Iron Chef Optimization Challenge in the Playground CIX

[Gruftzwerg]

+1 Aptitude Necklace of Natural Attacks + Unorthodox Flurry (Claw) would allow you to treat every type of natural attack as a monk weapon, since Unorthodox Flurry applies to a single weapon of your choice and Aptitude makes those feats apply to that weapon. Those Changeling Warshapers would be able to flurry with their fists and attack with their many natural weapons like a champ.

^and here we have the winner ^^

Well done solving this puzzle. Have to keep this in mind.

[NotInventedHere]

Yeah, I was going to mention Unorthodox Flurry, but an Aptitude Necklace of Natural Weapons is a brilliant solution. It is dependence on an item, which I understand is usually frowned on here, but it's a pretty cheap item all things considered, Aptitude is only a +1 bonus.

[daremetoidareyo]

I was kicking around using poison healer because the language on spider tattoo says that you deliver contact poison, so like youde be punching contact poison

[Korahir]

How about some speculation about the next ingredient while we wait?

I think we didn't have a racial prerequisite in a while. Might be time for one again.

Also a truly awful ingredient I would dread:
Warchief from miniatures handbook might be one of the most horrible classes to optimize given how little class features it has.

[H_H_F_F]

Last racial requirement comp wasn't very popular, but I'd be down for another one - maybe a less restrictive race/class combination would see more interest. Spinemeld Warrior?

From me, and maybe not next round (since we've just had a full BaB SI - I realize not everyone likes martials as much as I do), but I'd love to see Arcane Archer, Blackguard, and Duelist come along at some point. Horizon Walker is too much of a passive generalist, and the rest of the DMG is either too good, too short, or has been done already. These 3 will basically finish up a book, which I think is nice.

Otherwise, I'm down for anything.

Edit: just realized insidious corruptor was racially restricted, and a popular ingredient. I categorised it as half-caster in my brain, so when I was talking about the last racially restricted ingredient, I was thinking about atavist.

[daremetoidareyo]

Shining blade of erroneous!

[AvatarVecna]

Tattooed Monk, but not taking the 10th lvl is instant disqualification.

[H_H_F_F]

Shining blade of erroneous!

I'm down for almost* anything.

[Zaq]

When was the last unique-casting-progression SI? Those are always weird.

[WhamBamSam]

I'm prepared, eager even, for Shining Blade.

Eye of Gruumsh is a race-locked PrC that I've been looking forward to for a while (I think due to Viscount mentioning it before becoming chair, actually), though like Spinemeld Warrior, it's full BAB. Kinslayer (Drow, full BAB) and Scar Enforcer (Half-Elf, medium BAB, half-casting) also have some potential.

The thing about Arcane Archer is that Imbue Arrow is so good, and so much better than the other features, that taking levels after 2 instead of doing things that progress casting could be said to be a worse UoSI. Arcane Archer without Imbue Arrow, garbage class though it would be, might actually be a more interesting ingredient.

Blackguard was done in the BG version of the contest before it ported over here, though I doubt that'd be a serious issue. I'd be more interested in Defiant as a 'fallen' PrC though. Similarly, while I think there's some fun to be had with Duelist (though I'd expect a small round with several significantly overlapping entries), but would be more excited by Arcane Duelist, which feels like it's going for a similar general vibe, but would probably see more diverse entries due to how bafflingly designed it is.

For unique casting PrCs, I could see Disciple of Thrymm or Ebonmar Infiltrator.

[H_H_F_F]

Both disciple of Thyrm and Scar enforcer are on my cool ingredients shortlist. 100% agreed on those.

I get your points on the DMG classes, though I think Blackguard can be an excellent ingredient - and it having been done on another site at some point doesn't seem like a good enough reason to ban it. Also, finding interesting things to do with Arcane Archer past level 2 seems like a challenge worthy of this competition. As I've said, I also find the idea of "finishing" a book pleasing, though I totally understand if others don't care about that sort of thing.

[Venger]

In addition to the ones mentioned, darkrunner is an appropriately easy to enter, underwhelming, and generally stinky prestige class.

[WhamBamSam]

Both disciple of Thyrm and Scar enforcer are on my cool ingredients shortlist. 100% agreed on those.

I get your points on the DMG classes, though I think Blackguard can be an excellent ingredient - and it having been done on another site at some point doesn't seem like a good enough reason to ban it. Also, finding interesting things to do with Arcane Archer past level 2 seems like a challenge worthy of this competition. As I've said, I also find the idea of "finishing" a book pleasing, though I totally understand if others don't care about that sort of thing.

Like I said, I think Arcane Archer 10 would be a more interesting challenge if Imbue Arrow weren't just sitting there. As is, though, you're getting three 1/day abilities, two of which amount to worse versions of the same 2nd level spell from common entry classes (and worse in a specific way that makes them incompatible with Imbue Arrow), one of which is in direct competition with Imbue Arrow that it's clearly losing, and then a flat enhancement bonus, and Arrow of Death. Those abilities aren't uninteresting, but each is pretty much just objectively worse than a single spell slot per day with a good or interesting spell for Imbue Arrow in it, even by the metric of Use of Secret Ingredient.

[Zaq]

I'm prepared, eager even, for Shining Blade.

Eye of Gruumsh is a race-locked PrC that I've been looking forward to for a while (I think due to Viscount mentioning it before becoming chair, actually), though like Spinemeld Warrior, it's full BAB. Kinslayer (Drow, full BAB) and Scar Enforcer (Half-Elf, medium BAB, half-casting) also have some potential.

The thing about Arcane Archer is that Imbue Arrow is so good, and so much better than the other features, that taking levels after 2 instead of doing things that progress casting could be said to be a worse UoSI. Arcane Archer without Imbue Arrow, garbage class though it would be, might actually be a more interesting ingredient.

Blackguard was done in the BG version of the contest before it ported over here, though I doubt that'd be a serious issue. I'd be more interested in Defiant as a 'fallen' PrC though. Similarly, while I think there's some fun to be had with Duelist (though I'd expect a small round with several significantly overlapping entries), but would be more excited by Arcane Duelist, which feels like it's going for a similar general vibe, but would probably see more diverse entries due to how bafflingly designed it is.

For unique casting PrCs, I could see Disciple of Thrymm or Ebonmar Infiltrator.

I agree that arcane archer is just not a good idea, basically for the reasons you lay out. I can say that I'd sit out if we removed imbue arrow, though, since that's just far too dull to be worth anyone's time.

Duelist has literally one ability that isn't +numbers (and not exactly good numbers) or a readily available feat. And that one ability, while not super common, also isn't unique. I agree that arcane duelist is much more intriguingly bizarre (and very, very much not good). I'm scared to list blessed of Gruumsh as an alternative; on the one hand, it has abilities, but on the other hand, those abilities suuuuuck (so many unnecessarily daily limitations! WHY?!).

The only thing I like about scar enforcer is the fact that the fluff is basically half-elves whining about how much they suck. (And they do.)

Spinemeld warrior is hilariously bad, but since the entry is SO wide-open, I bet we'd get some weird stuff there, which would be fun.

Both disciple of Thyrm and Scar enforcer are on my cool ingredients shortlist. 100% agreed on those.

I get your points on the DMG classes, though I think Blackguard can be an excellent ingredient - and it having been done on another site at some point doesn't seem like a good enough reason to ban it. Also, finding interesting things to do with Arcane Archer past level 2 seems like a challenge worthy of this competition. As I've said, I also find the idea of "finishing" a book pleasing, though I totally understand if others don't care about that sort of thing.

Disciple of Thrym is nifty. I took a dip in it way back in my very first Iron Chef entry. Used it to qualify for the divine side of ardent dilettante.

In addition to the ones mentioned, darkrunner is an appropriately easy to enter, underwhelming, and generally stinky prestige class.

It's bad stuff. No argument there.

I've got some ideas for shaper of form, so I'm looking forward to that round.

Maybe some weird Eberron thing?

[Thurbane]

For unique casting PrCs, I could see Disciple of Thrymm or Ebonmar Infiltrator poor man's Beguiler.

Fixed that for you.

Actually, re-reading EI, I can see a few things I might be able to exploit...

[H_H_F_F]

Like I said, I think Arcane Archer 10 would be a more interesting challenge if Imbue Arrow weren't just sitting there. As is, though, you're getting three 1/day abilities, two of which amount to worse versions of the same 2nd level spell from common entry classes (and worse in a specific way that makes them incompatible with Imbue Arrow), one of which is in direct competition with Imbue Arrow that it's clearly losing, and then a flat enhancement bonus, and Arrow of Death. Those abilities aren't uninteresting, but each is pretty much just objectively worse than a single spell slot per day with a good or interesting spell for Imbue Arrow in it, even by the metric of Use of Secret Ingredient.

Oh man, I misremembered arcane archer's /day limits. For some reason I had it in my head that they advanced kind of like this ingredient (once/day/special arrow).

I submit to the wisdom of the forum on this subject.

[The Viscount]

Always glad to see people discuss possible ingredients. Many of the ones mentioned are already on my list of potential SIs.

Are people that jazzed for Ebonmar Infiltrator? It strikes me as fairly competent, if not incredibly exciting.

My 2 cents on Arcane Archer is that while its abilities are bad, imbue arrow gives just enough of an interesting feature that there's material to work with.

How about some speculation about the next ingredient while we wait?

I think we didn't have a racial prerequisite in a while. Might be time for one again.

Also a truly awful ingredient I would dread:
Warchief from miniatures handbook might be one of the most horrible classes to optimize given how little class features it has.

I don't know what you're talking about, Warchief is dope.

In addition to the ones mentioned, darkrunner is an appropriately easy to enter, underwhelming, and generally stinky prestige class.

I completely agree that Darkrunner would make the perfect Iron Chef ingredient. It was round 42.


I've settled on what will likely be the next ingredient. It has yet to be mentioned in the thread.

[WhamBamSam]

I'm scared to list blessed of Gruumsh as an alternative; on the one hand, it has abilities, but on the other hand, those abilities suuuuuck (so many unnecessarily daily limitations! WHY?!).

Yeah. The daily (weekly for the capstone) use limits are brutal. I definitely would rather *ahem* see, Eye of Gruumsh over Blessed of Gruumsh. I also suspect that if we got either, someone would want to use both, since they have overlapping flavor and prereqs, but amusingly might not be able to without fully blinding themselves, unless the same eye-removing ritual counted for both or they got an extra eye from somewhere.

My 2 cents on Arcane Archer is that while its abilities are bad, imbue arrow gives just enough of an interesting feature that there's material to work with.

The problem is that it's too interesting a feature. Once I have two levels of Arcane Archer, if I take two more levels in it, the class gives me the ability to use a crappy version of Brilliant Energy Arrow that has action weirdness keeping me from using it in conjunction with Imbue Arrow 1/day and an additional +1 enhancement to my arrows. If I take two levels of any spellcasting class, I gain a spell level, which probably contains something that Imbue Arrow increases the value of by considerably more. Similarly, while I *could* try to optimize Hail of Arrows to the point where it would outdamage, say, Imbued Arrow Cone of Cold, but that's a big ask, and I could instead just get one or more extra uses of Cone of Cold per day along with the other things that come with 6 levels of casting. In basically every case, I'm getting more value added from the SI by not taking more of the SI.

I've settled on what will likely be the next ingredient. It has yet to be mentioned in the thread.

Might be enough time has passed since the round it was scrapped as SI to revisit Dungeon Delver. Or maybe Rage Mage or Skylord as a gishy half-caster? Vassal of Bahamut is another unique casting PrC. Been a while since we really had a Roguish PrC, so maybe Ninja of the Crescent Moon or Bayushi Deceiver? Probably not Beast Heart Adept right after another class that gives a menu of options to choose from.

[daremetoidareyo]

If we’re talking about racial classes, How about some lunkers from serpent kingdoms?

[The Viscount]

I'm hesitant to use Dungeon Delver. The entry prerequisites are absolutely punishing, and I try to use ingredients with more than one way in to encourage people to use varied classes.

If we’re talking about racial classes, How about some lunkers from serpent kingdoms?

All the racially restricted classes I see in serpent kingdoms are restricted to races with punishing ECL adjustments. At least one of the non-restricted ones might make an appearance. though.

[Zaq]

I don't particularly want a 3.0 class right now (at least not any of the stinkers I'm thinking of), but this discussion got me looking at a bunch of unupdated 3.0 PrCs (as we've had some memorable discussions of in the past) and, well, I'm sure it's not a surprise how bad they are. What got me this time, though, is how completely alien the design philosophy feels. I get that the game was relatively young and they didn't have the modern sense of balance we associate with the later stuff, but there's just an utter lack of cohesion, let alone a progression of proper level-appropriate abilities.

With a lot of bad modern classes, I can see what they were going for. Thunder guide is an absolute trash heap of a class, but the abilities all share some thematic similarities and they all make sense. They're weak as hell, but there's coherence to it, even if the appropriate use of the class is to scrap it for parts and give out its abilities as nifty flavor ribbons as rewards for good RP. But for an awful lot of 3.0 classes, I can't even say that much for them.

Anyone else feel like they're just really looking at another world when trying to fathom the design intent behind 3.0 stuff? It's not even the quality so much as just the lack of cohesion that's getting me, at least this time around.

[The Viscount]

I agree. One thing about the design philosophy, especially for divine casters, is that prereqs are often so prohibitive it seems like you have to plan your entire character from creation towards entering the class. There aren't that many 3.0 classes on my list currently.

[Zaq]

I think my absolute favorite example of the baffling design philosophy is master samurai, from Sword and Fist. Which was clearly designed by two different people.

• Five prereq feats, cool cool cool
• First level: Bonus feat, and a +2 bonus to Tumble, which you can't use while armored unless you're a dwarf. And the class makes you proficient with armor. Hope you're a dwarf!
• Second: A really, really weird bonus if you, um, delay? I guess? Also 5-ft after a Cleave, that's kind of cool.
• Third: Better than the Mobility feat? I guess I'll take it.
• Fourth: RAI? This is like + 0.5×STR, woo. RAW? Pretty nice bonus since it doesn't say you don't get the normal 1.5×STR as well.
• Fifth-tenth: Sure, let's just bounce back and forth between two really bad and uninspiring class features (with no particular synergy with anything that came before) and s-l-o-w-l-y grant uses per day?

How... how do you even explain that?

[WhamBamSam]

I'm hesitant to use Dungeon Delver. The entry prerequisites are absolutely punishing, and I try to use ingredients with more than one way in to encourage people to use varied classes.

Because of the Trapfinding req, or the need to get Disable Device/Open Lock as a class skill? I'd say both have more varied accessibility than one might think.

I think my absolute favorite example of the baffling design philosophy is master samurai, from Sword and Fist. Which was clearly designed by two different people.

...

How... how do you even explain that?

I think they assumed that you 1) were a single-classed fighter with nothing better to do with all your feats than qualify for crappy prestige classes and 2) would of course be switching between ranged and melee combat and from horseback to on foot regularly.

EDIT: As for the shift after 4th level, I have no idea. Maybe they just hit a deadline.

It is one of my perennial frustrations that there isn't really a reasonable class with Supreme Cleave. They're all either gated behind a zillion taxes or have some other ludicrous aspect that similarly tries to engulf the entire build.

[The Viscount]

Because of the Trapfinding req, or the need to get Disable Device/Open Lock as a class skill? I'd say both have more varied accessibility than one might think.

Those in combination with the immense number of skill points. Like with Magelord, I don't see it making a good ingredient, but I'm not a tyrant. If the people demand it I'm willing to heed the public.

[NotInventedHere]

My personal favourite of the Sword & Fist ones is the part where they thought it was vitally important to put in the prerequisites of the Lasher - a prestige class which requires Weapon Focus (Whip), whose abilities revolve entirely, 100% around the use of the whip or whip dagger, which has a line saying 'when using a whip or whip dagger' in every one of its abilities and even its bonus feats just so you don't try to do anything even slightly out of the box - that in order to take levels in the class, you need to own a whip. Like. That somehow, if they didn't remind you, you might forget. To spend one, single gp on buying yourself a whip, for your focused whip-wielding character.

Oh, they also note, as an aside, that a really wealthy Lasher might own a Mighty whip and a Mighty whip-dagger. Such extravagance, for a 6th level character to splash out on both a 200gp item and a 225gp item. Much bling. Wow.

[WhamBamSam]

Those in combination with the immense number of skill points. Like with Magelord, I don't see it making a good ingredient, but I'm not a tyrant. If the people demand it I'm willing to heed the public.

In fact there was a strong enough demand that it *not* be the SI back in round LXXXII that the round ended up being Elocater instead. But now it's the Occluded SI as it were, and I, at least, have warmed to it a bit.

[Gruftzwerg]

I would like to ask if a specific item could also become a SI?
A few days ago I felt the need to put Ring of Telekinesis on my to-do list for 3.5 stuff. I really want to make a build that relies on this item. And having a challenge would mean I would have the luck to see a bunch of builds xD
Sorry for the maybe selfish question here.

[Venger]

I completely agree that Darkrunner would make the perfect Iron Chef ingredient. It was round 42.

How foolish of me. I don't know how I could've forgotten since it was only 8 years ago.

Please no to dungeon delver. It's a boring class that doesn't do anything, requires like 80 skill points and only allows two possible methods of entry.

As to the whole deal with 3.0 design "philosophy," (assuming the designers had one for the sake of argument,) after moving from 2e to 3e they massively overvalued how useful multiclassing was and often used it as a synonym for powergaming. They thought a wizard10/fighter10 was equivalent to a wizard20, and designed a lot of terrible 3.0 prcs around these principles. Why would you want to be a straight wizard when you could burn a bunch of levels in rogue and be a magelord or whatever.

Also with 3.0 classes it's very clear at times that the class exists to represent one specific npc in one of the designers' home games. This was textually revealed at least once, I believe in eye of xanathar a few rounds ago, so it's not that the designer thinks that you want to be a [dwarf] who worships [chaos] is really good at [lockpicking] and drives a [forklift], but that he wanted to canonize the special abilities of one of his random throwaway bad guys from a campaign he ran.

3.0 classes will oftimes have crappy 1/day slas instead of class features too, which I do not like.

For master samurai, it was probably supposed to be a 5 lvl prc then at some point the editor said "we need one more 10 lvl prc" and they just did this to pad instead of coming up with something interesting.

Can't wait to see what the next ingredient is.

[Korahir]

How foolish of me. I don't know how I could've forgotten since it was only 8 years ago.

Please no to dungeon delver. It's a boring class that doesn't do anything, requires like 80 skill points and only allows two possible methods of entry.

As to the whole deal with 3.0 design "philosophy," (assuming the designers had one for the sake of argument,) after moving from 2e to 3e they massively overvalued how useful multiclassing was and often used it as a synonym for powergaming. They thought a wizard10/fighter10 was equivalent to a wizard20, and designed a lot of terrible 3.0 prcs around these principles. Why would you want to be a straight wizard when you could burn a bunch of levels in rogue and be a magelord or whatever.

Also with 3.0 classes it's very clear at times that the class exists to represent one specific npc in one of the designers' home games. This was textually revealed at least once, I believe in eye of xanathar a few rounds ago, so it's not that the designer thinks that you want to be a [dwarf] who worships [chaos] is really good at [lockpicking] and drives a [forklift], but that he wanted to canonize the special abilities of one of his random throwaway bad guys from a campaign he ran.

3.0 classes will oftimes have crappy 1/day slas instead of class features too, which I do not like.

For master samurai, it was probably supposed to be a 5 lvl prc then at some point the editor said "we need one more 10 lvl prc" and they just did this to pad instead of coming up with something interesting.

Can't wait to see what the next ingredient is.

If I may ask: when looking over some of the old contests, I seem to always find an entry of yours, Venger. Did you in fact participate in every IC ever? Even participating in close to 80% or 90% of them seeams to me an incredible accomplishment.