Monster Mash XIII : One-Punch Monster!!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Monster Mash #13


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: One-Punch Monster!!

Monsters have a lot of attacks. Natural weapons is one of the main things that distinguish regular PC races from the nonhumanoid creatures they often fight. But what if a monster character ended all its fights in... ONE PUNCH!


You should focus on one single extremely impactful strike, if possible able to end a fight on its own.
Though the theme refers to a melee attack, any attack will be accepted, including a spell, as long as its effect occurs instantaneously.
If the attack requires a saving throw, the DC should also aim to be as high as possible. If it requires an attack roll, make sure it can beat even high AC. The One punch should be as reliable as possible.



To note: being able to attack several times a round is not an issue, I'm obviously not restricting the competition to builds with +5 or less BAB. Powerful secondary attacks may increase your Power score, but Monstrosity will only be based on the one you're building around.

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. If there is an ambiguïty regarding a source, refer to the Iron Chef rules.
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: Is this a powerfully-built character?
Elegance: Is it mechanically straighforward or “pretty”?
Monstrosity: Can it do what the concept asks of it? 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 30th of March 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 13th of April 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.
If you need help for judging, do not hesitate to read Inevitability's Build Competition Judging Handbook. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?662048-Build-Competition-Judging-Handbook)

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.
The benefit of skill-affecting feats (including Able Learner, Open Minded, Primary Contact, Martial Study and others) 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.
In order to increase the variety of possible builds‚ any monster without an official favored class is considered as having Favored Class : any one. Builds are still subject to elegance penalties in case of excessive multiclassing.


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)
MM9: Blazing (Mon)Stars (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?655824-Monster-Mash-IX-Blazing-(Mon)Stars)
MM10: Buds of a monster flock together (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?657225-Monster-Mash-X-Buds-of-a-monster-flock-together)
MM11: What a horrible monster to give a curse (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?661421-Monster-Mash-XI-What-a-horrible-monster-to-give-a-curse)
MM12: A monster is born (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?662479-Monster-Mash-XII-A-Monster-is-Born)

And now, time to get mashing!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Q&A for this round:

-Small clarification: since Able Learner's benefit applies the level you take it, do feats like Martial Study that can grant class skills also apply that benefit on the level you take it?
Yes, any feat that modifies your skills (including Martial Study, Nymph's Kiss, Primary Contact and others) applies at the level you take it. I will update the opening post.

- What is the favored class of monsters with no official favored class?
IAs said in MM4 and in order to increase the variety of possible builds‚ any monster without an official favored class is considered as having Favored Class : any one. Builds are still subject to elegance penalties in case of excessive multiclassing. This has been added to the comp rules.

[loky1109]

I have an idea.

[Inevitability]

Already have an idea (multiple ideas?), let's see if we can make it work.

[H_H_F_F]

I don't normally do Monster Mash, but this theme got me curious. I'll glance at the comp rules, and I might participate.

[Tohron]

Small clarification: since Able Learner's benefit applies the level you take it, do feats like Martial Study that can grant class skills also apply that benefit on the level you take it?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Small clarification: since Able Learner's benefit applies the level you take it, do feats like Martial Study that can grant class skills also apply that benefit on the level you take it?
Yes, any feat that modifies your skills (including Martial Study, Nymph's Kiss, Primary Contact and others) applies at the level you take it. I will update the opening post.


I don't normally do Monster Mash, but this theme got me curious. I'll glance at the comp rules, and I might participate.
Happy to read that, and welcome to Monster Mash!

[Paragon]

Yes, any feat that modifies your skills (including Martial Study, Nymph's Kiss, Primary Contact and others) applies at the level you take it. I will update the opening post.

In the case of Able Learner, does it apply to the level you take it and only to this level or to every subsequent ones ?

[Beni-Kujaku]

In the case of Able Learner, does it apply to the level you take it and only to this level or to every subsequent ones ?
It affects all levels, starting from the level you take the feat at (so, in most cases, from 1st level).

[loky1109]

I want to remind all about Apprentice feat's peculiarities. It gives you 2 skill points and it gives you skills as in-class for first 4 levels only!

[loky1109]

First entry is sent.

[Tohron]

Submission in. This was fairly fun.

[FactualArcher]

I've found a build I'm happy with, so I'm in to cook as well.

[loky1109]

Looks like we'll have big amount of entries this time. )))

[FactualArcher]

Indeed. I’m excited to see what everyone else is cooking up.

[loky1109]

Indeed. I’m excited to see what everyone else is cooking up.

I'm afraid if we all have the same ideas. )))

[FactualArcher]

I feel like the Monster Mash usually has the most variety because of all the monster types, but there was a lot of overlap last round, so who knows.

[Inevitability]

I want to say I'm pretty confident nobody has come up with the same idea I did, but this competition has surprised me in the past.

[FactualArcher]

My entry's in. It's pretty straight laced by this comp's standards. I can't wait to see what everyone else has submitted/is working on.

[meschlum]

Cooking. Had a lot of things that almost worked. Almost!

Edit: The chair's PM box seems to be full.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Cooking. Had a lot of things that almost worked. Almost!

Edit: The chair's PM box seems to be full.

Yes‚ sorry‚ it's fixed now.

The QnA has also been updated with comp rules for monster favored classes.

[loky1109]

Second entry finally is sent.

[meschlum]

Sent! Sanity suggests I not try anything else, especially since madness is urging me to go according to genre rather than theme.

Ah well.

[Beni-Kujaku]

We're less than three days from the reveal. Is anybody still cooking? Does anybody need an extension?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Deep underwater, no one will hear you scream. That's why they will drown you on land.



Hypoxia

https://i.postimg.cc/BZkM8WC6/OIG4.jpg

"The cruelty of drowning is this: it allows for hope all the way until the end.

Sure, an ill man may be cured, a wounded man healed, a lost man found again - but to a drowning man, salvation is always concrete, always close. I've seen men drown mere inches away from air, fighting to their last to reach it. A soul unexpectedly smashed or stabbed or shot may nonetheless make peace with his fate and die at ease: but a man suddenly plunged beneath the water will either survive, or die struggling. The only men who drown peacefully are those who gave up hope long before they started to sink.

But those who drown on dry land, who know, beyond a doubt, that they cannot escape to safety, who know their death already lies inside them - do you think they might be at peace, too? I can never tell: they collapse too swiftly for me to know their final thoughts."

NE NereidStorm Divine MindCPsi 5 / War MindEPH 9

Point-buy: 12 STR / 12 DEX / 14 CON / 12 INT / 12 WIS / 16 CHA
Racial Modifiers: 10 STR / 18 DEX / 16 CON / 14 INT / 14 WIS / 22 CHA
ASIs: All four in charisma.

Deity: UmberleePGtF (in Eberron, the Devourer works perfectly, and in Greyhawk a particularly cruel side of Obad-Hai makes for a fine deity to worship)

Also I like to think this character has some connection to the aboleth, what with the whole 'psychic aquatic creature that drowns its foes' thing.



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


6th
Nereid (3 RHD, 3 LA)
+1
+1
+3
+3
Bluff +6cc (3), Concentration +6 (6), Diplomacy +6cc (3), Hide +6 (6), Knowledge (History) +4cc (2), Listen +6 (6), Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot +6 (6), Use Magic Device +6 (6)
Ability Focus (Drown), Weapon Finesse
Drown, SLAs, Summon Water Elemental, Deflection, Displacement, Low-Light Vision, Resistance to cold and fire 10, Shawl, Speak with Animals


7th
Divine Mind (Expanded) (http://rpg.nobl.ca/archive.php?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) 1
+1
+3
+3
+5
Autohypnosis +1 (1), Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (7), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) +2 (2), Listen 6, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
Hidden Talent (Metaphysical Claw)EPH
Ectopic Ally, Mantle (Natural World)


8th
Divine Mind 2
+2
+4
+3
+6
Autohypnosis +1 (2), Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (8), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) +2 (4), Listen 6, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
-
-


9th
Divine Mind 3
+3
+4
+4
+6
Autohypnosis +1 (3), Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (9), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) +2 (6), Listen 6, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
DarkstalkerLoM
Psychic Aura (5 ft.)


10th
Divine Mind 4
+4
+5
+4
+7
Autohypnosis 3, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (10), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) +2 (8), Listen 6, Psicraft +1 (1) Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
-
Divine Grace


11th
Divine Mind 5
+4
+5
+4
+7
Autohypnosis 3, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (11), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft +3 (4), Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
-
Psychic Aura 10 ft.


12th
War Mind 1
+5
+7
+6
+7
Autohypnosis +2 (5), Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (12), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +1 (1), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 4, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
Practiced Manifester (War Mind)CPsi
Chain of Personal Superiority +2


13th
War Mind 2
+6
+8
+7
+7
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (13), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +3 (4), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 4, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
-
Chain of Defensive Posture +2


14th
War Mind 3
+7
+8
+7
+8
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (14), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +3 (7), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 4, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
-
Enduring Body (DR 1/-)


15th
War Mind 4
+8
+9
+8
+8
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (15), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +3 (10), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 4, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
Psicrystal Affinity (Friendly)EPH
-


16th
War Mind 5
+9
+9
+8
+8
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (16), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +3 (13), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 4, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
-
Sweeping Strike


17th
War Mind 6
+10
+10
+9
+9
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (17), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +3 (16), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 4, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
-
Enduring Body (DR 2/-)


18th
War Mind 7
+11
+10
+9
+9
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (18), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +2 (18), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft +1 (5), Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device 6
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Whip)
Chain of Personal Superiority +4


19th
War Mind 8
+12
+11
+10
+9
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (19), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +1 (19), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 5, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device +2cc (7)
-
Chain of Defensive Posture +4


20th
War Mind 9
+13
+11
+10
+10
Autohypnosis 5, Bluff 3, Concentration +1 (20), Diplomacy 3, Hide 6, Intimidate +1 (20), Knowledge (History) 2, Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Listen 6, Psicraft 5, Speak Language (Common) 2cc, Spot 6, Use Magic Device +2cc (8)
-
Enduring Body (DR 3/-)



Power points:

(all totals get increased by 2 because of Hidden Talent)


Level
Divine Mind Base
Divine Mind Bonus
War Mind Base
War Mind Bonus
Total


11
4
1
0
0
5


12
4
1
2
5
12


13
4
1
5
6
16


14
4
1
9
7
21


15
4
1
14
8
27


16
4
1
20
9
34


17
4
1
28
10
43


18
4
1
37
11
53


19
4
1
47
12
64


20
4
1
58
13
75



Hidden Talent power (ML 13):
1st: Metaphysical Claw

Divine mind powers known (ML 1):
1st: Chameleon

War Mind powers known (ML 13):
1st: Inertial Armor, Offensive Prescience
2nd: Hustle
3rd: Graft Weapon
4th: Psionic Freedom of Movement


A nereid can make a special touch attack to try to fill an opponent’s lungs with water. The opponent can resist this effect with a DC 16 Fortitude save. On a failed save the opponent begins to drown (see Drowning on page 304 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide). The save DC is Charisma-based and includes a +2 racial bonus

First things first: is this an attack-in-the-narrow-sense? Can we AoO with it? If an effect, like Flashing Sun, allows us to make 'a single melee attack', can we choose to use Drown? Drown is listed in the nereid's statblock as an attack - there's a case to be made! There's even a case that this is a natural attack specifically, which would open up a whole host of abuses in and of itself.

That said, I'm going to say drown does not work with the above. Drown is listed as an attack, but critically the nereid cannot combine it with a dagger during its full attack. Drown is a standard action supernatural ability that happens to involve an attack roll as part of its resolution, but getting more attacks won't give us more uses of Drown.

It's still really really good. Look at the wording: a creature that has its lungs filled with water does not 'start making constitution checks' or something like that, it 'starts drowning'. Looking at the drowning rules, 'starts drowning' refers to the moment where a creature can no longer hold its breath, falls unconscious immediately, and dies within 3 turns. Instant unconsciousness swiftly followed by death - how's that for a one-punch kill?

Better question: how does one stop drowning? The SRD rules simply tell us that a creature that 'starts drowning' drops to increasingly lower HP totals each round, until it dies on the third. For 'normal' drowning, we can logic out that providing someone with breathable air should end this progress. For magical drowning, like the Drown spell, there's specific actions given that can be undertaken. But neither RAW nor commonsense reasoning help us here: there's no clear way for a nereid's victim to survive after failing the initial save!

(even if there is, that doesn't matter much for us, because it unquestionably falls unconscious once it begins drowning, which 'ends the fight' even if it's not quite a sure death)

The last question: who does this work on? By a very dumb RAW reading, everything but undead and nonliving constructs. By a saner one, any creature that can't breathe water (so anything but undead, constructs, elementals, aquatic creatures, and amphibious creatures). And by the most narrow reading, anything with lungs (excluding plants, oozes, vermin, and some of the weirder aberrations).

That still leaves a ton of creatures to save-or-die, though! Basically all humanoids, giants, fey, dragons, monstrous humanoids, animals, magical beasts, dragons, and outsiders are living breathing lung-havers (as are most aberrations), and they make up the vast majority of foes in any but the most narrow campaigns. Note that a lot of the 'immune' types tend towards mindlessness and are found in guardian monster roles much more often than they're true BBEGs (except undead, which can go either way). And water-breathers, well, those are typically aquatic, which means we're at an advantage thanks to our natural nereid powers.

ECL 10
Our defenses are insane, we've got a very strong offensive trick (+8 touch attack that forces a DC 23 fortitude save vs death - miles better than the cleric's Slay Living), and we're reasonably versatile. Between heavy armor, charisma to touch and regular AC, charisma to saves, always-on displacement, and energy resistance, very little actually threatens us. Wild Empathy and Speak with Animals synergize great with our huge charisma, we have some knowledges, and we're an okay face. Against foes who you can't just instadrown, run interference: interpose yourself and your summoned water elementals/astral constructs/ice walls to protect squishier allies, while providing your allies with valuable combat bonuses. And note we are fey, so while resting we can switch to the Natural World aura to heal a little extra HP (while also healing, idk, the ranger's animal companion).

ECL 15
Chameleon and Darkstalker let us do an impressive job scouting ahead (note Divine Mind's Perception aura and its bonus to Spot and Listen) or sneaking around guards. The Natural World mantle ticks up to 1 HP healed every 10 minutes, which is nearly 50 HP over the course of an 8-hour rest, and all our other mantles have their bonus increased by a tiny bit (Divine Mind is not, like, good, but with our actions occupied by touchdrowns it's not the worst source of passive bonuses).

More importantly, we're a War Mind now! Some DR is a nice add-on to our impressive defenses, as is the free-action 3/day +2 insight to AC. The constitution bonus from CoPS is obviously welcome, while the strength bonus doesn't boost to-hit but still increases our damage - relevant when we draw on our rapidly growing melee prowess, our newest tool to use against drown-immune foes.

Hustle lets us move quickly to get off a full attack or drown slightly distant foes. Inertial Armor lets you switch from cumbersome full plate to something that doesn't penalize movement or Hide, and Offensive Prescience is a nice way to turn power points into damage.

Also, we grab a psicrystal that boosts our Diplomacy to the point where we can make unfriendly people indifferent or indifferent people friendly without fail. It inherits our skills and is thus a great scout, which via flight and diminutive size can get into places we cannot reach.

ECL 20
Metaphysical Claw has been a bit of an awkward hanger-on since low levels. Now we finally have a natural weapon worth using: a Graft Weapon'd whip daggerAEG, giving us a body part with 15 ft. reach (flavor it as an octopus/aboleth tentacle) that lets us make our drowning touches without having to barge through the threatened area of Large or Huge monsters, and freeing up our positioning so we can keep allies in our helpful aura. Getting a +2 enhancement bonus for hours at a time is within our means now, making our drowning touches ever more accurate and remaining useful if we switch to regular melee combat.

Also, we get two touches a round now. If two foes are adjacent anywhere within our reach, Sweeping Strike makes it so that 'each melee attack' we make can target both of them. Now, Drown might not be an attack, but it unambiguously includes an attack, so if we spend a standard action using Drown we can target two creatures instead of one. With our DC up to 30 (10+(17/2)+8+2+2), we're almost certainly killing one foe per turn.

Sweeping Strike can't be used if you moved more than 10 feet 'since the end of your last turn', but for our standard-action attack this is trivial to get around. Simply move as much as you want, ready an action to use Drown, end your turn (resetting the movement counter), and let the readied action go off. Easy sweeping strike!

We barely miss out on the war mind capstone, but 5th-level psychic warrior powers aren't actually that useful to us, and the 1/day 10d6 damage burst similarly does not mesh with our go-to strategy.

So there you have it: a build that can swiftly move in, deliver a tentacle-augmented touch against up to two targets, and immediately force a save versus death in a way that's quite difficult to become immune to.

[Beni-Kujaku]

He's not fat, he's just big-boned. part 1/2



https://i.postimg.cc/76qGSnLw/Cuerlethrax.png

Cuerlethrax the Crusher
NE Maelephant 8/Swordsage 1/Psychic Warrior 9

It’s not unexpected for a denizen of the Lower Planes to enjoy crushing foes beneath their feet, but Cuerlethrax enjoys it a lot more than most. As he grew, he felt driven to push his body far beyond the limits of the mundane in search of new ways to make things go “crunch” and “squish”. Since most animate beings don’t like getting squished, this eventually required methods of keeping them from noticing their doom descending from above… until it was too late.

By the time Cuerlethrax managed to make his way to the Prime Material, he was quite good at keeping his opponents unaware, or at least unable to track his exact position, and was also quite good at ensuring that position was directly above them. But every squish is unique, and the pursuit of the perfect squish demanded no compromises. Cuerlethrax did not know his destination, but he knew he would enjoy the journey.


Value with item bonuses in parentheses


Initial

Race

12 HD

16 HD

Final



8

12





20



16

0

-2

(6)

14(20)



14

6

2

(6)

22(28)



14

4





18



16

8

1

1(7)

26(32)



8

4





12






Value with item bonuses in parentheses


HD

Class

BAB

Fort

Ref

Will

Skills

Feats

Class Features



1

Maelephant

+1

+7

+5

+9

Search 4(+4), Balance 4(+4), Concentration 4(+4), Jump 4(+4), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography) 4(+16), Spot 4(+4), Listen 4(+4), Spellcraft 4(+4), Survival 4(+4)

Willing Deformity

Breath Weapon, Frenzied Charge, Improved Grab, Spell-like Abilities, Defensive Stance, Keen Senses, Fast Healing, Scent



2

Maelephant

+2

+8

+6

+10

Search 5(+1), Balance 5(+1), Concentration 5 (+1), Jump 5 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography) 5 (+4), Spot 5(+1), Listen 5(+1), Spellcraft 5(+1), Survival 5(+1)







3

Maelephant

+3

+8

+6

+10

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 6 (+1), Jump 6 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography) 5, Spot 6(+1), Listen 6(+1), Spellcraft 6(+1), Survival 6(+1), Tumble 6 (+6)

Martial Study (Desert Wind, Distracting Ember)





4

Maelephant

+4

+9

+7

+11

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 7 (+1), Jump 7 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5(+5), Spot 7(+1), Listen 7(+1), Spellcraft 7(+1), Survival 7(+1), Tumble 7 (+1)







5

Maelephant

+5

+9

+7

+11

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 8 (+1), Jump 8 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 8(+1), Listen 8(+1), Spellcraft 7, Survival 8(+1), Tumble 8 (+1), Psicraft 3(+6 CC)







6

Maelephant

+6

+10

+8

+12

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 9 (+1), Jump 9 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 9(+1), Listen 8, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 8, Psicraft 3, Hide 9(+9)

Martial Study (Shadow Hand, Shadow Jaunt)





7

Maelephant

+7

+10

+8

+12

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 10 (+1), Jump 10 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 10(+1), Listen 10(+2), Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 10 (+2), Psicraft 4(+2 CC), Hide 10(+1), Move Silently 1(+2 CC)







8

Maelephant

+8

+11

+9

+13

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 11 (+1), Jump 11 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 11(+1), Listen 11(+1), Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 11(+1) , Psicraft 4, Hide 11(+1), Move Silently 2(+2 CC), Perform(Dance) 2 (+4 CC)







9

Swordsage

+8

+11

+9

+13

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 11, Jump 11, Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 11, Psicraft 4, Hide 11, Move Silently 12(+10), Perform(Dance) 2

Cloak Dance

Quick to act +1, Discipline Focus (weapon focus, Tiger Claw)



10

Psychic Warrior

+9

+12

+9

+13

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 13(+2), Jump 13(+2), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 11, Psicraft 4, Hide 13(+2), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2

Practiced Manifester (bonus)

Bonus Feat



11

Psychic Warrior

+10

+12

+10

+14

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 14(+1), Jump 14(+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 11, Psicraft 4, Hide 14(+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 3(+3)

Craft Universal Item (bonus)

Bonus Feat



12

Psychic Warrior

+12

+12

+9

+14

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 15(+1), Jump 15(+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 11, Psicraft 4, Hide 15(+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 6(+3)

Deformity (obese)





13

Psychic Warrior

+12

+13

+10

+15

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 16(+1), Jump 16(+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature) 5, (Psionics) 3(+3), Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 11, Psicraft 4, Hide 16(+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 6







14

Psychic Warrior

+13

+13(16)

+10(13)

+15(18)

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 17(+1), Jump 17(+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature, Psionics) 5(+2), Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 11, Psicraft 4, Hide 17(+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 6, Autohypnosis 1(+1)

Ghost Attack (bonus)

Bonus Feat



15

Psychic Warrior

+13

+14(18)

+10(13)

+15(18)

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 18(+1), Jump 18(+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature, Psionics) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 14(+3), Psicraft 4, Hide 18(+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 6, Autohypnosis 1

Enlarge Power





16

Psychic Warrior

+14

+14(17)

+11(14)

+17(20)

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 19(+1), Jump 19(+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature, Psionics) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 17(+3), Psicraft 4, Hide 19(+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 6, Autohypnosis 1







17

Psychic Warrior

+14

+15(18)

+11(14)

+17(20)

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 20(+1), Jump 20 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature, Psionics) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 20 (+3), Psicraft 4, Hide 20 (+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 6, Autohypnosis 1

Speed of Thought (bonus)

Bonus Feat



18

Psychic Warrior

+15

+15(18)

+11(14)

+17(20)

Search 5, Balance 5, Concentration 21(+1), Jump 21 (+1), Knowledge(Planes, Arcana, Religion, Geography, Nature, Psionics) 5, Spot 11, Listen 11, Spellcraft 7, Survival 8, Tumble 21 (+1), Psicraft 4, Hide 21 (+1), Move Silently 12, Perform(Dance) 2, Craft (Attire) 6, Autohypnosis 3(+2)

Martial Study (Diamond Mind, Ruby Nightmare Blade)







Maneuvers:
Martial Study: Distracting Ember, Shadow Jaunt, Ruby Nightmare Blade(at 18 HD, added to Swordsage maneuvers)
Swordsage Maneuvers: Sudden Leap, Mind Over Body, Action Before Thought, Moment of Perfect Mind, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, Death Mark
Swordsage Stances: Leaping Dragon Stance

Powers Known:
1 Expansion, 2 Chameleon, 3 Catfall, 4 Hustle, 5 Animal Affinity, 6 Body Adjustment, 7 Dimension Slide, 8 Greater Concealing Amorpha, 9 Vigor

Power Points/Day


HD

Power Points

Max Power Level



10

0+3

1st



11

1+7

1st



12

3+10

1st



13

5+14

2nd



14

7+25

2nd



15

11+30

2nd



16

15+38

3rd



17

19+44

3rd



18

23+49

3rd

[Beni-Kujaku]

Dealing 1.5 million damage to a 20x20ft area means you'd destroy a depth of 2,000ft each time. Cuerlethrax is quite literally a meteor. part 2/2



I couldn’t find a listed weight for Maelephants, but an adult male African Bush Elephant can get up to 22,000 pounds (at 13 feet high) and the average male is 13,000 pounds, so I think 15,000 pounds is a reasonable starting weight for Cuerlethrax. The Deformity(obese) feat says the individual is now “at least triple the normal weight for creatures of her kind” which technically has no upper limit, but I’ll just say it sets Cuerlethrax to a nice round(heh) 50,000 pounds.

The basic level of Expansion multiplies weight by 8 times, so one can extrapolate that the augmented version multiplies weight by 64 times, setting Cuerlethrax to 3.2 million pounds.

Although his weight could technically be boosted further by carried items, even at 38 strength a medium load would be only 3200 pounds, making investment in this avenue not worth the effect.


There are several possibilities for what happens when a character tries to land on a target. The first, described in the Falling Objects section of the SRD deals 1d6 damage per 200 pounds per 10 feet traveled, with no save. This naturally favors Cuerlethrax.

The second possibility, described in Heroes of Battle, applies the rules for dropping an object on a target; it involves a ranged attack roll to hit the target square, then the target creature gets a DC 15 reflex save to avoid it entirely. This is obviously a lot worse for Cuerlethrax, since creatures get a Reflex save even if they’re flat-footed and entirely unaware of the effect forcing the save (as long as they aren’t Helpless).

Neither of these possibilities directly maps to what Cuerlethrax is trying to do, so a DM might opt to rule differently. A reasonable interpretation would be to require a melee touch attack in order to land on the target (since Cuerlethrax needs to touch them, but doesn’t need to pierce their armor). Requiring a normal melee attack roll is also a possibility. Ultimately, DM discretion is a factor here, although, if an attack roll is required, Cuerlethrax’s ability scores would be shifted to put more emphasis on Strength.


Cuerlethrax gains three abilities tied to making “melee attacks” tied to dealing falling object damage. This stretches the rules somewhat, since the term “melee attack” typically refers to melee effects that require an attack roll, rather than just an attack that occurs in melee range (although a DM could reasonably rule that intentionally landing on someone requires a melee touch attack, in which case there are no further issues with what is below).

The first effect, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, involves making a melee attack and a Concentration check as part of the maneuver to try to make a foe flat-footed and add damage. A plausible resolution for Cuerlethrax would involve initiating the standard-action maneuver as he is landing, and making a Concentration check against his target’s AC, with success making them flat-footed against attempting to avoid him (and adding 1d6 damage) and failure penalizing the Reflex save DC to dodge him.

The second effect, Ghost Attack, gives Cuerlethrax a much-needed attack vector against incorporeal foes. Since it explicitly applies to natural weapons, that makes it more reasonable for it to apply to intentionally landing on a target. A plausible resolution for Cuerlethrax would involve making two rolls against the miss chance, and if either succeeds, applying the falling object damage as normal.

The third effect, Ruby Nightmare Blade behaves similarly to Sapphire Nightmare Blade, and can be expected to be resolved similarly.


Snapshots:

The squishing now began in earnest. There were so many types of creatures in the greater world, and Cuerlethrax wants to flatten them all! Pushing his body and mind past their limits had yielded all kinds of interesting results, and he could now launch his massive form almost effortlessly through the air, and use a curious pattern of movement to hide himself from his targets in the process. When they couldn’t even see him coming, he was free to focus on observing their pulverization. Cuerlethrax was happy.

Tactics:
Before jumping on top of a target, Cuerlethrax can use his move action to do a Cloak Dance, granting concealment until the start of his next turn, and as part of the move, make a Hide check (10+1d20) to obscure himself from the perception of others. Then, to reposition above a target, he can either use a standard action to activate Shadow Jaunt, or a swift action to initiate Sudden Leap, letting him make a Jump check; the +10 foot bonus from Leaping Dragon Stance can be applied to the high jump component, and the rest of his Jump check (18+1d20) is enough to consistently move at least 15 feet horizontally (20 feet if applying the indirect bonus to Jump checks from using Frenzied Charge). Once above the target, he falls down and lands on them (if he used Sudden Leap, he may be able to use Sapphire Nightmare Blade as a standard action if the target is not already flat-footed) dealing 75d6 damage (average 262.5) per 10 feet fallen.

For invisible or hidden targets, Cuerlethrax has a True Seeing SLA and a +18 Spot modifier. Incorporeal targets are more of a problem, but Cuerlethrax can use his Death Mark to deal 6d6 fire damage (DC 20 for half). For flying targets, Shadow Jaunt and a high jump can elevate him by at least 65 feet in an attempt to land on top of them.
Defensively, Cuerletrax has a solid amount of HP thanks to high CON, along with natural regeneration, but relies significantly on hiding and ambushes to avoid being targeted.


There is more than one way to enhance the body and mind, and by pursuing development along a different avenue, Cuerlethrax has obtained great returns. In his experimentation, he even found a way to imbue some of his power into items for later use. Although the contradiction between his destructive ends and constructive means sometimes annoys him, and it is somewhat inconvenient to craft items with only a trunk, tusks, and forelimbs, Cuerlethrax is ultimately about results, and the results are worth the effort. Cuerlethrax is happier.

Relevant Items:
Skinsuit of Camouflage(torso slot, ML 6 +30 Hide(Chameleon), ML 1 Chameleon, 93K gp value): 46.5K gp
This elephant-sized, skin-hugging garment provides a +42 bonus to Hide checks (30 competence, 10 enhancement, 2 circumstance).
Mantle of Expansion(shoulder slot, ML 3 Expansion, 6K gp value): 3K gp
At will, the wearer can activate an Expansion effect on themselves, making themselves one size category larger for 3 rounds. They can dismiss the effect or extend it at-will.

Tactics:
With items to provide both Expansion and Chameleon an unlimited number of times, Cuerlethrax has so significant use for his power points – not that he needs them. With a Hide modifier of +51 post-Expansion, he is now extremely difficult to spot before he lands, and when he does land, he now deals at least 600d6 damage.

For non-standard targets, his tactics are currently unchanged. Defensively, his much-improved hiding capabilities make it quite difficult for enemies to target him at all, though he can still fall back on high HP and regeneration.


To squish more, one must grow more. Cuerlethrax has taken that lesson to heart, and now he has taken it rather literally. Through determined consumption of “pancakes”, Cuerlethrax is now rather… larger. And the continued growth of his psionic capabilities has enabled other forms of growth in turn. The numbers continue to go up, and what goes up… must come down. Cuerlethrax looks to a future of ever larger squishings, and is happier still.


Skinsuit of Camouflage(unchanged): 46.5K gp
Hind-Boots of the Lightfooted Pachyderm(feet slot, ML 3 Hustle, ML 7 +20 Move Silently(Animal Affinity), ML 9 Catfall, 95K gp value): 47.5K gp
This item provides the wearer a +20(competence) bonus to Move Silently checks. At will, once per turn, they can activate a Hustle effect to gain an extra move action and/or a Catfall effect to reduce falling damage from their current fall as if it were 90 feet shorter.
Mantle of Expansion(shoulder slot, ML 7 Expansion, 14K gp value): 7K gp
At will, the wearer can activate an Expansion effect on themselves, making themselves up to two size categories larger for 7 rounds. They can dismiss the effect or extend it at-will.
Fore- Gloves of Dexterity(hand slot, ML 8, Animal Affinity, 36K gp value): 18K gp
These gloves provide the wearer with a +6(enhancement) bonus to Dexterity.
Amulet of Centering(neck slot, ML 8, Animal Affinity, 90K gp value): 45K gp
This amulet provides the wearer with a +6(enhancement) bonus to Constitution and Wisdom.
Headband of Concentration(head slot, ML 7, +30 Concentration(Animal Affinity), 90K gp value): 45K gp
This masterwork headband provides a +32(30 competence, 2 circumstance) bonus to Concentration checks.
Goggles of the Perceptive Pachyderm(eye slot, ML 7, +30 Spot(Animal Affinity), 90K gp value): 45K gp
These masterwork goggles provide a +32(30 competence, 2 circumstance) bonus to Spot checks.

Tactics:
Cuerlethrax now hits faster and harder. The addition of Hustle allows him to move normally and do a Cloak Dance on the same turn, potentially leaving his swift action free for other purposes (including use for an immediate action during the prior turn). His hide modifier is now +52 even in a fully Expanded gargantuan form (going up to +60 in his normal Large form). He may also be able to manifest another Hustle from his power point reserve to get even more mobility.

And when he hits… a base weight of 50,000 pounds multiplied by 64 from augmented Expansion leaves him at 3.2 million pounds. That’s 16,000d6 damage for every 10 feet he falls.

The enhancement of his Spot bonus makes it even harder for foes to hide from him, and the addition of Ghost Attack gives him a way to make incorporeal foes go squish along with all the others. Cuerlethrax has found that the hardest squishes are often the most satisfying ones.

His defense has also incrementally improved thanks to stat boost items, and might be augmented further by other save boosting effects if he has obtained access to them – however, access to Hustle has made his hiding more reliable than ever, so they may not be necessary.


Cuerlethrax has now squished many things, and learned a wide repertoire of ways to perform squishing. But he hungered to learn more. The world was vast, and there were so many things to squish. Some people didn’t like how he squished things, but Cuerlethrax didn’t mind – they too could become pancakes. Endless possibilities awaited, and Cuerlethrax happily went out to meet them.


Skinsuit of Camouflage(unchanged): 46.5K gp
Mantle of Expansion(unchanged): 7K gp
Fore-Gloves of Dexterity(unchanged): 18K gp
Amulet of Centering(unchanged): 45K gp
Headband of Concentration(unchanged): 45K
Goggles of the Perceptive Pachyderm(unchanged): 45K
Hind-Boots of the Lightfooted Pachyderm(feet slot, ML 3 Hustle, ML 7 +20 Move Silently(Animal Affinity), ML 13 Enlarged Dimension Slide, ML 13 Catfall, 195K gp value): 97.5K gp
This item provides the wearer a +20(competence) bonus to Move Silently checks. At will, once per turn, they can activate an Enlarged Dimension Slide to move up to 115 feet to a visible position of their choice, a Hustle effect to gain an extra move action, and/or a Catfall effect to reduce falling damage from their current fall as if it were 130 feet shorter.
Bracers of Concealment(arm slot, ML 5 Greater Concealing Amorpha, 30K gp value): 15K gp
Designed for elephant forelimbs, these bracers allow the wearer to activate a Greater Concealing Amorpha effect to gain total concealment for 5 rounds. The duration can be renewed at-will.
Belt of Endless Resilience(waist slot, ML 13 Body Adjustment, Vigor, 78K gp value): 39K gp
Once per turn, at-will, the wearer can heal 6d12 points of damage and/or refresh a pool of 65 temporary HP.
Boot Covers of Mighty Jumps(slotless, ML 7, +30 Jump(Animal Affinity), 180K gp value): 90K gp
These masterwork coverings can be placed over elephant-sized boots, and provide a +32(30 competence, 2 circumstance) bonus to Jump checks.

Tactics:
The addition of Enlarged Dimension Slide significantly enhances Cuerlethrax’s mobility, the Bracers of Concealment give him a way to hide without spending a move action, and the Belt of Endless Resilience gives him significantly more staying power against foes who manage make him out well enough to actually land attacks. This also enables him to fall even further, if for some reason his earlier damage output was insufficient. It is definitely not insufficient now.

His fallback defense is further augmented by temporary HP and rapid healing – he now has 246 base HP and 65 temporary. Ideally though, he never has to use them.


Cuerlethrax does not depend on any items he cannot craft himself, but any items adding more concealment options (like Invisibility) or improving his mobility are welcome, as are any normal defensive items. Items that improve his ability to hit incorporeal targets (or reroll misses with Ghost Attack) are also welcome. Depending on which slots they use, he may need to reconfigure the slots used by his crafted items (potentially requiring them to be more-expensive slotless versions).

If at all possible, he will want to get an item that applies Stone Body(Wizard/Cleric 6) or Iron Body(Wizard 8), which multiply weight by 3 or 10 respectively. Gotta make that One Punch hit hard.

If intentionally landing on a target is ruled to require a melee touch attack, Cuerlethrax would naturally also want items that increase his attack bonus (along with making an item of his own to add +6 Strength).


The maximum distance a character can fall in 1 round is 150 feet, which would deal 15d6 points of damage for every 200 pounds that fell. An Enlarged Dimension Slide has a range of 115 feet (activated as a free action from an item), and a with a Jump modifier of +62, he can reliably add another 25 feet via high jump (counting the +10 feet from Leaping Dragon Stance and the indirect bonus from Frenzied Charge) (concealment for Hide can be handled by either a move-action Cloak Dance or the Greater Concealing Amorpha item). This gets him over the 140 foot mark – he could use Shadow Jaunt to cover the remaining distance, but needs the standard action for later, and while he could also use another flight source, that’s contingent on what items he finds.

Cuerlethrax’s weight with a fully augmented Expansion is 3.2 million pounds, so the number of d6’s is 14 * 3.2 * 10^6 / 200 = 224,000d6. But as he lands, Cuerlethrax initiates Ruby Nightmare Blade as a standard action, making a Concentration check against his opponent’s AC to double the damage (his Concentration modifier is +57). The damage is now 448,000d6, which averages to 1,568,000 damage. That is, in layman’s terms, “a lot”. And, with the combination of his augmented Catfall item and a Tumble check, Cuerlathrax won’t even take any falling damage for doing this!


Fiend Folio: Maelephant
Tome of Battle: Swordsage, Martial Study, Distracting Ember, Shadow Jaunt, Sudden Leap, Mind Over Body, Action Before Thought, Moment of Perfect Mind, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, Death Mark, Leaping Dragon Stance, Ruby Nightmare Blade
Heroes of Horror: Willing Deformity
Book of Vile Darkness: Deformity(obese)
Complete Psionic: Practiced Manifester
Spell Compendium: Stone Body

[Beni-Kujaku]

I can sense your taint. Your corruption is destroying the world you're treading, and now it shall destroy you.



https://i.imgur.com/IkDZuUf.gif

“My lords, have you heard tell of the local Horses of White and Black? In our village, the White Horse has long been a protector spirit – a being that cures the sick and wounded, and repels any creatures of the Shadowlands that would encroach upon us.
But it is said that in times when humans grow foolish enough to forget their gratitude, to even inflict wounds upon it... then the White Horse vanishes from sight, and that night a Black Horse emerges from the woods. One whose touch brings death...”


The White Horse
NG Saint Unicorn, Cleric 1/Monk 6/Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine 5/Radiant Servant of Lathander 1




ECLClassBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features


-Unicorn (LA +1)-----Str 18, Dex 20, Con 22, Int 10, Wis 28, Cha 26Large Magical Beast
Str +10, Dex +6, Con +10, Wis +10, Cha +14
Darkvision 60 ft, low-light vision, scent
60ft speed, +6 natural armor
+3 horn (1d8 primary) and 2 hooves (1d4 secondary)
Immune to poison, charm, compulsion
Continuous magic circle against evil (Su)


-Magical Beast 1+1+2+2+0[2x4] Jump 4, Survival 4Pure SoulHoHSpell-like abilities
At will - detect evil
3/day - cure light wounds (CL 5th)
1/day - cure moderate wounds (CL 5th), neutralize poison (CL 8th), greater teleport (within own forest)

+4 on Move Silently checks, +3 on Survival within own forest
Wild empathy


-Magical Beast 2+2+2+2+0[2] Jump 5 (+1), Survival 5 (+1)


-Magical Beast 3+3+3+3+1[2] Jump 6 (+1), Survival 6 (+1)Intuitive AttackBoED


5thMagical Beast 4+4+3+3+1[2] Survival 7 (+1), Move Silently 1Wis +1
Str 18, Dex 20, Con 22, Int 10, Wis 29, Cha 26


7thSaint (LA +2)-----Str 18, Dex 20, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 31, Cha 30Large Outsider (augmented magical beast, native)
Con +2, Wis +2, Cha +4
Add Wis as insight bonus to AC
Holy Power (+2 DC for all special attacks)
Holy Touch (+1d6 damage vs evil creatures and when struck with body; +1d8 vs undead/outsider)
SLAs: At will - bless, guidance, resistance, virtue
Immune to acid, cold, electricity, petrification
Protective Aura (Su) - 20ft magic circle against evil + lesser globe of invulnerability
Tongues (Su)
Resistance to fire 10
Fast healing 2
DR 5/magic


8thCleric 1+4+5+3+3[2] Heal 2Healing DevotionCCCleric casting (1st)
Turn Undead (3+Cha/day)
Greater Turning (1st, 1/day)
Domains: Healing (devotion), SufferingSpC


9thMonk 1+4+7+5+5[4] Tumble 4Extra Turning
Monk: Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning FistWis to unarmored AC
Unarmed strike 1d8
ACF: Decisive StrikePHB2
Turn Undead (7+Cha/day)
Saint: Fast healing 3


10thMonk 2+5+8+6+6[4] Concentration 1, Kn [religion] 1, Tumble 6 (+2)Monk: Falling Star StrikeOAEvasion
Martial Arts featsOA


11thMonk 3+6/+1+8+6+6[4] Concentration 3 (+2), Kn [religion] 3 (+2)Wis +1
Str 18, Dex 20, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 32, Cha 30Unarmored speed +10ft
ACF: Broken OneCoV (trade Still Mind for Lay on Hands)
Saint: DR 5/evil, fast healing 4


12thMonk 4+7/+2+9+7+7[4] Concentration 5 (+2), Kn [religion] 5 (+2)Fists of IronCWarUnarmed strike 2d6
Slow fall 20ft
ACF: Holy MonkCC (lose Ki Strike [magic], attacks are good-aligned and deal +1d6 to evil)


13thMonk 5+7/+2+9+7+7[4] Concentration 7 (+2), Kn [religion] 7 (+2)Wis+1 to unarmored AC
Purity of body (immune to disease)
Saint: Fast healing 5
Convert from Ilmater to Lathander: replace Suffering domain with Sun


14thPurifier of the HD 1+7/+2+11+7+9[2] Heal 3 (+1), Kn [religion] 8 (+1)Cleric casting (2nd)
Aura of Purity (tainted creatures can recognise you as a threat)
SLA: At will - detect taintHoH


15thPurifier of the HD 2+8/+3+12+7+10[2] Heal 4 (+1), Kn [religion] 9 (+1)Sun SchoolCWar
Wis +1
Str 18, Dex 20, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 33, Cha 30Lay on Hands (stacks with monk)
Saint: DR 10/evil, fast healing 6


16thPurifier of the HD 3+9/+4+12+8+10[2] Heal 5 (+1), Kn [religion] 10 (+1)Cleric casting (3rd)
Smite Taint 1/day


17thMonk 6+10/+5+13+9+11[4] Kn [religion] 14 (+4)Monk: Freezing the LifebloodCWarFlurry of blows penalty reduced to -1
Unarmored speed +20ft
Slow fall 30ft
Martial Arts featsOA
Saint: Fast healing 7


18thRadiant Servant 1+10/+5+15+9+13[2] Kn [religion] 16 (+2)Sun Soul Monk (Lathander)CoVCleric casting (4th)
Greater Turning (3+Cha/day)
Radiance (light spells get double radius, +1 level)


19thPurifier of the HD 4+11/+6/+1+16+9+14[2] Kn [religion] 18 (+2)Wis +1
Str 18, Dex 20, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 34, Cha 30Aura of Sanctity (allies within 10ft get +4 sacred bonus on saves against receiving taint)
Saint: Fast healing 8


20thPurifier of the HD 5+11/+6/+1+16+9+14[2] Concentration 8 (+1), Kn [religion] 19 (+1)Cleric casting (5th)
Turn tainted (turning works on tainted creatures as if undead of 4 HD higher)





Spells per Day


Level0lvl1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th


8th34+1--------


14th45+1--------


16th45+14+1-------


18th56+15+1-------


20th56+15+14+1------


Typical Spells
0th - detect magic, guidance, light
1st - command, delay diseaseSpC, hide from undead, ray of resurgenceLEoF (recover Str damage from sanctified spells), vision of glorySpC,
2nd - alicorn lanceSM, divine insightSpC, divine presenceCC, lesser restoration, luminous armorBoED
3rd - circle danceSpC, locate object, wall of lightSpC

Downtime Spells
1st - scholar's touchSpC
2nd - substitute domainCC
3rd - path of the exaltedBoED




ECL 8: LG SaintBoED Unicorn, Cleric of Ilmater 1

Our BAB is equivalent to a wizard of our level, but we've got a +10 ability modifier being added to our attack rolls thanks to the Intutitive AttackBoED feat. Against an evil opponent, our attack sequence is +3 horn +14 (1d8+7+1d6) and 2 hooves +6 (1d4+2+1d6).

Armor Class is 31 (10 +6 natural +5 Dex +10 Wis), touch 25, flat-footed 26, and between unicorn and saint we have a bunch of immunities to go with it.

We only have 1st level spells, but 5 spell slots and saint-boosted save DCs of 23, so options like command or doom aren't out of the question. Between unicorn SLAs and Healing DevotionCC, we also make a decent medic despite our low caster level. Besides Healing we pick up the SufferingSpC domain, giving us bane as a domain spell plus a 1/day touch attack that inflicts a -2 penalty to Str and Dex for 1 minute (no save, but blocked by immunity to crits).

We have two racial abilities which cause us to radiate a (Su) magic circle against evil - a 10ft continuous one, and a 20ft one which can be turned on and off (and comes with a lesser globe of invulnerability). By RAW it shouldn't work, but a permissive DM might allow you to turn the outer circle inwards to create a "donut against evil" which traps summoned creatures between the two circles.

Oh, and our Survival modifier is +17, which lets us reliably predict the weather and appear in front of villagers to give omens of storms and the like.


ECL 12: LG SaintBoED Unicorn, Cleric of Ilmater 1/Monk 4

With monk levels we're now adding Wis to AC a second time, which combined with our last Wis boost from levelling up gives us an AC of 43.

We also take a few alternate options for monk:

Monk 2 - Martial Arts featsOA: We can select Falling Star StrikeOA in place of the usual bonus feat, provided that we meet the prerequisites. This lets us expend a use of Stunning Fist to make an unarmed attack that blinds a humanoid opponent for 1 round/level unless they succeed on a Fort save.
Monk 3 - Broken One substitution levelCoV: Replaces Still Mind with Lay on Hands, which scales off our high Cha and adds to the healing we can do on the side. Optionally we can get more use out of this with a cheap set of Caduceus bracersMIC (3,000gp), letting us remove dazed, fatigued, sickened or points of ability damage, at the cost of 5hp of healing each.
Monk 4 - Holy MonkCC: We don't need Ki Strike (magic) since both our horn and our saint damage reduction cover it for us, so this gets us an extra +1d6 damage against evil creatures.



ECL 16: LG SaintBoED Unicorn, Cleric of Lathander 1/Monk 5/Purifier of the Hallowed DoctrineHoH 3

We have begun working with the Sun Soul order (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting p25) - an organisation of monks dedicated to various deities including Amaunator, Lathander, Selune and Sune - and it has led us to an epiphany. We convert from worship of Ilmater to his allied deity Lathander, keeping the Healing domain but trading Suffering for Sun.

As a member of the Sun Soul order we can enter a single class without breaking our monk multiclassing restriction, as long as our highest class level is in monk: we choose Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine, a class from Heroes of Horror dedicated to fighting tainted creatures.

We now add detect taintHoH to our detect evil, and gain the Smite Taint ability: this works like Smite Evil as a paladin of our PotHD level, and we can also convert smites from other sources to affect tainted creatures. A tainted creature is any Undead, (evil) or (Shadowlands) creature, or any mortal who has become contaminated by travelling through tainted areas or facing taint-based attacks. In Oriental Adventures taint is extremely dangerous, applying as a penalty to Con and Wis which can reduce them to 0. Heroes of Horror lowers its impact by splitting it into corruption (Con) and depravity (Wis), with a more complex penalty system which lets you have much higher taint scores safely and gives you a 24 hour window to cure excess taint before it starts penalising you. But the important thing to take away here is that even ordinary adventurers can count as "tainted creatures", at least temporarily (unless you have the Pure SoulHoH feat that we took to enter the PrC, which makes us immune to gaining taint).

At 15th level we get the tactical feat Sun SchoolCWar. Two of its abilities aren't very one-punchy, but the last one (Flash of Sunset: make a free attack after teleporting next to a creature) makes for a fun combo with our unicorn greater teleport SLA.

Also we now cast as a 3rd level cleric, which opens up 2nd level spells.

Finally we gain Lay on Hands a second time, stacking with our levels in monk, and our damage reduction from saint has now reached its cap of 10/evil.

If we haven't already, we invest in a set of ki straps (5,000gp) - an item which grants +2 to the DC of Stunning Fist "or any other effect gained by expending daily uses of that feat". How is a unicorn wearing an item that normally straps around the hands? Well it's DM-dependent, but even if we need to get a slotless version we can afford it.


ECL 20: NG SaintBoED Unicorn, Cleric of Lathander 1/Monk 5/Purifier of the Hallowed DoctrineHoH 3/Monk +1/Radiant Servant of LathanderCDiv 1/Purifier of the Hallowed DoctrineHoH +2

This is where it gets interesting.

Lv17 is monk 6, and since we've hit BAB +10 we can choose Freezing the LifebloodCWar as our martial arts bonus feat - a Stunning Fist variant which paralyzes humanoids for 1d4+1 rounds on a failed save. And with that we have collected all the components of the Meditation of WarOA martial art, unlocking its mastery ability - a +2 bonus to the save DC of Stunning Fist and other pressure-point attacks, as well as Weapon Focus from a short list of weapons; we have no use for any of them, so we pick heavy mace since it's Lathander's favored weapon.

At lv18 we fully embrace our new god's philosophy, shifting to their alignment of Neutral Good and becoming a Radiant Servant of Lathander (see Radiant Servant of PelorCDiv adaptation section). This both enhances our light spells, and lets us use the granted power of the Sun domain (when you turn an undead, it's destroyed instead) 13/day. What use is this, when our effective cleric level for turning is so low? Because at the same level, as a member of the Sun Soul order who has reached the mythical 6th level of monk, we can take the Sun Soul MonkCoV feat. For a worshipper of Lathander, this lets us 1/day infuse an attack with ki that turns any undead, regardless of HD, unless they succeed on a Will save (with a bonus equal to their turn resistance). We can use this feat additional times per day by expending uses of Stunning Fist or Turn Undead, which qualifies it for the DC boost from ki straps.

And finally at lv20 we gain our 5th level of Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine, receiving not only 3rd level cleric spells but the class feature "Turn Tainted". This is exactly what it says on the tin - we can turn tainted creatures as if they were undead. They count as 4 HD higher, but this is not turn resistance so it doesn't apply to turning inflicted by Sun Soul Monk. And the crazy part is... there are ways to be immune to death effects, to disintegration, to physical damage in general. But it's almost impossible for a non-undead creature to have turn resistance, let alone immunity to turning or destruction, making this an extremely hard effect to tank. If you're tainted and get hit, then make a DC 38 Will save or just explode. If we're wearing an item that boosts Wis, then make that DC 41. And while Smite Taint might not be doing much for us in terms of damage, it does give us a handy +10 bonus to our attack roll to make sure that attack hits. Even if you use Moment of Perfect Mind to boost your Will save, we can hit you again before you recover it.

If our main trick doesn't work, we have a few backup tactics. Stunning Fist and Freezing the Lifeblood have similarly inflated save DCs but target Fort, making it less likely that an opponent who survives Sun Soul Monk can withstand them too. And if we're fighting an undead who can't be turned, we can pump a 110hp Lay on Hands into them (it's only expended if we hit, so we get multiple tries of this too).

But when worst comes to worst, we have...

If non-Undead, non-tainted opponents are overwhelming us, then as a last resort we can use our greater teleport SLA to flee back to our lair and lick our wounds. We then decide if our foes are deserving of judgement (using our detect evil and detect taint abilities to inform our decision). If we find them lacking, then we wait until nightfall and then begin to transform ourselves into the Black Horse.

To do so, we equip two items: a +1 ki focus necklace of natural weapons (8,600gp)... and a barding version of oni armor (42,350gp) - a suit of magic armor originally published in Oriental Adventures and updated in a sidebar on p66 of Heroes of Horror. This is a suit of heavy armor (+7 base AC, +2 max Dex, -4 ACP, +4 enhancement bonus), and thus while wearing it our AC drops from 45 to 41 (assuming we have no other AC-boosting items). Because we're not a tainted creature, we also incur one negative level while wearing it. So why on earth are we wearing it? Because it comes with a pair of +1 claws which deal damage as bastard swords... and inflict 1 point of corruption on each hit. That means any creature we hit with a claw attack instantly becomes a tainted creature, and can therefore be obliterated by Sun Soul Monk as part of the same attack.

Only a small number of creatures (nezumiOA, some nagasOA, and characters with the Pure SoulHoH feat) have outright immunity to this kind of “no save, just gain taint” effect, and most of them are friendly towards us. Otherwise the only way to block it is by carrying taint-absorbing items (Heroes of Horror p67), but they burn out quickly and it’s difficult to carry a lot of them at once.

If our enemies are foolish enough to set up camp in our forest, then we can employ scry-and-die tactics: cast locate object to find the nearest campfire, then greater teleport to its location and make a Flash of Sunset attack that catches them flat-footed (we're Large and can stand on top of campfires without harm due to our fire resistance, so ending up adjacent to the enemy isn't hard).

...

Okay, important question: is this trick even legal? Well entrants aren't allowed to have taint... and we don't. In fact we're explicitly immune to ever becoming tainted. The only thing we need is a world where tainted creatures exist. Most board contests frown on taint because the HoH rules give a combination of free bonus feats and ability score swaps that lets you inflate your stats easily, but that's not remotely what we're doing here. Even if an enemy somehow manages to get tainted by us and then escape without dying, they won't be able to abuse it either because it's only 1 point. And because we primarily fight creatures that spread taint, we would never agree to taint our allies nor would they need our help to become tainted in the first place.



While the main trick of this build doesn't require being a unicorn, it does appreciate the unicorn's massive Wis and Cha bonuses to make it more consistent. Unicorn also gives us a high base move speed which synergises with our unarmed speed bonus when delivering our attack as part of a charge, and it has detect evil and greater teleport for useful utility (the latter synergising with Sun School). It also comes with extra healing SLAs, and healing is a natural side angle for us to lean into as a Radiant Servant. Finally, some DMs will declare that monsters without racial spellcasting need the Surrogate Spellcasting feat in order to supply spell components, but unicorns are both capable of speech and have precedent for casting cleric spells via celestial charger.


Flaws would allow us to pick up Unorthodox FlurryDrComp (treat a specific light weapon as a monk weapon) and Stunning MasterSoS (use ki attacks with monk weapons), letting us deliver Sun Soul Monk through other natural attacks without the aid of an item. We could also select Unorthodox Flurry (touch spell) in order to get some added accuracy... or even Unorthodox Flurry (lay on hands).
Argent FistFoE would allow us to wear the armor at all times without losing our monk AC bonus, and also causes all our monk weapons to become ki focus weapons.
Weapon Focus (unarmed strike) + Ring the Golden BellDrComp would allow delivering Sun Soul Monk attacks at a distance (yelling "Devilmite Beam!" (https://youtu.be/jPatCj7BbNA) optional).
The Decisive StrikePHB2 ACF fits the "one-punch" theme and can add +2 DC to a Stunning Fist attack.
A major bloodline can be used to qualify for Sun Soul Monk with only 3 levels of monk. I considered combining this with Initiate of Torm (which normally requires 4 levels of cleric or paladin) in order to enter Triadic KnightCoV, then stacking multiple sources of Smite Evil and multipliers, and converting it into a Smite Taint effect that deals thousands of damage... but "use Triadic Knight to deal big smite damage" seemed too obvious and wasn't as interesting as the immunity-piercing destruction effect.
The called property can be added to our barding for +2,000gp, allowing it to be summoned onto our body from any distance as a standard action.
Dragon Magazine #303 has the Shadow Guard martial art mastery which we can unlock with the aid of Otyugh Hole and another feat slot, granting an extra +2 DC for Stunning Fist and Freezing the Lifeblood.




BoEDBook of Exalted Deeds
CCComplete Champion
CDivComplete Divine
CWarComplete Warrior
DrCompDragon Compendium
FoEFaiths of Eberron
HoHHeroes of Horror
CoVChampions of Valor
MICMagic Item Compendium
OAOriental Adventures
PHB2Player's Handbook II
SMSilver Marches
SoSSecrets of Sarlona
SpCSpell Compendium

[Beni-Kujaku]

Did I ever tell you about that time I was punched by a superhero ghost? part 1/2


ShadowBrood, the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice!

LE Murk / Binder 9 / Knight of the Sacred Seal 5 / Cloistered Cleric 1 / Ordained Champion 2



Attribute
Base
Murk
Levels
Final


Strength
8
-

-


Dexterity
18
4
4 (levels 8, 12, 16, 20)
26


Constitution
8
-

-


Intelligence
14
-4
10
10


Wisdom
10
2

12


Charisma
15
2
1 (level 4)
18






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


1
Murk
+0
+0
+0
+2
Knowledge Religion 1 (CC), Knowledge Arcana 1 (CC), Hide 4
Ghostly Grasp
incorporeal touch 1d6 wisdom damage


2
Murk
+1
+0
+0
+3

Hide 5, Spot 1



3
Murk
+1
+1
+1
+3
Hide 6, Spot 2
Empowered Ability Damage



4
Cloistered Cleric 1
+1
+3
+1
+5
Knowledge (Religion) 7
Martial Weapon Proficiency (Heavy Flail), Weapon Focus (Heavy Flail) (both from War Domain)
Spellcasting (Cleric 1), Rebuke Undead 7/day, Destruction, Knowledge, and War Domains


5
Ordained Champion 1
+2
+5
+1
+7
Knowledge (Arcana) 3, Hide is a class skill from Martial Stance
Martial Study (Shadow Blade Technique), Martial Stance (Child of Shadow) from combat feats
Domains: Destruction, War only, continued advancement, modified spontaneous casting


6
Ordained Champion 2
+3
+6
+1
+8
Knowledge (Arcana) 5
Diehard (bonus), Shadow Blade
Smite, Spellcasting (Cleric 2)


7
Binder 1
+3
+8
+1
+10
Knowledge (Arcana) 7

Soul Binding (up to level 1 vestiges)


8
Binder 2
+4
+9
+1
+11
Knowledge (Religion) 8, Knowledge (Arcana) 8

Pact Augmentation (1), Suppress Sign


9
Binder 3
+5
+9
+2
+11
Knowledge (Religion) 9, Knowledge (Arcana) 9
Combat Reflexes
Soul Binding (up to level 2 vestiges)


10
Binder 4
+6
+10
+2
+12
Tumble 1 (CC)
Improved Binding (Bonus)
Soul Binding (up to level 3 vestiges)


11
Binder 5
+6
+10
+2
+12
Hide 8

Pact Augmentation (2), Soul Binding (level 4 vestiges)


12
Knight of the Sacred Seal 1
+7
+12
+2
+12
Hide 10
Favored Vestige (Tenebrous)
Aligned Strike, Patron Vestige Tenebrous


13
Knight of the Sacred Seal 2
+8
+13
+2
+12
Hide 12

Vestige's Protection


14
Knight of the Sacred Seal 3
+9
+13
+3
+13
Hide 14

Vestige's Protection Aura, Soul Binding (2 vestiges, level 5 vestiges)


15
Knight of the Sacred Seal 4
+10
+14
+3
+13
Hide 16
Rapid Recovery (Tenebrous)
Vestige's Power


16
Knight of the Sacred Seal 5
+11
+14
+3
+13
Hide 18

Apotheosis, Vestige's Surge, Soul Binding (level 6 vestiges), Pact Augmentation (2)


17
Binder 6
+12
+15
+4
+14
Hide 20

Soul Guardian (immune to fear)


18
Binder 7
+13
+15
+4
+14
Tumble 1.5 (CC), Hide 21
Lifesense



19
Binder 8
+14
+16
+4
+15
Tumble 2 (CC) Hide 22

Soul Binding (level 7 vestiges)


20
Binder 9
+14
+16
+5
+15
Hide 23, Perform (Dance) 0.5 (CC)

Soul Guardian (Slippery Mind), Soul Binding (3 vestiges)




Spells per Day/Spells Known


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


1 - 3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


4 - 5
3
2 + 1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


6 - 20
4
3 + 1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-





Murks are among the very few monsters that can deal attribute damage without a save being involved and without any other damage attached as a rider. This means that anything boosting the damage of their natural attacks will increase the attribute damage and the lack of a save removes a potential point of failure. So the trick is to find a way to boost fixed damage as high as possible and then leave a crowd of drooling unconscious opponents in your wake. Increasing your to-hit is nice too, if you happen to run into hordes of will-o-the wisp's.

Constructs and Undead are hard counters to the strategy, but we're fairly hard to hurt and can work around them - especially in Eberron, where the Lord of Blades could grant the Warforged domain, letting us rebuke both!

In this case, ShadowBrood was inculcated into the precepts of Hextor shortly after turning, and assimilated the lesson that Hextorites (and a few others) were heroes, the church's enemies (and some others) were villians, and civilians were not (supposed to be) snacks.

My true name is too powerful for your minds to understand, so call me ShadowBrood, peons! Ahem, citizens. Carry on, there is nothing to be concerned about, for the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice is going incognito today. I'm just an ordinary person, like any snack - er civilian - on my sacred duty to... buy some cabbages! For Justice! Because cabbages are part of the workings of justice, as you can tell in episode 317 of Hextor's Marvelous...

Excuse me, fellow ordinary human citizen. Is this amount of screaming and running around normal? Apparently so, well, let it not be said that ShadowBrood cannot blend perfectly with the populace. Aaah! Aaah! What am I screaming about? Aaah!

Ahah! I understand it all now! I have found my sidekick! Fear not, gentle maiden, the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice is here to rescue you so you can take your place at my side as Cuddles GlitterPlate, the SideKick of Justice! And you, villian, prepare to meet the Punch of Justice!

And then what happened?

Do I have to say it? Fine. ShadowBrood casually walked up to the roper, swaying around its blows as if it weren't there, and then threw a punch. Not a good one - I've worked with enough monastics to tell when someone has training, and this, urk, Dark Hero of Gritty Justice was almost as good as a novice flailing about at random. Barely grazed the beast in fact - and it collapsed at once. Since it wasn't going for us or civilians, I made the command decision to ignore whatever madness it was spouting and point it towards the enemy. It was... sobering. Half a dozen times, the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice walked directly up to the face of some of the most twisted aberrations to have broken into the town, completely ignoring everything thrown at it? him? her?, tapped the monsters once and that was enough. Then ShadowBrood babbled a bit more and wandered off, heading back to the Temple.

I see. Others report this Dark Hero of Gritty Justice had some words for you in particular, care to share them?

Is that an order?

...

Fine. ShadowBrood said, and I quote, "I told her tentacles were only supposed to happen after the third date! Good luck!"


Level 6 is where the build comes together for the first time.
Defence: 45 hp, incorporeal, good 30' flight, AC 20 (14 flatfooted), undead immunities, saves +6/+7/+9, and Child of Shadow Stance gives us 20% miss chance when moving 10' or more per turn - no reason not to!
Offence: The Shadow Blade feat gives Dex to damage with unarmed strike, so ShadowBrood's touch attack

Our base attack is +9 to hit incorporeal touch doing 1.5 * (1-6 + 6 (from Dex)) Wisdom damage = 10-18
We have 7 rebukes / day and 1 smite / day (from Destruction domain), and can convert rebukes into smites.
On a smite, ShadowBrood gets +4 to hit (+13 total) and +3 base damage, so does 1.5 * (10-15) = 15-22 wisdom damage, which is enough to one hit kill a lot of monsters many CR above the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice.
Shadow Blade Technique lets us roll twice to attack once / encounter, further boosting our chance to hit (and possibly giving extra cold damage)
Magic: Cleric 2 casting is as high as we'll get, but a little utility can't hurt - Ordained CHampion means we can spontaneously cast Magic Weapon, which isn't that useful for ShadowBrood.
Skills: ShadowBrood is very good at recognizing fellow antiheroes (undead) (Know: Religion) and is starting to develop an interest in collectible models (constructs) (Know: Arcana), so will avoid trying to hurt them! Stealth is also a definite option, even if staying outside the walls.

At levels 4 and 5, ShadowBrood does not have Shadow Blade, and only gets one smite per day, so base damage on a hit is only 1.5 * (1-6) = 1-9, so a two hit kill may be needed.

All of this assumes no equipment.

Technically, Murks cannot speak intelligibly. I maintain that the story above demonstrates that ShadowBrood is a Murk.

Well, GlitterPlate, anything new to report?

I will get you for this, you realize?

Possibly, but then I might let it slip to the higher ups how the SideKick of Justice is getting out of the temple when ShadowBrood is feeling overly restless.

Just wait. Anyway, we'd had reports that a demonic cult was up to something, did some serious investigating and figured out where they were operating from. It wasn't pretty, and looked to be catastrophic if things went wrong so it let it slip to a perfectly ordinary citizen of no particular note that we might need the Gritty Hero of Dark Justice! Damnit, now I'm doing it too. Anyway, we got to the site - a corrupted noble was housing the cultists of all the damned cliches - and prepared to move in.

And I take it things didn't go as planned?

Do they ever? We were too slow, or the Abyss was too hungry. The building was gone and a Balor of all things was stretching its wings and looking at us like its next snack while its smaller siblings clawed their way through a gate at the bottom of the pit where the mansion once stood.

The fact that you're here, reporting, tells me that ShadowBrood did another ShadowBrood thing?

Dropped a cloud of darkness on the battlefield, then we felt the Balor hit the ground. Then the screaming grew fainter and fainter... and when it stopped, there was a pile of demons on top of an exhausted gate. Lots of test subjects, those we didn't finish off to be safe.

Anything else?

Just left more of those pamphlets behind. I really wish you'd give me editorial control of the damn things!

But the example of Cuddles GlitterPlate being rescued in the name of Justice is so inspiring to us all!

Again, level 11 is the next big shift in ShadowBrood's capabilities.
ShadowBoord is going to bind Tenebrous as often as possible this level
Defence: 77 hp, saves +10/+8/+13, Darkness at will (from Tenebrous), See in Darkness (from Tenebrous), flicker mystery 1/day (from Tenebrous) (8 round duration, 20' teleport 1/round as an immediate action, can be done in response to being attacked for 50% miss chance)
Offence: Our base attack is +12, and we get 2 Pact Augmentations per day, which we can add to damage so our base touch goes from 10-18 to 1.5 * (1-6 + 8) = 13-21

Tenebrous gives ShadowBrood a rebuke every 5 rounds, its level stacking with other rebuking classes, so level 8. Which becomes a level 8 smite.
On a smite, we still have +4 to hit (+16 total), but +8 damage means we do 1.5 * (9-14 + 8) = 25-33 wisdom damage. Enough to drop a Great Wyrm on a good roll.
Tenebrous gives Touch of the Void, adding 1d8 cold damage to an attack 1/5 rounds. Not really significant.
Combat Reflexes let us drop people rushing past us.

Magic: Still Cleric 2
Skills: We are finally certain to have common knowledge about constructs and undead, such as the fact that they are constructs and undead, and therefore not targets. We learned a bit about tumbling (and nothing about dancing) from exposure to Paimon, and practice not being seen a bit more.

We have access to level 1 vestiges at levels 7 and 8, level 2 vestiges at level 9, and level 3 vestiges at level 10.
Level 1 vestiges: ShadowBrood approves of Aym, for the cloak of flames (and fire resistance), Naberius is marginally useful in social environments (Disguise Self at will and Command 1 / 5 rounds can be useful), Ronove gives limited telekinesis and extra movement speed
Level 2 vestiges: ShadowBrood approves of Malphas, for the shadowy animal mascot (and invisibility, where there are no walls to walk through), Dalver-Nar gives some defensive options and confusion.
Special Note: The Green Lady vestige (from the web), if allowed, is a massive power boost as it gives us turning - like Tenebrous - so we don't need to invest as many levels in Binder...
Level 3 vestiges: ShadowBrood approves of Paimon, who knows how to groove (and is a murder blender, for one punching a crowd), Focalor lets you do damage to things you can't hurt otherwise (except Iron Golems), Karsus gives Dispel Magic and spell trigger item use

Level 4 vestiges: Tenebrous! Astaroth helps you craft your inventory on your off days. A Necklace of Natural Attacks could make you even more accurate and boost your odds against those annoying ancient dragons - and gauntlets of Dexterity are a must.

A significant challenge is reaching the enemy, as any sane opponent will be trying to stay as far from ShadowBrood as possible...

And yes, a Balor has Wisdom 24 and touch AC 16.



Never again!

You've put up with ShadowBrood for this long and it's a basic graveyard run that has you giving up?

It was bad enough when we had to take down that vampire 'lord'. The Dark Hero of Gritty Justice spent at least an hour calling on the bloodsucker to 'join the side of Justice', 'feel its Punch of Redemption', and worse. I think the combination of madness and tedium is what did the vampire in, after being poked one time too many. Anyway, that was a pain. But an entire graveyard? Animated by a half trained necromancer who couldn't even come to us to know how to do things properly? And ShadowBrood trying to reform every single one of them? Down to the last halfway animated rat paw? I am out.

You make a cogent point. Still, if you do this, I'll do my best to get the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice put on our roster for diplomatic cooperation with Heironeus's church.

You mean... a full contingent of uptight paladins looking for an excuse to smite ShadowBrood and listening attentively to everything the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice says hoping for a way to interpret it as an excuse for friendly fire? I'm in.

I knew you'd see it my way.

Level 14 is the build's sweet spot.
ShadowBrood always has Tenebrous active, and can have a second vestige up at the same time - most often Paimon, but other options exist.
Defence: 97 hp, AC 23 (14 flatfooted), saves +13/+12/+14, Uncanny Dodge (from Paimon) - including the +4 to Dex from Paimon, +4 to Tumble (from Paimon), Vestige's Protection Aura (+4 Insight to AC and reflex 1/5 rounds, includes adjacent allies)
Offence: Our base attack is +18 (+9 BAB + 9 Dex), Whirlwind Attack (from Paimon), Dance of Death (1/5 rounds, from Paimon), base damage is +9, so we do (10-15)*1.5 = 15-22 before pact augmentations, up to (12-17)*1.5=18-25 with them.

Our rebuke is up to level 12, for level 12 smite, thanks to Favored Vestige which gives Tenebrous an EBL of 9 instead of 8
On a smite, we have +4 to hit (+22 total) and 1.5 * (12-17 + 12) = 36-43 wisdom damage.
Magic: Cleric 2
Skills: aggressively pushing Hide, because why not?

A Heavy Flail of Disruption (or, better, Necklace of Natural Attacks with the same) should have been crafted or acquired by now, giving ShadowBrood the ability to eventually Rebuke-Smite undead into Heroes! Undead ones if the rebuke catches, plain dead ones if they roll a 1 versus the Flail.
Paimon is still the most likely vestige to be bound alongside Tenebrous

Level 5 vestiges: Balam gives rerolls (1/5 turns), Dantalion gives teleportation, and Otiax gives physical damage and Combat Reflexes (which we already have)

Will-O'-Wisps are annoying because we might miss them (touch AC 29). Maybe move the pact augmentations into To Hit instead of damage to deal with them? They only have 16 Wisdom...


So now what?

Well, Cuddles, you've fairly convincingly demonstrated that there is nothing that ShadowBrood can't take down in a single Punch of Justice! Except other 'heroes' and 'collectible figurines' of course, but even those succumb eventually.

You're saying nice things, and that has me worried.

Not at all! You've been promoted and moved to our temple in FarIslandia, a nice tropical spot with no problems of any sort. I even have a binding contract right here saying it's true and there are no hidden clauses.

So the open clause is?

The bosses want the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice, and from what we can tell, we need you to convince ShadowBrood to go with them, and not wander back here after a few hours looking for 'villians' to rescue you from.

I get to effectively retire with benefits, and in exchange someone else has put up with the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice? I'm in.

It's been interesting working with you.

So now that I'm clear, care to tell me what they're going to try to do?

It seems the big T has been uncovered, and the bosses want to try conditioning it. After their work on ShadowBrood, they think they've perfected the process, but they still need the patient to be immobile for a long time - which makes the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice perfect for the job.

As long as it happens far from FarIslandia, I don't care.

About that...

We've picked up two interesting capstones on the way to level 20, but could have gone along different routes as well.
At level 20, we can bind a third vestige, of up to level 7, so there are more options (many of which we don't care about)
Defence: 136 hp, AC 24 (14 flatfooted), saves +16/+15/+16, DR 10/magic, Vestige's Power (+10 speed, +4 to Will saves - boosts to Str and Con don't work), Slippery Mind (in case we run into Charm Undead effects), Lifesense lets us see living things, which makes it hard for them to hide...
Offence: Our base attack is +24 (+14 BAB + 10 Dex), base damage with pact augmentations applied increases to 19-27

Rebuking is up to 18, same for the smite
On a smite, we have +28 to hit and do 1.5*(13-18 + 18) = 46-54 wisdom damage
Vestige's Surge lets us recover a use of Tenebrous's Rebuke right away for accelerated smiting
Touch of the Void does 3d8 cold, for a full round (we're not full attacking, but Combat Reflexes might help)
Magic: Cleric 2
Skills: as much Hide as we can get (it works well with being perfectly silent), a little Tumble, and enough Dance to be embarassed.

As of level 16, ShadowBrood is a Native Outsider. So maybe no longer undead?

Level 6 vestiges: Haures gives us illusions, Phantasmal killer, and even more miss chances when moving, Ipos gives true seeing, boosts other vestiges, and might help ShadowBrood survive in the Positive Material Plane, Shax gives Freedom of Movement, Electricity immunity, and minor damage, Zcerryl gives true strike and summoning
Level 7 vestiges: nothing of particular note

We only fear the Tarrasque, which is immune to ability damage!



An incorporeal monster (even with Ghostly Touch) is going to have trouble getting equipment. Still, there are a few interesting standouts which should be worth collecting:

Boosts to turning level let ShadowBrood be even better at punching things!

Amulet of Natural Attacks: more to hit, more damage even without a smite. If it can be used to apply extra properties, Disruption is nice (the undead you hit are going to fail their saves eventually), and Collision (Psionic) could be acquired early on to push damage even higher.

Mace of Smiting: for crit fishing purposes against constructs, we have touch attacks.

We have flight, but boosts to flight speed can't hurt, especially with Paimon bound.

Attribute bonuses are always nice, especially Dexterity - being incorporeal and undead means we need less.

We have 136 HP at level 20. Rather fragile... Desecration might be able to help (potentially +20 / 40 hp) but we're going to have to rely on AC and healing 5 hp each time we drop someone. Evasion is definitely worth investigating.

Better saves are nice too, especially Reflex despite our extreme Dexterity.

Reach (via size, perhaps) would be very nice for the AoO opportunities

[Beni-Kujaku]

Do you think reducing a creature's mental stats to make them more susceptible to interrogation would be considered torture? part 2/2


ShadowBrood has one tactic: see villain, move to villain, punch villain with a wisdom damaging touch, let civilians or other heroes deal with sending the bad-doer to prison.

Level 6 The tactic can be used more than once a day, to considerable effect. The Dark Hero of Gritty Justice also benefits from the Child of Shadows stance, for extra miss chances (and the boost to damage which makes it possible without smiting)

Levels 7 - 10 The tactic isn't much more potent, but binding allows ShadowBrood to try other things (Paimon works great at level 10, boosting damage and incidental targets). Combat Reflexes at level 9 makes opponents hesitate to get close, because if one normal attack isn't enough to drop them, two certainly are.

Level 11 The tactic can be repeated every 5 rounds, all day, and is a lot more powerful. This is why we went into Binder rather than more caster levels (or Ordained Champion). We can craft items during downtime via binder, which is nice. The Disruption weapon quality (+2) lets us annoy undead to death (touch attack them until they fail their will save and die).

Levels 12-13 The tactic's numbers improve, but we can't use any other vestiges - or possible lose the KotSS abilities if so? Downtime is fine

Level 14 More numbers, and a second vestige. The tactic can now be used with Paimon, allowing more genre suitable punches (one punch to clear out a batch of mooks surrounding the Dark Hero of Gritty Justice, or a rush towards the main antagonist, knocking out everyone in the way). Increased move speed would really shine here too, for the same reason (and to catch up with dragons trying to escape the Punch of Justice!)

Levels 15 - 20 The tactic can already end whatever is susceptible to it, so we have 6 levels to play with if we want to add something new or (shudder) try a different one.

Level 16KotSS lets us smite, smite again, and then have to wait 4 rounds before smiting once more - unless we use some of ShadowBrood's daily smites.

Level 20The Dark Hero of Gritty Justice must now decide which third vestige works best alongside Paimon and Tenebrous for delivering the tactic. Balam is nice, but the granted Combat Reflexes are a bit wasted. Karsus gives Dispel Magic on a touch (for overconfident casters with Sheltered Vitality) and boosts the save DC from Disruption.

A mace of smiting (or the enchantment) allows ShadowBrood to deal with Constructs the way it does Undead (poke over and over until a crit happens, rather than a failed Will save), and Dispel Magic of some sort is useful too.

If the judge rules that damage added to attacks cannot be added to ability damage, the build collapses.

Empowered Ability Damage gives us a major boost to efficiency, but should probably be dropped if it's ruled as adding only half a die (a feat can do more than 1-2 extra damage) - this makes the one hit kills harder to pull off.

Murk alignment is always CE, which makes Ordained Champion a problem. Backstory, a Helm of Opposite Alignment (and a champion of Heironeus), or a different War god could all work.

To a large extent, the build peaks at level 14 - the remaining 6 levels can be used for more or less anything interesting, since the upper tier vestiges are not that useful to us and we're dropping opponents a fair few CR above us already.


It's possible to push the combat numbers a tiny bit higher, by starting with Int 6, Wis 11, and Charisma 17. That gives +1 AC (deflection) and +1 to hit with smites, but costs 1 Will save (minor) and makes the skills very tight (also, costs one level 1 spell. How sad). 3 cross class ranks in Know (Religion) from Murk 3, exactly 4 from Cloistered Cleric, and it's free sailing from there - with a whole 14 more skill points to be earned over the entire build - not enough for ShadowBrood to reliably recognize undead and constructs, with the Int penalty...

Using the Green Lady Vestige lets us step out of Binding at level 14 with everything we need and the capstone of Knight of the Sacred Seal (Binder 3 / KotSS 5), including the ability to bind level 4 vestiges (Tenebrous for an extra smite / 5 rounds, Astaroth for crafting during downtime). That's 6 open levels!

Using a Ghost base instead of Murk (and Illumian to get around the multiclass penalties as well as some insight bonuses to damage with Uurnaen) is massively more resilient and powerful at low levels (CL 12 telekinesis at level 5 is terrifying and also is an easy answer to undead and constructs) and avoids alignment concerns. However, Draining Touch does ability drain, rather than damage - so it can eventually kill the Tarrasque (and being able to pick the target ability is very powerful) but might not be ruled to get bonuses to damage for one punch kills. So I opted for the more fragile build which could still inflict sufficient mayhem. Another flaw of the Ghost approach is that it delays the tactic until ECL 9 (3 ghost, 4 required levels, 2 ordained champion) - though with the Green Lady it could also all come together at level 9.

A different approach I considered was an Overwhelming Attack Decisive Strike Monk 3 / Psionic Fist 1 / Tashalatora Slayer 10. This does not get Charisma to hit via smites, but does get to perform power attacks to boost damage on its touch attacks and two double damage attacks (+50%) when flurry of blows equivalent reaches level 11 (and if we get Shock Trooper, we can be fairly sure to hit on a charge - and Overwhelming Attack Monk makes this possible!). I was concerned about running low on PP given the necessary buffing routine (or the time wasted buffing), but it's still a base of 3d6 wisdom damage (3d4 drain with a ghost) for a full attack without any boosts (or maybe 2.5 dice, depending on how doubling interacts with Empowered Ability Damage). Add a Kensai with Collision for +1 to hit and +5 damage, and your decisive strikes finish off individual opponents fairly easily. I really wanted to see a power striking ghost, but it just didn't work out.


Murk: Libris Mortis
Empowered Ability Damage: Libris Mortis
Ghostly Gasp: Libris Mortis
Lifesense: Libris Mortis
Binder: Tome of Magic
Knight of the Sacred Seal: Tome of Magic
Green Lady Vestige (not used): Web
Zcerryl Vestige (not used): Web
Ordained Champion: Complete Champion
Martial Strike, Martial Stance, Shadow Blade: Tome of Battle

[Beni-Kujaku]

Two other entries used the Tome of Battle, and yet this one definitely has the most Weeaboo Fightan Magic.



https://64.media.tumblr.com/384a22e3324967c1c2284a13ee894835/43d35ac7a375a637-9a/s1280x1920/a2af4d51a5cb330be69a9b26e55aa52d9a473e69.gif

- There are only two possibilities to see the face of the Void Death. When he cuts you, exists short instant. You'll miss it if you blink. But if you will not, you'll see... Skin gray as cold cinder and his eyes blacker than the blackest cave... It will not last you'll see, last will be sky or earth - depends how your upper part will fall. Or there is a rare possibility he wants you to see him! It also could be only for a moment and you won't be sure if you’ve actually seen it or you imagined that.
- Actually, there is another possibility, - suddenly the narrator groaned and the next moment his body fall on the ground while his head remained standing on the blade of sword, - You could see me, when I came to kill somebody who isn't you.
Head fell on the body...


LE Void Walker Samurai 2/Iaijutsu Master 5/Marshal 1
Abilities Initial Void Walker 8th 12th Total
STR 10 8 18
DEX 12 12 24
CON 12 6 18
INT 14 6 20
WIS 8 6 14
CHA 18 8 1 1 28

ECL+6 LA Class BAB Fort Reflex Will Skills Feats Class Features
7th Void Walker 1 1 2 2 2 52: {+4} Balance: 4; {+4} Diplomacy: 4; {+4 CC} Iaijutsu Focus: 2; {+4} Hide: 4; {+4} Intimidate: 4; {+4} Jump: 4; {+4} Knowledge (the planes): 4; {+4} Listen: 4; {+4} Move Silently: 4; {+4} Search: 4; {+4} Sense Motive: 4; {+4} Spot: 4; {+4} Tumble: 4; Power Attack - Iaijutsu1 Darkvision 60 ft., immunity to energy drain, outsider traits, SLA, void subtype
8th Void Walker 2 2 3 3 3 13: {+1} Balance: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; {+1 CC} Iaijutsu Focus: 2.5; {+1} Hide: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 5; {+1} Jump: 5; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Listen: 5; {+1} Move Silently: 5; {+1} Search: 5; {+1} Sense Motive: 5; {+1} Spot: 5; {+1} Tumble: 5;
9th Void Walker 3 3 3 3 3 13: {+1} Balance: 6; {+1} Diplomacy: 6; {+1 CC} Iaijutsu Focus: 3; {+1} Hide: 6; {+1} Intimidate: 6; {+1} Jump: 6; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 6; {+1} Listen: 6; {+1} Move Silently: 6; {+1} Search: 6; {+1} Sense Motive: 6; {+1} Spot: 6; {+1} Tumble: 6; Weapon Focus (Katana)3
10th Void Walker 4 4 4 4 4 13: {+1} Balance: 7; {+1} Diplomacy: 7; {+1 CC} Iaijutsu Focus: 3.5; {+1} Hide: 7; {+1} Intimidate: 7; {+1} Jump: 7; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 7; {+1} Listen: 7; {+1} Move Silently: 7; {+1} Search: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 7; {+1} Spot: 7; {+1} Tumble: 7;
11th Void Walker 5 5 4 4 4 13: {+1} Balance: 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 8; {+1 CC} Iaijutsu Focus: 4; {+1} Hide: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 8; {+1} Jump: 8; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 8; {+1} Listen: 8; {+1} Move Silently: 8; {+1} Search: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 8; {+1} Spot: 8; {+1} Tumble: 8;
12th Void Walker 6 6 5 5 5 13: {+1} Balance: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 9; {+1 CC} Iaijutsu Focus: 4.5; {+1} Hide: 9; {+1} Intimidate: 9; {+1} Jump: 9; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 9; {+1} Listen: 9; {+1} Move Silently: 9; {+1} Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Spot: 9; {+1} Tumble: 9; Quick Draw6
13th Samurai 1 7 7 5 7 9: Balance: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 10; {+3} Iaijutsu Focus: 7.5; Hide: 9; {+1} Intimidate: 10; {+1} Jump: 10; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; Move Silently: 9; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 10; Spot: 9; {+2} Swim: 2; Tumble: 9; Ancestral Daisho
14th Samurai 2 8 8 5 8 9: Balance: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 11; {+3} Iaijutsu Focus: 10.5; Hide: 9; {+1} Intimidate: 11; {+1} Jump: 11; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; Move Silently: 9; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 11; Spot: 9; {+2} Swim: 4; Tumble: 9; Improved InitiativeB
15th Iaijutsu Master 1 9 8 7 8 9: Balance: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 12; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 11.5; {+1 CC} Hide: 9.5; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 11.5; {+1} Jump: 12; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 9.5; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 12; Spot: 9; Swim: 4; {+2} Tumble: 11; Mercurial Strike9 Weapon finesse, canny defense
16th Iaijutsu Master 2 10 8 8 8 9: Balance: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 13; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 12.5; {+2 CC} Hide: 10.5; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 12; {+1} Jump: 13; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; Move Silently: 9.5; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 13; Spot: 9; Swim: 4; {+2} Tumble: 13; Lightning blade
17th Iaijutsu Master 3 11 9 8 9 9: Balance: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 14; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 13.5; {+2 CC} Hide: 11.5; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 12.5; {+1} Jump: 14; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 10; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 14; Spot: 9; Swim: 4; {+1} Tumble: 14;
18th Iaijutsu Master 4 12 9 9 9 9: {+1} Balance: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 15; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 14.5; {+2 CC} Hide: 12.5; {+1 CC} Intimidate: 13; {+1} Jump: 15; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; Move Silently: 10; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 15; Spot: 9; Swim: 4; {+1} Tumble: 15; Power Attack12, Skill Focus (Iaijutsu Focus)B Bonus feat
19th Iaijutsu Master 5 13 9 9 9 9: Balance: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 16; {+1} Iaijutsu Focus: 15.5; {+2 CC} Hide: 13.5; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 14; {+1} Jump: 16; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; Move Silently: 10; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 16; Spot: 9; Swim: 4; {+1} Tumble: 16; Strike from the Void
20th Marshal 1 13 11 9 11 9: Balance: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 17; {+3 CC} Iaijutsu Focus: 17; {+1 CC} Hide: 14; {+3} Intimidate: 17; Jump: 16; Knowledge (the planes): 9; Listen: 9; Move Silently: 10; Search: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 17; Spot: 9; Swim: 4; Tumble: 16; Skill Focus (Diplomacy)B Minor aura (motivate charisma)

It's a late start and only 6 HD, even outsider, looks very hard at 12 ECL, but... I'm almost undetectable. And also have very good Greater Teleport at will. My damaging potential at this moment isn't great. With +13 total Iaijutsu Focus check average damage will be 1d10+6+4d6 - not very big.
Two levels of samurai give me all I need to enter Iaijutsu Master - Iaijutsu Focus ranks and Improved Initiative. Plus I get Ancestral Daisho. Actually, it doesn't matter for me what exact abilities it will have. I'm ok to end with something like +4 Keen Focus (OA, 125) Katana.
Five levels of Iaijutsu Master gives me thematically sound Strike from the Void and one cut damage up to 1d10+6+10d6+90 (average +7d6+63) with AB at least +22. If enemy doesn't look having great AC I could also apply Power Attack.
One level of Marshal means minimum Iaijutsu Focus check of 39 - 7d6+63 damage and 50% chance of maximum damage before any items. Plus, I'm competent face and very good scout.

I realize Strike from the Void is very obvious in the context of the round theme, Marshal combination with IF easily read, either, but I hope at least my race surprised you.

Type Name Book Page
Race Void Walker Dwellers of the Void link (https://web.archive.org/web/20161101074221/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20031219a)
Class Samurai Oriental Adventures 20
Class Marshal Miniatures Handbook 11
Prestige Class Iaijutsu Master Oriental Adventures 41
Feat Power Attack - Iaijutsu Oriental Adventures 64
Feat Weapon Focus PHB 102
Feat Quick Draw PHB 98
Feat Improved Initiative PHB 96
Feat Mercurial Strike Dragon Compendium 102
Feat Power Attack PHB 98
Feat Skill Focus PHB 100
Skill Iaijutsu Focus Oriental Adventures 58

[Beni-Kujaku]

Sometimes you just need one katana and two arms to wield it.


Garth Ashborn

LN War Troll OA Samurai 2/Consecrated Harrier 6

Str 12+20=32
Dex 12+6=18
Con 16+18=34
Int 14-2=12
Wis 12+4=16
Cha 12+0=12

Increases go to Con

Illias Tevara, Morgrave University Graduate Thesis: “Law and Fire”

Today, Droaam is a swiftly growing nation ruled by the firm but benevolent hands of the Daughters of Sora Kell. But it wasn't always that way. Only a little over ten years ago, the Daughters were concentrating their power, winning the monster lords to their side. One of the first to join them was Lord Garth Ashborn, the leader of a clan of trolls famous for their resistance to fire and their ancestral blades. While the reason for Garth's almost fanatical loyalty to the Daughters of Sora Kell is unknown, I suspect it is due to a service the Daughters did the ancestors of Clan Ashborn, as their devotion to their ancestors is second only to that of the elves. Clan Ashborn helped the Daughters secure Droaam, and once peace was established worked as Peacemakers, or occasionally piecemakers, for the Daughters. Garth is the most renowned as a skilled tracker and mightier warrior. Though his enemies and Droaamish criminals mock him by calling him “The Hags’ Terrier”, few are willing to face him in battle. While the exact powers of his daisho is unknown, rumor has it that once one has been touched by the blades, the fight is ended. The actions of Garth and other Peacemakers are quickly pacifying Droaam and bringing the monster lords in line. I believe that before long, Droaam will become a power the equal, if not greater than, any of the remaining five nations. Those in power in the remaining nations would do well to court the monster nation, especially Clan Ashborn, or else they might find themselves a criminal by the laws of Droaam and a target of Garth Ashborn.

Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Monstrous Humanoid 1 1 0 2 2 Gather Information 4 (+4), Disguise 4 (+4), Survival 2 (+2), CC City Slicker Dazing Blow
2nd Monstrous Humanoid 2 2 0 3 3 Gather Information 5 (+1), Disguise 5 (+1), Survival 2 1/2 (+1/2), CC
3rd Monstrous Humanoid 3 3 1 3 3 Gather Information 6 (+1), Disguise 6 (+1), Survival 3 (+1/2), CC Urban Tracking Regeneration 9
4th Monstrous Humanoid 4 4 1 4 4 Gather Information 7 (+1), Disguise 7 (+1), Survival 3 1/2 (+1/2), CC
5th Monstrous Humanoid 5 5 1 4 4 Gather Information 8 (+1), Disguise 8 (+1), Survival 4 (+1/2), CC SR 20
6th Monstrous Humanoid 6 6 2 5 5 Gather Information 9 (+1), Disguise 9 (+1), Survival 4 1/2 (+1/2), CC Track
7th Monstrous Humanoid 7 7 2 5 5 Gather Information 10 (+1), Disguise 10 (+1), Survival 5 (+1/2), CC Scent
8th Monstrous Humanoid 8 8 2 6 6 Gather Information 11 (+1), Disguise 11 (+1), Survival 5 1/2 (+1/2), CC
9th Monstrous Humanoid 9 9 3 6 6 Gather Information 12 (+1), Disguise 12 (+1), Survival 6 (+1/2), CC Combat Reflexes Darkvision 90ft
10th Monstrous Humanoid 10 10 3 7 7 Gather Information 13 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 2 (+2)
11th Monstrous Humanoid 11 11 3 7 7 Gather Information 14 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 4 (+2) DR 5/adamantine
12th Monstrous Humanoid 12 12 4 8 8 Gather Information 15 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6 (+2) Robilar's Gambit
13th OA Samurai (Phoenix) 1 13 6 8 10 Gather Information 16 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 4 (+4) Ancestral Daisho
14th OA Samurai (Phoenix) 2 14 7 8 11 Gather Information 17 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 8 (+4) Quick Draw (B)
15th Consecrated Harrier 1 15 7 8 13 Gather Information 18 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 8, Search 4 (+4) Power Attack Blessing of Scripture +2, Detect Chaos
16th Consecrated Harrier 2 16 7 8 14 Gather Information 19 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 8, Search 8 (+4) Sanctified Sight
17th Consecrated Harrier 3 17 8 9 14 Gather Information 20 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 8, Search 12 (+4) Dispel Magic
18th Consecrated Harrier 4 18 8 9 15 Gather Information 21 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 8, Search 16 (+4) Blind Fight Crushing Despair
19th Consecrated Harrier 5 19 8 9 15 Gather Information 22 (+1), Disguise 12, Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 8, Search 20 (+4) Blessing of Scripture +4
20th Consecrated Harrier 6 20 9 10 16 Gather Information 23 (+1), Disguise 13 (+1), Survival 6, Spot 6, Iaijutsu Focus 8, Search 23 (+3) False Vision

Level Class 1st 2nd 3rd Katana Upgrades Wakizashi Upgrades
12th War Troll 12 - - -
13th Samurai 1 - - - Plus One, Wounding, Fleshgrinding Plus One, Merciful, Binding, Fleshgrinding
14th Samurai 2 - - - Vicious
15th Consecrated Harrier 1 0 - - Impaling
16th Consecrated Harrier 2 1 - - Implacable
17th Consecrated Harrier 3 1 0 - Flaming Blurstrike
18th Consecrated Harrier 4 1 1 - Plus Two Flaming
19th Consecrated Harrier 5 1 1 0
20th Consecrated Harrier 6 1 1 1

A War Troll is a very solid base for a melee build, giving strong defense, decent damage, and Dazing Blow, an incredibly powerful ability that turns every attack into a save or daze with a con based DC. Garth has a 34 con out of the gate, so it’s going to be very difficult for enemies to resist, with a DC of 28. His feats are split between allowing Tracking and setting up Robilar’s Gambit. On the Tracking side he has both Tracking and Urban Tracking plus City Slicker to get Gather Information and Disguise as class skills. City Slicker might seem strange for a troll, but in Droaam, trolls are welcome in cities so it makes more sense than it might seem at first. Gather Information fuels Urban Tracking and Track+Scent means that even with cross class Survival, Garth can still do a decent job tracking enemies whether they’re in cities or not. Once he finds his enemies, Garth’s strategy is simple enough, charge in and Dazing Blow them until they are dead. Next level, his strategy gets a bit more complicated as he unlocks his Ancestral Daisho, which scales off of character level, including RHD. Garth will enchant both his weapons eventually, as his strategy works better the more weapons he has.

At ECL 13, he can get two weapons at +5, with very specific stat requirements. Which one he uses depends on what he wants to do to the target. “Dead”, his katana, is at this point a +1 Fleshgrinding Wounding katana, and “Alive” his wakizashi is a +1 Fleshgrinding Merciful Binding Wakizashi. When he hits an enemy with them, which can happen even before he goes with Combat Reflexes+Robilar’s Gambit, he can release one of his weapons to have them burrow into his enemy’s flesh and do damage “as if you had scored a normal hit” with it for the next five rounds. The weapon property is a little more complicated than that, but it transfers most damage and more importantly Dazing Blow to the enemy, keeping them out of the fight. Wounding exacerbates this, as it lowers enemy con. For enemies that Garth wants to capture, “Alive” can be used to stunlock just as effectively, though its damage is nonlethal and significantly lower. Binding helps prevent any enemies that remain un-dazed from escaping, and Merciful obviously helps capture enemies unharmed. This is his main tactic throughout, with his other levels mainly augmenting this tactic and his tracking abilities. Next level Quick Draw and an investment in Iaijutsu Focus boost his first turn damage.

At ECL 15, Garth enters Consecrated Harrier, a divine hunting based class that offers accelerated ranger casting. Garth’s devotion to the Daughters of Sora Kell and to the law help him qualify for the class. Detect Chaos is useful when tracking a chaotic opponent and Blessing of Scripture is a decent numbers bump, but the main draw is the ranger spells. At first level they are limited. Garth usually chooses between Resist Energy to shore up his weakness to acid or Bloodhound to boost his tracking ability. He also gets Power Attack, always useful with a two handed weapon and full BAB, though it doesn’t work with Fleshgrinding. Next level, Sanctified Sight is reasonably helpful against illusions, and an extra spell per day lets Garth take both Resist Energy and Bloodhound. In terms of skills, Garth is keeping Gather Information maxed and has started to invest some in search to improve his ability to find his targets.

Garth spends the rest of his levels on Consecrated Harrier, unlocking some more abilities and learning spells. Dispel Magic is pretty useful, though even with Blessing of Scripture his caster level is a little low. Second level spell slots are more exciting, letting Garth use Primal Instinct, or occasionally Lion’s Charge. Next level he can use both one/day and picks up Crushing Despair, which is kinda random but can soften people up for Dazing Blow, which by this point has a DC of 30 even without a con enhancing item. He also picks up Blind Sight, which with Scent makes him quite effective against invisible foes. In terms of weapon enhancements, both of his weapons are plus ten, with Dead being a +2 Fleshgrinding Wounding Implacable Flaming Katana, and Alive being a +1 Fleshgrinding Merciful Binding Vicious Impaling Blurstrike Flaming Wakizashi. Dead is his primary weapon, as its damage ramps up significantly with Fleshgrinding and Power Attack, but against mobile, high saves foes Alive is better as it prevents enemies from escaping, can enable Iaijutsu Focus, and can make a touch attack a few times per day. Next level of Consecrated Harrier doubles the bonus from Blessing of Scripture, and brings a third level spell. Find the Gap is his usual choice here, which really helps make sure his massive blows land first try. By 20th level he has the ability to cast False Vision, which is useful against a scrying opponent, I guess, and has picked up another 3rd level slot, probably also for Find the Gap. At this point Dazing Blow has a DC of 33 and one attack from Dead does 1d10+18 to +51 damage, as well as one con damage, and then on the next few rounds does another 1d10+1d6+19, or more with Blessing of Scripture, adding another +2 on rounds 3, 4, and 5, for a total of about 175 ish damage which can go over two hundred in ideal conditions, 5 points of Con damage, and several rounds of Dazing, and Garth can potentially do this to two foes at the same time while remaining a competent bruiser otherwise. All in all, Garth is quite powerful in melee and his casting and senses give him some utility that pure brutes don’t have outside of it.


1st Resist Energy, Bloodhound

2nd Primal Instinct, Lion’s Charge

3rd Find the Gap x2

War troll: MMIII
Samurai: Oriental Adventures
Urban Tracking: Eberron Campaign Setting
Robilar’s Gambit: PHB II
Consecrated Harrier: Complete Divine
Weapon Abilities: DMG or Magic Item Compendium
Primal Instinct: Dragon Magic
Spells: Spell Compendium
Everything else from PHB

[Beni-Kujaku]

His father breathed fire. His mother wielded versatile innate magic. Of course he would burn his enemies with spellfire.


There is discussion between sages: how do rilmani reproduce? Some say - they have sexual process. Some claim the opposite - rilmani are sexless and new individuals are born from the very matter of the Outlands. Some have middle ground ideas leaning towards one side or another. It's a mystery and sages don't have any consensus about this. But there is one thing on which they have a consensus: Dragons always find a way.
If rilmani's sexual process exists the way is trivial. There’s no point in us discussing this. But if it doesn't... Well. If a dragon flew over the Outlands one day it would be enough to drop a single drop of... let it be blood. Maybe it should be dropped in a specific place. But it’s definitely possible one way or another. Aodhan the Dragonblood is the living proof.


https://64.media.tumblr.com/73b47e2fa51652ebfc138eb2d417dae3/cbb296d7f5a89f80-85/s500x750/38cfdab401bf8488115fe2553dee851947987951.png


TN Draconic Ferrumach Spellfire Channeler 10

Abilities Initial Ferrumach Draconic 12th 16th Total
STR 12 14 2 28
DEX 12 2 14
CON 18 18 2 1 1 40
INT 10 4 14
WIS 8 2 10
CHA 14 10 2 26

Level Class BAB Fort Reflex Will Skills Feats Class Features
1st Ferrumach +1 LA - - - - - - Fear aura, spell-like abilities, summon rilmani, DR 10/good or evil or lawful or chaotic, outsider traits, rilmani traits, SR 20
2nd Draconic +1 LA - - - - - - Low-light vision
3rd Outsider HD 1 1 2 2 2 40: {+4} Concentration: 4; {+4} Diplomacy: 4; {+4} Intimidate: 4; {+4 CC} Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+4 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 2; {+4} Ride: 4; {+4} Sense Motive: 4; {+4 CC} Spellcraft: 2; {+4} Spot: 4; {+4} Survival: 4; Spellfire Wielder (1)
4th Outsider HD 2 2 3 3 3 10: {+1} Concentration: 5; {+1} Diplomacy: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 5; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 2.5; {+1} Profession (soldier): 1; {+1} Ride: 5; {+1} Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 5; {+1} Survival: 5; {+1} Use Rope: 1;
5th Outsider HD 3 3 3 3 3 10: {+1} Concentration: 6; {+1} Diplomacy: 6; {+1} Intimidate: 6; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 3; {+1} Profession (soldier): 2; {+1} Ride: 6; {+1} Sense Motive: 6; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 6; {+1} Survival: 6; {+1} Use Rope: 2; Endurance (3)
6th Outsider HD 4 4 4 4 4 10: {+1} Concentration: 7; {+1} Diplomacy: 7; {+1} Intimidate: 7; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 3.5; {+1} Profession (soldier): 3; {+1} Ride: 7; {+1} Sense Motive: 7; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 7; {+1} Survival: 7; {+1} Use Rope: 3;
7th Outsider HD 5 5 4 4 4 10: {+1} Concentration: 8; {+1} Diplomacy: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 8; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 4; {+1} Profession (soldier): 4; {+1} Ride: 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 8; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 8; {+1} Survival: 8; {+1} Use Rope: 4;
8th Outsider HD 6 6 5 5 5 10: {+1} Concentration: 9; {+1} Diplomacy: 9; {+1} Intimidate: 9; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 4.5; {+1} Profession (soldier): 5; {+1} Ride: 9; {+1} Sense Motive: 9; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 9; {+1} Survival: 9; {+1} Use Rope: 5; Steadfast Determination (6)
9th Outsider HD 7 7 5 5 5 10: {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1} Diplomacy: 10; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Profession (soldier): 6; {+1} Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 10; {+1} Survival: 10; {+1} Use Rope: 6;
10th Outsider HD 8 8 6 6 6 10: {+1} Concentration: 11; {+1} Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Intimidate: 11; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 5.5; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 11; Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 11; {+1} Survival: 11; {+1} Use Rope: 7; {+2} Never Outnumbered;
11th Spellfire Channeler 1 8 8 6 8 4: {+1} Concentration: 12; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Intimidate: 12; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 6; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 12; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Empower Supernatural Ability (9) Drain charged item, increased storage 2
12th Spellfire Channeler 2 9 9 6 9 4: {+1} Concentration: 13; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Intimidate: 13; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 6.5; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 13; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Improved healing
13th Spellfire Channeler 3 9 9 7 9 4: {+1} Concentration: 14; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Intimidate: 14; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 7; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 14; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Weapon Focus (Spellfire) (B) Weapon Focus (spellfire), increased storage 3
14th Spellfire Channeler 4 10 10 7 10 4: {+1} Concentration: 15; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Intimidate: 15; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 7.5; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 15; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Draconic Aura (Energy (Fire)) (12) Rapid blast 2
15th Spellfire Channeler 5 10 10 7 10 4: {+1} Concentration: 16; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Intimidate: 16; Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (the planes): 8; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 16; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Drain permanent item, increased storage 4
16th Spellfire Channeler 6 11 11 8 11 4: {+1} Concentration: 17; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Disguise: 1; {+1} Intimidate: 17; Knowledge (arcana): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 8; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 17; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Flight
17th Spellfire Channeler 7 11 11 8 11 4: {+1} Concentration: 18; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Disguise: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 18; Knowledge (arcana): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 8; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 18; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Planar Touchstone (Catalogue of Enlightenment (Pride)) (15), Deflect Arrows (B) Deflect Arrows, increased storage 5
18th Spellfire Channeler 8 12 12 8 12 4: {+1} Concentration: 19; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Disguise: 3; {+1} Intimidate: 19; Knowledge (arcana): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 8; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 19; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Rapid blast 3
19th Spellfire Channeler 9 12 12 9 12 4: {+1} Concentration: 20; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Disguise: 4; {+1} Intimidate: 20; Knowledge (arcana): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 8; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 20; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Crown of fire
20th Spellfire Channeler 10 13 13 9 13 4: {+1} Concentration: 21; Diplomacy: 11; {+1} Disguise: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 21; Knowledge (arcana): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 8; Profession (soldier): 6; Ride: 10; {+1} Sense Motive: 21; Spellcraft: 2; Spot: 11; Survival: 11; Use Rope: 7; Never Outnumbered; Ability Focus (Maelstrom of Fire) (18) Maelstrom of fire

Spellfire is great if you want to make big damage. There are no caps apart from Constitution and stored Spellfire energy. So I looked for a creature with the biggest racial Con bonus and found Ferrumach. With only +1 LA it has +18 Con and no less important it has at will Feather Fall SLA which has immediate action casting time and I could use it and ready action to adsorb its energy in the same round without any problems. I killed two birds with one stone.

Powerful start. Great stats, useful SLAs, attack bonus and damage with some weapon, AC, saves (especially Fort and Will), SR, DR, fear aura and already now once per encounter 38d6 Spellfire alfa strike. Plus unlimited out of combat healing.

Four times increased spellfire storage, +2 spellfire save DC, and once per day 58d6 damage with Empower Supernatural Ability. Better healing, possibility to split single 39d6 blast in two and item draining are just free bonuses.

Maelstrom of Fire means 20-foot-radius spread of 60d6 damage with Reflex half 33 DC once per day (and 40d6 up to five times per encounter). Effectively 35 DC if Fear aura (Will DC 27) succeeded. Also Aodhan could fly, split blast into three, has a situationally useful Crown of Fire (better SR, melting enemies' weapons, maybe additional DR factor). Plus Pride domain's granted power which isn't just useful by itself, but also reduces risks of having full spellfire charge.

Type Name Book Page
Race Ferrumach Fiend Folio 143
Template Draconic Races of the Dragon 74
Prestige Class Spellfire Channeler Magic of Faerûn 38
Feat Spellfire Wielder Magic of Faerûn 23
Feat Endurance Player Handbook 93
Feat Steadfast Determination Player's Handbook II 83
Feat Empower Supernatural Ability Tome of Magic 73
Feat Weapon Focus Player Handbook 102
Feat Draconic Aura Dragon Magic 16
Feat Planar Touchstone Planar Handbook 41
Feat Deflect Arrows Player Handbook 93
Feat Ability Focus Monster Manual V 204
Draconic Aura Energy Dragon Magic 87
Touchstone Catalogue of Enlightenment Planar Handbook 166
Domain Pride Spell Compendium 278
Skill Trick Never Outnumbered Complete Scoundrel 87

[Beni-Kujaku]

And there you go! Seven one-shotting entries for your reading pleasure!

Do we already have a potential judge? H_H_F_F? Paragon?

[Inevitability]

Definitely a lot of variety here - I quite like this round!

Normally I'd share other ideas I had here, but I settled on my eventual submission pretty quickly this time. The only other ideas I had were some sort of Roof-Jumper abuser (probably a gravbeast for falling damage immunity and pounce); pretty boring, and something I'm glad to see nobody actually went for.

[Prime32]

I had an idea for this which revolved around casting the lv9 kamikaze spell exalted furyBoED as a spell-like ability in order to remove the "Sacrifice Component: You die" part.

[loky1109]

Table!

# Name Alignment / Race Class Levels Chef Total Place
1 Hypoxia (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988160&postcount=25) NE Nereid Ectopic Ally Hidden Talent Divine Mind 5/War Mind 9
2 Cuerlethrax (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988161&postcount=26)Part 2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988162&postcount=27) NE Maelephant Swordsage 1/Psychic Warrior 9
3 Horses of White and Black (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988163&postcount=28) NG Saint Unicorn Cleric 1/Decisive Strike Martial Arts Broken One Holy Monk 6/Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine 5/Radiant Servant of Lathander 1
4 Shadow (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988164&postcount=29)Brood (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988165&postcount=30) LE Murk Binder 9/Knight of the Sacred Seal 5/Cloistered Cleric 1/Ordained Champion 2
5 Void Death (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988166&postcount=31) LE Void Walker Samurai 2/Iaijutsu Master 5/Marshal 1
6 Garth Ashborn (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988167&postcount=32) LN War Troll Samurai 2/Consecrated Harrier 6
7 Aodhan the Dragonblood (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25988168&postcount=33) TN Draconic Ferrumach Spellfire Channeler 10

[Beni-Kujaku]

I had an idea for this which revolved around casting the lv9 kamikaze spell exalted furyBoED as a spell-like ability in order to remove the "Sacrifice Component: You die" part.

Sadly, I don't think that would work. "A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus or have an XP cost." Sacrifice and other unorthodox components are not mentioned, and must probably still be paid. But if you had something like a lich or a ghost that can reform after being destroyed, then it would be different...

[Inevitability]

Sadly, I don't think that would work. "A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus or have an XP cost." Sacrifice and other unorthodox components are not mentioned, and must probably still be paid. But if you had something like a lich or a ghost that can reform after being destroyed, then it would be different...

I once toyed with the idea of doing that with a dvati. One blows up, the other uses Divine Metamagic Persistent Revenance to get the dead one back for 24 hours at no XP, level, or component cost.

[ciopo]

Juicy entries, have a good meal!

My abandoned stub of an entry was of a master of nine Allip, punny name Sworderaith.

I didn't like how grey-area applying maneuvers to its touch attack is, but thems the bells

[Prime32]

Sadly, I don't think that would work. "A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus or have an XP cost." Sacrifice and other unorthodox components are not mentioned, and must probably still be paid. But if you had something like a lich or a ghost that can reform after being destroyed, then it would be different...
This was using the Innate Spell feat (the one in Player's Guide to Faerun, not Complete Arcane), which spells out which components are and aren't included.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Just bumping this thread, does anyone want to judge? It's a fun competition, pretty good for a first judging!

[Inevitability]

Do we have any judge? If nobody volunteers soon, we'll probably have to start looking at alternatives.

[Zamboza]

If I may, I would be up to judge! I may not have a lot of experience with contests here apart from a single entry for Junkyard Wars and diligent perusing of submitted builds for Iron Chef for inspiration for my own characters, but it does seem like something in my ballpark!

If nobody objects, I'll post my scores later today or tomorrow, depending on when I find the time to go through all the entries :)

[Beni-Kujaku]

If I may, I would be up to judge! I may not have a lot of experience with contests here apart from a single entry for Junkyard Wars and diligent perusing of submitted builds for Iron Chef for inspiration for my own characters, but it does seem like something in my ballpark!

If nobody objects, I'll post my scores later today or tomorrow, depending on when I find the time to go through all the entries :)

That would be much appreciated! I'm happy to welcome a new face to the competitive community on the website, and even happier to see this round getting a judge with no need to go through any hoops. Thank you and take your time! We're not at the point where one week makes a difference anymore, and better a good judging than a rushed one.

[Beni-Kujaku]

If I may, I would be up to judge! I may not have a lot of experience with contests here apart from a single entry for Junkyard Wars and diligent perusing of submitted builds for Iron Chef for inspiration for my own characters, but it does seem like something in my ballpark!

If nobody objects, I'll post my scores later today or tomorrow, depending on when I find the time to go through all the entries :)

How are you doing, Zamboza? Do you need help?

[Quentinas]

If Zamboza is missing i can try to judge , i don't assure anything

[Beni-Kujaku]

If Zamboza is missing i can try to judge , i don't assure anything

That would be great! Start judging anyway. Worst case scenario, we'll have two judges (which is twice as good!)!

[Quentinas]

These are my criterias I hope they are fine I use a quarter point (0.25) as minimum increase/decrease not decimal points or half points I hope they are okay

Originality start at 3
Did I expected this Monster? It is (in)famous for something you used (like the adamantium clockwork horror) ? Or it's boring like an hobgoblin? From -0.5 to +0.5
The classes you used are common from an optimization view point or expected for this contest ? Did you mix them in an unexpected way? It is a class famous for enormous damage? from -1 to +1
The feat you used are expected or unexpected ? Did you use a particular combination , or something that Is already seen many times ( like divine metamagic and persistent spells or imperious command optimization)? From -0.5 to +0.5
There could be a bonus ( around +0.25 maybe something more) for the fluff if it is interesting or well put in the ambientation
Power start at 3
There will be three categories
Offensive power
Defensive power
Utility (out and inside combat)
The main category where your build could be placed (or the main scope you has written in the build) will have a maximum of +1 point while the other two will have a maximum of +0.5 .If there is a multi role build i will adequate the maximum at 0.75 for multiple categories. There isn't a limit for how much a category can go down (there is still the minimum of 1 to power)
To see how good are you I will use the average monster stat (link (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623578-3-5-Average-Monster-Stats-UPDATED-TABLE)) for defensive (adding eventually regeneration and other tactics you can do) and offensive power while for utility I will see what you can do and at which DC , i can't give exactly numbers for now .
Elegancy start at 4
Is there synergy between the various elements of the build ? from -0.5 to +0.5
Is It efficient the way it's built? Could something being better placed or removed ? from -0.5 to +0.5
Are there any rules questionable/ that are DM reliant? Could you have explained these rules better? Or have you done a good work searching and explaining them from -0.5 to +0.25
Are you equipment reliant? how much? are these item standard (like the +6 stat item ) or rarer? Can you craft these item alone? up to -1
Dipping in classes for one level for simple powerup ( so not a difficult Prestige class where you worked for the entire build or cases like 19 Monster levels between hit dice and level adjustment) Could you have done without that dip or not? -0.25 for single dip , -0.5 for double dip -1 for triple or more dip ( if the dip was necessary lighter penalty)
missing sources up to -0.75 depend on the quantity
missing prerequisite up to -1 for Major cases probably -0.25 in most cases
Other cases will depend on the situation i will do my best to explain.
Monstrosity start at 3
How much One punch is your build? Is the main tactic or something that you can do few times for day or it is a side tactic to your main thing ? From when you can do your One punch? From -1 to +1
Was the monster race chosen necessary ? or it could have bene emulated from more common races with lesser levels than your hit dice and level adjustment? are you playing on the race strength or not? Is there anything that did you consider to live as an Adventurer/ in a party of similar alignment ( like finding a way to breath air if you are an aquatic Monster )? From -1 to +1


For the actual judgement I started I think i will need some days