Iron Chef Optimization Challenge In the Playground XLII

[Amphetryon]

Sorry it's 23 deg (73.4 fahrenheit) but then I am in Middle Earth (New Zealand).
It's more like Boardies and Shades

Doesn't discount my point about 'several,' but merely excludes you from that group.

[OMG PONIES]

Sorry it's 23 deg (73.4 fahrenheit) but then I am in Middle Earth (New Zealand).
It's more like Boardies and Shades

Your Hobbitspeak makes me envious.

[sabelo2000]

Build Submitted! It's my first ICOCITP attempt, I don't expect to place well but it was an interesting exercise.

[Amphetryon]

Six entries so far, with lots of time to spare.

Shadowblade is more popular than I anticipated, which I consider a good thing.

[Gotterdammerung]

I have 2 entries completed in my head but I am procrastinating on writing them up. We shall see if it bites me in the butt or if I manage to power slide under the deadline in typical Indiana Jones fashion.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I can't think of anything unique enough to bother submitting. I've made four builds, and they're all... cookie cutter. Unworthy of submission.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I have a build in mind that I really want to time; but I haven't had the time to prepare it properly.... :sight: I hope I can it on time.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I can't think of anything unique enough to bother submitting. I've made four builds, and they're all... cookie cutter. Unworthy of submission.

I've been having the same problems. I've got one that I'm finding unique, but I'm having some trouble justifying it (build- and fluff-wise). We'll see if I can pull this off or not.

[Amechra]

I really just need to summon up the gumption to write up my build; I can't stop giggling at it.

[Amphetryon]

I really just need to summon up the gumption to write up my build; I can't stop giggling at it.

*casts "Summon Gumption" on Amechra.*

There you go.

[The Viscount]

Must be one of those 2e monsters; I can't find the stats for it.

Six builds already. Sheesh. I really hope nobody's doing what I'm doing, or my face will be really red.

[T.G. Oskar]

Sorry it's 23 deg (73.4 fahrenheit) but then I am in Middle Earth (New Zealand).
It's more like Boardies and Shades

That's still pretty chilly, IMO. Here's at around 85+ during the day, drops somewhere around 76 at night (both Fahrenheit, just in case). But then again, that's the beauty of living in the Tropics, no? Specifically when it's pretty much right around one of the actual Tropics.

[Amechra]

I just realized I won't have the time to finish up my build. Darn it. Stupid college...

I'll see if I can cook up something saturday morning, at least.

[OMG PONIES]

With the deadline for submissions looming and the low number of judges we've had in recent rounds, I'll toss my hat in as a judge for this one.

My Criteria

Each entry will start at a base score of 12 (3 in each category), with deductions or bonuses awarded based on the following questions:

Spoiler

Show

Originality:

• Does the entry present a compelling backstory/concept?
• Does the entry enter the Secret Ingredient through a method unique from the sample character in the source as well as other entries in this round?
• Does the entry make use of any unique mechanical tricks/feat chains?
• Does the entry avoid known cheese and overused optimization suggestions?

Power:

• Does the entry surpass a hypothetical build that continues in the base class used for qualification (e.g. additional rogue or scout levels)?
• Does the entry function at the same power level throughout an entire adventuring day, rather than relying on "nova" powers?
• Does the entry thrive without an undue emphasis on items, templates, or other "add-ons" for its power?
• Does the entry contribute significantly in terms of offense, defense, and utility?

Elegance:

• Does the entry qualify for all classes taken (excluding the Secret Ingredient)?
• Does the entry qualify for all feats taken?
• Does the entry avoid reliance on any material that is questionable, cross-setting, or specifically disallowed from this competition?
• Does the entry avoid multi-class penalties and excessive dipping*?

UoSI:

• Does the entry qualify for the Secret Ingredient and make use of entry requirements?
• Does the entry complete the Secret Ingredient or present a compelling reason why not doing so is actually a better use of the Secret Ingredient?
• Does the entry synergize the mechanical unique abilities of the Secret Ingredient with the rest of the build?
• Does the entry complement the concept of its chassis through use of the Secret Ingredient?

*Where "dipping" is defined as taking two or fewer levels in a base class and "excessive" is defined as three or more instances of dipping.

Each of the questions above can be answered in one of three ways. A straight "yes" will earn a +0.5 bonus to the category in question. A straight "no" will suffer a -0.5 penalty to the category, and an ambivalent "yes and no" will wash out with no adjustment to the category. If there are any questions about the clarity of my criteria in general, please post them openly so I can address. If there are any disagreements with particular scores, please PM the chairman as part of the regular dispute process.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Ah, hells. I can't find the time to polish off either of my builds either.

Guess it's straight to the judging stand for me.

Criteria

Spoiler

Show

Originality

• Is this an interesting take, or is it a bland (and expected) entry?
• Backstory fluff will also likely be going here
• Original and unique, or am I going to find common opt-fu here?

Power

• Are you versatile, or are you a one-trick pony?
• How much do you gain from taking Shadowblade levels instead of more rogue/ninja?
• How's your daily endurance?

Elegance

• Does it feel smooth, or does it feel choppy and slapped together?
• Do you qualify for everything that you took? (Feats, etc...)

And, stolen straight from the Right Honourable Ponies,

• Does the entry avoid multi-class penalties and excessive dipping*?

UoSI

• Do you properly qualify?
• Are the abilities granted valuable to the character's daily functioning?
• Were you better off taking SI levels, or are they there merely to qualify for ICO?
• Did you complete Shadowblade?

*Where "dipping" is defined as taking two or fewer levels in a base class and "excessive" is defined as three or more instances of dipping.

[OMG PONIES]

And, stolen straight from the Right Honourable Ponies...

Now that's a title if ever I saw one!

[foolofsound]

I suppose I should throw up a few criteria as well, though I won't adhere to a strictly mechanical formula.

Criteria

Spoiler

Show

Originality
-Positives: Interesting or unexpected class combination, interesting or underused combinations of abilities, unexpected or underused race, interesting concept and backstory
-Negatives: Overused race, expected or known cheese race, expected dips, known cheese combination, lack of or non-compelling concept or backstory

Power
-Positives: Ability to meaningfully contribute to combat, exploration (including stealth), social encounters, and information gathering, ability to contribute substantially to two or more of the above, Secret Ingredient directly contributes to two or more of the above (more so than foregoing the prestige class would), sufficient daily endurance meaningfully contribute to at least four major challenges in any category
-Negatives: Lacks the ability to meaningfully contribute to one or more of the following challenges: combat, exploration, social encounters, or information gathering, lacks the ability to substantially contribute to at least two of the above, Secret Ingredient does not improve the builds ability to contribute to at least two of the above, daily endurance insufficient to meaningfully contribute to four major challenges of any category

Elegance
-Positives: Advancement in any given class taken in block, build viable at multiple levels, avoids unnecessary dips, avoids an over-reliance on items (particularly consumables), avoids the use of questionable material, avoids the use of overuse of templates, avoids unclear interactions between abilities, avoids abilities that become obsolete due to advancement
-Negatives: Unclean or jumpy class advancement, build doesn't "come online" for too many levels, overuse of dips, over-reliance on items (particularly consumables), uses questionable material, overuses templates, unclear interactions between abilities, uses Level Adjustment buyoff, takes abilities that become obsolete due to advancement, BUILD DOES NOT QUALIFY FOR ALL FEATS/CLASSES, OR IS OTHERWISE ILLEGAL

UoSI
Positives: Full advancement taken, Secret Ingredient meaningfully complements the capabilities of the build (particularly through the use of it's unique abilities), Secret Ingredient complements the flavor of the build, build otherwise makes use of Secret Ingredient qualifiers
Negatives: Full advancement not taken, Secret Ingredient either does not meaningfully complement the build, Secret Ingredient is contrary to the flavor of the build

If you have any questions about my criteria, please feel free to ask.

My judging is somewhat more subjective that OMG PONIES'; I will endeavor to judge each build equally, and will attach explanations for my scoring. If you believe I have misjudged you build, or would like me to elaborate on my comments, please contact the chairman; he will relay your concerns to me.

Edit: Made a minor clarification.

[Gotterdammerung]

Great set of criteria you got there Ponies
Me gusta.

I do have one question though.

when you say

Does the entry qualify for the Secret Ingredient and make use of entry requirements?

under the SI category, I wondered how do you treat entry requirements that are made obsolete or generally undermined by the class abilities?

An example would be the effectiveness of the Blind-fight feat, a prerequ of this SI, is largely reduced by the class skills "See in darkness", "Unerring Strike", and "Shadow Vision".

Will we be penalized for not making use of blind-fight when the class itself provides better options?

Thanks for your time, and again great judging criteria.

[The Viscount]

And it's in. Man, that took way too long. Let's hear it for late night productivity!

[foolofsound]

I wondered how do you treat entry requirements that are made obsolete or generally undermined by the class abilities?

An example would be the effectiveness of the Blind-fight feat, a prerequ of this SI, is largely reduced by the class skills "See in darkness", "Unerring Strike", and "Shadow Vision".

Will we be penalized for not making use of blind-fight when the class itself provides better options?

For my criteria, at least, a prestige class making one of it's own requirements obsolete will not be penalized.

[Macabaret]

Build submitted. (Whoo-hoo, its in on time!) I kinda wondered if I was going to make it before the deadline this time around.
Still have this niggling feeling like I forgot to add something to the submission, though.
No one would dock points for forgetting to include, say, a build table, would they? *L*

On a serious note:
A big thank you to all the judges!
And a big thank you to Amph for the time and effort you've put in to chairing this thing for as long (and as well) as you have!

[rockdeworld]

I've submitted an entry as well, in honor of Amphetryon's last hosting. I cooked it up fairly quickly (in about 6 hours), so it's not spectacular. We'll see how it plays.

And on the subject of this class, I'm surprised at how not-terrible it seems. Although I first looked at skills, and thought: no Search, Tumble, or Disable Device? What is wrong with this class?!

Then I saw saves, and thought: good fort and bad reflex? What is wrong with this class?

But then I started looking through the abilities, and it got better. My reactions were about like this: awesome, awesome, only class level times per day? Well, still better than 1/day, not sneak attack but not terrible, meh, awesome.

So yeah, it seems like a class I'd like to play. In fact, the more I developed my entry, the more I wanted to play it.

[Piggy Knowles]

You may PM me if you would like further elaboration on your scores. If my comments lead you to believe that I have misjudged your build, please contact the chairman.

Just a minor question - do you mean that we should contact you by PM for elaboration before the final reveal? It was my understanding that judges were not to know who was responsible for which build until after.

Other than that, the requirements look great, and I can't wait to see what everyone has!

[Vaz]

Right, I'm in. A little more rushed that I would have liked - that's twice now - and disappointed I didn't get my second build up before deadine - again, work - my second build being a lot more fun to my mind after I spend ages trying to get it to work.

Anyhow, happy days, and sorry to see this is your last one.

[Kazyan]

I'll describe my Zinc Saucier of this class shortly after the reveal, but in the meantime, here's some judging criteria. I'll actually try to get a judging done, guys.

Criteria:

Spoiler

Show

While I'm providing numbers, judging is subjective. Where there's something in the build I'd be remiss not to note, I'll take it into account and tweak the scoring.

Originality
1: Build is cookie-cutter of the optimization staples.
2: Build isn't quite cookie-cutter, but the devations from the "rogue" template are nothing new.
3: Build contains quirky selections and/or optimization staples that I wouldn't have otherwise seen fitting with this party role.
4: Build challenges, not necessarily defies, the "rogue" party role.
5: Completely off-the-wall.

Power
1: Build is helpless even at its job.
2: Build cannot fill the roles of a mildly-optimized Rogue 20--social-fu, stealth, and backstabbing. (If the build attempts other roles, I'll take them into account and basically swap them for one of the rogue criteria, for all scores. I'm not counting a rogue's UMD.)
3: Build fills all party roles of a mildly-optimized Rogue 20, or does only one of the roles significantly ahead of expected level (3+ levels)
4: Build fills two of the roles significantly ahead of expected level, fills all roles and does something ahead of expected level, or is min-maxed out the wazoo for one role.
5: Build is better than a very competent rogue in basically every way, or has been seriously powergamed to the max so that I can ignore one of the ways the rogue could be better.

Elegance
All builds will start at Elegance 4, and then given the following deductions and benefits:
-0.5: Difficult to follow or figure out what it does
-1: Choppy power growth so that the build is unacceptable weak for
many levels: waiting for it to "come online", as the other judges put it.
-1: Overreliance on items or other WBL-based options, such as paying NPCs for expensive spells.
-0.5 per use: May-contain-dairy-products rule variants. LA buyoff, magical locations for feats, lesser planetouched, and bloodlines count, but the list is not exhaustive.
-1: Dismissing/handwaving fluff.
Up to -2: Rules violations. Nitpicks that don't affect anything? -0.25. Things that negate one of your tricks or require selective rebuilding? -1. Pulling athread that basically unravels your entire build? -2. Any build that recieves -1 or worse in rules violations is eligible for a 0.
Up to -0.5: Typos/formatting. (That's my job.)
+0.5: Class progression is particularly natural, such as X 5/SI 10/Y 5.
+0.5: Does not require multiclassing penalties to be ignored.
Up to +1: Build seems like it would appear natural, not abominably min-maxed, to a fairly new player. Max score is 5.

Use of the Secret Ingredient
1: I can't figure out why you're a Shadowblade.
2: Shadowblade is used, but a categorically better no-brainer option exists. Most of the SI's abilities are ignored.
3: Shadowblade contributes meaningfully to the build. Most of the SI's abilities are used.
4: All of the SI's abilities are used meaningfully. The build is a lot better with the SI then it would be without.
5: The SI is the shining star of the build. There's no impression that the SI has been crowbarred into a more standard build, and it's a Shadowblade showcase.

[foolofsound]

Just a minor question - do you mean that we should contact you by PM for elaboration before the final reveal? It was my understanding that judges were not to know who was responsible for which build until after.

Other than that, the requirements look great, and I can't wait to see what everyone has!

In that case, contact the chairman, and I'll relay my comments through him.

[OMG PONIES]

I wondered how do you treat entry requirements that are made obsolete or generally undermined by the class abilities?

An example would be the effectiveness of the Blind-fight feat, a prereq of this SI, is largely reduced by the class skills "See in darkness", "Unerring Strike", and "Shadow Vision".

Things that are required by the class and then made blatantly obvious and redundant by same class will not be penalized. Contestants who find a way to still retain the usefulness of entry requirements may receive a bonus, and contestants who fail to make use of the other entry requirements may face a penalty.

[Gotterdammerung]

Kay' understood,

Thanks foolofsound and ponies for the quick answers.

My procrastinating totally got me ; ; I only had enough time this morning to write out 1 of my 2 builds. The second build was sooo cute, but now he will never be born ; ; so sad. But at least i got the 1 submitted. I'm sad though. I'll tell ya bout the second build after the reveal.

Good luck everyone it should be fun.

[Soranar]

Really curious to see what people came up with this time around. The class features and the requirements are just counter intuitive enough for me to never come up with anything satisfying.

[Amphetryon]

Now it's time for the reveal!

Please refrain from posting in this thread until after I've given the all-clear.

Thank you.