Monster Mash IX: Blazing (Mon)Stars

[Beni-Kujaku]

Monster Mash #9


This competition is for monstrous adventurers, in part to experiment with the possibilities they offer and in part to make use of the revised level adjustments which Inevitability and Debatra have spent five years assigning.
Adventurers designed for this contest must be of a monstrous race. For the purpose of this contest, “monstrous race” excludes all races designed for PC use, unless their level adjustment has been increased by one or more templates. “Monstrous race” is a somewhat vague category, by necessity. No simple set of rules can exclude every single PC race without also excluding some genuine monsters. Entries which flout this rule with borderline-monstrous races risk a penalty to their Monstrosity score.


For the purpose of this competition, all races use the modified level adjustments listed in the LA Assignment Archive (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?624825). Races with a -0 level adjustment are treated as if they had a +0 level adjustment. Monsters not rated at the time an entry is submitted and who haven't had an official level adjustment may not be used. You are allowed to play monsters not rated in the LA assignment thread only if they got an official level adjustment.
Some races' level adjustments include asterisks. These monsters have traits which render them unsuitable for PC use, such as a wight’s spawn creation, a dryad’s tree dependency, or a genie’s wishes; check the linked posts in the archive. For the purpose of this contest, those races do not possess those traits. In cases where it's unclear which traits are removed, please contact the chair for clarification.

Round Theme: Blazing (Mon)Stars

Sometimes, you just want to shine in your party. But when you're a nonhumanoid creature with vastly different values and way of thinking, you might take "shine" a bit too litterally.


You are the SUN! As such, you should try to fulfill as many of the following as possible:
The Sun is hot! You should be able to deal fire damage to people and things touching you.
Gravitation: You should be able to move other creatures without their consent.
Sunbursts: You should have at least one attack dealing damage to everyone around you.
Sunshine: You should have at least one light-related ability.



To note: If you find more sun-, star- or plasma-related abilities, all the better!!

Contestants
You will need to present a full build for your entry, from its first level to level 20. Also required is a rundown of how your build works at lower levels, to demonstrate that it is a functional character that could be played in a real game.
Traditionally participants in similar competitions give "snapshots" of tactics and abilities at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. Depending on the monstrous race chosen, your character may be unavailable at lower levels; in that case, instead give snapshots at various levels where it is playable. These snapshots should be roughly evenly distributed among what levels it is available at.


32 point-buy is the presumed creation method.
If you do use a different point-buy, please make your case for its necessity in your entry. Keep in mind that for using exceptionally large or small point-buys may warrant deductions in elegance and/or power.
If the monster you're cooking with has no intelligence, or an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, consider the intelligence as 3 (-8 racial modifier). It still retains any immunity to mind-affecting abilities it may have.

Competitors will be free to use any official 1st party (WotC) 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon Compendium is allowed, but Dragon magazine is disallowed. Unearthed Arcana is allowed. Unupdated 3.0 materials, as well as web exclusives by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion.
Official Errata and 3.5 updates to 3.0 content are considered valid regardless of whether their sources would otherwise be legal. This includes the 3.5 update of Oriental Adventures given in Dragon Magazine, and the 3.5 updates of Dragonlance Campaign Setting content given in later third party Dragonlance books.
Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Item Familiars and Taint are also banned from the competition.

Specific bans:

Any material that grants you leadership without you specifically taking it should be ignored and may not be traded away for another feat or ACF. Any variant of Leadership, such as Undead Leadership and Dragon Cohort are likewise banned. Wild Cohort and Obtain Familiar are allowed. If you are not sure if a specific feat violates the 'no leadership' rule, err on the side of caution, or ask me.
However, Leadership may be taken to qualify for another feat or class (such as the Great Captain feat or Legendary Leader prestige class), though a character still doesn't get its usual benefit in those cases. This is to allow characters to access unproblematic material that'd otherwise be made unavailable because of the Leadership ban.

Because this contest involves creating a build up to level 20, no race with a base ECL higher than 20 is allowed.
The Dragonlance Campaign Setting is allowed, but the subsequent books for Dragonlance are considered 3rd party, and are therefore not eligible, despite the "WotC approved" status of those books. The same holds for Oriental Adventures (1st party) and the subsequent Rokugan books (3rd party).
The Illithid Savant and Beholder Mage prestige classes are specifically banned due to their extreme potential for abuse.


Judging
Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each build rated on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (exemplary) in each area: Originality, Power, Elegance, and Monstrosity.
Scores of zero may be applied in cases of exceptional misconduct (plagiarism earns a 0 in Originality, failure to meet prerequisites earns a 0 in Elegance, non-monstrous races earn a 0 in Monstrosity, etc); otherwise, all entries should receive at least one full point in each category.
Originality: Is it unexpected or novel?
Power: Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
Elegance: Is it mechanically straighforward or “pretty”?
Monstrosity: Is the monstrous character’s race used?

Elegance and Monstrosity demand further elaboration.
Elegance measures how skillfully you put your build together, and whether you sacrificed flavor for power. Use of flaws is considered in poor taste, and judges are asked to take a dim view of this option, taking it into account while grading. Other things that will cause penalties here are excessive multi-classing, and classes that don't fit the concept.
A legal source's relative obscurity should not be considered as penalizing Elegance, excepting the aforementioned issues with Unearthed Arcana. Using conflicting setting material may result in a penalty to Elegance at the judges' discretion, but a book's relative obscurity may not. In that same vein, drawing solely from the Core 3 (and the d20 SRD) should not be punished for lacking Originality.
Monstrosity measures how necessary the entry’s monster race was to the submission. We want to build monstrous adventurers here, not standard Iron Chef builds with a few racial hit dice at the start. Builds which could not function without the monstrous features of their race earn high Monstrosity scores, while builds which could work on any PC race with no changes will take Monstrosity penalties. Builds using non-monstrous races will also take penalties to Monstrosity. For rounds with specific restrictions on the monster race, this category will also include making good use of the mandatory component.

Presentation
Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, I'd like everyone to try to use the following table for their entry.

NAME OF ENTRY


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



Code immediately below (spoiler).

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



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

Spells per Day/Spells Known


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Alternatively, you may use this spreadsheet created by (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG0-5sq4dL9Ooh7-QfXuyHzO4rXSz-CRcj29t6BeUVE/edit?usp=sharing) mattie_p (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?66256-mattie_p).
For other systems (Psionics, ToB, Incarnum, etc.) keep track of PP/maneuvers/essentia separately, preferably in a nice neat list or table.

Speculation
Please don’t post or speculate on possible builds until the reveal, in order to avoid spoiling the surprise if a particular competitor is producing a build along those lines.
Once builds are revealed, please do not comment on errors or rules issues on entries unless you are a judge. If you have such a comment, wait until the final reveal to post it.

Deadlines

Contestants will have until 23:59 GMT Saturday 20th of May to create their builds and PM them to the chair. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges will have until 23:59 GMT Saturday 10th of May 2023 to judge the builds and submit their scores. If no judges have scored by that point, only the scores of the first judge to submit will be counted. Deadlines are subject to extension as/if required.

Submission
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:
PM: Beni-Kujaku
Subject: Monster Mash #, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mailbox.

More questions? Either ask in the thread or PM me with Monster Mash Questions in the header. Please use PMs for any questions relating to a specific build to avoid violating rules against speculation.

Houserules/Clarifications
D&D 3.5 is far from a perfect system, and inflated level adjustments are far from the only example of this. Many rules are ambiguous, absent, or just badly-written. I make no claim to fixing the system, but feel some “house rules” are in order:

Bonus feats that are granted even if you do not meet the prerequisites do not require you to meet the prerequisites in order to use.
All creatures are proficient with any natural weapons they may have or acquire.
Monsters with racial hit dice may gain an additional hit die instead of taking a character level. This functions as advancing a monster this way would under other circumstances. You cannot advance any monster beyond the maximum number of racial hit dice noted in its Advancement entry. You can advance that way before, after, or in-between taking actual class levels.
The DC of a monster's supernatural ability is 10+1/2 number of Hit Dice+mod. This includes class levels.
Able Learner's benefit applies to the level you take it.
Weapons from soulmelds are considered to be magic weapons.
Unarmed Swordsage grants Improved Unarmed Strike at level 1.
Spelltouched feats are legal and can be taken just like any other feat when you meet the prerequisites and have the feat slot available.
Possessing innate spellcasting from your race is treated as a spellcasting class for the purposes of prestige classes which provide new spells per day, an increase in caster level, and spells known (if applicable) as if you had gained a level in a spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level.


If you have trouble finding a monster with specific abilities, you might want to check the Searchable Monster Abilities Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QrhdyI_42mru5Wn7d_GYBMFEL-2hqc-Q/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114473817632993756813&rtpof=true&sd=true).

Previous Competitions:
MM1: Back to Basics (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632644-Monster-Mash-Monstrous-Adventurer-Competition)
MM2: Scary Monsters (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?644846-Monster-Mash-II-Scary-Monsters!)
MM3: Keep your monsters close, and your enemies closer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?646125-Monster-Mash-III-Keep-your-monsters-close)
MM4: Monsters in the darkness (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?648212-Monster-Mash-IV-Monsters-in-the-Darkness#post25531590)
MM5: Crawling Monsters (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650003-Monster-Mash-V-Crawling-Monsters/)
MM6: Mysterious Monster Magic (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?651675-Monster-Mash-VI-Mysterious-Monster-Magic)
MM7: Monsters through the Snow (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?652584-Monster-Mash-VII-Monsters-through-the-Snow)
MM8: Half-Adventurers Half-Monsters (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?654615-Monster-Mash-VIII-Half-adventurers-half-monsters)


And now, time to get mashing!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Q&A for this round:

-


ECL 1: Minor Flame Snake
ECL 2: Magmin, Small Fire Elemental
ECL 3: Azer, Thoqqua, Phoera
ECL 4: Medium Fire Elemental
ECL 6: Harssaf, Caliento*
ECL 7: Remorhaz, Conflagration Ooze (supposedly)
ECL 8: Lesser Flame Snake*, Nightmare
ECL 9: Phiuhl*
ECL 12: Wicker Man*
ECL 15: Living Holocaust*, Cauchemar Nightmare
ECL 16: Cinder Swarm*, Cauchimera Nightmare
ECL 17: Greater Flame Snake*

Varies: Astral Constructs* (4th and up, Energy Touch), Fire Elementals* (Large and up), Fire Archons (supposedly)

[loky1109]

Okay. It's interesting.

[Thurbane]

Interesting round - I will try to get an entry in if time permits and inspiration strikes.

[Inevitability]

Very interested, let's see if inspiration strikes.

[loky1109]

I have 95% finished build. Need to make some story.

[Paragon]

I have 95% finished build. Need to make some story.

Exactly the same haha

[Thurbane]

I'm still at the bare bones stage, there's a couple of key factors I just can't decide on.

[loky1109]

Entry sent!

[Frostmoon]

Since I just made a sun for a different comp, I won't be participating here. I'm looking forward to seeing what people put together!! :3

[Thurbane]

OK, I'm pretty happy with my concept, now just to format it all.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Since I just made a sun for a different comp, I won't be participating here. I'm looking forward to seeing what people put together!! :3

I am too! Maybe you would like to judge the entries, if you're not participating yourself? Every judge has to start somewhere ^^

[pabelfly]

I have an incredibly stupid build idea. Time to write up my build and explain all of this to a prospective judge.

[Frostmoon]

I am too! Maybe you would like to judge the entries, if you're not participating yourself? Every judge has to start somewhere ^^
Oooh, we'll see~ I'm still not that familiar with the subsystems within D&D, but if I have the time, then maybe I can try this...? :3

[pabelfly]

Oooh, we'll see~ I'm still not that familiar with the subsystems within D&D, but if I have the time, then maybe I can try this...? :3

Becoming a judge is a great way to learn many different subsystems of 3e, as well as see various mechanics and interesting classes. I've done it several times before and I'd recommend trying it at least once, especially if you're interested in competing yourself. and want a better idea what you should be considering when designing and writing up your build.

[FactualArcher]

This looks like a cool competition. I might join once I've read more about it. I have a question, though. Right now, the judging deadline is ten days before the entries are due. Is this a mistake, or is the current deadline correct?

[Paragon]

Probably both haha
If you're in to cook, Beni will probably give you an extension should you need it. It's not everyday we have a newcomer join the competition.

My entry is sent btw so if you need any help you can PM me and I will :)

[Beni-Kujaku]

This looks like a cool competition. I might join once I've read more about it. I have a question, though. Right now, the judging deadline is ten days before the entries are due. Is this a mistake, or is the current deadline correct?

It's definitely a mistake. I meant 10th of June for the judging. Although judging deadlines are much more flexible than the already quite fickle entry deadline‚ due to the difficulty to find judges.

Anyway‚ as Paragon said‚ you're very welcome if you want to cook and if you need more time I'd be happy to give you (or anyone) an extension.

[FactualArcher]

Thanks for the clarification. I can definitely handle making a build by the 20th, so I guess I'm officially in to cook.

[pabelfly]

Okay, finished my build. I'll sit on it for a few days and see if anything comes to mind, and check over for spelling/grammar/format stuff before submitting it, but I rather like my build and I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone else answered the challenge.

[Frostmoon]

Becoming a judge is a great way to learn many different subsystems of 3e, as well as see various mechanics and interesting classes. I've done it several times before and I'd recommend trying it at least once, especially if you're interested in competing yourself. and want a better idea what you should be considering when designing and writing up your build.
Eheh, that's a fair point! :3 Thanks for the tips, everyone.

[pabelfly]

Just finished editing my entry and entered my build. Mine is the really stupid one, but sometimes you feel compelled to make really bad ideas work.

Good luck to everyone else who enters.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Hi everybody, sorry for not coming here for quite a long time. The reveal is supposed to be today, and I've had a few entries already. Does anybody need an extension for another one? Thurbane, Inevitability, you said you were planning on participating, how are you doing?

[Inevitability]

Hi everybody, sorry for not coming here for quite a long time. The reveal is supposed to be today, and I've had a few entries already. Does anybody need an extension for another one? Thurbane, Inevitability, you said you were planning on participating, how are you doing?

So I am very busy at the moment and probably going to prioritize junkyard over this (I don't have anything more than a partially formed idea for this anyway), I can try to get something in but I can't promise it'd be ready within a week.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Ok, if I have no answer from Thurbane asking for an extension, I'll make the reveal tomorrow.

[Thurbane]

Ok, if I have no answer from Thurbane asking for an extension, I'll make the reveal tomorrow.

Oh sorry, just saw this. Please don't wait for me. Things got far too hectic in my life to get anywhere near finished.

I'll post my stub after the reveal.

[Beni-Kujaku]

"What? My spiky epaulet? No, it doesn't violate any vow, it's just a regular piece of ogre clothing. Now go along before I smash you with the pointy part of my club."



Bonesmasher of the Light
A Vow of Poverty Warrior

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

Build Stub: Ogre 4/Barbarian 11/Elemental Warrior (Fire Affinity) 5

Race: Ogre Size: L Alignment: Neutral Good Deity: Pelor
HP: 280 (Raging) Move Speed: 50ft Initiative: 4
BAB: 17 FORT: 26 (Raging) REF: 10 WILL: 17 (possibly 18 to 22) (Raging)

Bonesmasher was born physically stunted and intellectually gifted, at least by ogre standards. His intelligence, and the aversion he developed towards other ogres, led him to leave his kind, eager to learn about the wider world.

Bonesmasher is the opposite of an ogre in all but appearance. Instead of hoarding wealth, he rejects it entirely. Instead of seeking cruel pleasure, Bonesmasher fights for others. And instead of brute force, Bonesmasher uses tactics and strategy. No-one knows if his opposition to all things ogre-like is deliberate or subconscious. Only one part of Bonesmasher’s heritage is left: his name. No-one knows why he hasn’t left it behind like every other part of his former life.

How is Bonesmasher "sun-themed"?

He forces enemy movement with the Charging Minotaur manoeuvre (level 1). Later he can use Knockback to force movement even while full attacking (level 15)
He doesn’t eat or drink, just like the sun (citation needed)(level 6)
He doesn’t use money, just like the sun (citation needed) (level 6)
He can make opponent that attack him take fire damage (level 9)
He can emit light up to 5ft (level 10)
He can damage enemies with fire (level 11)
He doesn't need to breathe, just like the sun (citation needed)(level 12)
He's immune to fire damage while raging (level 14)





Stat Array
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA


Ogre + Primordial Template
6
-2
2
0
0
0


Point Buy
16 (000)
10 (000)
15 (000)
14 (000)
14 (000)
81 (000)


Level 1
22
8
17
14
14
8


Level 20
26 (+4)
8
18 (+1)
14
14
8


Level 20 (With Vow of Poverty)
34 (+8)
14 (+6)
20 (+2)
14
18 (+4)
8


Level 20 (With Greater Rage and Vow of Poverty)
40 (+14)
14 (+6)
26 (+8)
14
18 (+4)
8



Level 4 ability score increase is CON. All other ability score increases go to STR.




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


4th
Ogre 4
3
4
1
1
Balance +3 (3), Climb +4 (4), Knowledge (Planes) +7 (7), Listen +7 (7), Spot +7 (7)
1: Martial Study (Stone Dragon)
3: Sacred Vow
Spell-Like Ability: Invisibility Purge
Aura of Good
Balance as class skill
Manoeuvre: Charging Minotaur
Languages: Common, Giant, Orc, Terran



5th
Barbarian 1
4
6
1
1
Balance +2 (5), Climb (4), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Spot (7), Tumble +4 (4)

Rage 1/day
Lion Totem (Pounce)
Skilled City-Dweller (Survival traded for Sense Motive, and Ride traded for Tumble)


6th
Barbarian 2
5
7
1
1
Balance (5), Climb (4), Intimidate +2 (2), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Sense Motive +3 (3), Spot (7), Tumble +1 (5)
6: Vow of Poverty
B: Nymph’s Kiss
Endure Elements
Exalted Strike +1 (Magic)
Sustenance
+6 Exalted AC
+1 Deflection AC
Twisted Charge (Skill Trick)
Uncanny Dodge


7th
Barbarian 3
6
7
2
2
Balance (5), Climb (4), Intimidate +2 (4), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Sense Motive +1 (4), Spot (7), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick (2)

Resistance +1
STR +2
Wastelands Trap Sense


8th
Barbarian 4
7
8
2
2
Balance (5), Climb (4), Intimidate (4), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Sense Motive +3 (7), Spot (7), Swim +4 (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
B: Gift of Discernment
Natural Armor +1
Mind Shielding
Rage 2/day


9th
Elemental Warrior 1
7
10
2
2
Balance (5), Climb (4), Intimidate +5 (9), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Sense Motive (7), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
9: Power Attack
+7 Exalted AC
Elemental Affinity (Fire)
Language: Ignan


10th
Elemental Warrior 2
8
11
2
2
Balance +1 (6), Climb (4), Intimidate +4 (13), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Sense Motive (7), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
B: Nimbus of Light
Exalted Strike +2 (Good)
DR 5/Magic
Elemental Manifestation (Fire)


11th
Elemental Warrior 3
9
11
3
3
Balance +4 (10), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (14), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Sense Motive (7), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick

STR +4, DEX +2
Elemental Weapon (Fire)


12th
Elemental Warrior 4
10
12
3
3
Balance +4 (14), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (15), Knowledge (Planes) (7), Listen (7), Sense Motive (7), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
12: Improved Bull Rush
B: Vow of Chastity
+8 Exalted AC
+2 Deflection AC
Greater Sustenance
Elemental Movement


13th
Elemental Warrior 5
10
12
3
3
Balance +2 (16), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (16), Knowledge (Planes) +2 (9), Listen (7), Sense Motive (7), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick

Resistance +2
Energy Resistance 5
Elemental Movement
Elemental Weapon Improvement


14th
Barbarian 5
11
12
3
3
Balance +1 (17), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (17), Knowledge (Planes) (9), Listen +5 (12), Sense Motive (7), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
B: Blazing Berserker
B: Vow of Obedience
Exalted Strike +3
Freedom of Movement


15th
Barbarian 6
12
13
4
4
Balance +1 (18), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (18), Knowledge (Planes) (9), Listen +5 (17), Sense Motive (7), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
15: Knockback
+9 Exalted AC
+6 STR, +4 DEX, +2 WIS
Wastelands Trap Sense +2


16th
Barbarian 7
13
13
4
4
Balance +1 (19), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (19), Knowledge (Planes) (9), Listen +2 (19), Sense Motive +3 (10), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
B: Gift of Faith
+2 Natural Armor
Damage Reduction 1/-


17th
Barbarian 8
14
14
4
4
Balance +1 (20), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (20), Knowledge (Planes) (9), Listen +1 (20), Sense Motive +4 (14), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick

Exalted Strike +4
Resistance +3
Regeneration
Rage 3/day


18th
Barbarian 9
15
14
5
5
Balance +1 (21), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (21), Knowledge (Planes) (9), Listen +1 (21), Sense Motive +4 (18), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
18: Iron Will
B: Favored of the Companions
+10 Exalted AC
+3 Deflection AC
True Seeing
Wastelands Trap Sense +3


19th
Barbarian 10
16
15
5
5
Balance +1 (22), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (22), Knowledge (Planes) (9), Listen +1 (22), Sense Motive +4 (22), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick

+8 STR, +6 DEX, +4 WIS, +2 CON
Damage Reduction 10/Evil
Damage Reduction 2/-


20th
Barbarian 11
17
15
5
5
Balance +1 (23), Climb (4), Intimidate +1 (23), Knowledge (Planes) +3 (12), Listen +1 (23), Sense Motive +1 (23), Spot (7), Swim (4), Tumble (5), Nimble Charge Skill Trick (2), Twisted Charge Skill Trick
B: Righteous Wrath
Exalted Strike +5
Energy Resistance 15
Greater Rage





Build Stub: Ogre 4/Barbarian 1

Race: Ogre is a nice martial race, even taking into account lost class levels and lower ECL options. They’ve got good physical ability scores, good natural armor bonus, Large helps with reach and bull rushing up to Huge opponents and getting the Knockback feat, and giant type qualifies us for the Primordial template. The LA Assignment thread reduces the Ogre’s LA from +2 to 0 LA.

Template: Primordial template loses some STR and CON, but negates penalties to Intelligence and Charisma. We also add Knowledge (Planes) to our class skill list, the key skill for the Elemental Warrior prestige class. Lastly, we gain Invisibility Purge as an at-will spell-like ability.

Barbarian Class Features: Barbarian gives us Rage and Pounce. Rage boosts attack, damage, HP and our Will save. Lion Totem Barbarian trades fast movement for Pounce, allowing a full attack routine after charging an enemy. Barbarian also has a great skill list, especially with Skilled City-Dweller ACF trading Ride and Survival for Tumble and Sense Motive.

A minor, amusing note: our Ogre levels means we’re a literate Barbarian, and, somehow, ogres are better at reading and writing than a level 1 Barbarian.

Feats: Martial Study (Stone Dragon) makes Balance a class skill, handy for a charging martial. We also learn Charging Minotaur, a manoeuvre where we don’t take attacks of opportunity and do 2d6 + STR damage to an enemy. It’s great for low-level combat, and when we forced movement has heightened importance, such as on bridges, cliffs, or rooftops.

Sacred Vow gives us +2 to Diplomacy and an Aura of Good, and is needed for Vow of Poverty.

Ability Score Increase: We get our CON to 18, increasing our HP and Fort save.

Weapon: Our weapon of choice is a Morningstar, wielded two-handed. It’s the best damage dice for a simple weapon we can wield two-handed.

Build Stub: Ogre 4/Barbarian 4/Elemental Warrior 2

Barbarian class features: Uncanny Dodge lets us keep DEX to AC if we’re flat-footed. It’s more important at higher levels.

Wastelands Barbarian grants a bonus feat over Improved Uncanny Dodge, but we also trade Trap Sense for Wastelands Trap Sense. The latter is a minor bonus that will see little use.

We get a second use of Rage per day. That’s very useful.

Elemental Warrior class features: Fire is our Elemental Affinity. We gain Ignan as a language, and Fire Resistance 10 is handy. We can also deal fire damage to those attacking us.

Skill Tricks: Nimble Charge lets us charge without a balance check. Twisted Charge lets us make a single turn up to 90 degrees while charging. The latter likely won’t work while Raging, but it’s great for setting up beforhand.

Feats: Power Attack is needed for Improved Bull Rush and Knockback. With our high strength score, we would likely use Power Attack 6, but this depends on enemy AC and HP

Vow of Poverty is discussed below. We also earn three bonus exalted feats. Nymph’s Kiss gives +2 to Charisma checks, +1 to saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities, and 1 extra skill point per level. Gift of Discernment helps ensure we don’t lose Exalted status. Nimbus of Light gives a bonus to Diplomacy with Good creatures, and we give off bright light at will to a radius of 5ft.

Here's a short Vow of Poverty summary: you're Good, you give your money to charity, and you can't use or borrow magic items except healing potions. You do, however, get bonus feats and abilities instead.

Let’s go over the abilities we get from levels 6-10. We also gain the earlier benefits of Vow of Poverty that aren’t bonus feats.

AC bonuses – what you get instead of armor.
Endure Elements – good for areas with more extreme elements, such as hot deserts, alpine and polar regions, and so forth.
Exalted Strike – a bonus to attack and damage rolls, the ability to treat a weapon we wield as a magic weapon, and helps bypass some damage resistance types.
Sustenance – suns don’t need to eat or drink and neither do we.
Resistance – a scaling bonus to saving throws.
Ability Score Enhancement – +2 to STR.
Mind Shielding – Immunity to Detect Thoughts, Discern Lies, and attempts to discern alignment.
Damage Reduction – we’re a frontline character, we love damage reduction. If enemies bypass this damage reduction, Barbarian later gives us some untyped damage reduction.

Build Stub: Ogre 4/Barbarian 6/Elemental Warrior 5

Barbarian Class Features: We’ve traded away Improved Uncanny Dodge for Blazing Berserker. We also get Wastelands Trap Sense +2, which is not of much concern. Moving on.

Elemental Warrior Class Features: We can imbue our weapon with fire energy as a move action five times per day, up to a minute each time. This allows us to do an extra 2d6 fire damage with each attack, and more on a critical hit. We gain untyped +10 to movement and the ability to shift to the Fire Plane, or from the Fire Plane to the material plane as a standard action once per day.

Feats: Improved Bull Rush and Knockback help force enemy movement with each attack. With our bonuses, we can go Power Attack 6, and attempt to bull rush anything Huge or Smaller with STR + 6 x 2 Power Attack + 4 Improved Bull rush + d20 roll. We should be able to force opponents back multiple squares each turn. If they want to attack us, they have to pass through areas we threaten and take an attack of opportunity. And for opponents you can’t move, we’re doing solid damage.

Blazing Berserker gives an optional Fire immunity in exchange for double damage from Cold attacks. It’s a solid defensive option.

Vow of Chastity gives +4 to Will saves against charms and phantasms. Vow of Obedience gives +4 to Will saves against compulsion spells and effects. Vow of Chastity requires that our character doesn’t have sex, and Vow of Obedience requires us to live according to the rules of an organization we pledge to, which suits us since we want to pledge allegiance Talisid and his Five Companions.

Ability Score Increase: Our ability score increases take us to 24 STR, boosting accuracy and damage.

Here are our Vow of Poverty benefits. For brevity, I won’t go over previous benefits, but most numerical bonuses have improved.


Ability Score Enhancement – at level 11, we have +4 to STR and +2 to DEX. At level 15, that becomes +6 to STR, +4 to DEX and +2 to WIS.
Greater Sustenance – we don’t need to breathe. Do you know what else doesn’t need to breathe? The sun.
Energy Resistance 5 – it doesn’t stack with Elemental Warrior’s 10 Fire Resistance, but 5 resistance to all other energy types, including sonic, is nice.
Freedom of Movement – This lets us move normally at all times, great for a charging build. This includes uneven ground, spells like Solid Fog and Paralysis, grappling, and we can even charge underwater.

Build Stub: Ogre 4/Barbarian 11/Elemental Warrior 5

Barbarian Class Features: Damage reduction is exactly what it says. While we have a higher damage reduction elsewhere, that only works on non-Evil attacks, but lots of things deal evil damage. Barbarian’s DR is weaker but always works on any melee attack.

You also get Wastelands Trap Sense 3. It's still not important.

We get to use Rage 3/day, and gain Greater Rage. Greater Rage increases bonuses to STR, CON, and will saves from Rage, which is a nice upgrade and a fitting build capstone.

Feats: Iron Will is a flat +2 to Will saves. It’s a nice boost to an important save.

Gift of Faith is a +2 to resist fear effects. Combined with our other situational Will save bonuses, we should do quite well on our will save (discussed below in “Saves”).

Favored of the Companions is a situational +1 to a single roll or check while performing an act of Good. It’s not a substantial bonus, but it’s earned by pledging allegiance to the guardinal Talisid, the Celestial Lion.

Righteous Wrath forces evil opponents to make a Will save on an attack. The DC is low and lots of things will be immune but it triggers for free, and opponents with the Shaken condition make combat easier.

Ability Score Increase: We get two ability score increases to STR, which takes us to 26 STR (before Vow of Poverty and Rage), boosting accuracy and damage.

Regeneration: slightly faster passive healing.
True Seeing: This is another great ability and it’s permanently on. You can see through magical and mundane darkness, notice things hidden by magic, ignore miss chances from effects like Blur and Displacement, see the true form of creatures and objects altered with spells, and can see into the Ethereal plane. A lot of great effects.
Ability Score Enhancement we now have a +8 to STR, +6 to DEX and +4 to WIS and +2 to CON.
Energy Resistance 15: This is pretty solid defensively.

Let’s go over our skills and why our character wants/needs them. Totals include bonuses from ability scores and feats:

Balance (29) (includes skill synergy) –Balance helps us get our skill tricks, and manoeuvre around unstable areas. It also works while Raging.
Climb (16) – we can get a good climb skill from few ranks due to our high STR score, giving us some utility out-of-combat.
Diplomacy (5) (includes skill synergy) – we have several feats and a skill synergy bonus to boost Diplomacy, but it’s not our strong point. Still, criminals and evil-doers should be given a chance to surrender, even if it’s not from the most persuasive source.
Intimidate (24) – it’s always nice to have at least one way to influence a social situation if required.
Knowledge (Planes) (16) – we require five ranks to enter Elemental Warrior, and it makes sense that a character eager to learn about the world spends time learning about the Planes
Listen (27) – one of the two ambush prevention checks.
Sense Motive (27) – You can’t understand the world without understanding the people in it.
Spot (11) – a second chance for the typical ambushed prevention check.
Swim (16) – we can get a good swim skill from few ranks due to our high STR score, giving us some utility out-of-combat.
Tumble (9) – We need five ranks in this for skill tricks to improve our charge, and for a skill synergy bonus to Balance. However, Tumble can’t be used while Raging.




Save Bonus
Fort
Ref
Will


Base Saves
15
5
5


Stat Bonuses (with Greater Rage)
8
4
4


Greater Rage Bonus (Morale)
0
0
3


Vow of Poverty
3
3
3


Iron Will
0
0
2


Total
26
12
17





Situational Save Bonus
Fort
Ref
Will


Gift of Faith (Fear and Despair Effects)
0
0
2


Vow of Chastity (Charms and Phantasms)
0
0
4


Vow of Obedience (Compulsion Spells and Effects)
0
0
4


Nymph's Kiss (Spells and Spell-Like Abilities)
1
1
1



Our general saves are decent, and most will saves have an extra +1 and +5, depending on the circumstances.


Assumptions:
Greater Rage is active
Character is wielding a Large morningstar with two hands
Enemy has 36 AC and DR 15
Calculate Power Attack 0 and Power Attack 6

Accuracy
17 + 20 STR + 5 Exalted Strike – 1 size
41/36/31/26
35/30/25/20 at Power Attack 6

Damage
1d10 + 20 STR x 1.5 + 5 Exalted Strike
5.5 + 30 + 5
40.5 damage per hit (25.5 after DR)
52.5 damage per hit at Power Attack 6 (35.5 after DR)

Attacks
0.95 x 25.5 + 0.95 x 25.5 + 0.75 x 25.5 + 0.5 x 25.5
80.325 damage per round

Attacks (Power Attack 6)
0.95 x 37.5 + 0.7 x 37.5 + 0.45 x 37.5 + 0.2 x 37.5
86.25 damage per round

(Power Attack 6 + 2d6 Fire Elemental Weapon)
0.95 x 44.5 + 0.8 x 44.5 + 0.55 x 44.5 + 0.3 x 44.5
102.35 damage per round

We average approximately 86.25 damage per round at level 20, or 102.35 damage per round if we activate Elemental Weapon (presuming our opponents have no Fire resistance).

Book of Exalted Deeds – Talisid alleigance, Assorted Exalted Feats
Complete Champion – Lion Totem Alternate Class Feature
Monster Manual – Ogre
Player’s Guide to Faerun – Gift of Discernment
Player’s Handbook – Barbarian class, Improved Bull Rush, Iron Will, Power Attack
Planar Handbook – Elemental Warrior prestige class
Races of Stone – Knockback
Sandstorm – Wasteland Barbarian, Blazing Berserker
Secrets of Xen’Drik – Primordial template
Tome of Battle – Martial Study (Stone Dragon)
WOTC Online – Skilled City-Dweller Alternate Class Feature (https://web.archive.org/web/20201112031718/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a)

[Beni-Kujaku]

He's not your average genie... This ninja knows eighteen ways to kill a man using his bare hands alone. I have only one advise for you: if you hear of his presence, flee. If you see both dark and light, flee. But if you feel the heat, then pray, for it's already too late.


https://cdn2.myminifactory.com/assets/object-assets/5f7dfb5360342/images/720X720-img-1140.jpg

Renegade was a human once, but he remembered almost nothing from his past life. His memory is covered by a veil of suffering. Painful rite that turned him into reth dekala erased most of his reminiscences, only rare flashes remain. Reth dekala think it is an honor to become one of them. Renegade didn't agree. And matter even wasn't about constant torment. Core of his personality stayed with him and it was too freedom-loving. All reth dekala's values and goals were against the grain for Renegade. He left the Crimson Citadel and Acheron at all and went to search his own ninja way.

CG Reth dekala Warblade 1/Cobra Strike Monk 2/Warlock 1/Master of Nine 5/Shadow Sun Ninja 5
Abilities Initial Race/Template ASI Total
STR 14 8 22
DEX 14 4 18
CON 14 6 20
INT 12 12
WIS 16 4 4 24
CHA 8 4 12
ECL Class BAB Fort Reflex Will Skills Feats Class Features
6th Outsider 5 5 4 4 4 72: {+8} Balance: 8; {+8} Concentration: 8; {+8} Diplomacy: 8; {+8} Intimidate: 8; {+8} Jump: 8; {+8} Listen: 8; {+8} Sense Motive: 8; {+8} Spellcraft: 8; {+8} Spot: 8; Improved Initiative (1), Blind-Fight (3) Air walk, aligned strike, fortification, martial maneuvers, vilefire aura, vilefire blast
7th Warblade 1 6 6 4 4 5: {+1} Balance: 9; {+1} Concentration: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 9; {+1} Intimidate: 9; {+1} Jump: 9; Listen: 8; Sense Motive: 8; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; Adaptive Style (6) Battle clarity (Reflex saves), weapon aptitude
8th Cobra Strike Monk 1 6 8 6 6 5: {+1} Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 10; Intimidate: 9; {+1} Jump: 10; Listen: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 9; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; Dodge (B), Improved Unarmed Strike (B) Bonus feat, flurry of blows, unarmed strike
9th Monk 2 7 9 7 7 5: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 11; Diplomacy: 10; Intimidate: 9; Jump: 10; Listen: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+3} Tumble: 3; Combat Reflexes (B) Bonus feat, evasion
10th Warlock 1 7 9 7 9 3: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 12; Diplomacy: 10; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Jump: 10; Listen: 8; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; Tumble: 3; {+1} Use Magic Device: 1; Blend into Shadows (9) Eldritch blast 1d6, least invocations (Darkness)
11th Master of Nine 1 7 9 7 11 7: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 13; Diplomacy: 10; {+3} Hide: 3; Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 11; Listen: 8; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+2} Tumble: 5; Use Magic Device: 1;
12th Master of Nine 2 8 9 7 12 7: Balance: 10; Concentration: 13; Diplomacy: 10; {+5} Hide: 8; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 11; Listen: 8; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+2} Tumble: 7; Use Magic Device: 1; Dual stance
13th Shadow Sun Ninja 1 8 11 9 14 5: Balance: 10; {+2} Concentration: 15; Diplomacy: 10; {+1} Hide: 9; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 11; Listen: 8; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+2} Tumble: 9; Use Magic Device: 1; Cunning Evasion (12) Monk abilities, touch of the Shadow Sun
14th Shadow Sun Ninja 2 9 12 10 15 5: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 16; Diplomacy: 10; {+1} Hide: 10; Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 12; Listen: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 11; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+1} Tumble: 10; Use Magic Device: 1; Flame of the Shadow Sun
15th Shadow Sun Ninja 3 10 12 10 15 5: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 17; Diplomacy: 10; {+2} Hide: 12; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 12; Listen: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 12; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+1} Tumble: 11; Use Magic Device: 1;
16th Shadow Sun Ninja 4 11 13 11 16 5: Balance: 10; Concentration: 17; Diplomacy: 10; {+2} Hide: 14; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 12; Listen: 8; Sense Motive: 12; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+1} Tumble: 12; Use Magic Device: 1; {+2} Acrobatic Backstab; Stunning Fist (15) Light within darkness
17th Master of Nine 3 12 14 12 16 7: Balance: 10; {+2} Concentration: 19; Diplomacy: 10; {+2} Hide: 16; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 12; Listen: 8; Sense Motive: 12; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+3} Tumble: 15; Use Magic Device: 1; Acrobatic Backstab; Perfect form
18th Master of Nine 4 13 14 12 17 7: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 20; Diplomacy: 10; {+2} Hide: 18; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 12; Listen: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 13; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+3} Tumble: 18; Use Magic Device: 1; Acrobatic Backstab; Counter stance
19th Shadow Sun Ninja 5 13 14 12 17 5: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 21; Diplomacy: 10; {+2} Hide: 20; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 12; Listen: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 14; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+1} Tumble: 19; Use Magic Device: 1; Acrobatic Backstab; Desert Wind Dodge (18), Dodge → Snap Kick Darkness within light
20th Master of Nine 5 13 14 12 17 7: Balance: 10; {+1} Concentration: 22; Diplomacy: 10; {+2} Hide: 22; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 12; Listen: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 15; Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 8; {+3} Tumble: 22; Use Magic Device: 1; Acrobatic Backstab; Mastery of nine
Underlined skills at 10th ECL are the key discipline skills.
ECL Class IL Max ML New Maneuvers Known Maneuvers Readied (Favorite) New Stances Known
6th Reth dekala 5 3 Daunting Strike (Devo 5th), Death from Above (Tiger 4th), Disarming Strike (Iron 2nd), Entangling Blade (Devo 4th), Wall of Blades (Iron 2nd) 5 Martial Spirit (Devo 1st), Thicket of Blades (Devo 3rd)
7th Warblade 1 6 3 Mountain Hammer1 (Stone 2nd), Action Before Thought2 (Diam 2nd), White Raven Tactics3 (White 3rd) 5+3 (1,2,3) Leading the Charge (White 1st)
11th Master of Nine 1 8 4 Clever Positioning4 (Sun 2nd), Comet Throw5 (Sun 4st) 5+4 (1,2,3,4) -
12th Master of Nine 2 9 5 Shadow Stride6 (Shadow 5th) 5+5 (1,2,3,4,6) Assassin's Stance (Shadow 3rd)
13th Shadow Sun Ninja 1 10 5 Mirrored Pursuit7 (Sun 5th) 5+5 (2,3,4,6,7) -
14th Shadow Sun Ninja 2 11 6 - 5+5 (2,3,4,6,7) -
15th Shadow Sun Ninja 3 12 6 Ballista Throw8 (Sun 6th) 5+5 (3,4,6,7,8) -
16th Shadow Sun Ninja 4 13 7 - 5+5 (3,4,6,7,8) -
17th Master of Nine 3 14 7 Death Mark9 (Desert 3rd), Inferno Blade10 (Desert 7th) 5+6 (3,6,7,8,9,10) -
18th Master of Nine 4 15 8 Wyrm's Flame11 (Desert 8th) 5+7 (3,6,7,8,9,10,11) Holocaust Cloak (Desert 3rd)
19th Shadow Sun Ninja 5 16 8 - 5+8 (1,3,6,7,8,9,10,11) Shifting Defense (Sun 5th)
20th Master of Nine 5 17 9 Inferno Blast12 (Desert 9th), Salamander Charge13 (Desert 7th) 5+9 (1,2,3,6,7,9,10,11,12) -
Superscript numbers are just ordinal numbers of maneuvers which you also could see in the brackets favorite maneuvers.

I know, most judges give low Originality entries with elements from Tome of Battles, but! I draw your attention, in most cases they have only dip or maneuver got via feats, but aren't almost full initiators. Actually I can't remember any.
Renegade has levels in Monk - required any lawful, Warlock - required any evil or any chaotic and Shadow Sun Ninja - required any good. How can I meet all those requirements? Easy! Renegade is Good - for Shadow Sun Ninja, he is chaotic - for Warlock, and he has lawful subtype - for Monk.

Lawful: A subtype usually applied only to outsiders native to the lawful-aligned Outer Planes. Most creatures that have this subtype also have lawful alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has a lawful alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is.

Special: Desert Wind Dodge can be used in place of Dodge to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability. If you already have Dodge when you select Desert Wind Dodge, you can choose to lose the Dodge feat and gain a new feat in its place. You must meet the prerequisite for the new feat.
At this level Renegade is still in the beginning. He already is a competent combatant with a variety of abilities, but his best tricks are ahead.
Now he fully qualified for Master of Nine, has HiPS, unarmed strike as backup weapon, evasion, Wis to AC, and useful Warblade's maneuvers.
Two levels of Master of Nine to qualify for Shadow Sun Ninja and four levels of this prestige class give Renegade ability that was one of my goals - Light within darkness. With Cunning Evasion and Blend into Shadows Renegade gets good light-themed debuff. He also gets Stunning Fist (8 attempts for now), five more useful maneuvers, always useful Assassin's Stance, limited, but useful ability to gain the benefits of two stances at once, and two less useful abilities of Shadow Sun Ninja. Touch of the Shadow Sun is a very situational healing option that could be easily abusable if Renegade will have an undead in his party. Flame of the Shadow Sun doesn't work fully without shenanigans with reading swift action, but also it's another light-themed ability and of course it's cold resistance.
One more level of Shadow Sun Ninja - mostly for extra stance and readied maneuver, but Darkness within Light could be situationally useful, and completing of Master of Nine. All its abilities are good, but Mastery of nine really is capstone - +9 damage for every strike is really strong. And of course Renegade gets more maneuvers up to 9th level.
I’ll dwell on them in more detail. Death Mark and Inferno Blast aren't the only damage source for Renegade, actually. They are part of a combo.

You have immunity to the fire damage from your own death mark.

You are not harmed by your own inferno blast.
Look carefully at these wordings. Nothing says Renegade doesn't need to check his Reflex save - yes, he's immune to damage of these maneuvers, but still could make a save. And could succeed. Which activates Cunning Evasion and Light within darkness on his terms.

I need fulfill four requirements:
1) Hot! Renegade is hot. He has Vilefire Aura and later Holocaust Cloak. Funny, Reth dekala isn't in the Beni's list of fire-damaging monsters. )
2) Gravitation. Renegade has Comet Throw, Clever Positioning, and Ballista Throw.
3) Sunbursts. It's easy: Vilefire Aura and Inferno Blast. Also Death Mark, but it isn't cantered exactly on Renegade.
4) Sunshine. Renegade fulfills it with Flame of the Shadow Sun and Light within darkness.

Type Name Book
Race Reth Dekala ToB (154)
Class Warblade ToB (20)
Class Monk PHB
Class Warlock CArc (5)
Class variant Cobra Strike Monk UA (52)
Prestige Class Master of Nine ToB (119)
Prestige Class Shadow Sun Ninja ToB (126)
Feat Improved Initiative PHB
Feat Blind-Fight PHB
Feat Adaptive Style ToB (28)
Feat Dodge PHB
Feat Improved Unarmed Strike PHB
Feat Combat Reflexes PHB
Feat Blend into Shadows DotU (47)
Feat Cunning Evasion PHB2 (78)
Feat Stunning Fist PHB
Feat Desert Wind Dodge ToB (29)
Feat Snap Kick ToB (32)
Maneuvers & Stances All ToB
Skill Trick Acrobatic Backstab CS (84)

[Beni-Kujaku]

People are drawn to her like moths are to a raging fire.
Part 1/2


If you look too closely at the Sun, you might get blinded
Have you heard the story of the Flame of Snowvale?
No? Then I shall tell you. The tale begins years ago.
In those days, she who would be known as the Flame was called Aertha.
She made her home here in Snowvale. Back then, it was filled with life, fey and beasts alike.
The vale was cut off from the outside world. One day, however, Aertha broke the protections.
She crossed the border unwittingly, and left a gap in the defenses.
The tear lay unnoticed for years, but one day an orc shaman found it.
The orc served Cephandriax, a mighty red dragon, who ruled a vast horde.
When he heard the orc’s news, the great wyrm turned his greedy eye towards the hidden valley.
His horde overran the defenses and slew many of the valley’s spirits.
The survivors, Aertha among them, fled the horde.
Their respite was short lived, however, as Cephandriax pursued them.
His fires burned the forest. Nymph, dryad, and sprite alike died in the blaze.
When the fires went out, only one nymph was left alive.
Aertha was badly burnt, but when the fires touched her, something awoke within her.
Ages before, when Snowvale was still connected to the outside world, a dragon visited the valley.
The wyrm arrived in human form, and despite its evil nature, it fell in love with a nymph.
Years after the two met, a dragon blooded nymph was born.
When her mother learned the true nature of the father, she wrought a mighty spell.
It cast the dragon out, and hid Snowvale from the eyes of magic and mortals alike.
When the wyrm realized what had happened, a burning rage filled him.
On that day, Cephandriax the Great swore vengeance on the nymph of Snowvale.
On the day Cephandriax got his revenge, the draconic blood of the nymph’s of Snowvale awoke.
Though centuries had passed, and much of the dragon’s power had faded, a remnant remained in Aertha.
The barest splinter of the dragon’s power sheltered her from the fires that burnt the forest to ash.
When she awoke from her burn scarred slumber, Aertha swore an oath of vengeance of her own.
She left Snowvale and journeyed south to human lands, determined to master her inborn magic there.
While she never blended in with human society, Aertha fell in with a company of adventurers.
Together, they thwarted the servants of Cephandriax wherever they found them.
On their travels, Aertha heard rumors of a song that could channel the power of dragons.
As her band grew in fame, Aertha learned to work magic with her voice and not just the power of nature. While she studied magic, she sought out the song of dragonfire to master it herself.
In her search for the dragon song, Aertha and her companions met Irin, a lyrist of Fochulan College.
Like Aertha, Irin channeled magic of multiple kinds and had dragon blood in his ancestry.
He taught her the song of the dragons, and introduced her to the lore of Fochulan College.
With her newfound power, Aertha and her companions set out to face Cephandriax in combat.
The battle was swift, but not in the way Aertha willed it. The fires she had learned to wield failed.
The scales of Cephandriax shrugged off the best efforts of Aertha, Irin, and their companions.
At the end of the battle, only Aertha survived, again saved only by her dragon’s blood.
When she awoke, again surrounded by ash and corpses, Aertha realized her mistake.
Of course dragons were immune to dragon fire. To kill them Aertha needed to burn hotter.
And in all the planes, only one thing burns hotter than dragons. The Sun.
Aertha’s constant journeying took her to the desert, where the power of the sun was strongest.
There she learned to infuse her spells with the heat of a thousand suns, hot enough to slay a dragon.
It took Aertha years to master the magic without harming herself. Alone in the desert, she studied.
Her knowledge of both kinds of magic grew, and though in Snowvale she cast spells of earth and water,
in the desert she cast spells of fire and light. She learned to forge armor from sunlight, surround herself in flames, and wield the claws of a dragon. After a decade of study, Aertha thought herself ready.
Again she journeyed north, leaving a trail of flames in her path.
By the ashes of Snowvale, Aertha encountered Cephandriax for the third and final time.
The flames each employed burned through forests and singed the very ground.
In the end, however, the flames of Aertha burned brighter.
When Cephandriax realized his descendant outmatched him, he tried to flee.
As he ran, Aertha drew on her magic to the fullest and called on the winds to halt the dragon’s flight.
Though the dragon’s strength nearly outmatched her conjured gales, Aertha brought Cephandriax down.
Her final claw strike burned into the dragon's heart. Alone, Aertha asked the dying wyrm why he had destroyed Snowvale, all those years ago. With his dying breaths, the wyrm told her the full story.
The realization shattered Aertha, who understood now why she had survived the dragon’s flames twice.
After the dragon died, Aertha told her story to no one, unable to move on from the crimes of her ancestors. In the years afterwards, she was called the Flame of Snowvale, but no one learned her story.
You ask then, why I know it? You are lucky I wear a hood. Even now, my light can still blind.

NG Nymph Shapeshifter Druid 1/Bard 2/Adventurer Rogue 2/Fochulan Lyrist 5/Sublime Chord 1
Initial Stat Buy+Nymph Modifiers
Str 8+0=8
Dex 12+6=18
Con 12+2=14
Int 10+6=16
Wis 14+6=20
Cha 18+8=26
Stat Increases go to Charisma, to reach 29 at 19th level when HD reach 16.

Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Nymph 1 0 0 2 2 Concentration 4 (+4), Diplomacy 4 (+4), Sense Motive 4 (+4), Listen 4 (+4), Knowledge Nature 2 (+2)*, Handle Animal 4 (+4), Sleight of Hand 2 (+2)*, Spot 4 (+4), Decipher Script 2 (+2)* Dragontouched Blinding Beauty, Stunning Glance, Unearthly Grace, Wild Empathy, Dr 10/Cold Iron, Druidic Spellcasting
2nd Nymph 2 1 0 3 3 Concentration 5 (+1), Diplomacy 5 (+1), Sense Motive 5 (+1), Listen 5 (+1), Knowledge Nature 2 1/2 (+1/2)*, Handle Animal 5 (+1), Sleight of Hand 2 1/2 (+ 1/2)*, Spot 5 (+1), Decipher Script 2 1/2 (+1/2)* -
3rd Nymph 3 1 1 3 3 Concentration 6 (+1), Diplomacy 6 (+1), Sense Motive 6 (+1), Listen 6 (+1), Knowledge Nature 3 (+1/2)*, Handle Animal 6 (+1), Sleight of Hand 3 (+ 1/2)*, Spot 6 (+1), Decipher Script 3 (+1/2)* Draconic Heritage (Red)
4th Nymph 4 2 1 4 4 Concentration 7 (+1), Diplomacy 7 (+1), Sense Motive 7 (+1), Listen 7 (+1), Knowledge Nature 3 1/2 (+1/2)*, Handle Animal 7 (+1), Sleight of Hand 3 1/2 (+ 1/2)*, Spot 7 (+1), Decipher Script 3 1/2 (+1/2)* -
5th Nymph 5 2 1 4 4 Concentration 8 (+1), Diplomacy 8 (+1), Sense Motive 8 (+1), Listen 8 (+1), Knowledge Nature 4 (+1/2)*, Handle Animal 8 (+1), Sleight of Hand 4 (+ 1/2)*, Spot 8(+1), Decipher Script 4 (+1/2)* -
6th Nymph 6 3 2 5 5 Concentration 9 (+1), Diplomacy 9 (+1), Sense Motive 9 (+1), Listen 9 (+1), Handle Animal 9 (+1), Spot 9 (+1), Heal 3 (+3) Words of Creation
7th Nymph La 1 3 2 5 5 NA -
8th Nymph La 2 3 2 5 5 NA -
9th Nymph La 3 3 2 5 5 NA -
10th Shapeshift Druid 1 3 4 5 7 Knowledge Nature 7 (+3), Concentration 10 (+1), Diplomacy 10 (+1) Survival 1 (+1) - Wild Empathy, Nature Sense, Shapeshift (Predator Form)
11th Bard 1 4 4 7 9 Perform (Strings) 9 (+9) - Bardic music, bardic knowledge, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1
12th Bard 2 4 4 8 10 Perform (Strings) 12 (+3), Decipher Script 7 (+3), Sleight of Hand 7 (+3) Dragonfire Inspiration
13th Adventurer Rogue 1 4 4 10 10 Perform (Strings) 13 (+1), Gather Information 7 (+7), Diplomacy 10 (+1) - Trapfinding, Intuitive Attack (B)
14th Adventurer Rogue 2 5 4 11 10 Diplomacy 14 (+1), Listen 13 (+4), Profession Astrologer 6 (+6) - Evasion, Daunting Prescence (B)
15th Fochulan Lyrist 1 6 4 12 12 Knowledge Arcana 9 (+9) Draconic Claw Inspire Competence, Unbound, Bardic Knowledge and Music advancements
16th Fochulan Lyrist 2 7 4 13 13 Knowledge Aracana 13 (+4), Spellcraft 5 (+5) -
17th Fochulan Lyrist 3 8 5 13 13 Spellcraft 6 (+1), Concentration 17 (+8) -
18th Fochulan Lyrist 4 9 5 14 14 Concentration 18 (+1), Diplomacy 18 (+4), Sense Motive 13 (+4) Searing Spell Suggestion
19th Fochulan Lyrist 5 10 5 14 14 Concentration 19 (+1), Diplomacy 19 (+1), Sense Motive 19 (+6), Speak Language Draconic -
20th Sublime Chord 1 11 5 14 16 Concentration 20 (+1), Diplomacy 20 (+1), Speak Language (Auran, Aquan, Ignan, Terran, and Celestial - Bardic knowledge advances
Level Class 0th 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th
1st Nymph 1 3 3
2nd Nymph 2 4 4
3rd Nymph 3 4 4 2
4th Nymph 4 5 5 3
5th Nymph 5 5 5 3 2
6th Nymph 6 5 5 4 3
7th Nymph La 1 6 6 4 3 2
8th Nymph La 2 6 6 4 3 2
9th Nymph La 3 6 6 4 3 2
10th Shapeshift Druid 1 6 6 4 4 3
11th Bard 1 6 6 4 4 3
12th Bard 2 6 6 4 4 3
13th Adventurer Rogue 1 6 6 4 4 3
14th Adventurer Rogue 2 6 6 4 4 3
15th Fochulan Lyrist 1 6 6 5 4 3 2
16th Fochulan Lyrist 2 6 6 5 4 4 3
17th Fochulan Lyrist 3 6 7 5 5 4 3 1
18th Fochulan Lyrist 4 6 7 5 5 4 4 2
19th Fochulan Lyrist 5 6 7 6 5 5 4 2 1
20th Sublime Chord 1 6 7 6 5 5 4 2 1
Level Class 0th 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
1st Nymph 1
2nd Nymph 2
3rd Nymph 3
4th Nymph 4
5th Nymph 5
6th Nymph 6
7th Nymph La 1
8th Nymph La 2
9th Nymph La 3
10th Shapeshift Druid 1
11th Bard 1 2
12th Bard 2 3 2
13th Adventurer Rogue 1 3 3
14th Adventurer Rogue 2 3 4
15th Fochulan Lyrist 1 3 6
16th Fochulan Lyrist 2 3 6 2
17th Fochulan Lyrist 3 3 6 3
18th Fochulan Lyrist 4 3 6 4
19th Fochulan Lyrist 5 3 6 4 2
20th Sublime Chord 1 3 6 4 2 4 3
Level Class 0th 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
1st Nymph 1
2nd Nymph 2
3rd Nymph 3
4th Nymph 4
5th Nymph 5
6th Nymph 6
7th Nymph La 1
8th Nymph La 2
9th Nymph La 3
10th Shapeshift Druid 1
11th Bard 1 Light, Detect Magic, Flare, Mending
12th Bard 2 Prestidigitation Inspirational Boost, Master's Touch
13th Adventurer Rogue 1 Read Magic Charm Person
14th Adventurer Rogue 2 - -
15th Fochulan Lyrist 1 - Disguise Self
16th Fochulan Lyrist 2 - - Harmonize, Pyrotechnics
17th Fochulan Lyrist 3 - - Elation
18th Fochulan Lyrist 4 - - -
19th Fochulan Lyrist 5 - - Bladeweave Haste, Otto's Imperative Ambulation
20th Sublime Chord 1 - - - - Greater Harmonize, Inner Beauty, Dolorous Motes Fire Shield, Legions

[Beni-Kujaku]

A Song of Dragons and Fire
Part 2/2


Aertha becomes playable at ninth level as a fairly standard nymph. She generally is a buffer and backup healer with her druid casting, which at this point is behind two levels. However, nymph provides two features that make Aertha much stronger. Stunning Glance is a strong ability that defines her offensive tactics for now. Its DC begins at 21 which is pretty high for ECL 9. In addition to Stunning Glance, Unearthly Grace gives us a massive defensive boost. Our fort save is weakest, but at this level it’s still +12. Even with fairly crappy druid armor, Aertha still has a good AC as well. Blinding Beauty, her other nymph special ability, isn’t friendly, so she tends to leave it off, but is still fairly potent against humanoid foes if we ever need it. Outside of combat Aertha is a pretty solid face despite her level adjustment and can scout a little with her high senses. Her shapeshifting is weak, but at least it’s a speed boost outside of combat. So far her dragon abilities are weak as well, but they’ll start to pick up soon.

These levels are mostly devoted to Fochulan Lyrist pre-reqs, with two of rogue and two of bard slowing Aertha’s druid progression, but allowing her access to bardic music. Dragonfire Inspiration+Words of Creation is an infamous combo, though the lack of sonic heritage tones it down a tiny bit. The trick does synergize well with Aertha’s druid casting, however. In the battles she can afford to do it (2 per day at 12th, 3 at 13th, 4 at 15th) Aertha uses Summon Nature’s Ally IV, Inspirational Boost, and Words of Creation to get out a powerful Unicorn or Brown Bear minion out in the battlefield. After the first few rounds, she continues to use Stunning Glance. Outside of battle Aertha can heal with Vigor and Lesser Vigor. She’s still a good face, and Adventurer Rogue+Draconic Claws gives her a source of cheap attacks against foes who get close to her.

Aertha’s power starts to really ramp up here. Fochulan Lyrist is probably the hardest non-lore prestige class to qualify for, but it’s well worth it. Arcane and divine spellcasting, bard features advancement, two good saves, full BAB, and 6 skill points/level off of a good list make the class the strongest in the game, assuming you can qualify. With Aertha’s druid abilities advancing again, she starts to learn new moves. With 5th level summons available, she can use fourth level slots for Greater Luminous Armor, a beautiful defensive spell that also happens to give off light. Another good 4th level defensive buff for a caster who likes to get up close is Sunmantle, another glowing Sanctified spell, which gives her another source of DR and damages anyone who hits her. Stars of Arvandor is a spell that’s description is unclear to me. If the Stars benefit from your songs, then it’s a great source of free damage. If not, it’s rather weak. The sanctified spells she casts drain her ability scores, making us use some slots for Lesser Restoration. Other low level slots go to buff spells like Barkskin and ability enhancers. On the bard side of things, Aertha gets Harmonize, which lets her activate bardic music effects as a move action allowing her to quicken her in combat buff time. When Aertha gets 6th level druid spells, the summons move up another level and Aertha begins to seek out melee more. Using Control Winds to bring foes to her, she casts spells defensively and attacks with Draconic Claw. To boost her damage output, she uses spells like Wreath of Flames, Heart of Fire, and Flames of Purity. Draconic Claws also count as natural weapons letting her use spells like Greater Magic Weapon on them as well. Also, at this level she uses Primal Instinct to give her a sizable bonus on initiative for the entire day. At 19th and 20th level Aertha’s power levels become even higher. She only gets one seventh level spell per day, but has two great options. One is Brilliant Aura, a spell that makes an ally’s weapons Brilliant Energy and gives a decent damage boost. The second is possibly the best blasting spell I’ve ever seen: Rain of Embers. It is basically a Flame Strike every round for rounds/level, but it only works on evil creatures. Which spell Aertha uses depends on the composition of her party, but either is enough to win fights. At 20th level, Aertha becomes a Sublime Chord and picks up a few new tricks. Inner Beauty is a bard buff spell that gives Sacred bonuses to Charisma and Dexterity, which gives us solid defensive boosts from Unearthly Grace and increases our save DCs. This is important for our next spell: Dolorous Motes. This summons clouds of light that force a saving throw each round against being dazed. Dazed is a great status effect and our save DC will be over 25, which is solid for a spell that repeats each round. It does cause Wisdom damage, but since only a few of our Druid spells require a save it doesn’t matter particularly much. Just cure the damage with a lesser restoration. The final interesting Sublime Chord spell is Legion’s Fire Shield, which is a great buff spell for two reasons. 1: it helps protect your allies from fire attacks, both yours and the enemies. 2: it grants retributive fire damage against attackers. Learning Legion’s Fire Shield also gives a rather amusing effect. With Heart of Fire and Legion’s Fire Shield, we know two spells that let us get a fire shield effect without knowing the spell itself.
With all of these spells, Aertha can throw out weak, searing blasting attack, stronger buffs, or Dolorous Motes, coupled with hits that do 1d6-1 (Base), +4 (Greater Magic Fang), +3 (Inspire Courage), +3d6 (Dragonfire Inspiration), +1d6 (Wreath of Flames), 1d6 +10-13(Fires of Purity), and potentially a lot more with Brilliant Aura, a favorable ruling on Inspire Courage Stacking (the conservative reading is implied here), and magic items. Attacking Aertha also deals quite a bit of damage to the attacker, with 1d6 per round from Wreath of Flames, and on being hit 1d6+10-13 (Fire Shield), 5 (Sunmantle), and another 1d6 +(10-13) from Fires of Purity.


Stat boosters are always nice, particularly to Charisma and Wisdom. Cloak of Resistance stacks with Unearthly Grace, helping saves even further. Pearls of Power help Aertha last longer at mid levels, before we get to Fochulan Lyrist. Various standard utility items and numbers boosters are just as good for Aertha as for anyone else, and she has no need of armor, shield, or weapons.

PHB: Druid, Bard, Rogue, skills, spells not listed elsewhere.
MMI: Nymph
DMG: Wish List
BOED: Intuitive Attack, Words of Creation, Rain of Embers, Greater Luminous Armor, Sunmantle and Stars of Arvandor.
CADv: Inspirational Boost, Fochulan Lyrist, Harmonize and Greater Harmonize
CD: Fires of Purity
CM: Heart of Fire
DrM: Dragontouched, Draconic Heritage (Red), Dragonfire Inspiration, Wreath of Flames
CA: Draconic Claw, Sublime Chord
UA: Adventurer Rogue Variant
PHBII: Shapeshift Druid Variant
MH: Legion's Fire Shield

[Beni-Kujaku]

Oh, he is ardent alright... In more ways than one.



Fenix
"A Fire Reborn”


https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dIUkXSn3pn0/Tg0U9FU_ywI/AAAAAAAAAIc/liVTckFH_uk/s1600/Phoelarch.jpg

CG Phoelarch Ardent13




Alignment : Chaotic Good
ECL 1 : Defensive Shell, Alertness, Great Fortitude (Phoelarch Bonuses)
ECL 3 : Psicrystal Affinity
ECL 6 : Expanded Knowledge (Share Pain)
ECL 9 : Practiced Manifester (Ardent)
ECL 12 : Empower Power
ECL 15 : Metapower (Empower Energy Barrage)
ECL 18 : Maximize Power



Race : Phoelarch
All increases in Wis
Str 16 +4
Dex 8 +6
Con 16 +4
Int 10
Wis 16 +2
Cha 8 +6




Fenix’s life has always been about enjoying his freedom and looking upward to the skies. He never really paid attention to his tendency to have his head in the clouds until, one day, he heard a story.
Among the phoenixkin, stories of mighty Phoenixes are legions but this one story was special : it mentioned the creator of the legendary beast, the Sun !

The almighty ball of fire in the sky wasn’t revered as it should be according to Fenix. While everyone was falling head over heels for the mythical bird, Fenix chose to revere the star that gave it birth. He studied astrophysics in depth and distinguished different fields one should master in order to approach the power of the Sun.
His friends didn’t get his pursuit they thought was vain.
Not knowing (or simply not caring) about his kin’s judgments, Fenix gradually gained wisdom about the inner workings of a star until he managed to master them all ; changing gravity as he willed, blinding light rivaling the gods, intense and rock-melting heat up until fusion and finally he could bend time ever so slightly.
Another star was born



LevelClassBase Attack BonusFort SaveReflex SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features
1stPhoelarch 11022Concentration (+4) 4; Psicraft (+4 CC) 2; Defensive Shell, Alertness & Great Fortitude (Phoelarch Bonus)Death Throes, Heat, SLA, Immunities, Rise from the Ashes, SR 18, Healing Fire, Vulnerability to Cold
2ndPhoelarch 22033Concentration (+1) 5; Psicraft (+1 CC) 2.5;
3rdPhoelarch 33133Concentration (+1) 6; Psicraft (+1 CC) 3; Psicrystal Affinity
4thPhoelarch 44144Concentration (+1) 7; Psicraft (+1 CC) 3.5;
5thPhoelarch 55144Concentration (+1) 8; Psicraft (+1 CC) 4;
6thPhoelarch 66255Autohypnosis (+1 CC) 0.5; Concentration (+1) 9; Psicraft 4; Expanded Knowledge (Share Pain)
7thPhoelarch 77255Autohypnosis (+1 CC) 1; Concentration (+1) 10; Psicraft 4;
8thArdent 17257Autohypnosis (+1) 2; Concentration (+1) 11; Psicraft 4; Assume Psionic Mantle (2)
9thArdent 28258Autohypnosis (+1) 3; Concentration (+1) 12; Psicraft 4; Practiced Manifester (Ardent)Assume Psionic Mantle
10thArdent 39368Autohypnosis 3; Concentration 12; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration;
11thArdent 410369Autohypnosis 3; Concentration (+2) 14; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration;
12thArdent 510369Autohypnosis (+1) 4; Concentration (+1) 15; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration; Empower PowerAssume Psionic Mantle
13thArdent 6114710Autohypnosis (+1) 5; Concentration (+1) 16; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration;
14thArdent 7124710Autohypnosis (+1) 6; Concentration (+1) 17; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration;
15thArdent 8134711Autohypnosis (+1) 7; Concentration (+1) 18; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration; Metapower (Empower Energy Barrage)
16thArdent 9135811Autohypnosis (+1) 8; Concentration (+1) 19; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration;
17thArdent 10145812Autohypnosis (+1) 9; Concentration (+1) 20; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration; Dominant Ideal (Fire Mantle)
18thArdent 11155812Autohypnosis (+1) 10; Concentration (+1) 21; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration; Twin Power
19thArdent 12166913Autohypnosis (+1) 11; Concentration (+1) 22; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration;
20thArdent 13166913Autohypnosis (+1) 12; Concentration (+1) 23; Psicraft 4; Swift Concentration;

Power Selection
ECL 6 : Share Pain (via Expanded Knowledge)
ECL 8: Deflection Field, Vigor
ECL 9: Energy Wall (Fire)
ECL 10: Telekinetic Maneuver
ECL 11: Hellfire Mist (Substitute Power to Fire Mantle)
ECL 12: Fiery Discorporation
ECL 13: Telekinetic Buffer (Substitute Power to Force Mantle)
ECL 14: Energy Barrage (Fire)
ECL 15: Temporal Acceleration
ECL 16: Energy Wave (Fire)
ECL 17: Dimensional Rift, Greater (Substitute Power to Force Mantle)
ECL 18: Fusion (Substitute Power to Physical Power Mantle)
ECL 19: Telekinetic Sphere
ECL 20: Sardior’s Wrath (Substitute Power to Force Mantle)





Phoelarch comes with 7HD of goodies. It nets us at will Light (meh) and Scorching Ray (yey) as well as 3/d Produce Flame and 1/d Fire Shield. The CL10 means we get 2 rays with Scorching Ray (and 3 with any +1 bonus to CL) as well as 1d6+10 damage on every attack that hits us with Fire Shield on.
Scorching Ray being unlimited we can heal up to full life all day long thanks to Fire Healing (if we take a std to lower our SR) ; 8d6 means an average of 28 damage so that’s 9hp worth of healing per std action and but you can go beyond to get up to +16 temp HP (48 damage) or +24 if you get a +1 CL somehow (with no information on duration so I guess it’s until expanded).
Full BAB, +2 NA, SR 18, CL10 SLAs, Fire Healing, good Ref and Will as well as good ability bonuses make us decent all around at ECL 7.
Featwise, we use Defensive Shell to get a Manifester Level that will scale with HD as well as 1/d Force Screen. This enables us to pick our Psicrystal that orbits around us (within 5ft.) at all times. Using that scaling ML, we learn Share Pain even though you can’t yet manifest it.
We already ressemble the Sun, basking in burning light and glory, sending solar flares around all day.



By ECL 9, Practiced Manifester kicks in along with ML6 (Ardent) which opens the Masochist Combo : Augment Vigor at 30hp, share it with our Psicrystal adding Share Pain, we basically have +60 temp hp for 9PP. Powers known so far are Vigor, Deflection Field, Share Pain and Energy Wall (Fire) since the best part about PM and Ardent, is that the class was never updated in 3.5 and, as such, gets the ability to learn any power it can manifest. This means you catch up a little with the power selection ; we’re only 3 levels behind full manifesting classes which means we’ll get access to 9th later on.
Mantlewise, you pick the Physical Power and Force Mantles as primary mantles and the Fire Mantle (Elemental Mantle ACF) as a secondary one.
The 3 Mantle granted powers are nice additions to your strength : more AC, +2 to a physical ability score (3+Wis/d) and +1 fire damage while psionically focused (Heat (Ex) becomes 1d6+1).
The powers are the real draw here. We use the Substitution Mantle ACF to customize our available powers to mimic the Sun as closely as possible (details in Being the Sun section).
- Energy Wall (Fire) is a good BFC for us. We can draw a circle around our target and us with the flames damaging inwards ; we get sustained healing and damage on the enemy and he takes a lot if he tries to pass through it (or if we force him to).
- Hellfire Mist brings the same kind of advantage, BFC that ignites on the 3rd round healing you while damaging the enemy.
Telekinetic Maneuver is really cool to control enemy casters with great saves but sucky grapple/trip/bull rush bonuses. Telekinetic Buffer forces enemies to orbit you while you blast them to death.
- Fiery Discorporation makes you really hard to kill. And as RAW it doesn’t work but the Rule of Cool could easily convince your DM that it triggers the otherwise useless-for-a-PC ability, Death Throes and Rise from the Ashes.
Time Mantle comes in with its sweet bonus to Init and delayed damage ability ; we can stack up on temp HP to absorb it.
The Swift Concentration skill trick is really nice for maintaining Energy Wall (Fire), Telekinetic Maneuver and later on, move your Telekinetic Sphere around while you fight.
Meanwhile Ardent has a ¾ Bab which means we get a third iterative by ECL 13 with 20 Str, 1d6+1 Heat (Ex) and a decent two-handed Falchion (18-20 x2) to back it up.



Big boys' powers start coming up.
- Telekinetic Buffer will keep your enemies (at least some) at bay, orbiting you desperately while you can send solar flares (Scorching Rays) at them.
- Energy Barrage (Fire) will be a really good “you die I heal” card. Dropping 3x 5d6 damage on both you and your targets is pretty sweet !
- Temporal Acceleration is a golden power that lets us wreck the action economy when we feel like it.
- Energy Wave (Fire) is good damage but the best part is that we’re level 16 now meaning our psicrystal can be the point of origin for the power with his Channel Power ability (within 1 mile). We can revel in 13d6+13 damage (average +17 HP) while our enemies (within a 120ft Cone spread mind you) bake like cakes.
- The other 7th level power is Dimensional Rift, Greater. It sucks as a blasting power but it’s untyped which might come in handy for us if Fire Resistance shows up, can damage objects and is just a super ability we ought to have being the Sun and all (see Being the Sun).
- Fusion enables some crazy shenanigans such as Fusioning with someone having access to Astral Seed, manifesting it in this state, end Fusion, kill yourself (Death Throes and Rise from the Ashes find some use !) be reborn as the Fusion of the 2 individuals you were when you manifested it including feats, racial abilities, class features, hit points, ability scores and power points pool. Barring all this cheese, Fusion is a much needed ability for the Sun !
- Telekinetic Sphere is there to give us breathing time when we need it either by isolating the enemy caster (how do you like that Ref save mate ?) or yourself and your team while prepping an encounter-ending combo or get time to buff.
- Last but not least, Sardior’s Wrath, our 9th level power. Not only is it a save-or-die but it has Force (Gravity), Light or Fire effects if you do save against it. This was the most thematic 9th level power I could find and it fits right in our primary mantles Fire (switched at Ardent 8) and Force.
Powers aside, at these levels we focus on metapsionics. Empower Power is a given and with Metapower (Empower Energy Barrage) it costs nothing to empower Energy Barrage anymore. At Ardent 8, we get to switch our primary mantle from Physical Power to Fire which is important since we want to pick it for our Dominant Ideal. Once we have, the cost of Empower [Any power from the Fire mantle] is the same as the power itself and reduces the manifesting cost of augmenting powers by 2 as well which is really cool. For instance Empowered Energy Wave (Fire) augmented once is 14d6+7d6+14+7 (avg 94 dmg and 31 healing) for 14PP.
Finally, Twin Power comes online which means that Twin Empower augmented once Energy Barrage (Fire) is 6x(6d6+3d6) (avg 189 dmg and 63 healing) for 15PP.




Mantle selection
The Sun is a star. As every star it is a big ball of Fire in the sky that has tremendous Force/Gravitation effects on everything around it so much, in fact, that the relativity theory tells us it can affect [Time].
The Physical Power is mostly a pun on the Power of the Laws of Physics

At Ardent 8, we exchange Physical Power and Fire ; the latter becomes a Primary Mantle, respecting the number of powers known from primary and secondary mantles. Later, Fire Mantle becomes our Dominant Ideal.

Substitute Power
The modifications I took the liberty of making to fit the theme were (never exceeding 10 power per mantle as described in the ACF) so I doubt any DM would ban them. Also, this was for a theme PC so I have no regrets.

Why we are the best as far as Sun goes
1. We have a big BIG fire theme on this build. Some of our abilities amount to Solar Flares (Scorching Ray, Energy Wave), others just burn when you get too close (Fire Shield, Heat) and finally we have our own Supernova at the death of the star (Death Throes). Healing from fire damage shows we’re one step over a simple [Fire] subtype.
2. We irradiate light (Light, Fire Shield)
3. We can even generate plasma (Hellfire Mist)
4. We affect attraction forces (Force Screen PLA, Deflection Field, Telekinesis Maneuver, Buffer & Sphere, our Psicrystal orbiting us)
5. Our being’s presence bends the laws of Time (see the General Relativity theory and how matter “curves” spacetime) (Temporal Acceleration)



- Ability enhancement goes Wis, Con, Str, Dex then the rest.

- Since the Defensive Shell is a [Host] feat, the fluff is that you become psionic by having an entity enter your body, merging with you. It would make perfect sense to add a Psionic Sinew (Fiend Folio) to our PC : Inertial Armor, Blindsight and a +4 enhancement bonus to Str but mostly it’s another target to for the vigor/share pain combo making Vigor’s benefit 3 fold !

- With all the fire attack you throw on yourself, you should always wear a Type VII Necklace of Fireball ; if the item fails its save, 58d6 of Fireballs averages around a CL6 Heal spell for you and 200 fire damage in a 20ft-radius spread.



- Obviously the dealbreaker here is fire immunity. If your DM favors such monsters (it is the most common resistance after all), you can still fight pretty well with a Two-handed Falchion. If you really need a way for your fire to bypass res/immunities, you could dip Sanctified One of Kord (Ardent has Know (Religion) as a class skill) and get the Holy Fire sanctified ability allowing you to treat all your fire damage as raw divine power (apparently it becomes physical since DR is mentioned).
If your DM is okay to let Searing Spell work for powers (Psionic-Magic Transparency and all) it’s even better because it’s free !

- The Fusion, Astral Seed shenanigans opens up a lot of stuff (if we pretend for a second a DM would allow it) but for the rule of cool, you should do it to get the Jade Phoenix Mage 10th ability to actually be able to trigger Deadly Throes and Rise from the Ashes to spawn infinite

- Having Defensive Shell gives us a ML before we have any class granting us one. This means we can get Psicrystal Affinity and Expanded Knowledge before taking Ardent which is nice but also that we get a pool of bonus PP from a high Wis. Here is the table of our PP at every level (no Wis boosting items considered) :
Ardent PPArdent MLPLA MLWisdom PPTotal PP
0-122
0-122
0-122
0-244
0-244
0-366
0-366
214810
6641218
11751425
17851633
25962247
351062560
461172773
158[/td]1273088[/tr]
7213839111
8814842130
10615945151
12616948174
147171051198



SRD - Psionic Powers
MMII - Phoenix (FYI)
Monster Manual III - Phoelarch (Phoera)
Complete Psionic - Ardent, Feats
Expanded Psionic Handbook - Feats
Ardent’s 3 ACFs - https://web.archive.org/web/20120804012216/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a
Sardior's Wrath - https://web.archive.org/web/20031206213759/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20030926b
Dimension Rift, Greater - https://web.archive.org/web/20080506231707/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pse/20031219a
Hellfire Mist - https://web.archive.org/web/20080506231658/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pse/20030628a

[Beni-Kujaku]

And here you go! 4 fiery entries for your reading pleasure. Feel free to post your stubs, and maybe someone else wants to judge to complement Frostmoon's opinion?

[loky1109]

Table

Name Alignment / Race Class Levels Chef Judge 1 Total Place
Bonesmasher (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784577&postcount=27) NG Primordial Ogre Skilled City-Dweller Spiritual Lion Totem Waste Barbarian 11/Fire Elemental Warrior 5
Renegade (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784579&postcount=28) CG Reth Dekala Warblade 1/Cobra Strike Monk 2/Warlock 1/Master of Nine 5/Shadow Sun Ninja 5
Aertha (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784580&postcount=29)part 2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784582&postcount=30) NG Nymph Shapeshifter Druid 1/Bard 2/Martial Rogue 2/Fochulan Lyrist 5/Sublime Chord 1
Fenix (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784587&postcount=31) CG Phoelarch Substitute Powers Elemental Mantles Dominant Ideal Ardent 13

[Thurbane]

Great job everyone!

Here's my stub: I was really torn between Lumi or Azer as the base, but eventually went with Azer.

I know it's a slightly obscure source, but I'm surprised no one went with Sunmaster: the capstone literally lets you turn into a mini-sun 1/day! The table is missing, I did it Excel and never got around to copying it over...

Was using setting sun throws to emulate "gravity", and persisted Fire Shield, other spells, and Sunmaster abilities to emulate the other things.



Zonne-Hazharr

https://i.imgur.com/pQyLz0C.jpg

LN Male Azer Outsider 2/Cloistered Cleric 3/Sunmaster 10/Divine Disciple 4

Non-Core Sources:
CAr - Persistent Spell
CD - Divine Metamagic
LeoF - Servant of the Fallen, Sunmaster
ToB - Martial Study, Comet Throw, Mighty Throw
UA - Clositered Cleric

[Inevitability]

I had the half-formed idea of picking something with insanely high Constitution and an innate SLA (preferably at-will darkness for action economy reasons) and then going Steadfast Determination + Spellfire Channeler. Nothing came of it, ah well.

Might judge.

[Paragon]

I had the half-formed idea of picking something with insanely high Constitution and an innate SLA (preferably at-will darkness for action economy reasons) and then going Steadfast Determination + Spellfire Channeler. Nothing came of it, ah well.

Might judge.

Check my build in the Berzerker round :-) (IRC)

[Prime32]

Didn't get time to work on it, but my idea was


A dragon with the Lightbringer sovereign archetypeDoE (turn undead as a cleric of your sorcerer caster level)
5 levels in Abjurant Champion to make your sorcerer caster level equal to your BAB
1 level of Silver Pyromancer to get an AoE nuke that deals 1d6 damage to undead per (turning level + sorc caster level)
Trade Frightful Presence for Burning Presence from Dragon Magic, get it back with a feat
Cast spells like Wings of Flurry (uncapped AoE damage/dazing centred on self, +1 CL for dragons/dragonblood) and Light of XymorDoF (touched object sheds true sunlight that fences/damages/dazes evil dragons and dragonblood every round, +1 CL if you worship Bahamut)


Initial concept was "Apollo", a build using a combination of lowered dragon LAs, Devoted Tracker cohort mounts, and the DLCS Dragon Rider PrC to get a pet dragon with around 40 HD. The dragon uses the Lightbringer/Abjurant Champion combo together with the Positive Energy Aura and Planar Turning epic feats, causing non-epic undead and evil outsiders to disintegrate in its presence. It can also command dragons at inflated DC, which it can abuse by casting Light of Xymor then commanding enemies to walk into the death zone. But Leadership is a no-go...

[Beni-Kujaku]

I had the half-formed idea of picking something with insanely high Constitution and an innate SLA (preferably at-will darkness for action economy reasons) and then going Steadfast Determination + Spellfire Channeler. Nothing came of it, ah well.

Might judge.

You don't have to go Steadfast Determination, Con checks cannot crit fail. The best choice of race would probably have been as a Ferrumach Rilmani, having naturally enough Con to never fail the overdrive check, and having Feather Fall as an at-will SLA, which makes it able to regain spellfire even if the DM says that you have to prepare an action for it to work. Apart from that, high Str, Con and Cha look like one or two levels of Crusader would make the build quite good. Even at lv 13, dealing the equivalent of 34d6 even if the opponent succeeds their save is nothing much to sneeze at. The ferrumach also has a lot of self-buffing SLAs, which would make it quite hard to break in melee and allow it to use the area control abilities of the crusader.

[Remuko]

You don't have to go Steadfast Determination, Con checks cannot crit fail.

maybe it was just for the improved will saves, not the not auto-failing part of the feat??


You can use your Constitution modifier in place of your Wisdom modifier on Will saves

[Inevitability]

I'll judge.

System:

All scores start at 1.

Originality:

1 point for the originality of your classes, with both the class itself and breakpoints taken into account (mindbender dips are overused, but anything beyond first level is novel and unexpected). If a class tends to have a single purpose in optimization contests and you avoid it (like going ranger 1 for something more creative than free track), this score might increase as well.

Are your feats, skills, skill tricks etc surprising? 1 point to be gained here.

Are your tricks and tactics surprising and innovative, or more of the stuff we've seen before? 1 point here.

Is the combination of the build elements surprising to me? 0.5 points for giant wizards or pixie berserkers.

Do you have a backstory that goes above and beyond a laundry list of power sources? 0.5 points if so.

Power:

Whatever you try to do: how good are you at it? Is your charger dealing solid damage, is your rogue sneak attacking hard enough? 1 point for going above and beyond what I expect someone in your role to do, half that for on-par performance, less for disappointing. If you leave obvious power on the table (like by being an archer who doesn't pick up precise shot) you will lose points here as well.

Are you covering holes in your defense, and imperfections in your offense? Will the right foe shut you down, will the right spell strike you dead? 1 point for tempering your glass cannons and waterproofing your fire elementals.

How useful are you out of combat? Can you serve as a scout, a face, a trap expert, or do you at least have random bits of utility to offer? 1 point here.

Is your build basically functional at level 5 (or your lowest playable level, if that's higher). Are your main tricks online by level 15? 0.5 points here.

Do you remain functional throughout the day, or do you rely on 1/day abilities and rapidly diminishing spell slots? 0.5 points for staying power.

Elegance:

0.5 points for avoiding multiclass XP penalties.

2 points for mechanical correctness and refraining from questionable assumptions. This section also covers whether or not your build has been presented correctly.

1 point for actual playability. Do you mitigate logistical issues, like your PC being aquatic, too large to fit through conventional spaces, or dependent on some exotic food? Do you rely on alignment shifts or juggling membership in various organizations?

0.5 points for coherency: does your build fit together? Is there stuff in your build that goes against your goals, ? Do you find a use for prerequisite feats and ranks? Is one build element meeting multiple prerequisites for you? Your build needs to feel well-integrated and tightly coupled, with a minimum of unimpressive filler.

Monstrosity:

1 point for overall use of the monstrous component. Could I replicate what you're building with a conventional PC race, or is your build uniquely reliant on your monstrous powers?

Up to 1 point for each of the four abilities to build around, maximum of 3 total.
-For fire damage, I will look at the magnitude of the damage and the amount it will come up in battle.
-For gravitation, I'll look at how central 'moving others around' is to your strategy and whether you have any payoffs beyond merely repositioning foes.
-The sunburst attack earns you points based on how much damage it deals, how big it is, and how often you can/will use it.
-And light-related abilities earn you points the more they are core to your combat and utility performance: merely emitting light earns a relatively low score, while having a [Light] ability as part of your main combat routine gets you max points here.


Will get to judging the builds sometime in the coming week.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Thank you‚ sir.

[Inevitability]

Originality (3):
Elemental Warrior counts as surprising (even in this round), and while lion totem barbarian is a pretty common class, few take it all the way to level 11. 0.75/1

Every round has a vow of poverty build and every round I fail to be surprised. Martial study and power attack are mainstays on melee, improved bull rush is commonly seen as prerequisite (as it is here), I guess iron will is a surprise. Your investment in sense motive, balance, and knowledge is also a bit unexpected. 0.5/1

No points for tactics. You rage, you charge, you smash. 0/1

Ogre barbarian and vow of poverty are not things I expect together. 0.5/0.5

Ogre who deliberately tries to invert ogre-ness is fine. It's a bit limited, as far as backstories go, but there's something here. 0.25/0.5

Power (3):
Unfortunately, I think it can't be denied you leave power on the table. Your first few barbarian levels seem justified, but why return to the class? With your enormous number of bonus exalted feats you're perfectly set to walk into something like Champion of Gwynharwyf and get 4th-level spells, the exact same rage progression, the same DR, and cool side abilities like Fearsome Fury, at-will Detect Evil, and Smite Evil. You'd only be missing out on Blazing Berserker and some Wasteland Trap sense, which you don't particularly seem to need (and if you really wanted blazing berserker, you could stay in barbarian for one more level and then PrC out).

Your choice to go Vow of Poverty is also somewhat baffling to me. Yes, you have slightly bigger numbers to put on the sheet, but VoP is generally held to be inferior to the power and versatility afforded by items. Now, if you're a nonhumanoid who cannot easily use most weapons and armor, I'm willing to grant its niche, but you're an ogre. Yes, you put your exalted feats to use, but you are ultimately still spending two potentially good feats to get a bunch of poor ones.

Still, you reach a respectable level of damage and should generally perform as a barbarian is expected to. Let's call it a wash. 0.5/1

Credit where credit's due: you avoid the dreaded 5-will martial syndrome. Unfortunately, Bonesmasher's disavowal of magic items leaves him lacking in offensive utility. Tactical flight (or at least a means to obtain it) is the most obvious thing I'm missing here, but you also seem to lack an obvious out against incorporeality, highly mobile foes, and, pelor forbid, hordes of fodder. The best thing you can do against a small horde of skeletons with longspears seems to be killing them one by one; a time-consuming and annoying process. Defensively you're mostly fine; your reflex is mediocre but not outright bad and you have the HP to make up for it. 0.25/1

So you have some random skill ranks, a highly situational Plane Shift ability, and... nothing else. You're not completely useless, but you better hope the City of Brass features prominently in your campaign. 0.5/1

The build comes online pretty early and never needs to catch up to its class features. 0.5/0.5

You have two rages a day until level 17, when you get your third. Realistically, you start running out of steam halfway through the day. You're not useless after that point, but your combat prowess is notably diminished, and I'd have liked to see Extra Rage in here somewhere. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (3.75):
No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

There are some parts to your entry that get a bit confusing. The class skill granted by primordial giant doesn't seem to be listed anywhere, and while I eventually figured out where you were getting your knowledge ranks from, it confused me a bit at first. "Cannot use or borrow magic items except healing potions" is also a bit of a misreading of VoP. Other than that, everything is perfect. 1.75/2 Overlooked some things here, build is mechanically perfect. 2/2

I always think Large-sized PCs without an obvious way to fix that are a bit iffy: a single narrow crevice can leave the party stumped with how to get you through. Worse is your need to get to another plane before taking your 9th level, without using items of your own. That's actually quite tricky: the party cleric can't help you out until level 9, so you need to get lucky with campaign elements or hope an ally somehow has access to the spell early. This is actually a pretty big issue, made all the more painful by the fact that I'd be willing to handwave it if you just moved the fifth barbarian level ahead a little. 0.25/1

The build feels awkwardly integrated. Your blazing berserker fire immunity clashes with the fire resistance you already have, you're forced to downgrade your primary weapon because of VoP, and elemental weapon has an annoying move action requirement that's all the more painful because you went and got spiritual lion totem. Using Primordial Giant to get a class skill that helps with Elemental Warrior is cute, but it feels like it's only here for that, so ultimately the only part of your build doing double duty is Martial Study (which helps you qualify for your skill tricks even if it's not strictly necessary for that). Worse, especially at higher levels a lot of your feats begin to swerve towards the sort of filler I don't care much for. 0/0.5

Monstrosity (2.25):

Okay, you're an ogre, which seems to chiefly help with qualifying for Knockback and for Primordial Giant (which in turn gets you knowledge the planes, so props for creativity there). But outside of that class skill (which was unnecessary: cross-class ranks would've worked fine too), the template does not seem to be doing much for you. You took by far the least impactful of the three possible SLAs, you don't really have other SLAs that need the CL boost, and you are taking -4 to strength. I hate to say it, but not adding this template would have made your character better overall.

Like, a goliath barbarian (my to-go point of comparison for large races) has the same stats and size while raging and would have three more class levels to play with, and in return you'd only be giving up a few skill points and a very situational SLA. I'm just unconvinced that primordial ogre was the way to go here when such a simple PC build seems just as strong before considering the impact of additional class features.

I understand the choice of ogre, I can see it as a sort of first-thing-that-came-to-mind, but the awkward truth is simply that your build does not [I]need the monstrous component, and a second round of optimizations would probably drop it entirely. 0/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: Tanky frontline melee with a 1d6 always-on heat ability; that seems about baseline. Something hits you, it gets burned; I'm neither impressed nor underwhelmed. 0.5/1
Gravity: You can push people, first with Charging Minotaur and later with Knockback, and you can do so pretty easily and reliably. I do wonder: do you want to? You don't have dungeoncrasher or any other reward for forcing movement, and you're strong enough to bull rush people out of your reach entirely (this is actually a major issue with using knockback on anything but your last attack each round). You suggest that foes will provoke an AoO next round, but that presumes they actually want to re-engage you in melee; at higher levels, beatsticks increasingly become Large or Larger, while medium-sized creatures are sneaky types, casters, and so on; those you ideally want to keep pinned down in melee if you want any shot at making AoOs against them. Still, you're genuinely threatening when the terrain favors forced movement, so have half a point. 0.5/1
Sunburst: I can't seem to find an ability that hurts everyone around you. 0/1
Light: You've got Nimbus of Light, but you don't really need it yourself and you don't do much with it. 0.25/1

Final verdict:
You dutifully fit in all the elements, but do they form a coherent whole? Not really. There's a few feats to get knockback, there's a detour into Elemental Warrior for fire abilities, there's the exalted feats for Nimbus of Light, but unfortunately there's just nothing here that impresses me.

The build could've been more interesting, could've prestiged out of barbarian, could've used a more impactful race than ogre, maybe sought out some way to synergize the mandatory elements, but... nothing. I feel disappointed more than anything, because I feel like the final product here could have been greatly improved with a few attempts to get it more tightly coupled.



Originality (3.25):
Monk 2, warlock 1, warblade 1? Sorry, but that's three incredibly common dips, even if one is in a slightly uncommon class. The ToB PrCs shake things up a little, but they're well-known as solid options. 0.25/1

Lots of prereq feats, blend into shadows + cunning evasion, and stunning fist + snap kick. It's solidly above baseline expectation, but I'm not truly amazed. 0.75/1

Some semi-standard maneuvers and stealth tactics, but I like the trick where you use your own AoOs to activate Cunning Evasion and play off of that. It shows a good degree of creativity in building while also being amusing on a practical level. 0.75/1

On the one hand, I don't typically expect monk warblades or warlock Mo9s. On the other, your feats get a lot less original in the context of your classes; blend into shadows + warlock is well-known as a quick and easy source of HiPS. 0.25/0.5

Your backstory is fine; 'man turned monster turned wandering hero' isn't exceptional prose, but it gives me a little window into Renegade's past and ambitions. 0.25/0.5

Power (3.5):
ToB is known for producing solid, well-rounded characters, and that's exactly what I'm seeing here. You have White Raven Tactics for initiative shenanigans, throws, fiery AoEs, plentiful stuns, mobility-enhancing maneuvers, and if that's not enough you can also debuff passively, walk on air, or disappear and flashbang the battlefield. Master of Nine makes you even better at what you want to be doing. Full marks. 1/1

At higher levels, fire damage comes to make up more and more of your overall build. Unfortunately, that's also when fire-immune foes are getting stronger. Against a devil or red dragon, I suspect you'll find yourself underperforming. Your stealth tricks hurt from lack of Darkstalker, and your throws get a bit iffy against the bigger, stronger foes you'll be facing at higher levels. You heavily invested in two of the schools that're the easiest to shut down, and you pay the price for it here. 0.5/1

Out of combat you bring some potent stealth to the table, but no darkstalker and meager sensory skills, so you'll be a middling scout at best. You have a little diplomacy, a little intimidate, a little spellcraft and UMD... but enough for at-level checks? I'm sceptical. You can Air Walk, which is a nice trick at level 5 but falls off as the casters get much better options. I'm just not seeing all that much utility here, but it's better than nothing. 0.25/1

I do think it's a pity that you don't get the higher-level maneuvers for your Cunning Evasion combo until quite late, given that it's such an iconic trick that you clearly invested much in. It seems to me you could've grabbed Death Mark much earlier and enjoyed the combo for twice as many levels as you do now (or even sooner, if you move Cunning Evasion ahead as well). 0.25/0.5

Your most limited resource on a daily basis are probably your Stunning Fists, but they're not essential to your functioning. You have a lot of maneuvers readied, no real limits on your main combat tricks, good saves, and solid bulk. 0.5/0.5

Elegance (4):

No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

Unfortunately, while I like the use of the Lawful subtype to qualify for monk, I'm just not sure it works. The lawful subtype mentions 'effects that depend on alignment', but is 'being able to enter monk' truly an 'effect'? I don't think so, personally. It's not an insurmountable issue; you could start off Lawful and switch to your CG alignment after the monk levels, but either way it's worthy of an elegance penalty.

I also see a possible issue with your Inferno Blast trick. Cunning Evasion says it triggers when "you are caught within an area attack whose damage you avoid completely due to your evasion or improved evasion ability". But you, of course, are not avoiding the damage due to evasion, but due to being explicitly immune to this damage. Evasion is completely irrelevant, and can hardly be called the 'reason' you do not take damage. Minor penalty, but a penalty nonetheless.

There's also the ancient debate on whether a warlock's at-will darkness has 'uses' to give up for Blend into Shadows. I'm personally actually of the mind that it does, but I recognize that it's a contentious issue, so a minor penalty for ambiguity. 1/2

Any issue with playing this in a campaign? Can't think of any. 1/1

The use of desert wind dodge as a triple whammy qualification tool / lategame feat swap / usable tactical option is quite nice. Using Reth Dekala to fix your alignment issues and help out with maneuver qualifications is neat as well. IUS shows up as a prerequisite multiple times, and you even have some skill rank overlap between your PrCs. A few of your early class features end up neglected (Eldritch Blast is hard outclassed by Vilefire Blast), but the build is built well enough for that not to be a huge issue. 0.5/0.5

Monstrosity (5):
Reth Dekala is front and center here. You use its innate maneuvers to more easily qualify for one of the most notorious PrCs to enter, you tie its innate abilities into the contest, and you even make use of its subtype. Air Walk and your aura help to serve as a strong reminder of your monstrosity round-to-round. 1/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: Holocaust Cloak is above-par defensive fire, but competes for use with your other stances; something like Shifting Defense or Assassin's Stance seems more useful generally. Vilefire Aura technically doesn't fit the contest criteria, but comes close enough. All things combined, I think you fit this requirement quite well. 0.75/1
Gravity: Again, there's some tension here; you can throw around people mighty well, but will often simply have a better maneuver to be using. 0.5/1
Sunburst: Inferno Blast is as good as it gets here, and you even work a cool combo in with Cunning Evasion. 1/1
Light: Light Within Darkness is one of the better light-based abilities and you shouldn't struggle to activate it. Your pumped wisdom is appreciated here. 0.75/1

Final Verdict:
I don't know if you picked up on it, but "Disappear in a burst of fiery red, then reappear with a burst of light" has amazing sunset/sunrise symbolism, and it's probably my favorite trick brought by anyone in this round. You've created a very exotic-looking and memorable character, with big flashy (hah!) abilities that still form a coherent whole. ToB is good at this, but you go above and beyond what it offers you.

Looking below the hood, I'm more conflicted. While I love the decision to go Master of Nine, and Shadow Sun Ninja is another of those classes I enjoy seeing people use, you need some very played-out dips to make it all work. Still, it works for you, so as much as I would've liked to see more innovation here, I can't fault your results. This kind of score is pretty rare for me to give, so enjoy it: the build more than earned it.




Originality (2.75):
Adventurer rogue 2 is a really common breakpoint. Druid and bard get used with some regularity, and like half those bards end up dipping sublime chord, but very few people ever head into fochlucan lyrist. Let's assign half points and move on. 0.5/1

Words of Creation Dragonfire Inspiration? Not earth-shaking, if we're being honest. Dragontouched to grab the right subtype is to be expected, Dragonic Heritage isn't unexpected, but picking red dragon for it is, and draconic claw isn't something I've ever seen people take. Searing Spell isn't a mainstay but there's well-established reasons for picking it. Overall just not too surprised besides one or two oddballs. 0.5/1

Buffing and blasting, with some dragonfire inspiration that's kinda doing both; yawn. You can summon a bear and then buff it, I guess. 0.25/1

You're a fochlucan lyrist and this informs basically every part of your build, with only a few of the feats somewhat unexpected (not even, like, surprising, just unexpected). No points for new combinations. 0/0.5

Kind of a neat backstory that avoids the usual wackiness of D&D crossbreeds by typing the ancestries to greater roles in the story. That can get some points. 0.5/0.5

Power (3.25):
7th-level druid spells, 5th-level wizard/bard spells. Your bard side mostly wants to be a buffer; your druid side mixes that up with blasts and the odd summon. You add to the buffs with Dragonfire Inspiration, but your base Inspire Courage is only +1, making for somewhat mediocre damage. Unearthly Grace makes you insanely defensive, which is nice, and Stunning Glance is nice when you start to run out of steam, but even so, you're leveling in pretty powerful classes without too much to show for it. Like yeah, you're a caster, but if you show me a theurge build, I just expect more than this.

You also suggest going melee with Intuitive Attack which is just... baffling? You have 11 BAB and 8 strength, and your claws aren't even dealing as much as the best weapons available. Yes, you can load yourself up with buffs and hit kinda hard, but why not save those buffs for the people who can actually hack it in melee? I'm sceptical that 1d6-1 is a damage die worth buffing, and you don't exactly do much to convince me otherwise. To be clear: I'm separately dumbstruck that you want to attack in melee and that you sank a feat into getting a weak natural attack to do it with; even granting the first, the second still seems like a bad decision.

And I'm not done complaining about draconic feats yet; what's with Draconic Heritage? It doesn't change your energy type, you don't use the class skill it grants you (despite Intimidate being pretty nice for you to get), and you don't really need the save boost. Is it purely a prereq for Draconic Claw? Because that just makes that pick all the worse. I can't help but feel you're basically wasting two feats here. And speaking of wasted feats, what is Daunting Presence doing? At level 14, don't tell me that rendering foes Shaken with a standard action is worth your time (maybe if you'd invested in Intimidate, I could see an argument for fear-stacking strategies). 0.25/1

Defensively you shine, as I already stated. Buffing is a pretty robust strategy, and you'll almost always have something worth using. Fortitude is a bit low but Unearthly Grace makes up for a lot; HP is a bit more questionable but decent. Grapple-heavy strategies might be rough for you; you have no grapple check worth speaking off and few means of escape except 1/day Dimension Door. Other than that minor nitpick, no complaints. 0.75/1

Solid Diplomacy and Sense Motive, sky-high charisma, and the odd bit of magic should make you an amazing face. Druid spells and sanctified spells, plus stray investment in Knowledge, make me comfortable assigning you full marks for utility. 1/1

Right out of the box, you're a perfectly playable nymph, able to serve the role of the party's druid albeit a bit behind on spells and class features. Theurges usually struggle when accumulating their secondary casting, but you take it to an extreme: from a nymph/druid chassis that's already behind a spell level, you're forced to head into bard and rogue. At level 16, you're looking at 5th-level druid and 2nd-level bard spells, with very little to back all that up. You're a primary caster who's getting out-cast by bards; that's dire. Nymph really cuts down on the number of theurge levels you can actually fit in a build, and you worsen the issue by picking one of the most difficult theurge classes to qualify for. I'm sorry, but starting out with a tier 1 and falling so low around the build's midpoint is unacceptable. 0/0.5

Alright, so at the start of every encounter you spend a turn setting up bardic music (Harmonize still takes a standard action and is minutes/level; I'm unsure it's saving you on turns), and afterwards you start casting. At level 20, we're looking at something like one 5th-level druid spell, one 4th-level bard spell, and one higher-level spell from either list per battle (assuming 4-turn combats). That's not great! You'll be able to make do most of the time, but a slightly long adventuring day or a slightly draining fight will leave you with a noticeable power deficiency. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (4.5):
No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

I see no mechanical errors, and I'm happy to see you take the conservative interpretation on inspire courage stacking. 2/2

No issues seem likely to come up with using this build in a campaign. 1/1

Not really seeing overlap in prerequisites. Like, I guess you grab multiple feats thanks to Dragontouched? I guess both of your PrCs need Perform? Your build is laser-focused on getting you into Lyrist, but the few parts that don't contribute to that goal feel like they're just kind of hanging on. 0/0.5

Monstrosity (2.25):
So... why are you a nymph? If you want to theurge, you want to get dual advancement on as many levels as possible; failing that you at least want to advance a single class to 8ths or 9ths. You do neither, and choosing to enter fochlucan lyrist as a nymph is a big part of that. This sole fact makes it very hard for me to see what your race gives you over being a normal boring human; Unearthly Grace is good but not 'five extra levels of sublime chord advancement' good. Maybe if you'd stayed straight druid (and still got 9ths that way) I could've seen the argument, but as things are now it seems you're just... holding back your build for no good reason. Being a normal druid would also have gotten you wild shape and an animal companion: two class features that create viable characters in their own right, and that both synergize amazingly with your love for buffs. 0/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: You got some fire spells, and even grab a few that harm those that hit you. As a back-rows spellcaster, I'm a bit sceptical how often you'll find use for this, and the action and spell slot are definitely a problem compared to those that have continuous Heat, but at least you have something to show here. 0.25/1
Gravity: So your big example for forced movement is... Control Winds? Seriously? With a final CL of 13, you can't even reliably create storms severe enough to blow away medium creatures, let alone larger ones. And that's ignoring the obvious difficulty in using the spell, which after all is non-friendly and inherently more likely to affect allies than enemies. It just doesn't feel like a thought-out spell to present as your 'gravity' effect, particularly with how weak and unrewarding its effect is compared to what else you could be doing. 0.25/1
Sunburst: Unless I'm missing something, you don't seem to have an ability that damages everyone around you. 0/1
Light: The sanctified list provides you with quite a few light spells, they're good enough for you to want to use them, and you can burn Lesser Restorations to keep casting them. Not bad. 0.75/1


Final Verdict:
I like to think of this build as a sort of foil to Bonesmasher. Both are exalted fairytale creatures with evil ancestry and a striking appearance. But where Bonesmasher feels underspecified, to the point of being boring, your build feels overspecified: it wants some very specific levels and feats to make the concept of 'nymph fochlucan lyrist' work at all, and meeting the round's requirements is left as an afterthought, accomplished only via the vast array of spell lists you can pull from. (which, of course, raises the question of why you'd want these specific spells and not other ones, which you do not always answer to my satisfaction)

Like, no offense, but this build feels like it could've been made months ago, with you only having to pencil in a few spells before submitting. It doesn't feel like it was built and entered for this competition, but despite it. The bard sidetrack feels shoehorned in and not particularly fitting of this round (yeah, it gives you dragonfire inspiration, but is dragonfire inspiration needed for this theme? It's not, technically, one of the four things to include), and the race is obviously only there because this is a monster mash. Focusing more on the druid side would've fixed a lot of your problems, or alternatively going Gloura and sticking with bard/sublime chord; monsters simply struggle to make good theurges, and your build illustrates why.



Originality (2.25):
Ardent was never particularly original, but in Monster Mash it might as well read 'grab me and turn 4 of your RHD into casting advancement'. 13 is perhaps the most expected breakpoint. 0/1

Defensive Shell I had to look up, but the metapsionic investment is to be expected on a dominant ideal ardent, and your other feats and skill points are as boring as can be. 0.25/1

Psionic blaster isn't extremely novel, though at least more original than Standard Caster Goodstuff. Blaster who nukes himself to heal up, though? I like that. 0.75/1

I feel like knowing a few parts of your build would let me puzzle out the other ones quite reliably: no points for unexpected combinations. 0/0.5

"Wanting to become the sun" is as good a heroic motivation as any, right? 0.25/0.5

Power (3.25):
You're frightfully good at firebombing the battlefield, can use Vigor + Share Pain to take hits like a champ, and even pack some repositioning and action economy shenanigans; psionics also offers you great nova potential. You're definitely hitting my benchmarks for an optimized blaster. 1/1

As you yourself note, fire immunity is a serious problem for you, and your suggested pivot to falchion melee does not convince me. +16 BAB and good strength are necessary for meaningfully fighting in melee, but far from sufficient. You're dealing what, 20-30 points of damage per round, at level 20? You're not completely useless, but it's still a very big weakness against a very common enemy type. 0.5/1

Out of combat, I'm not seeing much. Like, at all. For a primary caster type I'm actually shocked with how uniformly all this is focused on combat; not a single out-of-combat skill, not a single odd power? Telekinetic sphere is the only thing that I could possibly see helping here. 0/1

When you become playable at level 7, you have 8d6 Scorching Ray Spam, a psicrystal, Heat, and one weak PLA per day. Extensive self-heals help you pull your weight, as does your decent melee ability (two 2d4+1d6+7 hits a turn is pretty respectable at these levels). By level 15, you're three manifester levels behind a regular ardent, but getting to be a bit more indiscriminate in targeting Empowered Energy Barrages helps. 0.5/0.5

Okay, so you have 198 power points; that suggests that over a four-encounter day with four-round battles, you can spend about 12-13 pp each round, or one 17 pp power and three 11 pp ones. Your given examples for big blasty powers are a bit over that, and you'll need to spend a bit on Vigor and Share Pain, so I'm inclined to say that you are slightly more constrained in power use than you'd like to be. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (2.75):

No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

I recently learned that Expanded Knowledge is better than I thought; I still don't think it works here. The first issue is that you do not actually have powers known to add to; and if you do have some kind of pre-ardent powers known list, that list would not merge with the ardent's upon taking levels in that class. More concerningly, your ML (from defensive shell) is only 3 at ECL 6, meaning that even by a liberal reading the 'highest-level power you can manifest' is 2nd, and so your expanded knowledge pick is restricted to 1st-level powers. Is it on some obscure list as a level 1 power? Because if so, you should definitely have mentioned that list in your build. You could've fixed this by moving Empower Power forwards, but it's still an annoying little error.

Your build table lists Twin Power as a feat, while your feat summary lists Maximize Power instead. It's a bit confusing; I assume you mean to use Twin?

Your powers seem to violate the rules for ardent progression. At ECL 11, you have one power from your primary Physical Power mantle (Vigor) but two from your then-secondary Fire mantle. At ECL 12 and 14, this problem worsens with Fiery Discorporation and Energy Barrage. It seems like you only considered primary/secondary mantles when taking first-level powers and when determining what could be your Dominant Ideal.

But let's talk about the elephant in the room: Substitute Powers. I'd hesitate to call it an ACF as you do; we're looking at something that's genuinely less concrete than the arcane swordsage or psionic anima mage, it's little more than a suggestion that maybe, sometimes, you could make homebrewed tweaks to power lists. You make use of it five times, in one case swapping in a power that's meant to be exclusive to a very specific religious order (Sardior's Wrath), and at times you make questionable assumptions with what fits where. Like, the claim that you're only doing this for flavor becomes somewhat of a stretch when you expect me to accept the Physical Power mantle should have the notoriously overpowered Fusion in it, and I'm not too convinced Dimensional Rift belongs in Force either. I'm sorry for coming down so harshly on this, but you are using powers that inherently require DM interference, and assume a very specific type of it to boot.

I was hoping that after judging ballisteer it'd be a while before I had to get into nitty-gritty elegance debates on psionics, but no such luck it seems. 0/2

After everything is cleared with the DM, you should have no issues actually playing this. 1/1

Using Defensive Shell to set up multiple psionic feats while you're still accumulating RHD is pretty elegant, but other than that I'm not seeing a lot of prerequisite synergies and overlaps. 0.25/0.5

Monstrosity (3.5):
At higher levels especially, the whole phoelarch thing is mostly relevant for giving you Healing Fire. And to be fair, that's a big power, it's what sets you apart from other blasters and it's a rather impressive inclusion in your overall strategy; but is it enough? A normal PC race could grab fire immunity rather easily (being a fire gnome is +1 LA and the easiest way that comes to mind, I am sure others exist) and get more manifester levels and a LOT of pp (plus another psionic mantle, plus a freed-up feat), at the cost of giving up the Heat and self-healing. But that self-healing won't be relevant as often as you hope: it requires quite specific positioning and only matters if you've already burned through all of your Vigor Share Pain'd temporary HP.

While I appreciate the very cool visuals and mechanics underlying your build, I'm just not sure if phoelarch helps more than it hurts, and I think a remarkable amount of the time you'll feel like a PP-constrained blaster more than a monster. 0.25/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: You get the standard heat ability, and 'being in melee so energy barrages hit me as well' is a fine enough reason for it to see use. Vigor also helps here; the tankier you are, the more times Heat will trigger. 0.5/1
Gravity: You have Telekinetic Maneuver, I guess? Unconvinced you'll want to be using that often. 0.25/1
Sunburst: Your energy powers aren't, technically, what's being asked for here. You can shape them so they deal damage to everyone around you, though, and you're pretty good at that. This is also where you get points for your fire-healing. 1/1
Light: You've got at-will Light. You've also got darkvision, but your psicrystal doesn't, so at least you're guaranteed to get some use out of it. 0.5/1


Final verdict:
You've done something genuinely interesting in creating a blaster who heals from his own nukes, and then you went and smothered it in well-known build tricks. Practiced Manifester ardent, Vigor Share Pain Psicrystal shenanigans, Fusion, Substitute Power... Worse, you trip over yourself in trying to squeeze all this in one build, making notable errors with Expanded Knowledge and ardent mantle primacy. Cheese is one thing: poorly-implemented cheese is another altogether. It's not a bad build, but the bad parts drag it down more than the good parts lift it up.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Thank you Inevitability! I'm waiting for disputes now.


In the meantime, is there something you would like for next round? How did you find this one? What did you think of the theme?

At first glance, I have four themes, three that you suggested last round and one more to round it up:
- Monster must have a breath weapon
- Monster must have a gaze attack
- Monster must have a specific SLA (probably either (Greater) Invisibility or (Greater) Dispel Magic)
- Monster must have an aura around it helping its friends in combat

Maybe it would be better if I added something to make a coherent theme?
Something like:
- Huff and Puff and blow you down/free like the wind: Have a breath weapon and not being stopped by walls, either by bypassing them, or simply being able to destroy them easily
- Trussssst in meeee: Having a gaze attack and being able to gather followers, either by mind controlling them, or simply by being really good at convincing people
- "No.": Must have a way to dispel and be specialized in fighting spellcasters
- Don't split the party: Must keep one's friends close, at least in combat, and gain tangible advantages from it, as well as giving bonuses to friends keeping close.

Which one would you prefer? Simple restriction or more theme-centered?

[Paragon]

I like the theme option, especially the gaze one, very much of a Kaa feeling to it

[Beni-Kujaku]

First dispute for you‚ Inevitability:

Thanks for taking the time to judge. I think you did a pretty good job critiquing with my build, even if I didn’t score as well as I’d hopeds. This will mainly be a few nitpicks.

Power – we get magical weapons as a Vow of Poverty character, and this lets us attack incorporeal creatures without issue at level 6. And we do have Invisibility Purge to also assist.

Elegance
Our bonus class skill gets mentioned in the level 5 breakdown, when we discuss what we get out of Primordial template for our character.

My explanation of VOP was a short introduction to a page of rules text for a judge or reader who may not have any familiarity with the feat. If I have not perfectly summed up the rules of the feat, it’s because a short summary can’t give a complete explanation, but I think it’s a good a summary as one could hope for when trying to sum up Vow of Poverty with a couple of lines of text.

Narrow spaces – squeezing rules (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#squeezing) state that we can move through a space one square wide with some penalties to AC and attack rolls.

Build integration
The damage dice of a weapon is nearly irrelevant (in most cases) to total damage, even at very low levels. At level 1, the build’s suggested large Morningstar does 1d10 + 9 bludgeoning and piercing damage. A comparable weapon with two types of damage would be a scythe, which does 2d6 damage + 9 piercing and slashing damage, a difference of 1.5 damage per attack.

I would also opine that damage dice of weapon is actually the last consideration for weapon selection, especially beyond the first few levels. More important are compatibility with feats and prestige classes, damage types, crit multiplier, extra bonus weapon abilities, and, of course, character flavour. Lastly, my character can do pretty reasonable damage already, changing my weapon, even if I could, would not change this.

Champion of Gwynharwyf
You say that Champion of Gwynharwyf is a more potent option with the same build. There are a few problems with this. Firstly, our character is Neutral Good, missing the Chaotic Good requirement. His background is that he has distanced himself from behaving like an typical Ogre, which he despises, and to me, this includes Chaotic alignment of normal Ogres.

But let’s say we rewrite the character concept so we can fit the class into the build. The next problem is that a lot of the benefits of Champion of Gwynharwyf don’t really benefit us. Spellcasting is quite limited, many lower-level spell effects are superfluous due to Vow of Poverty, and casting means we’re not charging and attacking (not to mention we have very limited spells and spell slots), and if we had spare turns in combat, we’d get more out of using Elemental Warrior abilities. Smite and Divine Grace are good abilities but our Charisma is terrible and it’s hard to get any use out of them without significantly reworking the build.

Monstrosity:
You critique Primordial Template as taking away STR and stating we don’t really need Knowledge (Planes) but you’ll note that I’ve invested 12 ranks into K(Planes), far more than was required for the build, and even when I had other options for my character. I mentioned it briefly when summing up my skills: my character wants to learn about the world, and would take time to learn about the Planes.

The comparison between Ogre and Goliath (and Half-Giant) was made when discussing the choice of race in the level breakdown, but in short: we get more natural armor, the ability to bull rush Huge opponents, and we gain access to the Primordial template, which gets us a bunch of extra skills points. Extra skill points means we have much more to do out of combat, even as a mundane martial.

Regardless of how you respond, again, thank you again for taking the time to judge.

[Inevitability]

Response:


Power – we get magical weapons as a Vow of Poverty character, and this lets us attack incorporeal creatures without issue at level 6. And we do have Invisibility Purge to also assist.

You have a magic weapon, but a mere magic weapon will still fail to hit incorporeal creatures 50% of the time; hardly 'without issue'! For a normal character I'd be down to say, okay, this isn't a huge deal, if your campaign heavily features those enemies you can grab a serrenwood quarterstaff or a few oils of ghost touch, but you cannot even hypothetically find an answer here. And your single-minded focus on melee has left you with few other things to do; from what I can see your best bet really is just swinging away with even odds to hit at all.

But incorporeality was a smaller example of a general point anyway: the point that going vow of poverty leaves a build with notable blind spots, and you fail to cover those. I think that argument stands even if you disagree about this specific example, right?

Invisibility Purge seems irrelevant to this discussion. Invisible and incorporeal are two different conditions. Arguably, invisibility purge is less useful against incorporeals than against normal invisible foes, because once you remove the invisibility, you're still taking a miss chance for other reasons.


Our bonus class skill gets mentioned in the level 5 breakdown, when we discuss what we get out of Primordial template for our character.


My explanation of VOP was a short introduction to a page of rules text for a judge or reader who may not have any familiarity with the feat. If I have not perfectly summed up the rules of the feat, it’s because a short summary can’t give a complete explanation, but I think it’s a good a summary as one could hope for when trying to sum up Vow of Poverty with a couple of lines of text.


Ah, can't believe I missed the skill listing. 0.25 added in elegance


Narrow spaces – squeezing rules (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/mo....htm#squeezing) state that we can move through a space one square wide with some penalties to AC and attack rolls.

Yes, I'm aware. But many premade modules (the closest thing we have to an 'expected campaign' for D&D) feature spaces that medium creatures have to squeeze through, and that a Large PC thus won't fit in at all. Like, have you never ever in D&D had to maneuver past a cave-in or crawl through a goblin warren?



The damage dice of a weapon is nearly irrelevant (in most cases) to total damage, even at very low levels. At level 1, the build’s suggested large Morningstar does 1d10 + 9 bludgeoning and piercing damage. A comparable weapon with two types of damage would be a scythe, which does 2d6 damage + 9 piercing and slashing damage, a difference of 1.5 damage per attack.


That's still ~10% of total damage at low levels; but more importantly the scythe also has a x4 crit modifier. Doing some back of the envelope math, the scythe actually becomes more powerful as you go up in levels, because you start to accumulate strength and power attack boosts that all get multiplied on a crit.

But more importantly, the point isn't that this slight anti-synergy makes the character weak, it's that it's inelegant. A build that's well-integrated, that likes its own class features, that never finds itself thinking 'I wish I had not taken X', that's elegant to me, and I think in this particular instance, your build simply fails to meet that standard.



Champion of Gwynharwyf
You say that Champion of Gwynharwyf is a more potent option with the same build. There are a few problems with this. Firstly, our character is Neutral Good, missing the Chaotic Good requirement. His background is that he has distanced himself from behaving like an typical Ogre, which he despises, and to me, this includes Chaotic alignment of normal Ogres.

But let’s say we rewrite the character concept so we can fit the class into the build. The next problem is that a lot of the benefits of Champion of Gwynharwyf don’t really benefit us. Spellcasting is quite limited, many lower-level spell effects are superfluous due to Vow of Poverty, and casting means we’re not charging and attacking (not to mention we have very limited spells and spell slots), and if we had spare turns in combat, we’d get more out of using Elemental Warrior abilities. Smite and Divine Grace are good abilities but our Charisma is terrible and it’s hard to get any use out of them without significantly reworking the build.


My point also isn't that Champion of Gwynharwyf is exceptionally useful to you, my point isn't that it's better than barbarian. After barbarian 5, the class gives you:

-6 more levels of rage advancement
-DR 2/-
-Wasteland Trap Sense increase from +1 to +3

Meanwhile, CoG is giving you, before any build changes:
-6 more levels of rage advancement
-DR 3/-
-Smite Evil 2/day adding 6 damage
-At will detect evil
-A +2 saving throw bonus against enchantment spells
-The ability to render foes Shaken based on an intimidate check
-Spells, like actual spells from quite a varied list, up to level 3

(and look, those spells are 'very limited' and interfere with your elemental warrior abilities and whatnot, but at the end of the day you still have them, and you will benefit from being able to drop a Shield Other on the cleric or a Protection From Evil on the rogue even if that is always a lower priority for you than using elemental warrior powers)

I just don't think you can, with a straight face, claim that barbarian was the best possible path ahead of you, unless you appeal to a build concept so narrow that it must have a NG alignment and could not possibly have a CG one. I'm similarly unconvinced by your argument that CoG requires 'significant reworking', because we're not talking about updating the build as it is now, we're talking about power you left on the table while building.


You critique Primordial Template as taking away STR and stating we don’t really need Knowledge (Planes) but you’ll note that I’ve invested 12 ranks into K(Planes), far more than was required for the build, and even when I had other options for my character. I mentioned it briefly when summing up my skills: my character wants to learn about the world, and would take time to learn about the Planes.

My point was that by choosing to be a primordial ogre, you make your build less effective than a simple goliath would be. The primordial template is weakening the build overall, plain and simple. And this isn't just me ranking crunch over fluff: I genuinely find those ranks baffling on a fluff level as well. You want to learn about the world, so you... study a single field, arguably the one that's removed from the actual world you inhabit?

Look, you can't just build a sub-optimal character and then look back on it and say 'actually, these sub-optimal choices are exactly what my character wants' and expect that to be immune to criticism. I can imagine a bonesmasher who's CG and who assigned stats differently and who has different ranks in different skills, and I think that bonesmasher can be the exact same character fluff-wise; whether you conceived the fluff or crunch first here, I get to criticize your crunch, because I don't think the fluff you give actually restricts the crunch to what you ended up showing me.


The comparison between Ogre and Goliath (and Half-Giant) was made when discussing the choice of race in the level breakdown, but in short: we get more natural armor, the ability to bull rush Huge opponents, and we gain access to the Primordial template, which gets us a bunch of extra skills points. Extra skill points means we have much more to do out of combat, even as a mundane martial.

A goliath barbarian can also bull rush Huge creatures, thanks to Powerful Build letting him 'be treated as one size larger if doing so were advantageous'. That leaves a net +4 AC and some skill points, to which I say: okay, I still don't think that this is worth giving up several levels for, and I think that if you were really strapped for out-of-combat skills, you wouldn't be putting 23 ranks in balance.

[FactualArcher]

No disputes from me.
For next rounds theme I vote for the gaze one, though I don't have strong opinions on restriction vs. theme.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Nobody seems to have any more disputes, so another thank you to Inevitability for his judging!

Congratulations to all entrants (as well as those who published their stub), especially to loky1109 who earns his second gold medal in a row with this landslide victory!

Finally, here is the upgraded table (and as always, thank you to loky1109 for the table)


Name Alignment / Race Class Levels Chef Judge 1 Total Place
Bonesmasher (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784577&postcount=27) NG Primordial Ogre Skilled City-Dweller Spiritual Lion Totem Waste Barbarian 11/Fire Elemental Warrior 5 pabelfly 12 12 3rd
Renegade (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784579&postcount=28) CG Reth Dekala Warblade 1/Cobra Strike Monk 2/Warlock 1/Master of Nine 5/Shadow Sun Ninja 5 loky1109 15.75 15.75 1st
Aertha (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784580&postcount=29) Part 2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784582&postcount=30) NG Nymph Shapeshifter Druid 1/Bard 2/Martial Rogue 2/Fochulan Lyrist 5/Sublime Chord 1 FactualArcher 12.75 12.75 2nd
Fenix (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25784587&postcount=31) CG Phoelarch Substitute Powers Elemental Mantles Dominant Ideal Ardent 13 Paragon 11.75 11.75 4th



What did you think of this theme? A lot of people said that they were interested, but couldn't find the time. Still, we got a decent number of entrants.

For the next theme (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25792336&postcount=43), I only had two answers, what would you rather build?

[loky1109]

Congratulations to all competitors! Thanks for Beni and Inevitability!

About next round...
Does "Monster must have a specific SLA (probably either (Greater) Invisibility or (Greater) Dispel Magic)" mean one specific SLA for all entries? It sounds too limited. I earlier suggested SLA-theme, but I think about building around one SLA, but not one same for all.

Breath weapon and Gaze attack sounds very Vizziny for me. Aura is interesting.

Theme-centered all, but Huff and Puff sounds good for me. If I have select one... mmm... Don't split the party.

[pabelfly]

Thank you again to Inevitability for taking the time to judge. Although I didn't score as well as I was hoping, I got some build ideas out of entering and the resulting judging, which I'm really looking forward to using in the future.

[Prime32]

At first glance, I have four themes, three that you suggested last round and one more to round it up:
- Monster must have a breath weapon
- Monster must have a gaze attack
- Monster must have a specific SLA (probably either (Greater) Invisibility or (Greater) Dispel Magic)
- Monster must have an aura around it helping its friends in combat

Maybe it would be better if I added something to make a coherent theme?
Something like:
- Huff and Puff and blow you down/free like the wind: Have a breath weapon and not being stopped by walls, either by bypassing them, or simply being able to destroy them easily
- Trussssst in meeee: Having a gaze attack and being able to gather followers, either by mind controlling them, or simply by being really good at convincing people
- "No.": Must have a way to dispel and be specialized in fighting spellcasters
- Don't split the party: Must keep one's friends close, at least in combat, and gain tangible advantages from it, as well as giving bonuses to friends keeping close.

Which one would you prefer? Simple restriction or more theme-centered?
Hopefully I'll be able to have a full build ready next time.

"No." sounds interesting but I'm not sure how variety it would get. Don't split the party is something that could be interpreted in a wide variety of ways, so it gets my vote.

[FactualArcher]

Is the next round of this contest going to start soon? I wanted to give it a bump so it isn't forgotten about.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Is the next round of this contest going to start soon? I wanted to give it a bump so it isn't forgotten about.

I wanted to wait a bit more in the (foolish, it seems) hope that someone would break the tie between the gaze and aura themes. Since nobody spoke up, I will choose unilaterally that the next round will be about auras, and keeping as many allies as possible close to you, and that it will be up sometime this weekend (as soon as I find a good name for it)!

[FactualArcher]

Great. I’m excited for the next round

[Beni-Kujaku]

New thread "Buds of a monster flock together (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?657225-Monster-Mash-X-Buds-of-a-monster-flock-together)", is up.