Commoner's challenge: win DnD with commoner 20

[taltamir]

I have come to present a challenge to our CharOp friends.
Prove that with enough min-maxing, any class can be a wizard win DnD.

the challenge is such. Play an ECL20 character who may only take levels in commoner with full access to anything ever printed by WOTC, make him as powerful as possible.

EDIT:
Use PC wealth... also max HP on first level, etc... basically, all PC rules, but with an NPC class.

[Yorrin]

Crafting Feats ftw. With enough cash ANYONE can be a "spell user."

[sonofzeal]

Pun-Pun can be accomplished with a commoner.

Alternatively, Bubs from my signature, for something that actually uses at least one Commoner class feature (namely, Handle Animal on the list of class skills). The Marshal dip helps, but is only really "necessary" for low level hax.

[mikej]

Well, according to Giacomo, Commoner with cross-classed UMD and some partially charged wands. I know it's a lame joke.

Chicken Infested allowed?

[EnnPeeCee]

Obligatory chicken infested post?

But yeah, just pump up a skill of your choice (dimplomacy, handle animal, UMD, etc).

Alternatively, just use leadership and have others do everything for you.

[taltamir]

chicken infest IS allowed...
be more then welcome to actually flesh out the character and post it here for posterity :P
We can have PvP and PvE runs of people's ultimate commoner builds in TOS too.

[Grynning]

...Play an ECL20 character who may only take levels in commoner with full access to anything ever printed by WOTC, make him as powerful as possible...

aww, I can't take levels in Exemplar with my skill focus on Profession: Dirt Farmer?

[mikej]

okay, I believe this works

Venerable Aged Human / Commoner 20th

Assuming starting CHA of 18 with a decent[ish] INT

Cosmopolitan Feat grab for Use Magic Device. Skill Focus in the same skill. With obvious crafting feat for the Competence UMD bonus item.

#2 sidenote: Would Human Paragon be viable? It's not really going away from the whole "Commoner" class. Since if I'm going to boost my CHA It would be good to grab Diplomacy as well.

Charisma 18 + 3 Age + 5 level +5 Tome +6 Cloak = 37 [+13]

23 Rank + 13 Cha +3 Skill Focus +30 Competence = 69 Use Magic Device

UMD a Staff w/Holy Word. It's CL is the UMD check -20. So let's say a roll of 10, soo that's CL 59 Holy Word. Soo anything under 49 HD/evil would die with no saving through within a 40ft range. That's if my believe of UMD is accurate.

[taltamir]

I was thinking PC wealth... also max HP on first level, etc...
basically, all PC rules, but with an NPC class.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Um.. how about a Planetar commoner 2?

[taltamir]

Um.. how about a Planetar commoner 2?

ha... not in the spirit of the challenge, but definitely within the rules... good job :)
you win and internet and a cookie

[mikej]

Um.. how about a Planetar commoner 2?

That's very funny. A celestial being born into tilling the land and herding the cows.

edit: Oh, I finished the editting of my post.

[taltamir]

Spoiler

Show

okay, I believe this works

Venerable Aged Human / Commoner 20th

Assuming starting CHA of 18 with a decent[ish] INT

Cosmopolitan Feat grab for Use Magic Device. Skill Focus in the same skill. With obvious crafting feat for the Competence UMD bonus item.

#2 sidenote: Would Human Paragon be viable? It's not really going away from the whole "Commoner" class. Since if I'm going to boost my CHA It would be good to grab Diplomacy as well.

Charisma 18 + 3 Age + 5 level +5 Tome +6 Cloak = 37 [+13]

23 Rank + 13 Cha +3 Skill Focus +30 Competence = 69 Use Magic Device

UMD a Staff w/Holy Word. It's CL is the UMD check -20. So let's say a roll of 10, soo that's CL 59 Holy Word. Soo anything under 49 HD/evil would die with no saving through within a 40ft range. That's if my believe of UMD is accurate.

epic win! have a cookie

[Heliomance]

Pazuzu Pazuzu Pazuzu

[Gralamin]

Exponential Growth. More specifically: Assume the commoner had 10 in all stats, after his 20 levels, and 23 ranks in profession (Beggar), and 23 ind Diplomacy. Lets have him take 10 constantly for 33. He gets 16.5 Gold pieces per week. That not to good. However, Lets have him start a beggar ring: He hires people with Profession (Beggar) as trained Hirelings (3 sp per day) to beg for him (Total pay: 2.1 gp per week/Employee) (Use diplomacy to make them want to help you). Lets assume that each of these beggars have two ranks in Profession (Beggar): Then they can make 6 gp per week. 6-2.1 =3.9 gp per week in profit per employee.

Lets assume you start off with nothing, and cannot make profession checks in a week you gather employees. Also assume you can get as many employees as possible (This becomes unlikely eventually - you'd have to pay people to get you more employees):
Week 1: 16.5 gp
Week 2: Hire 7 Beggars who work and get 27.3 gp after expenses.
Week 3: Hire 13 more Beggars. You now are making 78 gp per week.
At this point I'll just go and make a table:
{table=head]Week|Num Beggars|Total Cash
1|0|16.5
2|7|27.3
3|13|50.7
4|24|93.6
5|44|171.6
6|81|315.9
7|150|585
8|278|1084.2
9|516|2012.4
10|958|3736.2
11|1779|6938.1
12|3303|12881.7
13|6134|23922.6
14|11391|44424.9
15|21154|82500.6
16|39286|153215.4
17|72959|284540.1
18|135495|528430.5
19|251633|981368.7
20|467318|1822540.2
21|867876|3384716.4
22|1611769|6285899.1
23|2993285|11673811.5
24|5558957|21679932.3
25|10323777|40262730.3
26|19172728|74773639.2
27|35606494|138865326.6
28|66126346|257892749.4
29|122806071|478943676.9
30|228068417|889466826.3[/table]
As you can see, by week 25 all the beggars in the material plane are your employees.
Now, lets assume you were greedy and wanted to always have 10% of whatever you make. Lets further assume that only 80% of your employees get profit, the rest find people to work for you:
{table=head]Week|Num Beggars|Total Cash|Money you get
1|0| $16.50 | $1.65
2|7| $21.84 | $2.18
3|9| $28.08 | $2.81
4|12| $37.44 | $3.74
5|16| $49.92 | $4.99
6|21| $65.52 | $6.55
7|28| $87.36 | $8.74
8|37| $115.44 | $11.54
9|49| $152.88 | $15.29
10|65| $202.80 | $20.28
11|86| $268.32 | $26.83
12|114| $355.68 | $35.57
13|152| $474.24 | $47.42
14|203| $633.36 | $63.34
15|271| $845.52 | $84.55
16|362| $1,129.44 | $112.94
17|484| $1,510.08 | $151.01
18|647| $2,018.64 | $201.86
19|865| $2,698.80 | $269.88
20|1156| $3,606.72 | $360.67
21|1545| $4,820.40 | $482.04
22|2065| $6,442.80 | $644.28
23|2761| $8,614.32 | $861.43
24|3691| $11,515.92 | $1,151.59
25|4935| $15,397.20 | $1,539.72
26|6598| $20,585.76 | $2,058.58
27|8822| $27,524.64 | $2,752.46
28|11796| $36,803.52 | $3,680.35
29|15772| $49,208.64 | $4,920.86
30|21089| $65,797.68 | $6,579.77
31|28199| $87,980.88 | $8,798.09
32|37706| $117,642.72 | $11,764.27
33|50418| $157,304.16 | $15,730.42
34|67416| $210,337.92 | $21,033.79
35|90144| $281,249.28 | $28,124.93
36|120535| $376,069.20 | $37,606.92
37|161172| $502,856.64 | $50,285.66
38|215509| $672,388.08 | $67,238.81
39|288166| $899,077.92 | $89,907.79
40|385319| $1,202,195.28 | $120,219.53
41|515226| $1,607,505.12 | $160,750.51
42|688930| $2,149,461.60 | $214,946.16
43|921197| $2,874,134.64 | $287,413.46
44|1231771| $3,843,125.52 | $384,312.55
45|1647053| $5,138,805.36 | $513,880.54
46|2202345| $6,871,316.40 | $687,131.64
47|2944849| $9,187,928.88 | $918,792.89
48|3937683| $12,285,570.96 | $1,228,557.10
49|5265244| $16,427,561.28 | $1,642,756.13
50|7040383| $21,965,994.96 | $2,196,599.50 [/table]
As you can see, this one takes longer to get going, but you still have completely broken Wealth by level by a year in.
[hr]
Alternative: Chicken Infested:
Its reasonable to say that a character could spend 8 hours a day working on a boring task. Your boring task will be pulling one chicken out of nowhere per round.
8 hours * 60 minutes/hour * 10 rounds / minute = 4800 Chickens a work day. Chickens are a 2 cp trade good, so you can sell those chickens for 96 GP per day. You can use this to jump start your beggar empire. Or, you could find more of your chicken infested brethren.

[taltamir]

hilarious that you chose beggar instead of any other possible profession (since AFAIK there is no difference between professions). I assume this will work equally well no matter what profession you choose, correct?

anyways, very nice chart. Yes, millions of gold could fund some powerful equipment.

[faceroll]

Nice pyramid scheme.

[taltamir]

Nice pyramid scheme.

actually that is genuine employment... a pyramid scheme is where each person has to PAY you to work for you, for a cut of the profits. As long as each person gets enough new people to join, you all make money, but the longer it goes on before maxing out, the more people at the bottom lose money.

[Munchkin-Masher]

Candle of invocation.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Cross Class UMD self buff with divine power, something to survive -HP and others to taste. You didn't say human so race Orc or water orc for cheese. Use Psionic Lion's charge for pounce

1.Power Attack
3.Improved Bull Rush
6. Shocktrooper
9.Leap Attack
12. Martial Study (Battle Leader's Charge)
15. BattleJump
18. Martial Stance (Leading the Charge)

I'm sure somebody else could do better. i first saw a commoner ubercharger as a response to somebody posting an ubercharging monk. Via slightly better feat progression the commoner was better.

[Sir Giacomo]

Well, according to Giacomo, Commoner with cross-classed UMD and some partially charged wands. I know it's a lame joke.

Actually for the purpose if this thread, pc wbl magic items and UMD can greatly help the commoner-although he has no class abilities that synergise with magic (maybe some of his meagre skills...).

- Giacomo

[Gametime]

You might as well run a pyramid scheme instead of legitimate employment. After a year you'll have completely ruined the economy where you're operating, and be wealthy enough to buy enough magic items to become a GOD and hide fromsmite your angry investors.

[ericgrau]

UMD a Staff w/Holy Word. It's CL is the UMD check -20. So let's say a roll of 10, soo that's CL 59 Holy Word. Soo anything under 49 HD/evil would die with no saving through within a 40ft range. That's if my believe of UMD is accurate.

You can't UMD staffs. Besides that this'd be a cheesy interpretation of the UMD rules even if you could. The +30 UMD item is likewise custom, epic and cheesy. It's subject to DM approval and this is about the last thing a DM should be approving. You could still buy high level scrolls at a high price, but well within level 20 wealth. Assuming the epic seller even exists in the campaign world.

Pun-Pun can be accomplished with a commoner.

Alright, great, sonofzeal has you all beat on cheese. Can we please move on to real builds?

[Lamech]

Leadership!

Wish Loop!

Both win DnD fairly easily.

[The Glyphstone]

Then head to the Plane of Shadow and find your way to another Prime. You will become Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Economies!

You can't UMD staffs. Besides that this'd be a cheesy interpretation of the UMD rules even if you could.

Why are staves exempt from UMD? It's using this option:

Emulate a Class Feature
Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. In this case, your effective level in the emulated class equals your Use Magic Device check result minus 20. This skill does not let you actually use the class feature of another class. It just lets you activate items as if you had that class feature. If the class whose feature you are emulating has an alignment requirement, you must meet it, either honestly or by emulating an appropriate alignment with a separate Use Magic Device check (see above).

Emulate 'wizard spellcasting', and you can now use Staves with an effective caster level of your skill check-20. It is undoubtedly cheesy, yes, but that's the point of the thread - employ the upper limits of TheoryOp to make a Commoner 20 gamebreaking.

[Myou]

You can't UMD staffs. Besides that this'd be a cheesy interpretation of the UMD rules even if you could. The +30 UMD item is likewise custom, epic and cheesy. It's subject to DM approval and this is about the last thing a DM should be approving. You could still buy high level scrolls at a high price, but well within level 20 wealth. Assuming the epic seller even exists in the campaign world.


Alright, great, sonofzeal has you all beat on cheese. Can we please move on to real builds?

Actually, the SRD says you can activate them like a wand.

[ericgrau]

Oh whoops the UMD description says it works on staffs too. I still doubt you can give yourself an arbitrarily high caster level. More likely it's a DC 28 or higher check and you use the staff's caster level.

[lobablob]

The +30 UMD item is likewise custom, epic and cheesy. It's subject to DM approval and this is about the last thing a DM should be approving.

I'm not sure that you understand the point of this thread.

the challenge is such. Play an ECL20 character who may only take levels in commoner with full access to anything ever printed by WOTC, make him as powerful as possible.

[ericgrau]

It is possible to optimize without destroying the game. And frankly destroying the game isn't much of a challenge.

[lobablob]

It is possible to optimize without destroying the game.

The OP said "full access to anything ever printed by WOTC, make him as powerful as possible."

You can't add in extra rules to someone else's challenge.