Iron Chef Optimization Challenge E6 Appetizer: Round XXXIV

[Zaq]

Welcome back to the Iron Chef Optimization Challenge E6 Appetizer Edition! Time to get a little more conceptual, so get ready.

The form of this challenge is to take a particular D&D 3.5 game element (our "secret ingredient," or SI) and turn it into a functional E6 build, which must feature the SI as heavily as possible. (The only hard rule about this is that you must take at least one level—where applicable—in the SI, though judges are encouraged to look favorably on builds that take as many levels as possible in said SI or that otherwise use it as heavily as possible.) Your final build submission should consist of your 6 regular levels and your first 10 epic bonus feats, though providing a snapshot at earlier points through the progression is heartily encouraged. Entries are to be PM'd to the Chair (that would be me!), and they will be posted anonymously; our volunteer judges will then grade each build on a 1-5 point scale in four categories: Originality, Power, Elegance, and Use of the Secret Ingredient. The builds with the highest three scores will be awarded medals, with the Honorable Mention award going to the non-medaling build that the Chair likes best and/or that receives the most votes for HM in this thread. (HM may not always be awarded, particularly if the number of builds is very small.) And then we all have cake!*

*Note: You must provide your own cake.

This is basically like the regular Iron Chef, and let's be brutally honest with ourselves here: this isn't a gargantuan community, and we basically all know what we're talking about at this point. Make the builds, send 'em in, post some scores, and have fun. If you've got questions, lemme know. Still, let's lay out a few rules!

• Cooking Time: Builds must be submitted via PM to the Chair by 4:59 PM GMT - 9 on Monday, Sep 13, 2021 (1:59 AM GMT on Tuesday, Sep 14). The reveal shall be on the first evening the Chair has free following the cooking deadline, which is hoped to be that evening or the immediately subsequent one—I'll do my best, anyway. Judging is then encouraged to go as quickly as possible; if multiple judges volunteer, we'll set about a two-week window, but if we only get one judge, we'll try to wrap up as soon as possible after that judge presents scores. (I will admit that the deadline time may not be an exact science, but don't hide from me and we'll probably be cool.)
• Kitchen: Let's break this one down a bit.
  
  
  Spoiler: Let's talk about sources

  Show

  
  

  • ALLOWED: Almost all D&D 3.5 material published by WotC: Core, Completes, monster books, Races Of books, alternate power source books (Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic, etc.), Spell Compendium, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, Eberron material, Forgotten Realms material, and other WotC-published 3.5 material. (This list is NOT exhaustive and there are many other legal books that I did not mention by name!)
  • ALLOWED: Material from the 3.5 archives of the Wizards of the Coast website (including, but not limited to, the Mind's Eye articles). If you use it, link it.
  • ALLOWED: Official errata from WotC. If you're relying on this in a material fashion, it's a good idea to link it and to discuss it.
  • NOT ALLOWED: Unofficial errata, including "class fixes" (regardless of the source, including from the original author if not published in a WotC book) or fan-created content.
  • ALLOWED: Unupdated WotC-published 3.0 material (e.g., Sword and Fist, Masters of the Wild, etc.) except for 3.0 psionics. No 3.0 psionics allowed. If you are using 3.0 material, use the general-purpose skill updates (Wilderness Lore becomes Survival, Innuendo becomes Bluff, etc.) and the general-purpose rules updates (spells with a casting time of "1 action" become "1 standard action," etc.) when appropriate.
  • NOT ALLOWED: 3.0 material for which a direct 3.5 update exists. Use the updated material instead.
  • ALLOWED: Dragon Compendium and its errata.
  • NOT ALLOWED: Content from Dragon Magazine and/or Dungeon Magazine unless said content appears in an otherwise allowed source.
  • ALLOWED: Oriental Adventures, including the 3.5 update to Oriental Adventures from Dragon Magazine #318. This is a specific exception to the "no Dragon" rule!
  • NOT ALLOWED: Pathfinder content, regardless of whether it is "D&D 3.5 OGL" or not. If it didn't come from WotC, we don't want it.
  • ALLOWED: From Unearthed Arcana: racial paragon classes, alternate class features/variant classes, spelltouched feats, and variant races. (Traits and flaws are technically legal, but traits warrant a -0.5 point penalty in Elegance, and flaws warrant a -1 penalty in Elegance.)
  • NOT ALLOWED: Other Unearthed Arcana content, including (but not limited to) bloodlines, LA buyoff, fractional BAB/saves, alternate casting systems, alternate skill systems, item familiars, prestigious character classes, generic classes, gestalt, etc. When you're wondering if UA content is allowed, err on the side of caution and don't mess around with it.
  • NOT ALLOWED: Leadership, regardless of source. Game elements functionally equivalent to Leadership (including, but not limited to, Dragon Cohort, Undead Leadership, and Thrallherd) are similarly banned. (Familiars, Improved Familiar, animal companions, Wild Cohort, psicrystals, elemental envoys, and similar game elements are allowed, and they are not considered to be "Leadership." If the difference isn't obvious, feel free to contact the Chair with specific questions.)
  • NOT ALLOWED: Third-party content, homebrew, or other non-WotC content.
  • NOT ALLOWED: Epic feats from the Epic Level Handbook. Just because you're "epic" in E6 after 6th level doesn't mean that you're that kind of epic.
  • NOT ALLOWED: Any race or template with a level adjustment other than +0. (Or any other source of LA other than a race or template, if any such things exist.) However, as a specific exception for round 26, see below.
  • NOT ALLOWED: For our judges: penalizing solely based on legal sources used, regardless of whether those sources are plentiful, sparse, common, obscure, or something in between. If the material is legal, then it doesn't matter how many or how few books it came out of.
  • ALLOWED: Also for our judges: penalizing for using a source (other than material in Core; don't be vindictive about genuinely obvious stuff) that isn't listed in the build writeup. The chef may choose to present the sources in-line with the text, in a consolidated source list, or somewhere else, but if the source is listed (and is otherwise legal), it counts. If the source is not listed, you may choose to penalize for that.

  
  If you have questions about anything in this section (or hell, in this ruleset), feel free to ask the Chair.
  
• Character Creation: 32 point buy is assumed. For the purposes of this contest, Level Adjustment greater than +0 is banned. (This may be revised at a later point, but I don't feel that the E6 LA rules are conducive to fun in the context of this contest.) No more than two entries per chef per contest, please; if you submit two builds and somehow are so overcome with inspiration for a third that you can't help yourself, PM me and tell me which two you care about the most.
• Highlighted because of past issues: It is not enough for your build to end with a level adjustment of +0. You must be +0 from start to finish. No using ANY build elements with a level adjustment above +0, even if they then get mitigated or reduced somehow. However, note that a special exception is in place for round 26...
• Speculation: Please do not post any form of speculation before the reveal. Just don't do it, guys. It's not cool. This means NOT posting any of the following or anything substantially similar: what you think is going to be common, significant elements of your planned build or of other potential builds, or anything else that could directly influence someone else's build choices for good or for ill. (It's acceptable to ask for rules clarifications as appropriate, but try to avoid tipping your hand too much.) Speculation is bad because it can discourage people from posting builds and can also "taint the judging pool" when it comes to Originality, so please just try to be aware of how other people might react to your speculation.
• E6: Here's how E6 works for the purposes of this contest. Build your character normally for the first six levels. After you reach level 6, you stop gaining levels and start gaining bonus feats every time you would gain 5,000 XP. Since we aren't actually tracking XP, you'll basically list your first ten epic bonus feats in the order that you take them, and we think of them as being kind of like levels. We will not use the LA-equals-reduced-point-buy rules, instead preferring to just ban races with LA, at least for now. We will not use the "capstone feats"; all feats that you take must be normal legal 3.5 feats, not homebrew E6 ones. You may not use the Epic feats from the Epic Level Handbook, though if for some reason there are non-Epic feats from the ELH that you qualify for, you may take those. (I don't think there are any, but I'm sure someone will prove me wrong.) It is up to the discretion of each judge whether this is a "hard E6" (magic above 3rd level spells is simply beyond mortal reach, items that have a listed CL above 6th are just plain not available, etc.) or a "soft E6" (if you can somehow get the magic on your character, it's yours, regardless of level), though I honestly don't expect it to come up. Don't go crazy with making assumptions about items and we probably won't have to find out.
• Presentation: Please use the table found below in the spoiler. List your epic bonus feats (in clear order) after the table. If you find a clever way of formatting that that isn't annoying and that doesn't break anything, have fun; if it's portable, I may steal it for the next round. When sending your build or any disputes to the Chair, clearly include your build's name in the subject of the PM, and please present your build exactly as you want the Chair to copy and paste it into the thread.
  If you're using a picture, cite the source and follow any relevant citation rules. Because we have had issues with this in the past, when listing your skills, please make it very clear how many ranks you have at each level. There are multiple ways to do this and we do not wish to cramp anyone's individual style by dictating exactly how this must look, but make sure that somewhere in your entry there's an explanation of how many actual skill ranks you have. It's still fine to list total skill bonuses, if that's your style, but don't only list bonuses; make sure that there is a clear listing somewhere of your ranks alone.
  Spoiler

  Show

  Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
  1st	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
  2nd	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
  3rd	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
  4th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
  5th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
  6th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities

  Code for the table:

  Spoiler

  Show

  [TABLE="class: head alt1 alt2"]
  [TR]
  [TH][B]Level[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Class[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Base Attack Bonus[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Fort Save[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Ref Save[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Will Save[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Skills[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Feats[/B][/TH]
  [TH][B]Class Features[/B][/TH]
  [/TR]
  [TR]
  [TD]1st[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Level[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]Skills[/TD]
  [TD]Feats[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Abilities[/TD]
  [/TR]
  [TR]
  [TD]2nd[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Level[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]Skills[/TD]
  [TD]Feats[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Abilities[/TD]
  [/TR]
  [TR]
  [TD]3rd[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Level[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]Skills[/TD]
  [TD]Feats[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Abilities[/TD]
  [/TR]
  [TR]
  [TD]4th[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Level[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]Skills[/TD]
  [TD]Feats[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Abilities[/TD]
  [/TR]
  [TR]
  [TD]5th[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Level[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]Skills[/TD]
  [TD]Feats[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Abilities[/TD]
  [/TR]
  [TR]
  [TD]6th[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Level[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]+x[/TD]
  [TD]Skills[/TD]
  [TD]Feats[/TD]
  [TD]New Class Abilities[/TD]
  [/TR]
  [/TABLE]
• Contest houserules: Nearly the same as the main contest's rules here: all creatures are proficient with natural weapons they have or may acquire, bonus feats that are explicitly granted without meeting prereqs are usable even without those prereqs, and feats that affect which skills are class skills for you and/or how you spend your skill points (Able Learner, Martial Study, Truename Training, Apprentice, etc.) apply immediately at the level at which you take them (even though you normally spend skill points before taking a feat). When taking Open Minded as an epic feat, any skill that has ever been a class skill for you (including through your class, your race, your feats, or similar game elements, though please don't muck around with retroactively making something stop being a class skill for some stupid reason) is a class skill when determining how the 5 granted skill points may be spent. All usual rules about HD-related skill caps apply. When taking Open Minded as a non-epic feat, treat it as normal; the class skills of the class you took at the level you gained Open Minded (plus race, feats, etc.) are your class skills for those skill points, similar to if Open Minded's skill points came straight from your class.
• Judging guidelines: The minimum score in a category is 1, and the maximum is 5 (except in high-Originality rounds, wherein the maximum in Originality is 10). Judges are expected to be fair, consistent, and open-minded, and they are expected to make a good-faith effort to engage with any reasonable disputes that arise, especially when RAW is in question. That said, contestants are asked to not dispute more than necessary; let's do everything in good faith and really only dispute when a judge is being inconsistent, being unfair, or is otherwise grossly misinterpreting a build.
  Judges may not penalize Originality solely because a build is a tribute or homage to an existing creative work (in or out of D&D canon; note that this is not the same thing as penalizing Originality for using well-known optimization tactics), nor may judges penalize based solely on sources used (whether those sources are plentiful, sparse, common, obscure, or something in between, you should judge the build elements and how they work together rather than what book or what books they came out of, as long as those books are legal for this contest and are cited in the entry).
  As with the main contest, we will follow the "One Mistake, One Penalty" guideline, and it is very important that the judges adhere to it. I'm going to directly copy and paste this from the main thread, and hopefully the original author won't mind too much:
  
  Spoiler

  Show

  Judges are only allowed to penalise once for a given mistake. If someone messes up their skills and doesn't qualify for a PrC, ding them as hard as you like. Once. In one category. You don't then get to declare that because they didn't qualify for that PrC, they don't get those levels, and thus don't qualify for anything else. If Ranger is a common ingredient, ding them for Originality. Once. Don't also take off points for Two-Weapon-Fighting being a common ingredient.
  
  Non-exhaustive list of examples:
  
  Skills

  Allowed:
  

  • Giving a penalty for miscalculating the number of skill points gained
  • Giving a penalty for not having enough ranks to meet a prerequisite
  • Increasing the harshness of a skill miscalculation penalty if it affects critical skills including prereqs

  
  
  Not allowed:
  

  • Giving separate penalties for miscalculating skill points and for non-qualification where the non-qualification is solely caused by the miscalculation

  
  Prereqs

  Allowed:
  

  • Giving a penalty for not meeting prereqs
  • Scaling the penalty depending on how important the item that the build failed to qualify for is
  • Giving minimum score in UotSI for not qualifying for the SI
  • Not giving credit for (note: not the same as penalising for) tactics using feats or classes other than the SI that were not qualified for (but see below)

  
  
  Not Allowed:
  

  • "Cascading" failures to qualify - declaring that because a build doesn't qualify for a feat, for example, it also doesn't qualify for anything using that feat as a prereq
  • Treating a build as having fewer levels than it does because of FtQ for classes

  
  Other general things that are no longer allowed:
  

  • Penalising because someone has chosen to build a tribute to an existing creative work
  • Deciding that a backstory has not met a fluff prerequisite well enough, or because its method of meeting it is "unrealistic". You may penalise if a fluff prereq is not addressed at all, but not for how well it is addressed.

  
  
  Note that these are protections, not licenses. Deliberately taking a feat that you know you don't qualify for hoping to just suck up the judging penalty for a feat that you couldn't normally take is not okay, and may lead to your build being disqualified.
• Dispute guidelines (NEW, PLEASE PAY ATTENTION): Disputing is long, annoying, and emotional. It's also sometimes necessary, but it's often not actually something that makes everyone have more fun. Let's go into a little more detail here.
  
  Spoiler

  Show

  • Do NOT dispute to make an argument that goes fundamentally beyond what's in your write-up. It is the responsibility of the chef to make sure that the write-up is complete and contains their best arguments for what the build does and why it's awesome. If you didn't explain your tactics well or didn't spell out something that a judge misses, just do better next time. Don't drag it out after the fact.
  • Do NOT dispute just to be clever or witty or cheeky. Please. We're all adults here and so I assume you know what that means. Don't treat the build as a setup and your oh-so-clever dispute as the punchline. It's not as funny as it is in your head. Trust me. I've been down that road.
  • Do NOT dispute just to say "oh yeah, my bad, I missed that" or some equivalent. If you're not directly challenging the judge, save the commentary until after the reveal. I 100% get that the urge to respond to commentary is very strong, but type it out and sit on it for a while if you've gotta.
  • Do NOT dispute just to try to wheedle more points out of the judge. Note that this is different from saying that the judge is being truly unfair or is being truly wrong by black-and-white RAW. A dispute is NOT the place to try to scrape together a few last quarter-points. If you didn't put it in your write-up, that's on you. This also means that a dispute is really not the place to have long back-and-forth tit-for-tat arguments. That's a surefire way to get people grumpy. It's a contest on a D&D board, guys, not the results of a federal election.
  • Do NOT dispute to tear down another build. That's just plain not cool. If you entered the contest, it's not on you to judge the other builds.
  • DO dispute if the judge is being blatantly biased by giving you a substantially different ruling on a build element compared to another chef who used the same build element in nearly the same way. (Note that position in a build may affect if you're using that element in "nearly the same way" or not.) Please reserve this for the truly blatant examples. I mean it. Remember, it's the contestant's responsibility to make their best argument in the original write-up.
  • DO dispute if the judge is actively going against the contest rules. Note that there are relatively few ways in which a judge can go against contest rules (we intentionally give very wide discretion to our judges), but examples include truly breaking One Mistake One Penalty, penalizing just because of number of sources of (legal) material, and so on.
  • DO dispute if the judge is clearly ignoring unambiguous RAW. Note that this is for unambiguous RAW; if the RAW is shady and you're making an argument that isn't completely clear and that it wouldn't be strange for a GM to frown on, the judge has every right to frown on it as well. (You generally know when you're indulging in shady RAW. Be mature about this.) But if the judge is saying you didn't hit a prereq that you clearly did hit (and included in your write-up!), saying you can't do something that the plain text of the ability says you can do, or anything like that, by all means, call 'em out.
  • Do NOT dispute if the judge doesn't agree with your interpretation of ambiguous RAW. Yes, this is a retread of the previous bullet point; this is that important. If you're relying on ambiguous RAW, it's on you to lay out clearly why it should work the way you want it to work. Again, be mature and act in good faith: you really know when you're pushing things like this. If they don't like it, they don't like it. Move on.

  
  
  Disputing is a privilege, not a right. In the Chair's sole discretion, disputes that do not meet these guidelines and/or that do not seem to be offered in good faith may be suppressed. The Chair reserves the right to choose to post all, some, or none of a dispute if appropriate.
  
  
• Other bits and bobs: If there's something major and relevant I haven't mentioned, assume that the way I handle it will probably be the same as the main contest unless stated otherwise or unless doing so would be an obviously absurd result. If you've got questions, I'll give you answers.

This round's secret ingredient:
FLIGHT!

Your character must be able to fly in some capacity. Natively, through spells/similar, through a reliable flying mount, etc.; it's all good, as long as you're taking to the skies. Your UoSI will be based on how well you use your flight and how cool it is overall!

Allez Optimizer!

The Builds:

Name	Alignment / Race	Class Levels	Chef	loky1109	H_H_F_F	Judge 3	Judge 4	Total	Place
Bash Jordon	LN Raptoran	Fighter 2 / Sohei 2 / Monk 2	daremetoidareyo	10	9.9			19.9	5th
Graazt Du'kal	CE Silverbrow Human	Scout 4 / Ranger 2	RaiKirah	12.75	13.75			26.5	3rd
Hildegard	CG Dragonborn	Cleric 1 / Warlock 5	RaiKirah	12.5	10.4			22.9	4th
Mooncasai Munkedu	NG Anthropomorphic Monkey	Ranger 5 / Nature's Warrior 1	ciopo	18	13.1			31.1	2nd
Pippin	CG Raptoran	Ranger 3 / Cleric 1 / Ardent 1 / Horizon Walker 1	MinimanMidget	18.5	13.95			32.45	1st

Spoiler: Contest History

Show

Round 4: Knight
Round 5: Ninja
Round 6: Racial Paragon Classes
Round 7: Hexblade
Round 8: Shugenja
Round 9: Swashbuckler
Round 10: Crusader
Round 11: Soulknife
Round 12: Factotum
Round 13: Prestige Classes
Round 14: Mountebank
Round 15: Sorcerer
Round 16: Dragon Shaman
Round 17: Lurk
Round 18: Paladin
Round 19: Scout
Round 20: Incarnate
Round 21: Shadowcaster
Round 22: Dragonmarks
Round 23: Fighter
Round 24: Pets
Round 25: Warlock
Round 26: Monsters
Round 27: Ardent (exhibition round)
Round 28: Rogue
Round 29: Signature Spells
Round 30: Any Prior Ingredient
Round 31: Ranger
Round 32: Tanking
Round 33: Psychic Warrior

Spoiler: Way Old Stuff (2012 and earlier; Amechra's run as Chair)

Show

Round 1: Divine Mind
Round 2: Monk
Round 3: Marshal

[Zaq]

Here's a few gentle recommendations that are intended to improve scores and make things easier for the judges. As always, THE RECOMMENDATIONS IN THIS POST ARE NOT RULES. Judges and contestants are free to honor them or ignore them; my intent here is only to help, and NONE of what I'm saying here is required. (That said, did you see the new dispute guidelines? Those ARE rules, so please go read them. And I'm even going to be better about enforcing them this time.)

Recommendations:

• Double-check ALL of your prereqs. Every. Single. One. Feats, PrCs, whatever. You might even go so far as to spell out when you meet each one, but again, that's not a requirement. But one of the single biggest causes of point loss is failure to meet prereqs.
  
• Tell the judges what's cool about your build! You spent hours or days on this (y'know, probably) and know it inside and out, but the judges are getting a whole bunch of these dishes all at once and don't know the build history of each one. You're significantly more likely to score well if you spell out exactly what makes you awesome than if you try to just let it stand on its own.
  
• Make it easy to read! Skill tables are awful, though they're an incredibly necessary evil. Full Monster Manual-style statblocks are occasionally useful but are also insanely dense if not formatted well. Judges are very likely to miss something if you aren't careful with how you present your info. Remember that judging takes a lot of time, energy, and focus, so don't rely on the judge being willing/able to decode something in order to see what makes you interesting!
  
• Be memorable. Remember that we've all seen these ingredients used at least once before. What makes you different?

As is usually the case when we're not optimizing a specific class, you've got some flexibility here! Maybe you want to focus on getting really easy flight, or maybe you want to focus on getting really cool flight even if it's not always there, or maybe you're just doing something really wacky. In any case, just getting the flight is only the first step: what do you do with it once you're airborne? Why does it matter that you can fly? That's where you'll have the chance to really stand out and shine, so go nuts!

[Kuulvheysoon]

This... is a really wide open topic, and is going to be hugely subjective.

I'm tentatively open to judging?

[jdizzlean]

I have ideas....

[mattie_p]

Team E6, based on demand, I re-did skills for the IC entry spreadsheet.

VERSION 2.0 is here.

Skill table is completely revamped. You simply enter the skill names at the top of the columns. At each level, select the cross class status and the number of skill points applied at that level. It will give you a single column that you can copy and paste back into the leveling table. It will automatically ignore skills without ranks. It will "remember" ranks assigned previously and keep printing them. But you only need to enter a "Y" or "y" at each level for cc status, and then the number of points assigned at that level. Does the rest for you.

Good luck, Appetizer Edition Cooks.

[jdizzlean]

it's a good thing the deadline is so far off, in my quest to do a single build, i have of course gone down another 50 rabbit holes...

[MinimanMidget]

it's a good thing the deadline is so far off, in my quest to do a single build, i have of course gone down another 50 rabbit holes...

Yeah, I know what I'm building, but I've come up with about 10 different ways to do it.

[Zaq]

I know better than to compete with the 20th level comp, so I decided to make the deadline (about) a week after the other IC contest is due.

[jdizzlean]

Yeah, I know what I'm building, but I've come up with about 10 different ways to do it.

I will probably do a second one now, and hope I can finish in time

[Zaq]

We've got about a week to go! How's it coming along?

[daremetoidareyo]

4 stubs in and I dislike most of them

[Kuulvheysoon]

I think that I will judge, but I might not post my criteria beforehand. I'll be sure to include it in my judging, though.

This is a ridiculously subjective ingredient (as I mentioned before), so I have no idea who I'll score that, lol.

[jdizzlean]

I have one done minus fluff. can I request a week to ten days extension to finish the second?

[Zaq]

Yeah, I think that can be arranged. I'll update the main post.

[Zaq]

Got another weekend before the deadline! At least for those who work a traditional work week. How's the progress, team?

[MinimanMidget]

There's been some stuff going on, and this fell by the wayside for me - I'll get something submitted, though.

[Quentinas]

I have an idea but not so much energy in this period i have to write but i can still submit if needed

[Zaq]

Wait, no one said there was gonna be math…

Bash Jordon

LN Raptoran Fighter 2/ sohei 2/ monk 2

"I cast sugliin!"

Take some giant advanced caribou antlers,
affix them to a stick,
dip the whole thing in molten magical gold,
Do 4d8+str Damage with a melee attack
Decisive strike for 8d8+2x Str
Ki frenzy + pole fighter to double your attacks by treating sugliin as a monk weapon
Pushback if you can or want to
Short haft allows you to strike adjacently

Or
Dive charge for 8d8+2x Str

Or
Battle jump + sudden leap for 8d8+2xStr
Add decisive strike for 12d8 +3x Str (multiplying rules)


Or
greater flyby attack for 4d8 against 2 persons,
3 persons during a ki frenzy

Or
Blink shirt+ sun school for 4d8+Str



At level 1 you’re doing 4d8+3. Those basement rats gonna die.

At level 3, you’re doing 8d8+6, those orcs gonna die.

Abilities	Initial	Level 4
Str	17	18
Dex	14
Con	14
Int	9
Wis	14
Cha	8

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Raptoran Fighter	1	2	0	0	Jump 4	exotic weapon proficiency (heavy (MoF 179) sugliin (FB 76)), monkey grip (CW 103)	Encumbered flight, bonus feat
2nd	sohei (OA 27)	1	4	0	2	Craft: weapon smithing 1, Jump 4	Weapon focus (Heavy sugliin)	ki frenzy, weapon focus
3rd	Decisive strike (PHB2 51) Overwhelming attack (UA 52) Monk	1	6	2	4	craft 1, Jump 6, tumble 1	Power Attack, Improved unarmed strike, polefighter (Dragon Comp 105)	Decisive strike, unarmed attack, wis to AC
4th	Overwhelming attack monk	2	7	3	5	craft 1, Jump 7, tumble 3	Improved Bullrush	bonus feat, evasion
5th	Fighter 2	3	8	3	5	Jump 8	Short Haft (PHB2 82)	bonus feat
6th	Sohei 2	4	9	3	6	craft 2, Jump 8, tumble 3	extra rage (CW 98)

Epic Feats
Feat 1	flyby attack (MMV 204)
Feat 2	Great Flyby attack (Savage species 35)
Feat 3	Pushback (Miniatures handbook 27)
Feat 4	Cobalt Charge (MoI 35)
Feat 5	Sun School (CW 112)
Feat 6	shape soulmeld (blink shirt) (MoI 40, 68)
Feat 7	Martial Study (Sudden Leap) (ToB 31, 89)
Feat 8	Battle jump (Unapproachable East 42)
Feat 9	Evasive reflexes (ToB 30)
Feat 10	Vault (Dragon Compendium 109)

Spoiler

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Dive attack
A raptoran with flight can make a dive attack. A dive attack works like a charge, but the raptoran must move a minimum of 30 feet and descend at least 10 feet. A raptoran can make a dive attack only when wielding a piercing weapon; if the attack hits, it deals double damage.

Decisive strike
As a full-round action, make one attack with an unarmed strike or a special monk weapon, using your highest base attack bonus but taking a -2 penalty on this attack roll. If the attack hits, it deals double damage (as does any other attack you make before the start of your next turn). If you use this strike to deliver a stunning attack, increase the save DC to resist the stun by 2. This is an extraordinary ability.

Ki Frenzy
Starting at 1st level, a sohei gains the ability to focus her ki power into a frenzy of berserk energy. In this frenzied state, she temporarily gains +2 to Strength and +2 to Dexterity. Her speed increases by 10 feet, and she can choose to make a flurry of blows with a full attack action in melee, making one extra attack per round while suffering a —2 penalty on every attack.

Greater flyby attack
Using this feat is a full-round action. When flying, you can move up to your fly speed in a straight line and attack a number of opponents equal to your Dexterity bonus. All targets must be within your reach along the line of your movement. Make one attack roll, add the appropriate modifiers, and compare the result to the AC of each opponent you are attacking. If any hits are successful, make one damage roll and add the appropriate modifiers. Each successful hit does the full damage to that creature; do not divide the result of the damage roll among the targets. Targets of your attack do not get attacks of opportunity against you, but other opponents that would be entitled to attacks of opportunity may take them.

Battlejump
You can execute a charge by simply dropping from a height of at least 5 feet above your opponent. For example, a ledge 10 feet above the floor of a cavern would suffice for jumping on a Medium-sized creature, while a ledge 15 feet high is required for a jumping on a Large creature. You can't jump from more than 30 feet above your opponent, nor can you effectively battle jump while under the influence of a fly or levitate spell or effect, as you have to hurl yourself down on your foe. If you hit, you can choose either to deal double damage with a melee weapon or natural attack or to attempt a trip attack.

SUGLIIN - FROSTBURN (3.5)
Exotic Two-Handed Melee Weapon
[Reach]
Cost: 35 gp
Damage (s): 2d6
Damage (m): 2d8
Damage (l): 3d8
Damage (h): 4d8
Critical: x2
Weight: 20 lb
Type: P and S
The infamous sugliin was created by primitive tribes more to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies rather than to be an effective weapon. This massive polearm consists of several sets of sharpened caribou and/or megaloceros antlers affixed to a long wooden shaft. You attack with the sugliin as if it were a massive axe or scythe, slashing and chopping at the targets with great arcs. This weapon is so unwieldy and heavy that making a single attack with it is a full-round action. Sugliins are favored weapons for low-level characters who want to deal huge amounts of damage and lack the skill to make additional attacks; higher-level characters only rarely use sugliins due to their awkwardness. The Sugliin Mastery feat allows a character to make attacks with this massive weapon normally. A sugliin has reach. You can strike opponents 10 feet away with it, but you can’t use it against an adjacent foe.

[Zaq]

He can handstand / when he needs to
And stretch his arms out / just for you

Graazt Du’kal, Stalker in the Night, The Winged Death

Stub: Chaotic Evil Silverbrow Human Scout 4/Ranger 2

Spoiler: Background

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Eodward had been traveling through the Black Forest towards Skyspire Mountains and the Shrine of the Venya therein for nearly a week and was beginning to believe that the forest was haunted in truth and not simply folktale. Over the past few days the young arcanist has felt an oppressive weight of eyes upon him, growing steadily more intense to the point of no longer being able to dismiss it as simple fancy. The moon had set a half hour prior, and the feeling of being watch was so strong the Eodward’s skin was crawling. Spooked, Eodward invoked the power of the Third Layer of the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia and the Venya’s Light eased the waiting darkness. Heart pounding, Eodward’s breath caught as the Light gleamed off a set of eyes alighted in the canopy to the side of the road. Eodward’s breath caught and his face paled as he beheld the twisted form of what could only be the creature known as the Stalker in the Night perched amongst the boughs. A once-human frame was warped into a grotesque mockery, taut skin over bones showing the twisting of an impossibly elongated spine, and leathery membranes connected gaunt flanks to oddly jointed arms. The creature shrieked and leapt forward, membranous wings catching on the air and propelling the Stalker forward as the night came ablaze in fire rippling around the outstretched spear gripped in its hand. Harsh flame and soothing Light clashed as Eodward called the Light of Venya into his hands and cast it at the Stalker, hoping the holy energies would stop the abomination, only to watch as the Light washed harmlessly over it, doing nothing to ward off the creature’s charge. Eodward’s knees gave out and he collapsed to the roadbed feeling his lifeblood soaking the ground beneath him as he watched the Winged Death disappear into the forest’s depths.

As the last of Venya’s Light faded the night closed back in, waiting hungrily for the last small flames to sputter out and leave Eodward’s corpse to be swallowed by the darkness from which the Winged Death had come.

Spoiler: Ability Scores

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Ability	Score
Strength	15
Dexterity	14
Constitution	16
Intelligence	13
Wisdom	8
Charisma	11

Spoiler: Build Progression

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Scout 1	+0	+0	+2	+0	Balance 4, Disable Device 4, Hide 4, Listen 4, Move Silently 4, Search 4, Spot 4, Survival 4, Tumble 4	Abberation Blood (Flexible Limbs) (LoM 178) (Flaw), Darkstalker (LoM 179) Inhuman Reach (LoM 180), Starspawn (LoM 181) (Human)	Skirmish (+1d6), Trapfinding
2nd	Scout 2	+1	+0	+3	+0	Balance 5, Disable Device 5, Hide 5, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Search 5, Spot 5, Survival 5, Tumble 5		Battle Fortitude +1, Uncanny Dodge
3rd	Scout 3	+2	+1	+3	+1	Disable Device 6, Hide 6, Jump 1, Listen 6, Move Silently 6, Search 6, Spot 6, Survival 6, Tumble 6, Balance 5	Flyby Attack (MM5 204)	Fast Movement +10ft, Skirmish (+1d6, +1 AC), Trackless Step
4th	Scout 4	+3	+1	+4	+1	Disable Device 7, Hide 7, Jump 2, Listen 7, Move Silently 7, Search 7, Spot 7, Survival 7, Tumble 7, Balance 5	Combat Expertise (PHB 92) (Bonus)	Bonus Feat (Combat Expertise)
5th	Ranger 1	+4	+3	+6	+1	Hide 8, Jump 3, Listen 8, Move Silently 8, Search 8, Spot 8, Survival 8, Balance 5, Disable Device 7, Tumble 7	Track (PHB 101) (Bonus)	Arcane Hunter ACF (CM 32): Favored Enemy (Arcanists), Track, Celestial Slayer ACF (EoE 20): SR 11 vs Good, +4 Competence Confirm Crit vs. Good
6th	Ranger 2	+5	+4	+7	+1	Hide 9, Jump 5 (2), Listen 9, Move Silently 9, Search 9, Spot 9, Survival 8, Balance 5, Disable Device 7, Tumble 7	Swift Hunter (CS 81), Two Weapon Fighting (PHB 102) (Bonus)	Combat Style, Celestial Slayer: SR 12 vs Good, Favored Enemy (Humanoids, Human)

Epic Feats:

1: Great Flyby Attack (SS 35)

2: Born Flyer (RotW 148)

3: Air Heritage (PH 37)

4: Improved Skirmish (CS 78)

5: Dragonfire Strike (DrM 18)

6: Extended Reach (SS 34)

7: Willing Deformity (HoH 125)

8: Deformity (Tall) (HoH 121)

9: Travel Devotion (CC 62)

10: Travel Devotion (CC 62)

Spoiler: Build Write-up

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Flight is a somewhat odd mechanic to optimize around; there aren’t that many feats supporting it if you’re not a Large Dragon, and most thematic Prestige Classes are out of reach in E6. At its core, what flight gives you is mobility, so I wanted to showcase and support that in this build. Graazt isn’t the fastest character out there, but his flight allows him to affect an enormous amount of area, and his damage potential depends on that motion. In terms of party role, Graazt is primarily a melee damage dealer, with a secondary role as scout and trapfinder. Let’s get into it.


Level 1: It felt appropriate for this round to get our flying mechanic as soon as possible, thus the use of a Flaw to pick up the two Aberrant feats Aberration Blood (Flexible Limbs) and Inhuman Reach to qualify for Starspawn at level 1. This gives Graazt a fly speed of 15ft for 1+CON consecutive rounds (4), which isn’t amazing, but gets us going, and is the reason we’re making an evil character. Naturally this means we want to pick up CON boosters whenever possible. The choice of Scout gives us extra damage when mobile (Skirmish +1d6), as well as positioning us in our out of combat role. A second Flaw is taken to get Darkstalker, as being a sneak in any capacity without it is generally frowned upon. If your campaign/DM doesn’t have a tendency to include other senses in the opposition, this could be left out. Skill selection is pretty standard for a Scout and doesn’t really invite discussion at this point.

Level 2: Nothing much to see here; just taking a second level in Scout. Uncanny Dodge is a nice pick up, protecting from being insta-gibbed at the beginning of an engagement by any Sneak Attackers. Battle Fortitude’s boosts to Fortitude saves and Initiative are appreciated as well.

Level 3: This level is a good one for Graazt. And additional 10ft of movement means our fly speed is now 20ft, and with the pickup of Flyby Attack and a reach of 10ft (15ft with a Longspear) we can actually make pretty good use of it at this point. Trackless Step is nice for our scouting needs and will synergize with Ranger in a couple levels. On the skill front we’ve maxed out Balance at 5 ranks and started putting points into Jump for the eventual Tumble synergy.

Level 4: The final level of Scout nets us Combat Expertise as the best of a bunch of lackluster options, and it provides a prereq for much later. Nothing much else going on here.

Level 5: Ranger synergizes with Scout fantastically (there’s a reason why Swift Hunter builds are a thing). Arcane Hunter ACF let’s us designate all Arcane Casters as our Favored Enemy. Graazt is also picking up the Celestial Slayer ACF from Exemplars of Evil, which trades away Wild Empathy, Animal Companion, and Woodland Stride for Spell Resistance vs. [Good] spells, as well as +4 competence to confirm crits vs creatures with the Good subtype. While these are fairly niche, we’re only really giving up Wild Empathy, so the trade is excellent. This level also gives the Track feat, which goes nicely with our scout role though with a Wis of 10 Graazt is never going to be a great tracker. On the skills front we’ve had to pare down slightly, leaving Disable Device (with +10 we can get most things taking 10 or 20), and sadly Tumble behind since it’s no longer a class skill.

Level 6: Finally, Graazt becomes a Swift Hunter, which lets us stack Ranger and Scout for Skirmish and for Favored Enemy, leaving us with +2d6, +1 AC, and a second Favored Enemy, which being an evil Ranger we choose to pick up Favored Enemy Humanoids (Human) to double down. Additionally, Swift Hunter makes Skirmish apply to all Favored Enemies, so for a more mechanically optimized build you could choose FEs to overcome precision damage immunities (undead, constructs, etc.). The Ranger Combat Style feat is not terribly useful, but TWF is never a bad idea for when we’re pinned down unable to use our mobility.


E1-3:Great Flyby Attack is what we’ve been waiting for our entire build. Now rather than making a single attack a round while triggering Skirmish damage, we can hit up to Dex mod (3) people along a straight line of our flight. After picking up Born Flyer to qualify for Air Heritage, we have a Fly speed of 40ft and a reach of 15ft with a longspear, letting us hit anyone within a 30’x55’ line from where we start. DEX boosting items are now a high priority.
E4-5: These two feats serve to boost Graazt’s damage potential significantly; Improved Skirmish increases Skirmish Damage by +2d6 if you move 20ft, and Dragonfire Strike ads +1d6 damage and makes Skirmish Damage into Fire damage, for a total of +5d6 Skirmish damage to each target.
E6-8:Increasing our threat range for Greater Flyby Attack is the name of the game. Since increasing fly speed is relatively hard without magic (and relatively easy with), we’re focusing on increasing range. Extended reach is qualified for with our Flaw Aberration Blood (Flexible Limbs), and Willing Deformity into Deformity (Tall) nets us another 10ft of reach, bringing our threat range to a 50’x65’ line from where we start.
E9-10:Additional Mobility is the name of the game, so being able to move again as a swift action for two encounters a day with Travel Devotion really opens up positioning options.

[Zaq]

This is so meta it's just magical.

Hildegard, <<Hero of the Hideous Blow>>

Chaotic Good Wood Elf --> Dragonborn (Wings) Cleric 1/Warlock 5

Spoiler: Background

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Hildegard sniffled and dashed tears from her eyes before striking the target in front of her and letting her Skill <<Hideous Blow>> course through the wooden practice sword into the stuffed figure, straw flying everywhere. She’d been so proud when her hard training paid off and she’d gotten enough XP to level up and the System had given her the option to take the Skill. None of the other students at the System Arts Academy for Young Heroes with the <<Warlock>> Class could channel their <<Eldritch Blast>> through a weapon and she’d immediately gone to share her new Skill, only to be soundly mocked by the other students. After all, they said, why would a <<Warlock>> want to hit someone with a stick when they can use an <<Eldritch Spear>> from so far away, or turn their <<Eldritch Blast>> into a <<Frightful Blast>> and provide ranged debuffing to a Hero Party, or any of a dozen better Skill options for a competent <<Warlock>>. She might as well leave the Academy before they expelled her; no Party would want to have Hildegard with such a terrible skill. It was at this point that Hildegard burst into tears and fled, laughter and calls of Hideous Hildegard chasing her across the grounds and to the <<Knight>>’s training grounds where she was now beating the stuffing out of target dummies.

Hildegard huffed, scrubbed her eyes and set herself squarely before the target, face firming up in determination. She’d show them; she’d become the greatest <<Hero>> the Academy had ever seen, smiting evil with <<Hideous Blow>> from the back of a beautiful Stallion, no a Dragon! She’d become an <<Eldritch Dragon Knight>> and all those mean kids would eat their words and have to admit that she, Hildegard, <<Hero of the Hideous Blow>>, was not a loser, but the best of them all! Hildegard’s furious planning was interrupted by a System Ping, pulling her attention away from the now thoroughly demolished target to see a new System Message.

**New Skill Unlocked: <<Mounted Combat>>. You have unused Skill Slots. Would you like to learn <<Mounted Combat>>?**

Hildegard gleefully accepted the new skill and let out a victory shout. The System believed in her, and it was time to start becoming the <<Hero>> she always knew she would be.

Spoiler: Ability Scores

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Ability	Score	Racial	Lvl 4 Increase	Dragonborn (lvl 6)	Final
Strength	14	+2			16
Dexterity	10	+2		-2	10
Constitution	14	-2		+2	14
Intelligence	14	-2			12
Wisdom	12				12
Charisma	15		+1		16

Spoiler: Build Progression

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Cleric	+0	+2	+0	+2	Concentration 4, Ride 4, Use Magic Device 2(4cc)	Aereni Focus (Ride), Martial Weapon Proficiency (Lance) B, Weapon Focus (Lance) B	Turn Undead (3+Cha/day), Domains (War, Wrath), Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF
2nd	Warlock	+0	+2	+0	+4	Concentration 5(1), Ride 5(1), Use Magic Device 3(1)		Eldritch Blast (1d6), Invocations (Least) Beguiling Influence
3rd	Warlock	+1	+2	+0	+5	Concentration 6(1), Ride 6(1), Use Magic Device 4(1)	Mounted Combat	Detect Magic (at will), Hideous Blow
4th	Warlock	+2	+3	+1	+5	Concentration 7(1), Ride 7(1), Use Magic Device 5(1)		Damage Reduction 1/Cold Iron, Eldritch Blast (2d6)
5th	Warlock	+3	+3	+1	+6	Concentration 8(1), Ride 8(1), Use Magic Device 6(1)		Deceive Item, See the Unseen, Beguiling Influence --> Baleful Utterance
6th	Warlock	+3	+3	+1	+6	Concentration 9(1), Ride 9(1), Use Magic Device 7(1)	Dragon Steed, Aereni Focus --> Flyby Attack (Dragonborn)	Eldritch Blast (3d6)

Epic Feats:

1: Ride-By Attack

2: Spirited Charge

3: Extend Spell

4: Persistent Spell

5: Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell)

6: Combat Casting

7: Mortalbane

8: Mortalbane

9: Mortalbane

10: Mortalbane

Spoiler: Build Write-up

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If you’ve spent some time plumbing the 3.5e optimization depths of the internet there’s a good chance you’ve come across the phrase “Hideous Blow blows hideously.” This is in reference to the fact that the only melee Blast Shape for the Warlock’s Eldritch Blast on release is so bad as to be insulting, being arguably worse than just using regular Eldritch Blast point blank. Later introduction of Eldritch Glaive and Eldritch Claws made melee Warlocks possible and raised the standard by which Hideous Blow is found so lacking. There are three criterion for evaluating melee Blast Shapes, the latter two of which are only in consideration because Hideous Blow fails them; Damage Potential, Ease of Attack, Provoking Attacks of Opportunity. I had spent some time trying to find some way to make Hideous Blow not fail in comparison when this round’s topic of Flight led me to what I believe may actually be the answer. In this case it’s more like “Hideous Blow? More like Hideously AWESOME Blow!” so let’s get into it.


Level 1: The first level is pretty much entirely setup for our eventual combo. We’re taking a level of Cleric of an Ideal, picking the War and Wrath domains, picking up Martial Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus for the Lance as well as access to the level 1 Paladin Spell Rhino’s Rush, which is a swift action to double the damage on a charge. The Spontaneous Domain ACF means we can cast it up to 3/day. If your DM has an issue with poaching Lance from the War domain, you can take a Flaw and grab proficiency that way, choosing your second domain from the portfolio of whatever Deity with Wrath you choose (Tempus is an option). For our level 1 feat we’re picking up Aereni Focus to get Ride as a Class Skill, which also set our race to some flavor of Elf. With only a +1 Int modifier (which we’re using to learn Draconic) Skill points are extremely limited, and we will be allocating them to Concentration (to cast defensively), Ride (to qualify for three feats, including our method of Flight), and Use Magic Device because it’s always useful and will be a Class Skill for the next levels.

Level 2: Moving into Warlock, we start down the path towards awesomeness. Despite being able to use a Lance, we’re sticking to regular Eldritch Blasts for the time being, doing a really not very impressive 1d6 vs touch AC. We’ll also pick up Beguiling Influence, which with our Charisma gives a +8 to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate and letting us be a secondary Face for the time being.

Level 3: With the acquisition of Mounted Combat we start down the path of Hideous Blow optimization, which is also picked up at this level. Mounted combat rules are very poorly written, but what is fairly unassailable is that charging on a mount still leaves a Standard for the attack, which means you can use Hideous Blow on the charge through your Lance for double damage. This method of delivery for Hideous Blow addresses the two of the Criteria; Damage Potential is higher than Eldritch Glaive for E6 (we’re going to ignore Eldritch Claws since it’s Dragon Magazine content), it is in fact double at base, and since Lances are reach weapons we have the same vulnerability to Provoking Attacks of Opportunity as Eldritch Glaive. Sadly, I was not able to find a way to make Hideous Blow into a touch attack in E6 (though there are a number of ways to do so with a full ECL20 build), but this is offset somewhat with Weapon Focus and the ability to Enchant the Lance. The rest of the build is largely keyed into improving the Damage Potential. At this point in the build on the charge we are attacking at +7 (BAB +1, Charge +2, WF +1, Str +3) and doing and average of 28 damage (2x(1d8 Lance + 2xStr + 1d6 EB)), or 42 with Rhino’s Rush. Despite this we’re still probably a ranged character, though riding a horse.

Level 4: Nothing much happening at this level, save for EB improving to 2d6 and improving Cha to 16, for a very important total of 6 Turn Undead attempts per day. Our charge attack is now doing an average of 35 damage, or 52.5 damage with Rhino’s Rush.

Level 5: Another fairly uneventful level though with some solid pickups. Invocations gives us See the Unseen so we aren’t countered by invisibility which is really coming online at these levels, and swapping out Beguiling Influence for Baleful Utterance. Without the social Skills to support Beguiling Presence we’re not really useful as a secondary Face, and Baleful Utterance has a million entertaining uses. Deceive Item allows us to take 10 on UMD for an unbuffed total of 19 right now, one short of automatically triggering wands.

Level 6: We finally pick up our flying method here: Dragon Mount gives us a Dragonel as a mount, which is a flying dragon horse with a fly speed of 90’. It comes quite late for a Secret Ingredient, but I needed a method to be both mounted and flying, and this was more or less it. We also become Dragonborn with the Wings aspect at this level for two reasons: this gives us a native fly speed lets us use the Rite of Rebirth to replace Aereni Focus with Flyby Attack, otherwise known as “how I learned to stop worrying and love Hideous Blow.” I bring your attention to two phrases:

When flying, the creature can take a move action (including a dive) and another standard action at any point during the move.

A creature that flies can make dive attacks. A dive attack works just like a charge

Putting these together we can unequivocally use our Move Action to have the Dragonel Dive to count as Charging and then use a Standard Action at any point along that Dive to use Hideous Blow, allowing us to stack Lance and Charging damage multipliers. With the 90’ fly speed we can fairly easily reposition to make Flyby Attacks round after round. Eldritch Blast also increases to 3d6 at this level, increasing our charge attack’s damage to 42 on average, or 63 with Rhino’s Rush. UMD is now always at 20 as well.


Epic Feats:

E1-2: These two feats net another charge multiplier while mounted and using a Lance, increasing our average damage to 63 (3x(1d8 Lance + 2xStr +3d6 EB)) or 84 with Rhino’s Rush

E3-5: The classic DMM: Persist shenanigans here are used to get Rhino’s Rush persisted so that it applies to every attack. If Nightsticks and Holy Reliquaries are available we have two more lvl 1 slots left to make use of.

E6: Combat Casting makes it easier to charge creatures with reach. If needed could be moved earlier in the build, or even ignored if you can get Concentration boosting items (or just don’t feel like taking it).

E7-10: Four instances of Mortalbane gives us 20 attacks per day we can apply an additional 2d6 damage to vs living non-outsiders. These attacks do an average of 112 damage.

Spoiler: Sources

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Draconomicon (Drc) – Dragon Steed (p105), Dragonel (p150)
Player’s Guide to Faerun (PGtF) – Persistent Spell (p42)
Complete Divine (CDiv) – Divine Metamagic (p80)
Book of Vile Darkness (BoVD) – Mortalbane (p49)
Complete Arcane (CArc) – Warlock (p5)
Player’s Guide to Eberron (PE) – Aereni Focus (p20)
Races of the Dragon (RoD) – Dragonborn (p5), Mechanics Rite of Rebirth (p10)
Monster Manual (MM) – Flyby Attack (p303)
Spell Compendium (SpC) – Rhino’s Rush (p176)


All items not specifically called out are either described in a higher level item (such is the case for class features), in the PHB, or not part of the build as presented.

[Zaq]

"When you get down to it, man, aren't we all just animals?"

"Not cool, bro, that's warforged erasure."

Spoiler: Intro

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RUN AWAY, THE FLYING MONKEY IS COMING!

But... that's no monkey? Squints... it's a... hawk?

THAT'S WORSE! RUN!

This was to be a wicked witch of the west expy, but then the monkey got away from me it just had to become a sensible build instead...

Spoiler: Mooncasai Munkedu

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NG anthropomorphic monkey^{SS, pg. 214}, Ranger 5 / Nature's Warrior 1
Str 9 (13 -4 racial), Dex 16 (14 +2 racial), Con 18 (17 +1 level), Int 14, Wis 12 (8 +4 racial), Cha 8 (10 -2 racial)
HP 8 + 4d8 + 1d10+ 24 (55)


Dire Hawk wild shape outline
str 12, dex 22, con 15^{remember that alternate form HP are not recalculated from changing constitution}
110 ft. perfect maneuverability flight

Dive attack: claw/claw/bite at +14/+14/+9 for:
claw 1d4 +1 + 3d6, x2
bite 1d6 +3d6
plus whatever knowledge devotion we scrounch up, average +2, topping at +5 on nature

Spoiler: leveling table

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Wild ShapeUA, pg. 58 Ranger 1	+1	+2	+2	+0	hide +4, knowledge(arcana) +1, knowledge (dungeoneering) +1, Knowledge(Local) +1(2), knowledge(nature) +4, knowledge(religion) +1(2), listen +4, move silently +4, spellcraft +2(4) spot +4, survival +4	ApprenticeDMGII, pg. 176 Spellcaster(Ranger, arcana), TrackRanger, Weapon FinesseRacial	Spiritual ConnectionCC, pg. 50, Favored enviroment(Plains)UA, pg. 65, Fast movement
2nd	Ranger 2	+2	+3	+3	+0	hide 4+1,knowledge(nature) 4+1, listen 4+1, move silently 4+1, spot 4+1, survival 4+1, Collector of StoriesCS, pg. 85. skill trick
3rd	Shooting StarCoV, pg. 50 Ranger 3	+3	+3	+3	+1	knowledge(nature) 5+1, knowledge(the planes) +2, listen 5+1, spellcraft 2+2, spot 5+1, survival 5+1	Knowledge Devotion(the planes)CC, pg. 60	Weavespeak
4th	Shooting Star Ranger 4	+4	+4	+4	+1	hide 5+1,knowledge(nature) 6+1, move silently 5+1, spellcraft 4+3, spot 6+1, survival 6+1		Bonus spells, Improved Spellcasting
5th	Ranger 5	+5	+4	+4	+1	hide 6+2, knowledge(nature) 7+1, listen 6+1, move silently 6+2, spot 7+1, survival 7+1		Favored Enviroments(Plains +4, Hills), Wild shape 1/day
6th	Nature's WarriorCW, pg. 63 1	+6/+1	+6	+4	+1	hide 8, know(arcana) 1+4, know(dungeon) 1, Know(Local) 1, know(nature) 8, know(religion) 1, know(planes) 2, listen 7, move silently 8, spellcraft 7, spot 8, survival 8, Collector of stories	Diving ChargeRotW, pg. 150	Wings of the Hurricane, Wild shape 2/day

Feat	Effect	Reasoning
Shape Soulmeld(Sphinx claws)MoI, pg. 40, 88	+1 on some strength checks	You already know why we want this
Open least chakra(hands)MoI, pg. 39	Sphinx claws now grants pounce on natural attacks	yuuup. won't you love tripling that 3d6(x2 from dive!) from diving charge?
Sword of the Arcane OrderCoV, pg. 34	Can prepare wizard spells in our ranger slots	Goodbye extremely limited ranger list, welcome wide open world!
Extra wild shapeCD, pg. 81	+2 wild shapes use per day	depending how strict the reading on nature's warrior wilding is taken, this either increases our uses from 2 to 4, or from 1 to 3, either way this is sweet. if it's "from 2 to 4" then delay this to after Improved flyby attack
Improved flightCA, pg. 110	manouverability improves one step	from good to perfect!
Flyby AttackMM, pg. 303	continue moving after attacking while flying	I want improved flyby attack, and this is a prerequisite
Expeditious DodgeRotW, pg. 150	+2 dodge AC after moving 40+ feets in a round	counts as dodge for prerequisites
Mobility	+4 AC against AoO	improved flyby attack prerequisites
Improved flyby attackSS, pg. 36	flyby attack doesn't provoke AoO	"nyah nyah can't touch me!"
DarkstalkerLoM, pg. 179	special senses don't detect us	we have fairly decent hide/move silently modifiers, so might as well support them

Spellcasting

• Our Caster level is 4
• We have two 1st level slot
• Apprentice "favourite" spell is Entangle
• Before Sword of the Arcane Order, prepared spells will be 1x Linked Perception^{PHBII, pg.} and 1x Magic Fang
• After Sword of the Arcane Order, the world of 1st level wizard spells is our oyster, if we can afford the borrowed spellbook, that is. Baseline consideration is getting mage armor and shield.

Spoiler: build decisions

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So, flight. As soon as I saw flight as the theme, my mind went straight to nature's warrior wings of the hurricane feature. +30 flight speed and a step up in manouverability? that's very sweet!

Like, half a second later I was already thinking of druid, because there is a very sweet 2nd level druid-only spell called cloud wings, it's hour/level +30 ft. to existing flight speed.
But I knew, I knew I couldn't do a druid entry, because the BAB 4 prerequisite of nature's warrior :( I flirted with doing a cheesy "wildshape ranger 1 / druid 4 entry let's pretend those stacks for wildshape" but alas, I coulnd't bring myself to do it, so here we are with wild shape ranger 5 :)

I lament not going druid, with this and that stacking we were breaking the 200ft. flight barrier, but it is highly debatable to stack ranger/druid for wild shape, and besides our main gimmick (diving charge) caps out at "91 or faster", so we weren't even getting something out of it other than satisfying the NEED FOR SPEED coughs

Anyway, this was originally with the fangshield ACF and natural bond, to push for a dire eagle animal companion, but I was disliking how I was cheesing my way to a "druid 7" animal companion (most recent table of animal companion is PHBII that puts dire eagle at EDL-6, and not EDL-3 as presented in RoS), so I decided "to hell with it" and went for the other very nice ranger substitution levels in champions of valor : the shooting star order! In E6 trading the animal companion for an extra spell slot, especially when it's lore-friendly to being allowed using wizard spells in those slots? yes please!

the DMGII apprentice(spellcaster) is my favourite feat of lately and here it brings us the opportunity to select one of our spells as "favourite spell" and let us convert to it spontaneously 1/day, this is very nice. I'm torn between selecting good old entangle, since it's an encounter ender, or maybe Linked Perception^{PHBII, pg.} for the stupid high level fo spot/checks we and our allies can reach with it.

The other first level ACF I went for are a matter of personal preference. 3/day speak with animal/plant is flavorful and good for RP / hooks, and I jsut plan prefer the chunk of skill bonuses that favored enviroment gives compared to the situational damage bonus of favored enemy.

I don't think there needs to be much said about knowledge devotion + collector of stories, it's an old trick. Just for reference this used to be cobalt charge^{MoI, pg. 35}, and expeditious dodge used to be midnight dodge^{MoI, pg. 39}, for the same overall +2 insight bonus to attack and damage rolls, but when I switched from fangshield^{CoV, pg. 41} to shooting star, I upped my intelligence to better make sure I could hit the spellcraft check for copying the spells, and since I was there making proper use of the knowledges I was getting made me go for this old lady. This is also when I took apprentice, used ot be improved initiative.

I like diving charge very much! too bad it doesn't scale even more for higher speed! Do remember that a dive attack doubles damage from some attacks. the claw attacks are double for sure, the bite is piercing but there is some wiggle room for debate here because it's not a "weapon". I understand there might be some debate on whether diving charge bonus damage is doubled or not in a dive attack. I'm assuming it is

The epic feats are all with a note so not much to say here. There might be some doubt about whether sword of the arcane order let us cast wizard spells, or only prepare them. I'm, obviously, of the opinion that if we can prepare them, then we can cast them, d'uh! Our Spellcraft modifier is 7 rank +2 int +2 competence(apprentice) +2 sinergy (arcana) plus maybe +2 circumstance (masterwork tool), so the DC 16 for "preparing a 1st level spell from a borrowed spellbook" is hit on a 1 or a 3 depending on whether we have masterwork tool or not.

Darkstalker and hide/move silently. Assuming we don't use those little ranger spells such as camouflage for their little +10 to hide, we're looking at 11-15 modifier depending on the enviroment, which I feel are solid numbers for E6, besides the circumstance bonus of "no one ever looks up" of course :D.

We have a very chonky +8 racial bonus to spot in dire hawk form.

Spoiler: story and tactics

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Story

Our little monkey was saved from "cultists doing strange experiments on animals" by rangers of the shooting star. Which promptly adopted the cheeky "monkey but not monkey".
Them being now his idols, he of course grew up to become one, himself!
But unlike most of them that usually went on to become beastmasters^{CA, pg. 26} with Dire eagle^{RoS, pg. 187} mounts, he got fascinated with the concept of beign able to fly on his own. a Flying anthropomorphic monkey? how novel!
He toiled hard to realize his dream, until finally the secrets of wild shape was taught to him...

Tactics

Level 1-3: At these levels, archery is the way, plus a bit of skillmonkeying (ha)
Level 4: Suddenly, spellcasting! sure it's just two first level slot, but that's two slots more than a fighter have!
Level 5: we got One wildshape! use it with caution! most of the time we're probably better of sticking to archery for now.
Level 6: with diving charge, now we're talking! even if we only do the lonely claw attack, it's still an average of 32 or so damage, with a respectable 14-18 attack bonus
Epic 2: And so pounce, from claw to claw/claw/bite, much rejoicing!
Epic 3-4: The introduction of 1st level wizard spells is big. of course given time we might get a bunch of utility spells "for the day after", but the sample spells prepared are : 1x mage armor, 1x shield
Epic 5-10: this completes the combo and seals the deal, we basically got 220 feet of charge movement that don't provoke AoO, Only Dragons are faster than us, and none of them comes anywhere close to the maneuverability we have

Spoiler: Noncore sources

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CoV = Champions of Valor
CA = Complete Adventurer
CC = Complete Champion
CD = Complete Divine
CS = Complete Scoundrel
CW = Complete Warrior
DMGII = Dungeon's Master Guide II
LoM= Lords of Madness
MoI = Magic of Incarnum
MM = Monster Manual
PHBII = Player's Handbook II
RotW = races of the wild
SS = Savage Species
UA = Unearthed Arcana

[Zaq]

Here it is, Pippin hot from the oven!

Pippin, Dulitha's Thunderbolt
CG Raptoran Ranger 3/Cleric (Dulitha) 1/Ardent 1/Horizon Walker 1

Spoiler: Ability Scores

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Ability	Score	Modifiers	Final Score
Strength	16	-	16 (+3)
Dexterity	12	-	12 (+1)
Constitution	15	+1 (Level 4)	16 (+3)
Intelligence	8	-	8 (-1)
Wisdom	14	-	14 (+2)
Charisma	12	-	12 (+1)

Spoiler: Build

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Ranger (Skilled City Dweller)	+1	+2	+2	+0	Jump (+4) 4; Knowledge (geography) (+4) 4; Listen (+4) 4; Spot (+4) 4; Tumble (+4) 4;	Exotic Weapon Proficiency (foot spike),Track (B)	Favoured enemy (animal), wild empathy
2nd	Ranger	+2	+3	+3	+0	Jump (+1) 5; Knowledge (geography) (+1) 5; Listen (+1) 5; Spot (+1) 5; Tumble (+1) 5;	Two-Weapon Fighting (B)	Combat style (two-weapon fighting)
3rd	Cleric	+2	+5	+3	+2	Heal (+1) 1; Jump 5; Knowledge (geography)5; Listen 5; Spot 5; Tumble 5;	Diving Charge, Travel Devotion (B)	Turn undead, Sky domain, Travel domain
4th	Ardent	+2	+5	+3	+4	Heal 1; Jump 5; Knowledge (geography) (+1) 6; Listen 5; Spot 5; Tumble 5;		Air Mantle, Freedom Mantle
5th	Ranger	+3	+5	+3	+5	Heal 1; Jump 5; Knowledge (geography) (+2) 8; Listen (+1) 6; Spot (+1) 6; Tumble (+1) 6;	Endurance (B)
6th	Horizon Walker (Skilled City Dweller)	+4	+7	+3	+5	Heal 1; Jump 5; Knowledge (geography) 8; Listen 6; Spot 6; Tumble (+3) 9;	Air Heritage	Terrain mastery (desert)

E6 Feats:

Speed of Thought

Improved Flight

Aerial Reflexes

Shape Soulmeld (thunderstep boots)

Bonus Essentia

Open Least Chakra (feet)

Flyby Attack

Wing Expert

Reckless Charge

Skill Focus (Tumble)

Spoiler: Level 1

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Pippin is a young, idealistic ranger in service of Dulitha. One of the principle duties of the clergy of Dulitha is gathering food, so he specialises in hunting animals. Foot spikes are a very cool exotic weapon that lets you use two-weapon fighting while leaving your hands free (as long as you're flying). As piercing weapons, they deal double damage on a dive attack, and they explicitly let you attack with each of them when making a dive attack.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Diving Charge is what it's all about. It gives a damage bonus on dive attacks that scales with your flight speed. Pippin deepens his devotion to Dulitha, which increases his flying speed and gives him Travel Devotion. Usable 3 times per day (with Turn Undead) for a minute at a time, it allows him to fly back up into the sky after making a dive attack, ready to make another next round. He has access to 3 spells per day - his Sky domain spell, Raptor's Sight, which is a nice hour/level bonus to Spot checks, as well as two 1st-level spells of his choice. His go-to choice is the always useful Protection from Evil, but I want to make special mention of Ease of Breath, which helps prevent high altitude sickness - potentially very important when flying high in the sky.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Pippin deepens his devotion not just to Dulitha, but to the ideals of Dulitha - or at least the closest psionic equivalents. The Freedom mantle grants a bonus to speed that doesn't specify land speed and should therefore also apply to flight speed, while the Air mantle reduces falling damage - useless for a Raptoran, but it's the best match for the Sky domain. That also gives Pippin 3 power points, the Deflection Field power, and the Dimension Hop power. Nothing game-changing, but nice to have.

Spoiler: Level 6

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Well, Pippin is all about the horizon, even if he's not planning on walking. Immunity to fatigue allows him to fly for 6 rounds at a time with no negative effects, and to ignore the Raptoran daily limit on flight completely. Air Heritage is a massive bonus to flight speed, and surprisingly appropriate - the Raptoran gift of flight comes from an ancient pact with the Wind Lords, powerful beings of elemental Air.

Spoiler: Speed of Thought

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One last increase to flying speed, pushing Pippin to 95 feet and thereby giving the highest damage bonus Diving Charge has to offer.

Spoiler: Improved Flight

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Maneuverability is more important than a lot of people realise, so going from average to good is pretty nice.

Spoiler: Aerial Reflexes

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Speaking of which, a bonus to Reflex saves that scales with maneuverability - at +3, it's better than Lightning Reflexes for Pippin.

Spoiler: Shape Soulmeld, Bonus Essentia, Open Least Chakra

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Thunderstep Boots give a fairly hefty damage bonus on charge attacks, and when bound to the Feet chakra, it adds a save or stun effect.

Spoiler: Flyby Attack, Wing Expert

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These feats offer some extra tactical options. Flyby Attack isn't especially useful for Pippin, since his routine consists of making a dive attack and then using Travel Devotion to move away, but it still might come in handy. Wing Expert is much more interesting. The first option, Wing Buffet, adds +2 to attacks made the round after a charge unless the enemy makes a DC 20 Reflex save, and since Pippin charges every round, he should get the bonus every round after the first. Wing Defense is generally pretty useless, but Wing Fan lets Pippin spend a full-round action to use Gust of Wind, and he's immune to the fatigue it causes. Gust of Wind isn't something that's useful every round, but it's definitely worth having in your toolbox.

Spoiler: Reckless Charge

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Reckless Charge lets Pippin trade an extra -2 to AC for an extra +2 to hit.

Spoiler: Skill Focus

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Skill Focus? Really? Well, yeah. People who specialise in AoOs often do things like trip with them, which would be absolutely devastating to Pippin. Skill Focus pushes his Tumble check high enough to automatically succeed in avoiding AoOs. Hopefully in doing so the decreased AC from charging will rarely come into play.

Spoiler: Stats

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Hit Dice: 5d8+1d6 (47.5 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), fly 95 ft. (good)
Armor Class: 17 (+4 chain shirt +2 heavy shield +1 Dex), touch 11, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7
Attack: Foot spike +7 melee (1d4+3)
Full Attack: Foot spike +9 melee (2d4 foot spike +6 Str +3d6 Diving Charge +3d4 thunderstep boots) and foot spike +9 melee (2d4+2+3d6+3d4) = average damage 54
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +7, Will +7
Skills: Heal +3, Jump +18, Knowledge (geography) +7, Listen +8, Spot +10, Tumble +15

Spoiler: Sources

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• Raptoran, foot spikes, Diving Charge, Sky domain, Raptor's Sight, Improved Flight, Aerial Reflexes: Races of the Wild
• Skilled City Dweller: Cityscape Web Enhancement
• Travel Devotion: Complete Champion
• Ease of Breath: Frostburn
• Ardent, Freedom Mantle, Deflection Field, Dimension Hop: Complete Psionic
• Air Mantle: Mind's Eye
• Air Heritage: Planar Handbook
• Shape Soulmeld, thunderstep boots, Bonus Essentia, Open Least Chakra: Magic of Incarnum
• Wing Expert: Races of the Dragon
• Reckless Charge: Miniatures Handbook
• Everything else: SRD content

[Zaq]

There we go, a tight formation of five high-flying builds for you! On your mark, get set, JUDGE!

Name	Alignment / Race	Class Levels	Chef	Judge 1	Judge 2	Judge 3	Total	Place
Bash Jordon	LN Raptoran	Fighter 2 / Sohei 2 / Monk 2
Graazt Du'kal	CE Silverbrow Human	Scout 4 / Ranger 2
Hildegard	CG Dragonborn	Cleric 1 / Warlock 5
Mooncasai Munkedu	NG Anthropomorphic Monkey	Ranger 5 / Nature's Warrior 1
Pippin	CG Raptoran	Ranger 3 / Cleric 1 / Ardent 1 / Horizon Walker 1

[Kuulvheysoon]

Not going to lie, I'm really surprised that there was only 3 builds that leveraged innate flight through race.

What I'm not surprised at is the prevalence of diving charges. That was completely expected, with good reason; it's viable to get at a relatively low feat cost, and it's good for clicking that delete button if you can get it off.

[H_H_F_F]

I'm not making any promises, but I'll try judging this round.

By the way, if I'm already posting: If I ever made anyone posting in these forums and competition feel bad, or hurt you in my demeanor or my comments, I'd like to offer my sincere apologies. I'm sorry if I did, I nwver intended to do so. I appreciate and cherish all of you.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Just doublechecking on this, Zaq - minimum score in a category is a 1, right? Not exactly sure of the judging guidelines for this specific competition.

(Yes, I'm judging. Already started, in fact).

[Quentinas]

At the end i didn't submitted my idea was a hengeyokai crane (or sparrow) scout 1 /totemist 2/ Aerial avenger 3 , based on the dive but the rules for the dives are somewhat strange if fly by attack is considered

[RaiKirah]

I'm really glad I got myself back to the boards in time for this competition; I really enjoyed the open-ended nature of this SI while building, and I'm loving the builds others submitted!

minimum score in a category is a 1, right?

***Starts sweating profusely***

[Kuulvheysoon]

***Starts sweating profusely***

As long as you didn't submit REDACTED, you've got nothing to worry about.

[Zaq]

Yes, minimum score in each category is 1.