Iron Chef Optimization Challenge in the Playground CXVII

[Seward]

That class feature is pretty much the only reason IVT exists. +11 on weapon damage, survival, hide, ms, bluff and sense motive is unique.

This is why the class grew on me. Other classes give similar benefits (such as Scar Enforcer, which gives favored enemy elves/humans and sneak attack and half progression of spellcasting) but unlike Scar Enforcer, whose unique thing is you end up with NO subtype (so no favored enemy, bane etc will ever work on you) the ToV actually adds up to something pretty exciting if assassination is your jam, and you can translate it into enough hits to matter. The other stuff - sneak attack, poison, death attack, SLAs - they're icing, well and also something that helps against everybody else you might fight that day. They're why your party doesn't throw you out I guess.

[The Viscount]

We appreciate your speedy reply, Korahir!

And now, it's time for the reveal!

Name	Alignment / Race	Class Levels	Chef	Korahir	Total	Place
James	LE Human	Human paragon 1/Sorcerer 1/Imaskari vengeance taker 10/Virtuoso 1/Sublime chord 1/Keeper of the cerulean sign 6	Zaq	17.25	17.25	1st Gold
Lord Ej of Adon	LE Otherworldly Talaire	Ranger 4/Warblade 1/Mortal Hunter 5/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10	WhamBamSam	15.50	15.50	2nd Silver
Alkathira	LN Synad	Duskblade 5/Knight of The Weave 1/Abjurant Champion 4/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10	H_H_F_F	14.75	14.75	3rd Bronze
Dril’jhael Vralice	LE Drider	Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10	loky1109	13.50	13.50	4th HM
Queen of Swords	LN Imaskari	Wizard 5/Ruathar 1/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10/Master of The Unseen Hand 4	Seward	13.00	13.00	5th
Eddy + Cat	CN-LN Telthyrian Human	Bard 1/Battle Dancer 1/Deadly Hunter Druid 1/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10/Lyric Thaumaturge 7	daremetoidareyou	12.25	12.25	6th
LuckLuck	LE Goblin	Duskblade 10/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10	Seward	11.00	11.00	7th
Karakan	LE Dragonwrought Kobold	Sorcerer 5/Monk 1/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10/Unseen Seer 4	Gruftzwerg	10.00	10.00	8th
Jane Wick	LE Human	Beguiler 5/Mindbender 1/Beguiler 2/Unseen Seer 2/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 8/Fatespinner 2	NinjaGuy	9.75	9.75	9th
Ivy	LG Deepwyrm Half-Drow	Monk 1/Combat Wizard 5/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10/Sacred Exorcist 1/Spelldancer 3	Gruftzwerg	9.25	9.25	10th
Valencia Hills-Beane	LE Human	Beguiler 4/Imaskari Vengeance Taker 10/Fiend-Blooded 6	Venger	8.00	8.00	11th

Congratulations to our entrants!
Next round up shortly.

[Seward]

I made a bit better showing this time, but no shame to losing out to those top entries. They were really good and fun. The truenamer one especially just fit the flavor so well.

Korahir had good comments on both of my builds. Here's more explanation for what was going on in my head when I created the characters (or not going on as the case might be).

Spoiler: Illegal Skill Tricks

Show

My Complete Scoundrel was in a box from moving and I foolishly relied on a web page that didn't cite sources, which is why both builds used illegal skill tricks. Also I never really used them in play back in the day, so I lacked the "that's odd" detector I often have with feats/spells in that situation.

Only losing -.25 on my builds for illegal is a big step up from my last effort so..progress I guess.

Spoiler: Tracking Feat

Show

In both builds, I couldn't do more than take it early and invest enough survival to make it minimally useful in baby levels. By the time skill ranks got invested seriously, it had expired in usefulness.

Queen of Swords rapidly outstrips it with spells, although she does invest in Survival (along with other ToV skills) later. It's just that by the time she is good at tracking her target, she's more likely to find his location with magic or infiltration.

Luckluck did his best, but until his ToV levels it wasn't a class skill, and he couldn't enter till L10 at earliest.
He gets decent at tracking a ToV by the end, but high level parties rarely need that ability.

To be clear, both characters DID develop survival once they got into IVT, it's just that there was a pretty big gap between level 1 and when it got effective again, and by then I was pushing L15 where it isn't as helpful.

I think to not get dinged on this front though, you needed to either get Track for free with a class that is also useful for your overall build, or use it as a prereq for something other than IVT or keep survival maxed in the 1-10 range or work in scent or similar (Luckluck spent max skill ranks but neg wis modifier and cross-class doesn't cut it). The judging had a fairly high bar here.

Spoiler: Bad SLA saving throws

Show

Both characters had low charisma. While both could make use of Divination even in high levels, there was no way to do either as a charisma build nor any way to get those SLAs faster without other abilities that matter more for power growth (like LuckLuck's 2nd quick spell, or Queen's MotUH progression)

You are 1 level short for a Sorcerer Unseen Seer/IVT build (between them they burn 14 levels, with half casting in IVT. With only 6 levels of sorcerer/ruathar you only get to CL9, not enough for sorcerer TK). Queen of Swords had to be wizard or had to give up an IVT level. Which worked better with a Deep Imaskari human anyway. Queen of Swords had clairvoyance at L5 and scry at L8. Only Divination was exciting for her to get later.

Luckluck could have been a race without a -4 charisma hit, but he still would have had at best 8 cha with any other likely race attempting this build. Only Duskblade advances TWF bab fast enough, and that's an int based class. Those SLAs were always gonna suck, although divination is nice.

All chasse choices have stuff that won't play well with SLA. MotUH and Duskblade weren't good fits for those abilities.

Spoiler: Poison and Death Attack

Show

Queen of Swords got +.25 for using routine wizard spells (and high crafting skills from raw int) to make free poison. She also had a decent death attack DC.

Luckluck used both as "If I have it, it might help", and he didn't get dinged for not doing more.

But…really for both characters neither mattered. They could kill anything they could reach with a weapon purely with weapon damage. They'd use the class abilities in play, but only because it is belt-and-suspenders…basically free to do so why not?

Spoiler: Other Queen of Swords stuff

Show

6 Dexterity 16 con - That was an artifact of build evolution. I had an early version with 14 strength and 14 con for closer combat before whirling blade worked which had no room for higher dex, and never adjusted it, although partly I kinda liked the idea of a book-learning scholar who entered the underdark tripping over her robe. When I decided not much strength was needed those points dropped into con, as I'd already decided AC wasn't a focus (too many resources needed to make it work most of the time plus good ranged options) and she was going to use magic for any stealth needs. I agree that 10 dex/14 con would have been objectively better and didn't dispute getting power dinged for it. Given how many versions of the character I created before settling on the MotUH version, I'm surprised more weirdness didn't slip in.

Lack of Knowledge Devotion - I don't own Complete Champion (or Tome of Battle), so I am going to lose power points sometimes by not using those options. You'll never see a Warblade or a Devotion feat in my builds. I don't really mind that handicap. But Knowledge Devotion would have made a decent L18 feat, and if I'd invested all those skill points from slight of hand for a skill trick back into KN skills, it could have been .25 more powerful. The feat I took - Somatic Weaponry (or still spell+arcane thesis) was something every build I tried attempted to fit in during level 1-10, because it affects your ability to 2-hand a whirling blade, so when I had a random feat left over and metamagic rods clogging up my hands it seemed like an ok finisher.

I thought 3.5 power overall was pretty fair for this build, given that our baseline is something like a generic wiz10/IVT10 with 8th level arcane spells at L20. I actually know pretty precisely what I gave up, as I played a telekenetic themed sorceress from L1-L16 without MotUH, who used TK violent thrust as her primary "screw finesse I just need to kill that guy" strategy from L10 onward.

The higher level slots and metamagic let you do quite a bit (sculpted cyclonic blasts to eliminate fog, control weather to just prevent fog or high winds, spamming disintegrate to make corridors bypassing trap/ambush filled entrances, not to mention moment of prescience and limited wish). But in terms of killing power, Queen of Swords at level 16 eclipsed a "wizard 15 spell slots using TK" baseline, MotUH4 is just that good, and vs a ToV, she eclipsed my sorceress for the entire L10-20 range. I actually looked hard at going into MotUH on the sorceress but she cared more about battlefield control, action economy management for the party and arcane utility vs just killing jerks using TK. When she actually used the TK seriously against anything but a final boss type monster, overkill was typical even without MotUH boosts (and the final boss types knew they'd been kissed...)

Skills - I spent a lot of time actually figuring out how to develop the "Favored Enemy" suite of skills, as it would help her locate her ToV for long range attacks and with glibness-level bluff vs that target open other options. Spot, Listen and Sense Motive are also helpful for noticing when your ToV has decided to ambush YOU, and she saw value in that when she started assassin training.

I was a little disappointed that wasn't mentioned until I realized after reading other entries not getting dinged for lack of skill use WAS acknowledging that I was trying on that front. I just didn't do anything amazing enough to rate a bonus.

Spells - I mentioned the stuff she always uses. She's a wizard assassin. Everything else would be target and to some extent party dependent. She'd think about what spells to prep when doing that 24 hour ToV assignment.

Basically her Focused Specialist slots tended to be TK related stuff - minimum 3 TK spells in L5, 2 quickened whirling blades and one twinned whirling blade in L4 slots, L3 slots GMW and maybe keen weaon or flame arrow or similar, L2 slots more whirling blades. Probably 1 guided shot spell, 1 dimension hop or similar escape spell but mostly what does party need? What are we doing today? Leave a couple open just in case. What did the party need that day?

As quicken rods come online she'll routinely prep "remove obstacle" or "move me to a better angle" spells that she can quicken to set up attacks.

Craft Rod. I really, really, REALLY wanted the L16-20 version to be able to quicken a violent thrust and follow up with another violent thrust. I could not make it work, the spell slots just aren't there in a MotUH4+IVT10 build and I didn't like my other approaches without MotUH4 (I almost went with magical trickster to show how far down the barrel I was scraping). That left WBL approaches and I had some flexibility with my higher level feats. So I figured the only way to really claim I could have a full quicken rod as a routine strategy was to craft it myself, especially as I had the quicken feat already to support whirling blade. For this challenge I figured any truly required item probably needs crafting feat support, so I went there.

A side benefit of this is she can quicken other stuff and THEN violent thrust. 1 Violent Thrust kills damn near anything in those levels anyway, so yeah, quicken teleport+VT is a thing, as would be defeating, say, a solid fog defense via a quickened wind spell to clear it away followed by violent thrust, or at L20 beating a wall of force via quicken disintegrate+violent thrust.

Spoiler: Other LuckLuck stuff

Show

I knew this wasn't going to score amazingly and am satisfied with the middling score. It isn't blazingly original or amazingly powerful. I was trying for a 12 (basically solid in each category) but between the illegal skill trick and a couple optimization bobbles, his final score was fine. Maybe my next one in this category will hit the mark.

It was an effective build, and one that could handle martial+arcane utility well at any table. Even as a goblin. I'd totally enjoy him. I was bored and snowed in, and the flavor text was so much fun to write that doing the work for the build seemed worthwhile.

Race - best options for charop would likely have been wood elf (+2 str/dex and int/con can be worked around) or maybe strongheart halfling with feat spent on weapon finesse. -.25 was fair there. I gave in and wrote up the goblin because I had fun fluff/story for it and absolutely no sense of who the character was with another race. It happens.

Honestly though, the -4 cha only dropped the SLA DC by 1 or 2, and in fact this character hits nearly as accurately as a wood elf (due to size) does only 2 points less with on-hand, 1 point less offhand, and dex/str are close enough weapon finesse just isn't worth it. With fullbab and eventually arcane strike, hitting his targets isn't going to be a problem, and like any good TWF build, strength damage is an afterthought to his total damage. And of course int and con are higher than wood elf, which compensates a bit on a close range build. It's similar to choosing a half-elf instead of half-orc for a barbarian build.

Final spell - ok Acid Arrow wasn't the best choice. Enervation or any other short range spell (including shout, which I never find useful on any build) isn't any better than just running up and channelling+arcane striking something. Toxic Weapon was on point enough so I didn't dispute the -.25, especially as some of the other spells were probably charop borderline, fitting his style and history closer than a platonic ideal-duskblade-twf guy. Since LuckLuck poisoned his weapons before a kill, he should have also wanted to use a spell to do the same. He's fishing for natural 1s at level 20, but if he cast toxic weapon on both weapons and poisoned both weapons and maybe got a death attack set up, he'd have 5 chances to fish for that 1 on his first two hits. I looked at Toxic Weapon and went "meh, they save on a 1, and it only works for 1 attack", but that's true of any poison he uses so, I should have stayed consistent.

Why Acid Arrow? I just ran out of spells that seemed at all useful and looked for something he couldn't do, and realized vs anticipate teleport he'd be relying only on raw stealth to walk right up to his target, and wanted a better long range choice for enemies with few enough hp for it to work. I should have trusted his raw stealth more, he really was quite good at that by level 20.

One goal of this character was to use the skills Queen Of Swords tanked, and it worked for him. Like her, he got a +0 on skill use - adequate but not amazing. As he lacked her long range power, his ability to stealth and get in close to set up his blender attack was quite important. It was also the one thing his race helped with (+4 hide for size, +4 racial move silent for stealth, which is why he was in the running enough to get in my head and come to life).

[loky1109]

O! I take HM!
Thanks very much!

And thanks to all contestants and to our judge Korahir!

Spoiler: Gruftzwerg, I have couple words to say. About Ivy's story.

Show

It not bad, but... You could do it much better with one little change.
You should change genders of your hero and the hero's main enemy.
Drow female who messing with half-blood male, sales him in slaves, kills his friends? I say yes, it is believable, even more, it's typically, normal. Same things made by drow male with even half-drow female? No, it can't be.

Maybe I wrong in understanding drow, but it's my point of view.

Zaq, WhamBamSam, H_H_F_F. I'm not surprised to see you at the top.

[H_H_F_F]

Can't complain about bronze. Congratulations, everyone! Well deserved, Whambamsam. Zaq... stop it already.

I have some thoughts I'll share later when I'm not on mobile, as well as update the spreadsheet

[Akal Saris]

Congrats to everyone for some great builds, and a tip of the hat to Loky for the clever use of drider as an entry!

[loky1109]

Congrats to everyone for some great builds, and a tip of the hat to Loky for the clever use of drider as an entry!

Thanks! Trying to do my best!

[H_H_F_F]

Yesterday was a very busy day, but now I have the time to properly comment. Also looking forward to a D&D weekend IRL.

So: Very good round! Zaq amazed me as usual with James, which I thought was phenomenally clever. Seeing a drider was fun, and lord Ej was a cool, smooth entry. I really liked Eddy+Cat as well – but it didn't blow my mind, which I was pleased with, because it's nice to be reminded daremetoidareyou is human too.

As for my entry: I was questioned for not leaning into any of the skills the class had to offer. The build did have an earlier version which invested in survival, and hide. But over time I just got more and more stubborn, and changed it. The reason? I wanted to make an entry that would have absolutely no reason to prefer unseen seer to the SI, as much as possible. I built a gish. I wanted to lean on the bonus damage, and utilize sneak attack as a source of debuffs, not damage unto itself (so the lower final amount wouldn't matter.) I wanted to be really into poison, I wanted to use the SLAs, and I wanted to finish my entire spell progression. I feel like I've been successful in this goal – Imaskari Vengeance Taker is, IMO, undoubtedly better for Alkathira than unseen seer. That was what I was going for, and I'm happy with it.

Almost immediately after the reveal, I realized I made a great error about abjurant champion: martial arcanist doesn’t work on the same class you advance, it works on any one arcane class you have. This means that with 16 BaB and practiced spellcaster, martial arcanist can give you 20 CL as a duskblade with only 5 levels, which stacks with knight of the weave – and as I've shown, KoTW has a few spells that really enjoy a high CL. So, I've since come up with a couple of really fun and unusual mid-op gish builds with very high CL based on this combination.

The first is Duskblade 5, KoTW 1, Abjurant Champ 5, Green Star Adept 9.
This build ends up with 16 BaB, full KoTW casting, all the fun advantages of GSA without the devastating last level, and a CL of 35 (39, if you're interpreting GSA in the generous way, which I think is wrong as the example clearly shows.) It's playable as a gish throughout. You can replace the last level with a Master of Masks dip for a CL of 36 instead with the archmage mask, but this build as presented is playable and very straightforward, so adding dipping at the end may be frowned upon by a DM.

Obviously, you could make it stronger by taking a level spelldancer and do some persistomancy (especially since you're immune to fatigue) but this is meant to be a practical optimization build for mid op tables that has a fun ace up their sleeve with their very high CL. If what you want is shenanigans, master spellthief and sublime chord are about one kilometer straight and to your left.

A big strength of this build is having all but 1 (practiced spellcaster) of its feats free to be combat feats, a bloodline feat, or anything else you fancy. It takes 3 prcs, 2 of which require a feat you gain as a bonus and 1 requiring no feats.

It also only uses phb2, champions of valor and the completes, so it may be usable in many tables where many sources or ToB are frowned upon (and therefore, low to mid op more likely.) It's really strengthened by access to dragon compendium for bloodline feats, though.

Build 2 uses more sources and more resources, and uses a stricter alignment as it is an exalted build. It ends up with a lower CL, but advances faster and has more options and more fun flavor. The "canon" version of it uses Legacy Champion, assuming your DM is a decent person that would be willing to design a weapon of legacy that isn't absolutely trash. It's also doable without it.

First 11 levels are the same – duskblade 5, KoTW 1, Abjurant Champion 5. Then, you go for Exalted arcanist 2/ legacy champion 4. Last 3 levels can still be GSA, or anything else pretty much.

The non-legacy version just takes exalted arcanist 5, and the last four levels just have to be full BaB – Paladin 4 is nice on a Cha build if you take a devotion feat, or you could go for warblade and JPM, but those kind of have their own identity.

This build has lower CL and feels less martial overall, but it gets spells somewhat faster, has more spells, and has access to greater luminous armor, which is really good for abjurant champions.


Overall, I find both builds to be fun and playable in mid op games. They can pull a few neat tricks, and the first one especially has a lot of room for customization with feats.

[Seward]

When I saw Alkathira, I thought "That's who LuckLuck wishes he was". Abjurant Champion was banned so it was off my radar, although, my goblin needed his 2 quick-casts enough he woudln't have dipped anyway. I can see why it is a go-to for gish, but the use of Knight of the Weave and all that followed was just really interesting. Maybe she's the one who invited him to join...

[H_H_F_F]

When I saw Alkathira, I thought "That's who LuckLuck wishes he was". Abjurant Champion was banned so it was off my radar, although, my goblin needed his 2 quick-casts enough he woudln't have dipped anyway. I can see why it is a go-to for gish, but the use of Knight of the Weave and all that followed was just really interesting. Maybe she's the one who invited him to join...

I'm glad you liked her, Seward. I was happy to see someone else went for straight-up gish. I thought I'd be the only one to really notice and utilize the BaB and damage bonus, when everything else tried to scream "sneak-caster"

Edit: what do you mean by Abjurant Champion being banned? Did I miss something?

[H_H_F_F]

And... the spreadsheet is fully updated.


Thank you to everyone for participating! Thank you, Korahir, for judging! And as always, thank you to our beloved chair, the Viscount! Chairman Viscount gives us a happy life. Follow Chairman Viscount forever. The sunlight of Viscount thought illuminates the road of the great optimizing 3.5 revolution. The hearts of the sons and daughters of GiTP go out to Chairman Viscount. Advance victoriously while following Chairman Viscount's revolutionary line in optimizing and fluff. Forging ahead courageously while following the great leader Chairman Viscount. Respectfully wish Chairman Viscount eternal life!

[Seward]

Edit: what do you mean by Abjurant Champion being banned? Did I miss something?

I played 3.0 and 3.5 in several campaigns in the 2000-2008 timeframe before shifting to Pathfinder. In the only campaign that allowed a fair amount of splatbook material that PRC was explicitly banned.

It's a hole in my optimization. I got more books and stuff than we were allowed to play, but I have to educate myself on the stuff that I wasn't allowed to use, plus the gaps from books I don't own. I'm aware of a fair amount from web resources and just conversations on boards like this of stuff I never used, but it isn't in the top of my mind when making a build, and only when my usual favorites aren't working do I tend to dig deeper. It is made worse by not playing 3.5 for a decade and having my mind cluttered with Pathfinder stuff. (as an example, I described a combo in my Queen Swords fluff text that only works with Pathfinder Deeper Darkness and 3.5 Ebon Eyes. It's helpful with 3.5 Deeper Darkness...it's concealment you can see through, so you get a miss chance and immunity to sneak attack and similar but it isn't anything like how much sleet-storm-like blackout can cause). I noticed my error about a week after I submitted the character and fortunately the judge didn't think it was important....also the character was arrogant enough she could describe a minor helpful tactic as paradigm changing so it might have been chalked up as bravado.

I saw this PRC and immediately noticed the damage potential and never strayed from a gish concept, one ranged, one melee. I had a harder time doing much with sneak attack and poison, both tactics I've never been that fond of and if I was going down that road, I'd want to build with classes that give more than 4d6 of sneak attack in 10 levels. (I'm the kind who would cherry pick each class and prc that gives it in level 1, then start adding those that add in level 2 to get enough sneak to make it worth losing it. Especially since Craven isn't a feat I really feel right using, as I never owned that book). As for poison it's hard to take seriously in a 20 level build. The DCs are low enough anything over 10th level will mostly save if they aren't naturally immune, and if they are weak for some reason they are a slow poison or hero's feast away from being essentially immune. I must admit some of the entries did some pretty clever thing with poison, I just wonder in real life if they kept running into "Ok, the ToV is a demon. Oh well, no poison."

[Venger]

Thanks for updating the spreadsheet.

[Zaq]

I'm so glad that everyone liked my build! Displaying a new early entry trick is always a little dicey because no matter how ironclad the RAW is, if the judge doesn't like it then the judge doesn't like it, so I feel like I got lucky there.

Although it's not always possible, I feel like one of my guiding principles when building for IC is "why do I NEED to be the secret ingredient? What can I do because I'm the secret ingredient that I couldn't do otherwise?" And although this class didn't really have too many genuinely unique features that would let me answer that question, the premise of the class—spending a long time prepping in order to hate on one specific dude at a time—opened up the possibility of the nearly unused truename spells. (Also the fact that knowing the target's "name" is one of the ways you can swear vengeance on them is what got my mind working in that direction in the first place, but that's why I STAYED there, at least.) So I guess it's more about what I COULDN'T do if I weren't in the SI than about what I WOULDN'T do if I weren't in the SI.

Not gonna lie, I almost gave up because the truename spells are, overall, really bad even if you have the target's personal truename. They're just lacking in oomph. But as a sorcerer-style caster with limited spells known, I didn't have to optimize every single one of them: I could pick and choose. And as I explained, the lure of unname was too great to ignore, since I genuinely believe that no character has actually ever cast unname in the history of 3.5. It's so unwieldy and not worth it. But it fit the fluff like a glove, so I had to try!

I genuinely do not think I could have handled the monstrosity that was James's skills if I were going in unaided. mattie_p, your spreadsheet is killer and I love it. Every time I use it I'm grateful anew for it.

Korahir, the poems were limericks! I had to get a little loose with the meter, but they're a fun form of lighthearted verse in English. I needed a Perform skill to qualify for virtuoso and sublime chord, but I never intended for James to actually roll Perform, so I could pick whatever the hell I wanted. Taking Perform (Limerick) gave me an excuse to not write a standard fluff block, and I think that helped my thought process!

[Gruftzwerg]

I wanted to congratulate the winners too. I was sick the past days and thus the late response.

My personal favorite remains the Drider entry.

[loky1109]

Wish you good health.

My personal favorite remains the Drider entry.

I'm much glad to hear that.

[daremetoidareyo]

HM goes to the drider