Apple Corer Optimization Challenge I

[Inevitability]

https://i.imgur.com/5hVIrKS.png

Welcome to an all-new, all-different, all-exciting build competition! In a similar vein to Iron Chef, the playground's finest builders will compete to create a build that showcases the secret ingredient (SI). However, there's one small twist...

As the name suggests, the distinguishing feature of the Apple Corer Optimization Challenge is that most core material is removed!

What does 'removed' mean exactly? Let me explain:

General rules:
-The base classes, PrCs, feats, spells, races, cleric domains, templates, weapons, and armor that saw their first 3.5 printing in the PHB, DMG, or Monster Manual may not be selected during the building process.

-If any such removed material would be a prerequisite, this prerequisite is dropped. Thus, a class like Dervish now only requires +5 BAB, 3 ranks in dodge, and 3 ranks in tumble: the four feats are all from the PHB, so they're deleted. Entering Master Transmogrifist only requires a nonlawful alignment, 2 ranks in Bluff and 5 in Disguise: both the feat and spell requirement are dropped. The Cavalry Charger feat now only requires +6 BAB, and the Necropotent feat now only requires proficiency with the selected weapon.

-If any such removed material would be granted as a non-selectable bonus feat, bonus spell, template, or other, it is not granted. Nothing is gained in its place.

-Indirect use of this material is fine. If you somehow get a riding dog animal companion, it doesn't lose its Alertness or Track feats. You may shapeshift or polymorph into a human. You can summon creatures with core weapons without invalidating your build: they simply cannot hand those weapons to you. The broader world still has clerics, wizards, fighters etc: it's just your character that can't be of those classes. As a rule of thumb, if it's selected during character creation, it's not indirect.

-Requirements with an 'or' clause partially consisting of deleted requirements are modified to demand one of the non-core components. For example, the PHB2 feat Elven Spell Lore mandates either 17 intelligence or the elf race: now it always requires 17 intelligence.
-Requirements with an 'or' clause wholly consisting of deleted requirements, like Scion of Dantalion's racial requirements, are waived completely.

-If a requirement demands X feats/spells/etc from a mixed core/noncore list, and this requirement cannot be fulfilled without including at least one non-core element, X is lowered until the requirement can be fulfilled.
(for example, imagine a feat that requires two feats out of Skill Focus (Hide), Skill Focus (Move Silently), Stealthy, and Darkstalker; this requirement would be modified to merely demand Darkstalker)

-If a requirement has become inaccessible because all classes that granted it were core-only, nothing is done to make it accessible again. That said, almost any PHB class feature is attainable through other classes as well, so I'd be surprised if this invalidated many non-core classes or feats.

Classes:
-Classes that mechanically refer to a core class (that is, whose list of HD, skills, saves, and class features you could not reconstruct without opening up the PHB) are not legal choices, even if they were printed outside of core. This rule covers things like Battle Sorcerer or Paladin of Slaughter, but not Psychic Rogue or Urban Druid, because the latter two were printed in full and are standalone classes, rather than variants. Class features themselves are allowed to refer to core classes (like the hexblade's familiar feature).

Feats:
-A requirement of a non-core feat applied to a core weapon (like Weapon Supremacy (Greatsword), for example) is modified to only refer to the feat (in this case, Weapon Supremacy with the weapon unspecified).

-Although Weapon Proficiency and Armor Proficiency feats cannot be selected, this only affects classes that grant their proficiencies explicitly as feats, such as Ruathar. A knight is still proficient with all armor and martial weapons, because class-based proficiencies do not work on the basis of granting feats.

-Initiate feats and other such feats that mandate X levels in a core class drop this requirement fully. In the case of initiate feats, it doesn't matter that their requirement could technically be met out-of-core using classes like favored soul.

Spells:
-SLAs, Supernatural Abilities, and Extraordinary abilities that duplicate core spells still work normally.

-Classes that share a spell list with a core class still have access to any non-core spell on that list.

-Unlike classes and races, a non-core spell is allowed to refer to a core spell for its effect. Things like Greater Mirror Image or Psionic Teleport are legal to select on eligible characters.

Races and templates:
-Races that mechanically refer to a core race (that is, whose racial features could not be reconstructed without opening up the PHB or MM) are not legal choices, even if they were printed outside of core. This rule covers things like silverbrow humans and water orcs. Merely sharing a racial subtype with a core race, as illumians and whisper gnomes do, does not disqualify a race: anything that has its full racial traits printed outside of core is fine.

-Some racial subtypes originally appeared in core to represent one race (or a small number of mechanically similar races). Even though these subtypes later became obtainable in non-core sources, they are still removed as prerequisites. Subtypes covered by this rule are human, dwarf, elf, halfling, gnoll, gnome, and orc.

-The above rule similarly covers sub-races of the above that originated in core material, like 'drow' or 'duergar', and the two PHB races with a distinct mechanical identity but no unique subtype (half-elf and half-orc).

-The above rule does not cover anything else. Requirements like 'kuo-toa', 'beholder', or 'mind flayer' are not automatically removed. The same goes for subtypes that represent a wide variety of creatures, like 'reptillian' or 'goblinoid'. It never removes prerequisites that mandate some creature type, template, elemental or alignment subtype, and it never removes further modifiers to race (that is, a prerequisite like "female dwarf" simply becomes "female").

Weapons and armor:
-Although all the usual rules about item reliance still apply, it might be wise to inform judges of the weapons and armor you intend to be using, if any. Weapons and armor from non-core sources remain legal and obtainable, and should present a diverse array of options for the builders to make use of.




For the first challenge, builders will be optimizing around CHAMPION OF CORELLON LARETHIAN, from Races of the Wild! This class is massively altered by our removal of core requirements, now mandating only +7 BAB, a nonevil alignment, 4 ranks in diplomacy, 2 ranks in knowledge (religion), and of course the worship of Corellon himself. It grants four bonus feats that must now be drawn from a much smaller list, and offers several unique class features, not to mention some class skills rarely found on melee PrCs! With the burden of its many entry feats gone, can the builders whip up anything interesting?

Challengers will have a month to build. 32 pt. buy is assumed as the default, all official non-core WotC material is allowed, using approximately the same standards for 'official' that other build competitions have (Web content is fine, Dragon Compendium is fine, Oriental Adventures is fine, DCS is fine, but Dragon Magazine, 3rd party Rokugan, and other Dragonlance books are not).

Legal UA material includes spelltouched feats and racial paragon classes.
Gray UA material includes flaws and traits, which both may be used by builders and may be penalized by judges (a -1 elegance penalty per flaw is traditional).
Banned UA material includes the generic classes, spontaneous divine casters, bloodlines, LA buyoff, gestalt, alternative casting systems, item familiars, alternative skill systems, weapon group feats, and backgrounds.

As always, feats and class features that grant Leadership or a Leadership-like ability (including Draconic Cohort) are to be ignored and may not be traded away.

Builds will be judged by volunteer judges across four metrics, with each category earning a score between 1 and 5 (except elegance, see below):
Originality: is this build doing anything mechanically unexpected? Is it using novel tricks, or putting uncommon classes to good use? Is its general concept worth rewarding?
Power: Keeping the lowered power level in mind, is the build pulling its weight? Does it have easily fixed flaws?
Elegance: Is the build mechanically legal? Does it rely on ambiguous wording, uncommon variant rules, or DM fiat? Is it well put-together? Is it reliant on specific magic items or spellcasting services? A build that is unsalvagably illegal on the mechanical level may earn a score of 0 here.
UoSI: Is the build making good use of the secret ingredient? Is it putting the SI to any particularly creative uses? Is it using the SI to obtain some benefit, or because the competition mandates it? Is the SI making any innovative use of the competition's rules around core material, such as by avoiding useless prerequisites or finding elegant alternatives for missing core classes?

Builds will be posted anonymously with builders revealed after all judges have submitted scores.

Please don't speculate on possible builds until they have been posted.

The recommended style for submissions includes a build stub (like "NE Strongheart Halfling Rogue 1/Fighter 2/Rogue +2/Assassin 10/Invisible Blade 5"), a 20-level build table, a list of ability scores, and a summary of your character's tactics and capabilities for levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 at least, plus a list of sources. The following tables are encouraged.

NAME OF ENTRY


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


10th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
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11th
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+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


12th
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+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
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13th
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+x
+x
+x
Skills
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14th
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+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
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15th
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+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
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16th
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+x
+x
+x
Skills
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17th
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+x
+x
+x
Skills
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18th
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+x
+x
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19th
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+x
+x
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Skills
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20th
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+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities



Code immediately below (spoiler).

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



Spells per Day/Spells Known


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


Level
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1st
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2nd
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11th
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12th
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14th
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15th
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16th
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20th
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The submission deadline is 8:00 AM, GMT+0 March 12 2023. Please submit your builds by PM to the chair (me) before that time.

Any questions will be answered in the next post.

[Inevitability]

Q: What about the SI's bonus feats?
A: Bonus feats must be non-core and must be a feat that would normally have Mounted Combat, Combat Expertise, or Dodge as a prerequisite. Cavalry Charger is fine, Skill Focus is not.

Q: Are weapons of legacy based on core weapons allowed?
A: No.

[loky1109]

What about SI's bonus feat?


At 1st level and every three levels thereafter, you gain a bonus feat. This must be a feat noted as a bonus fighter feat, and the feat must have Combat Expertise, Dodge, or Mounted Combat as a prerequisite.

[Inevitability]

What about SI's bonus feat?

They don't turn into fully general bonus feats: you get to pick from the list that you'd normally pick from, excluding core sources as per usual.

Your eligible bonus feats must still be marked as 'fighter bonus feats' and they must still be one of the feats that would normally have Mounted Combat / Dodge / Combat Expertise as a prerequisite.

[Evoker]

Could we use a weapon type from a core source if it was a specific magic weapon printed in a non-core source? Eg: The Simple Bow from Weapons of legacy is a Longbow. Is it allowed, since it's a non-core magic item, or disallowed, because it's a longbow?

[Inevitability]

Could we use a weapon type from a core source if it was a specific magic weapon printed in a non-core source? Eg: The Simple Bow from Weapons of legacy is a Longbow. Is it allowed, since it's a non-core magic item, or disallowed, because it's a longbow?

Disallowed. When in doubt, use the rule of thumb: "Do I need to open the PHB to figure out what this does exactly?".

[loky1109]

I think I have an idea.

[Alea]

Are there any elf races that qualify here? I know we can ignore the requirement on champion, but I’m interested in an option that does different things for different races, and I want the elf one.

[pabelfly]

The more I look at Champion of Corellon Larethian, the worse it gets.

I'm still committed to finding a build with this though.

[Inevitability]

Are there any elf races that qualify here? I know we can ignore the requirement on champion, but I’m interested in an option that does different things for different races, and I want the elf one.

Without spoiling which ones: yes, there's races with the (elf) subtype that don't refer back to the PHB elf traits.

[pabelfly]

I have come up with an abomination of a character concept. I am near-compelled to develop it and see where it goes.

[loky1109]

I have one thought came to me.
Idea is about specific challenge environment. I think it should somehow be reflected in judging criteria. Like for Monster Mash. Why is entry here? Why can't it be regular IC entry?

[Inevitability]

I have one thought came to me.
Idea is about specific challenge environment. I think it should somehow be reflected in judging criteria. Like for Monster Mash. Why is entry here? Why can't it be regular IC entry?

I will at the very least note that in UotSI.

[loky1109]

Question.
Could we use abilities that work with or against some core stuff? For example, let's say, favorite enemy (dwarfs).

[Inevitability]

Question.
Could we use abilities that work with or against some core stuff? For example, let's say, favorite enemy (dwarfs).

That's fine! As stated, dwarves still exist, favored enemy is still obtainable, and you're not selecting dwarf as your race.

[loky1109]

Inevitability your inbox is full.

[Inevitability]

Inevitability your inbox is full.

And now it shouldn't be anymore!

[Khatoblepas]

This is very interesting! I got a couple of general questions:

1) If an ability that shares a name with a core ability (such as Multiattack in Masters of the Wild) showed up in a non-core source but was updated for 3.5 core, can you still use the non-core version of that ability, or is every version of that ability wiped out?

2) Do the bonus feats for the CoCL require you to meet their prerequisites for them to be taken (core bits notwithstanding) or are they true bonus feats?

3) For Elegant Strike, it should be read like this, right?

Elegant Strike (Ex): Upon reaching 2nd level, you become able to place your attacks where they deal greater damage. You apply your Dexterity bonus as a bonus on damage rolls (in addition to any Strength bonus you may have) with any of the following weapons: elven thinblade, elven lightblade, or elven court sword. Targets immune to sneak attacks or extra damage from critical hits are immune to your elegant strike.

[Inevitability]

This is very interesting! I got a couple of general questions:

1) If an ability that shares a name with a core ability (such as Multiattack in Masters of the Wild) showed up in a non-core source but was updated for 3.5 core, can you still use the non-core version of that ability, or is every version of that ability wiped out?

2) Do the bonus feats for the CoCL require you to meet their prerequisites for them to be taken (core bits notwithstanding) or are they true bonus feats?

3) For Elegant Strike, it should be read like this, right?

1. I specifically worded the ability to emphasize that the many feats that were non-core in 3.0 but core in 3.5 aren't allowed, so MotW multiattack is off the table just like how MMV multiattack is.

2. Speaking as a chair: that's up to individual judges to penalize or not. Bonus feats and prerequisites are a sure source of debate, and inviting that sort of controversy might very well be punished with an elegance penalty.

3. In practice it's likely to be that way, yes. You can't simply say 'my character uses a longsword' because the longsword is a PHB weapon.

[pabelfly]

I dont think I'll submit a build for this, but oh boy do I have a small essay to write about the ingredients.

[Soranar]

I've been working on a build and, though it certainly hurts to lose all the core stuff, it's impressive how bad this prestige class is even with the relaxed entry.

making this thing shine is really a challenge

[loky1109]

I have one more idea, but I don't think it works.

[SirNibbles]

I've never been a fan of classes with no real features being chosen for these kinds of competitions. If this class had no entry requirements and could be entered at level 1, it still wouldn't be worth taking: for 10 levels you get full BAB, bad skills, decent saves, 4 Fighter Bonus Feats, Dex to damage*, full movement speed in armor, and a weak smite-like ability.

Basically, for a 10 level investment, you become somewhat better at hitting things with a stick- or, more specifically, certain kinds of sticks. Corellon's Wrath is on par with first/second level Wiz/Sorc spells.

*You cannot become proficient with any of the weapons that this class requires for its Elegant Strike ability because they are either in the PHB and thus cannot be used: longsword; rapier; and scimitar, or they require a core feat, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: elven thinblade; elven lightblade; and "elven court sword" (which is surely supposed to be elven courtblade).

[pabelfly]

*You cannot become proficient with any of the weapons that this class requires for its Elegant Strike ability because they are either in the PHB and thus cannot be used: longsword; rapier; and scimitar, or they require a core feat, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: elven thinblade; elven lightblade; and "elven court sword" (which is surely supposed to be elven courtblade).

I've found four different ways to gain the proficiency. I just hate all of them for different reasons.

[loky1109]

I've found four different ways to gain the proficiency. I just hate all of them for different reasons.

I know at least three. And I even didn't search. )

[Lokiron]

I've found four different ways to gain the proficiency. I just hate all of them for different reasons.

I'm no expert in these games, but the class entry says, "in addition to the feats above, you must also take either weapon focus or Exotic Weapon Proficiency".

Seems to mean the feat is required, not the actual proficiency. Might be waived in these rules.

[pabelfly]

I'm no expert in these games, but the class entry says, "in addition to the feats above, you must also take either weapon focus or Exotic Weapon Proficiency".

Seems to mean the feat is required, not the actual proficiency. Might be waived in these rules.

Exotic Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus are waived since they're PHB feats.

You might still want the proficiency to get dex to damage though.

[Chronos]

Right, for this challenge, you can't take and don't need the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat. But you can get proficiency other ways than the feat, and might want to in order to benefit from that feature.

[Soranar]

what happens to favored classes?

say my character's race favored class is fighter, now fighters are banned

-does he not have a favored class?
-does it switch to any?

do we even use multiclass penalties in these things?

just want to make sure before I submit

[Inevitability]

what happens to favored classes?

say my character's race favored class is fighter, now fighters are banned

-does he not have a favored class?
-does it switch to any?

do we even use multiclass penalties in these things?

just want to make sure before I submit

If your favored class is fighter, you can't really benefit from that because you can't take levels in fighter. It doesn't switch to any.

Some judges will inflict elegance penalties on builds that incur multiclass penalties, others won't. It's always worth looking whether a build can be made without running into those penalties.

[Soranar]

Sorry, confused about a ruling again

core weapons are banned

but

the weapon in question is originally printed in a dragon magazine article (earliest version I could find)

there's a specific magic weapon that was printed in arms and equipment (which was march 2003 so it was before the player handbook)

but the weapon was later reprinted in the players handbook (which was printed in july 2003)

is this weapon legal to use?

[Inevitability]

Sorry, confused about a ruling again

core weapons are banned

but

the weapon in question is originally printed in a dragon magazine article (earliest version I could find)

there's a specific magic weapon that was printed in arms and equipment (which was march 2003 so it was before the player handbook)

but the weapon was later reprinted in the players handbook (which was printed in july 2003)

is this weapon legal to use?

The paraphrased rule is 'you may not select weapons that got their first 3.5 printing in a core book'. This is specifically to exclude feats that weren't in the 3.0 PHB, were in another 3.0 book, and then got printed in 3.5 core. Thus, the weapon is not legal.

[WeaselGuy]

Weapons and armor:
-Although all the usual rules about item reliance still apply, it might be wise to inform judges of the weapons and armor you intend to be using, if any. Weapons and armor from non-core sources remain legal and obtainable, and should present a diverse array of options for the builders to make use of.


So, does this mean we could use, for example, the Wildwood Breastplate, from Races of the Wild? It's clearly modeled after the PHB Breastplate, but it has a complete statblock right in the RotW book, so one wouldn't have to open the PHB to know how to use it...

[Inevitability]

So, does this mean we could use, for example, the Wildwood Breastplate, from Races of the Wild? It's clearly modeled after the PHB Breastplate, but it has a complete statblock right in the RotW book, so one wouldn't have to open the PHB to know how to use it...

Whether it is 'clearly modeled' after a PHB item sounds like a very subjective judgement that I'm in no place to make. The PHB doesn't give the stats of a 'wildwood breastplate', RotW does, so you can use it; simple as that.

[SirNibbles]

Whether it is 'clearly modeled' after a PHB item sounds like a very subjective judgement that I'm in no place to make. The PHB doesn't give the stats of a 'wildwood breastplate', RotW does, so you can use it; simple as that.




Each suit of armor described on Table 7–2 represents an existing kind of armor from the Player’s Handbook with a special material used in its creation.

Races of the Wild, page 167

[Inevitability]

Each suit of armor described on Table 7–2 represents an existing kind of armor from the Player’s Handbook with a special material used in its creation.

Races of the Wild, page 167


Still seems fine. I'll probably drop the armor and weapons restriction for the next round anyway (it's causing by far the most headaches out of any of the rules), if you got a full set of stats for legally-not-breastplates I'm not going to make a hard rule forbidding them.

[SirNibbles]

Still seems fine. I'll probably drop the armor and weapons restriction for the next round anyway (it's causing by far the most headaches out of any of the rules), if you got a full set of stats for legally-not-breastplates I'm not going to make a hard rule forbidding them.

I agree that the armor and weapons rules made it tough to even get a build started.




Medium and heavy armors (except breastplate) come with gauntlets.

Player's Handbook, page 118


This means that every medium and heavy armor in the game- unless specified otherwise- comes with an illegal weapon (thus making the armor itself illegal?) I didn't even bother discussing Unarmed Strike, which everyone has (but can't use per the rules), or Natural Weapons such as bites and slams. Which does actually allow for some interesting feat qualifications which require Natural Attacks but can be used without having them.

[Inevitability]

I don't like soulknives, but this one might just be the xeph-tion!


https://i.pinimg.com/564x/34/80/af/3480af1b9473e4fb8e3d17f45a091f88.jpg

CG Xeph Hidden Talent Bonus Feats Soulknife 6/Elf Soulborn 3/Tribal Protector 2/Champion of Corellon Larethian 9

Ermak is a xeph who lives in the nomadic tribe traveling through the endless steppes of the east. Their greatest threat always was orcs Gruumsh worshipers from the same steppes. But apart from them these xephs are welcome to any guests, even other orcs.
Ermak found an injured elf in the steppe once. This elf was the champion of Corellon Larethian and while he lived in the tribe he taught young Ermak some exclusive elven tricks in gratitude for saving your life.
Few years later Ermak was forced to become a protector of his own people. It was a hard time, orcs assaulted xephs' tribe with great cruelty and many men died, but everything that has a beginning also has an ending. One day a squad of champions of Corellon Larethian came to the aid of the suffered tribe. When orcs were pushed back elves left xephs, but Ermak went with them - he wanted to become one of elven god champions.

Abilities Initial Race/Template 4th 8th 12th 16th 20th Total
STR 14 -2 1 1 14
DEX 15 2 1 1 1 20
CON 14 14
INT 14 14
WIS 8 8
CHA 14 14

Level Class BAB Fort Reflex Will Skills Feats Class Features
1st Hidden Talent Soulknife 1 0 0 2 2 24: {+4} Autohypnosis: 4; {+4 CC} Diplomacy: 2; {+4 CC} Knowledge (religion): 2; {+4 CC} Survival: 2; {+4 CC} Truespeak: 2; {+4} Tumble: 4; Lightning Fists (1), Hidden Talent (Force Screen) (B) Mind blade, Weapon Focus (mind blade), Hidden Talent
2nd Elf Soulborn 1 1 2 2 2 4: Autohypnosis: 4; {+1 CC} Diplomacy: 2.5; Knowledge (religion): 2; {+1 CC} Survival: 2.5; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 2.5; {+1} Tumble: 5; Aura, smite opposition 1/day
3rd Elf Soulborn 2 2 3 2 2 4: Autohypnosis: 4; {+1 CC} Diplomacy: 3; Knowledge (religion): 2; {+1 CC} Survival: 3; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 3; {+1} Tumble: 6; Martial Study (Claw at the Moon) (3) Incarnum defense
4th Soulknife 2 3 3 3 3 6: {+2} Autohypnosis: 6; {+1 CC} Diplomacy: 3.5; Knowledge (religion): 2; {+1 CC} Survival: 3.5; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 3.5; {+1} Tumble: 7; Throw mind blade
5th Soulborn 3 4 3 4 4 4: Autohypnosis: 6; {+1 CC} Diplomacy: 4; Knowledge (religion): 2; {+1 CC} Survival: 4; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 4; {+1} Tumble: 8; Midnight Dodge (B) Bonus feat
6th Bonus Feats Soulknife 3 5 4 4 4 10: {+2} Autohypnosis: 8; Diplomacy: 4; {+2} Jump: 2; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+5} Truespeak: 9; {+1} Tumble: 9; Truename Training (6), Martial Stance (Blood in the Water) (B) Bonus feat
7th Soulknife 4 6 5 4 4 6: {+2} Autohypnosis: 10; Diplomacy: 4; {+2} Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 10; {+1} Tumble: 10; +1 mind blade
8th Soulknife 5 6 5 4 4 6: {+1} Autohypnosis: 11; Diplomacy: 4; {+3} Jump: 7; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 11; {+1} Tumble: 11; Free draw, shape mind blade
9th Soulknife 6 7 6 5 5 6: {+1} Autohypnosis: 12; Diplomacy: 4; {+3} Jump: 10; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 12; {+1} Tumble: 12; Elusive Target (9), Speed of Thought (B), Word Given Form (MA) Mind blade enhancement +1, Speed of Thought
10th Tribal Protector 1 8 8 7 5 6: Autohypnosis: 12; Diplomacy: 4; {+4} Intimidate: 4; {+1} Jump: 11; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 13; Tumble: 12; Melee Weapon Mastery (slashing) (B) Bonus feat, tribal enemy, homeland
11th Tribal Protector 2 9 9 8 5 6: Autohypnosis: 12; Diplomacy: 4; {+3} Intimidate: 7; Jump: 11; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 14; Tumble: 12; {+2} Back on Your Feet; Wild fighting
12th Champion of Corellon Larethian 1 10 11 8 7 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; Intimidate: 7; {+2} Jump: 13; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 15; Tumble: 12; Back on Your Feet; Resounding Blow (12), Mighty are Fallen (B) Corellon’s blessing, bonus feat
13th Champion of Corellon Larethian 2 11 12 8 8 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+1} Diplomacy: 6; Intimidate: 7; {+2} Jump: 15; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 16; Tumble: 12; Back on Your Feet; Elegant strike
14th Champion of Corellon Larethian 3 12 12 9 8 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+1} Diplomacy: 7; Intimidate: 7; {+2} Jump: 17; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 17; Tumble: 12; Back on Your Feet; Superior defense +1
15th Champion of Corellon Larethian 4 13 13 9 9 4: Autohypnosis: 12; Diplomacy: 7; Intimidate: 7; {+1} Jump: 18; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 18; Tumble: 12; {+2} Nimble Stand, Back on Your Feet; Dwarven Armor Proficiency (15), Deceptive Dodge (B) Bonus feat
16th Champion of Corellon Larethian 5 14 13 9 9 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+2} Diplomacy: 9; Intimidate: 7; {+1} Jump: 19; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 19; Tumble: 12; Nimble Stand, Back on Your Feet; Unimpeded movement
17th Champion of Corellon Larethian 6 15 14 10 10 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+2} Diplomacy: 11; Intimidate: 7; {+1} Jump: 20; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 20; Tumble: 12; Nimble Stand, Back on Your Feet; Superior defense +2
18th Champion of Corellon Larethian 7 16 14 10 10 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+2} Diplomacy: 13; Intimidate: 7; {+1} Jump: 21; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 21; Tumble: 12; Nimble Stand, Back on Your Feet; Weapon Supremacy (mind blade) (18), Melee Evasion (B) Bonus feat
19th Champion of Corellon Larethian 8 17 15 10 11 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+2} Diplomacy: 15; Intimidate: 7; {+1} Jump: 22; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 22; Tumble: 12; Nimble Stand, Back on Your Feet; Corellon’s wrath
20th Champion of Corellon Larethian 9 18 15 11 11 4: Autohypnosis: 12; {+2} Diplomacy: 17; Intimidate: 7; {+1} Jump: 23; Knowledge (religion): 2; Survival: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 23; Tumble: 12; Nimble Stand, Back on Your Feet; Superior defense +3
B - bonus feats
MA - Martial Art

Soulknife 3/Soulborn 3. Not bad attack bonus, potentially good AC with heavy armor and psionic version of shield, immunity to charms and paralysis. Up to three attacks per round during active Blood in the Water stance. Nothing mind-blowing, but good enough.
Soulknife 6/Soulborn 3/Tribal Protector 2. More numbers, but not only numbers. Now Ermak has some good synergies.
Midnight Dodge and Word Given Form is cool protection against any one opponent. Elusive Target also improves this combo.
Wild fighting gives another attack in addition to the existing four.
Mind blade enhancement opens Keen which synergy with number of attacks and Blood in the Water stance.
Melee Weapon Mastery, mind blade's enchantment +1 and smite increase chance to hit and damage before Blood in the Water will yield enough power.
Soulknife 6/Soulborn 3/Tribal Protector 2/Champion of Corellon Larethian 5. Unimpeded movement is the poor gold. With it variety of Dwarven Armors became more more useful for Ermak. It not only remove speed reduction, but through this lets Ermak use his Tumble skill. Elegant strike now adds +5 damage to each of six Ermak's attacks. Corellon’s blessing is extra 10 hp, it isn't big number, but also isn't excessive. Superior defense still doesn't work at its full potential, but already synergies with Dwarven Armors. Bonus feats selections isn't great with this competition limitations, but thanks for Midnight Dodge I found some useful options.
Resounding Blow is one of the few remaining feats with rider effect for crit fishers.
Soulknife 6/Soulborn 3/Tribal Protector 2/Champion of Corellon Larethian 9. One more bonus feat, this specific isn't so useful for heavy armored Ermak, but it at least could work, for example against touch attacks. Touch AC doesn't look very high (about 16-17 only). Corellon’s wrath improves all, now seven, attacks five rounds per day. Superior defense lets Ermak use all or almost all his Dex for AC now. Weapon Supremacy is must-have feat for every weapon user in Apple Corer format. +5 on a single attack every round is cool, take 10 on one attack per round is good for crit confirmation. With seven attacks per full attack I know if this is enough. +1 AC and ability to use my weapon in grapple also are cool features.

First - Armor. I want a Mithral Battle plate (Races of Stone, p. 155). It is on of the best option with my +5 Dex mod. If I can't find Mithral, but find enough Str improvements I could use Entropium armor (Arms and Equipment Guide, p. 20) to get the same AC and max Dex, but this material doesn't change armor type (heavy armor is still heavy) and Speed of Thought unfortunately shouldn't work, however it looks reasonable to let it work anyway because Unimpeded movement allows Spring Attack work as example (of course RAW it the sole feat rule, but iirc there just aren't another suitable feats in the PHB).
I still need some Str improvements (at least +2) to use Mithral Battle plate without encumbering. If I didn't manage to find any I'll use Mithral Interlocking plate (Races of Stone, p. 155). It gives one less AC and max Dex, but also gives +2 AC if I don't move more than 5 feet in a round and max Dex +5 is enough with my Dexterity.
Another armor material option is Elven Darkleaf (Arms and Equipment Guide, p. 19). It's the almost direct analogue of Mithral with one less max Dex and without weight reduction for some reason.
Of course if it is possible I want enchanted armor.
Shield. I want a beetle buckler (Arms and Equipment Guide, p. 14). It gives +2 AC while my Force Screen is inactive or gives the effect of Deflect Arrows while it works or the main threat is ranged attacks.

In addition any Dexterity or other stats improvements, cognizance crystals, psionic tattoos of metaphysical weapon will be welcome.

1) Midnight Dodge instead of regular Dodge. It's clear by RAI it should work with feats and abilities which have wording like "your Dodge target" or "specific foe to be affected by your Dodge feat," but by RAW it isn't. I hope you agree with my understanding.
2) Mind blade and Elegant strike. Mind blade has wordings "The blade is identical in all ways (except visually) to a short sword..." and "As full-round action, he [soulknife] can change his mind blade to replicate a longsword..." This means beginning from 8th level Ermak has his own longsword despite competition limitations, because it isn't actually longsword, but only a weapon "identical in all ways" to it. And I could get all mechanical information about how it works (damage, crit range, etc.) from XPH only, without opening PHB.
3) Keen. Yes, it's from DMG, but competition limitations don't include magical items. I asked the chairman.
4) Elf substitution levels. There is wording "To qualify to take a racial substitution level, you must be of the proper race." (Races of the Wild, p. 154) While there is no word "prerequisite," it definitely is a requirement, so according to competition rules it should be dropped.
5) Lightning Fists. While it can be debatable about the interaction of this feat and the monk's weapon by RAI, the text is unambiguous - "You can make two extra attacks in a round." without any weapon restrictions or limitations.

Type Name Book Page
Race Xeph Expanded Psionics Handbook 16
Class Soulborn Magic of Incarnum 25
Class Soulknife Expanded Psionics Handbook 26
Prestige Class Tribal Protector Sword and Fist 35
Prestige Class Champion of Corellon Larethian Races of the Wild 113
ACF Hidden Talent Expanded Classes, Part One link (https://web.archive.org/web/20151102171034/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a)
ACF Bonus Feats Expanded Classes, Part One link (https://web.archive.org/web/20151102171034/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a)
Substitution level Elf Soulborn Magic of Incarnum 45
Feat Lightning Fists Sword and Fist 7
Feat Hidden Talent Expanded Psionics Handbook 67
Feat Martial Study Tome of Battle 31
Feat Midnight Dodge Magic of Incarnum 39
Feat Truename Training Tome of Magic 229
Feat Martial Stance Tome of Battle 31
Feat Elusive Target Complete Warrior 110
Feat Speed of Thought Expanded Psionics Handbook 51
Feat Melee Weapon Mastery PHBII 81
Feat Resounding Blow Book of Exalted Deeds 45
Feat Mighty are Fallen Dragon Compendium 102
Feat Dwarven Armor Proficiency Races of Stone 138
Feat Deceptive Dodge Dragon Compendium 95
Feat Weapon Supremacy PHBII 85
Feat Melee Evasion PHBII 81
Martial Art Word Given Form Tome of Magic 218
Power Force Screen Expanded Psionics Handbook 108
Maneuver Claw at the Moon Tome of Battle 86
Stance Blood in the Water Tome of Battle 86
Skill Trick Nimble Stand Complete Scoundrel 88
Skill Trick Back on Your Feet Complete Scoundrel 85

[Inevitability]

The scary shapeshifting samurai and his sizing steelsword!


https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/7973d0de-ed75-4d80-807e-79f82afbe415/de91plp-d89e94fc-3c67-445e-91ad-fb172bfb6c91.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJ IUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQz NzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZT BkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6 W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzc5NzNkMGRlLWVkNzUtNGQ4MC04MD dlLTc5ZjgyYWZiZTQxNVwvZGU5MXBscC1kODllOTRmYy0zYzY3 LTQ0NWUtOTFhZC1mYjE3MmJmYjZjOTEuanBnIn1dXSwiYXVkIj pbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.0QfpZPes EB-JhJi1RSBnWMeu-DCKXLHPoKJAiSbW0mkThe Outcast

This changeling has pretended to be a half-orc for so long he's forgotten that he truly is a changeling. He was accepted into a house, raised as one of their own and trained to fight as they do but he always knew he was different.

When they found out he was shamed and turned away from the clan. Afraid for his life, the changeling perfected his skill at morphing, became a ronin and fled until he was found by a champion of Corellon Larethian who helped him escape from his pursuers.

Grateful, the changeling brought his skill and knowledge to the cause of Larethian and vowed to defend elves everywhere from orcs and their ilk.

Ability Scores
STR 16 (+4 from levels, +4 from classes)
DEX 14
CON 14 (+4 from classes)
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 14 (+1 at level 4 for imperious command)



Weapon : Ancestral Daisho Steelsword,Chondathan

An oriental Samurai has 2 suggested alternate weapons : a longsword or a scimitar. Since longswords work with elegant strike it's obvioulsy the best choice. Although longswords from the PHB are prohibited, the Chondathan Steelsword counts as a longsword. Depending on the level the sword will have specific enchantments gained through Ancestral Daisho.

-valorous, collision, morphing,wrathful healing, sudden stunning

Shield: Since regular shields and shield spikes are prohibited, I'm using a riding shield with razors (same as shield spikes but deals slashing damage). Through the ancestral relic it will gain specific enchantments too.

-fearsome (razors), flying, sizing

Armor: With 14 DEX and a +6 to DEX item I can use +5 DEX maximum. 3 is provided by levels in Champion of Corellon Larethian. The great armor found in oriental adventures gives you +7 to armor with a +2 DEX bonus. In this case any old armor will do so listing a specific material or template is pointless.

other: Ideally you'd want a belt of magnificience since you tend to use most of your stats but it's not strickly necessary

-moment of perfect mind from martial study
-aura of perfect order stance (always useful)
-daunting strike (yet another way to scare someone)
-rallying strike (healing)
-entangling blade (can be useful)
-foehammer (requirement for others, ignore DR)


Level 1-4
-You're a typical warrior class with a decent ability to intimidate
-you can use your concentration check to negate 1 will save per encounter
-you can customize your sword to give it the valorous enchantment fairly early
-you can rage if necessary (though you can't use moment of perfect mind while in a rage)

Level 5-12

-you get never outnumbered which you can combine with your shield (which has a fearsome enchantment) for great effect
-you're immune to crits, and you have extended reach
-your STR score is quite high and so is your CON score
-you can give your sword a crystal of return to let you trigger a iaijutsu focus when you catch your opponents flat footed through marbles, you have balance 5 which lets you use marbles
-headlong rush makes you a fearsome charger with banzai charge and your valorous enchantment
-you can morph your weapon into a spiked helmet which your extended reach lets your use despite it's 0ft reach, giving you another charge multiplier when it's useful to have one (sometimes you might be better off using the sword in it's sword form depending on the enemy)


Level 13-19

-your shield should have the flying and sizing enchants, letting it become a gargantuan animated object at your command (with 22 hardness), which makes for a great flanking buddy
-the shield can also carry the entire party and is a tireless flyer
-you can jump off your flying shield using roofjumper for a hefty bonus to damage
-you can dump marbles on the ground while flying on your shield to make your opponents flat-footed, letting you demolish them with a craven roof jumper banzai headlong rush iaijutsu focus charge
-the wrathful healing enchant (on your sword) should negate any fall damage you take from roof jumper
-intimidating rage combines just as well with the previous intimidate tactitcs

Level 20

-Stance of perfect order lets you take 11 on any roll once per round (moment of perfect mind, iaijutsu focus, intimidate, saves, jump, tumble, all around super useful)
-you have a way to heal everybody (maneuver)
-you gain another way to scare someone (maneuver)
-you gain a way to entangle someone




How this uses Champion of Corellon Larethian

-elegant strike works with a longsword and is multiplied on a charge through headlong rush and the valorous enchantment
-the armor bonuses help you use great armor effectively
-the bonus feats provide a death from above option (roof jumper) and
chink in the armor helps you to set that up
-sidestep charge can be useful into keeping you alive

Oriental Adventure
Complete Warrior (Ronin, warshaper)
Champions of Ruin (Craven)
Races of Faerun (spiked helmet, chondatan steelsword)
Races of the wild (Champion of Corellon Larethian)
Races of eberron (Changeling, racial emulation)
Unearthed Arcana (half orc paragon)
Underdark (razored shield)
Song and Silence (chink in the armor)
Tome of Battle (crusader, maneuver and stances)
DMGII (weapon and armor enchants)
PHBII (weapon and armor enchants, feats)






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


1st
Oriental Adventure Samurai
+1
+2
+0
+2
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +4,
Intimidate +4,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Racial Emulation
Ancestral daisho: Steelsword Chondathan


2nd
Half-Orc Paragon
+2
+4
+0
+2
Balance +2,
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +5,
Intimidate +5,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Divided ancestry, monstrous mien


3rd
Half-Orc Paragon
+3
+5
+0
+2
Balance +2,
Concentration +5
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +5,
Intimidate +5,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Martial Study: Moment of Perfect Mind
Rage 1/day


4th
Crusader
+4
+5
+1
+3
Balance +5,
Concentration +6
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +6,
Intimidate +7,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Furious counterstrike, steely resolve 5


5th
Warshaper
+4
+7
+1
+3
Balance +5,
Concentration +6
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +6,
Intimidate +8,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Skill trick: never outnumbered
Morphic immunities, morphic weapons


6th
Warshaper
+5
+7
+1
+3
Balance +5,
Concentration +8
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +6,
Intimidate +9,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Headlong Rush
Morphic body


7th
Warshaper
+6
+7
+2
+4
Balance +5,
Concentration +10
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +6,
Intimidate +10,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Morphic reach


8th
Ronin
+7
+9
+2
+4
Balance +5,
Concentration +10
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +7,
Intimidate +11,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Infamy, sneak attack +1d6


9th
Ronin
+8
+10
+2
+4
Balance +5,
Concentration +10
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +8,
Intimidate +12,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Ancestral Relic : dwarvencraft adamantine razored riding shield
Banzai charge


10th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+9
+12
+2
+6
Balance +5,
Concentration +10
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +9,
Intimidate +13,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Corellon's blessing, bonus feat: Roofwalker


11th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+10
+13
+2
+7
Balance +5,
Concentration +10
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +10,
Intimidate +14,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Elegant strike


12th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+11
+13
+3
+7
Balance +5,
Concentration +12
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +10,
Intimidate +15,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Craven
Superior defense +1


13th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+12
+14
+3
+8
Balance +5,
Concentration +14
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +10,
Intimidate +16,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Bonus feat: Roof-Jumper


14th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+13
+14
+3
+8
Balance +5,
Concentration +16
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +10,
Intimidate +17,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Unimpeded movement


15th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+14
+15
+4
+9
Balance +5,
Concentration +18,
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +10,
Intimidate +18,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Imperious Command
Superior defense +2


16th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+15
+15
+4
+9
Balance +5,
Concentration +18,
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +11,
Intimidate +19,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Bonus feat: Chink in the armor


17th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+16
+16
+4
+10
Balance +5,
Concentration +20,
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +11,
Intimidate +20,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Corellon's wrath


18th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+17
+16
+5
+10
Balance +5,
Concentration +20,
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +12,
Intimidate +21,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2

Intimidating rage
Superior defense +3


19th
Champion of Corellon Larethian
+18
+17
+5
+11
Balance +5,
Concentration +22,
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +12,
Intimidate +22,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Bonus feat: Sidestep Charge


20th
Crusader
+19
+19
+5
+11
Balance +5,
Concentration +23,
Diplomacy +4,
Iaijutsu Focus +12,
Intimidate +23,
Jump +4,
Knowledge Religion +2


Indomitable soul

[Inevitability]

Taking a concept and running with it!


Ayla: Neutral good Star elf; Scout5, wildrunner2, Fist of the forest 1, dervish5, Champion of corellon Larethian8
Str10, Dex16, Con16, int12, wis10,cha12 Put first increase in int, all others in dex Languages: Common, Elven, Sylvan

The raid had been routine: Charge in, Slay some villagers, burn the hammock, take the loot. Al in a days work for Brock and his Orcs. But then she had appeared out of nowwhere. Closing the distance in the blink of an eye, Wielding a sword as slender as she was. Both her and the sword moving at a speed brock had never seen before, never standing still, always attacking. He'd call it dancing if she wasn't so deadly. The only thing keeping him from running for his life was the knowledge that he would never get far.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ayla hid in the shrubbery marking the border between her terphouse and the swamp. Inside she could hear her farther shouting, cursing. There were empty bottles on the porch, most of them broken. He was drunk…, again…. Ayla's mind wondered back to the happy times she had playing with her mom and dad on that lawn before her, swimming in the many ponds, learning all about the wildlife around her. That was only a year ago, but before her mother died though. Her dad had never been the same since. Ayla felt like she lost both her parents that day. She slung the freshly caught fish over her shoulder, and turned back into the swamp. A tear rolled down her cheek. 'Not sure where he got the booze from this time, but It'll eventually run out, I'll return to check on him then.' she thought. Maybe that hermit across the swamp can stomach some company for a few days.




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


1st
scout
+0 (0)
+0 (0)
+2 (2)
+0 (0)
balance4, hide4, kn nature4, listen4, move silently4, Ride4, Spot4, survival4, tumble4
militia(lvl1)
Skirmish (+1d6), trapfinding


2nd
scout
+1 (1)
+0 (0)
+1 (3)
+0 (0)
balance1, hide1, kn nature1, listen1, move silently1, Ride1, Spot1, survival1, tumble1

Battle Fortitude +1, uncanny dodge


3rd
scout
+1 (2)
+1 (1)
+0 (3)
+1 (1)
diplomacy2, hide1, listen1, move silently1, perform(dance)2, survival1, tumble1
improved weapon familiarity(lvl3)
Fast movement +10ft, skirmish (+1d6, +1AC), trackless step


4th
scout
+1 (3)
+0 (1)
+1 (4)
+0 (1)
diplomacy2, hide1, listen1, move silently1, perform(dance)2, survival1, tumble1
Danger Sense (sc4)
Bonus feat


5th
scout
+0 (3)
+0 (1)
+0 (4)
+0 (1)
diplomacy2, hide1, listen1, move silently1, perform(dance)2, survival1, tumble1

Evasion, skirmish (+2d6, +1AC)


6th
wildrunner
+1 (4)
+2 (3)
+2 (6)
+0 (1)
handle animal4, spot1
improved skirmish
Fast movement, trackless step


7th
wildrunner
+1 (5)
+1 (4)
+1 (7)
+0 (1)
diplomacy2, kn religion2, spot1

Primal scream, scent


8th
fist of the forest
+1 (6)
+2 (6)
+2 (9)
+0 (1)
kn religion2, spot 1

AC Bonus, Feral trance 1/day, Fast movement, primal living


9th
Dervish
+1 (7)
+0 (6)
+2 (11)
+2 (3)
perform(dance)5
travel devotion(lvl9)
Dervish dance 1/day, movement mastery, slashing blades


710th
CoCL
+1 (8)
+2 (8)
+0 (11)
+2 (5)
handle animal1, skill trick2(collector of stories)
Shadowborn warrior (CoCL1)
Corellon's blessing, bonus feat


11th
CoCL
+1 (9)
+1 (9)
+0 (11)
+1 (6)
kn arcana3

Elegant strike


12th
CoCL
+1 (10)
+0 (9)
+1 (12)
+0 (6)
kn arch&eng3
Tactile trapsmith(lvl12)
Superior defense +1


13th
CoCL
+1 (11)
+1 (10)
+0 (12)
+1 (7)
kn planes3
Mighty are Fallen(CoCL4)
Bonus feat


14th
CoCL
+1 (12)
+0 (10)
+0 (12)
+0 (7)
kn nature3

Unimpeded movement


15th
CoCL
+1 (13)
+1 (11)
+1 (13)
+1 (8)
kn dungeoneering3
travel devotion(lvl15)
Superior defense +2


16th
CoCL
+1 (14)
+0 (11)
+0 (13)
+0 (8)
kn religion3
surprising riposte (CoCL7)
Bonus feat


17th
CoCL
+1 (15)
+1 (12)
+0 (13)
+1 (9)
kn arcana3

Corellon's wrath


18th
Dervish
+1 (16)
+0 (12)
+1 (14)
+1 (10)
tumble5
Slashing flurry(lvl18)
Fast movement +5 ft.


19th
Dervish
+1 (17)
+1 (13)
+0 (14)
+0 (10)
perform(dance)5

dervish dance 2/day


20th
Dervish
+1 (18)
+0 (13)
+1 (15)
+1 (11)
tumble5






Ayla uses her good perception skills and initiative (danger sense) to start encounters from a distance. Fast movement helps her keep that distance, and skirmish guarantees a decent damage output. Martial weapon proficieny means she can use an Atlatl at range as a good non core weapon. If she does end up in Melee, weapon familiarity means she can wield her Elven courtblade (after having started out with a heavy sickle). Defensively she's restricted to light armor, but she complements that with a good dex, and fast movement to stay/get out of trouble if needed. Summary: Speed: 40ft. AC 17 (assuming +3 wildwood chainshirt and +1 skirmish). Ranged attack: +6 Atlatl spear: 1d4+2d6skirmish

A lot has happened in the last 5 levels. Between primal scream and feral trance, Ayla has picked up 2 dex boosts. She also picked up 20 extra feat of fast movement. Damage output got boosted with an extra 2d6 extra skirmish damage from improved skirmish. Travel devotion means she can now move and full attack from range, fully taking advantage of her improved skirmish. The level of dervish really brings out her melee capabilities as well: Dervish dance means she can combine her full attack with moving her (impressive) movespeed, triggering her skirmish damage on her courtblade as well. 8 ranks in tumble, a dex that can be boosted to 26 and the ability to always take 10 on tumble checks means she can tumble through threatened squares without provoking AoO's. the +1 AC bonus and +1 to attack and damage in a dance are just gravy. We have also just gotten our first level of CoCL, giving us a nice bonus feat. The real gravy of this class, our impressive dex to damage, will have to wait for another level though. Defensively she gets CON (+3) to AC when unarmored. This beats all but the most expensive of light armors, and poses no limit on Dex to AC, which fully boosted comes out to an impressive +8. Primal living means she has to sleep outdoors and 'live of the land'. Ayla has 8 ranks in survival and gets a +2 synergy from kn nature, so the DC10 survival check to feed herself is an auto-succes. Ayla could really benefit from weapon finesse at this point. With that being unobtainable, she would REALLY benefit from a feycraft weapon (essentially doing the same thing). Which is (apart from needing weapons) really her only item dependence throughout the build. Summary: Speed 60ft. AC 17(22boosted) (assuming +1 skirmish, unarmored). Ranged attack: +11/+6(+16/+11boosted) Atlatl spear: 1d4+4d6 imp. skirmish. Melee: +11/+6(+18/+13boosted) Elven Courtblade: 1d10+4d6 imp.+0(+2boosted) skirmish (assuming feycraft Elven Courtblade)

Ayla's gained 5 levels of CoCl. Giving her a whole new set of skills that weren't available to her before. Pickup up a veriaty of knowledge skills and 'collector of stories' to help size up opponents. Tactile trapsmith provides yet another use for her impressive dex scores, but of course the best feature from these levels by far: dex to damage from elegant strike. perfectly complementing her impressive movement speed and full attack capabilities. Defensively 'mighty are fallen' provides an extra boost vs power attacks, and she's picked up an extra travel devotion. I think level 11 where we pick up elegant strike is really where this build brings everyting together. Summary: Speed 60ft. AC 18(23boosted) (assuming +1 skirmish, unarmored). Ranged attack: +17/+12+7(+22/+17/+12boosted) Atlatl spear: 1d4+4d6 imp. skirmish. Melee: +17/+12+7(+24/+19/+14boosted) Elven Courtblade: 1d10+4(+11 boosted)+4d6 imp. skirmish (assuming feycraft Elven Courtblade)

Ayla hits CoCL8, For her final damage boost in corellon's wrath which she can use one additional attack per round with Slashing flurry. Also: a second use of dervish dance never hurts. Summary: Speed 65ft. AC 18(23boosted) (assuming +1 skirmish, unarmored). Ranged attack: +22/+17+12+7(+27+22/+17/+12boosted) Atlatl spear: 1d4+4d6 imp. skirmish. Melee: +22/+17/+12+7(+32/+27/+22/+17boosted) Elven Courtblade: 1d10+4(+12 boosted)+4d6 imp. skirmish (+2d6Boosted) (assuming feycraft Elven Courtblade)

The build would really benefit from a dex boosting race. I was unable to find an elf race within the current rules to satisfy this requirement. So I had to settle with star elf. I have considered just eating the non-proficiency penalty on the courtblade to go for a lesser thiefling. the +4 dex and small size would mean Ayla would only effectively be down -1 on 'to hit' with the courtblade whilst boosing her ranged attacks and all her damage output. I think it's mechanically better, but I just don't think it's very elegant.
The build can work pretty much without being dependent on specific items although obviously our selection of useable melee weapons is limited by CoCL itself. In addition this build could REALLY benefit from the 'feycraft' weapon property to get dex on 'to hit' in melee, replacing the weapon finesse one would normally take in this build. Having said that: As any melee build Ayla could really benefit from a whole range of stat boosts. CON would boost both hitpoints and AC, DEX would boost AC, To Hit and damage. So they would be the primary stats to boost through items.
The build does get both a bite (and claw) attacks when boosted by feral trance/primal scream. I have not statted/mentioned those in the build. The claws are useless if we're wielding a weapon. The bite could actually be added as an extra attack If the rules allow this. By the time we get it, the damage would be marginal though (as dex to damage doesn't apply here)
I found it challenging to find suitable candidates for the COCL bonus feats. Surprising riposte in particular, but basically all CoCL bonus feats are rather underwhelming/situational, but it's the best/only feats available that acutally do anything for Ayla outside core. At first sight there's a lot of 'non-core' feats that are suitable, but most of them require the use of core feats. So even though the core feats are waived as pre-reqs, they still restrict the use of selectable feats (combat defence (PH2) is a good example). We've started with a 12 in INT and upgraded it to 13, only to qualify for enough feats to complete the build.

Unapproachable east (Star elf)
Complete adventurer(scout, danger Sense, tactile trapsmith)
races of the wild (wildrunner, Champion of Corellon Larethian, elven courtblade, wildwood chainshirt)
complete champion (fist of the forest, travel devotion)
complete warrior (Dervish, improved weapon familiarity)
Players guide to faerun (militia)
complete scoundrel(improved skirmish, skill tricks)
Drow of the Underdark (Shadowborn warrior, surprising reposte)
Dragon compendium(mighty are fallen)
PHII (slashing flurry)
Sandstorm (Atlatl)
Planar handbook (heavy sickle)

[Inevitability]

And that's all! Three builds; any prospective judges won't have too much work on their plate.

[pabelfly]

Scoring table:



Entrant
Race
Build
Score


Ermak
Xeph
Soulknife 6/Soulborn 3/Tribal Protector 2/Champion of Corellon Larethian 9



The Outcast
Changeling
OA Samurai 1/Half-Orc Paragon 2/Crusader 1/Warshaper 3/Ronin 2/Champion of Corellon Larethian 10/Crusader +1



Ayla
Star Elf
Scout 5/Wildrunner 2/Fist of the Forest 1/Dervish 4/Champion of Corellon Larethian 8

[pabelfly]

So I had a lot of trouble getting this to work, let alone to a standard I thought worth submitting. What I could get to work felt too obvious and boring. If it wasn't obvious and boring, I wasn't taking advantage of COCL's abilities or I didn't reach a level of damage per round that I felt acceptable.

Star Elf (or Changeling + Racial Emulation) + Improved Weapon Familiarity + Crusader 14 + Champion of Corellon Larethian 6 was probably the nicest build I came up with. 9th-level manoeuvres, BAB 20, our prestige class gives us some nice feats, dex to damage, and full movement in heavy armor. But initiators are overused in comps and I felt it too obvious and boring to write up a build for, let alone ask someone to judge.

The other two ways I found to get proficiency with an elven weapon was Master of Masks and Royal Explorer. But their skill point requirements were really messy for any classes I wanted to use, even when I was willing to take a feat to fix my class skills.

However, it looks like we have some interesting builds here. Good luck to everyone who entered.

[loky1109]

The other two ways I found to get proficiency with an elven weapon was Master of Masks and Royal Explorer. But their skill point requirements were really messy for any classes I wanted to use, even when I was willing to take a feat to fix my class skills.
Also Binder 11.

[pabelfly]

Also Binder 11.

Which vestige gives that? I can see Eligor gives heavy armor proficiency and no extra weapon proficiencies, and Marchosias doesn't give any weapon proficiencies either.

[loky1109]

Which vestige gives that? I can see Eligor gives heavy armor proficiency and no extra weapon proficiencies, and Marchosias doesn't give any weapon proficiencies either.

One of psionic vestiges from web.
Upd: it's Triad

[pabelfly]

One of psionic vestiges from web.
Upd: it's Triad

Nice find. I'll have to add that to the weapon proficiency thread. Triad is a 6th-level vestige so it comes online at level 12 (10 with Improved Binding feat).

[Frostmoon]

Nice find. I'll have to add that to the weapon proficiency thread. Triad is a 6th-level vestige so it comes online at level 12 (10 with Improved Binding feat).
Yeah, I was thinking of building a Binder 10/Champion 10, utilizing the Improved Binding feat for a very clean build. I got distracted by other stuff, though, so I never made the character.

[loky1109]

Yeah, I was thinking of building a Binder 10/Champion 10, utilizing the Improved Binding feat for a very clean build. I got distracted by other stuff, though, so I never made the character.

I thought about that, too, but I flyed in another country for vacation and couldn't make a second entry.

[Chronos]

Triad is a 6th-level vestige so it comes online at level 12 (10 with Improved Binding feat).
I'm confused... There are binders who don't take the Improved Binding feat?

[loky1109]

Nice find. I'll have to add that to the weapon proficiency thread. Triad is a 6th-level vestige so it comes online at level 12 (10 with Improved Binding feat).

Improved Binding gives only +1 binder level.

[Inevitability]

Improved Binding gives only +1 binder level.



Benefit

Your effective binder level is 2 higher than normal for the purpose of determining the level of vestige you can bind. This benefit does not increase your binder level in any other circumstance.


Are you thinking of Improved Turning, perhaps?

[loky1109]

Are you thinking of Improved Turning, perhaps?
Hm... I think I misremembered this. +2 is better. )))

[Beni-Kujaku]

I'm confused... There are binders who don't take the Improved Binding feat?

About as many as druids without Natural Spell, I'd presume ^^. Or paladins without Battle Blessing.

[Inevitability]

Or paladins without Battle Blessing.

I think there's slightly too many charisma-primary characters dipping paladin 2 for this one to work.

[loky1109]

About as many as druids without Natural Spell, I'd presume ^^. Or paladins without Battle Blessing.

Well, druid without NS and paladin without BB are things I could imagine. Binder without IB - isn't.

[loky1109]

About not used ideas. I had in mind adamantine body warforged ardent metamorphosed into Nimblewright.

[loky1109]

Judges? Anybody?

[Twurps]

Judges? Anybody?

I guess judging this is equally challenging as making a build, with both power level and originality difficult to benchmark. Still I hope at least 1 judge steps forward.

[loky1109]

Any updates folks?

[Twurps]

I don't think we'll get a judge.
So we can either revert to the alternative judging system introduced in this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?655908-Junkyard-Wars-XLII-Smite-Mounted-Combat-Paladin), or we can just reveal. I'm perfectly happy with the latter as well.

By now it's rather obvious which people submitted builds, but I still like to know which build belongs to which 'chef'.

[H_H_F_F]

Huh, this wasn't really on my radar. I can judge. Give me a few days.

[loky1109]

Huh, this wasn't really on my radar. I can judge. Give me a few days.
You are the best!

[H_H_F_F]

Update: already made some progress, should have plenty of free time tomorrow to keep working. Shouldn't take too long.

For anyone that hasn't seen my judgements before: I tend to be very analytical and critical. That never means I don't appreciate your build, I do! It's just the way I approach judgement.

[H_H_F_F]

Elegance is taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

I should still be able to finish this weekend. Best case scenario is Wednesday, though tha'll be a surprise.

[Inevitability]

Elegance is taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

I should still be able to finish this weekend. Best case scenario is Wednesday, though tha'll be a surprise.

Thank you so much for judging here! It's appreciated.

[H_H_F_F]

Update: I'm nearly done (just have to finish evaluating one entry, with which I'm over half done) but I'm busier than I thought prepping for some work stuff and attending holiday functions. Might take just a bit more time. Sorry for the delay!

[loky1109]

Update: I'm nearly done (just have to finish evaluating one entry, with which I'm over half done) but I'm busier than I thought prepping for some work stuff and attending holiday functions. Might take just a bit more time. Sorry for the delay!

Thank you for update!

[Twurps]

Update: I'm nearly done (just have to finish evaluating one entry, with which I'm over half done) but I'm busier than I thought prepping for some work stuff and attending holiday functions. Might take just a bit more time. Sorry for the delay!

No worries, with this very unusual rule-set you're actually on the fast side of what I would have expected.
Also: We're just happy to have a judge at all, so thank you!

[H_H_F_F]

Judgement coming tomorrow.

[H_H_F_F]

Judgement coming tomorrow.

Ugh. Sorry guys, got distracted, and am a bit tired. Coming soon!

[H_H_F_F]

Yo, judgement's here.

Originality:

Xeph? Sure, a little weird, but it's just "+dex and a power point" here. We'll talk about it in power, be sure of it.

Soulknife/soulborn? Now THAT's actually weird. And unlike Xeph, Soulknife is at the very heart of this build. Tribal protector (where the heck did you pull that from) is also weird, and here for a reason.

The strange chassis is complemented by strange tactics. Your offensive tactics aren't very novel ("hit them a lot") save for some exotic feats to serve that goal. Your defensive tactics are fun and unique, and not something you'd see outside this competition. Nice! We'll talk more both about your defense and about your offense in the following categories. Prepare for gloom.

Overall, nothing you do blew my mind to smithereens, but more than enough of it is very strange and out of the ordinary; well done!

Score: 4 points.


Elegance:

Baseline is fine. No multiclass penalties, skills look right. Your tactical section is a bit lacking, but not too bad. As always, everything you use is meticulously sourced and accessible. I appreciate that.

I don't think you ever tell me who your tribal enemy is. I can infer it’s "a tribe of orcs", but it would've been nice to be told directly.

Does the mind blade not require us to go to the PHB to figure out what it is, and is therefore illegal for this comp? I don't think it goes quite that far, but it does have a couple of issues. It doesn't say it's a melee weapon – but it does it's light, which means it's melee. If reach isn't mentioned, we can assume it doesn't have any. We're given damage and the crit multiplier. We don't know if it's thrown, but we can infer it's not from the "throw mind blade" ability. We don't know if it has weight, and if so how much. That's an issue. We're not given Crit multiplier for the longsword form. We could claim that we can infer it doesn't change unless it says so, but that's a bit of a copout. To me, that and the weight questions are the biggest issues.

If it was a piece of equipment, I'd probably consider calling it illegal material. Given that it's not a weapon, but a class feature, I'd say I can safely let the weight issue go, and say a modest penalty is enough for the Crit Range problem. Again, this is a problem because we can't open the PHB, it's not something I'd ever penalize outside this comp.

You don't qualify for claw at the moon when you take it. Your ML is 1, and it's a second level maneuver. You either have to argue that RAW, you can take a 9th level maneuver if you want, since ML is not a "prerequisite" (a sound reading, but far from rock-solid IMO, which is what you want when you pull cheese) or swap places with truespeak training (better, methinks.) I'll assume the latter here, and smack you with a penalty.

You also have a calculation error on your saves (you made soulknife 4 advance the weak save instead of the good ones). You should end at 14/12/12.

Lightning fists is broken as ****. And I don't mean broken in the sense of OP, it's just… broken. It's obvious what they intended it to be: you make two more unarmed/monk weapon strikes at your highest BAB. But they didn't say that. No limitation on the kind of attack is good for you. Not specifying "at your highest attack bonus"… less so. You're in a rules limbo, and ruling it as your highest attack bonus makes just as much linguistic-and-rules sense as your lowest – and of course, you could make a weaker argument for literally anything else. This feat is dysfunctional. I'm going to go with the "highest attack bonus" logic here, but you're still using completely dysfunctional material, which is always a significant hit for me here.

Midnight dodge: nope. You can't go "RAW is RAW" on lightning fists weapon limitation, and "RAI seems to favor me when I squint" on midnight dodge. Live by the RAW, die by the RAW. 2/3 options in elusive target are dead weight. Word given form was clever, but it's dead. Melee evasion is dead. I thought deceptive dodge might have a chance to get a penalty here but still work, with "dodge target", but when I opened the book, it did say "as per the dodge feat". Sorry, I know this sucks. You've invested a lot of resources here, and RAI is clearly on your side – but you can't attempt cheese like lightning fists and then go for this argument. You ]know this. If you're ever trying to do something that unquestionably isn't RAW, and get away with a mere penalty, you just have to avoid anything that might raise a DM's eyebrow. Can't dance in two weddings.

Overall, this build is a mess.

Score: 1.6 points.


Power:

Once we get rid of the unquestionably illegal defensive elements (sorry again) what does this build do?

Well: it still has very decent AC, and it attacks. A lot. You can make 3 attacks per turn, every turn, at level 1. At the end of your career, you can make 7 per turn, every turn. But this all comes with a price: you're extremely susceptible to the "flurry of misses" issue.

At level 1, for example, your to-hit is +1. That's worse than most wizards. Taking a -5 to that means attacking 3 times, sure – but it means attacking 3 times with a -4 to hit. You don't want to do that. Not that a +1 to-hit for 1d6+1 damage is such a good alternative. All this to say, you kind of suck early on. Xeph is honestly a pretty baffling racial choice for you. You get dex, but you spend levels 4 and 8 getting back the lost strength instead of improving said dex, which means at level 8 you're right were you started. Generally, Strength is just too important to sacrifice so willy-nilly! It's your to-hit stat! You let that go to ****, and for what? A power point? Standard-action activated burst that you never mention? What's the point? Not getting multiclass penalty? Go anything with (any), or go for the unimaginably superior Azurin! Sure, it's less "original" – but if your only justification for your race choice is "it gets me points in originality", you're in the wrong race. That's the way I personally see it, at the very least.

Couple of levels later, and things don't really change. You get claw at the moon (well, you know), but you don't have the jump check to do anything with it. I know it's just a prereq, but still – you could've put some ranks into jump for the extra damage which would be huge for you at these early levels, instead of fixating on getting autohypnosis as a class skill. Think of it this way: at level 6, you can hit 3 times with a +1 to hit, for a chance of 1d6+1 damage per hit; or you can hit just once, with a +6 and, for 3d6+1. It's a better use for your smite, too. You want this jump check early on, even if it does stagnate later. It does stagnate later, but that's when you decide to get it – when you're also committed to an armor with -7 Armor check penalty. What the heck is going on?

Slow and steady, you try to pull yourself out of the muck – but you're stuck with your primary attribute at the gutter, and with a mindblade that stops at +1, never to improve again. Weapon mastery is a decent feat, and it's a godsend for you with your to-hit so far behind optimal. It's also a level before you get wild fighting, which I think you'll find yourself using a lot more than lightning fist. Sure, you can go all-out and do both, but that only works against enemies with low AC. Some of those will have DR/adamantine and the like, which completely screws you.

You have crit-fishing, and you have Blood in the Water, which is one of my favorite things in 3.5. But you still only crit on 17-20, which isn't that great, even with as many attacks as you might be making. Resounding blow is no more than nice, which is why I was so disappointed you didn't take quell the profane. You're a crit-fisher, but your damage is very unimpressive. Quell the profane could've been a game changer. Oh well.

Overall, what do you have at level 20 (before items, and you can't access weapon enhancements)? 7 attacks, at +16/16/16*/16*/11/6/1 to-hit, doing 1d6+9 each. You have smite, and you have BitW, and you have supremacy, and you have corellon's wrath 5/day. You've got decent AC (not crazy by any means) enhanced by mighty are fallen against many enemies. You can tumble, you have decent diplomacy at the end game. You have full ranks in truespeak, but you don't mention those, so maybe you're just as clueless as I am as to what the **** Ermak does with them.

I'm looking at a 20th level character, and I'm struggling, man. It's not the worst I've ever seen, but it's not impressive, and it's a very far cry from optimized. Even if you had all of your dodge shenanigans, you'd still be deep in "not doing much" land. Corellon's wrath is your one redeeming quality, and with your to-hit being what it is, I'm not sure lightning fist is worth it even then. And this is not like your build stagnates: it starts out way worse.

Overall, a very weak category for you. I've seen more useless builds, for sure, but this isn't a powerful entry by any stretch of the imagination.

Score: 1.4 points.


UoSI:

If I understand correctly, this category is where "using the benefits of the format" points go. To me, that'd be in elegance, but them's the rules and I am nothing if not obedient.

You get valiant attempt credit for the dodge shenanigans, 100%. Word Given Form? *chef's kiss*. Brilliant. You wouldn't have gotten full credit here anyway with illegal material, but it's awesome. Lightning Fists is dysfunctional, but isn't normally easy to access, and you get it here. Elf Soulborn didn't impress me as much – it has some nice thematic synergy with the SI, but you don't really do anything interesting with it. You can smite while throwing your soul blade, I guess. Still, it's a nice catch. Tribal defender is excellent. 3 feats you don't need to have, which aren't the same as the other feats you didn't have to take, makes sense for your build. Good stuff.

As for the SI itself: I trashed your power score, but here, you certainly get credit for using elegant strike very well. You have pretty high dex, and you can put it on a weapon you're proficient with, and you make a lot of attacks. Making a lot of weak attacks is also a good way (the only way?) to feature Wrath. You gain the full expected use of the armor benefit, too – going above and beyond with commitment to hanging around in armor. If you manage to get your hands on mithral battle plate, than you only fill out the max dex with items – but "item reliance generates item reliance" isn't a bad thing, and normal battle plate does you well. You can tumble in heavy armor, which is nice, but you won't be great at it with a -7 check penalty. Still, not too shabby.

Overall, even if you don't break anything wide open, I'd say you put almost everything the SI gives to good use, and you get credit for utilizing the competition's ruleset. Good category!

Score: 4 points.


Total Score: 11 points. You had a cute thought of a unique way to use elegant strike with a weapon you're proficient with. You had a really, really cool thought of "let's get a bunch of dodge benefits which are usually a huge hassle, and stack them on midnight dodge." Unfortunately, that didn't have much to do with the SI, and when you tried to put some oomph into Champion with lightning fists, it didn't really work – and made everything else fall apart. This comp is weird. Better luck next time!
Originality:

Changeling warshaper with racial emulation? I no-joke just yawned IRL while writing this, lol. Probably a coincidence, but gets the point across. OA samurai is cute, Ronin is certainly a surprise (more on that in elegance). The rest is meh.

When I look at your tactics… Not gonna lie, chief, it's not great. Intimidating rage / imperious command / never outnumbered is a classic. The only interesting thing you're doing with that is having native access to fearsome, which is nice even if it is one that still requires WBL. Martial Study (MoPM) feels a lot like a "good featTM" pick, especially when your will save is fine, and your concentration check isn't more than alright for a lot of your career. I'm not a 100% that it's actually better taken at level 1 as 1/encounter than joining the rest at level 3 as a granted maneuver. You're probably right, I guess.

But… What's this? Craven? On a build with 1d6 sneak attack? One of the only feats that just gets "**** you, specifically" here from me. I used to penalize it in elegance too when I was a very fresh judge, before coming to the conclusion that it's not inelegant – it's just a cheesy, extremely well known pick. **** craven, all my homies hate craven.

The picture is completed with a half-hearted attempt at Iaijutsu that doesn't get any external support, ancestral relic (eh) and headlong rush (nice, one of my favorite feats). As for the bonus feats – the only one really worth mentioning is roof jumper, which you at least have a chance of activating through your sizing, flying shield – though we'll talk in power.

You're getting a shout-out here for a couple of interesting equipment finds.

Overall, this is close to being as bog-standard martial as you can be, with the most original elements mostly still being well known, and not doing anything too interesting. Oof.

Score: 1.6 points.

Elegance:

Your sources are trash. You don't source roofwalker/jumper (cityscape). You don't source imperious command (DotU). You don't source Ancestral Relic (BoED). You don't source headlong rush (RoF, which is in your sources – all it took was another line). You don't source intimidating rage (CW, same issue). You don't source never outnumbered (Complete Scoundrel). You say you take (unspecified) feats from PHBII, but AFAICT, you don't. You also say you get weapon and armor enhancement from there, and I wasted 15 minutes making as sure as I could that the book doesn't have any.

You send me over to DMGII for more (not telling me which, out of the many enhancements you mention across your entry). And… it's sudden stunning. One weapon enhancement, which you might as well have named – and is an excellent weapon property, which just happens to be illegal for Ancestral Daisho, which only lets you enhance it in accordance with table 2-2, with numerical-worth enhancements, not set-price enhancements.

You don't source Valorous (Unapproachable East), morphing (underdark, in your sources but not mentioning weapon enhancements), and wrathful healing (which is in a random sidebar in enemies-and-freaking-allies, some **** you really[i] need to source.) You don't source fearsome (MIC), Flying (MoF) or sizing (CAdv).

You [i]do source razored shield (a miracle!). When I go to underdark, it shows up as a weapon, doesn't have any shield stats, doesn't have a description line… RAW, it's just a weapon. You could infer that it's a shield with shield razors on, just like a spiked shield is a shield with shield spikes on. The issue is, there's no such thing as shield razors. Just armor razors, that have a very clear description that doesn't allow to shields. We can keep relying on presumed RAI, and say that they're just the slashing analogue to shield spikes. That'd be bad for us, since it'd send us to the PHB to figure out what those are, but whatever. Sure, let's do that. At that point, we run into the issue of the shield and the spikes/razors being two separate items, and you can't have both as your ancestral relic – and you sure as hell can't enchant them both separately, like you intend to. Everything sort of falls apart at the seams at that point.

Of course, you didn't source the rest of your description. Dwarvencraft is from RoS, but I can't find a riding shield anywhere, and I've looked. There's a rider's shield (also in RoS), but that has a lot of problems we'll talk about in a minute, so before diving into it I had to do my due diligence and make as sure as I could that there wasn't a "riding shield" that I was missing anywhere. This is why sourcing matters. It's over 10 minutes of my time I spent browsing through books and searching google that you could've saved with 2 seconds of yours.

I think that's it? I think that's it. So, most of your build isn't sourced, one illegal choice, one extremely problematic one that has probably illegal aspects too, and we haven't even started looking at the build. Damn.

So, Dwarvencraft adamantine Rider's shield. First thing first, it's an exotic shield. Which means you're not proficient, which means you take its armor check penalty to all attack rolls and on all Strength-based and Dexterity-based ability and skill checks. As for it being dwarvencraft – only items composed primarily of metal or stone can be dwarvencraft. Lucky it's adamantine, right? Except, only weapons, armor, and shields normally made of metal can be fashioned from adamantine. And a rider's shield is explicitly wooden. Add that to the aforementioned issue with the razors, and this feat and everything it entails just falls apart. Penalties, penalties galore.

Cross setting material is also something I penalize here. That shouldn't make you shy away from it when It's necessary, but watch out when it's not. Same as multiclass penalties, basically, which you don't suffer from.

You don't qualify for roofwalker, straight up. You're missing a rank in jump. For roofjumper, you're two skill points short in balance, and 3 short in jump. Fixable, sure, but not super easily so. This is not at odds with "one mistake, one penalty", mind you. I'm not saying the roofwalker punishment cascades to roofjumper. The issue isn't that not qualifying for roofwalker disqualifies you from roof jumper, it's more like taking EWP, Weapon focus, and weapon finesse, while ignoring that all of them require +1 Bab.

Speaking of skills, this qualification issue is aggravated by the fact that you illegally take 2 points of Balance at level 2. Balance is cross-class for you, like Iaijutsu. You only have enough for a single rank. Level 4, you spend 3 ranks on balance, one of concentration, 2 on intimidate, and then 2 more for another cross-class rank in Iaijutsu. That's 8 points, when you're supposed to be getting 5. I would think you don't know what cross class skills are, but you clearly do at first level when you take 2 points in K. religion, and you have your **** together when it comes to Iaijutsu. Besides, even ignoring cross-class, it would've been 2 too many.

Level 5, intimidate is cross class so you can't increase it to 8 and take the skill trick at the same level. You're spending a point too many. Same issue at levels 6 and 7. Ronin and SI levels are all correct, huzzah! You do mess up the final level though, with 2 points out of five expended. Is this meant as an apology? Payback? If so, it doesn't work, you would still have 5 ranks too many.

Also, you mention tumble in your breakdown but can't actually do it. Leave aside DCs, it's trained only.

Took me a long time to reach the first thing I noticed when glancing your build. What the **** is up with your alignment, man? You don't mention it, which is a slap on the wrist – but maybe you don't do so for a good reason. You're good, I know that much, because you take ancestral relic. You're also lawful, I know that much, because you take samurai. Except, you become an ex-samurai at level 8, because you go non-lawful for Ronin. And it's not like "oopsie, I missed an alignment shift". It's RONIN. It's literally the "I'm an ex-samurai" class.

So, at some point around level 7, you disgrace yourself, become NG, and your ancestral daisho becomes a regular-ass weapon, until (presumably) you go LG again at some point in level 9 and atone, to get your enhancements back, and enjoy the benefits of ronin despite no longer qualifying for the class, which is something I really dislike but at least isn't RAW illegal. This is MAJOR alignment shenanigans, which actually negatively impacts your character for quite a while mechanically, and you don't even bother mentioning it, let alone trying to make any sense of it in your story.

Maneuvers and stances: what? I repeat, what?

You have martial study. Aside from that, you get 5 1st level maneuvers and one 1st level stance at level 4. At level 20, you learn another stance, up to 6th level. That's how the rules work. You don't tell me what your first stance is, and you only provide 4 of your five known maneuvers – and those are 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th level maneuvers. Your tactical section describes them as being there from level 20. That's not how the rules work. If you don't know what ToB does, that's fine – don't use it. You want to use it? Read the book. Hell, just read the class.

Morphic reach + spiked helmet: cute idea, would probably allow it as a DM ("stretching your neck" is the literal description), doesn't work RAW. Morphic reach doesn't give you an extra 5 ft of reach on your attacks, or increases the reach of any weapons you use by 5 ft. It gives you 5 ft more reach than the creature you're emulating. Half Orcs have a reach of 5 feat, you have 10 when emulating one. If you were emulating a titan, you'd have 20 instead of 15 – but the helmet overrides your reach, and makes it 0.

As a side note with no impact on your score: I found your presentation a little bit disorienting. Most of us put the table before the tactical section for a good reason. I always assume presentation is intentional, so I read everything before reading the table, and that was unhelpful. Also, please put bonus feats in the feats row. It's very confusing otherwise.

Overall, terrible category for you. You're lucky the minimum score is one – this build is an absolute mess on so many fronts. Sorry, bud.

Score: 1 point.


Power:

Good FeatsTM are considered GoodTM for a reason. However, they're not always timed right. The percentage of enemies that are immune to fear tends to rise with CR, so imperious command works better early than late. You also "waste" a point on your Cha at 4 that only takes effect at 14 – should've taken the increase at 12, for sure. Still – when it works, it works. It's a free action once per day with intimidating rage, you have a +4 from a class feature to help with your meh Cha… Good stuff. Infamy will sometimes mess with your diplomacy and (more significantly) your intimidation, but the fear combo should usually be pretty potent.

As for death from above, you can't jump for ****. You don't have any way to mitigate fall damage. Having semi-native access to a shield to fall from is nice and all, but if you're going to fall you're going to have issues. You have 4 ranks in jump, and ACP from both shield and armor. Even trivial stuff like taking advantage of Roofwalker's graceful drop isn’t a reliable option for you. Most likely, you're falling prone, too. This isn't usually a strong option for you, by any means. Nice to have, but even a little investment in what you're actually doing instead of the middling Iaijutsu would've been a game changer.

Charging… sure. In the context of no PA, you manage to pull off a decent charger by combining headlong rush and banzai charge. Valorous/helmet through your daisho obviously pushes things further.

Overall, you're playing a decently powerful martial, with a strong early career through the power of warshaper. Could've been better, could've been worse for sure.

Score: 3.75 points.


UoSI:

This is the category for "utilizing the toolset of the competition", apparently. You're not doing more than okay on that front. Aside from the SI, you're saving 1 feat on Ronin… and that's it. Even headlong rush, a feat you'd almost take for free here, you could've taken anyway since you're already racially emulating a half-orc 24/7. In the SI, you take the roofjumper line (nice, but as mentioned above, not very supported), sidestep charge and chink in armor. Cute, but no more than that, as far as utilizing the comp rules goes.

As for the SI itself: I'm not too impressed, afraid to say. You have to rely on equipment to get expected utility from superior defense. You're very much below what I expected to see when it comes to elegant strike; You manage to use it on a weapon you're proficient with, which is good – but with Dex 14 and tactics not based around full attacks, it's not very impressive. It does get doubled/tripled when you charge, but the fact that you established a preference to actually morph it when you charge tells me about how much you care about this ability. This is all even more problematic for Wrath – its bonus damage doesn't double, it's really all about attacking as many times as possible in one turn, and you're a single-hit character.

But I'm spilling words for no reason here. The only thing your tactical section has anything to say about that has anything to do with the class is death from above. 10 levels of Champion, and that's all you have to say – but you go on and on about your shield, which anybody can get with the same monetary investment as you, except you're not punished here for excessive item reliance since you have better reliability. Sure, you have your little SI section – but if you mention roofjumper there, it means you're not worried about redundancies here. You just know that this build swallowed 10 levels of the SI because it had to. You're trying to sell me on chink in armor as setting it up – but you don't have any more reason to expect time to study your opponent than any other character, it doesn't get an//y investment.

Overall, I think this build is a charger wblmancer that had to take 10 levels of Champion because that happened to be what the competition is.

Score: 1.25 points.


Total Score: 7.6 points. This reads a lot like an entry built with google more so than with an independent cohesive idea. Lots of commonly discussed "best of", and sometimes without familiarity with the base material. You did mesh it together reasonably well (warshaper changeling leads to racial emulation which feeds imperious command, tried to feed charger concept with morphic reach) but nothing too cohesieve. In the future, I'd recommend far more attention to detail, and to make sure you approach building from the perspective of the SI first and foremost. Seeing something powerful discussed online and saying "ooh, I want to do that, that's powerful" as the source of your build is going to mess you up in originality and UoSI. More importantly, it's just not as fun or as interesting – for the reader, but on the long term, for you as well.

Better luck next time!
Originality:

Star elf isn't really surprising with this ingredient, once you account for EWP being out. To me, that is the least creative out of the three approaches presented to make elegant strike work – even if it is way more fun and interesting than "this martial weapon counts as a longsword." And I guess it's still not an obvious choice for a lot of chefs, that could have struggled to find an elf race that doesn't refer back to core. So, good.

Dervish is in the comp description as the "this is usually a hassle, look how easy it is now!" example. With an SI "capstone" (level 8, but sure) that really wants full attacks, I'm not exactly shocked to see it show up – even if for you specifically it's not the best fit. More on that later. Fist of the forest, however, was a welcome surprise, and you don't take it for the obvious reasons. Wildrunner less of a surprise, but still nice.

Tactics aren't super interesting by themselves, and are supported by travel devotion, which isn't exactly groundbreaking on a skirmish build. Slashing flurry is fun and fitting.

Overall, this is a pretty standard skirmish build with a couple of surprising element, and a fun-yet-expected approach to the SI.

Score: 2.25 points.


Elegance:

I like improved weapon familiarity as a way to overcome the equipment issues, but militia... I know why you did it – you needed 5 levels of scout for improved skirmish. Now, that was a huge mistake, and one that was completely avoidable. Because, you know what you didn't need? That fourth dervish level, which is a big old nothing burger. And if you have a free level, militia immediately becomes much sillier. Free up one of your feats, and hop into any prc that grants martial weapon proficiency. They're not that hard to come by. There's probably at least one that'd get you a fighter bonus feat, too. So, even from a purely character-optimization lens, militia should've seemed like a bad choice to you.

Why am I so stuck on this point? Because militia is an illegal choice for you. It's a regional feat. To take it, you'd have to be a Half-Elf from Aglarond, a halfling from Luiren, or a human (many choices). You're not any of those things. You could be from Aglarond, certainly – it's called out as one of the two star elf regions – but you're not a half-elf, you don't count as a half elf, and you couldn't fix the issue by going half-elf, because that'd mess up your weapon familiarity (don't think elven blood helps you here, given the feat's language.) That's… sort of catastrophic for you.

You also don't qualify for slashing flurry, which is a shame. It requires melee weapon mastery (slashing), which you didn't take. That's not a core feat. Silly mistake. Could've taken it at 12. Well, you couldn't have, since they both require proficiency, but that'd be protected under one mistake, one penalty. This isn't. Shame.

Presentation: this is a terrible way to do your skills, my dude/tte. If you're going to do it that way, you need to give me a summary of everything with your snapshots – but you know, just don't do it this way. I don't want to have to go through 20 slates of your table and do math whenever I'm trying to figure out what's your skill bonus on anything. Ideally, I want to see running totals, with the specific increases you've made that level noted out.

This one isn't a penalty, but same goes for your saves and bab – it's just a messy way to do things. Give me the totals and be done with it, just like a class table does.

Speaking of skills, though: what's up with this round and cross-class skills? I really looked hard to try and figure out if I missed something here. You take 4 ranks of cross class skills (diplomacy & Perform) at levels 3, 4 and 5. Should've cost you 24 skill points in total, not 12. Worse, at levels 4 and 5, you're above your max skill ranks in cross-class skills with both of these. Same issue for diplomacy and K. religion in your second Wildrunner level – though K. religion at least doesn't go above the maximum allowed. Fist of the forest doesn't get K. religion as a class skill. From that point on, you're fine – but all of that was definitely not fine. Your presentation is even more messy than I thought it was, but this isn't the issue I made it up to be.

It bears saying that your build is inherently broken if you don't get a feycraft weapon. We both know it, and I assume you knew it'd mean a penalty here – as excessive equipment reliance always does.

Overall, you complete the trifecta of terrible elegance this round, and I'm really not seeing enough clever synergy in this build to even start making up for it.

Score: 1.25 1.65 points.


Power:

Your full attack routine is fine, at least against enemies without immunity to precision damage. Swift-action movement and improved skirmish on a build that gets to 18 Bab is a good melee chassis, certainly more potent than a lot of what we've seen here, especially when we consider elegant strike and the different buffs. Good.

Why is your wisdom 10? That is to say, why isn't your cha higher? You could easily have it at 14 (16 post racial.) The SI cares about it, it powers your primal scream… I guess your will save starts out terrible enough without dropping it, but still, I feel like you could've finagled a way to deal with the issue.

A lot of this build… doesn't do much. Your level 12 feat is tactile trapsmith – with 0 ranks in either search or disable device. Is being the equivalent of a first level rogue really worth your feat at this level? This doesn't feel like "leveraging high dex", this feels like "I don't know what to do." When you add that to two feats just to fight with the weapon you want, and unsupported trash like Shadowborn Warrior, it's really hard to justify some of your choices here.

I guess you're a semi-decent knowledge monkey, too. I do think K. Devotion would've been good on this build, and you clearly believe you have the feats to spare, with travel devotion taken twice and (sorry to mention it again) tactile trapsmith. Whatever though, the point is you can reliably recognize some (not really level-appropriate) creatures.

Overall, you're screwed against plants, undead, constructs, etc – but even against those you get to leverage an excellent Dex modifier into damage, and have access to Wrath. Nicely done.

Score: 3.25 points.


UoSI:

Taking advantage of the competition rules: fist of the forest is great. You wouldn't have taken any of these feats, and it really allowed you to shine. Wild runner, less so: you could've qualified with a bonus feat from scout, and you're the right race anyway.

What does the SI have to offer for you? Well, you're wearing light or no armor, so that's half the abilities out the window. The feats are cute, but you get three (limited choice) from the class and "waste" two on using its features (doesn't work, but we've covered that).

Dervish-scout is counter-synergic with the SI for you. You have two separate abilities to pump your dex, and you're proud of it. But primal scream explicitly prohibits you from using dervish dance, and feral trance implicitly does as well. Dervish Dancing and skirmish prohibit you from utilizing the armor.

Still, you're clearly here for offense, and if you don't fall into your own trap and avoid Dervish Dancing, you can utilize travel devotion and the frenzies to pile on some serious damage.

Overall, your build went most of the way there for elegant strike, and got the expected use out of Wrath – but failed to utilize any of the other features.

Score: 3 points.


Total Score: 9.75 10.15 points.I think this build had the best chance out of the three to be a clean and fun (even if slightly obvious) way to really lean into the offensive side of Champion – but you, too, were felled by the complete disregard towards the rules that has plagued this round. By the way, you should be glad that you didn't go the non-proficient-thiefling route: slashing flurry still requires proficiency, so the build would still be flawed to the core.


General thoughts for the competition:

The concept is very nice, even if a bit wonky. Over my time judging this round, though, I have come to a pretty strong belief that it would've been better to ban everything without allowing you to ignore banned prereqs. I get that this would severely limit the contestants, but the results would be "optimized builds built under very harsh constraints" and not "alternate universe builds that aren't applicable in a real game". It's still a nice thought process, but it kills a part of what makes me, personally, enjoy these comps so much: either they make you go "I want to play that!" (PO) or "Wow, that just broke 3.5 wide open!" (TO). The maximum potential of this is to be "Wow, that just broke Inevitability's ruleset (that was made specifically to be broken wide open) wide open!" Which, again, is still nice and can be impressive, but way more niche to me than our already incredibly niche hobby.

Anyway, assuming our chair disagrees with me that moving to full restriction would be better (understandable) I'd definitely move "utilizing the options granted by the ruleset" to either originality or elegance. Don't think UoSI is a good place for that. It distracts from the SI, and it feels very different than UoSI does. Elegance, to me, would be its natural place. Just like it's the place for triple qualifying with the same feat. Makes sense to me, IDK. And again - I'd personally be in charge of removing the entire set of alternate rules, and just banning core material.

Apologies if that all sounded hyper-critical. Thanks for running the show, Inevitability!

[pabelfly]

Not a comp entrant, but I had fun reading the judging material. Thank you, H_H_F_F.

[loky1109]

Thank you for judging, H_H_F_F!

[pabelfly]

I took the time to think about H_H_F_F's suggestion that the builds should be fully playable, even if we exclude the PHB. I think it's an interesting idea, but with how many feats require the PHB as a prerequisite, I'm not sure it would work.

What does everyone else think of that idea?

[ciopo]

to me, it's preferable to the "remove prerequisites" ruling, and makes for a more interesting challenge.

the removing prerequisites is interesting too, but in a different way, but to me it's less interesting because while working around constraint is *fun*, having other constraint (the prerequisites) removed by fiat is less fun, mostly because when a limit is added, I rationalize it as "I self impose to not use anything from the PHB, let's see how it shakes out", meanwhile ignoring prerequisites is more along the lines of "GM said X Y Z" which to me feels much more arbitrary and outside control

[Beni-Kujaku]

I've looked up a (very incomplete) list of PrC, and preventing people from entering PrC with core feats as requirements would mostly impact the martial classes, with most of them requiring weapon focus, point blank shot or other generic feat like that. I'm not sure I'd like having an all-caster competition, even with the added versartility of incarnum, BoED, BoVD and single-class ToB.

[Inevitability]

Firstly, thanks to our judge! I am currently awaiting disputes.

The idea of simply removing PHB feats and not granting any auto-qualifications was raised and rejected during the discussion preceding this competition (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?653740-Apple-Corer-Optimization-Challenge). At the time, it was rejected for the obvious qualification issues that would plague most characters.

I suggested white-listing some very limited number of feats; the aforementioned suspects of Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus, Dodge, etc, but that didn't get a ton of traction. A non-arbitrary way might be to waive all requirements for 'PHB-printed fighter bonus feats'?


Anyway, I'm definitely going to allow weapons and armor from the PHB next round: it's just a bit too much of a hassle having to work around those. Any other insights?

[Twurps]

Thank you H_H_F_F for a very thorough judging. Really enjoyed reading it.

[loky1109]

Firstly, thanks to our judge! I am currently awaiting disputes.
I think I have no disputes.

[H_H_F_F]

Had a thought: how impactful would "can't take more than one feat from core" be?

Or "can only take core feats that the SI requires"?

[Inevitability]

Or "can only take core feats that the SI requires"?

That's an interesting one.

[loky1109]

Or "can only take core feats that the SI requires"?

Sounds cool.

Also, H_H_F_F, I had the great pleasure of reading your judging!

[Inevitability]

At least one other person had that pleasure as well, it seems: here's a dispute!


Hi H_H_F_F,

First of all: Thanks for judging. Fun to read, and very useful feedback.
Two things I'd like to address:
Regarding the cross class Skill points: I have listen the amount of points I sink into the skill, instead of the ranks I get. So 8 point in diplomacy and 4 points in Kn(religion) (all cross class) get me the 4 ranks diplomacy and 2 ranks kn(religion) needed for entry into COCL. whilst 6 points of perform(dance) purchased as scout get me to the 3 ranks I need to get into dervish, where it becomes a class skill. Looking back at my entry there's no way I made this clear, and so I fully understand/deserve any penalties. Actually, let me take the time here to apologize for that mess. I don't know what I was thinking. However: The build does factor in these skills as being cross-class, including the accompanying max-ranks limit. And therefore (at least in this regard) IS actually legal.


... and unsupported trash like Shadowborn Warrior, it's really hard to justify some of your choices here. I know Shadowborn warrior isn't solely what I'm being penalized for, but I do want to point out I was actually a bit proud of this feat. I know it doesn't do much, but it does something, without being illegal. and that's quite an accomplishment, which took me quite some time to find. Let me explain: COCL grants a feat that has either 'combat expertise' 'dodge' or 'mounted combat' as a prereq. So I listen all feats that have either of these a prereq. You'd think that gives me plenty of choices (33 feats have combat expertise as prereq, 41 have dodge as prereq, 12 have mounted combat as prereq). However:
-Quite a few are from the PH, and so I can't take those.
-Quite a few others have additional prereq's, which I either don't have the feat slots for, or at the very least are a waste of a regular featslot in this build.
-Then there's quite a few that have wording along the lines of 'The target of your dodge feat....' 'Combat defense' from PH2 is a good example. So even though these feats are legal to take without dodge in this competition, they literally do nothing at all.
-Finally: there's some that only work whilst mounted, and being mounted doesn't mesh at all with skirmish, so those are out too.

After eliminating all those, what I was left with was... Shadowborn Warrior. So whilst I agree it doesn't do much, and it's unsupported in the rest of the build, it's also 'the best available' or at least 'the best I could find with substantial effort'. And at least it's a defensive buff, which I feel the build needs more than 'more offense'.
Again: not really what I was penalized for. Just wanted to point out the very 'competition specific' challenges here. So I guess the only thing I'm disputing here is the notion that this indicates I had 'feats to spare'.

[Twurps]

Or "can only take core feats that the SI requires"?

That would have my vote as well. Building without prerequisites was fine for once, but might get same-ish very fast as certain PrC's become very easy to enter.

[H_H_F_F]

Response to Ayla's dispute:

As for power, I'm aware of the limitations of the SI in this round. When I called shadowborn warrior "unsupported trash" I meant that it's unsupported, and that it's trash. Not that it was definitively "a mistake". Feats to spare - well, I've mentioned that issue in other places.

As for elegance: OH. Oh. Makes way more sense now. Punishment for "absolute trash-fire of a presentation" remains, but I'll remove the penalty for cross class skills once I get home.

[SirNibbles]

That would have my vote as well. Building without prerequisites was fine for once, but might get same-ish very fast as certain PrC's become very easy to enter.

I would prefer the same ruleset that we already had, but without a restriction on non-magical armor and weapons (like I said earlier, you technically can't wear any medium/heavy armor because of gauntlets or have an unarmed strike because they are PHB weapons).

Also, an SI with actual class features would be nice. When the main ingredient is water, you're just going to get a bunch of soup builds.

[Inevitability]

Also, an SI with actual class features would be nice. When the main ingredient is water, you're just going to get a bunch of soup builds.

If weapons are permitted, what about Disciple of Thrym? Easy but nontrivial to enter under any ruleset that allows/waives weapon focus, lots of class features, and actual spells because most of its list is from Frostburn. The class only tends to be brought up in discussions of Summon Giants abuse, but it's actually kind of a neat option!

[H_H_F_F]

Ayla's score adjusted.

I think Disciple of Thyrm is very cool. I definitely have my eye on it as a future Iron Chef ingredient.

There's plenty of good classes that clearly synergize with a base class, though, and I think focusing on those would be more interesting to start with. A lot of rogue/monk classes could be fun.

[H_H_F_F]

Hey, chair!

Waiting to figure out stuff for next round (and maybe waiting for after the deadlines of a few other comps) makes sense. However, we could be waiting for next round to be announced post-reveal, couldn't we? I think our competitors have waited more than enough, given how much time this remained unjudged - and they all probably have thoughts to share in the meantime.

Unless we're hoping for a second judgement?

[Inevitability]

Hey, chair!

Waiting to figure out stuff for next round (and maybe waiting for after the deadlines of a few other comps) makes sense. However, we could be waiting for next round to be announced post-reveal, couldn't we? I think our competitors have waited more than enough, given how much time this remained unjudged - and they all probably have thoughts to share in the meantime.

Unless we're hoping for a second judgement?

You're right: I was waiting for further disputes, but I think we've given our competitors more than enough time. With that in mind, here's the reveal!



Entrant
Race
Build
Score
Chef


Ermak
Xeph
Soulknife 6/Soulborn 3/Tribal Protector 2/Champion of Corellon Larethian 9
11
loky1109


The Outcast
Changeling
OA Samurai 1/Half-Orc Paragon 2/Crusader 1/Warshaper 3/Ronin 2/Champion of Corellon Larethian 10/Crusader +1
7.6
Soranar


Ayla
Star Elf
Scout 5/Wildrunner 2/Fist of the Forest 1/Dervish 4/Champion of Corellon Larethian 8
10.15
Twurps



Congratulations to all our contestants, and especially to loky1109 for winning! I won't make a new thread right away, but I'd be interested in discussion of the ruleset moving forwards as well as potential ingredients.

[H_H_F_F]

Congrats, guys! Apologies for being a mean judge, hope I got across as fair and as charitable as I tried to be.

[SirNibbles]

Congrats loky.

Regarding rules: I've always been a proponent of expanding the pantry (allowing all first party sources, including all adventure modules and magazines). Exotic spices from a far-off land can help finish a dish. Of course, you want to make sure you're not overusing them and that the main ingredient shines through, and that the flavours mesh together.

I think that all non-magical core weapons and armors should be allowed.

[Twurps]

Congratz Loky! I kinda already figured that build was yours ;)

My first entry ever (which showed, sorry again H_H_F_F) so I'm just happy to be 'in the ballpark'.


Without spoiling which ones: yes, there's races with the (elf) subtype that don't refer back to the PHB elf traits.
Multiple? I found only one. Are there others?


I've found four different ways to gain the proficiency. I just hate all of them for different reasons.
1) improved weapon familiarity (feat: CW)
2) Master of masks->gladiator mask (class CS)
3) Samurai(Class: CW) for EWP bastard sword + Warblade (weapon aptitude). Samurai could be any class with any EWP.

What did I miss?

[loky1109]

Gold from the very beginning is cool! Thanks for all, congratulations for other medalists!
H_H_F_F, I have a couple (well, big couple) of words. It isn't enough for dispute, but I want to reply and explain some things.
1) Xeph. Firstly, I thought to use xeph's racial feats to get more attacks, but... Feat starving came and I read some threads about xeph's PLA... and this option was denied.
2) Xeph's stats... Yeah, I'm looking at this now and it looks stupid. Explanation is very simple. It was last moment decision to move 2 ASI point to Str. I realized that heavy armor is really heavy to late. It was... maybe 24 hours before deadline, Inevitability, maybe you remember when I sent last version?
Now I see, azurin would be much better. Plus, with its bonus feat I could get feat to make mindblade monk's weapon, which, I think, significantly improves my Elegance score.
3) Claw at the Moon at 3rd level also rooted in excessive editing. I moved feats to many times and didn't check them at the last, maybe 5th or 6th, time.
4) I understand why did you give me so low score in power, but I really thought Blood in the Water with numerous attacks could help, I just need to survive enough time. That's why I so hard push my defense.

[loky1109]

Congratz Loky! I kinda already figured that build was yours ;)

1) improved weapon familiarity (feat: CW)
2) Master of masks->gladiator mask (class CS)
3) Samurai(Class: CW) for EWP bastard sword + Warblade (weapon aptitude). Samurai could be any class with any EWP.

What did I miss?
Yeah, I have kinda recognizable style.

You miss the Triad vestige from online, Skillful weapon, Mouthpick weapon.
Also Master's Touch spell.

[H_H_F_F]

My first entry ever (which showed, sorry again H_H_F_F) so I'm just happy to be 'in the ballpark'.

1) improved weapon familiarity (feat: CW)
2) Master of masks->gladiator mask (class CS)
3) Samurai(Class: CW) for EWP bastard sword + Warblade (weapon aptitude). Samurai could be any class with any EWP.

What did I miss?

Congrats on your first time, Twurps! Hope to see you participating and judging in other competitions in the future.

Samurai won't work - it gives you a core feat (EWP) as a bonus feat - so by the rules of the competition, it'd get ignored.


Gold from the very beginning is cool! Thanks for all, congratulations for other medalists!
H_H_F_F, I have a couple (well, big couple) of words. It isn't enough for dispute, but I want to reply and explain some things.
1) Xeph. Firstly, I thought to use xeph's racial feats to get more attacks, but... Feat starving came and I read some threads about xeph's PLA... and this option was denied.
2) Xeph's stats... Yeah, I'm looking at this now and it looks stupid. Explanation is very simple. It was last moment decision to move 2 ASI point to Str. I realized that heavy armor is really heavy to late. It was... maybe 24 hours before deadline, Inevitability, maybe you remember when I sent last version?
Now I see, azurin would be much better. Plus, with its bonus feat I could get feat to make mindblade monk's weapon, which, I think, significantly improves my Elegance score.
3) Claw at the Moon at 3rd level also rooted in excessive editing. I moved feats to many times and didn't check them at the last, maybe 5th or 6th, time.
4) I understand why did you give me so low score in power, but I really thought Blood in the Water with numerous attacks could help, I just need to survive enough time. That's why I so hard push my defense.

Yeah, I get how late-editing can mess up a build. I know how it feels.

Surviving combat for long enough to let Blood in the Water build up is nice, but it's not party friendly, and also just still hard for you to do. Ermak's to-hit is atrocious, as I've shown, and you're just going to have a hard time getting these crits reliably - and it'd take a lot of them to make Ermak an actual threat. Like I mentioned, this stance is one of my favorite things in 3.5, and you get credit for it, but you can't confirm crits reliably enough and fast enough for it to allow you to shine more, I think.

[Inevitability]

Multiple? I found only one. Are there others?

Aquatic Elves from Stormwrack; the PC race listing is slightly incomplete (requiring you to look up PHB elves to learn their size and land speed) but on page 149 their racial traits are printed in full.

[loky1109]

Aquatic Elves from Stormwrack; the PC race listing is slightly incomplete (requiring you to look up PHB elves to learn their size and land speed) but on page 149 their racial traits are printed in full.
I think fey'ri also fits.

[H_H_F_F]

I'd be interested in discussion of the ruleset moving forwards as well as potential ingredients.

I'm still strongly in favor of my idea to prohibit everything from core (races, classes, feats) except feats that the SI requires.

If we're doing that, I think war chanter could be interesting. Sacred fist is perhaps too powerful for a competition, but could be fun with how demanding it is. Bladesinger would be very similar to this round, and it'd be a nightmare - but an interesting one, at the very least.

[loky1109]

Agree with H_H_F_F about ruleset. Can say nothing about ingredient.
Maybe it could be interesting if ingredient will be with some core class ability as prerequisite. Rage, familiar, or something like.

[pabelfly]

I'm still strongly in favor of my idea to prohibit everything from core (races, classes, feats) except feats that the SI requires.

Yeah, I think this is the best idea. Reducing feat chains was an interesting one-off idea, and I'm glad it happened, but I want to be making/playing builds and developing strategies that can be used at a game table, and this is the best solution to that while maintaining the comp idea.

[SirNibbles]

I'm still strongly in favor of my idea to prohibit everything from core (races, classes, feats) except feats that the SI requires.

Disagree because that just makes everything except the main ingredient easier to qualify for.

[ciopo]

my understanding is that the proposed modified ruleset is that everything else from core is banned, but you do not ignore them as prerequisites.

So, unless the SI is, for example, something requiring weapon focus, then weapon focus would be banned for that round, and anything that as weapon focus as a prerequisite woulnd't be selectable.

but I might have misunderstood.

The goal of the proposed ruling change is "let the build be usable at a normal table", so makes sense to me that this actually becomes like a junkyard war where the "forbidden" section is "everything from PHB except SI prerequisites"

[H_H_F_F]

my understanding is that the proposed modified ruleset is that everything else from core is banned, but you do not ignore them as prerequisites.

So, unless the SI is, for example, something requiring weapon focus, then weapon focus would be banned for that round, and anything that as weapon focus as a prerequisite woulnd't be selectable.

but I might have misunderstood.

The goal of the proposed ruling change is "let the build be usable at a normal table", so makes sense to me that this actually becomes like a junkyard war where the "forbidden" section is "everything from PHB except SI prerequisites"

Yeah, Ciopo has it right.

[SirNibbles]

Yeah, Ciopo has it right.

I am even more opposed to that. It locks out even more options.

[ciopo]

That's fair.

Personally, I like constraint, hence Junkyard being my favourite. This apple corer striked my fancy, but that "remove the prerequisites" was a big turn off to me, because it's basically one big houserule that requires GM buy in, as opposed to self inflicted limitations that it would otherwise be.

We're kinda at opposites ends of the spectrum

[H_H_F_F]

I am even more opposed to that. It locks out even more options.

Yes, it does. Way more. To me, that's 100% worth it for the upside of "these are playable (or legal, if TO) builds."

[pabelfly]

I am even more opposed to that. It locks out even more options.

It seems that it might actually be the point of Apple Corer - to remove PHB and (nearly) all of the standard options in there to force creative thinking.

[Inevitability]

Personally starting to come down on the side of keeping things legal as well.

If that's what we end up going with (nothing from PHB legal except the SI's prerequisite feats), suggestions for an ingredient, anyone?

[SirNibbles]

Personally starting to come down on the side of keeping things legal as well.

If that's what we end up going with (nothing from PHB legal except the SI's prerequisite feats), suggestions for an ingredient, anyone?

My suggestions:
Ranger Knight of Furyondy (Dragon Magazine #317, page 68) - requires Mounted Combat, Track, Trample, and Two-Weapon Fighting.
Menacing Brute (Races of Destiny, page 123) - requires Iron Will.

I'd also be perfectly happy with Disciple of Thrym.

Also, like I said before, I'd love to see more sources being allowed. (Not allowing Dragon Magazine never made sense to me- if someone is making a character with nonsensical magazine content that's cheesy, requires a very special interpretation of the rules to work, and is more character sheet than character, the score will reflect that).

[ciopo]

I think the no zines limitation was mostly a fairness rule, because those are harder to source compared to printed rulebooks.

Personally I agree with you, even if the question of 'zines are accepted at a table is also more iffy than "official" material, again mostly because of the difficulty of sourcing them


Like, your ranger knight suggestion.... I can't check what that class does, sure, maybe there are some hoops I can jump through to find out its details, but it's not as immediate as RoD.

[Inevitability]

Yeah, accessibility is a big issue with the dragon magazines, and the reason I am very unsure about allowing them. They're also a little iffy on the balance front, but that's a secondary concern tbh.

[H_H_F_F]

I think it's a combination of Dragon Magazine trivializing a couple of things (just like Cc trivializes pounce, say, though not for this competition) while also being, as Ciopo said, way less accessible than the books.

I'd personally be against it, but not vehemently so.

[Twurps]

Like, your ranger knight suggestion.... I can't check what that class does, sure, maybe there are some hoops I can jump through to find out its details, but it's not as immediate as RoD.

I don't have access to any drag-mag either, but I know this class has special mount related stuf and just finding this class won't help me out at all. Specifically on the 'special mount' front there's a couple of feats that blow any 'non dragonmagazine' build clear out of the water, and that's even before considering the limitations of this contest.