Thoughts on E6 Ubercharger?

[Maat Mons]

I played around with this build a little before. But it's resurfaced in my mind recently.

This isn't for any specific game, but I'm building it the assumption of it being in an E6 game.

For an Ubercharger, you'll need Shock Trooper, which requires base attack bonus +6. In E6, you can only ever get that by sticking to full-base-attack-bonus classes.

I'd argue an Ubercharger should have Travel Devotion, so as to actually be able to charge every round. I'd also argue for enough uses per day of Travel devotion to be able to last a goodly number of encounters. That means either having Turn or Rebuke Undead, or taking the feat a whole bunch of times.

As far as I know, Paladin is the only thing that gets Turn undead by level 6 without losing a single point of base attack bonus. So I'm figuring on this being a Paladin build. Well, up to Paladin 4, at least. I'm not too enthused by the levels after that.

For dips, Barbarian is the obvious one. I mean, Pounce is only ever getting you one extra attack, but that's still pretty good. I guess you could do Whirling Frenzy for another extra attack, but then you'd need Extra Rage to use it in more than one encounter each day, and this is already pretty starved on feats until after 6th level. Also, Whirlpounce Barbarian is pretty cliché, and I'm looking for excuses not to use it.

Obviously, Paladin of Freedom fits better with Barbarian than regular Paladin. But I like Paladin of Freedom better thematically that regular Paladin anyway, so I would have gone with it in any case.

Fighter is another obvious dip. The bonus feats could help out here. In particular, if you take a Fighter level at 6th, you can use it to pick up Shock Trooper, but also get Leap Attack at the same level with your regular feat. Oddly, Leap Attack isn't a Fighter bonus feat, so you can't do it the other way around. Anyway, it means you wouldn't have to wait until your first epic feat to fully bloom.

Are there any other classes that would make compelling dips?

I'd argue flight is another thing an Ubercharger should have. I assume most of the good flight items are a little hard to get in E6, so I guess it makes sense to look at other options. Raptoran gives you wings. Dragonborn has wings as an option. Any dragonblooded race can gain wings with feats. Aasimar, Tiefling, and their lesser versions can also gain wings with feats.

I kind of like the Lesser Aasimar with the Outsider Wings feat from a thematic perspective. But getting all base saves to +2 is difficult in E6 if you don't use fractional progressions. My options are Paladin 6, or Paladin 4 / good Ref save 1 / good Will save 1, or Paladin 4 / good Ref and Will 1 / whatever 1. And I don't think any full-base-attack bonus class exists which has both good Reflex and Will saves.

In fact, I think the only class options with full base attack bonus and good Will saves are Duskblade, Hexblade, Knight, and the 3.0 version of Samurai. And none of those seem like compelling dips here. So I guess it's, ugh, Paladin 6 if I want my feathery angel wings? That may not be worth it.

I mean, straight Paladin loses the option to pick up bonus feats from Fighter. Plus, Paladin doesn't get Jump as a class skill. Leap Attack requires 8 ranks in Jump, so to get it in E6, I need it to be a class skill. That means taking another feat. And then two feats for the wings themselves, I'd be four feats into epic before I got everything together.

Maybe if I allow myself the charitable assumption of both fractional progression and flaws?
Lesser Aasimar Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian 1 / Paladin of Freedom 4 / Fighter 1
1: Power Attack
Flaw: Improved Bull Rush
Flaw: Travel Devotion
3: Celestial Bloodline (Races of Faerun)
6: Leap Attack
Fighter: Shock Trooper
Epic 1: Outsider Wings
I think that's as early as I could possibly squeeze things in.

If I give up on being an angel person, then without fractional progression or flaws, I could do:
Any race Fighter 1 / Paladin 4 / Fighter +1
1: Travel Devotion
Fighter 1: Power Attack
3: Improved Bull Rush
6: Leap Attack
Fighter 2: Shock Trooper
Or, you know, play a human or use flaws to need fewer Fighter levels. Being a scaly or a feathery makes this so much easier.

Anyone want to weigh in with thoughts on this? Especially ways to make the winged-angel-paladin girl come online earlier?

[sleepyphoenixx]

You could replace Paladin with Warblade and use Battle Jump and Leaping Dragon Stance instead of Leap Attack and Travel Devotion.
Battle Jump doesn't work if you're under a fly or levitation spell or effect but a racial fly speed should work i think since it's neither. YMMV.
Though you might not even need flight all that often as a Tiger Claw adept.

That way you can use your move action to move/jump and/or pick up Sudden Leap for potentially two charge attacks per round.
Aside from not being limited by TU uses in your charging you also get a bunch of maneuvers and it can be used potentially as early as level 1 with Sudden Leap and Battle Jump.

[Rebel7284]

While I strongly agree that free movement is very useful to a charger, Travel Devotion is far from the only way to get that.

From various boots that allow for tactical teleportation to Sudden Leap maneuver to Chronocharm, to those weird drugs that give you an extra move action every time you stab yourself, you have a lot of choices.

With that said, Paladin isn't bad anyway for a charger because of the Rhino Rush spell and potentially Charging Smite alternate class feature (although this requires Paladin 5)

Dragonborn is indeed a lovely way to get flight. Dragonborn Water Orc in particular lets you also take Headlong Rush for another damage multiplier while removing your light sensitivity.

Edit: If you have a bunch of feats that require high BAB, you can use Dragonborn to re-pick your feats as well by choosing some early on that require a certain Dex and then swapping them out once you do the ritual.

[liquidformat]

Here are some thoughts. With only 4 or even 6 levels of paladin, Holy Warrior ACF trading spells for a feat seems like a decent trade. Also if you do take 5 levels of Paladin taking charging smite seems worthwhile.

[Gruftzwerg]

here a non-paladin suggestion:


Raptoran

Fighter 2 / Barbarian 1 / Crusader 1 / Warblade 1 / XXX 1

1: Fighter
2: Barbarian
3: Crusader
4: Fighter
5: Warblade
6: xxx

xxx= barb/crusader/warblade or anything else with +1 BAB (Duskblade maybe?^^)

1: Cleave
1F: Power Attack
3: Improved Bull Rush
4F: Great Cleave
6: Shock Trooper

Warblade gives you access to the Sudden Leap maneuver to jump as a swift action. Buy some Anklet of Translocation (2x swift action teleport 10ft) for only 1,400gp and you should be mobile enough.

Pick Blood in the Water as stance and go for a +1 Valorous Keen Falchion. Each crit now gives you a stacking +1 on attack and dmg.

Crusader's delayed dmg pool and counterstrike can also provide +1 to attack and dmg.

We have now up to x3 charge multiplier (Valorous + flying dive with slashing weapon) and have a 30%chance (crit 15-20) to deal x4 dmg.

Pounce + Sudden Leap + Great Cleave should kill most of the stuff withing the first round of combat.

[sleepyphoenixx]

We have now up to x3 charge multiplier (Valorous + flying dive with slashing weapon) and have a 30%chance (crit 15-20) to deal x4 dmg.


Unfortunately Valorous requires CL 12 to craft and Keen requires CL 10 so neither are available in E6.

[Silva Stormrage]

Unfortunately Valorous requires CL 12 to craft and Keen requires CL 10 so neither are available in E6.


1) You can still get that high of a CL in e6 though admittedly it is harder.

2) The CL given for those weapon enchants aren't actual pre-reqs for crafting the items. You can see in MIC and such that the CL value is just the default CL for the item if found. The spells required and the feat and other misc pre reqs are all that is required.

3) However, Valorous requires Righteous Might a 5th level spell which is going to be tricky to get in e6. (It is a 4th level spell on Runescar Berserker's spell list but I imagine most DMs won't allow artificers to grab PRC spell lists in e6)

[sleepyphoenixx]

2) The CL given for those weapon enchants aren't actual pre-reqs for crafting the items. You can see in MIC and such that the CL value is just the default CL for the item if found. The spells required and the feat and other misc pre reqs are all that is required.
The item creation rules make it pretty clear that they are.


Caster Level for Weapons

The caster level of a weapon with a special ability is given in the item description. For an item with only an enhancement bonus and no other abilities, the caster level is three times the enhancement bonus. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability, the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met.

[Ursus Spelaeus]

It's cheesy, but you could try a dip into wildshape ranger. It gets the barbarian's fast movement at 1st level. You would then swap that out for the barbarian's pounce.

[EndlessKng]

What about Dungeon Crasher fighter? Two levels of fighter gets the base benefits, and lets you knock foes into walls. Combine that with shock trooper and you can potentially get the benefits of hitting them into a wall without going further back, if there's one to the side.

[Silva Stormrage]

The item creation rules make it pretty clear that they are.

Huh that is a weird quote considering that even for Valorous it is very explicit about the caster level NOT being a pre-requisite or requirement. "Pre-reqs: Craft Arms and Armor: Righteous Might"

Especially weird since that is a rule that seems to only exist for weapons and armor? Huh learned something new I guess. :smallconfused:

Edit: It could be argued that since the MIC doesn't contain that section for crafting magic items that it doesn't apply anymore but still that one is very much up to DM interpretation.

[Telonius]

The item creation rules make it pretty clear that they are.

That's for weapons and armor specifically. The "Caster Level" in magic item descriptions is the caster level of the item itself, which isn't necessarily linked to the caster level of the person required to create it. It's most important for how Dispel checks work against the item. Best example is Sovereign Glue and Universal Solvent; you don't need to be near-epic to make the stuff. If you did, it wouldn't exist. 20th-level casters have better things to do than sit around making magical Krazy Glue (or solvent they can sell at a whopping 50gp). But, if you have some of it, it's really hard to dispel it.

For weapons and armor, you're specifically called out as needing have to have a caster level equal to three times the enhancement bonus to create it. If a specific weapon or armor has both a bonus to enhancement and another requirement for a special ability, you have to meet the higher of the two. For example, Banded Mail of Luck gives a +3 enhancement bonus (as "+3 banded mail.") The description of the item says you need to cast Bless, which would be a pretty low level requirement; but since it gets that +3 you need to be a minimum level of 9 to create it.

Mithral Full Plate of Speed, on the other hand, is only a +1 enhancement (you'd need CL 3), but you also have to be able to cast Haste. So you use the higher CL for the crafting requirement.