[3.5] Character Concept: The Leech

[monkey3]

The name may have been used before, but this character concept is original.

The goal of this character is to never spend any of his own experience points on anything. He leeches them! This is not your typical optimal character. With 9th level spells at 16th level, (and fewer spells) he is probably a worse caster than a straight Cleric 20. But he makes up for it in leeching...

Human Cloistered Cleric 1 / Artificer 5 / Ur-Priest 10 / Artificer 4
Stats: Wis > Int > Chr > Con > Dex > Str.

Why Artificer? In making magic items, he uses "retain essence" to suck dry magic items, and use their experience to make just about any magic item he wants - go go Artificer.

Why Ur Priest? He uses the capstone Ur-Priest ability to never pay for experience on wishes, spend money on Animate Dead, etc.

Why Cleric? This one is the craziest! To qualify for Ur-Priest, we need
Fort +3, Will +3 and Skills: Bluff 6 , Knowledge (arcana) 5 , Knowledge (the planes) 5 , Knowledge (religion) 8 , Spellcraft 8.
Artificer 5 will give us everything except Fort +2, Bluff 6, and Knowledge (religion) 8. What single class dip will give us all 3? The only one I know of is a Cleric with the Trickery domain. [I am happy to hear other options here, since I'd rather not have Cleric.] For the other cleric domain I'd go for Magic, and temporary god Boccob (right before our Ur-Priest disavowed all religion).
Go ahead and make the Cleric Cloistered for extra skills at first level (we only loose Heavy armor and 2 hp).

The last 4 levels could be altered to personal preference, but 3 of them should be in something with a caster level. Thanks to Ur-Priest getting 1/2 caster level for all non-cleric caster levels, The Leech can have 20 caster levels at the end if he takes Practiced Caster Ur-Priest, and Artificer. [Math: 10 Ur-Priest + 4 Practice Ur-Priest + 1/2 (9 Artificer + 4 Practiced Artificer) = 20]

Feat recommendations,Not any options here. In order:
Able Learner, Iron Will, Spell Focus-evil (both pre-reqs.), Practiced Artificer, Circle Mage (after switching god to Galaedros), Practiced caster Ur-Priest, Craft Construct (why not, you have plenty exp from Artificer)

Cheese option- Necropolitan: Basically the character advanced to third level Cloistered Cleric. At that point he was captured/volunteered and turned into a 1st level undead. This traumatized him enough to quit all religion, and loose access to all the spells he knew. (Nice back-story for Ur-Priest.)

Cheese option- Circle Magic: This is the only Circle Magic option available to divine casters (Ghostwalk p.29). It can only be taken by a "Divine spellcaster with Galaedros as a patron deity." Ur-Priest stipulates that you can’t pray to a god. If you can resolve the two, Circle Magic is a great addition to the theme, as you leech caster levels and power from your followers (that you keep in a portable hole).

Awesome trick - Simulacrum: You need to have met a Mirror Mephit (a monster from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits with SLA Simulacrum p. 208) at some point (after achieving Ur-Priest 10). You then steal its Simulacrum ability (via your capstone) and male a Simulacrum of it (need some of its hair/whatever). New you have a Simulacrum of a Mirror Mephit in your portable hole that you can steal from and make 1 free Simulacrum per day. You this to make an army of your own self to use as clones/meat-shield/Circle Magic allies.

Awesome trick - Teleport: Make a Simulacrum of any of the many demon/devil/angels that have Great Teleport and other juicy SLAs. Put simulacrum in portable hole, and use when needed.

Broken trick - Wish: Use above trick on Efreet Simulacrum to get free wishes. Be prepared for DM blowback.

Downside - Evil: You have to be evil to be an Ur-Priest. Lots of DMs don't allow evil because they are babies who can't separate real from fantasy. (Oops, sorry about ranting.)

[Greenish]

With 9th level spells at 16th level, (and fewer spells) he is probably a worse caster than a straight Cleric 20. But he makes up for it in leaching...

You can't "make up" for anything by not spending your experience points, because experience is a river. A character who uses a lot of experience on crafting will shoot past you every now and then, and have much better equipment from all the crafting.

[Human Paragon 3]

You could replace the Cleric level with a Binder level.

[Optimystik]

You could replace the Cleric level with a Binder level.

Use Savage Bard instead - more skill points.

[Godskook]

You can't "make up" for anything by not spending your experience points, because experience is a river. A character who uses a lot of experience on crafting will shoot past you every now and then, and have much better equipment from all the crafting.

Just because experience is a river doesn't mean that a build which avoids swimming in it isn't useful.

Also:

ZOMG?!?!?! A build that uses more than two actual levels of the Ur-Priest!?!??!

[monkey3]

Savage Bard and Binder are both excellent suggestions. I like either more than the Trickery Cleric. I really like the Aym Visage for Binder wince it lets you wear armor without slowing (even though sadly we don't use either "Tomb" book).

As far as experience being a river, I read and liked that article. But you have to admit, for The Leech, experience is Niagara Falls ;)

[Greenish]

Just because experience is a river doesn't mean that a build which avoids swimming in it isn't useful.

It can be a useful build, but not spending experience doesn't grant advantage over those who do.

But you have to admit, for The Leach, experience is Niagara Falls ;)

The leach is the guy walking on the shore and watching people go by on boats. And the falls are actually made of cotton candy.

[monkey3]

It can be a useful build, but not spending experience doesn't grant advantage over those who do.

I have to disagree with this statement on 2 counts.

1) In order for experience to be a river, you have to be at least 1 level less than your party. Being 1 level less is a disadvantage. There's a lot of power to be gained in 1 or more levels (hence the concept of +LA races).

2) The river concept only works because you are gaining experience at a higher rate than the rest of the party because you are lower level than them, thus having a CR mismatch experience bonus. The extra experience rate is therefore a finite number and if you spend -extra- experience more than your bonus rate, you fall further behind your group (which admittedly increases your bonus rate).

So the river is a mitigating factor at best. How much lower level than the rest of the group do you have to be in order to grant 15000 exp (3 wishes) in bonus experience. Are you killing multiple gods a day?

[Mongoose87]

Do Artificer infusements count as spells? If so, you could advance both that and spellcasting with Mystic Theurge.

[Irreverent Fool]

I thought this was going to be about a character that dissolves things, gets them wet, or brews coffee.

obnoxious
sig

[Cisturn]

the fools right you should call it "The Leech"

[monkey3]

Do Artificer infusements count as spells? If so, you could advance both that and spellcasting with Mystic Theurge.

I don't know if they count as spells. This build does not care about that. It only cares about "caster levels." The Artificer has rules for dictating what its "caster levels" are.

Now. if you want Mystic Theurge, there are countless such builds that use 1-2 levels of Ur-Priest, but again, this build is not about that.

Frankly, this build would not change much if the Ur-Priest received 0 spells. I care mostly about its 10th level ability to steal SLAs, and the spellcasting is just barely useful not to get him kicked out of the party for being useless.

[monkey3]

the fools right you should call it "The Leech"

Oh crap. Fixed in edit. :)

Thanks IF and C.

[Godskook]

It can be a useful build, but not spending experience doesn't grant advantage over those who do.

So being L20 instead of L19 doesn't have an advantage? That's what happens when a character is not spending xp when others are.

The question really comes in does this guy gain an advantage over those who don't spend xp in the first place, and there, the answer is probably no. Artificers already do the crafting thing, and the Ur-Priest's capstone is either A)Nothing special compared to the Wizard he learned the trick from or B)Worthless because the DM banned it when the wizard did it.

[Greenish]

So being L20 instead of L19 doesn't have an advantage? That's what happens when a character is not spending xp when others are.

You don't have to stay below the rest of the party all the time. My point was that not using any experience for anything ever doesn't confer the build a real advantage.

(Making simulacrum efreeti obviously does.)

[monkey3]

The question really comes in does this guy gain an advantage over those who don't spend xp in the first place, and there, the answer is probably no. Artificers already do the crafting thing, and the Ur-Priest's capstone is either A)Nothing special compared to the Wizard he learned the trick from or B)Worthless because the DM banned it when the wizard did it.

I am not aware of a Wizard trick which gives you SLAs such that you get with Ur-Priest 10. Please give us some detail.

I do agree with part b. If abused, the DM will come down on this character, and all your work up to level 16 is worthless (yes, this character is pretty weak untill 16).