Judgements!
Spoiler: Qarzvhvkz (11.25)
Show
Originality (2.75): Paragnostic Apostle sees reasonably common use, and makes some sense as one of those arcane PrCs that are warlock-friendly. Psychic rogue is rarely seen even as a dip, and I don't think I've ever seen a build with urban savant. +1.5
Your feats aren't exactly unconventional for an exalted sneak attacker in a monstrous competition, though I guess I never saw Lliira's Blessing and am surprised to note Psionic Shot. Your points still aren't as high as they could have been, because those feats do relatively little for you. +0.25
I'm not seeing a lot that sets you apart from the typical warlock tactics-wise.
Power (3.75):
Your offensive modes are a weird little mix of low-DC stuns, SLAs, horrific appearance, telekinesis and a respectable Eldritch Chain or Beshadowed Blast (plus good BFC that's way too late to the party), though none synergize particularly well. You're better at turning knowledge checks into damage than most, thanks to Urban Savant, but your modifier doesn't seem high enough to reliably pick up the +2d6 damage bonus. Given that you're giving up items, I'm still somewhat skeptical about how this compares to another rogue or warlock, who deals more damage to brutes and casters (though it has a harder time getting to the latter). Then again, your multi-target damage potential is probably better than theirs. +0.75
Between VoP and incorporeal undeath, you're pretty hard to hurt. No complaint on the defensive side of things, though I do question putting Lliara's Blessing on an incorporeal creature. +1
Out of combat, you're a scout without Darkstalker or perceptive skills (but with pseudo-mindsight), a loremaster, a face restricted to certain creature types, and a trapfinder without search or the ability to actually manipulate found traps. It's a weird mishmash of things, and it feels to me like you'll commonly struggle to do a complete job at the role you're serving, but it's enough for +1.
Elegance (1.5):
Unfortunately, you take a multiclass XP penalty during your 4th level, where your level breakdown is warlock 3/psirogue 1.
Psionic Shot requires Point-Blank Shot, which you seem to lack. Craven explicitly doesn't work with the undead immunity to fear, which is a major issue that significantly affects your build.
The alternate entry requirement for the Urban Savant is explicitly at the DM's discretion, so a minor penalty here. There's also the issue where a minim has no manipulators to speak of, but warlock invocations have a somatic component. How are you produicng that? +0.25
While ghosts can be Good, that doesn't automatically mean they can be Exalted Good, and there's quite some text that suggests the two are at odds. A more glaring problem is the conflict between Vow of Poverty and the Paragnostic Assembly's membership fees, which should realistically bar you from the final few levels of your build. +0.25
Monstrosity (3.25):
I can't help but feel you leave a lot of your monstrous components untouched, taking Fine size from here, telepathy from there, incorporeality from elsewhere yet... This build could definitely have been very similar as a half-illithid ghost, or a ghostly minim, which is a bad sign when evaluating how much you use your monstrous abilities! Your combat strategies, too, mostly seem to be 'float through a wall and snipe someone', which isn't mundane, but... i don't know, I just can't give max points for something that's still just mostly a warlock with bonuses. +1.5
I can't deny that this build gets more out of being a warlock than most else... but at the same time, if you deliberately play something without limbs or mouthparts, I'm not super impressed by the observation that warlock is doing more for you than wizard or fighter would. There's no real part where your monster skillset directly improves your blasting, apart maybe from incorporeal sniping. The attack bonus is nice, but you're making touch attacks, so its utility is limited. +0.75
No real out-of-the-box uses of your base creature.
Spoiler: One Who Awakening (10)
Show
Quick note: a lemur is a Madagascaran primate, the singular of 'lemures' is 'lemure'.
Originality (2):
I feel really bad about the zero for class originality, but when you are presented with a handful of classes to build around, investing fully into one of them is simply not original.
Vow of Poverty into Lliara's blessing, again. The incarnum feats aren't that surprising given the round, but Sapphire Smite came out of the left field and Ordered Chaos wasn't expected either. +0.5
Exploiting incarnate wording by counting as multiple alignments isn't a completely new trick, but it's nice to see. Your actual combat strategy is simple moving+hitting. +0.5
Power (2):
I'm not sure why we're topping off 16 levels of incarnate with another outsider RHD: wouldn't we rather get extra Rapid Meldshaping or more essentia? Anyway, the past life + sapphire smite trick gives a nice source of bonus damage that normal incarnates will lack, and you get a lot of passive bonuses from the incarnum radiances. That said, how are you dealing that damage? You allude to ranged weapons, but VoP means most are out, and your melee options seem to be two claws that you can't reliably full attack with. There's a really rough situation here where you secured a bunch of passive boosts and then traded away your ability to actually make use of it. +0.5
Defensively, you're a VoPer that has big bonuses to AC, good saves, evasion, energy resistances, poison immunity... Your mobility is lacking, though, so BFC still screws you over. +0.5
What are you doing out of combat? You have some scattered ranks in knowledge skills, but not enough to matter, you have a few bops of sense motive, the theoretical ability to shape something with out-of-combat use? Yeah, I'm not seeing it.
Elegance (3.5):
No multiclass XP penalties. +1
Ranged Smite Evil specifically requires the smite evil class ability, which is not where you get your smites from. +0.5
The argument that you can suppress mind-affecting immunity when desired is highly suspect, especially when we're talking about soulmeld bonuses and not spells. It seems contrary to RAI, at least. +0.5
Similarly to the prior entry, you're trying to combine Exalted goodness with being a kind of creature that is explicitly Evil to 'allow to exist'. As I stated before, I'm not going to come after people for Good devils or ghosts, but Exalted really does imply an ideological commitment beyond 'does more good than evil on the net'. Similarly, if you go through a bunch of hoops to count as Evil and then take Touch of Golden Ice... what do you think happens? +0.5
Monstrosity (2.5):
How do you distinguish yourself from a human incarnate in round-to-round combat? The answer: not really. You bind some soulmelds, you run up to something, you whack it, you fit in full attacks where you can... Being a lemure gives you a little DR and a few immunities, but that's it: you aren't actually using these unless they happen to be useful.
You do, however, exploit the alignment subtypes to greatly boost the power of incarnate, while gaining immunity to some attack modes you otherwise lack. +1
Using lemure as the cheapest possible way to get two alignment subtypes is a use I can appreciate, though your use is almost understated compared to the other things you can do with being an [Evil]. +0.5
Spoiler: Rainbow (14)
Show
This doesn't really impact the rating, but when assigning +0 to the psicrystal I wasn't doing so with the assumption that a psicrystal would be able to get the intelligence adjustments. Ah well, that's on past me for not being clearer.
Originality (2.5):
Constructor is one of the better psion PrCs, so I'm not that surprised to see it in a round where psions are one of the four allowed paths (and the most supported one to boot). +0.5
Your powers are pretty standard fare for a construct-focused psion, but the feats include some novelty. +0.5
Spamming astral constructs is not particularly novel as far as psion strategies go, but the psicrystal shenanigans prevent me from assigning zero points. +0.5
Power (4.5):
So obviously, you're a nearly-full manifester with a souped-up construct pal (or two!) and some psicrystal-based shenanigans. That'll probably be enough to outperform the default level 20 psion anywhere it matters. +1.5
Construct type, hardness 38, vigor+share pain? I guess a Disintegrate might mess you up, not a lot else that screws you over. +1
Utility-wise, you offer taxicab services with Plane Shift and Greater Teleport, a ton of random skills, major creation, . It's not that much more impressive than a full manifester would normally be, but enough for a full point. +1
Elegance (3):
No multiclass XP penalties. +1
Yeah, I'm not buying the bit where being treated as your own master for basic functionality purposes lets you get double use out of psicrystal feats. You already acknowledge that would be 'cheesy' for things like psicrystal containment: if you extend that logic you should understand why I'm not looking up it much more favorably when you're using it in slightly less broken contexts. +0.5
Using crysmal crystal is a cute find, but many DMs will (rightfully) push back against the implication that PCs can have bodies made out of exotic material. The GMW trick is similarly questionable and relies on the assumption that a creature can be ammunition.
You can't really use gear, and your ability to manipulate objects tends to be limited to creating an entire astral construct for the job (which is hard on power points at low levels, and hard for interfering with your other running constructs later on). +0.5
Monstrosity (4)
You're a psicrystal, and this is obvious in much of what you do, but at some point your psionics begins to overshadow everything else. When you're manifesting Genesis and Reality Revision, it takes effort to still feel monstrous, and that effort is lacking here. +1
Why would a psion want to be a psicrystal specifically? Well, casters love small sizes, defensive bonuses, flight... The tricks you pull really help as well. +1
Do you use a psicrystal for more than the base stats? Uh, yes. +1
Spoiler: Itsy Blasty Spider (12.5)
Show
Originality (3.5):
Rating the classes is weird. On the one hand, I said I wouldn't count warlock or binder, but their combination definitely wasn't something I expected. Similarly, while Anima Mage makes sense for binder/sorcerers, and Hellfire Warlock is probably the best warlock PrC, I don't see the two on the same build a lot. Ultimately, I can't really go lower than +1.5 here.
A moderately standard set of warlock feats, with Extend Spell, Improved Familiar, and Improved Binding shaking things up just enough for half points here. +0.5
Hellfire Warlocks that dip for Naberius aren't exactly uncommon, but you commit to the binder theme more fully with Anima Mage and get some utility from sorcerer spells. +0.5
Power (3.25):
You make use of tons of little binder/warlock synergies in what really does feel like a tight and well-thought out progression. Your damage output is considerable with the SLA feats and hellfire warlock, and when that doesn't work you have summoned goons or the vestige-granted save-or-suck of choice. My only criticism is how much of this comes online late, so I won't grant a truly perfect score. +1
...on the defensive side, I'm a bit more sceptical: your HP is low even with eventual out-of-combat healing (note that because you have even HP, your maximum HP drops significantly when you fire off a hellfire blast), and your reflex save is on the bad side of mediocre. Even if you put up a summoned beastie or chilling tentacle wall between you and the bruisers, your energy resistance might not be enough to absorb a dragon breath. +0.5
Out of combat, you have a solid intimidate stat, but really exploiting it requires you to bind a typically suboptimal vestige. You can craft, but you're pretty reliant on external sources of spells (summoned monsters help a little, but not all that much). You suggest you can serve as a scout, but Flee the Scene really doesn't help much with that: ideally a scout doesn't put the monsters on high alert. +0.75
Elegance (3.25):
No multiclass penalties. +1
I'm impressed by the boldness it takes to argue that you can trade a least invocation for a greater invocation and then quote a piece of text that says "he can also replace an invocation he already knows with another invocation of the same or a lower grade". That's not how it works.
Taking Infernal as a bonus language is kind of important for the build, but can you actually do it as an aranea? I'm inclined to say 'no', and would have preferred to see you take two ranks in Speak Language. A minor penalty. +0.75
I think there's an awkward spot around level 7-9 where everyone else is getting mid-level spells while you have to jump around between 2d6 eldritch blast, 2nd-level vestiges, webs, and Alter Self. It's notably a low point in the build, to the point where I'd argue it interferes with your playability. 2d6 damage per round (with the occasional 4d6) just isn't enough to pretend you're meaningfully contributing to the party's damage output. +0.5
Monstrosity (2.5):
The core of your character is pretty clearly the binder/warlock dual progression combo. Aranea isn't useless for that, but I'm skeptical it does more for you than five sorcerer levels would. Maybe if you'd worked Iron Will into some prereq, I'd see it differently. At least at low levels your webs and shapechanging will still be a big part of what you're doing. +0.5
A big charisma boost for warlock and binder abilities, some okay abilities for the awkward early levels, and a climb speed so you can attack from the walls. It's meager, but at least your aranea chassis is doing something with your classses. +0.5
You use the magical beast typing to get more out of Alter Self, but I'm not seeing much other than that. +0.5
Re: Monster Mash VI: Mysterious Monster Magic
Reply With Quote