Spoiler: Backstory
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The world is not a complex place.
There's Good. Truth, altruism, compassion, honor, life, prophecy. And there's Evil: sadism, callousness, greed, death, deception. Black and white, Toldoth and Elishar. We all have our side, our duty to fulfill, our role to play out. Two gods, to govern all the world, and not a hair's-width between them.
My teachers told me that I, just like them, was marked by Evil. That my magic was that of the dark trickster-god: magic that conceals, that deceives, that confounds. That my fighting revealed a thirst for blood and a lust for battle: unwilling to let any foe escape my wrath, relishing in every wound dealt or received.
I thought they were right, for the longest time. Every time I wore a false face, every time I distorted my image and tricked a foe into striking empty air, every time I reflected myself in my shadow and sent it off to steal and distract, I served Toldoth not merely in action, but in essence. You cannot put out a fire with burning coals: what hope did I have of doing good with the tools of evil?
But the world is not a complex place. Evil deceives, it corrupts, it seeks to claim all for itself. Why did I ever trust its servants to interpret my powers for me? They sought to disguise a far simpler truth: that my powers could be used for good, and thus could not be of evil.
When I stand between enemy and ally, an impassable bastion; when I disguise myself as a servant of darkness, and let evil's love of itself ensure my free passage: how are such actions anything but the work of Elishar? How could they be wicked? And if so, how could my essence be? I am a defender of the weak, a soldier of light, no different from those who were born among the righteous.
Spoiler: Build
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Race: Deepwyrm Half-Drow (DrM, RoF)
Classes: Swashbuckler (CW) 1 / Crusader (ToB) 4 / Soldier of Light (D&D) 1
Alignment: NG
(the backstory implies an evil alignment at low levels, but this is not mechanically required and not a part of the build per se; all that matters is that by the end of level 5 you're NG)
Patron deity: Toldoth at low levels, Elishar from level 5 on. Note that these gods are from a dualist cosmology, as detailed in Deities and Demigods.
Ability scores: 12 str/16 dex/14 con/14 int/8 wis/14 cha (no racial adjustments)
ASIs: Increase Strength by 1 point at ECL 4.
| Level |
Class |
Base Attack Bonus |
Fort Save |
Ref Save |
Will Save |
Skills |
Feats |
Class Features |
|---|
| 1st |
Swashbuckler 1 |
+1 |
+2 |
+0 |
+0 |
24; Balance +4 (4), Bluff +4 (4), Disguise +4 (4), Forgery +3 (3), Knowledge (Arcana) +1cc (1), Knowledge Local +1 (1), Tumble +4 (4) Use Rope +2 (2) |
City-Slicker (Cscp), Weapon FinesseB |
Arcane Stunt (Blur) (CM) |
| 2nd |
Crusader 1 |
+2 |
+4 |
+0 |
+0 |
6: Balance +1 (5), Bluff +1cc (5), Disguise +1 (5), Forgery 3, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Knowledge (Local) 1, Knowledge (Religion) +1 (1), Tumble +1 (5), Use Rope 2 |
- |
Furious counterstrike, Maneuvers, Skilled City-Dweller (Ride -> Tumble) (web), Stances, Steely Resolve 5 |
| 3rd |
Crusader 2 |
+3 |
+5 |
+0 |
+0 |
6: Balance 5, Bluff +1cc (6), Disguise +1 (6), Forgery +1 (4), Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Knowledge (Local) 1, Knowledge (Religion) 1, Tumble 5, Use Rope 2, Assume Quirk (CSc) +2 |
Trickery Devotion (CC) |
Indomitable Soul |
| 4th |
Crusader 3 |
+4 |
+5 |
+1 |
+1 |
6: Balance 5, Bluff +1cc (7), Disguise 6, Forgery 4, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Knowledge (Local) 1, Knowledge (Religion) +2 (3), Tumble 5, Use Rope 2, Assume Quirk, Second Impression (CSc) +2 |
- |
Zealous Surge |
| 5th |
Crusader 4 |
+5 |
+6 |
+1 |
+1 |
6: Balance 5, Bluff +1cc (8), Disguise +1 (7), Forgery +1 (5), Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Knowledge (Local) 1, Knowledge (Religion) +2 (5), Tumble 5, Use Rope 2, Assume Quirk, Second Impression |
- |
Steely Resolve 10 |
| 6th |
Soldier of Light 1 |
+6/+1 |
+8 |
+1 |
+1 |
6: Balance 5, Bluff +1cc (9), Disguise 7, Forgery 5, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Knowledge (Local) 1, Knowledge (Religion) 5, Tumble 5, Use Rope 2, Assume Quirk, Second Impression, Collector of Stories (CSc) +2 |
Martial Stance (Thicket of Blades) (ToB) |
Detect Undead, Turn Undead 5/day, Spellcastin't |
-Extra Turning
-Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain
-Combat Reflexes
-Stand Still (XPH)
-Force of Personality (CAdv)
-Power Attack
-Goad (CW)
-Knowledge Devotion (CC)
-Deft Opportunist (CAdv)
-Reckless Offensive (RoF)
Spoiler: Progression
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Swashbuckler? Crusader? Whatever Soldier of Light might be? It doesn't scream 'illusionist', now does it?
But even so, we start out with a solid array of illusions. Swashbuckler gives us a round of Blur as a swift action 3/day, while our race offers us Disguise Self. Between our solid charisma, ranks in Disguise, Forgery, and Bluff (the former two courtesy of City Slicker), and racial bonus to the latter of those, we're remarkably good infiltrators. Our two ranks in knowledge and okayish intelligence give us another utility dimension. Use Rope is just there because two ranks let us make basic knots by taking 10.
Although we have Weapon Finesse, it's probably better to grab a greatsword, eat the minor hit to accuracy, and get another 1d6 over what a rapier would deal; at least until you get maneuvers. Keeping a big two-hander around will be useful with your future Mountain Hammer lockpicking anyway.
Crusader gives some solid boons: charisma to Will, a save reroll once per day, and of course stances and maneuvers. Douse the Flames and Iron Guard's Glare help make us the enemies' prime target, with Stone Bones granting impressive amounts of DR once they're forced to attack us. The other maneuvers provide good support to our teammates, and Mountain Hammer is the lockpick it always is. Bolstering Voice is mostly there as a panic button; Will is our lowest save and sometimes you really don't want to fail it. The class also gives you better armor, and at low levels you should use it, but in the long term it's good to switch back to light (or mithril medium) as movement speed becomes more important than AC again.
We also grab some skill tricks that boost our Disguise abilities, further highlighting our racial illusion SLA and all the utility it can provide for us. Trickery Devotion also adds obvious illusion flavor, giving us a Silent Image that can manipulate objects and eventually upgrades into a Major Image. We can also combo with Disguise Self; if we need the illusion to look different from our base form, we can Disguise Self, create the duplicate, and dismiss Disguise Self. Few illusions actually combo directly with each other, so seeing these enhance each other is really fun.
Aside from all that, it's also going to become the core part of our combat strategy. How, you ask?
"As long as the simulacrum remains within 5 feet of your position (and you can direct it to do so as a free action), you can perform a Bluff check in combat as a swift action. You gain a +4 bonus on this check, which is opposed by your opponents' Sense Motive checks. If you are successful, your foes believe the image is you (and vice versa) for 1 round."
...wow. So any targeted ranged or melee attack will be aimed at the wrong square, any targeted spell arguably fizzles, some area attacks get mis-aimed, and foes won't even know what movement of theirs will or won't provoke AoOs? That's an insanely powerful effect; I'd argue it's one of the strongest things that illusions can do in E6.
And we boast +13 bluff, with another +4 bonus tacked on, against a skill that most monsters have +1 or +2 to; we're almost guaranteed to succeed. Between the 5 turning attempts from Soldier of Light and the 4 from Extra Turning, we can create the simulacrum a total of 4 times a day, with it sticking around all encounter.
(This is a decent moment to point out that yes, Soldier of Light gives casting, and no, we couldn't spare the 12 wisdom needed to make use of it. For what it's worth, the list is very mediocre and something I expect the party's divine caster, or even the party's potion stash, to have covered by now)
But avoiding attacks is only useful if they were aimed at you in the first place. Iron Guard's Glare was a step in the right direction, but why bother letting foes get near our allies at all? With a spiked chain, Combat Reflexes, Stand Still, and Thicket of Blades, we form an incredibly potent lockdown build. Once foes are stuck in our reach, they'll be forced to attack us... at which point we trick them into hitting an invulnerable illusion instead. With our incredible bulk compensating for those few hits that get through (all our classes have d10 hit die and we have 14 con), I don't think it's an exaggeration to say we can comfortably tie down a whole battlefield and not have to worry too much for our own safety.
(and sure, Trickery Devotion is a standard action to set up, but with how many of our attacks are made outside our turn anyway, I think it's fine to spend a single action on this every combat)
From there on, we focus on improving our capabilities across the board. Force of Personality gives us a very welcome +3 to Will that applies basically always (in addition to letting us get double mileage out of any charisma-boosting item we might come across), Power Attack pays big dividends now that we use a two-handed weapon (it also appreciates how we haven't lost a single point of BAB throughout the build), Goad lets us use our stray move action if we ever use a standard action maneuver and don't want to move (and of course we love forcing enemies to attack us, so its actual effect is great for us as well).
Knowledge Devotion is pretty nice for us; Religion + Arcana + Local covers many enemies you're likely to face in E6, especially in the urban setting we vaguely imply, and with Collector of Stories even the 1-rank skills still get a +8 modifier to them. Deft Opportunist obviously synergizes with all the AoOs we're going to be making, and helps us land our Stand Stills. Lastly, Reckless Offensive is a very obscure feat that happens to mesh great with our combat strategy specifically: it lets us choose to take -4 AC in exchange for +2 to hit for a round, but it lets us make this choice at any point during our turn before we attack. In other words, we can make the swift action bluff check for Trickery Devotion first thing every turn, and only take the trade if we rolled well and are guaranteed to avoid all incoming attacks anyway.
All things considered, we present a very capable full-BAB lockdown build that incorporates illusions into its routine in a novel and unique way, while also retaining a solid amount of utility (Detect Undead at-will, Detect Magic 3/day, Disguise Self) backed up by a variety of little-seen utility skills. Our defenses are stellar, with +10 fortitude, +4 reflex, and +5 will, further bolstered by a 1/day save reroll and a way to reliably avoid most targeted spells and weapon attacks. Our martial maneuvers let us heal, buff our friends' attack rolls, or let an ally escape a tight spot, making us an excellent team player.
Spoiler: Build History
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This build spiraled out from the Trickery Devotion + Turn Undead + Tanking combo, but fitting all that in one build was challenging. The obvious route to get 2/3 of those in one level is cleric, but I think cleric dips are overused and boring, and besides I felt like this build would actually benefit from getting to +6 BAB.
Settling on full BAB forced me into Paladin of Freedom, which does honestly get a lot of what I was looking for and can even trade its casting for Extra Turning, but also heavily leaned on Goad to draw the actual aggro, which led me to look into charisma-boosting races. Stubs like Star Elf Paladin 6 (with the unicorn mount ACF), Spirit Hellbred Paladin 5 / Crusader 1, Dragonborn Star Elf Paladin 5 / Fighter 1 or Deepwyrm Half-Drow Paladin 5 / Crusader 1 were all conceived in this time, with very similar internal structures, relying on the paladin mount to get you into melee and then using Goad with your move and attacking with your standard.
While trying to make Blade Bravo work (as they get free Goad with a +2 bonus to the save DC) I stumbled across swashbuckler. Tinker Gnome Paladin 4 / Swashbuckler 1 / Blade Bravo 1 was technically doable, but it'd be a mountless gnome in heavy armor, so I scrapped that one rather quickly. Being a gnome would have allowed us some nice illusions via Natural Trickster, though.
I finally decided that Goad just wasn't cutting it and looked for actual mass lockdown strategies, arriving at Stand Still+Thicket of Blades Crusader rather quickly. That meant I needed a new source of Bluff and Turn Undead, with only full BAB classes an option, forcing me to dip Soldier of Light and using my final level on the swashbuckler (not the only full BAB class with bluff, but by far the most useful for our high-dex combat reflexes build; arcane stunt was a nice bonus). For the race, I needed something with favored class (any) and ideally some bonuses to illusion use or bluff, so returning to deepwyrm half-drow was the obvious solution. It's always nice when the final implementation of a concept uses lots of little bits of material from earlier in the building process!
Originally Posted by Funhouse California, the Phantom Roadblock
Funhouse California, the Phantom Roadblock
Re: Iron Chef E6 Appetizer Edition, Round XLIV
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