasta said.

“Yeah, it was six.” Joshua hooked his thumb under the bandit king’s teeth and lifted his skull up like a bowling ball.

“I wouldn’t say I knew him well,” he said as he posed like a Phiarlan board climber. “But now you mention it, it was six years ago. Hey, how’d you know that?”

Jocasta threw her cloak onto the ground. Serpents and men and elves and rakshasas bearing Joshua’s brand leapt out of it and dove on him, grasping them in their teeth and claws and talons.

“There isn’t anything I can do to make you remember the people you hurt and kill, is there?” Jocasta drew the glove off Landon’s arm. She could feel the first raindrops as they landed on its bare bone.

“No, really, it’s going to bother me, where do I know you from? Have you ever taken a Lyrander cruise out in the Thunder Sea?”

Landon’s arm hummed with dark power, palpable even to Joshua. Jocasta drew closer and Joshua began to sweat.

“That guy I was talking to just gave me a purse full of gold. I think I could’ve dropped it in the scuffle back there. Why don’t you take it and tell your boss I got away?”

Jocasta’s skeleton hand rested against Joshua’s cheek.

“Not this time.” She drew her hand back along with all the life in Joshua’s body. His soul departed to whatever was his due.

Jocasta recalled her undead with the exception of Joshua. She didn’t need them anymore.

His corpse knelt, motionless. Jocasta pinned a note to his shirt in one of the few spaces not occupied by medals or other grislier trophies.

“Follow the road to the nearest Deneith precinct house. Turn yourself in and give whoever is working there this note. Do not raise your hand to anyone ever again.”

Joshua’s limp corpse lolled its neck in what an untrained observer might have called a nod and some lingering air escaped the hollow of his chest in what they might have called a moan. He started walking. Jocasta hoped never to see him again.

She surrounded herself in a hemisphere to stop the rain from getting on her and started composing a sending, counting the words on her skeletal fingers.

“Chief, I have good news and bad news…”




LN human necromancer 2/ master specialist 3/ pale master 10/ master specialist 4/ divine oracle 4



str 8 (+4 from undead graft)
dex 14
con 14
int 18 (increases here)
wis 12
cha 8





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


1st
necromancer 1
+0
+0
+0
+2
concentration 4, k (arcana) 4, k (dungeoneering) 4, k (local) 4, k (nature) 4, k (religion) 4, spellcraft 4
improved initiative, precocious apprentice, spell focus (necromancy)
specialty school (necromancy; ban enchantment and evocation), skeletal minion


2nd
necromancer 2
+1
+0
+0
+3
concentration 1 (5), k (arcana) 1 (5), k (dungeoneering) 1 (5), k (local) 1 (5), k (nature) 1 (5), k (religion) 1 (5), spellcraft 1 (5)




3rd
master specialist 1
+1
+0
+0
+5
k (arcana) 1 (6), k (dungeoneering) 1 (6), k (local) 1 (6), k (religion) 1 (6), spellcraft 1 (6), collector of stories
skill focus (knowledge: religion), skill focus (spellcraft)



4th
master specialist 2
+2
+0
+0
+6
concentration 1 (6), k (arcana) 1 (7), k (dungeoneering) 1 (7), k (local) 1 (7), k (nature) 1 (6), k (religion) 1 (7), spellcraft 1 (7)

expanded spellbook (command undead)


5th
master specialist 3
+2
+1
+1
+6
concentration 1 (7), k (arcana) 1 (8), k (dungeoneering) 1 (8), k (local) 1 (8), k (nature) 1 (7), k (religion) 1 (8), spellcraft 1 (8)

greater spell focus (necromancy)


6th
pale master 1
+2
+1
+1
+8
concentration 2 (9), k (arcana) 1 (9), k (dungeoneering) 1 (9), k (local) 1 (9), k (religion) 1 (9), spellcraft 1 (9)
split ray



7th
pale master 2
+3
+1
+1
+9
concentration 1 (10), k (arcana) 1 (10), k (dungeoneering) 1 (10), k (local) 1 (10), k (nature) 1 (8), k (religion) 1 (10), spellcraft 1 (10)

animate dead


8th
pale master 3
+3
+2
+2
+9
concentration 1 (11), k (arcana) 1 (11), k (dungeoneering) 1 (11), k (local) 1 (11), k (nature) 1 (9), k (planes) 1, k (religion) 1 (11), spellcraft 1 (11)

darkvision


9th
pale master 4
+4
+2
+2
+10
concentration 1 (12), k (arcana) 1 (12), k (dungeoneering) 1 (12), k (local) 1 (12), k (nature) 1 (10), k (planes) 1 (2), k (religion) 1 (12), spellcraft 1 (12)
arcane thesis (enervation)
undead armor affinity (10%)


10th
pale master 5
+4
+2
+2
+10
concentration 1 (13), k (arcana) 1 (13), k (dungeoneering) 1 (13), k (local) 1 (13), k (nature) 1 (11), k (planes) 1 (3), k (religion) 1 (13), spellcraft 1 (13)

control undead, deathless vigor


11th
pale master 6
+5
+3
+3
+11
concentration 1 (14), k (arcana) 1 (14), k (dungeoneering) 1 (14), k (local) 1 (14), k (nature) 1 (12), k (planes) 1 (4), k (religion) 1 (14), spellcraft 1 (14)

undead graft, paralyzing touch


12th
pale master 7
+5
+3
+3
+11
concentration 1 (15), k (arcana) 1 (15), k (dungeoneering) 1 (15), k (local) 1 (15), k (nature) 1 (13), k (planes) 1 (5), k (religion) 1 (15), spellcraft 1 (15)
empower spell
tough as bone, weakening touch


13th
pale master 8
+6/+1
+3
+3
+12
concentration 1 (16), k (arcana) 1 (16), k (dungeoneering) 1 (16), k (local) 1 (16), k (nature) 1 (14), k (planes) 1 (6), k (religion) 1 (16), spellcraft 1 (16)

undead armor affinity (20%), degenerative touch


14th
pale master 9
+6/+1
+4
+4
+12
concentration 1 (17), k (arcana) 1 (17), k (dungeoneering) 1 (17), k (local) 1 (17), k (nature 1 (15), k (planes) 1 (7), k (religion) 1 (17), spellcraft 1 (17)

undead cohort, destructive touch


15th
pale master 10
+7/+2
+4
+4
+13
concentration 1 (18), k (arcana) 1 (18), k (dungeoneering) 1 (18), k (local) 1 (18), k (nature) 1 (16), k (planes) 1 (8), k (religion) 1 (18), spellcraft 1 (18)
invisible spell
deathless mastery, deathless master’s touch


16th
master specialist 4
+8/+3
+4
+4
+14
concentration 1 (19), k (arcana) 1 (19), k (dungeoneering) 1 (19), k (local) 1 (19), k (nature) 1 (17), k (planes) 3 (11), k (religion) 1 (19), spellcraft 1 (19)

minor school esoterica


17th
divine oracle 1
+8/+3
+4
+4
+16
concentration 1 (20), intimidate 5, k (arcana) 1 (20), k (religion) 1 (20), spellcraft 1 (20)

oracle domain, scry bonus


18th
divine oracle 2
+9/+4
+4
+4
+17
concentration 1 (21), intimidate 3 (8), k (arcana) 1 (21), k (religion) 1 (21), spellcraft 1 (21), never outnumbered
black lore of moil
prescient sense, trap sense +1


19th
divine oracle 3
+9/+4
+5
+5
+17
concentration 1 (22), intimidate 5 (13), k (arcana) 1 (22), k (religion) 1 (22), spellcraft 1 (22)

divination enhancement


20th
divine oracle 4
+10
+5
+5
+18
concentration 1 (23), intimidate 5 (18), k (arcana) 1 (23), k (religion) 1 (23), spellcraft 1 (23)

uncanny dodge (dex bonus to ac)





You begin play as a necromancer. Since you won’t be staying long, you swap out your familiar for a skeletal minion, a human warrior skeleton with thumbs and everything, who can come back if it’s destroyed. Combat wizard swaps out scribe scroll for a fighter feat, and no one ever complained about going first, so improved initiative it is. You’re not sticking around, so you won’t miss the bonus feats at levels divisible by 5.

Master specialist presents a more attractive opportunity, granting some nice little bonuses including free skill focus with spellcraft, adding another spell to your book, in this case command undead to enter pale master soon. You also pick up greater spell focus on your necromancy. Many of your spells have saves, so this is handy. Also this way you get both the feat you would’ve picked from your fifth level of wizard anyway, which is nice.

Skill focus religion pays the tax to enter pale master which you’re set up to enter next level. Standard tactics apply; you have a variety of debuffs like spirit worm, escalating enfeeblement, and more.



Pale master is online. You now no longer need to pay for animate dead since you cast it as a spell-like ability. Split ray is active, allowing you to share the wealth with your ray spells and you’ve defended your arcane thesis on enervation. You take less arcane spell failure from undead armor and gain proficiency with light and medium armor. You can see in the dark, control undead without a save, and deathless vigor effectively boosts your fort save by +4 against pretty much anything except disintegrate.

Your repertoire of spells has broadened and your affinity for metamagic is beginning to bloom.

You can supplement your magical abilities with your undead. You’ve got your normal allotment of goons from animate dead, which you don’t have to cough up the material component for. There’s no reason you should need to cast this more than once a day, but if there’s a desirable corpse you want to animate, chuck it in the extradimensional storage space of your choice (bag of holding, portable hole, etc) and wait til tomorrow. In addition to this, you can add to it temporarily with your control undead ability.



The inevitable has occurred and you have your nasty zombie arm. Empower spell is up to make your most dangerous effects more dangerous, including the ever popular enervation, which is made less expensive due to being your arcane thesis.

You have the ability to paralyze, weaken, and drain con from enemies. You can also kill them outright and animate them as zombies which don’t count against your control cap and also don’t cost you any money. With enough patience, you can have a bottomless army of undead. Leadership is disallowed, so your undead cohort will be ignored and it will be said not to exist for the purposes of this competition.

Tough as bone and deathless mastery confer most of the immunities of the undead while allowing you to still enjoy the perks of being alive, making you very tough to kill.

Invisible spell, a +0 level metamagic adjuster is available, helping discount enervations with arcane thesis or any other spell whose visual component you’d like to dispense with.



You have discovered the last of the mysteries pale master has to offer you. Now it’s back to master specialist to pick up its minor school esoterica to beef up your undead and into divine oracle to give you some extra oracular punch and help you find people who still need to be brought to justice. Black lore of moil, another +0 metamagic is online, enabling you to fire off enervations very cheaply.

Use your undead army to apprehend criminals and see justice done.




srd: human, wizard, skeletal minion, spell focus, combat wizard, skill focus, empower spell, improved initiative
complete arcane: precocious apprentice, split ray, black lore of moil
phb2: arcane thesis
cityscape: invisible spell
complete mage: master specialist
libris mortis: pale master
complete divine: divine oracle
complete scoundrel: skill tricks

[H_H_F_F]

He's TENTACLED to the... no, no, works even worse this time.

https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/2020/11/18/7286f445/baldurs_gate_3_mindflayer_mod.jpg

- Looking at me, you are looking at the Law of this city! I'm the Sheriff, the Judge, the Executioner, and the Jailer. If you'll break the Law, I'll find you and if you'll be lucky I'll execute you. If your crime is worse, you'll be sentenced to living for the good of the Court! Welcome to our hospitable city!

LE Ulitharid Psion-2/Body Leech-5/Swordsage-1

Abilities Array Ulitharid 16th 20th Total
STR 10 6 16
DEX 8 4 12
CON 14 6 20
INT 15 10 1 26
WIS 12 6 18
CHA 13 10 1 24
HD CR Class BAB Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st - Aberration-1 0 0 0 2 36: {+4} Autohypnosis: 4; {+4} Bluff: 4; {+4} Concentration: 4; {+4} Diplomacy: 4; {+4} Disguise: 4; {+1} Hide: 1; {+4} Intimidate: 4; {+4} Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 1; {+1} Move Silently: 1; {+4} Sense Motive: 4; {+1} Spot: 1; Inquisitor Extract, improved grab, mind blast, psionic powers, power resistance 27, telepathy 200 ft.
2nd - Aberration-2 1 0 0 3 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 5; {+1} Bluff: 5; {+1} Concentration: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; {+1} Disguise: 5; {+1} Hide: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 5; Knowledge (psionics): 4; Listen: 1; {+1} Move Silently: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 5; Spot: 1;
3rd - Aberration-3 2 1 1 3 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 6; {+1} Bluff: 6; {+1} Concentration: 6; {+1} Diplomacy: 6; {+1} Disguise: 6; Hide: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 6; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 2; Move Silently: 2; {+1} Sense Motive: 6; {+1} Spot: 2; Body Fuel
4th - Aberration-4 3 1 1 4 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 7; {+1} Bluff: 7; {+1} Concentration: 7; {+1} Diplomacy: 7; {+1} Disguise: 7; {+1} Hide: 3; {+1} Intimidate: 7; Knowledge (psionics): 4; Listen: 2; {+1} Move Silently: 3; {+1} Sense Motive: 7; Spot: 2;
5th - Aberration-5 3 1 1 4 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 8; {+1} Bluff: 8; {+1} Concentration: 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 8; {+1} Disguise: 8; Hide: 3; {+1} Intimidate: 8; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 3; Move Silently: 3; {+1} Sense Motive: 8; {+1} Spot: 3;
6th - Aberration-6 4 2 2 5 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Bluff: 9; {+1} Concentration: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 9; {+1} Disguise: 9; {+1} Hide: 4; {+1} Intimidate: 9; Knowledge (psionics): 4; Listen: 3; {+1} Move Silently: 4; {+1} Sense Motive: 9; Spot: 3; Overchannel
7th - Aberration-7 5 2 2 5 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 10; {+1} Bluff: 10; {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 10; {+1} Disguise: 10; Hide: 4; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 4; Move Silently: 4; {+1} Sense Motive: 10; {+1} Spot: 4;
8th - Aberration-8 6 2 2 6 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 11; {+1} Bluff: 11; {+1} Concentration: 11; {+1} Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Disguise: 11; {+1} Hide: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 11; Knowledge (psionics): 4; Listen: 4; {+1} Move Silently: 5; {+1} Sense Motive: 11; Spot: 4;
9th - Aberration-9 6 3 3 6 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 12; {+1} Bluff: 12; {+1} Concentration: 12; {+1} Diplomacy: 12; {+1} Disguise: 12; Hide: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 12; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 5; Move Silently: 5; {+1} Sense Motive: 12; {+1} Spot: 5; Craft Psionic Seal
10th - Aberration-10 7 3 3 7 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 13; {+1} Bluff: 13; {+1} Concentration: 13; {+1} Diplomacy: 13; {+1} Disguise: 13; {+1} Hide: 6; {+1} Intimidate: 13; Knowledge (psionics): 4; Listen: 5; {+1} Move Silently: 6; {+1} Sense Motive: 13; Spot: 5;
11th - Aberration-11 8 3 3 7 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 14; {+1} Bluff: 14; {+1} Concentration: 14; {+1} Diplomacy: 14; {+1} Disguise: 14; Hide: 6; {+1} Intimidate: 14; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 6; Move Silently: 6; {+1} Sense Motive: 14; {+1} Spot: 6;
12th 12th Aberration-12 9 4 4 8 9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 15; {+1} Concentration: 15; {+1} Diplomacy: 15; {+1} Disguise: 15; {+1} Hide: 7; {+1} Intimidate: 15; Knowledge (psionics): 4; Listen: 6; {+1} Move Silently: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 15; Spot: 6; Extend Power
13th 13th Psion-1 9 4 4 10 9: Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 16; {+1} Concentration: 16; {+1} Diplomacy: 16; Disguise: 15; Hide: 7; Intimidate: 15; Knowledge (psionics): 4; Listen: 6; Move Silently: 7; {+3} Psicraft: 3; {+1} Sense Motive: 16; Spot: 6; {+2} Swift Concentration; Expanded Knowledge (Ectoplasmic cocoon) (B) Bonus feat, discipline (telepathy)
14th 14th Body Leech-1 9 4 4 12 11: Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 17; {+1} Concentration: 17; {+1} Diplomacy: 17; {+1} Disguise: 16; {+1} Forgery: 1; {+1} Gather Information: 1; Hide: 7; {+1} Intimidate: 16; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 5; Listen: 6; Move Silently: 7; {+2} Psicraft: 5; {+1} Sense Motive: 17; Spot: 6; Swift Concentration; Drain cocoon, stasis cocoon
15th 15th Body Leech-2 10 4 4 13 11: Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 18; {+1} Concentration: 18; {+1} Diplomacy: 18; {+1} Disguise: 17; {+1} Forgery: 2; {+1} Gather Information: 2; Hide: 7; {+1} Intimidate: 17; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 6; Listen: 6; Move Silently: 7; {+2} Psicraft: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 18; Spot: 6; Swift Concentration; Practiced Manifester Create tether hound
16th 16th Body Leech-3 10 5 5 13 12: Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 19; Concentration: 18; {+1} Diplomacy: 19; {+2} Disguise: 19; {+1} Forgery: 3; {+1} Gather Information: 3; Hide: 7; Intimidate: 17; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 7; Listen: 6; Move Silently: 7; {+2} Psicraft: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 19; Spot: 6; {+2} Social Recovery, Swift Concentration; Diehard (B) Stay conscious
17th 17th Body Leech-4 11 5 5 14 12: Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 20; {+1} Concentration: 19; {+1} Diplomacy: 20; {+1} Disguise: 20; {+1} Forgery: 4; {+1} Gather Information: 4; Hide: 7; {+2} Intimidate: 19; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 8; Listen: 6; Move Silently: 7; {+2} Psicraft: 11; {+1} Sense Motive: 20; Spot: 6; Social Recovery, Swift Concentration; Greater stasis cocoon
18th 18th Body Leech-5 12 5 5 14 12: Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 21; Concentration: 19; {+1} Diplomacy: 21; {+1} Disguise: 21; {+1} Forgery: 5; {+1} Gather Information: 5; Hide: 7; Intimidate: 19; {+2} Knowledge (psionics): 10; Listen: 6; Move Silently: 7; {+2} Psicraft: 13; {+1} Sense Motive: 21; Spot: 6; {+2} Assume Quirk, Social Recovery, Swift Concentration; Martial Study (Moment of Perfect Mind), Expanded Knowledge (Ectoplasmic cocoon) -> Mindsight (Psychic Chirurgery) Cheat death
19th 19th Psion-2 13 5 5 15 10: Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 22; {+1} Concentration: 20; {+1} Diplomacy: 22; Disguise: 21; Forgery: 5; Gather Information: 5; Hide: 7; Intimidate: 19; Knowledge (psionics): 10; Listen: 6; Move Silently: 7; {+6} Psicraft: 19; {+1} Sense Motive: 22; Spot: 6; Assume Quirk, Social Recovery, Swift Concentration;
20th 20th Swordsage-1 13 5 7 17 14: Autohypnosis: 15; Bluff: 22; {+3} Concentration: 23; Diplomacy: 22; Disguise: 21; Forgery: 5; Gather Information: 5; {+1} Hide: 8; {+2} Heal: 2; {+4} Intimidate: 23; Knowledge (psionics): 10; Listen: 6; {+1} Move Silently: 8; Psicraft: 19; {+1} Sense Motive: 23; Spot: 6; {+2} Second Impression, Assume Quirk, Social Recovery, Swift Concentration; Martial Study (Moment of Perfect Mind) -> Martial Stance (Hearing the Air) (Psychic Chirurgery) Quick to act +1, Diamond Mind focus (Weapon Focus)
Level Class New Powers (Level) Maximum Power Level PP*
1st Telepat-1 Charm, Psionic (1), Mind Thrust (1), Inertial Armor (1) 1st 2+3
1st Telepat-2 Conceal Thoughts (1), Synchronicity (1) 1st 6+7
2nd Telepat-3 Ego Whip (2), Read Thoughts (2) 2nd 11+10
3rd Telepat-4 Larval Flayers (2), Sustenance (2) 2nd 17+14
4th Telepat-5 Mindfire (3), Empathic Transfer, Hostile (3) 3rd 25+17
5th Telepat-6 Crisis of Breath (3), Dispel Psionics (3) 3rd 35+21
6th Telepat-7 Dominate, Psionic (4), Schism (4) 4th 46+24
7th Telepat-8 Psychic Reformation (4), Mindlink, Thieving (4) 4th 58+28
8th Telepat-9 Shatter Mind Blank (5), Modify Memory, Psionic (4) 5th 72+31
9th Telepat-10 Psychic Crush (5), Plane Shift, Psionic (5) 5th 88+35
10th Telepat-11 Mind Switch (6) 6th 106+38
11th Telepat-12 Stygian Bolt (6), Fuse Flesh (6) 6th 126+42
12th Telepat-13 Crisis of Life (7) 7th 147+45
13th Telepat-14 Decerebrate (7), Divert Teleport (7), Ectoplasmic cocoon (3, Feat) 7th 170+49
14th Telepat-14 Stasis Cocoon (3, Leech) 7th 170+49
15th Telepat-15 Teleport, Psionic Greater (8), Create Tether Hound (4, Leech) 8th 195+52
16th Telepat-16 Mind Blank, Psionic (8), Bend Reality (8) 8th 221+64
17th Telepat-16 Greater Stasis Cocoon (5, Leech) 8th 221+64
18th Telepat-17 Psychic Chirurgery (9), Ectoplasmic cocoon (3, Feat), Ectoplasmic cocoon (3, Psychic Chirurgery) 9th 250+68
19th Telepat-18 Affinity Field, Pain (9), Microcosm (9) 9th 280+72
*-without any Intelligent improvements.
Level Class IL Maneuvers Known Maneuvers Readied Stances Known
20th Swordsage 10 Moment of Perfect Mind (DM 1), Action Before Thought (DM 2), Mind Over Body (DM 3), Insightful Strike (DM 3), Mind Strike (DM 4), Shadow Stride (SH 5) 4 Step of the Wind (SS 1), Hearing the Air (DM 5, Feat, Psychic Chirurgery)

I'm not very familiar with psionics, so breakdowns will not be very detailed or optimized.
Long Tentacle is ulitharid. Large-sized mind flayer with two long tentacles and manifesting of 13th level Telepath. His powers give him versality. He can protect himself (Inertial Armor, Conceal Thoughts), attack enemy to death (Crisis of Life, Stygian Bolt, Mind Thrust) or to unconscious (Psychic Crush, Crisis of Breath, Mindfire, Fuse Flesh, Ego Whip), debuff enemy (Crisis of Breath, Feat Leech, Mindfire, Shatter Mind Blank, Dispel Psionics), buff himself (Schism, Synchronicity, Mindlink, Thieving, Feat Leech, Conceal Thoughts), or use to some utility (Mind Switch, Plane Shift, Psionic, Modify Memory, Psionic, Dominate, Psionic, Sustenance, Psychic Reformation).
At this CR Tentacle is more durable than regular Telepath-13, while wields all his strengths.
Finishing the Body Leech prestige class gives Tentacle something close to immortality. Now, even if has been killed, he'll return the next day in another body. Plus up to 15 Tether Hounds, which are not only minions, but source of any needed feats (Psychic Reformation + Feat Leech). Plus every Hound should have one Psionic Seal to give them some valuable additional fighting abilities. And their feats can be reselected for this purpose, too, not only to Tentacle's needs.
With Extend Power, Practiced Manifester, and Overchannel every Hound and every Cocoon can last up to 42 (46 on 20 ECL) days, so this isn't too costly XP investment.
Also Long Tentacle likes to have in one of his cocoons some high level psionic. Giving him Expanded Knowledge is an opportunity to have almost any power, at least temporary.
Tentacle's new powers give him even more versality than he had early. Decerebrate, different Cocoons to catch enemies live. Divert Teleport to prevent enemy escape. Greater Psionic Teleport to mobility or escape himself. Bend Reality to manifest something needed unpredictably. What do with Psychic Chirurgery, you, I sure, know yourself. :smallsmile:
The Moment of Perfect Mind lets Tentacle always cheat death, and Mindsight is ultimately useful.
Long Tentacle always has as his cheat death host some dangerous creature. Dragon, Criohydra, Storm or Cloud Giant, Titan, or anything you can wish up to 20 HD. To be sure that the host is suitable, Tentacle drains all his Charisma via Ego Whip and tries to use Mind Switch on him.
With Psionic Seal and Modify Memory Long Tentacle can give all his trapped in cocoons victims Seal of, for example, Crisis of Breath or Mindfire which they will think is something healing or overwise helpful. If victim will escaped he'll have some bad times.
Second level of Psion and one level of Swordsage to take two more 9th level powers and several valuable martial maneuvers and stances.

Despite his nature Tentacle is a very good sheriff and a fair judge. He has motivation to do his job well and understands that while arbitrariness can give him some benefits on a tactical scale, but in the long term well done work will give him more. He tries to capture every criminal alive, first, for draining via cocoons, second, to give them an opportunity to protect themselves on the tribunal. His cocoons are jail, execution block, and a holding cell simultaneously.
Party can encounter Long Tentacle being criminals themselves, trying to prove someone's innocence, or escaping one of his prisoners. On the other hand, Long Tentacle can askes PS's help in catching some powerful crime or investigation complex and puzzling crime case.

Type Element Source Page
Creature Ulitharid Lords of Madness 158
Class Psion Expanded Psionic Handbook 19
Prestige Class Body Leech The Mind's Eye Link (https://web.archive.org/web/20170320020828/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040925a)
Class Swordsage Tome of Battle 15
Feat Inquisitor Expanded Psionic Handbook 48
Feat Body Fuel Expanded Psionic Handbook 41
Feat Overchannel Expanded Psionic Handbook 49
Feat Craft Psionic Seal Lords of Madness 69
Feat Extend Power Expanded Psionic Handbook 46
Feat Expanded Knowledge Expanded Psionic Handbook 46
Feat Practiced Manifester Complete Psionic 57
Feat Diehard Player's Handbook 93
Feat Martial Study Tome of Battle 31
Feat Mindsight Lords of Madness 126
Feat Martial Stance Tome of Battle 31
Skill Trick Swift Concentration Complete Scoundrel 90
Skill Trick Social Recovery Complete Scoundrel 89
Skill Trick Assume Quirk Complete Scoundrel 85
Skill Trick Second Impression Complete Scoundrel 88
Psionic Powers All of them Expanded Psionic Handbook, Complete Psionic, and The Body Leech The Mind's Eye article Varies
Maneuvers & Stances All of them Tome of Battle Varies

[H_H_F_F]

Render unto the queen.

In the grand hierarchy of threats that adventurers face, most royalty is mid-tier at best. Kings and queens may be powerful in their own ways, but armies are unwieldy things, most monarchs have little in the way of personal power, and it's not entirely without justification that many adventurers scoff at crowns.

Vlaakith the 107th, Lich-Queen of the Githyanki and Last of her Line, is one of the exceptions.

Dishonored Nezethet is only one of the many tools at her disposal, but a relatively subtle one (at least, compared to a squad of red dragons). Should an upstart group of sword-swingers think that they can ignore the queen's displeasure, he will eagerly hunt them to the very corners of the multiverse -- for even destruction is preferable to the displeasure of his queen.

Race: Githyanki Corpse Creature Spellstitched (CR 3)
Levels: Factotum 4/Marshal 1/Ur-Priest 2/Fiendbinder 10



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


2
Factotum 1
+0
+0
+2
+0
Gather Information +4, Bluff +4, Truespeak +4, Spellcraft +4, Knowledge: Arcana +4, Knowledge: Religion +4, Knowledge: The Planes +4, Languages: Githyanki, Common
Spell Focus: Evil
Inspiration, cunning insight, cunning knowledge, trapfinding


3
Factotum 2
+1
+0
+3
+0
Gather Information +1 (5), Bluff +1 (5), Truespeak +1 (5), Spellcraft +1 (5), Knowledge: Arcana +1 (5), Knowledge: Religion +1 (5), Knowledge: The Planes +1 (5)
--
Arcane dilettante (1 spell)


4
Factotum 3
+2
+1
+3
+1
Gather Information +1 (6), Bluff +1 (6), Truespeak +1 (6), Spellcraft +1 (6), Knowledge: Arcana +1 (6), Knowledge: Religion +1 (6), Knowledge: The Planes +1 (6)
Iron Will
Brains over brawn, cunning defense


5
Factotum 4
+3
+1
+4
+1
Gather Information +1 (7), Bluff +1 (7), Truespeak +1 (7), Spellcraft +1 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +1 (7), Knowledge: Religion +1 (7), Knowledge: The Planes +1 (7)
--
Arcane dilettante (2 spells), cunning strike


6
Corpse Creature
+3
+1
+4
+1
Unchanged
--
New Class Abilities


7
Spellstitched
+3
+1
+4
+1
Unchanged
--
New Class Abilities


8
Marshal 1
+3
+3
+4
+3
Speak Language: Infernal +1, Speak Language: Abyssal +1, Truespeak +0.5 c/c (7.5), Spellcraft +1 c/c (8), Knowledge: Religion +1 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +1 (8), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Bluff +0 (8)
--
Skill Focus (Diplomacy), minor aura (motivate intelligence)


9
Ur-Priest 1
+3
+3
+4
+5
Truespeak +1.5 c/c (9), Spellcraft +1 (9), Knowledge: The Planes +1 (9), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Bluff +0 (8), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8)
Practiced Spellcaster
--


10
Ur-Priest 2
+4
+3
+4
+6
Truespeak +1 c/c (10), Spellcraft +1 (10), Knowledge: The Planes +1 (10), Bluff +1 (9), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8)
--
Rebuke Undead


11
Fiendbinder 1
+4
+3
+4
+8
Truespeak +1 (11), Spellcraft +1 (11), Diplomacy +3 (3), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
--
Bind fiend


12
Fiendbinder 2
+5
+3
+4
+9
Truespeak +1 (12), Spellcraft +1 (12), Diplomacy +3 (6), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
Skill Focus: Truespeak
--


13
Fiendbinder 3
+5
+4
+5
+9
Truespeak +1 (13), Spellcraft +1 (13), Diplomacy +3 (9), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
--
Call forth fiend


14
Fiendbinder 4
+6
+4
+5
+10
Truespeak +1 (14), Spellcraft +1 (14), Diplomacy +3 (12), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
--
--


15
Fiendbinder 5
+6
+4
+5
+10
Truespeak +1 (15), Spellcraft +1 (15), Diplomacy +3 (15), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
Quicken Spell
Bind tormented soul


16
Fiendbinder 6
+7
+5
+6
+11
Truespeak +1 (16), Spellcraft +1 (16), Diplomacy +1 (16), Concentration +2 (2), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
--
--


17
Fiendbinder 7
+7
+5
+6
+11
Truespeak +1 (17), Spellcraft +1 (17), Diplomacy +1 (17), Concentration +2 (4), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
--
--


18
Fiendbinder 8
+8
+5
+6
+12
Truespeak +1 (18), Spellcraft +1 (18), Diplomacy +1 (18), Concentration +2 (6), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
Sudden Maximize
--


19
Fiendbinder 9
+8
+6
+7
+12
Truespeak +1 (19), Spellcraft +1 (19), Diplomacy +1 (19), Concentration +2 (8), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
--
Gift of the archfiend, double command


20
Fiendbinder 10
+9
+6
+7
+13
Truespeak +1 (20), Spellcraft +1 (20), Diplomacy +1 (20), Concentration +2 (10), Gather Information +0 (7), Knowledge: Arcana +0 (7), Knowledge: Religion +0 (8), Knowledge: The Planes +0 (10), Bluff +0 (9)
--
Archfiend's favor, summon fiends




Str 14, Dex 12, Con 8, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 10
Racial modifications: Str 14, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 13, Cha 10
Level 4: +1 wisdom (to 14)
Venerable age: Str 8, Dex 8, Con 4, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 13
Corpse Creature: Str 12, Dex 6, Con --, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 13
Level 8: +1 wisdom (to 18)
Level 12: +1 charisma (to 14)
Level 16: +1 wisdom (to 19)

Spells per Day/Spells Known


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


9th
4
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


10th
5
3
0
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


11th
5
3
0
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


12th
5
3
1
0
-
-
-
-
-
-


13th
6
3
2
1
0
-
-
-
-
-


14th
6
3
3
2
1
0
-
-
-
-


15th
6
3
3
2
1
0
-
-
-
-


16th
6
3
3
3
2
1
0
-
-
-


17th
6
4
3
3
3
2
1
0
-
-


18th
6
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
0
-


19th
6
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
0
-


20th
6
5
4
4
4
4
3
2
1
0



Nezethet was a githyanki like any other, born in the city of Tu'narath. If there was anything unusual about him, it was perhaps his lack of focus... unlike his peers, the arts of war only interested him insofar as they were novel. Although this earned the scorn of his peers, he was competent enough to hold his own, and his skills and ability to speak the common tongue were seen as useful enough to merit sending him along with a squad on a mission to retrieve a precious silver sword that had fallen into the hands of humans.

Nezethet's squad underestimated their opposition. He was the only survivor -- but his psionics were not developed enough to shift back to the Astral Plane on his own. Terrified and ashamed of his own failure and stranded on the mortal plane, he looked for a way back... but not hard. He moved to a small human city, where he was seen as an exotic creature and made a living easily enough. As months turned into years, and even decades, he became convinced that his peers had forgotten about him and thought him dead, and he became complacent. He would grow old and die here, true, but in the meantime, could his life not be comfortable?

More than fifty years had passed when they came for him.

The queen's memory, it seemed, was long; someone had learned of Nezethet's survival through divinations, and she decided to have him summoned before her to account for himself. As he pled his innocence and begged for his life, the queen decided to show mercy, giving him another chance.

As his withered body was incapable of serving, he was slain and reanimated in undeath. As his skills were atrophied over years of idleness, he was branded with spell-patterns to wield in the queen's name. And in order to repent his crimes, he was ordered to hunt down those who had committed the same -- that is to say, anyone who did not respond to the queen's summons in a timely manner.

Githyanki Corpse Creature Spellstitched Factotum 4
Immediately post-reanimation, Nezethet is fragile but dangerous. With spellcasting abilities significantly above his level, he has the resources to accomplish his mission as long as he's careful about it: he can track down his targets with conventional information-gathering and a well placed charm (carefully bundled up to avoid scaring people with his corpsey visage), cross long distances on a phantom steed, and, once he's disabled his targets, he can contact Tu'narath with a sending spell to have someone capable of plane-shifting dispatched to pick them up.

Being both fragile and cowardly, Nezethet needs to pick his battles carefully. He'll usually wait for an opportune moment to lure in his targets with animated dead, drop a stinking cloud on them, then summon monsters to wreak havoc. His SLAs have short durations and limited uses, so if things aren't going well, he won't hesitate to flee and come back later. He orders his summoned creatures to use nonlethal damage, and favors summons like Allips that can incapacitate creatures for the long term so that he can get them home.

Medium Humanoid (Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 4d12 (26 hp)
Initiative: +1 (brain over brawn)
Speed: 30 ft.
Armor Class: 14 (-2 Dex, +2 natural, +4 armor), touch 8, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+4
Attack: Slam +4 melee (1d6+1)
Full Attack: Slam +4 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: SLAs, cunning insight/defense/strike 3/enc
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/magic or silver, SR 11
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +6
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 6, Con --, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 13
Skills: Gather Information +8, Bluff +8, Truespeak +10, Spellcraft +10, Knowledge: Arcana +10, Knowledge: Religion +10, Knowledge: The Planes +10
Feats: Iron Will, Spell Focus: Evil

SLAs:
Daze 3/day, Mage Hand 3/day
Blur 3/day
Charm Person 1/day, Magic Missile 3/day
Web 2/day, False Life 2/day
Phantom Steed 1/day, Stinking Cloud 1/day
Animate Dead 1/day, Summon Monster IV 1/day
Summon Undead V 1/day, Sending 1/day



Githyanki Corpse Creature Spellstitched Factotum 4/Marshal 1/Ur-Priest 2
As his bitterness grows, Nezethet learns to scorn the gods even more thoroughly than most githyanki, siphoning power from them to ensure his own wretched survival. Sanctuary gives him one more layer of defense, modest though it might be, and a silence spell on a minion or pebble doesn't hinder his SLAs at all, but may very well cause chaos in an unprepared group. When tracking, augury and divine insight can be powerful tools to keep him on the right path. Since undead aren't able to benefit from marshal auras, he picks up Motivate Intelligence to make truenaming a little easier later.

Medium Humanoid (Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 7d12 (45 hp)
Initiative: +1 (brain over brawn)
Speed: 30 ft.
Armor Class: 14 (-2 Dex, +2 natural, +4 armor), touch 8, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+5
Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+1)
Full Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: SLAs, cunning insight/defense/strike 3/enc
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/magic or silver, SR 12
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +13
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 6, Con --, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 13
Skills: Truespeak +13, Spellcraft +13, Knowledge: The Planes +13, Bluff +10, Gather Information +8, Knowledge: Arcana +10, Knowledge: Religion +11
Feats: Iron Will, Spell Focus: Evil, Practiced Spellcaster

SLAs:
Daze 3/day, Mage Hand 3/day
Blur 3/day, Dimension Door 3/day
Charm Person 1/day, Magic Missile 3/day
Web 2/day, False Life 2/day
Phantom Steed 1/day, Stinking Cloud 1/day
Animate Dead 1/day, Summon Monster IV 1/day
Summon Undead V 1/day, Sending 1/day



Githyanki Corpse Creature Spellstitched Factotum 4/Marshal 1/Ur-Priest 2/Fiendbinder 5
In his youth, the language of creation was just a hobby that Nezethet pursued out of innocent curiosity. Now, at last, it comes to serve him properly. It takes time and money to research and bind a fiend, but Nezehet has plenty of the former and his queen has plenty of the latter.

This is the point where magic items would help a lot. Binding a fiend is an 8-hour ritual that requires gold, but no Truespeak check. Commanding it, on the other hand, requires a check that can be quite high. Nezethet's base modifier is only +23, but a +4 enhancement to Intelligence and Charisma would raise that to +27, and an Amulet of the Silver Tongue to +32 or +37. If none of that is available, divine insight will work in a pinch to let him at least give out-of-combat commands reliably and get his Call Forth Fiend off at the start of an encounter.

His exact entourage of fiends can be scaled to the campaign in question, making him a flexible villain, but a cauchemar nightmare is an ideal place to start, capable of using astral projection in conjunction with Nezethet's own racial plane shift ability to attack with little risk to himself. A babau or two is easy to command, and can be ordered pre-emptively to defend him, while ordering a single vrock to attack is a pretty effective use of an action.

Nezethet's personal fiend buddy is a Retriever, giving him daily access to Discern Location and a formidable combat helper without the need for repeated Truespeak checks as early as CR 13. As before, he favors ambushes and careful plans backed up by divinations, but now with even more summoned help. Additionally, he can now get himself and his quarry back to the Astral Plane under his own power with his racial spell-like ability, which will surely help him make his case when he asks the queen for all that gold.

Medium Humanoid (Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 12d12 (78 hp)
Initiative: +1 (brain over brawn)
Speed: 30 ft.
Armor Class: 14 (-2 Dex, +2 natural, +4 armor), touch 8, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+5
Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+1)
Full Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: SLAs, cunning insight/defense/strike 3/enc
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/magic and silver, SR 17
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +13
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 6, Con --, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 14
Skills: Truespeak +23, Spellcraft +20, Diplomacy +17, Gather Information +9, Knowledge: Arcana +12, Knowledge: Religion +13, Knowledge: The Planes +15, Bluff +11
Feats: Iron Will, Spell Focus: Evil, Practiced Spellcaster, Skill Focus: Truespeak, Quicken Spell

SLAs:
Daze 3/day, Mage Hand 3/day
Blur 3/day, Dimension Door 3/day
Telekinesis 3/day, Plane Shift 1/day
Charm Person 1/day, Magic Missile 3/day
Web 2/day, False Life 2/day
Phantom Steed 1/day, Stinking Cloud 1/day
Animate Dead 1/day, Summon Monster IV 1/day
Summon Undead V 1/day, Sending 1/day



Githyanki Corpse Creature Spellstitched Factotum 4/Marshal 1/Ur-Priest 2/Fiendbinder 10
At last, Nezethet has reached the pinnacle of his career. Determined to finish one last job, he can then return home to Tu'narath at last for what will surely be a lovely party to celebrate his finally reaching Level 17.

His strategy is pretty much the same, but better. Astral project and plane shift, animate a squad of undead, divine the party's whereabouts, ruin everyone's day. He can summon a maximized tanar'ri legion once per day -- with no listed duration, so even if a new cast resets the old he could conceivably walk in with one legion that he summoned yesterday and summon a new one if they fall. He can command two fiends to attack at once, and cast a few quickened spells while they do. And if he falls, he'll just come back the next day.

Medium Humanoid (Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 17d12 (110 hp)
Initiative: +1 (brain over brawn)
Speed: 30 ft.
Armor Class: 14 (-2 Dex, +2 natural, +4 armor), touch 8, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+5
Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+1)
Full Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: SLAs, cunning insight/defense/strike 3/enc
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/magic and silver, SR 22
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +13
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 6, Con --, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 14
Skills: Truespeak +28, Spellcraft +25, Diplomacy +22, Concentration +10, Gather Information +9, Knowledge: Arcana +12, Knowledge: Religion +13, Knowledge: The Planes +15, Bluff +11
Feats: Iron Will, Spell Focus: Evil, Practiced Spellcaster, Skill Focus: Truespeak, Quicken Spell, Sudden Maximize

SLAs:
Daze 3/day, Mage Hand 3/day
Blur 3/day, Dimension Door 3/day
Telekinesis 3/day, Plane Shift 1/day
Charm Person 1/day, Magic Missile 3/day
Web 2/day, False Life 2/day
Phantom Steed 1/day, Stinking Cloud 1/day
Animate Dead 1/day, Summon Monster IV 1/day
Summon Undead V 1/day, Sending 1/day



Githyanki: Monster Manual 1
Spellstitched template: Complete Arcane
Corpse Creature template: Book of Vile Darkness

Factotum: Dungeonscape
Ur-Priest: Complete Divine
Marshal: Miniatures Handbook
Fiendbinder: Tome of Magic

Spell Focus (Evil): Complete Divine
Practiced Spellcaster: Complete Divine
Sudden Maximize: Complete Arcane

[H_H_F_F]

Ever had a gum stuck in your hair? Yeah, like that.

"Cuddy had only been a guard for a few days but already he had absorbed one important and basic fact: it is almost impossible for anyone to be in a street without breaking the law."
- Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

The job of any good watchman is to track down criminals, wrestle them into cuffs, and bring them back for questioning. It is an unfortunate issue1 with the 3.5e system that a relatively low-level spell tends to foil most any mundane method to do this: Freedom of Movement. With that said, the spell is not infallible, although people often treat it as such. This villain derives its effectiveness in part from circumventing this defensive measure where others cannot (although it remains equally effective against those without such protections as well). Accordingly, I'd like to begin with a brief discussion of what the spell does do and what it does not do, along with a few other RAW details that affect the build-choices made for this entry.

1 Or, as some may argue, a compelling feature


This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web. The subject automatically succeeds on any grapple check made to resist a grapple attempt, as well as on grapple checks or Escape Artist checks made to escape a grapple or a pin.

The spell also allows the subject to move and attack normally while underwater, even with slashing weapons such as axes and swords or with bludgeoning weapons such as flails, hammers, and maces, provided that the weapon is wielded in the hand rather than hurled. The freedom of movement spell does not, however, allow water breathing.

What Freedom of Movement does:



It does allow you to automatically succeed on grapple checks made to resist a grapple attempt
It does allow you to automatically succeed on grapple checks or escape artist checks made to escape a grapple or a pin
It does allow you to move and attack normally while underwater as if you were not underwater
It does allow you to move and attack normally, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement


This list of things Freedom of Movement can do should be fairly uncontroversial. It is almost exactly copied from the text of the spell after all. With that said, I also must discuss the opposite topic as well.

What Freedom of Movement does not do:

The spell has no language that would allow a character to automatically succeed on all opposed grapple checks. It does, however, include language that allows the subject to automatically succeed on checks to resist grapple attempts, a firmly defined term in the grapple rules.

As common language would imply, a grapple attempt is the attempt to initiate a grapple. There are four steps to initiating a grapple. The phrase "grapple attempt" only appears in steps 1 and 2, wherein it discusses scenarios where your grapple attempt fails. We know that a grapple attempt must include step 3, as that is where the opposed check occurs. Step 4 involves your own movement, but is (inconsequentially for our discussion) also a part of this attempt to initiate a grapple, after which you are no longer attempting to grapple; you are grappling. Freedom of Movement allows you to automatically resist this attempt, which normally stops all would-be grapplers in their tracks. This would also normally obviate the need for further protection from grapplers.

With that said, it does include a further protection: the character automatically succeeds on any grapple check made to escape a grapple or pin. This is a grapple check made in place of making an attack, and one can only make it when they are already grappling or pinned respectively. Success means you break free of the grapple, or break free of the pin. Thus, a character who was already pinned when Freedom of Movement was cast on them would need to use two attack actions to break free of the grapple.

This, notably, does not allow a character to automatically succeed on a grapple check made to damage your opponent with a grapple check, draw a light weapon, move the grapple, pin your opponent, break another's pin, use an opponent's weapon, or to resist any of the aforementioned abilities. These uses are not grapple attempts (again, you are already grappling; you are not attempting to grapple), and so the spell confers no special ability to resist them. This means that a grappling character with Freedom of Movement active could be pinned, although they could automatically succeed on the check to break that pin on their turn in initiative.

With that said, while the RAW allows a character who is in a grapple with a character protected by Freedom of Movement to attempt to pin them (providing they can roll higher than the defender), it is common for DMs to want to treat Freedom of Movement as more expansive than it is. In that case, it will be required that the following character reach Justicar 8 before they can effectively wrangle criminals. The discussion on this build will be predicated on the RAW reading that Freedom of Movement does not grant a subject any special ability to resist a pin -- only to escape a pin.

The spell has no language that would allow a character to automatically succeed on any escape artist check; only those made to escape a grapple or pin. This involves taking a standard action, and one can only take that action when they are already grappling or pinned respectively. Success means you break free of the grapple, or break free of the pin. Thus, a character who was already pinned when Freedom of Movement was cast on them would need to use two standard actions to break free of the grapple entirely in this manner.

This does not allow a character to automatically succeed on other escape artist checks. Epic escape artist checks, for example, allow a medium character to move through a square that is two square inches in size, or to pass through a Wall of Force; as these are not escape artist checks made to escape a grapple or pin, the spell confers no special ability to succeed on these checks. Notably, this means that the spell confers no special ability to wriggle out of manacles or ropes.

With that said, while the RAW precludes a character who is in manacles from automatically succeeding on checks to wriggle free from mundane bindings, it is common for DMs to want to treat Freedom of Movement as more expansive than it is. In that case, it is required that the following character use Antimagic Shackles rather than mundane bindings to effectively wrangle criminals to strip the spell effect from the criminal. The discussion on this build will be predicated on the RAW reading that Freedom of Movement confers no special ability to succeed on all escape artist checks -- just ones made to escape a grapple or pin, as per the spell.

The spell is somewhat vague with regard to this final point, but I will couch that I am quite certain that to rule otherwise leads only to dysfunction. The spell allows for a character to move and attack normally. This is very broadly worded, but shouldn't include moving and attacking normally in spite of physical, mundane impediments. Consider that a brick wall in front of you impedes your ability to move your full speed in that direction; if Freedom of Movement allows you to ignore mundane impediments, you could walk through that wall as if you were incorporeal. Gravity, likewise, is an impediment that would prevent you from moving normally up a sheer cliffside; if Freedom of Movement allows you to ignore mundane impediments, gravity should prevent no obstacle to walking 60 feet straight up the side of a building. Ignoring physical conditions that would prevent you from moving "normally" gets very silly very fast, so we should avoid readings that use a very broad, loose definition of "move normally."

There's also more evidence to infer that the spell doesn't allow you to ignore physical, mundane conditions limiting your movement. Consider that, as we established in the previous spoilers, it requires two grapple checks (made in place of attacks) or two standard actions to break free of a grappler's pin. Why would this mechanism be outlined when, under the reading that Freedom of Movement allows you to ignore physical impediments, you could just walk away from the grapple, ignoring the "grappling" condition entirely? You would never need to make the checks to escape a grapple or pin in the first place.

With that said, the spell does explicitly allow you to move normally underwater, so there is some precedent for a DM to rule that it might help with some mundane limitations. Although the spell doesn't explicitly say that a character can ignore mundane impediments, it doesn't exactly preclude it either. As I stated in the first paragraph: it is a very vaguely worded ability. Fortunately, there is still a potent argument available to assuage the concerns of a DM considering this reading.

A hog-tied character is considered helpless. This gives them a dexterity score of 0, denying them the ability to take any action that requires physical movement. As such, with a dex score of 0, a character should only be able to take the physical actions that Freedom of Movement specifically allows them to do; Freedom of Movement allows a character to "move normally," but normally a character with 0 dexterity cannot move at all. Arguably, this counters the entire clause of the spell, depending on our working definition of "normally."

Even in the event that the DM allows the character to take move actions, this doesn't mean that they would automatically succeed in getting out of their bindings; they would travel with the bound creature, precluding the character from doing anything other than the move actions or attack actions the spell allows for. This is a very silly reading, but then again, it is very dysfunctional to allow the spell to circumvent mundane conditions as it is.

In the even the DM wants to rule that Freedom of Movement allows you to magically pop out of your bindings and walk away from a grapple, you can still capture criminal scum. In that case, it is required that the following character use Antimagic Shackles rather than mundane bindings to effectively wrangle criminals. The discussion on this build will be predicated on the RAW reading that Freedom of Movement confers no special ability to move through physical barriers or impediments (such as ropes or manacles) -- just magical ones, and others explicitly outlined in the spell.


Based on this critical examination of the Freedom of Movement spell, we can see that it is a very powerful ability, but is not omnipotent; it is, after all, only a fourth-level spell. If a Justicar has a character hog-tied or bound with mundane bonds, the spell should grant them no special ability to escape. If a Justicar has a character grappled, the spell should grant them no special ability to succeed on a grapple check made to resist a pin.

However, some characters may have Freedom of Movement active before the fight begins. Some items or abilities grant continuous Freedom of Movement, or grant it as an immediate action, and there are many ways characters might persist or prolong the effects if they have some forewarning about your arrival. Surely, as it allows the warded character to succeed on grapple checks made to resist a grapple, it would preclude such a protected creature from being grappled at all, right?

... wrong. There are two major mechanisms by which a character protected by Freedom of Movement can become grappled even while remaining under the protection of their spell. Both mechanisms involve denying the character the chance to make their grapple check at all.



The Crush feat (Savage Species) allows a character to, as a standard action, jump or fall onto any opponents three or more size categories smaller than themselves, forcing a reflex save. On a failed reflex save, the victim is pinned. There is no opposed grapple check called for, and so Freedom of Movement offers no special ability to avoid being pinned by this ability.

Mimics (Monster Manual) have a special attack called Adhesive that, among other things, allow them to automatically grapple any creature they hit with one of their two slam attacks. This skips steps 1-3 of the grapple attempt, therefore denying the enemy the opportunity to make their opposed check, and thereby bypassing the protections from Freedom of Movement. It also denies enemies the opportunity to break free of the grapple without dissolving the adhesive, killing us, or being let go, barring special abilities (to be discussed later).


Therefore, a character using one of these mechanisms can force even a character protected by Freedom of Movement into a grapple. Providing the grappler has the action economy to do so, once the defender is forced into the grapple, the grappler should be able to take any of the other grapple options -- including attempting to hog-tie the opponent.


https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1497878382338.gif

Having established a mechanism to bypass Freedom of Movement, I must now take a moment to engage in everyone's favorite past-time: discussing the rules governing grappling.


Starting a Grapple
To start a grapple, you need to grab and hold your target. Starting a grapple requires a successful melee attack roll. If you get multiple attacks, you can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses).

Step 1
Attack of Opportunity. You provoke an attack of opportunity from the target you are trying to grapple. If the attack of opportunity deals damage, the grapple attempt fails. (Certain monsters do not provoke attacks of opportunity when they attempt to grapple, nor do characters with the Improved Grapple feat.) If the attack of opportunity misses or fails to deal damage, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2
Grab. You make a melee touch attack to grab the target. If you fail to hit the target, the grapple attempt fails. If you succeed, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3
Hold. Make an opposed grapple check as a free action.

If you succeed, you and your target are now grappling, and you deal damage to the target as if with an unarmed strike.

If you lose, you fail to start the grapple. You automatically lose an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than you are.

In case of a tie, the combatant with the higher grapple check modifier wins. If this is a tie, roll again to break the tie.

Step 4
Maintain Grapple. To maintain the grapple for later rounds, you must move into the target’s space. (This movement is free and doesn’t count as part of your movement in the round.)

Moving, as normal, provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents, but not from your target.

If you can’t move into your target’s space, you can’t maintain the grapple and must immediately let go of the target. To grapple again, you must begin at Step 1.

In order to maintain the grapple for later rounds, you must move into the target's space. This implies two things: first, you can choose not to enter the opponent's space to end the grapple immediately. Secondly, unless you can enter their space, you must end the grapple, and there are conditions that might prevent you from doing so.

There are lots of conditions that would prevent you from moving into your target's square. Having 0 movespeed or being checked, for example, prevents movement while still allowing you to act. While you'd think having no remaining movement for the round would prevent you from moving into the opponent's square, they also tell us that this movement is free and does not count against our movement in the round. In their minds, I'd imagine the writers thought they were letting folks take a free five-foot step to continue their grapple; however, not all grapples are initiated by characters who are adjacent to their victim. A creature with particularly large reach, such as a large character with a reach weapon, could initiate a grapple from 20 feet away using the feat Scorpion's Grasp (Sandstorm). They would then have 20 feet of free movement to enter their subject's square. When we initiate a grapple from longer and longer distances using alternate techniques, the result becomes even more striking. At our option, we may hurtle through the air (taking the appropriate attacks of opportunities) to land in our target's square on a successful grapple attempt.


https://64.media.tumblr.com/20e18dccd35afe75d6dbf678ba51fa37/tumblr_inline_ou88v3aUsK1r5ight_500.gifv


Having established the result of forcing a grapple attempt from range, it is now appropriate to discuss a more contentious topic that is central to this build: making natural weapon attacks from range.

While the thought of throwing your natural weapons may seem incongruous with their nature (i.e., a physical part of your body), this is explicitly something that can be done in the system. Savage Species's sample entry for the Necklace of Natural Weapons include the enhancements for +1, throwing, and returning, explicitly allowing a character to apply their enhancement bonus and the throwing and returning special abilities to one or more of the wearer's natural weapons. The text is silent on how this would function; however, we can make some inferences based on the fact that they included the returning enhancement.


1. The returning enhancement is beneficial; a creature would not care if their natural weapons return if they were not able to re-use their natural weapons afterward.

2. There is a penalty for not having a mechanism to recover your natural weapons; a creature would not care if their natural weapons had the returning quality if there was no penalty for not recovering them after making the attack.

The rules are silent on the penalty for somehow throwing a natural weapon without a means to retrieve it, but a logical consequence might be losing the natural weapon. Although there is no explicit penalty, in the interest of being conservative, I will be operating based on this RAW reading for the discussion on this build.

On that note, there are several means one might use to throw a natural weapon:

1. Throw your natural weapon as an improvised weapon! Natural weapons are explicitly melee weapons (and, as per the Weapon Finesse feat, explicitly a light weapon), even if they are not manufactured weapons, and the rules for thrown weapons indicate that you may throw a weapon that isn't designed to be thrown at a -4 penalty. With that said, while there is no RAW that seems to preclude someone who is determined to tear off their unarmed strikes and hurl them at unsuspecting CR1 encounters, without a recovery mechanism, it is presumably very unwise to do so.

2. The Throw Anything feat (Complete Warrior) explicitly allows you to throw any melee weapon you are proficient with as if it were a ranged weapon (e.g., a throwing weapon that is not suited for melee); in fact, it almost exactly recreates the language in the throwing enhancement. With that said, again, you don't need that specific text to throw natural weapons; the feat actually functions to allow you to avoid a -4 penalty for throwing a weapon (read: your natural weapon) as an improvised weapon. The explicit text could serve to assuage a reluctant DM's concerns about the mechanism however. It is definitely beneficial to have this feat regardless just for +4 to your attack though.

3. The Hulking Hurler class (Complete Warrior) gets Really Throw Anything, a feature that allows them to throw anything (not just weapons) he can lift as a light load with a -2 penalty instead of the normal -4 for throwing an improvised thrown weapon. You can absolutely lift your natural weapons as a light load, so this would definitively include your natural weapons. Again, while this is even more explicit than the Throw Anything feat, neither of these options are required to throw natural weapons. They just mitigate the penalties for doing so.

4. The Blood Wind spell (Spell Compendium) allows you to make a full attack using your natural weapons or unarmed strikes as if they were thrown weapons; you gesture, and the result of the attack affects a target within range. This should work precisely as intended by RAW, although a DM might quibble over whether or not you've really hit the character with your natural weapon if just the results of the attack affect them. We won't be using this technique, but it is notable regardless.

5. The Throwing Enhancement on a Necklace of Natural Weapons is the most explicit means to throw a melee weapon. For the purposes of this competition, however, it is also of questionable use, as relying on magical items is generally considered poor form. Thus, we will largely rely on the Throw Anything feat. However, for the purposes of completeness, I will include the item in the villain's gear. The item is not required for the build; no magic items are required for the build to function exactly as it is intended. In fact, this magic item functions entirely as redundancy. I want to include it for the purposes of elegance as it is the most explicitly legal mechanism by which one can throw natural weapons, while acknowledging that the Throw Anything feat replicates the effect natively.

With that said, for the purposes of this build, I wanted to establish that by RAW, a character may throw their natural weapons with a -4 penalty even from level 1, albeit there would presumably be consequences for doing so without a mechanism to recover them. The Throwing enhancement or Throw Anything feat serve to mitigate the -4 penalty for throwing a weapon without a range increment, but they are not required to do so. For the purposes of this build, we'll say that the character is unwilling to permanently risk losing their natural weapons by throwing them without some sort of recovery mechanism.

On that note, there are three main mechanisms by which one might recover their natural weapons after throwing them.

1. Going to collect them. When a mimic hits an enemy with a slam, they automatically grapple them, which means you have the choice to enter their square and follow your natural weapon. You're in the square with the weapon, grappling with a creature that is glued to your natural weapon with your adhesive; that may well be enough. However, a DM might rule that just being in the same square as your natural weapon isn't sufficient; thus, we will discuss (and include) other mechanisms.

2.Most practically, a short-term solution is to only throw natural weapons without the intention to retrieve them if you gained them through wild shape. When your wild shape expires, you lose the natural attacks of your form anyway; when you use it again, you'll gain the natural attacks of your form again. It's literally free real estate. Thus, a wild shaped thrower could hurl each of their natural weapons and one unarmed strike as thrown weapons before running out of natural weapons to throw. Then, when their wild shape ended, they would "lose" their form's natural weapons and regain those of their base form.

3. The returning enhancement is probably the intended mechanism to recover a thrown natural weapon. On that note, however, the returning enhancement is not ideal for us. It causes the natural weapon to return to the square from whence it was thrown. If you have left the square, it does not return to you. As we intend to enter the square of our grappled targets, this means we'd theoretically be depositing our slam attacks around the map until we ran out of slams to make.

4. Bloodstorm Blade 4 grants the ability "Lightning Ricochet" which causes a thrown weapon to immediately bounce back to your grasp, essentially functioning as Superior Returning. This will be the mechanism we use for the greatest verisimilitude, as it means we should never end our attack without our natural attack returning to us. Until it comes online, we will rely on either not throwing our natural weapons at all, or only throwing them while in wild shape with the intention of ending the wild shape shortly thereafter (as discussed in #2).



https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/powerlisting/images/3/3e/Piccolo%27s_Mystic_Attack.gif/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20181014213244

Having revealed that we will be using Bloodstorm Blade and wild shape (in this case for the form of a mimic), I think it is also important to point out the rules surrounding bonus feats in 3.5.

The Player's Handbook (p. 87) has clear rules governing feats and prerequisites:


Some feats have prerequisites. Your character must have the indicated ability score, class feature, feat, skill, base attack bonus, or other quality designated in order to select or use that feat.

This is simple enough; prerequisites matter as a general rule, as I think we all accept. You generally need to have prerequisites to select or use a feat. However, the rules for bonus feats are a little different. The Monster Manual (p. 7) states:


Sometimes a creature has one or more bonus feats, marked with a superscript B. Creatures often do not have the prerequisites for a bonus feat. If this is so, the creature can still use the feat. If you wish to customize the creature with new feats, you can reassign its other feats, but not its bonus feats. A creature cannot have a feat that is not a bonus feat unless it has the feat's prerequisites.

Furthermore, on page 301, the Monster Manual reiterates this rule:


All monsters have a number of feats equal to 1 + (1 per 3 HD).
Monsters must meet the prerequisites for feats, just as characters
must. If your creature concept begs for a feat for which the creature does not qualify, consider altering the creature so that it qualifies for the feat, or assign the feat as a bonus feat. (It is acceptable for a creature to have a bonus feat for which it does not meet the prerequisites.)

The rules for the Monster Manual are more specific than the rules for the Player's Handbook, as they only apply to bonus feats, so they would take precedence here. Generally, you need prerequisites to select or use a feat. The Monster Manual clarifies that you do not need to have the prerequisites to have or use a bonus feat. However, it is silent on not needing prerequisites to select a feat. That means that even for bonus feats, unless the class says otherwise (like Monk), you need to meet the prerequisites to select them.

Some classes specify that you DO need to meet prerequisites for their bonus feats, such as fighter or Chameleon. This is even more specific than the general rules for bonus feats outlined in the Monster Manual, so you need to meet the prerequisites to have or use your fighter feats or Chameleon feats in addition to needing the prerequisites to select them in the first place.

If you don't need to select a bonus feat at all (such as with Ranger at level 3), the Player's Handbook restriction regarding selecting feats doesn't apply. You don't select it; you just gain it. Granted, Endurance doesn't have prerequisites, but if it did, and you didn't meet them, you would still gain the feat. Then, as it is a bonus feat, you would be able to have or use it without the prerequisites. Bloodstorm Blade 1, therefore, should allow a character to use Throw Anything even without the requisite dexterity score. This is of note for us, as regardless of how we allocate our point buy, mimics have 12 dex, so we will not normally meet the prerequisites for the feat; fortunately, we don't have to, as it is a bonus feat.


Having confirmed that we will be adopting the form of a mimic to use our various class features, it is important to note that we will be using wild shape to achieve that task. On that note, however, we must answer a very critical question: what, exactly, does a mimic look like when you wild shape into it?

When you use wild shape, you follow the rules for alternate form. This means you acquire the special attacks of the creature, but not the special qualities. The ability for which a mimic is known is their ability to mimic the shape of objects using Mimic Shape:


Mimic Shape (Ex)
A mimic can assume the general shape of any object that fills roughly 150 cubic feet (5 feet by 5 feet by 6 feet), such as a massive chest, a stout bed, or a wide door frame. The creature cannot substantially alter its size, though. A mimic’s body is hard and has a rough texture, no matter what appearance it might present. Anyone who examines the mimic can detect the ruse with a successful Spot check opposed by the mimic’s Disguise check. Of course, by this time it is generally far too late.

Unfortunately, this is designated as a special quality. If the mimic lacks Mimic Shape, one might reason they would look like their "natural form." Therefore, we look to the description for mimics; surely that would specify how they appear, right?


The mimic is a strange and deadly creature that can change its pigmentation and shape. It uses this ability to lure hapless victims close enough to slay them.

It is said that mimics are not natural creatures but were created long ago by a now-forgotten wizard. Ever since, these terrible things have served to guard treasures.

A mimic can have almost any dimensions, but usually is not more than 10 feet long. A typical mimic has a volume of 150 cubic feet (5 feet by 5 feet by 6 feet) and weighs about 4,500 pounds.

Mimics speak Common.

A mimic explicitly can have almost any dimensions (within their normal size limitations); that's very broad. Absent any other language regarding a natural form or a mimic's appearance, this should allow a druid using wild shape to become a mimic to take on more or less any appearance within the size limitations described in the mimic entry. However, lacking the Mimic Shape ability, you would be unable to alter it after your initial use of wild shape. The idea that a mimic's natural form is whatever form they are in does draw a parallel to their Mimic Shape being (Ex) and not (Su).

To dig into this a little deeper, there are some more inferences we can make about a mimic's appearance that should be common across the forms you select when you initially wild shape into their appearance. In addition to their first broad entry, we know they have mouths (as they can speak common), they have eyes (as they have positive spot modifiers and dark vision), they have ears (as they have positive listen modifiers), are capable of movement (they have a movement speed and positive physical scores), and they can grow pseudopods (as per their combat entry), although growing the pseudopod might be a function of Mimic Shape.

The mimic entry in the Monster Manual also features a clearly labeled image of a mimic:


https://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG186.jpg

In the absence of text or tables indicating details to the contrary, this is the clearest depiction of a mimic available in the Monster Manual. This is either their natural form, indicates that their natural form has arms and distinct hands, indicates that Mimics can grow functional appendages with distinct fingers and opposable thumbs, or any combination of the above.

With that said, while the RAW allows that a character using wild shape to become a mimic ought to be able to select more or less any appearance, I try to use the least controversial readings in my build when possible. To that end, the character described in this build arguably may be able to take on the form of a statue to otherwise look like a strange humanoid (based on the RAW reading that mimics can have any natural form by altering their appearance using their Ex ability), but will instead be using the form of the stereotypical mimic as shown in the Monster Manual (as it should be fairly uncontroversial that wild shape should produce a creature that looks exactly like the sample image in the core text it appears in).


Having established the readings, arguments, and mechanics upon which this villain is predicated, I present:


https://i.ibb.co/DYdy6R8/mimic.png



Middle-Age
Amphibious
Azurin



LA+0
CR+0


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


Str
12
11
11
11
11
11
12


Dex
13
10
10
10
10
10
10


Con
14
13
13
13
13
13
13


Int
15
16
16
16
16
16
16


Wis
15
16
17
18
19
20
20


Cha
9
10
10
10
10
10
10





CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Base Fort Save
Base Ref Save
Base Will Save
Skill Ranks
Feats
Class Features


1
Wildshape Ranger (Arcane Hunter, Spiritual Connection, Skilled City Dweller)
+1
+2
+2
+0
Escape Artist 2Cross-Class, Gather Information 4, Hide 4, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 2, Move Silently 4, Search 4, Spot 4, Survival 4
Aberration Blood, Skill Focus: Gather Information, TrackB
1st favored enemy (arcanists), spiritual connection (speak with plants or speak with animals 3x/day), fast movement


2
Wildshape Ranger
+2
+3
+3
+0
Escape Artist 2Cross-Class, Gather Information 5, Hide 5, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Move Silently 5, Search 5, Spot 5, Survival 5
-
-


3
Wildshape Ranger
+3
+3
+3
+1
Escape Artist 2Cross-Class, Gather Information 6, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 5, Move Silently 5, Search 6, Spot 6, Survival 6
Point Blank Shot, EnduranceB
-


4
Wildshape Ranger (Urban Companion)
+4
+4
+4
+1
Escape Artist 3Cross-Class, Gather Information 7, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 7,Spot 7, Survival 7, Use Rope 1
AlertnessFamiliar
Urban companion (octopus)


5
Wildshape Ranger
+5
+4
+4
+1
Escape Artist 4Cross-Class, Gather Information 8, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 8, Spot 7, Survival 7, Use Rope 6
-
Wild shape 1/day (small or medium animals), favored enemy (monstrous humanoid)


6
Master of Many Forms
+5
+6
+6
+1
Climb 1, Escape Artist 4Cross-Class, Gather Information 8, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 7, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 8, Spot 9, Survival 9, Use Rope 6
Aberration Wild Shape
Shifter's speech, improved wild shape (humanoid)


7
Master of Many Forms
+6
+7
+7
+1
Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 8, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 8, Spot 10, Survival 10, Use Rope 6
-
Improved wild shape (giant; Large)


8
Justicar
+7
+7
+7
+3
Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 8, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 10, Spot 11, Survival 11, Use Rope 9
-
Bring 'em back alive, nonlethal strike +1d6


9
Justicar
+8
+7
+7
+4
Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 11, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 12, Spot 11, Survival 12, Use Rope 10
Martial Study: Disarming Strike, Improved GrappleB
Crippling strike


10
Justicar
+9
+8
+8
+4
Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 13, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 13, Spot 11, Survival 13, Use Rope 13
-
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (manacles), street savvy +2


11
Justicar
+10
+8
+8
+5
Balance 3, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 14, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 14, Spot 11, Survival 14, Use Rope 14
-
Nonlethal strike +2d6


12
Justicar
+11
+8
+8
+5
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 15, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 14, Spot 11, Survival 14, Use Rope 15
Martial Stance: Absolute Steel
Hog-tie


13
Bloodstorm Blade
+12
+10
+8
+5
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 15, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 14, Spot 16, Survival 14, Use Rope 16
Throw AnythingB
Returning attacks, weapon aptitude


14
Bloodstorm Blade
+13
+11
+8
+5
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 15, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 14, Spot 17, Survival 16, Use Rope 17
-
Martial throw, thunderous throw


15
Bloodstorm Blade
+14
+11
+9
+6
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 15, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 14, Spot 18, Survival 18, Use Rope 18
Quick Draw, Far ShotB
-


16
Bloodstorm Blade
+15
+12
+9
+6
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 15, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 15, Spot 19, Survival 19, Use Rope 19
-
Lightning ricochet


17
Justicar
+16
+13
+10
+7
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 15, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 19, Spot 20, Survival 20, Use Rope 20
-
Street savvy +4


18
Justicar
+17
+13
+10
+7
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 18, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 21, Spot 20, Survival 21, Use Rope 21
Shape Soulmeld (Girallon Arms)
Nonlethal strike +3d6


19
Justicar
+18
+13
+10
+8
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 22, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 22, Spot 20, Survival 22, Use Rope 22
-
Improved hog-tie


20
Scaled Horror
+18
+15
+10
+8
Balance 8, Climb 1, Escape Artist 5Cross-Class, Gather Information 22, Hide 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1Cross-Class, Knowledge (Nature) 10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 7, Move Silently 5, Search 23, Spot 23, Survival 23, Use Rope 23
-
Improved grab, keen scent




Alignment: Azurins are never neutral, instead favoring extreme alignments. Azurins are as likely to be lawful good as they are chaotic good, lawful evil, or chaotic evil. More so than most other mortal races, azurins strive to embody their alignment... You make no effort to hide your convictions from your comrades; you try to convert opponents to your way of thinking, even while striking them with your sword.

As an Azurin, Addy was particularly susceptible to extremist viewpoints in his youth; as a child with gills and grotesquely flexible limbs, treated as an outcast from the other city children, even more so. After attending several public executions, his world view began to be colored through the power of the government. Life was fleeting -- his even more so -- yet the Law was powerful, persistent, and as permanent as the sun. The innocent were protected by laws, and the wicked punished, regardless of who they are or what they look like. People perish, their misdeeds lost to time, but the Wheels of Justice that condemned them will continue to churn forever.

His parents were human -- a local spellcaster and his late wife who passed away during childbirth. Addy was particularly intelligent for a child, so his father slowly tried to instruct him in the arcane arts. It was a welcome escape from the relentless bullying from the other city children. He was a precocious student, and devoted himself to learning as much as he could about magic and the law. During one of his divination lessons on the nature of Speak With spells, however, his father was called away to attend to some business -- and Addy discovered something sinister in his study.

His father had notes on transfiguration, and the... clandestine experiments he was conducting. He remembered a few of the children who had gone missing years ago. He remembered how his father had lectured him on how his appearance was some odd genetic throwback; his words, so convincing at the time, rang hollow. He had never felt such betrayal; his own father, who had sheltered him and given him refuge from the words of the city children, was a criminal. How could he even be sure that his appearance wasn't the result of some sick experiment? He struggled with the turmoil all night, but the next day, he steeled his resolve and reported his father to the city guard. On the day of his father's execution, Addy burned his father's research notes, and vowed never to delve into the arcane arts again.

From then on, Addy devoted himself entirely to the law. He joined the city guard as soon as he was able, and began to dole out justice. The law may be harsh, or unyielding, but it was fair; the system it created allowed the innocent to walk free and without fear. At times, administering it could be hard. However, there could be no exceptions; no hesitation; no mercy. In time, Addy too became known as harsh and unyielding, merciless, and was sometimes even called cruel -- yet there was no cruelty in his motivation. He was merely dedicated to the enforcement of the law; he was dedicated to tracking down and capturing criminals, and bringing them to justice. Some of his targets may truly be innocent -- but that was for the courts to decide. No pleas or appeals to his empathy could dissuade him. For every half-measure or variance made in the enforcement of the law, another man like his father would walk free. Even one was too many... One had already been too many.


Chair's note: continues in part 2

[H_H_F_F]

COntinuing from part 1:


Just as Addy's personal philosophy is markedly straightforward (i.e., to pursue those accused of wrong-doing single-mindedly with no mercy or hesitation), so are the mechanisms we may use to pilot his statblock.

Addy has a 15-hour adventuring day, with a one-hour break taken at some point, followed by the standard 8 hours of rest. He spends those 15 hours wild shaped into the form of a mimic. He relies on his tracking ability and gather information checks to track down criminals, although in the water his Keen Scent can come in handy. Having spotted them, Addy wastes no time in engaging; he has a quota to meet.

Using his Throw Anything feat (or replaced with the redundancy of his +1 Throwing Necklace of Natural Weapons), Addy throws his slam to strike the criminal. He can throw this slam as far as 100 feet natively, or 200 if he is able to acquire a pair of Gauntlets of Extended Range. Throwing such an attack at its maximum range increment requires taking a -10 penalty on the attack role, but twice per day (or more if he can acquire a wand or sufficiently boost his wisdom) he can use Guided Shot to negate those penalties. There is, of course, no penalty for throwing them at a target within 20 feet (or 40 feet with the gauntlets).

Upon striking the criminal with a thrown slam (dealing slam damage, Nonlethal Strike nonlethal damage, and Crippling Strike strength damage), he can immediately and automatically grapple them, moving up to 200 feet to enter their square and incurring the appropriate attacks of opportunities from threatening enemies, but not from the target (as per step 4 of grappling rules). As the initial attack is typically initiated from so far away, however, this will often be a surprise round, circumventing attacks of opportunity for this movement. The natural attack will then return to Addy immediately as per Bloodstorm Blade's Lightning Ricochet.

Having grappled the criminal, Addy will then quick-draw a manacle or length of rope and use an iterative attack to make a hog-tie attempt with a +35 grapple modifier; having hog-tied the character, rendering them helpless, Addy should easily pin them, dealing Crush damage, then release them from the grapple as a free action. Having hog-tied the criminal, Addy can throw a second slam attack (or just 5 foot step/slam at melee range) to repeat the routine on a second opponent. This potentially removes two party members from the fight in one surprise round.

Addy will continue grappling and binding/cuffing enemies until everyone is bound and helpless, knock them all unconscious, reducing their strength to 0 via Crippling Strike, and drag them back to justice.

Hog-tied characters are effectively disabled, but can escape by making a strength check (DC 28 for masterwork manacles, DC 23 for silk rope), or an escape artist check (DC 35 for masterwork manacles, DC 52 for silk rope). The rules are silent on what check it is to make the strength check, but it is presumably at least a move action; therefore, unless the character has a strength of 46 (manacles) or 36 (rope), they won't be able to escape by taking 10. If they can escape at all, they will therefore take 2 minutes to do so -- buying you 20 rounds to deal with the rest of the party. Escape artist checks take 1 minute to try, so if they're relying on the skill, they'll be disabled for at least 1 minute (10 rounds), even if they can take 10.

Against opponents who seem weaker, the rope is obviously the more secure choice; against opponents who seem to have a lot of muscles, the manacles would be the way to go. Manacles can be purchased at abnormal sizes for an increased price as per the SRD, but silk rope works on enemies of all size, so rope might sometimes be a superior option for that reason.

Some characters have abilities that might allow them to circumvent being hog-tied. For example, a character might have a spell with only verbal components; they might have an SLA, or an item that allows them to teleport out of their bonds. Therefore, if at all possible, Addy would try to retain antimagic shackles as soon as possible. Failing that, dimensional shackles would be a satisfactory replacement in many cases. If he is denied those resources, Addy can stack nonlethal damage from his Nonlethal Strike/Crippling Strike class abilities after binding them to ensure they stay down.

If Addy has to flee, while his movement speed is somewhat low (30ft, as per a mimic with fast movement and Absolute Steel), he does have a superior mobility option that almost resembles brachiation. Addy can throw his unarmed strikes at any large or smaller creature he can see within 100 feet, or 200 feet with the Gauntlets of Extended Range. Upon making the strike and dealing 1d4 nonlethal damage, and recovering his unarmed strike via Bloodstorm Blade 4, he must enter their square, flinging himself the 100-200 feet. He can move to escape the grapple with the startled creature (they don’t need to try to hold us, nor do they have reason to), and then fling his third unarmed strike at another creature in the distance. Using both slams and one iterative attack to initiate three grapples, and all 3 remaining iterative attacks to pin, assuming he succeeds on all grapple checks, he could move up to 600 feet/round in this manner.

Against opponents with decidedly non-humanoid body shapes, Addy can engage them from range. His thrown natural weapons are still melee weapons, as are his thrown manacles, so his first round of attacks should be able to trigger Bring 'em Back Alive on the flat-footed foes; the same goes for throwing masterwork manacles repeatedly. He need not choose to enter their squares unless he deems it a grapple he would win. If he thinks he can take them in a grapple-fest, he is of course able to throw his slams to grapple and repeatedly crush the foe instead of fighting from range. Due to adhesive, most enemies cannot break free of our grapple without being let go or killing us, so if Addy determines he would come out ahead in the exchange, there is little a criminal can do once the long arm of the law has firmly grasped him by the collar.

Against a party of mixed humanoid and non-humanoid body shapes, Addy will probably target the humanoid-shaped criminals first, then attempt to grapple the remaining non-humanoid shaped enemies into submission.




Size/Type
Large Humanoid (Aquatic, Human, Incarnum)


Hit Dice
7d8, 9d10, and 4d12 + 20 (average 130)


Initiative
+1


Speed
30 land, 15 swim (aquatic creatures always have a swim speed)


Armor Class
15 (+5 natural, +1 dex, -1 size), touch 10, flat-footed 15


Base Attack / Grapple
18 / 35 (18 bab + 4 str +4 size + 4 Improved Grapple + 3 familiar + 4 competenceGirallon Arms)


Attack

+18 thrown slam (18 bab, +1 dex, -1 size; 1d8+4),
or +19 thrown masterwork manacle (18 bab, +1 dex, +1 masterwork, -1 size; 1d8+4),
or +21 melee slam (18 bab, +4 str, -1 size; 1d8+4),
or +22 melee masterwork manacle (18 bab, +4 str, +1 masterwork, -1 size; 1d8+4)




Full Attack

+18 thrown slam (primary; 1d8+4), then +18 thrown slam (primary; 1d8+4);
+13 thrown slam (secondary), then +13 thrown slam (secondary; 1d8+4), then +19 thrown masterwork manacle (1d8+4), then +14 thrown masterwork manacle (1d8+4), then +9 thrown masterwork manacle (1d8+4), then +4 masterwork manacle (1d8+4);
+21 melee slam, then +21 melee slam (1d8+4);
+22 masterwork manacle (1d8+4), then +17 masterwork manacle (1d8+4), then +12 masterwork manacle (1d8+4), then +7 masterwork manacle (1d8+4), then +16 slam (1d8+4), then +16 slam (1d8+4)





Space / Reach
10 ft. / 10 ft.


Special Attacks
Bring 'em back alive, nonlethal strike +3d6, crippling strike, exotic weapon proficiency (manacles), hog-tie, returning attacks, martial throw, thunderous throw, lightning ricochet, improved hog-tie, improved grab, adhesive, crush


Special Qualities
Amphibious, aquatic traits, essentia pool 1, fast movement, favored enemy bonuses (arcanists +4, monstrous humanoids +2), speak with animals or plants 3x/day, urban companion (octopus), wild shape 3x/day (small, medium or large aberrations, animals, giants, and humanoids), shifter's speech, street savvy +4, weapon aptitude, keen scent


Saves
Fort +15 (+4 against nonlethal damage from hot, cold, or suffocation), Ref +10, Will +8


Abilities
Str 19, Dex 12, Con 17, Int 16, Wis 20, Cha 10


Skills
Balance 9, Climb 9 (+2 wrt ropes), Escape Artist 6 (+2 wrt ropes), Gather Information 27 (+4 wrt pursuing criminals), Hide 6, Knowledge (Nature) 15, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 10, Listen 7, Move Silently 6, Search 26, Spellcraft 4[/SUP], Spot 30, Survival 28 (+2 in above-ground, natural environments; +2 wrt following tracks), Swim 4 (+4 wrt resisting nonlethal damage, +8 to perform a special action or avoid a hazard), Use Rope 24 (+2 wrt bindings)


Feats
Aberration Blood
Aberration Wild Shape
AlertnessFamiliar
EnduranceB
Far ShotB
Improved GrappleB
Martial Stance: Absolute Steel
Martial Study: Disarming Strike
Point Blank Shot
Quick Draw
Shape Soulmeld (Girallon Arms)
Skill Focus: Gather Information
Throw AnythingB
TrackB


Environment
Any


Organization
Solitary


Challenge Rating
20


Treasure
At ECL20, an NPC should have approximately 220,000gp. However, we won't need to spend nearly that much to be effective.


Gear

Large backpack containing a barrel full of water and a small octopus (10gp for a nonhumanoid-shaped backpack, although that's more for style, as we could just use rope to tie the barrel to our back; 2gp for a barrel)
Small/medium, and large masterwork manacles x10 (350gp for 5 at standard size; 3500gp for 5 at large size)
Several lengths of silk rope (50gp for 250ft/5 lengths)



Please note: the following items are completely optional. The build can function well without them. I wanted to include suggested gear in the event that you wanted to add additional treasure to Addy's statblock beyond generic +X to Y stat gear.


Optional:A +1 throwing Necklace of Natural Weapons (which should be redundant due to Throw Anything), although the +1 will still be useful!
Optional: Replace any of the manacles above for dimensional shackles (28,000 each, but fit small to large creatures)
Optional:Replace any one set of manacles above with antimagic shackles (132,000 each, but fit small to large creatures)
Optional:Gauntlets of Extended Range
Optional:Wand of Guided Shot.
Optional:+1 mobility studded leather armor (custom-fit to a mimic's body shape)
Optional:Masterwork tools for any of our associated skills
Optional:A Wild Shape Amulet can increase our effective level for wild shaping by 4, allowing us to maintain a longer adventuring day (although really only earning us one extra hour, as we should really still rest for 8 hours as a human). If the DM rules it doesn't increase our ranger wild shape, it DOES grant a whole new wild shape use, and it should still be improved by Master of Many Forms and our feats to effectively produce the same result for our purposes.




Alignment
Lawful Good


Advancement
By character class


Level Adjustment
+0



Spells per Day


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


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


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


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


4th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


5th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


6th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


7th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


8th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


9th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


10th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


11th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


12th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


13th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


14th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


15th
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


16th
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


17th
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


18th
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


19th
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


20th
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-



CR1: Using a combination of track, speak with animals/plants as an sla, and gather information, Addy can actually track folks down somewhat functionally. Granted, his bonuses aren't high enough to overcome a concerted effort to avoid him, but that will improve in coming levels. At this level, he can rely on stealth somewhat to get the jump on the party, as his ranks are more relevant against a level 1 party than any other. Using ranged attacks from hiding, then fleeing with fast movement before they can pursue will be somewhat effective for wearing down the party, as he can track them down afterward again. This is particularly true if the party is in or near water where he can take full advantage of his amphibious nature.

CR5: Addy first gets access to wild shape here, and that changes his strategy somewhat. We now have access to the potent Fleshraker Dinosaur form to access the ever-potent Leaping Pounce. While we arguably can't take advantage of the flexible arms our original form has, this down allow us to lean into our grapple-routines somewhat effectively at long last. 20 AC and the great attack routine augmented with poison and raking damage means we should be able to tear down criminals quickly, then use our 60 land speed to retreat and hide before repeating the process when the party lets down their guard.

CR7: Addy can take mimic form here, very conveniently at the same ECL that the party would be getting access to Freedom of Movement. This is where Addy enters his identity as a dedicated grappler, crushing enemies into submission one at a time. There are other forms that might be better for combat -- the Rukanyr (Fiend Folio) for example offers a slam attack with a save or stun rider, three bites with dex poison, and six claw attacks along with 22 AC. However, Addy will favor mimic form unless pressed to lean on one of these forms, as his goal is, after all, to prevent criminals from escaping his grasp.

CR12: With the addition of hog-tie, Addy's favored attack routine comes online for melee combat. He will initiate with a slam attack, then use his first iterative to pin the criminal, and his second iterative to hog-tie them with a set of manacles or a length of silk rope. Then, he will release them as a free action to focus on the remaining party members. Additionally, he has access to his masterwork manacle proficiency, his Nonlethal Strike/Crippling Strike, and his Crush abilities to wrack up damage, particularly when he has access to a flanking buddy or a surprise round. This is probably when Addy first feels like the villain he was meant to be.

CR13: Technically, as our natural weapons can now be thrown via Throw Anything and treated as if they have the Returning property, we can now make ranged attacks; however, we can't effectively use them to grapple without risking losing the weapon if the DM rules it works that way. With that said: losing one slam isn't going to kill us here. Addy can now initiate a combat from 50-100 feet away (depending on if he is equipped with Gauntlets of Extended Range or not), slinging himself into their square to proceed to pin and hog-tie them as per normal. This will allow us to full-attack in the same round we initiate combat more consistently, knocking one criminal out of the fight from the start.

CR16: While we arguably could have thrown our natural weapons to initiate grapples and just given up on recovering them at level 13 (or earlier levels at a penalty), now we can do so while recovering them for use within that wild-shape period. Additionally, we gained Far Shot, so our range is now 100-200 item-permitting.

CR17: Here, our full routine comes online with the addition of our fourth iterative attack:


We throw a slam attack from 100-200ft away, slinging ourselves into their square to hold them
We use an iterative attack to pin them
We use an iterative attack to hog-tie them
We release them as a free action
We throw a slam attack from 10-200ft away (or make a melee slam attack), slinging ourselves into their square to hold them
We use an iterative attack to pin them
We use an iterative attack to hog-tie them
We release them as a free action


This is probably the "sweet spot" of the build in the sense that later levels add less to the build than levels have added until now; however, levels 12 and 13 are both huge power spikes for the build too.

CR19: The addition of "improved hog-tie" means we can now skip pinning and move straight to hog-tying enemies, allowing us to burn more iterative attacks if need be. We arguably can skip pinning all together, as the criminal will be helpless after being bound, in which case this is a much bigger power-spike, conserving two iteratives each round.

CR20: This is where our ability to spiderman-sling from creature to creature really unlocks, allowing us to move swiftly through populated areas. Technically, we could already do this with our slams, but this allows us to fling an additional time (or our normal two times, but without dealing nearly as much damage). Additionally, Keen Scent is actually a fairly potent detection method in aquatic environments.



Azurin (race) - Magic of Incarnum
Amphibious (template) - Stormwrack
Ranger (class) - Player’s Handbook
Wildshape Ranger (class variant) - Unearthed Arcana
Arcane Hunter (ranger acf) - Complete Mage
Skilled City-Dweller (ranger acf) - Cityscape Web Enhancement Part 1
Spiritual Connection (ranger acf) - Complete Champion
Urban Companion (ranger acf) - Cityscape Web Enhancement Part 1

Octopus (familiar/animal) - Stormwrack and Monster Manual respectively
Mimic (monster) - Monster Manual

Master of Many Forms (class) - Complete Adventurer
Justicar (class) - Complete Warrior
Bloodstorm Blade (class) - Tome of Battle
Scaled Horror (class) - Savage Species

Aberration Blood (feat) - Lords of Madness
Aberration Wild Shape (feat) - Lords of Madness
AlertnessFamiliar (feat) - Player’s Handbook
EnduranceB (feat) - Player’s Handbook
Far ShotB (feat) - Player’s Handbook
Improved GrappleB (feat) - Player’s Handbook
Martial Stance: Absolute Steel (feat) - Tome of Battle
Martial Study: Disarming Strike (feat) - Tome of Battle
Point Blank Shot (feat) - Player’s Handbook
Quick Draw (feat) - Player’s Handbook
Shape Soulmeld (Girallon Arms) (feat) - Magic of Incarnum
Skill Focus: Gather Information (feat) - Player’s Handbook
Throw AnythingB (feat) - Complete Warrior
TrackB (feat) - Player’s Handbook

Guided Shot (spell) - Spell Compendium
Speak with Animals (spell) - Player's Handbook
Speak with Plants (spell) - Player's Handbook

Blood Wind (spell) - Spell Compendium
Crush (feat) - Savage Species
Freedom of Movement (spell) - Player's Handbook
Hulking Hurler (class) - Complete Warrior
Scorpion's Grasp (feat) - Sandstorm

Feat rules - Player's Handbook
Bonus feat rules - Monster Manual

Backpack (item)- SRD
Barrel (item) - SRD
Gauntlets of Extended Range (item) - Magical Item Compendium
Manacles (item) - SRD
Masterwork Manacles (item) - SRD
Antimagic Shackles (item) - Book of Exalted Deeds
Dimensional Shackles (item) - Dungeon Master's Guide
Masterwork Tool (item) - SRD
Silk rope (item) - SRD
Necklace of Natural Weapons (item) - Savage Species
Returning enhancement (item) - SRD
Throwing enhancement (item) - SRD
Enhancement bonuses - SRD
Studded Leather Armor (item) - SRD
Mobility enhancement (item) - Magical Item Compendium
Wands (item) - SRD
Wild Shape Amulet (item) - Magic of Faerun

[H_H_F_F]

bureaucracy: the most terrible villain of them all.


...
Unit-102548852224763 (Monodrone) - operating terminated. Unit-971990446469212 (Monodrone) fission complete. Unit-330308868438382267 (Monodrone) re-created.
Unit-9351308500 (Quadrone) - operating terminated. Unit-74803841332743 (Tridrone) promoted.
Unit-4881438100711 (Monodrone) - operating terminated...
Attention! Abnormal termination detected! Unit-4881438100711's energy core is lost! No fission!
...

...
Unit-2981289285236 (Tridrone) - operating terminated. Unit-47267689545869 (Duodrone) promoted.
Unit-4167716824450 (Duodrone) - operating terminated.
Attention! Abnormal termination detected! Unit-4167716824450 's energy core is lost! No promotion!
Attention! Attention!
System anomaly detected!
Attention! Attention!
...

- Secundus unit-438, we, Primus, are calling you!
- We unit-438 came on your call, The One and The Prime!
- We have a mission of critical importance for you! Data about Event-4366 "The Rogue March" access granted.
- Data received! It was the unfortunate incident with undesirable consequences.
- Yes, it was! Our order was violated! Previous Primus had been destroyed! We had created a protocol-73399 to monitor and prevent the recurrence of such events. Now this protocol gives the attention signal. Two abnormal unit operating termination with convergence indications with initiation of Event-4366 were detected. Possibility of nonrandomness of convergence is approximately 16,84404%. Possibility of hostile intervention in the promotion process is approximately 96,8458%. Moreover! There are signs in the noosphere! Event-4366 culprit - Orcus - now has interest in searching another artifact - Crown of Horns!
- What should we do?
- We have the forecast. The next probable incident should be abnormal termination of one of tridrone units, then abnormal termination of one of quadrone units, then one of pentadrone units, and so on up to hierarchy. Possibility of non-linear progressivity is approximately 51,3732%. Possibility of skipping one or more of unit types is no more than 13,9777%. Unit-438, you'll seek and punish intruders. To do this you'll become a duodrone, our forecast declares possibility of repeated abnormal termination of the same modron type less than 1%.You'll be removed from the regular line of hierarchy and inducted into the new hierarchy of abnormal terminations. With every new abnormal termination you'll be promoted to the rank of terminated unit and you'll get all data about termination events. This protocol means we'll have several abnormal terminations until you stop it, but the protocol is tailored to a particular purpose and we have a maximal chance of succeeding following it.
- Primus, we have a question. Our chance of succeeding in an encounter persons who was able to defeat unit of the same rank as we shall be isn't guaranteed.
- Yes, we know. All modrons are one, all have part of power, that mortals name divine. We'll wake up your part to give you extra power. You have 37 minutes 43 seconds to prepare your cases for next Secundus.

This is one of the Unique NPC Abilities from DMG2 (p. 157-160). It gives three benefits.
1) +2 sacred bonus on attack rolls and initiative checks, all skill checks, or all saving throws. I selected attack and initiative.
2) One domain’s granted power. I want to select War, but I can't find the RAW favorite weapon of Primus. I found some suggestions which mostly include unarmed strike and "natural weapons." If you agree - well, add +1 to all natural attack's attack bonuses.
3) Save DC for each of his spells increases by 1, if the NPC takes levels in a divine spellcasting class. Yeah, modrons don't take any levels in classes, so it may not work. But if it work, +1 DC should be added to all spells, not divine only.
I worked with assumption of straight-through applying skill points and feats, because Unit-438 is the single unit as far as possible for modron.
There are only ranks without ability mods in tables. Added ranks are in brackets. Initiative, attacks, damage, and saves are full.
Yeah, WE modrons are 3.0 and not very well written. Main issue is DR. I suggest conversion to chaotic and adamantine and chaotic starting CR 17. I think this is the most thematic decision. Second issue I have with secundus and his virtual monks abilities. I hope I convert all right, but I'm sure about Stun (Ex). Is this monk's stunning attack or secundus's racial ability? I don't know, but I decide to delete it, as if it is monk's.
I recommend adding Tertian and Secundus at least one Wis and one Dex. More is better.

In the opening story I invited possible main Unit-438's ideas and objectives, but you are totally free to change it. This is modrons, they stand on the order side and against crime in all cases. And them can accept as a crime... almost anything. Yeah, it looks like cosmic manifestation of order (maybe because it is?), but I think cosmic manifestation of order also can be a Sheriff.



Size/Type:
Small Outsider


Hit Dice:
2d8+2 (11 hp)


Initiative:
+3


Speed:
30 ft., fly 30 ft. (poor)


Armor Class:
15 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +3 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 13


BAB/Grapple:
+2/-2


Attack:
Claw +5 melee (1d4) or halfspear +5 melee (1d6)


Full Attack:
2 claws +5 melee (1d4) and halfspear +5 melee (1d6)


Space/Reach
5 ft./5 ft.


Special Attacks:
-


Special Qualities:
Modron traits, outsider traits, resistances, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +4


Abilities:
Str 10, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 6, Wis 13, Cha 12


Skills:
Diplomacy +5, Hide +5, Listen +5, Sense Motive +2 (CC), Spot +5, Survival +1 (CC), Tumble +2 (CC)


Feats:
Quick Recovery


Challenge Rating:
2





Size/Type:
Medium-Size Outsider


Hit Dice:
3d8+6 (19 hp)


Initiative:
+4


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares)


Armor Class:
16 (+2 Dex, +4 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 14


BAB/Grapple:
+3/+4


Attack:
Claw +6 melee (1d4+1) or javelin +7 ranged (1d6+1)


Full Attack:
3 claws +6 melee (1d4+1) or javelin +7 ranged (1d6+1) and 2 javelins +7 ranged (1d6)


Space/Reach
5 ft./5 ft.


Special Attacks:
-


Special Qualities:
All-around vision, modron traits, outsider traits, resistances, superior multiweapon fighting, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +7


Abilities:
Str 12, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 15, Cha 14


Skills:
Diplomacy +5, Hide +5, Listen +6 (+1), Search +4 (+4), Sense Motive +3 (+1), Spot +6 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will


Challenge Rating:
3





Size/Type:
Medium-Size Outsider


Hit Dice:
4d8+8 (26 hp)


Initiative:
+6


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares)


Armor Class:
17 (+3 Dex, +4 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 14


BAB/Grapple:
+4/+6


Attack:
Claw +8 melee (1d4+2) or longspear +8 melee (1d8+3) longbow +9 ranged (1d8)


Full Attack:
4 claws +8 melee (1d4+2) or longspear +8 melee (1d8+3) and longspear +8 melee (1d8+2) or 2 longbows +9 ranged (1d8)


Space/Reach
5 ft./5 ft.


Special Attacks:
-


Special Qualities:
All-around vision, modron traits, outsider traits, resistances, superior multiweapon fighting, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +9


Abilities:
Str 14, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 17, Cha 14


Skills:
Diplomacy +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (planes) +4 (+4), Listen +7 (+1), Search +4, Sense Motive +6 (+3), Spot +7 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will


Challenge Rating:
4





Size/Type:
Medium-Size Outsider


Hit Dice:
5d8+15 (37 hp)


Initiative:
+6


Speed:
50 ft. (10 squares)


Armor Class:
18 (+4 Dex, +4 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 14


BAB/Grapple:
+5/+8


Attack:
Slam +10 melee (1d4+3)


Full Attack:
5 slams +10 melee (1d4+3)


Space/Reach
5 ft./5 ft.


Special Attacks:
Breath weapon


Special Qualities:
All-around vision, damage reduction 5/magic, levitation, modron traits, outsider traits, resistances, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +9


Abilities:
Str 16, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 17, Cha 16


Skills:
Diplomacy +6 (+1), Gather Information +4 (+4), Hide +5, Knowledge (planes) +5 (+1), Listen +8 (+1), Search +4, Sense Motive +7 (+1), Spot +8 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will


Challenge Rating:
5



Unit-438 in base modron forms does not really differ from regular modrons. Some more attack and AC, some less damage, nothing special.




Size/Type:
Medium-Size Outsider


Hit Dice:
10d8+30 (75 hp)


Initiative:
+5


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares), fly 10 ft. (poor)


Armor Class:
26 (+3 Dex, +13 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 23


BAB/Grapple:
+10/+9


Attack:
Tentacle +11 melee (1d6-1)


Full Attack:
10 tentacles +11 melee (1d6-1)


Space/Reach
5 ft./5 ft.


Special Attacks:
Spell-like abilities, spells


Special Qualities:
All-around vision, damage reduction 10/chaotic, modron traits, outsider traits, resistances, SR 13, telepathy 44 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +13


Abilities:
Str 8, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 19, Cha 18


Skills:
Concentration +10 (+10), Diplomacy +9 (+3), Gather Information +4, Heal +5 (+5), Hide +5, Knowledge (local) +10 (+10), Knowledge (planes) +10 (+5), Listen +10 (+2), Search +4, Sense Motive +10 (+3), Spellcraft +10 (+10), Spot +10 (+2), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength


Challenge Rating:
9


With Decaton rank Unit-438 receives a bunch of spell-like abilities, spellcasting, and miles-range telepathy. All are very useful. Spells as 10th-level cleric gives Righteous Might, Slay Living, Dimensional Anchor, Flame Strike, 2nd level ability buffs and other useful spells.
And 44 miles of Mindsight due excellent telepathy.


Size/Type:
Large Outsider


Hit Dice:
11d8+44 (93 hp)


Initiative:
+6


Speed:
50 ft. (10 squares)


Armor Class:
26 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +13 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 22


BAB/Grapple:
+11/+15


Attack:
Tentacle +12 melee (1d6)


Full Attack:
9 tentacles +12 melee (1d6)


Space/Reach
10 ft./10 ft.


Special Attacks:
Psionics, spell-like abilities, spells


Special Qualities:
All-around vision, damage reduction 10/chaotic, modron qualities, resistances, SR 15, telepathy 63 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +11, Ref +11, Will +13


Abilities:
Str 10, Dex 19, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 19, Cha 18


Skills:
Concentration +14 (+4), Diplomacy +10 (+1), Gather Information +4, Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (local) +11 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +11 (+1), Listen +11 (+1), Search +4, Sense Motive +11 (+1), Spellcraft +10, Spot +11 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength


Challenge Rating:
11


Nonaton has one less tentacle, two more levels of cleric casting, at will plane shift, and increasing telepathy radius.


Size/Type:
Large Outsider


Hit Dice:
12d8+48 (102 hp)


Initiative:
+5


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares), fly 30 ft. (average)


Armor Class:
27 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +15 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 24


BAB/Grapple:
+12/+16


Attack:
Tentacle +13 melee (1d8)


Full Attack:
8 tentacles +13 melee (1d8)


Space/Reach
10 ft./10 ft.


Special Attacks:
Spell-like abilities, spells


Special Qualities:
All-around vision, damage reduction 10/chaotic, modron traits, outsider traits, psionics immunity, resistances, SR 17, telepathy 80 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +12, Ref +11, Will +14


Abilities:
Str 10, Dex 17, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 19, Cha 18


Skills:
Concentration +15 (+1), Diplomacy +12 (+2), Gather Information +4, Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (local) +12 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +12 (+1), Listen +12 (+1), Search +4, Sense Motive +12 (+1), Spellcraft +12 (+2), Spot +12 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength, Danger Sense


Challenge Rating:
12



Again more mindsight miles, more spellcasting, nothing special.


Size/Type:
Medium-Size Outsider


Hit Dice:
13d8+52 (110 hp)


Initiative:
+5


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares)


Armor Class:
28 (+3 Dex, +15 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 25


BAB/Grapple:
+13/+14


Attack:
Claw +16 melee (1d6+1)


Full Attack:
7 claws +16 melee (1d6+1)


Space/Reach
5 ft./5 ft.


Special Attacks:
Spell-like abilities, spells


Special Qualities:
Detect magic, detect thoughts, damage reduction 10/chaotic, modron qualities, psionics immunity, resistances, SR 20, telepathy 190 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +12, Ref +11, Will +15


Abilities:
Str 12, Dex 17, Con 18, Int 16, Wis 21, Cha 20


Skills:
Concentration +16 (+1), Diplomacy +13 (+1), Gather Information +4, Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +3 (+3), Knowledge (local) +13 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +13 (+1), Listen +13 (+1), Search +4, Sense Motive +13 (+1), Spellcraft +13 (+1), Spot +13 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength, Danger Sense


Challenge Rating:
13



Septon rank gives sorcerer spellcasting (6th level spells), unique ability immune to all psionic, some improvement of all other abilities.

1st - Mage Armor, Expeditious Retreat, Ray of Enfeeblement, Color Spray, Magic Missile
2nd - Scorching Ray, See Invisibility, Touch of Idiocy, Ray of Stupidity, Heroics
3rd - Dispel Magic, Arcane Sight, Hold Person, Haste
4th - Phantasmal Killer, Rainbow Pattern, Enervation
5th - Feeblemind, Cone of Cold
6th - Disintegrate


Size/Type:
Large Outsider


Hit Dice:
14d8+56 (119 hp)


Initiative:
+6


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares), fly 30 ft. (average)


Armor Class:
28 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +15 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 24


BAB/Grapple:
+14/+18


Attack:
Slam +17 melee (2d6+2)


Full Attack:
2 slams +17 melee (2d6+2), 4 claws +15 melee (2d4+1)


Space/Reach
10 ft./10 ft.


Special Attacks:
Spell-like abilities, spells


Special Qualities:
Damage reduction 15/chaotic, modron traits, outsider traits, psionics immunity, resistances, SR 23, telepathy 216 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +16


Abilities:
Str 14, Dex 19, Con 18, Int 16, Wis 21, Cha 20


Skills:
Concentration +17 (+1), Diplomacy +14 (+1), Gather Information +4, Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5 (+2), Knowledge (local) +14 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +14 (+1), Listen +14 (+1), Search +5 (+1), Sense Motive +14 (+1), Spellcraft +14 (+1), Spot +14 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength, Danger Sense


Challenge Rating:
14



Hexton doesn't have sorcerer's spellcasting, but he has cleric's 9th level! Prismatic Sphere, Energy Drain, Implosion, Soul Bind, Miracle ("duplicate any other spell of 7th level or lower" for free? Yes, please!), Call Marut, and any lower level spells.


Size/Type:
Large Outsider


Hit Dice:
15d8+75 (142 hp)


Initiative:
+5


Speed:
20 ft. (4 squares), fly 20 ft. (average)


Armor Class:
29 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +17 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 26


BAB/Grapple:
+15/+21


Attack:
Slam +18 melee (1d8+2)


Full Attack:
4 slams +18 melee (1d8+2), tail slap +16 melee (1d8+1)


Space/Reach
10 ft./10 ft.


Special Attacks:
Spell-like abilities, spells


Special Qualities:
Damage reduction 15/chaotic, modron traits, outsider traits, psionics immunity, resistances, SR 26, telepathy 238 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +14, Ref +12, Will +17


Abilities:
Str 14, Dex 17, Con 20, Int 18, Wis 23, Cha 22


Skills:
Concentration +18 (+1), Diplomacy +15 (+1), Gather Information +4, Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (arcana) +4 (+4), Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5 , Knowledge (local) +15 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +15 (+1), Listen +15 (+1), Search +5, Sense Motive +15 (+1), Spellcraft +15 (+1), Spot +15 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength, Danger Sense, Power Attack


Challenge Rating:
15



Quinton takes PA, some improvements, but nothing fundamentally new.


Size/Type:
Large Outsider


Hit Dice:
16d8+80 (152 hp)


Initiative:
+6


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares), fly 90 ft. (good)


Armor Class:
31 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +18 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 27


BAB/Grapple:
+16/+23


Attack:
Slam +20 melee (2d8+3)


Full Attack:
4 slams +20 melee (2d8+3)


Space/Reach
10 ft./10 ft.


Special Attacks:
Spell-like abilities, spells


Special Qualities:
Damage reduction 15/chaotic, modron traits, outsider traits, psionics immunity, resistances, SR 29, telepathy 384 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +15, Ref +14, Will +19


Abilities:
Str 16, Dex 19, Con 20, Int 18, Wis 25, Cha 24


Skills:
Concentration +19 (+1), Diplomacy +16 (+1), Gather Information +4, Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (arcana) +8 (+4), Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5 , Knowledge (local) +16 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +16 (+1), Listen +16 (+1), Search +5, Sense Motive +16 (+1), Spellcraft +16 (+1), Spot +16 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength, Danger Sense, Power Attack


Challenge Rating:
16



Quarton doesn't do new things, too.


Size/Type:
Large Outsider


Hit Dice:
17d8+102 (178 hp)


Initiative:
+6


Speed:
30 ft. (6 squares)


Armor Class:
32 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +19 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 28


BAB/Grapple:
+17/+26


Attack:
Slam +23 melee (2d8+5)


Full Attack:
2 slams +23 melee (2d8+5), tail slap +21 melee (2d8+2)


Space/Reach
10 ft./10 ft.


Special Attacks:
Spell-like abilities, spells, stun


Special Qualities:
Damage reduction 15/adamantine and chaotic, modron traits, outsider traits, psionics immunity, resistances, SR 31, telepathy 405 miles, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +16, Ref +14, Will +20


Abilities:
Str 20, Dex 19, Con 22, Int 20, Wis 27, Cha 26


Skills:
Concentration +20 (+1), Diplomacy +17 (+1), Gather Information +4, Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (arcana) +13 (+5), Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5 , Knowledge (local) +17 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +17 (+1), Listen +17 (+1), Search +5, Sense Motive +17 (+1), Spellcraft +17 (+1), Spot +17 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength, Danger Sense, Power Attack


Challenge Rating:
17



Tertian takes back sorcerer's spellcasting as 20th level in additional to cleric's.


1st - Mage Armor, Expeditious Retreat, Ray of Enfeeblement, Color Spray, Magic Missile
2nd - Scorching Ray, See Invisibility, Touch of Idiocy, Ray of Stupidity, Heroics
3rd - Dispel Magic, Arcane Sight, Hold Person, Haste
4th - Phantasmal Killer, Rainbow Pattern, Enervation, Celerity
5th - Feeblemind, Cone of Cold, Hold Monster, Fabricate
6th - Disintegrate, True Seeing, Greater Dispel Magic
7th - Forcecage, Reverse Gravity, Greater Arcane Sight
8th - Prismatic Wall, Greater Celerity, Temporal Stasis
9th - Imprisonment, Mordenkainen’s Disjunction, Wish



Size/Type:
Large Outsider


Hit Dice:
18d8+126 (207 hp)


Initiative:
+7


Speed:
70 ft. (14 squares), fly 50 ft. (good)


Armor Class:
45 (-1 size, +5 Dex, +20 natural, +9 Wis, +2 intrinsic), touch 25, flat-footed 40


BAB/Grapple:
+18/+28


Attack:
Unarmed strike +25 melee (2d8+6)


Full Attack:
Unarmed strike +25/+20/+15/+10 melee (2d8+6)


Space/Reach
10 ft./10 ft.


Special Attacks:
Psionics, spell-like abilities, spells, stunning attack, ki strike (magic), ki strike (lawful), greater flurry


Special Qualities:
Abundant step, damage reduction 15/adamantine and chaotic, diamond body, improved evasion, modron traits, purity of body, outsider traits, resistances, SR 33, still mind, slow fall (60 ft.), telepathy 420 miles, wholeness of body, divinity (War)


Saves:
Fort +18, Ref +16, Will +22


Abilities:
Str 22, Dex 21, Con 24, Int 22, Wis 29, Cha 28


Skills:
Concentration +21 (+1), Diplomacy +18 (+1), Gather Information +5 (+1), Heal +5, Hide +5, Knowledge (arcana) +18 (+5), Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5 , Knowledge (local) +18 (+1), Knowledge (planes) +18 (+1), Listen +18 (+1), Search +5, Sense Motive +18 (+1), Spellcraft +18 (+1), Spot +18 (+1), Survival +1, Tumble +2


Feats:
Quick Recovery, Iron Will, Mindsight, Reserves of Strength, Danger Sense, Power Attack, Sun School, Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip


Challenge Rating:
20



Secundus loses psionics immunity and gets instead 13 virtual levels of monk. With 20/20 spellcastings and ultimate mobility due Greater Teleport and Plane Shift Unit-438 (Secundus) can attack anybody anywhere on his own terms. Sun School gives the opportunity to enter the fight with guaranteed first strike.

Modrons - A Manual of the Planes Web Enhancement (https://web.archive.org/web/20191104063556/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20010921a)
The Rogue March - Dragon #354
Quick Recovery, Mindsight - Lords of Madness
Reserves of Strength - Dragonlance Campaign Setting
Danger Sense - Complete Adventurer
Sun School - Complete Warrior
Celerity, Celerity, Greater - PHB2
All other spells are from PHB and Spell Compendium.
All other feats are from PHB.

[H_H_F_F]

And... That's that! Five sheriffs to make your players stop ignoring the rules!

On to you, judges!

[AvatarVecna]

I didn't end up finishing my builds to submit, because I was having trouble tying them together properly

First one, what I was looking at was an Unseelie Fey Human Factotum 1/Fey 76, with all HD bumps and epic feats building up Int. Would start something like this...

Int 15

Bluff 2
Diplomacy 2
Forgery 2
Gather Information 2
Hide 2
Intimidate 2
Knowledge/Arcana 1
Knowledge/A&E 1
Knowledge/Dungeoneering 1
Knowledge/Geography 1
Knowledge/History 1
Knowledge/Local 2
Knowledge/Nature 1
Knowledge/N&R1
Knowledge/Religion 1
Knowledge/The Planes 1
Listen 2
Move Silently 2
Search 2
Sense Motive 2
Speak Language 1
Spot 2
Survival 2
Swim 2
Tumble 2
Use Magic Device 2
Use Rope 2

...and end up something like this...

Int 53

Bluff 80
Diplomacy 80
Forgery 80
Gather Information 80
Hide 80
Intimidate 80
Knowledge/Arcana 1
Knowledge/A&E 1
Knowledge/Dungeoneering 1
Knowledge/Geography 1
Knowledge/History 1
Knowledge/Local 80
Knowledge/Nature 1
Knowledge/N&R 1
Knowledge/Religion 1
Knowledge/The Planes 1
Listen 80
Move Silently 80
Search 80
Sense Motive 80
Speak Language 22
Spot 80
Survival 80
Swim 80
Tumble 80
Use Magic Device 80
Use Rope 80

Sweet spot would be CL 6: that's when they get their first epic feat, and thus have all their non-epic feats including Tracking/Urban Tracking, and where most of their skills have only slightly better bonuses than the PCs (12 ranks), but their focus skills are much higher (20-24 ranks). Specialty skills at that level were Gather Information, Knowledge/Local, Sense Motive, and Survival. It's also before magic has started really taking off and making it difficult for a normal cop to really do their job - while the double-digit CR versions have the skills to catch the PCs and the Int to always be three steps ahead, they're going to need to draw on department resources to have the wands and scrolls necessary to have a chance. They also didn't really have an obvious characterization coming to mind. They're essentially just a pile of hit dice that took all the skills that even vaguely apply to doing cop work. With really high Int and at least a rank in every knowledge skill (with the knowledge/local skill maxed out for law knowledge), I could maybe make them a Sherlock Holmes expy, but that characterization felt like it was gonna be Vizzini'd hard.



Second one was a bit more straightforward: a cleric 20, devoted to some god of tyranny. Breed fiendish toads and rats (both can breed quite quickly, toads can't fight back but rats can). Use social skills powered by skill-enhancing spells to Diplomancy the fiendish rats into performing ritualistic murder on my behalf, using the BoVD sacrifice rules. Use skill-enhancing spells to ensure the rat's Knowledge/Religion checks are nice and high, and they can get a wish. The reason for taking the long way around to the sacrifice rules is that they have two big limits: firstly, no sacrifice-maker can get more than one sacrifice result per day; secondly, no sacrifice-maker can get more than one Wish result from sacrifice in their lifetime. Taking advantage of a breeding farm of fiendish creatures for both the sacrificer and the sacrifee (all influenced by Diplomancy abuse) allows us to spam Wishes (which are probably at CL 20 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25355207&postcount=137) regardless of how low-level this gets started, which could be as early as lvl 5 with the right skill-boosting spells stacked up, maybe?). And because these are wishes cast on our behalf, and not by us, we don't need to worry about the XP costs.

The main thing I was wanting Wish for was the ability to transport anyone from anywhere in the multiverse to anywhere else in the multiverse regardless of local conditions on either end, and all that I need is to beat saves/SR. Plan was to use normal cleric magic (including the skill-boosting stuff) to solve the crimes, and then use the Wish stuff to stick them directly into an AMF/dead-magic cell. Or send them straight to a part of the afterlife where a powerful agent of the tyranny deity can kick their **** in on my behalf.

This build was largely fleshed out, as was their place within the world. I ended up scrapping it because a cleric of tyranny spamming free Wishes to send criminals to face a judge/jury/executioner literally sent from that cleric's god is definitely leaning waaaaaaaaay closer to "cosmic manifestation of order" than "fantasy cop".

[H_H_F_F]

Both sound nice, AvatarVecna. I think the first one especially could've been a banger. Can unseelie fey really advance through fey hd? And not only that, but with no limitation on advancement?

By the way, I fixed a couple of the entries, of which I accidentally uploaded older versions. My bad! If any chef catches another mistake I've made, feel free to PM me.

[AvatarVecna]

Both sound nice, AvatarVecna. I think the first one especially could've been a banger. Can unseelie fey really advance through fey hd? And not only that, but with no limitation on advancement?

Second answer is an enthusiastic sometimes.

Advancement rules (as I'll quote below) make it pretty clear that if you can advance by HD, the given "limit" is really just a suggestion - it's the common limit for advanced versions of such monsters, but not an absolute limit.

First answer is a solid maybe.

Unseelie Fey template changes your HD to Fey. Additionally, both the 3.0 Dragon Magazine and 3.5 Dragon Compendium version lack the usual "do not recalculate" line that basically every other type-changing template has. There's a couple different reasons why it might be legal-ish.


Advancement
The monster entry usually describes only the most commonly encountered version of a creature. The advancement line shows how tough a creature can get, in terms of extra Hit Dice. (This is not an absolute limit, but exceptions are extremely rare.) Often, intelligent creatures advance by gaining a level in a character class instead of just gaining a new Hit Die. (See Improving Monsters.)

1) "This is not an absolute limit" speaks for itself.

2) "Often, intelligent creatures advance by gaining a level in a character class instead of just gaining a new Hit Die" implies that intelligent creatures have the option to advance via HD.


Each of the monster entries describes a typical creature of its kind. However, there are several methods by which extraordinary or unique monsters can be created using a typical creature as the foundation: by adding character classes, increasing a monster’s Hit Dice, or by adding a template to a monster. These methods are not mutually exclusive—it’s possible for a monster with a template to be improved by both increasing its Hit Dice and adding character class levels.

3) "These methods are not mutually exclusive", and it gives an example of all three being used on the same creature...exactly like my first build would've been doing.


Class Levels
Intelligent creatures that are reasonably humanoid in shape most commonly advance by adding class levels. Creatures that fall into this category have an entry of "By character class" in their Advancement line. When a monster adds a class level, that level usually represents an increase in experience and learned skills and capabilities.

4) "Most commonly advance by adding class levels", but not every time.


Increased Hit Dice
Intelligent creatures that are not humanoid in shape, and nonintelligent monsters, can advance by increasing their Hit Dice. Creatures with increased Hit Dice are usually superior specimens of their race, bigger and more powerful than their run-of-the-mill fellows.

This is the only rules text in the entire section that doesn't have a "sometimes" modifier thrown in, so it's the closest we have to a hard rule: unintelligent monsters or intelligent non-humanoids (note: this is different from non-Humanoids) can advance by HD. It also doesn't necessarily contradict point 2 up there, since some intelligent creatures do in fact have the opportunity to advance by HD. That means that if you're intelligent, you need to be "not humanoid in shape" to advance by HD. There's two ways we can slip around this, primarily because "humanoid in shape" isn't really a game term, it's just English.

An argument that most DMs might be willing to sell themselves on is that...well, there's lots of things that are humanoid and yet clearly aren't. Allips are explicitly "vaguely humanoid shaped" and intelligent, and yet advance by HD. Of course, they're incorporeal undead that's only "vaguely" humanoid. Ghouls and ghasts are a much more clear-cut example: all mental stats are superior to normal humans, so they're definitely intelligent, and their non-humanoid features are more aesthetic than actual form (hairless, decaying skin, and the like)...and yet they advance by HD. Mind Flayers don't advance by HD, so they're clearly human enough in shape...but really, they just have the right limbs in the right places, and that's where the similarities end. We get to see a picture of all three core angels standing together; two are large with weird skin colors, one is medium with normal skin color. All three advance by HD. Is it the wings? Is that really enough for you to count as "not humanoid in shape"? Because if so...Unseelie Fey can definitely qualify. At least, some of them can.

I could probably list another few dozen things that break this rule without even leaving the monster manual...but that could easily just be WotC just breaking it's own rules because they're bad at game design. Examples not following the rules doesn't mean the rule is wrong. But we can actually take a really pedantic reading of the rules to allow for an Unseelie Fey Human to advance by HD without breaking anything other than our brains. You see, since "humanoid in shape" isn't a game term, that means we need to wrangle with something even dumber than RAW: the English language.

If you knew what an object was made of, you might describe it as "being made of a rock-like substance". But that would be a very silly way to describe it if it was, in fact, a rock. You're using more words than necessary to communicate the intended concept. Similarly, it's very silly to say a creature has a "cat-like shape" when it is, in fact, a cat. Even if it was a tiger, that's a kind of cat. You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. If you're adding extra information, it's supposed to be because it's making an important distinction. It might be fair to say "it's made of a rock-like substance" if you don't know for sure that it's a rock. But if you know it's a rock, just say rock.

Humans are Humanoids, but they aren't humanoid - "humanoid" is "human-like". Humans aren't "human-like", they're just humans. So, very technically speaking, humans are not humanoid in shape - even if a non-human shaped exactly like a human is humanoid in shape. Thus, humans have the option to advance by HD.

Additionally, the Dragon Compendium version of the template (which is the official version) does not affect the advancement rules of the creature it's applied to (outside of how the template itself is an application of advancement). Thus, templated humans can also choose to advance by HD.

That's an argument I imagine a lot of DMs would have trouble agreeing with, though. Like, I can't sit here and talk about disingenuous arguments and then lead into "that's why humans arent humanoid". That's silly.

In the Iron Chef competitions, competitors try to stay within RAW primarily because they're making characters, and assuming that the DM will break the rules on your behalf to make your weird build work isn't always a good assumption. But the game itself assumes that the DM will bend the rules as they please. Generally, I tend to assume that some minor rule-bending with the goal of making a better encounter/story is a bit more acceptable in VC, and that egregious breaks will run up Elegance penalties - you as the DM might have been granted leeway in these matters by the gaming group as a whole for the sake of making a good game, but if your changes are making things unfun/unfair (like if you use something yourself that you would deny a player for power reasons), it damages the social contract.

I don't think someone should necessarily approach the contest with the intent of finding inconveniences in the rules that a DM might be comfortable papering over, but I also don't think that if you've got a great idea that doesn't technically work because of something like this, the idea needs to be tossed...at least, not in this contest. I think it's reasonable that a DM would look at the "often"s and "sometimes"s in the advancement rules, and all the examples that don't follow the only clear-cut rule, and might decide "you know what, screw it" and make an Elf 80 inspired by the elves of tolkien. That wouldn't be RAW legal, even if you buy the "humans arent humanoid" argument, but..."you know what, screw it".

EDIT: TL;DR It's maybe technically legal, but it's probably gonna be read as illegal at most tables. But it would only take a very small change to make it so that anything can advance in whatever methods they want, and that gives DMs the ability to make some weirder stuff like this, so why not?

[loky1109]

Both sound nice, AvatarVecna. I think the first one especially could've been a banger. Can unseelie fey really advance through fey hd? And not only that, but with no limitation on advancement?

By the way, I fixed a couple of the entries, of which I accidentally uploaded older versions. My bad! If any chef catches another mistake I've made, feel free to PM me.

It anyway could work with Beast of Bane.

[Thurbane]

Congrats everyone.

My first thought was an Astral Stalker with levels of Bloodhound, Justiciar or Crimson Scourge.

Then I struck on the idea of a Lich: using permanent paralysis to bring back targets. I was working on a Duergar Lich Ranger 4/Bloodhound 10/ Swordsage 4. Using the Duergar SLAs (CL = 2x HD) to enter Lich early (after 6 HD). Biggest snag was that a Lich's paralysis has the DC based off Cha, and Duergar take a -4 Cha.

Wasn't entirely happy with either idea, and couldn't devote the time I needed to fully develop them (my work is just insane at the moment).

I'm trying to make time to judge Zinc Saucier at the moment, but if time allows after that, might try to judge here too.

[Doctor Despair]

I'm disappointed no one wanted to do "buddy cop" Dvati, but they're such an annoying race to build around, so I definitely get it.

[3SecondCultist]

So I had two concepts, both revolving around the Paladin class because I thought it really fit the mold of the Sheriff. I’ll discuss the first, because it was more mechanically and thematically interesting.

The main concept I had was Thalea, Stone Cold Justice. A formerly monstrous Medusa who slew those who entered her domain, she engaged a wandering knight in battle and they ended up mortally wounding each other. With his last dying breath, the knight entreated her that if she survived she would need to do better, to be better. She died still considering the stranger’s words, and re-emerged as a Ghost. Having taken levels in Paladin inspired by her killer’s sacrifice, Thalea roams the wilderness hunting down criminals as she tries to do better and stand up for the law. Mechanically, the build looked like this: LG Evolved Advanced Ghost Medusa Paladin (Avenger, Holy Warrior) 2 / Master of the Unseen Hand 4 / Paladin 3. The plan was to have Thalea engage primarily through her double Gaze attacks, turning her bounties into stone. She then uses her at-will Telekinesis to float them back into town and clap ‘em in irons!

Unfortunately, the build wasn’t as powerful and viable as I would have liked, and I just didn’t have enough time to write it out. But damn did I have some material I’d planned for Thalea. The idea of a Lawful Good Ghost Paladin surely isn’t new, but trying to work it all into the theme of bringing bounties back alive told me Medusa was the right call. Shame I couldn’t put it all together in time.

[loky1109]

Congrats everyone.

My first thought was an Astral Stalker with levels of Bloodhound, Justiciar or Crimson Scourge.

Then I struck on the idea of a Lich: using permanent paralysis to bring back targets. I was working on a Duergar Lich Ranger 4/Bloodhound 10/ Swordsage 4. Using the Duergar SLAs (CL = 2x HD) to enter Lich early (after 6 HD). Biggest snag was that a Lich's paralysis has the DC based off Cha, and Duergar take a -4 Cha.
I suggested Lizardfolk, Quanak. Did you see?

[Doctor Despair]

Is anyone apart from possibly Thurbane (time permitting) considering judging for this one? No one has spoken up in the thread thusfar.

[Thurbane]

I suggested Lizardfolk, Quanak. Did you see?

I did, but I really, really dislike psionics. :smalltongue:

In hindsight, I could have just used Silverbrow Human or similar, and just delayed entry into Lich until 12th.

[zlefin]

Not up for judging, but will be curious to read the judges assessments of the builds. They do look interesting insofar as I read, some neat little tricks there.

The idea I had was a bit bland, Nymph, then adding some racial HD then going into Druid.

[Seward]

Reserving comments on the builds till I've absorbed them better, but they are all interesting.

My idea was based on Bahamut having a Church Inquisitor who went around and retrieved stolen loot from dragon hoards. Or equivalent (if a Kobold band followed Bahamut and you killed them, the enforcer might kill your animal companions/mounts and take their stuff - it's fair because you are ALSO deprived of lesser servants plus goods of equivalent value). Depending on who you killed, a wergeld type fee might be required instead, or other restitution in terms of a task might be required. But in general he's about recovering stolen property, plus a fine to deter future bad behavior, and it all being about dragons, most things can be reduced to monetary value in terms of loss and restitution.

He wouldn't really be after killing adventurers, he'd be about mugging them and taking their stuff, with a note on why, and only as much as they deserved. Where possible the actual objects taken would be retrieved.

CR5, he's a Half-Dragon (Gold) Yeti with Subduing Strike and Track feats. With his ability to fly, and enough strength to KO most EL-appropriate victim in a single hit (and pretty much any victim in a full attack should he get one), he could mug an isolated hero and fly off with him, take his stuff, then drop him trussed up with a note. I imagine warning notes are dropped over the party at night from time to time to give them a chance to make good without violence first. Where possible, nobody sees him and he communicates with anonymous messages and outcomes (it's hard to interact with normal people as a Yeti) but he does have decent skills from the Half-Dragon side applied to his monstrous humanoid hit dice, basically +10 at spot/listen/survival-track, +3(15 in snow) hide, +7 move silent, a bit of kn arcane, religion and spellcraft and intimidate+9 in person. Not a match for the whole party, but any typical L5 adventurer caught alone with him would have a hard time defeating or escaping him. He's also flat out immune to both fire and cold, always a helpful thing which can be exploited in a variety of ways for unusual ambush sites or simply to burn away web spells without harm with his breath weapon or an alchemist fire (most other low level stoppers he's immune to via half-dragon and/or creature type).

CR10 he's added 3 Yeti hit dice, monk1, cleric and 2 levels of divine oracle. This gives him improved grapple and unarmed strike from Monk + Ac boost, a divination package from the Oracle domain plus evasion, magic fang spell progression from Dragon domain but the key improvement is the Windstorm domain. It expands his ability to walk on ice and snow to perfect but more importantly it lets him perceive perfectly through rain and snow. Combine that with Obscuring Snow spell (L2 cleric, Frostburn) and a silence spell, he flies in silently, grabs his target and any attempt to interfere must cope with inability to target spells, charge, or do much of anything without moving right next to him at the center of the snow flurry (and even then, he's hard to see, it is snow). The silence defeats most ways around the obscuring snow short of a dispel magic, and the victim will be unable to activate command word things like anklets of translocation or cast spells or similar. So now a snowball 20' wide lands in the party, grabs the miscreant, flies away with him, gets the retribution, then drops him off again. L2 cleric casting also means one of his few vulnerabilities, poison, can also be blocked with slow poison, and lets him add specific energy resistance if fire/cold aren't enough, vs a specific enemy.

CR15 3 more Yeti dice another divine Oracle level for the roll twice on divinations ability and 3 levels of church inquisitor (detect evil, inquisition domain also gives detect chaos, detect thoughts, zone of truth, discern lies, immunity to charm, pierce illusion power). Pick up divine vigor to boost land speed and use otherwise wasted turning ability. The Yeti levels alone let him keep up with party martials, his skillset now includes mundane tracking (and Voice of The Dragon spell diplomacy ranks to get others to track party movements for him), extremely high perception skills, good mundane hiding skills and pretty potent divinations, both to track people and to judge their guilt or innocence if they protest their treatment after he's isolated/captured them.

CR20...probably continue out the Church Inquisitor levels (they get useful immunities and such to level 8, plus more cleric tiers mean more domain slots with useful divination and interrogation options, plus his silence+obscuring snow stopper is a bit more work to dispel) and 3 more yeti levels to boost the needed skills, BAB and such.

[Doctor Despair]

So it looks like we have possibly one judge unless anyone else is willing to step up to the plate. Sending positive vibes your way in hopes you find the time to judge here, Thurbane!

[loky1109]

Yeti of Bahamut.

Sounds cool, but there are one mistake. In general, you can't progress in HD after taking class levels.

[H_H_F_F]

Many of the unsubmitted ideas sound just as interesting as the ones we did end up with! Very glad that this ingredient managed to get people's mind going.

I hope we'll be able to score a judge soon, but as you all know, there are plenty of competitions on the site...

[Seward]

Sounds cool, but there are one mistake. In general, you can't progress in HD after taking class levels.

See, that was the kind of mistake I thought would happen. I'm not used to designing a NPC for a progression. In a normal game I'd make this guy at whatever level the party interacted with and give him the mix of racial hit dice and classes needed. I've not really written anything for 3.x where there was a long term progression of a rival NPC that wasn't strictly class-based, even though I have written an adventure that was designed to be playable at several average party levels (it's a different kind of problem). Basically what I wrote was if I was planning for effective party level of 5, 10, 15 and 20, without worrying about how the NPC got there.

[AvatarVecna]

Sounds cool, but there are one mistake. In general, you can't progress in HD after taking class levels.

I've not heard of that rule. Do you have a quote?

[loky1109]

I've not heard of that rule. Do you have a quote?

Well, I haven't. I tried to find, but I didn't. I was sure it is, but it seems I was wrong.

[AvatarVecna]

Well, I haven't. I tried to find, but I didn't. I was sure it is, but it seems I was wrong.

Maybe it's in Savage Species? Like, that's the book with all the race classes, and there's a line somewhere similar to monk where if you multiclass out you can't multiclass back in later? That's about all I can think of, since I didn't see anything about in in the MM.

[loky1109]

Maybe it's in Savage Species? Like, that's the book with all the race classes, and there's a line somewhere similar to monk where if you multiclass out you can't multiclass back in later? That's about all I can think of, since I didn't see anything about in in the MM.
It was first place where I went. Maybe I have not enough ranks in search.

[AvatarVecna]

It was first place where I went. Maybe I have not enough ranks in search.

My bad then, guess not.

[Eurus]

I think you might be thinking of this.


INCREASING HIT DICE

As its Hit Dice increase, a creature’s attack bonuses and saving throw modifiers might improve. It gains more feats and skills, depending on its type, as shown on Table: Creature Improvement by Type.

Note that if a creature acquires a character class, it improves according to its class, not its type.

"Not its type" seems, to me, intended to block racial HD advancement after acquiring class levels, but there might be other interpretations. That's in the SRD anyway, not sure where it is (if it is) in the Monster Manual or DMG.

[Beni-Kujaku]

And here's the judging coming!



Honestly? Great story. I especially liked how each character's personality was well-defined like how consistently carefree but down-to-earth Joshua is, and how you described a world in which magic is omnipresent.

Originality: 2
Wizard into Master Specialist. Meh. Arcane Thesis into split/empower/+0 metamagic. Double meh. Pale master and divine oracle. Actually decently original.

Elegance: 4
Really elegant build, with some good flavor, no dip, I believe everything is legal... There's just a slight lack of focus in the end, with most of the build centered around necromancy, and the last four levels focused on divination. Also, you're a wizard. Your most valuable assets are your spells, which allow you to bend reality to your will. I would have liked to... You know... Know about them? I only know Command Undead, out of the 36 spells you should automatically know, not even counting the ones you want to scribe later.

Competence/Power: 2.5
Your character doesn't strike me as the kind to bring people back alive. Or dead, for that matter. Your preferred tactics is to blast something like 12 negative levels out of a 6th level slot, then probably do it again, or let your opponent get ripped apart by your skeletons. That doesn't strike me as a sheriff, that strikes me as an obsessive murderhobo. And you don't use divination at all before level 16, which is a bit late for one of the requirements. Otherwise, you're quite strong, with your arm, your enervation and your undead army, but I still would have been more convinced if I knew what you can do against things immune to negative levels, or simply flying things.

Memorable Villainy: 3.5
The "undead master that casts necromancy spells" is quite a well-known villain, but it always has its effect. Plus, your undead arm and sheriff star give you the little bit of style bonus you'd like.

Conclusion: 12
A weird build for that competition. If I didn't read the story, I wouldn't have even guessed she was supposed to be a sheriff, but the necromancer sheriff using death-sentenced criminals to catch other criminals is interesting.




I have you in my power, you foolish mortal! Now, tell me, why were you driving above the speed limit on the highway last thursday?

Originality: 2
Body Leech is far from something you see often, and is a really good thematic match. The rest is pretty standard psionic stuff, and a Swordsage dip is used way too often to my taste. Every ability seems used as intended, with no really flashy stuff

Elegance: 3.5
Nothing strikes me as inelegant here. You know what your build is supposed to do, and you do it. No unintended strategy, no useless feat. Overall a pretty clean entry, if a bit bland.

Competence/Power: 4
You're a psion with 9th level powers, along with lots of bonus power points and extra lives. Also you're a lot sturdier than an equal level psion. You can pretty readily knock people out or mind control them to bring them back alive, and the Inquisitor feat along with those few divination powers will help you find your targets easily. Something that I didn't see in your summary but that you could also do is dominate people then psychic reformation them into taking the Mind over Body feat. Instead of having to replenish your cocoons every time you drain them dry, you could keep the most powerful ones for the whole duration of your cocoon and drain them of a few power points each day, while keeping a weak one as an extra life.

Memorable Villainy: 4.5
That's a villain that traps people in ectoplasm cocoons and drain their energy to increase its own. That's extremely cool and even has the potential to be a recurring villain with the Cheat Death ability, leading to a quest to find and destroy/free the cocoons, only to get "betrayed" by the ones they freed when they cast their psionic seals on them. Great villain.

Conclusion: 14
All-around good entry, with a good fluff and a good crunch. Nothing more to say.




What? Fiends are criminals too.

Originality: 2
Spell-Stitched and Ur-Priest are so overused it's not even funny, and Nightmares are also well known optimization tools. Still, calling them with Fiendbinder is a bit unexpected. Nothing really unexpected in your tactics.

Elegance: 2
You're extremely item-dependent, both to boost your Truespeak, and to be able to reach acceptable DCs for your spells. To be able to cast 9th level spells, you need a +6 enhancement and at least a +3 Tome of Wisdom. You also spend a heck of a lot of money to bind fiends and animate dead. That's way too much. Also, you have multiclassing penalties with your Marshal level, since a Githyanki's favoured class is Fighter. I also would have liked to know your Ur-Priest spells, which I really don't.

Competence/Power: 3
You're an Ur-Priest with potentially 9th level spells and tanar'ris helping you, including a Cauchemar nightmare. You'll be fine. Penalties because you're extremely squishy early on (and still won't be able to tank much until you get access to Astral Projection). Another penalty because with your repeated Astral Projections and Plane Shift, your fiends won't be able to immediately follow you, will get new Will saves and you'll lose a lot of them each time. And another one because your fiends and your undead will make it so that you rarely bring your foes alive. You don't have any nonlethal "finisher" except stinking cloud, which is keyed off your charisma and has a really low DC. Then again, if I knew anything about your spells except your Undead-creating ones...

Memorable Villainy: 3.5
Having a villain with pets is always nice, and having one of these pets being able to track down the party will make it a primary target and make the master a bit more interesting, especially if he keeps coming back despite being specifically killed.

Conclusion: 10.5
This is not really a sheriff, but a high level caster using his cosmic powers to roleplay being a sheriff. I guess it works, but it still is not as interesting as others.




Punishes greedy criminals even before they can put their hand on the chest. Also, bonus points for the Terry Pratchett reference (not really)

Originality: 4
You're throwing your arms like you're Rayman and zipping through the battlefield from one foe to another like you're Spiderman. How cool is that? Also, Bloodstorm Blade? I never ever heard about that one before. And I probably wouldn't have Justiciar either if it wasn't for one recent IC. The way you achieve your form, however, is pretty expected. Wild Shape "replace everything" Ranger-> MoMF and Aberration Wild Shape are all pretty standard.

Elegance: 3
Not much in the build is inelegant (a few CC skills, no dip except at CR 20, very focused on one goal and clean execution). Still, I just can't let the premice of the build go with no penalty. Throwing your own natural weapons, especially a slam, may work by RAW, but I don't know a DM that would allow it without a lot of penalties. Even if you could throw the slam without penalty, you can't throw as a weapon something that is attached to you. A hulking hurler could very much throw their armor, but they would have to remove first. You could throw the part with which you slam, but you'd have to rip it out of your body first, which would most definitely deal you a hefty amount of damage, and you probably wouldn't be able to reattach it without regeneration. Also, this is Villainous Competition. Seeing a regular human as a race is weird, especially considering you spend a lot of your build trying to wild shape into a mimic. Why didn't you just start as a mimic? Maybe with a single level of ranger to gain Track? Mimic is CR 4, instead of the 7 levels and 3 feats you spend on changing into one. That would also solve the problem of limited time wild shape, and the weirdness on if you can keep breathing water as a mimic, and if mimics have arms without Mimic Shape (the answer is no, they don't, they look like brownish-grey amorphous blobs).

Competence/Power: 3
That build is a great way to use and abuse the mimic's Adhesive, and the way you "deal the finishing blow" by hog-tying them is pretty good at removing them from combat. Good job at bypassing FoM, the bane of all grappling builds. However, using your main schtick and running away in case things go south require rolling an attack roll at up to -10, which will not always work in your favor if you have to use it several times a day. You're also quite one-dimensional and slow. If something can resist your grapple (be it gargantuan or just stronger than you), you're a bit out of tricks, and during the turn after you adhere but before you can hog-tie, you're grappling and wide open to attacks. I would have liked to see Scaled Horror a bit before, as Improved Grab allows you to instead pull the opponent in your space and incapacitate your enemies from afar before the rest of the group can catch up to you.

Memorable Villainy: 4.5
A mimic that throws bits of himself to grab people like some sort of chest-like Majin Buu will definitely leave a mark on players, especially since you're not killing them, which is unusual. Nothing to say here, that's a great villain. Maybe not an end boss, but one of the best recurring/support villains.

Conclusion: 14.5
Great idea, great execution. I'm a bit weirded out by the fact you didn't go full mimic, but hey, the end result is still really nice.




There are only 4 Secundi in existence, and I highly doubt that more than 400 were killed during the existence of Mechanus. They don't even participate in Modron Marches, so I don't think this Secundus can be the 438th.

Originality: 2.5
Modrons are inherently original, considering they are a vestige of other editions and only exist in a Web Enhancement as non-playable monsters. The way you advanced Unit-438 is also interesting (but see elegance), as it differs from advancing by class and by racial HD. However, the rest of the build has nothing original (mostly because it doesn't have much in the first place except feats, and those are really standard stuff. Nothing I haven't seen dozens of times before, except Sun School, but how you used it wasn't great either.).

Elegance: 3
Okay, I love the idea to use Mindsight with the Modron hierarchs' almost-plane-wide telepathy. That's such a good fit! To the point I wonder why WotC didn't think of that before. Having Mindsight on the whole plane for Primus would fit it perfectly. That is really great. However, what I don't like is how you have nothing else of note. Unit-438 is almost just a Secundus with Mindsight. That's not particularly inelegant by itself, but that's not elegant. A 1000-pieces puzzle with missing pieces and out-of-place ones is ugly, but a 2-piece puzzle, even if the two pieces are perfectly adjusted, is nowhere near as beautiful as a 1000-piece one. Also, you don't qualify for Danger Sense, and I really don't understand why it's even here. There's almost no synergy between your feats. That is weird. And I'm not sure you actually can advance by being promoted in this competition (especially since the "Advancement" section of the monster says it advances by HD, not by being promoted), but since it fits the lore of the modrons, I won't remove points.

Competence/Power: 2.5
I mean, Mindsight on a huge radius is great for a sheriff to find its suspects. Otherwise, I don't think you're that good to actually catch your foes, especially if you go out of Mechanus. Your suggested tactic is basically to teleport in, hit once with Sun School, then teleport out, but you have nothing to protect you during the one turn you're in contact with your enemies, you can't quicken your teleportation to go away before they can react, and since you use your standard action on your SLA, you can't even surprise the PC party with a devastating spell. As I see it, you're just gonna teleport, maybe Stunning Fist one of them with Sun School, and get ganked by the rest of the party. Apart from knowing where everybody is, you're really not that much better than a regular Secundus. I would have liked you to not go up to Secundus. Your main trick isn't much better with a secundus as it is with a Septon (190 miles), and you could have used the CR 12 septon to add 8 levels worth of actually useful and original abilities (maybe with a few levels of mystic theurge to still cast as a 20th level cleric, and the rest as sorcerer-advancing classes).

Memorable Villainy: 1
You're a Secundus. That's as standard a final boss as it gets, in Mechanus. The only memorable trick you have is something you perform while outside of the PCs' sight. Any villain is almost expected to pop out at the worst moments, that doesn't make it a good one.


Conclusion: 9
Excellent one trick, but would have been better with several excellent tricks.


And that's the last one. I'm waiting for your disputes.

[Seward]

"Not its type" seems, to me, intended to block racial HD advancement after acquiring class levels, but there might be other interpretations. That's in the SRD anyway, not sure where it is (if it is) in the Monster Manual or DMG.

I find that quote convincing, that I did it wrong. I was bothered by the fact that 1 CR of magical beast gets you 3 BAB, +1 to all saves (and sometimes +2 to good saves), 3 levels toward a statbump and a feat, which is pretty much better than any martial class will ever give on that front. PC's are supposed to make up the difference with gear and buffs. It was noticing that which made me pretty sure I shouldn't submit it because I had to be missing something, even though each tier (5, 10, 15 and 20) were perfectly legal monsters to show up at that CR, assuming you did all your hitdie-related skills/feats in the right order before taking classes.

The build really did need 3 cleric levels at least to really work as a cop past baby levels, and the other inquisitor etc levels would have been thematic and kept its "cop/hunter" aspects relevant into higher levels, but it would have been a lot harder to keep up the martial side of the equation with only the original Yeti hit dice to work with, even with the half dragon template.

[H_H_F_F]

Thank very much for judging, Beni!

Is anyone else currently judging, or is likely to start judging soon? If so, let me know!

If not, you guys have about 48 hours for disputes. We might be able to have the reveal sooner than that, if everyone that isn't disputing would let us know.

[loky1109]

Need to re-read judging carefully. Something about ten hours.

[Thurbane]

I must apologise, things have been extremely busy and chaotic for me in the last week or so, unsure if I will get time to judge...

[Doctor Despair]

I must apologise, things have been extremely busy and chaotic for me in the last week or so, unsure if I will get time to judge...

It's alright, Thurbane. IRL things are quite tumultuous for everyone, I think, given the state of things, and that's setting aside that RL is a tumultuous place to begin with. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we appreciate the thought. :smallsmile:

[H_H_F_F]

Sorry for the no-show, gang.

1 dispute for you, Beni.

First: thank you for judging! It really looked like we were going to have a drought for a while there, haha.

Wrt Competence/Power


That build is a great way to use and abuse the mimic's Adhesive, and the way you "deal the finishing blow" by hog-tying them is pretty good at removing them from combat. Good job at bypassing FoM, the bane of all grappling builds. However, using your main schtick and running away in case things go south require rolling an attack roll at up to -10, which will not always work in your favor if you have to use it several times a day.

It's true that the attack roll is at penalty when you use it to flee; we do have native access to Guided Shot 2/day to mitigate that (although one will usually have been used to initiate the encounter), and we can use a wand optionally to get more access. Remember, though, that the creatures you grapple to to escape don't have to be CR-appropriate. You can sling yourself to a commoner 1 in the distance, or a dog, or a bird. Their AC will not be optimized; in all likelihood, they won't be armored. The -10 is notable, but it isn't crippling to the escape route.


You're also quite one-dimensional and slow. If something can resist your grapple (be it gargantuan or just stronger than you), you're a bit out of tricks,

Normally, a creature can't grapple creatures that are two or more sizes larger than it; this is because grapple attempts against a creature two or more sizes larger than you automatically fail. However, mimic adhesive means you don't make the grapple attempt at all. We do not automatically fail grapple attempts because we don't make grapple attempts. This means that we can grapple creatures much larger than us, although their strength and size bonuses will make them naturally more resistant to being pinned or hogtied, of course. Addy could target smaller members of the party first, but he isn't equally adept at capturing all types of parties.

With that said, however, PCs are usually smaller than huge, usually humanoid in shape (even if not type). I'm not sure this would necessarily be a major issue to his competence/power as an NPC intended to be a villain. Maybe I'm miscalculating that; what do you think?


and during the turn after you adhere but before you can hog-tie, you're grappling and wide open to attacks.

Remember that you use one iterative attack to grapple, one iterative attack to hog-tie, and one iterative attack to pin; at that point, you can release them as a free action. You will no longer be grappling.


I would have liked to see Scaled Horror a bit before, as Improved Grab allows you to instead pull the opponent in your space and incapacitate your enemies from afar before the rest of the group can catch up to you.

When I originally wrote about this build, I did include a level of barbarian for just that reason. As I've reviewed it more for this competition, I noted that Justicar comes from Complete Warrior, so the lawful alignment is in fact a continuing requirement. For barbarian, you could still slot it in before taking levels of barbarian and just delay hog-tie by a little; however, as barbarian requires unlawful alignment, I thought having the character be unlawful at level 1 or 2 would be antithetical to the build restrictions of "must be lawful."

Scaled Horror is the other nice way to snag Improved Grab, and if sloted in at 6, it does resolve that alignment issue. I thought about including it earlier, but I decided its usefulness at level 6 was ultimately really dependent on whether or not a necklace of natural attacks was available to enhance with throwing/returning. After all, pulling them into our square would be most helpful if it was from range, right? Given the competition's historic disdain for item-dependent builds, I figured it was best to wait for native access at Bloodstorm Blade 4 before I considered adding it back in -- and at that point, I figured the last 3 levels of Justicar were of more value before tossing in Scaled Horror. Maybe it would have been more potent at 17; I'm not sure if it could have reasonably come in much earlier than that for this competition. What do you think?

Wrt Elegance


Not much in the build is inelegant (a few CC skills, no dip except at CR 20, very focused on one goal and clean execution). Still, I just can't let the premice of the build go with no penalty. Throwing your own natural weapons, especially a slam, may work by RAW, but I don't know a DM that would allow it without a lot of penalties. Even if you could throw the slam without penalty, you can't throw as a weapon something that is attached to you. A hulking hurler could very much throw their armor, but they would have to remove first. You could throw the part with which you slam, but you'd have to rip it out of your body first, which would most definitely deal you a hefty amount of damage, and you probably wouldn't be able to reattach it without regeneration.

This is probably the point at which I'd like to make my most pointed dispute. The necklace of natural weapons in Savage Species explicitly uses throwing/returning at its sample enhancements.


Necklace of Natural Weapons: The enhancement
bonuses on this necklace are applied to attack and damage
rolls involving one or more of the wearer’s natural weapons.
In addition, any weapon special quality may be applied to
this necklace, and the quality then applies to those natural
weapons as well. For instance, a +1 throwing returning necklace of natural weapons would apply its enhancement bonus
and the throwing and returning special abilities to one or
more of the wearer’s natural weapons

As you said, the RAW doesn't preclude it, but I think the RAI is fairly clear here -- at least by my reading. I suppose it doesn't explicitly say you wouldn't have to tear off your limbs/claws/tail or what have you, but the RAI seems fairly explicit to me that, if you have a means to recover them, you can throw them without penalty. That's the sort of thing they would have put in the item description, don't you think?


Also, this is Villainous Competition. Seeing a regular human as a race is weird, especially considering you spend a lot of your build trying to wild shape into a mimic. Why didn't you just start as a mimic? Maybe with a single level of ranger to gain Track? Mimic is CR 4, instead of the 7 levels and 3 feats you spend on changing into one.

I'll eat a penalty here if you think it's appropriate; this is entirely a habit of mine. I try to build all competition characters such that they don't use options that players are ineligible to use. Mimics are LA -, so I didn't want to include it. This is partially because I like the thought of having these builds in my back pocket as player builds if an appropriate campaign shows up, but also because I like the idea that a party that thought the villain was very strong could be shown, if interested, that it wasn't built using DM-only tools; that it used the same tools available to them to create that sort of challenge.


That would also solve the problem of limited time wild shape, and the weirdness on if you can keep breathing water as a mimic,

This one is straight-forward; wild shape (based on alternate form) has you retain your subtypes and special qualities. That includes water-breathing. The swim speed is a little more confusing. You lose your form's movement modes... but as an aquatic creature, you HAVE to have a swim speed. RAW instructs us to give it a swim speed, but doesn't tell us how to invent one. It's a little quirky, but ultimately irrelevant to the concept of the build.


and if mimics have arms without Mimic Shape (the answer is no, they don't, they look like brownish-grey amorphous blobs).

I searched high and low for any RAW on this. There's a lot of non-RAW guesses and old 2.0 artifacts, but nothing for 3.5 that I could find. As I said up-thread, the only description of a mimic is:


A mimic can have almost any dimensions, but usually is not more than 10 feet long. A typical mimic has a volume of 150 cubic feet (5 feet by 5 feet by 6 feet) and weighs about 4,500 pounds.

When you wild shape, you assume the form of a mimic. Mimics don't have illusory forms though; they can use their ability to assume the shape of any object, and that is their true form. There isn't any text saying that they are amorphous by default, or even that they have a certain color as far as I can remember from when I researched this. As far as I can tell, you can just pick the shape you have when you use wild shape to take the form of a mimic (as there are mimics with that as their true form), but you'd lack the mechanism to change it further. Maybe RAI is that they'd be blobs, and I started with that assumption, but I ultimately wrote it the way I did because I really, really couldn't find any 3.5 RAW sources that dictated that their true form is anything other than the object they look like. Do you know of any sources contradicting this?

[Elves]

I didn't end up having time to do this. My idea was an Iaijutsu Focus zelekhut (the centaur inevitable that punishes criminals):


it can cause two spiked chains to spring forth from its forearms as a free action. Retracting the chains or the wings is also a free action.

This gives it the unique ability to use Iaijutsu Focus with natural weapons, and since the chains are shown in the picture as springing from its forearms rather than its hands, it can hold weapons to boot.

And since they're natural weapons, which can't be two handed anyway, this still synergizes as best it can with the zelekhut's ability to Spirited Charge as if it were mounted.

Slap on Corrupted by the Abyss template to make it an aberration then give it Imp. Rapidstrike for 4 more iaijutsu secondaries.

That makes its alignment chaotic so it can now dip barb for pounce so that it gets all those attacks with Spirited Charge.

[H_H_F_F]

I didn't end up having time to do this. My idea was an Iaijutsu Focus zelekhut (the centaur inevitable that punishes criminals):



This gives it the unique ability to use Iaijutsu Focus with natural weapons, and since the chains are shown in the picture as springing from its forearms rather than its hands, it can hold weapons to boot.

And since these are natural weapons, which can't be two handed anyway, it still synergizes as best it can with the zelekhut's ability to Spirited Charge/Shock Trooper with its normal attacks.

Slap on Corrupted by the Abyss template to make it an aberration then give it Imp. Rapidstrike for 4 more iaijutsu secondaries.

That makes its alignment chaotic so it can now dip barb for pounce so that it gets all those attacks with Spirited Charge.

Nice idea! Making your alignment chaotic wouldn't work this round though. There's an alignment restriction.

[loky1109]

Nice idea! Making your alignment chaotic wouldn't work this round though. There's an alignment restriction.

Actually having [Lawful] maybe enough for some judges.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Sorry for the no-show, gang.

1 dispute for you, Beni.




It's true that the attack roll is at penalty when you use it to flee; we do have native access to Guided Shot 2/day to mitigate that (although one will usually have been used to initiate the encounter), and we can use a wand optionally to get more access. Remember, though, that the creatures you grapple to to escape don't have to be CR-appropriate. You can sling yourself to a commoner 1 in the distance, or a dog, or a bird. Their AC will not be optimized; in all likelihood, they won't be armored. The -10 is notable, but it isn't crippling to the escape route.

There will not always be an animal or something grapple-able in range. 200ft is long, yes, but it's not out-of-range for a lot of spells, and without extended range gauntlets, some land creatures (a barbarian with a +10ft item, the wolf animal companion of that druid) and most flying creatures (those pesky summons) can even charge that far. Plus, you always have to either pin your opponent or use a standard action to release the grapple, which means you can't move further that turn. That's really an inconvenient way of moving around, even if we skip the -10. And the -10 makes it even worse, but it's not the main problem. No change.


However, mimic adhesive means you don't make the grapple attempt at all.
No, I mean, you can't hogtie a creature 2 sizes larger than you, it's in the ability description.
The "PCs are humanoid" is a good point, but I don't feel like it really changes the fact that you're a one-trick-pony. There can be Gargantuan summons, there can be Expansion'd PCs, or simply incorporeal PCs (there are some spells that do that). If a party couldn't improvise against such an enemy, they probably wouldn't have gone up to 10th level.


Remember that you use one iterative attack to grapple, one iterative attack to hog-tie, and one iterative attack to pin; at that point, you can release them as a free action. You will no longer be grappling.
That... is a good point that I overlooked. However, you can't do that (before CR 19). You only have two slams. If you want to use iterative attacks, then you'll have to take a -5 to hit with the slams, since you don't have any other natural attack and no Multiattack. Not that good. Also, I wonder if you even can release them by a free action, since your adhesive stipulates that they can't break free unless you dissolve the adhesive, which would take a standard action. Maybe that should have warranted a small hit to Elegance, but I'm not gonna change it for something that I didn't see. Anyway, doesn't work right now (but could work with a bit of tweaking), no change.


Maybe it would have been more potent at 17; I'm not sure if it could have reasonably come in much earlier than that for this competition. What do you think?
Honestly, I think it would have probably been good to take immediately after you get Throw Anything. It really just doubles your utility and battlefield control. Also, if you chose the "be a Mimic" route, you would have one more level of leeway and would have been able to take Scaled Horror while keeping Quick Draw and Far Shot at CR 15 ^^.


As you said, the RAW doesn't preclude it, but I think the RAI is fairly clear here -- at least by my reading. I suppose it doesn't explicitly say you wouldn't have to tear off your limbs/claws/tail or what have you, but the RAI seems fairly explicit to me that, if you have a means to recover them, you can throw them without penalty.
Well, no. It's not "if you have a means to recover them", it's "if you have a means to throw them". The throwing property is a magical property that explicitly allows it. Throw Anything is an extraordinary ability, whose description is "in your hands, any weapon becomes a deadly ranged weapon" and with a Special section expliciting that you can in general throw any weapon with a -4 penalty, heavily implying that the feat only allows you ignore that penalty. If you allow a character with Throw Anything to throw a Slam, then you should allow any character to throw the same Slam with a -4 penalty, and I really don't think a lot of DMs would allow that. Once again, I don't think the RAW really forbids that, and it could anyway be replaced by a necklace of atural weapons, which is why it's only an Elegance penalty and not a heavier Power one, but I'm not going to remove it.


I try to build all competition characters such that they don't use options that players are ineligible to use. Mimics are LA -, so I didn't want to include it.
It's not so much that being a human is inelegant, it's that you make all this work-around, with an ACF, 5 class levels, MoMF and 2 feats, to only emulate a monster that is available to you anyway. It's just weird to me. I understand that you want to build your villains yourself, but that's just arbitrarily limiting yourself then finding loopholes in your self-imposed limits. (Also, some monsters are really cool as enemies, and difficult to replicate without losing the flavor, and your players may appreciate that you put them in front of truly bizarre and original creatures once in a while. Nothing to do with that comp, but I just wanted to say that) And the fact that RAW you don't get the ability to change form makes it even more disbelief-suspension dependent to imagine the character, which is, in my opinion the primary criteria for this category.


This one is straight-forward; wild shape (based on alternate form) has you retain your subtypes and special qualities. That includes water-breathing. The swim speed is a little more confusing. You lose your form's movement modes... but as an aquatic creature, you HAVE to have a swim speed. RAW instructs us to give it a swim speed, but doesn't tell us how to invent one. It's a little quirky, but ultimately irrelevant to the concept of the build.
I completely agree and didn't remove a point here, I just mentioned it because Wild Shape nor alternate form mention that you get the breathing modes of the new form, which means that you could wild shape into a fish, just to drown.


I searched high and low for any RAW on this. There's a lot of non-RAW guesses and old 2.0 artifacts, but nothing for 3.5 that I could find. As I said up-thread, the only description of a mimic is:

Well, there is indeed previous editions manuals, following editions manuals, a dragon magazine article, and several books written by members of the staff of WotC that all consistently describe the mimic as "These amorphous, slime-like creatures [who] take the forms of everyday objects in their chosen environments.". But I (reluctantly) agree that I didn't find any for 3rd edition and that this description kind of supports your interpretation of the rules, even though I still find it quite inelegant to ignore all the descriptions of a monster that evidently hasn't changed since 1974 because there is no complete description of it in this specific manual. +0.25

[Elves]

Nice idea! Making your alignment chaotic wouldn't work this round though. There's an alignment restriction.
I just ain't no good at followin rules.

[H_H_F_F]

So, unless anyone else is judging, I'll try to do the reveal in 24 hours or so.

Having some thoughts about next round.

Love Hurts, second most popular vote in the previous round, will probably take more work and might end up with too few entries. I think I might delay that for now, unless you guys really want to go ahead with it.

So, among these other options, what would you prefer?



Ultimate Power!
Midsummer Nightmare
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

[Venger]

Wolf in sheep's clothing sounds good.

[loky1109]

"Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" one hundred percent!

[H_H_F_F]

Sorry for the delay, friends. Here's the reveal!



Name
Alignment / Race
Class Levels
Chef
Beni-Kujaku's Score
Place


Addy Sieve
LG amphibious azurin
Ranger 5 / Master of Many Forms 2 / Justicar 5 / Bloodstorm Blade 4 / Justicar 3 / Scaled Horror 1
Doctor Despair
14.75
1st
Gold


Long Tentacle
LE Ulitharid
Psion 2/ Body Leech 5/ Swordsage 1
loky1109
14
2nd
Silver


Jocasta
LN human
necromancer 2/ master specialist 3/ pale master 10/ master specialist 4/ divine oracle 4
Venger
12
3rd
Bronze


Nezethet
LE (?) Spellstitched Corpse-creature Githyanki
Factotum 4/Marshal 1/Ur-Priest 2/Fiendbinder 10
Eurus
10.5
4th


Unit-438
LN divine modron
Construct 18
loky1109
9
5th



Congrats to Doctor Despair for the win, and to loky and Venger for their medals! Thank you very much for judging, Beni!

I've accidentally deleted my PMs, so I've written down the chefs from memory. Please let me know if I've made a mistake!

New round coming soon.

[loky1109]

Thank you H_H_F_F for chairing!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/14/Opyat_dvoyka.jpg
If you are interesting about picture. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Marks_Again)
It looks fate. )))

Beni-Kujaku, about my entries.

There are only 4 Secundi in existence, and I highly doubt that more than 400 were killed during the existence of Mechanus. They don't even participate in Modron Marches, so I don't think this Secundus can be the 438th.
I didn't mean Unit-438 is Secundi #438, I mean Unit-438 is Mondron #438. Pretty ancient, yeah.


Also, you don't qualify for Danger Sense, and I really don't understand why it's even here.
It's an artifact of previous version. There was Improved Initiative. I removed it. Danger Sense stayed.


There's almost no synergy between your feats. That is weird.
I realize task turned out too much for me. Idea, I still think this, was amazing, but modron's casts were too different between them for end-to-end building through all casts as it is single sequence.

About Long Tentacle... I don't see there I can dispute your judging. Maybe I see Originality more than two, but Originality is subjectively and my look and your look... it should be different.
And I really appreciate so big Memorable points.

[Thurbane]

Congrats again everyone.

And apologies once more for not being able to judge.

[loky1109]

Congrats again everyone.
And apologies once more for not being able to judge.

If you'll be able (now or in the near future) you are welcome to Zinc Saucier judging.
As like as anybody who want.