I am not left handed! [3.5]

[Heliomance]

I've been thinking for a while about building a character able to fight and hold his own without using his full potential, and without dragging the party down. That way, if one day everything goes wrong, and it looks like the party is about to die, you can "suddenly" become more effective and pull the fat out of the fire, simply by not holding back. How would you go about building such a character? As a magic-user and as a martial character?

[weenie]

You can be a wizard that holds back on polymorph. And when things get hard polymorph your trip-monkey into a treant.

[Kylarra]

Well the easiest way is to simply be a martial adept and then just use lower level maneuvers constantly rather than using your most powerful techniques, same with magery although that's a bit more obvious. Alternatively, just use metamagic abusers in your highest slots, but don't actually cast them until you really need them.

The way my Scion character does it is to use a weapon that isn't her primary one for most fights and then if it starts getting bad, to whip out her relic weapon.

[ZeroNumerous]

Magic wise: Blaster sorcerer with effective spells chosen, but not utilized.

Martially: Wield a one-handed weapon like a longsword, use your left hand, designate your right hand as your primary every turn. You take a -4 to hit. Or just be a Warblade and don't use any maneuvers.

[Dixieboy]

And they called "Psion".

Meh, magic characters are able to "Go nova", and waste all their spell slots in a single combat, but i guess that isn't the answer you are looking for.

[Kylarra]

And they called "Psion".

Meh, magic characters are able to "Go nova", and waste all their spell slots in a single combat, but i guess that isn't the answer you are looking for.

This is true. Just blowing around unaugmented powers until you really need them works out great too.

[Bang]

It's called a gish.

[FMArthur]

Psion 5 / Beholder Mage 2 / Cerebremancer 4 / Ur-Priest 2 / Mystic Theurge 3 /Psychic Theurge 4

Find a way to disguise yourself as a humanoid (you bought some castings of Polymorph Any Object to permanently become a beholder starting at level 5), and you're golden. You wind up manifesting as a psion of 13th level, you get 9th-level cleric spells via Ur-Priest, and you get 9th-level wizard casting as a free action (limited to once a round from each spell level).

You are a fairly innocuous psion at first glance, and you start to fall behind a little, but you're still useful. Eventually the hold-up becomes clear when you cast your first divine spell - he's a dual-progression caster, that's why he's a little underpowered! Then when the party's getting wrecked on by a hugely overpowered and poorly-thought-out BBEG encounter, you give the area around you a face full of awesome as you nova 9 arcane spells, 1 divine spell, and 1 psion power (thanks to Schism and Practiced Manifestor). You smash the encounter to pieces, reveal your true form, and conquer the world.


...


Be a warblade, and get good melee feats for using two-handed weapons (very feat-efficient) that could make you equivalent to an average fighter without using maneuvers. You know: Power Attack, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack.

[Temet Nosce]

Honestly, there are a lot of ways to do this. Your requirements describe well... over half my characters in the last few years. Probably the easiest is, as mentioned, to make a DD caster and use low metamagic (with little stacking), but keep the game breaking spells and metamagic reducers on your sheet anyways.

Alternatively, if you wanted to build a martial character you could use a ToB Stormguard Warrior build of some kind, but refrain from actually using any of the feats abilities.

[KellKheraptis]

Psion 5 / Beholder Mage 2 / Cerebremancer 4 / Ur-Priest 2 / Mystic Theurge 3 /Psychic Theurge 4

Find a way to disguise yourself as a humanoid (you bought some castings of Polymorph Any Object to permanently become a beholder starting at level 5), and you're golden. You wind up manifesting as a psion of 13th level, you get 9th-level cleric spells via Ur-Priest, and you get 9th-level wizard casting as a free action (limited to once a round from each spell level).

You are a fairly innocuous psion at first glance, and you start to fall behind a little, but you're still useful. Eventually the hold-up becomes clear when you cast your first divine spell - he's a dual-progression caster, that's why he's a little underpowered! Then when the party's getting wrecked on by a hugely overpowered and poorly-thought-out BBEG encounter, you give the area around you a face full of awesome as you nova 9 arcane spells, 1 divine spell, and 1 psion power (thanks to Schism and Practiced Manifestor). You smash the encounter to pieces, reveal your true form, and conquer the world.


...


Be a warblade, and get good melee feats for using two-handed weapons (very feat-efficient) that could make you equivalent to an average fighter without using maneuvers.

Go Ardent and you become a triple 9. Wizards are really good at this too, by mainly acting passively through companion buffs and BFC (aka playing GOD), but if need be, they can blast just like the sorcs, and generally do it from a strategically superior position. That and dropping a nasty polymorph effect into the mix to get something REALLY sick can do wonders for the illusion of a sudden power-up, when in reality all you're doing is taking the kid gloves off. I try to find a way to get the two breath weapon feats for burninating planes just in case I get an asshat DM for that very reason :P

[Eldariel]

Build any tier 1 character really. Druid, Cleric, Wizard, Artificer, Archivist...by default they have much more potential than what you really need. I like Overchannel for this too as it's such an easy way to pull of the breaks. Also, martial adepts do have the other gear and Sorcerers have a built-in nova in Celerity+Arcane Fusion to truly unload everything at that guy.

Really, I think nova-capable characters are what you're looking for; nova is not something you want to use constantly, but when things really go FUBAR, someone can go supernova and clear up the encounter totally burning all his resources in the process. Of course, this by definition requires a character that uses resources; it's hard to burn through a ****ton of resources when you have none.


But yeah, some examples of characters that would function for this:
- Factotum 8/X with a ****ton of Inspiration; when you really need to, you can generate a billion standard actions and shoot everything you've got at that guy.
- Sorcerer: Arcane Fusion. Yeah.
- Psion: Some Synchronity/Affinity Field-related action loops are rather trivial to generate and you can already exceed your maximum ML with Overchannel to start with.
- Wizard/Druid/Cleric/Archivist/Artificer: While loops of course exist for these characters, they are less obvious and less automatically-built-in. However, given the way these characters gain spells and the potential power that exists there-in, they can play on a "decent" power level and when necessary, pull out all the stops to truly kick some serious butt.

Of course, this assumes the group doesn't by default play at the higher end of the power curve; if that's the case, building some novas in here might be a good idea.


Also, daily-use/consumable items and such can easily be used to facilitate this. Your Rogue might have that Scroll of Time Stop just for when things really go wrong and you may be saving that Belt of Battle to go Boom Boom.

[KellKheraptis]

Going off the above post, take a high level wizard. Say 17th level. You are faced with a Great Wyrm Red Dragon that's known to wraithstrike and has a big bad scythestrike up with dolorous blow. That's gonna murder the tank in short order, and we won't talk about if you're dumb enough to let him touch you. Now, you can be a jerk and Shivering Touch his oversized ass with a spectral hand, but lets get showy. Make sure he doesn't have Globe or Lesser Globe up to spoil any magic missle attempts. Remember my favorite little book, the Tome of Ancient Lore? We can learn sorc spells now! Start with Greater Celerity to get an extra full round. That's two move actions, two standard actions, two swift actions, and one immediate action (one was taken up against next turn by this spell, but you've got an extra one from the spell). Did you remember to get a schism put on you? All the cool kids did. There's another mental standard action. Now, lets let the fun begin. Remember, this is lowly magic missle, level 1 spell. We're well over 9th CL, so it's dropping 5 missles. Average damage of 15, auto-hit. Greater Arcane Fusion will take up all three of our standard actions, and all two of our swift actions via quicken spell and some means of reducing it's level to something castable. These are the only spell slots used. Each one has a 7th level spell, and a 4th level spell. 7th level spell will be twinned sanctum arcane fusion, and the 4th level spell will be a sanctum arcane fusion. Hope you brought that acorn of far travel with you. 3x3=9 arcane fusions. Now each of those IIRC has a 4th level spell and a 1st level spell. The 1st level ones will be magic missle. The 4th level ones will be sanctum arcane fusions, repeating ad infinitum until either A)It's dead, or B)The DM knocks your ass out with a thrown soda. A 1st level autohit spell, performing an infinite amount of damage thanks to our friendly action economy abusers.

Now, if we can't cram all those extras in from the DM not letting Sanctum Spell work inside an arcane fusion (which it should, but would need house rules to avoid infinite loops), we still have 25 spells flying at the dragon. Select any X number of nasty effects, or direct damage spells, and light his ass up. Now for the final piece of this puzzle : you've used up 5 7th level spell slots, and 1 8th level spells. You can get 3 of those back via Vestment of the Archmagi. And if the first volley didn't kill it, or it has friends, residual metamagic will let a good part of it carry over to Round 2.

DISCLAIMER : This is entirely from memory, and may not be 100% accurate, but you get the idea. Instead of their usual playing GOD, a wizard using only a couple spells that won't take up a whole lot of room on their list can tac-nuke at will if the need arises, even out of turn. A simple Warning weapon (by this level you should have a +1 Eager/+1 Warning staff anyhow) will prevent being flatfooted, and might even obviate the need for Greater Celerity. It's just one more tool in a near infinite arsenal to a high level wizard, though :)

[Thrawn183]

Leap Attack + Shocktrooper, just don't use the leap attack.

Be a psion with overchannel but don't use the overchannel, or just don't augment your powers fully.

Be a sword and board guy, then suddenly just drop the shield and use the longsword or whatever in both hands.

Only power attack during erergencies.

Only rage during emergencies.

[Haven]

Get a superpowered left eye, then seal the eyelid shut, only to break it open during--

No, hang on, apparently that's the way to go out like a punk.

[Tengu_temp]

In 4e, this is possible with any character - just hold the majority of your dailies until you really need them. Since this is about 3.5, however, let's go with...

Cleric. You convert most of your prepared spells to heals, buff the others, and generally play the class the way Wizards want it to be played. Then, when it gets really dangerous, you 'zilla it up. In short, you play like Durkon.

[vollmond]

I have no useful input other than to say your thread title made my day :-)

[KellKheraptis]

I have no useful input other than to say your thread title made my day :-)

I used to do the same thing in reverse fencing (I actually AM left-handed, and would fence right-handed until I wanted to show off). I also use an orthodox fighting stance in unarmed combat, as my leading leg is my left one and my bread and butter kick is borrowed from Savate.

[quick_comment]

Barbarian also works. Just dont rage most of the time.

[Sophismata]

Druid and Wildshape - when things go bad, you turn into a Dinosaur / Bear and eat people.

It has a strong tradition of "I am not left-handed" Final Transformation end-bosses behind it.

[KillianHawkeye]

Just off the top of my head, you could be a Rurouni Kenshin style warrior. Straight Swordsage would work, but if possible go for something like Swordsage/Factotum/Iaijutsu Master. Most of the time, you take the -4 penalty to deal nonlethal damage, but when things get serious you bust out the iaijutsu and strike the weak spot for MAXIMUM DAMAGE!!! (Works especially well against giant crabs.)

[Curmudgeon]

You've got the answer right in the title:

off hand

A character's weaker or less dexterous hand (usually the left). An attack made with the off hand incurs a -4 penalty on the attack roll. In addition, only one-half of a character's Strength bonus may be added to damage dealt with a weapon held in the off hand.

[ericgrau]

The problem with holding back in D&D vs. a sword duel is that you take an actual loss in the meantime, while your enemy doesn't. That will put you at a disadvantage later, even if you do improve. Not what you want to do against opponents whom you need to fight at full strength. If you had a way to make some ability build up and then get released stronger thanks to the build up time, then we could be in business. Or prevent hurt to yourself and party whenever you are holding back at hurting the baddy.

[woodenbandman]

The guy who suggested the "Designate left hand as off hand, use stormguard warrior" is correct. Be a warblade who doesn't use maneuvers, just stormguard warrior. You need a way to either heal yourself in battle or avoid getting hit.(I recommend Robilar's + Evasive Reflexes) When the time is right, flip over to your right hand. The various Nightmare Blades are good for a one-hander, as are the maneuvers that deal Constitution damage. Once you switch over, pull out the big maneuvers, like Mountain Tombstone Strike or something.

[Heliomance]

The problem with holding back in D&D vs. a sword duel is that you take an actual loss in the meantime, while your enemy doesn't. That will put you at a disadvantage later, even if you do improve. Not what you want to do against opponents whom you need to fight at full strength. If you had a way to make some ability build up and then get released stronger thanks to the build up time, then we could be in business. Or prevent hurt to yourself and party whenever you are holding back at hurting the baddy.

The idea is that the character is strong enough even while holding back that it can deal with the everyday encounters. He's an average fighter, or possibly a reasonably competent wizard - good enough to do the job, but won't win any prizes.

Then something comes along that's a real challenge - whether it be the final boss or simply multiple "reroll on the next chart up"s on the random encounter table. At that point, the character takes the kid gloves off, fights with their full potential, and blows it away. Cue everyone - hopefully including the DM - going "WHAT THE HELL? HOW DID YOU DO THAT?"

Obviously the concept would be incredibly hard to pull off if the game is in a high power-tier, as you'd need that full strength to survive all the time. But it's a useful way for the only dedicated optimiser in a group of casual players to make a character powerful enough to satisfy them without making the rest of the party feel obsolete. Plus you get the immense satisfaction of pulling everyone's fat out of the fire.

[lsfreak]

I'm going to go with warblade for the sake of ease. Start off a fairly competent fighter, using Power Attack + Shock Trooper and a few of your lower-level maneuvers (especially if your group isn't used to ToB and doesn't know the power there). Once things start turning ugly, then do something ridiculous like Combat Rhythmn + Channel the Storm + Rombilar's + Avalanche of Blades + Raging Mongoose.

Another option, as posted, would be a sorcerer. Take Greater Arcane Fusion, Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, and Arcane Spellsurge. For the most part, stick with blasty spells with a few BC-types. When **** hits the fan, drop Spellsurge (shared with familiar) and release things like Arcane Spellsurge (ray of enfeeblement + enervation) and a split ray empowered enervation and cripple one or multiple enemies.

[ericgrau]

The idea is that the character is strong enough even while holding back that it can deal with the everyday encounters. He's an average fighter, or possibly a reasonably competent wizard - good enough to do the job, but won't win any prizes.

Then something comes along that's a real challenge - whether it be the final boss or simply multiple "reroll on the next chart up"s on the random encounter table. At that point, the character takes the kid gloves off, fights with their full potential, and blows it away. Cue everyone - hopefully including the DM - going "WHAT THE HELL? HOW DID YOU DO THAT?"

Obviously the concept would be incredibly hard to pull off if the game is in a high power-tier, as you'd need that full strength to survive all the time. But it's a useful way for the only dedicated optimiser in a group of casual players to make a character powerful enough to satisfy them without making the rest of the party feel obsolete. Plus you get the immense satisfaction of pulling everyone's fat out of the fire.

And if he waits for the big baddy to fight him for a while, then finds out the big baddy is an even match for him... oh snap he just let the big baddy hurt him a lot and now he's at less than full against someone as strong as he is. Unless, again, you add a way to protect yourself and your party in the mean time. Or you're psychic or something and know which big baddy will be tough enough to fight at 100% as soon as the combat starts.

The exception, of course, is big baddies who are not left handed either.

[Heliomance]

On the whole, there tends to be some sort of clue that what you're fighting is tough. Whether it be knowing the monster already, the DM's expression as he describes the encounter, or simply the fact that it's the final boss of the campaign. Admittedly these are all meta, but still.

Besides, why would you lower your defensive capabilities voluntarily? That's just dumb.

[Thrawn183]

I had a cleric that carried some scorpions with him in vials. The party didn't really know what to think about it until we got into a really really tough fight and I just used Giant Vermin to get colossal monstrous scorpions. They kind of went bonkers when they realized that I did that with just a few fourth level spell slots.

[only1doug]

use combat expertise to take a permanent penalty to your attack rolls to give you bonus AC, when you find an enemy that is too challenging normally just drop the AC for better attacks or more damage (by power attack).

[nightwyrm]

Have someone lay a "don't die" geas on you.