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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    DrowGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    First entry sent.

    UPD: pabelfly, suddenly I was curious, What was the distribution of votes in the voting on the round theme?
    Last edited by loky1109; 2023-01-26 at 06:27 PM.
    If you could make anything and everything welcome to the Zinc Saucier XLV: Figaro

    My competition's medals.

    Spoiler: For purposes of clarity
    Show
    1109 is September, 11 - my birthday.

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by loky1109 View Post
    First entry sent.

    UPD: pabelfly, suddenly I was curious, What was the distribution of votes in the voting on the round theme?
    39% for Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage
    26% for Smite + Mounted Combat - Paladin (our next Junkyard Wars contest).
    13% for Multiweapon Fighting + Spellcasting - Barbarian
    13% for Vow of Poverty - Alternate Forms
    9% for Truespeak + Tome of Battle

    So after we do Smite + Mounted Combat - Paladin, I'll come up with some future contest ideas, steal a few previous suggestions and throw them all up for another poll, since that seemed to work pretty well this time.

    Also, finished doing up the trophies.



    As I said before, my pixel art skills are only average. Anyone who wants to design some nicer trophies for the contest, be it drawn or done in CAD is quite welcome and I'd appreciate it.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    HalflingPirate

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    I happen to be playing something that might fit in a current campaign. I've never done one of these competitions, though. Is the goal here to present a nifty build that incorporates both ingredients or are we also trying to pull off the implied trick of spellcasting and raging at the same time?

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by not_a_fish View Post
    I happen to be playing something that might fit in a current campaign. I've never done one of these competitions, though. Is the goal here to present a nifty build that incorporates both ingredients or are we also trying to pull off the implied trick of spellcasting and raging at the same time?
    Your choice. While I can't tell you how a prospective judge will score a potential build, I suspect if there is some synergy between your raging and spellcasting, even if you can't cast while raging, you won't do too badly.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Inevitability's Avatar

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Though I won't be judging, if I were to I'd assign points for use of rage, use of casting, and the degree to which your build can get use out of their combination specifically.

    "Casting while raging" is a pretty specific effect obtainable from only a few sources, but there's ways to make your casting and raging work for each other in other ways too, and I would judge builds on their ability to do that.
    Creator of the LA-assignment thread.

    A new Junkyard Wars round is up! Come join Weapon Bond + Weapon Specialization - Fighter!

    Interested in judging a build competition on the 3.5 forums but not sure where to begin? Check out the judging handbook!

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  6. - Top - End - #36
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Just wanted to give this thread a bump - there's two weeks left to enter, which should be plenty of time to prep an entry if you missed this back when the thread launched. I've already got some interesting entries, so you'll be in great company if you do enter.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    We have about three days left. If anyone requires an extension, feel free to shoot me a PM. I'd much rather extend the deadline than have someone miss out on submitting their entry.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    MonkGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by pabelfly View Post
    We have about three days left. If anyone requires an extension, feel free to shoot me a PM. I'd much rather extend the deadline than have someone miss out on submitting their entry.
    I'm working on the write up and need to check for possible errors..^^
    I hope that I will have enough time to get it done by the regular time limit. If not, I'll come back begging..

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by Gruftzwerg View Post
    I'm working on the write up and need to check for possible errors..^^
    I hope that I will have enough time to get it done by the regular time limit. If not, I'll come back begging..
    I'm happy to wait until you've done your entry. I'd much rather you make an entry you're happy with than it gets in on time.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    MonkGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by pabelfly View Post
    I'm happy to wait until you've done your entry. I'd much rather you make an entry you're happy with than it gets in on time.
    It's more of a time management issue as always for me...
    I'm working on the writeup and hope that I can spare enough time to finish it maybe even tomorrow. We'll see..

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    ElfPirate

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Put the build together, but I'm away from home until tonight, when I'll start formatting it all. Hopefully won't have to ask for an extension.
    Quote Originally Posted by Darths & Droids
    When you combine the two most devious, sneaky, manipulative, underhanded, cunning, and diabolical forces in the known universe, the consequences can be world-shattering. Those forces are, of course, players and GMs.
    Optimization Trophies

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  12. - Top - End - #42
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    MonkGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by PoeticallyPsyco View Post
    Put the build together, but I'm away from home until tonight, when I'll start formatting it all. Hopefully won't have to ask for an extension.
    I hope I get it done in the next 3+ hours. I'm currently working on it. Or lets say I'm currently taking a lil break to check the forum and refresh my mind^^

    UPDATE: I'm done and sent my entry in. Did take a bit longer but yeah..^^

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Thurbane's Avatar

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    My build never got past the rough outline stage. Just don't have time to dedicate at the moment. Look forward to seeing what people came up with ,and if anything was similar to what I thought of...

  14. - Top - End - #44
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    ElfPirate

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Okay, submission is in.
    Quote Originally Posted by Darths & Droids
    When you combine the two most devious, sneaky, manipulative, underhanded, cunning, and diabolical forces in the known universe, the consequences can be world-shattering. Those forces are, of course, players and GMs.
    Optimization Trophies

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  15. - Top - End - #45
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Okay, I'm going to post all of the submissions. Please hold off on posting until I'm done, thanks.

  16. - Top - End - #46
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Trox, Shaped By War

    Trox, Shaped By War



    (music)

    NG Saint Frostblood Half-Orc Barbarian 1 / Cleric of Heironeous 3 / Ordained Champion 4 / Flux Adept 10

    "The claim that 'war never changes' is both true and false. True, because every war is the same fight, the same struggle, the same cosmic battle, differing only in the details. And false, because no man can fight a war and not be changed by it."

    Spoiler: Ability Scores and Languages
    Show

    Level 4, 8, 16 increases go to Strength, level 12 increase goes to Wisdom.
    STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
    Array 15 10 14 14 14 12
    Racial 17 10 14 12 14 10
    Post-ASIs 20 10 14 12 15 10
    Post-Sainthood 20 10 16 12 17 14

    Known languages are Common, Orc, and Draconic. Upon acquiring the Saint template, this is largely superseded by Tongues.


    Spoiler: Backstory
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    Spoiler: Initiation
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    The half-orc, clad in the white robes of an acolyte, shifted slightly in his chair. Across from him, the senior priest smiled politely, the stylized silver swords around her neck clanking together as she shifted position.

    "Worry not, Trox of Yrthak Pass. Many a mercenary has found faith fighting side by side with the Shining One's church. There might be much for you to learn still, but our temples come well-equipped, and every priest shall be your instructor. Teaching the strong in matters of worship is little different from teaching the devout in matters of battle."

    Trox muttered a word of thanks, and almost made to leave when he realized the priest had another thing to say.

    "That said, before you begin your training... I have a question, more of a riddle, perhaps. This is unrelated to your initiation: it is simply something I like to ask new devotees. Can I pose it to you?"

    The orc nodded.

    "Humans, orcs, dwarves, elves, halflings; all were created by the gods. In that creation, we can already find the potential for war: the strength to wield weapons, the frailty to be killed by them. But why did the gods make it so? Why allow for their creations to kill one another? Why not give us the stony hide of gargoyles, which no spear or blade may pierce? Why not the vitality of trolls, that may survive even beheading? Or, if need be, why not remove our strength, and thus make violence impossible? The gods are neither cruel nor short-sighted: they must have known their design capable of great evil: why did they not make it less so?"

    The orc reflected on that question. "How long to answer?"

    The elderly priest smiled at that question.

    "Why, Brother Trox, I've pondered it for sixty years and still not found an answer. If you find one ere I die, I will be pleased."


    Spoiler: Heterodoxy
    Show
    Pale Dirt. A narrow peninsula, blasted by the northwestern ocean gale, home to smattering of farms and three tiny villages. The church of Heironeous kept a small shrine in the largest of them, maintained mostly out of an age-old obligation to station a priest in 'each border County of the Kingdom, for Education and Training of the Guard'. Earth's End had no guard: it had two dozen militiamen, half of which showed up to any given drill. On occasion, a stray ogre would wander in from the highlands, they'd scare it off, and that was that.

    In other words, Pale Dirt made for a perfect spot to reassign any turbulent priests to. And Trox, more and more distrusted by his peers, had been deemed turbulent enough. The half-orc, tasked with little other than staying out of the way, spent his time praying, helping the villagers out where possible, and training his body to peak human ability.

    He found the peak of human ability to be... insufficient.


    Spoiler: Armageddon
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    Demons poured forth from the hole in reality, uncaring that their summoner had been slain. The paladins, clerics, and other warriors that had penetrated the enemy formation had gambled on the fact that her death would end the spell: now they were surrounded on all sides by fiends, the main force too far away to help.

    Esther the Just, commander of the regiment, cast spell after spell, each felling more demons that were just as quickly replaced by their brethren. She was going to die here, but at least some of those abominations would die with her.

    A commotion to her right. A small figure split off from the main force, charging through the demons' ranks towards their position. A hopeless endeavor: already the fiends were attacking from all sides, blasting it with frost and lightning, calling out in unholy tongues. There the figure fell, barely halfway to their position, and what difference could it have made there? No, what she had witnessed was nothing but foolish bravery, an-

    A golden light began to emanate from where the figure had been standing. A few demons began screeching, the din of battle still not enough to drown out their cries. Speechlessly, Esther watched the figure rise again, fight off its attackers, and advance, sword held before it. No ordinary sword, she realized: far bigger than the one-handed blades most of the church used. It almost reminded her of...

    With a final mighty charge, the figure landed in the midst of the beleagured paladins. Immediately, the demonic attack faltered: the monsters halting their attack as if kept at bay by the radiance alone.

    "Greetings, teacher." the figure spoke in a language Esther had only heard from the mouths of angels. She looked on in awe as he turned and smashed headlong into those stronger demons that still dared approach.

    The figure, no, Trox, that initiate-turned-heretic, stood proud and radiant. Yellow flames enshrouded his teal body, heating his mail to a dull red glow. Two great swollen hands were clasping an inchor-covered greatsword, their nails lengthened and thickened into claws. The wounds demons had dealt him were closing before her eyes, somehow failing to be more than skin deep anywhere. Blood and sweat dripped off of him, a greenish tinge to both substances. The orc almost looked like a madman's painting: all bright colors and clashing lights, yet there was something utterly divine about him.

    In that moment, she realized he had found the answer to her question long, long ago.


    Spoiler: The Flux of War Heresy
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    The war between Good and Evil, in all their many facets, trumps all else in importance. Evil will inevitably reject peace, and when it does, Good must be prepared. Faith alone is not enough: it must be backed by martial skill. Wars must be fought, and we should fight then on the side of Good. In all this, the church of Heironeous is correct.

    But the church fails to answer why war is inevitable. A million possible worlds are conceivable where violence itself does not exist, where disagreement is impossible, where conflict has no point. If nothing else, we can imagine a world like ours where all receive some form of invulnerability: why did the gods not create that? A mere apostate might call their power limited, their motives cruel, their foresight fallible, but we reject these lies.

    The answer is this: a skin that cannot be cut by swords cannot be cut by scalpels. A hand that cannot forge weapons cannot forge the tools of reason. The frostblood orcs of old would drink the blood of dragons, suffusing them with frozen power: a body that rejects all poison would have rejected this gift, too. However paradoxical, we were made frail so we may twist ourselves away from frailty.

    What is war, then? A confrontation with our limits, and a challenge to exceed them. A reminder that mere humanity may not be sufficient to avoid death, a proving ground for those who seek to venture beyond. War is, on a cosmic scale, nothing more than a question posed by the gods: our own bodies will be the answer. The gods granted their creation the capacity to change: we would dishonor them by making no use of it.

    ---

    Those who adopt this heresy typically choose a greatsword as their weapon. The symbolism is straightforward: the symbol of their god, simply made greater, as a plain example of the self-improvement they strive towards. Among those clerics who aren't Ordained Champions, Chaotic Good alignments are common.



    Spoiler: Build Table
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    Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
    1st Skilled City-Dweller Barbarian 1 +1 +2 +0 +0 Climb 4, Knowledge (Nature) 2cc, Knowledge (Local) 1cc, Literacy 2, Sense Motive 4, Tumble 4 EnduranceB, Extra Rage Illiteracy, Rage, Spiritual Totem (Lion)
    2nd Cloistered Cleric 1 +1 +4 +0 +2 Craft (Alchemy) 1, Heal 2, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Knowledge (Religion) 3 Weapon Focus (Longsword)B Lore, Turn Undead, Knowledge Domain, War Domain, Courage Domain
    3rd Cloistered Cleric 2 +2 +5 +0 +3 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (2), Heal +1 (3), Knowledge (Arcana) +3 (4), Knowledge (Religion) +2 (5) Heretic of the Faith(Greatsword, Planning), Weapon Focus (Greatsword)B, Extend SpellB Planning Domain
    4th Cloistered Cleric 3 +2 +5 +1 +3 Heal +2 (5), Knowledge (Arcana) +3 (7), Knowledge (Religion) +2 (7) - -
    5th Ordained Champion 1 +3 +7 +1 +5 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (4), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (8), Knowledge (Religion) +1 (8) Power AttackB, Intuitive AttackB Destiny Domain, exchange granted powers of Knowledge and Destiny domain, Continued Advancement, Modified Spontaneous Casting
    6th Ordained Champion 2 +4 +8 +1 +6 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (5), Collector of Stories skill trick DiehardB, Great Fortitude Smite
    7th Ordained Champion 3 +5 +8 +2 +6 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (6), Tumble +1cc (5) - Channel Spell, Divine Bulwark
    8th Ordained Champion 4 +6/+1 +9 +2 +7 Balance 1cc (1), Craft (Alchemy) +1 (7) - Fist of the Gods, Rapid Spontaneous Casting
    9th Flux Adept 1 +6/+1 +9 +4 +7 Balance +2 (3), Craft (Alchemy) +1 (8) Blazing Berserker Grace Through Will
    10th Flux Adept 2 +7/+2 +9 +5 +7 Balance +2 (5), Craft (Alchemy) +1 (9) - Pheromonic Control, Thermoregulation +2
    11th Flux Adept 3 +7/+2 +10 +5 +8 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (10), Twisted Charge Skill Trick - Iron Stomach
    12th Flux Adept 4 +8/+3 +10 +6 +8 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (11), Nimble Charge Skill Trick Righteous Wrath Bitter Tides
    13th Flux Adept 5 +8/+3 +10 +6 +8 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (12), Sense Motive +2 (6) - Feign Death
    14th Flux Adept 6 +9/+4 +11 +7 +9 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (13), Sense Motive +2 (8) - Taste of Truth
    15th Flux Adept 7 +9/+4 +11 +7 +9 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (14), Sense Motive +2 (10) Headlong Rush Haste
    16th Flux Adept 8 +10/+5 +11 +8 +9 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (15), Sense Motive +2 (12) - Boiling Blood
    17th Flux Adept 9 +10/+5 +12 +8 +10 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (16), Sense Motive +2 (14) - Polyhaemia
    18th Flux Adept 10 +11/+6/+1 +12 +9 +10 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (17), Sense Motive +2 (16) Sanctify Martial Strike Regeneration 1
    20th Saint Template +11/+6/+1 +12 +9 +10 - - Insight bonus to AC, Holy Power, Holy Touch, SLAs, DR 10/evil, Fast Healing 9, Acid Immunity, Cold Immunity, Electricity Immunity, Petrification Immunity, Keen Vision, Protective Aura, Resistance to Fire 10, +4 on saves against poison, Tongues


    Spoiler: Spells
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    Spells per Day
    Level 0lvl 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
    2nd 3 2+1 - - - -
    3rd 4 3+1 - - - -
    4th 4 3+1 2+1 - - -
    5th 5 3+1 2+1 - - -
    6th 5 4+1 3+1 - - -
    7th 5 4+1 3+1 1+1 - -
    8th 5 4+1 3+1 1+1 - -
    9th 5 4+1 4+1 2+1 - -
    10th 5 4+1 4+1 2+1 - -
    11th 6 5+1 4+1 2+1 1+1 -
    12th 6 5+1 4+1 2+1 1+1 -
    13th 6 5+1 4+1 3+1 2+1 -
    14th 6 5+1 4+1 3+1 2+1 -
    15th 6 5+1 5+1 3+1 2+1 1+1
    16th 6 5+1 5+1 3+1 2+1 1+1
    17th 6 5+1 5+1 3+1 3+1 2+1
    18th 6 5+1 5+1 3+1 3+1 2+1
    20th 6 5+1 5+1 4+1 3+1 2+1

    Typical Spells Prepared (ECL 20, CL 10):
    0: Create Water, Create Water, Cure Minor Wounds, Cure Minor Wounds, Detect Magic, Detect Magic
    1: Command, Detect Secret Doors, Doom, Obscuring Mist, Resurgence, Resurgence
    2: Detect Thoughts, Shield Other, Shield Other, Shield Other, Silence, Sound Burst
    3: Bestow Curse, Bestow Curse, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Remove Curse, Speak with Dead
    4: Bestow Curse, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Panacea
    5: Plane Shift, Raise Dead, True Seeing

    (domain spells underlined)


    Spoiler: Spotlights
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    ECL 5
    Your early-game role is best characterized as 'barbarian who remembers he is a cleric when combat ends'. You're wielding a greatsword, you have 3/day Rage, you got Power Attack... You also have the War Domain on speed dial, so you can fill spell slots with healing and utility and not miss out on Magic Weapon when needed. Medium Armor (which you can sleep in!) and the constitution boost from Rage give you a solid degree of survivability.

    You also have some knowledge skills and Lore, things that are typically rolled between and at the start of encounters, so they minimally interfere with Rage. For the first few levels you're actually quite capable of contributing to the party this way: later on the lack of skill points starts to hurt.

    Our heresy allows us to exchange Heironeous' longsword-specific benefits to a slightly bigger weapon, while also giving us the Planning domain and Extend Spell with it (if your DM doesn't like heresies, you can also just take Extend Spell normally and wield a longsword two-handed). Extend Spell itself has minimal benefit, but presumably making a spell last 6 rounds instead of 3 matters sometimes.

    Speaking of exchanging things, Ordained Champion lets us give up two domain granted powers (the +1 CL to divination spells granted by knowledge, and the destiny domain reroll) and get two fighter bonus feats in return. Intuitive Attack is a really weird pick that'll only matter when we take strength damage: we chose it because it's one of a very limited list of fighter bonus feats that are also exalted.

    ECL 10
    Ordained Champion helps resolve the central paradox of raging casters: how to use spells you can't cast? The answer is: by burning them on damage bonuses with Fist of the Gods! If you'd rather protect yourself a little, Divine Bulwark gives some decent DR. They're supernatural abilities, and can thus be used during Rage.

    In addition, you can Channel spells into your weapon, where they stick around for up to 8 hours. This straightforwardly lets you get in-combat use out of spells cast far before combat (Bestow Curse, Blindness, Sound Burst etc are all very nasty, Command can disarm foes). Another casting trick involves putting Silence either into our weapon or on ourselves: we weren't going to cast in-combat spells anyway, but it can really mess with enemy casters.

    You also get Rapid Spontaneous Casting, allowing you to drop a Magic Vestment or Spiritual Weapon before entering rage and charging into battle. Essentially, between Channel Spell, Rapid Casting, and Fist of the Gods, you're getting use out of a regular 'spell allotment' each encounter... except you're also raging and full attacking all the while. We don't really have space for Divine or Devotion feats in the build, but our turning attempts can be expended on Smite, each one granting us one-time +7 damage boosts.

    By the way, remember how we picked up the Destiny domain? It gives us Delay Death, which combines with our Diehard feat to let us completely ignore damage for brief intervals. Obviously it's not a strategy to employ every encounter (that damage will still be there when the spell wears off), but it can make for some impressive moments.

    Finally, Trox begins experimenting with his own physiology, manipulating his own body temperature (Blazing Berserker, Thermoregulation) and movements (Grace Through Will). Pheromonic Control has minor synergy with the charisma-based abilities we will get, and at worst gives two more Turn Undead attempts (and thus smites) per day. Flux Adept also gives us some Balance ranks to help against the ever-scary Grease. Note how Blazing Berserker removes our innate Fire vulnerability: a welcome bonus at the level enemy clerics get Flame Strike!

    We're not finishing Ordained Champion for lack of space, but note the 5th-level class features are mostly useless to us (we have more strength than wisdom and don't really care about caster levels). Even the point of BAB that we lose is going to be compensated for quickly enough.

    ECL 15
    Flux Adept levels are starting to eat into our BAB... but we're saved by Divine Power, which is a swift action to cast and gives us a third iterative just as the fighter starts getting one! Plus, y'know, +6 strength, a boost our two-handed power attacking charging self certainly appreciates.

    Most of what flux adept gives us is mechanically unimpactful, but I like viewing these features through the lens of someone optimizing their own body for wartime environments: capable of subsiding on anything, able to escape bonds and cells by sweating acid, good at playing dead when needed, and quite capable at interrogations. Plus, 2/day free-action extraordinary Haste at the end makes up for a lot. Note that flux adept's abilities tend to be Supernatural or Extraordinary: neither of which Rage interferes with.

    Also, note how a lot of Flux Adept abilities have constitution-based uses per day, so Rage actually grants us more uses of them! Bitter Tides especially might see some use: you can deal upwards of 70 points of acid damage in a little over half a minute (enough to melt down a 2-inch steel door) or gradually deal hundreds of points of damage over the course of an hour (which gets you through ~4 feet of hewn stone). Even adamantine will gradually dissolve under your hands: every ten minutes get you through two and a half inches of it.

    We also grab Righteous Wrath to deliver a cute debuff on evil enemies and help us keep those Exalted feats around (combining it with a channeled Doom might pay off big time against low-Will foes), and finally take Headlong Rush because we have a ton of multiply-eligible bonus damage (Power Attack, Fist of the Gods, Smite, our immense strength). Lastly, we obtain two skill tricks that will help with reliably lining our pouncing charges up.

    ECL 20
    Flux Adept gives us Regeneration that can only be overcome by cold, electricity, fire, and sonic damage. Between Saint and Blazing Berserker, we have immunities to all except sonic. In other words, while raging, virtually all damage we take is nonlethal: now there's a capstone! Most of the ways to still hurt you involves targeting Fortitude or Will, but those are boosted by Rage, great base stats, and good base save values (plus Great Fortitude).

    It's not just our barbarian side complementing our caster side: headlong rush really appreciates how our flux adept investment leaves its main downside nonexistent. The -2 AC that rage inflicts is also a lot less impactful now. This is also the point where we can start preparing several Shield Others a day: it lasts for hours/level and halves the damage your favorite allies will take with basically no drawback.

    Outside of that, not much to say. You round out cleric progression to get to 10th-level casting, you have some at-will SLAs now, you get DR 10/evil (making Divine Bulwark somewhat obsolete, but it wasn't the best way to use your spells anyway), you hit evil creatures harder, and all your spells and special abilities get a bonus to the DC. Your Sense Motive also gets quite high (+30 with Guidance) thanks to the Flux Adept boost and a solid base stat, so you have something to do in social encounters. While I don't see it coming up, note that it's one of the few skills that functions normally during rage! The alchemy is for downtime crafting and occasional Polyhaemia.


    Spoiler: Sources
    Show
    Frostblood Half-Orc - DM
    Saint - BoED

    Skilled City-Dweller - Cityscape web
    Spiritual Lion Totem - CChamp
    Cloistered Cleric - UA
    -Courage Domain - SC
    -Planning Domain - CWar
    -Destiny Domain - RoD
    Ordained Champion - CChamp
    Flux Adept - DComp

    Twisted Charge, Nimble Charge, Collector of Stories - CScndr

    Extra Rage - CWar
    Heretic of the Faith - Power of Faerun
    Intuitive Attack, Righteous Wrath, Sanctify Martial Strike - BoED
    Blazing Berserker - SndSt
    Headlong Rush - Races of Faerun

  17. - Top - End - #47
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2019

    Default Ragnor Kolbjorn

    Ragnor Kolbjorn
    Race: Maenad. Alignment: True Neutral

    Me? The name's Ragnor. Ragnor Kolbjorn if you care about a second name. I'm what's called a War Mind. Basiclly I use the power o' ma mind to improve my ability ta kill the enemy. I learned it from my former master in those things. Guy was named Alberik. Unfortunately, he was killed by members of the Valborg Clan. Not alot o' Valborgs anymore.
    My skin? Eh, apparently, one o' my who-knaws-how-many great-great-grandsires decided to rut wi'h an ee-leeth-eed. Mindflayers some call 'em. I got a bit of benefit from it.
    Yeah, I worship Skadi; what o' it? If'n you want ta fight me o'er it, knaw that the gods have gifted me wi'h the Battle Fury.


    Spoiler: Levels
    Show
    Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
    1st Fighter 1 +1 +2 +0 +0 Knowledge (Psionics) 4 Ranks, Knowledge (History) 2 Ranks, Use Magic Device 4 Ranks, Ride 1 Rank, Concentration .5 Ranks Apprentice (Spell Caster), Power Attack Weapon and Aromr Proficiencies. Racial Abilities:Naturally Psionic, 1/day energy ray (sonic only), Outburst 1/day
    2nd Fighter 2 +2 +3 +0 +0 Knowledge (Psionics) 5, UMD 5, Knowledge (History) 2, Ride 1, Concentration 1 Ranks Improved Unarmed Strike
    3rd Fighter 3 +3 +3 +1 +1 Knowledge (Psionics) 6, UMD 6, Knowledge (History) 2, Ride 1, Concentration 1.5 Ranks Illithid Heritage
    4th Fighter 4 +4 +4 +1 +1 Knowledge (Psionics) 7, UMD 7, Knowledge (History) 2, Ride 1, Concentration 2 Ranks - Resolute ACF
    5th Fighter 5 +5 +4 +1 +1 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, UMD 8, Knowledge (History) 2, Ride 1, Concentration 2.5 Ranks
    6th Berserk 1 +5 +6 +1 +1 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 9, Ride 1, Concentration 3.5 Ranks Psionic Fist Battle Fury 1/Day, +10 Ft movement speed
    7th Berserk 2 +6/+1 +7 +1 +1 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 10, Ride 1, Concentration 4 Ranks Damage Reduction 1/-
    8th Berserk 3 +7/+2 +7 +2 +2 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 11, Ride 1, Concentration 4.5 Ranks Beast Shape 1/Day (Eagle)
    9th Berserk 4 +8/+3 +8 +2 +2 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 12, Ride 1, Concentration 5 Ranks Illithid Skin Battle Fury 2/day, Damage Reduction 2/-
    10th War Mind 1 +9/+4 +10 +4 +2 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 13, Ride 1, Concentration 7 Ranks Chain of Personal Superiority +2, Psionics
    11th War Mind 2 +10/+5 +11 +5 +2 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 14, Ride 1, Concentration 9 Ranks Chain of Defensive Posture +2
    12th War Mind 3 +11/+6/+1 +11 +5 +3 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 15, Ride 1, Concentration 11 Ranks Illithid Legacy Enduring Body (DR1/-)
    13th War Mind 4 +12/+7/+2 +12 +6 +3 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 16, Ride 1, Concentration 13 Ranks
    14th Fighter 6 +13/+8/+3 +13 +7 +4 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 17, Ride 1, Autohypnosis 1 Rank Improved Iniative
    15th War Mind 5 +14/+9/+4 +13 +7 +4 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 18, Ride 1, Concentration 15, Autohypnosis 1 Rank Unavoidable Strike Sweeping Strike
    16th War Mind 6 +15/+10/+5 +14 +8 +5 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 19, Ride 1, Concentration 17, Autohypnosis 1 Rank Enduring Body (DR 2/-),
    17th War Mind 7 +16/+11/+6/+1 +14 +8 +5 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 20, Ride 1, Concentration 17, Autohypnosis 3 Ranks Chain of Personal Superiority +4
    18th War Mind 8 +17/+12/+7/+2 +15 +9 +5 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 21, Ride 1, Concentration 17, Autohypnosis 5 Ranks Greater Illithid Legacy Chain of Defensive Posture +4
    19th War Mind 9 +18/+13/+8/3 +15 +9 +6 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 22, Ride 1, Concentration 17, Autohypnosis 7 Ranks Enduring Body (DR3/-) (68pp)
    20th War Mind 10 +19/+14/+9/+4 +16 +10 +6 Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Knowledge (History) 2, UMD 23, Ride 1, Concentration 17, Autohypnosis 9 Ranks Chain of Overwhelming Force



    Spoiler: Stats
    Show
    Abilities Initial 4th 8th 12th 16th 20th Total
    STR 14 14
    DEX 16 1 2 3 4 20
    CON 14 14
    INT 12 12
    WIS 14 1 15
    CHA 8 8


    Spoiler: Powers
    Show
    Level Class Manifester Level Powers Known Power Points
    1st Maenad Racial 1* Energy Ray 1/day, Sonic Only 1
    2nd " " 1* 1
    3rd " " 1* 1
    4th " " 2* 1
    5th " " 2* 1
    6th " " 3* 1
    7th " " 3* 1
    8th " " 4* 1
    9th " " 4* 1
    10th War Mind 1 1 Claws of the Beast 4
    11th War Mind 2 2 Catfall 8
    12th War Mind 3 3 Psionic Charm*, Read thoughts* 13
    13th War Mind 4 4 Psionic Lion's Charge 19
    14th - 4 19
    15th War Mind 5 5 26
    16th War Mind 6 6 Hostile Empathic Transfer 35
    17th War Mind 7 7 45
    18th War Mind 8 8 Psionic Dimension Door, Dispel Psionics*, Psionic Dominate* 56
    19th War Mind 9 9 68
    20th War Mind 10 10 Oak Body 81



    Spoiler: Sources
    Show
    Type Name Book Page
    Race Maenad Expanded Psionics Handbook 13
    Class Fighter Player's Handbook 37
    Prestige Class Berserk Deites and Demigod 201
    Prestige Class War Mind Expanded Psionics Handbook 155
    Feat Apprentice (Spellcaster) DMG II 176,178
    Feat Power Attack PHB 98
    Feat Improved Unarmed Strike PHB 96
    Feat Illithid Heritage Complete Psionic 62
    Feat Psionic Fist Expanded Psionics Handbook 50
    Feat Illithid Skin Complete Psionic 62
    Feat Illithid Legacy Complete Psionic 62
    Feat Improved Initiative PHB 96
    Feat Unavoidable Strike Expanded Psionics Handbook 52
    Feat Greater Illithid Legacy Complete Psionic 62
    Alternate Class Feature Resolute Complete Champion 48
    Psionic Powers All Expanded Psionics Handbook Varies


    Spoiler: Breakdown
    Show

    Level 1-5: Ragnor is just a Fighter at this point. Apprentice (Spell caster) is taken in order to qualify for War Mind later on. (Knowledge (Psionics) and War Mind's Special Requirement are covered by this). Power Attack is for extra damage potential. IUS is a feat tax, as is Illithid Heritage. Resolute ACF is there because of the horrible Will save. Outburst gives +2 Str at the cost of -2 Int and -2 Wis and lasts for 4 rounds.
    Level 6-10: Berserk is a very front-loaded class. Essentially Greater Rage at ECL 6, 1/day single animal Wild shape at ECL 8. DR 1/- at ECL 7, and 2/- at ECL 9. Not bad for a martial. Eagle was chosen for the 80ft fly speed. War Mind 1 gives Ragnor actual manifesting, and qualification for the challenge. Psionic Fist is another feat tax, albeit one that does give a little bit of extra damage. Illithid Skin is another feat tax, but gives us an extra +1 to AC. Reflex saves are bad at this point, and the high dexterity is the only help it gets. Ragnor is a brawler type and needs backup, preferably the kind that doesn't have to fight near him .
    Level 11-15: At ECL 14 we take our last level of Fighter, but other wise it is straight War Mind. I.I. is there because I couldn't easily find a decent FBF that Ragnor could easily qualify for. Illithid Legacy Gives the Psionic Cahrm and Read Thoughts powers. Catfall is more utility, and Psionic Lion's Charge is self explanatory. Unavoidable Stike lets Ragnor target Touch AC for a single* attack with an unarmed or claw attack. Can also be used with Power Attack. The Chains allow a quasi-rage 3/day (+2 Str and Con for a minute) and +2 AC for a minute ( also 3/day.) Sweeping Strike gives some ability to target multiple enemies. Reflex save is better at this point. He remains a brawler, and honestly should use Battle Fury a bit less.
    Level 16-20: War Mind the rest of the way. At War Mind 7 and 8 the chains improve to +4 each. At War Mind 9 Damage Reduction finally improves to 3/-. And the capstone gives an extra +10d6 to a single attack. That is the main reason for choosing unavoidable strike earlier. Greater Illithid Legacy gives Psionic Dominate and Dispel Psionics. Hostile Empathic Transfer is for combat healing/Touch damage. Psionic Dimension Door is for obvious reasons. Oak Body is for extra durablity if needed. Battle Fury is now a back up ability for Ragnor at this point. Indeed, Ragnor can at, level 20, perform a single high damage strike and then proceed to harass the enemy in melee with good survivabilty.

  18. - Top - End - #48
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2019

    Default Trogdrak of the Badgers


    European Werebadger by KaiserFlames

    Long time ago one dwarven clan fell in with the devils. They crossbreeded and got the power from having durzagon-like members in the clan. But they wanted more and rebelled against the dwarven king. Unfortunately conspiracy was exposed and revolution was crushed. All adult dwarves of this today forgotten clan participated in the riot and were killed or executed. Only several dozens of children escaped through an old unstable portal and were lost. Everybody thought they were dead.

    But they survived. Devil-blooded dwarven children alone in the far uncharted caves... It was a very hard time and without adults they forgot too many, they became more wild, more feral than were their forebears. It lasted for centuries, they survived, evolved on their own, acquired new traditions and beliefs. One day they found an exit to the surface. It was very terrible for wild uncivilized dwarves, it was a different world, full of monsters and unknown hazards. Place where spirits should live. It happened once a badger came into dwarven caves. It was an old and weary animal. And very calm. Tribe's shaman managed to tame this creature and was very proud of this - he was the shaman, he should deal with hazards of the Outside. In this way Badger became the totem of the tribe.

    Passed a few generations. Shamans explored the totem spirit and one of them found the way to unite maeluth’s and badger's spirits and body in one great rite. He performed this ritual for all tribe and from this moment all tribal members became werebadgers.

    Badger tribe still exists today in their distant caves. It's a very savage and wild tribe, most of its members are cruel and evil and religious rituals of the tribe are very violent and unsafe. Even tribe members don't always survive the maturity ceremony. Trogdrak should never have survived it, he was too weak and clumsy and not shining in health against the background of other children, but... Badger spirit inside him turned out to be stronger than anybody expected. When at the end of the ceremony his lifeless body turned into an almost ten-footed tall animal even the shaman gasped! It was incredible! After this incident he had no other ways but to become the shaman - with such a strong badger inside!

    He grew older and studied with an old tribe shaman, but he did not receive satisfaction from this destiny. He wasn't so evil and cruel as his tribesmen, shamanic rites mostly seemed disgusting and excessive. One day he woke up and went outside. Shaman told him before many horror stories about this place and he was ready to fight with hostile monsters, spirits and demons, but... There were none of them. There was a forest around, never before seen trees and bushes. It was so... beautiful!

    He lived in the forest alone for years. He taught himself how to obtain food and make a shelter. How to heal himself when he was ill and how to deal with wild animals and plants - they turned out not to be demons at all, just regular creatures of flesh and blood or wood and sap.

    He met an undead once. They were just two ordinary human zombies, but for Trogdrak they were a new and eerie encounter. He remembered how he himself nearly died due the maturity ceremony and was afraid. But this fear wasn't detrimental for Trogdrak, but instead woke up a new power inside him. Power to feel death, rebuke undead and improve his kamlanie rites.

    Trogdrak long time lived alone and saw no one sentient being. His forest was too distant from any civilized places, but it could not last forever. One day all changed. People came. Humans and several half-orcs. They were poachers. Trogdrak faced them suddenly, he could not have expected such. Poachers didn't expect to meet bear-sized badger with six legs, either, but they were poachers and always knew what to do when they saw such a gimmick. Of course they attacked Trogdrak trying to capture him alive. It was a mistake. Trogdrak fighted back and killed them all.

    But he understood: poachers were only the first sign. After them more people will come. Trogdrak went in the footsteps of poachers and met another newcomers. This time it wasn't a surprise and Trogdrak managed to hide out and let them pass. They followed the poachers' trail and it looked like they weren't friends. It was Guardians of the Green squad, they received information about a band of poachers who headed towards virgin forests to find new prey and wanted to prevent this from happening.

    Trogdrak watched Guardians until they reached the site of the battle. He hid the bodies and loot, but for a skilled tracker the overall picture was clear: poachers tried to take a bite out of size. And Trogdrak understood it's a matter of time when new guests found all his footprints and his place. It was time to decide: to fight, to flee away... or to come out and talk...

    TN Ferral Natural Weredire Badger Lesser Maeluth Spirit Shaman 6/Death Delver 1/Holt Warden 2/Mystic Wanderer 3
    Spoiler: Stats
    Show
    Abilities Initial Lesser Maeluth Lycanthrope Feral Levels Animal/Hybrid Form Bite of the Weretiger Bite of the Werebear + Sirine's Grace + Ability Enhancer Total Total AF Total AF + BotWT Total AF + BotWB + SG + AE
    STR 8 4 12 12 18 12 24 36 42
    DEX 8 -2 -2 4 4 6 4 8 12 14
    CON 10 4 2 12 6 10 16 28 34 38
    INT 16 -4 12 12 12 12
    WIS 12 2 2 16 16 16 16
    CHA 18 4 6 22 22 22 28


    Spoiler: Build
    Show
    Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
    3rd Natural Lycanthrope +3 LA - - - - - Iron WillB Alternate form, lycanthropic empathy, curse of lycanthropy, DR 10/silver, low-light vision, scent
    4th Ferral +1 LA - - - - - Darkvision, fast healing
    5th Dire Badger 1 HD 1 2 2 0 12: {+4 CC} Knowledge (religion): 2; {+4 CC} Perform (oratory): 2; {+4} Spot: 4; Extend Spell1, TrackB Dwarf traits, fiend hammer, improved grab, rage
    6th Dire Badger 2 HD 2 3 3 0 3: {+1 CC} Knowledge (religion): 2.5; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 2.5; {+1} Spot: 5;
    7th Dire Badger 3 HD 3 3 3 1 3: {+1 CC} Knowledge (religion): 3; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 3; {+1} Spot: 6; Persistent Spell3
    8th Dire Badger 4 HD 4 4 4 1 3: {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 1; {+1 CC} Knowledge (religion): 3.5; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; Pounce
    9th Spirit Shaman 1 4 6 4 3 5: {+2} Concentration: 2; {+1} Knowledge (nature): 2; {+1 CC} Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; {+1} Survival: 1; AlertnessB Spirit guide (Badger), wild empathy
    10th Spirit Shaman 2 5 7 4 4 5: {+2} Concentration: 4; {+1} Heal: 1; {+1} Knowledge (nature): 3; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; {+1} Survival: 2; Plant Defiance6 Chastise spirits
    11th Spirit Shaman 3 6 7 5 4 5: {+2} Concentration: 6; {+1} Heal: 2; Knowledge (nature): 3; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; {+2} Survival: 4; Detect spirits
    12th Spirit Shaman 4 7 8 5 5 5: {+2} Concentration: 8; Heal: 2; {+3} Knowledge (nature): 6; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; Survival: 4; Blessing of the spirits, rake
    13th Death Delver 1 7 10 5 7 3: Concentration: 8; {+3} Craft (alchemy): 3; Heal: 2; Knowledge (nature): 6; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; Survival: 4; Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell)9 Deathsense, rebuke undead
    14th Spirit Shaman 5 7 10 5 7 5: Concentration: 8; Craft (alchemy): 3; {+3} Diplomacy: 3; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (nature): 8; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; Survival: 4; Follow the guide
    15th Spirit Shaman 6 8 11 6 8 5: Concentration: 8; Craft (alchemy): 3; {+5} Diplomacy: 8; Heal: 2; Knowledge (nature): 8; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Spot: 6; Survival: 4; Ghost warrior
    16th Holt Warden 1 8 13 6 10 5: Concentration: 8; Craft (alchemy): 3; Diplomacy: 8; Heal: 2; Knowledge (nature): 8; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; {+3} Profession (herbalism): 3; Spot: 6; {+2} Survival: 6; Spell Focus (Transmutation)12 Nature sense, plant affinity, rend
    17th Holt Warden 2 9 14 6 11 5: Concentration: 8; Craft (alchemy): 3; Diplomacy: 8; Heal: 2; Knowledge (nature): 8; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; {+1} Profession (herbalism): 4; Spot: 6; {+4} Survival: 10; Rebuke plants, woodland stride
    18th Mystic Wanderer 1 9 14 8 12 3: Concentration: 8; Craft (alchemy): 3; Diplomacy: 8; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (nature): 10; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; {+1} Profession (herbalism): 5; Spot: 6; Survival: 10; Blind-FightS, Power AttackS Glory of the divine, sleep
    19th Mystic Wanderer 2 10 14 9 13 3: Concentration: 8; Craft (alchemy): 3; {+3} Diplomacy: 11; Heal: 2; Knowledge (nature): 10; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Profession (herbalism): 5; Spot: 6; Survival: 10; Ability Enhancer15 Familiar (weasel), lore of nature
    20th Mystic Wanderer 3 10 15 9 13 3: Concentration: 8; Craft (alchemy): 3; {+3} Diplomacy: 14; Heal: 2; Knowledge (nature): 10; Knowledge (religion): 4; Perform (oratory): 3; Profession (herbalism): 5; Spot: 6; Survival: 10; Attune GemB Gem magic, resist charm
    B - bonus feats, S - feats granted by spell.


    Spoiler: Magic
    Show
    Spoiler: Spells per Day
    Show
    Level Class 0th 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
    8th Spirit Shaman 1 3 2+1
    9th Spirit Shaman 2 4 3+1
    10th Spirit Shaman 3 5 4+1 2+1
    11th Spirit Shaman 4 6 5+1 3+1
    14th Spirit Shaman 5 6 6+1 4+1 2+1
    15th Spirit Shaman 6 6 6+1 5+1 3+1
    16th Spirit Shaman 7 6 6+1+D 6+1+D 4+1+D 2+D
    17th Spirit Shaman 8 6 6+1+D 6+1+D 5+1+D 3+D
    18th Spirit Shaman 9 6 6+1+D 6+1+D 6+1+D 4+D 2+D
    19th Spirit Shaman 10 6 6+1+D 6+1+D 6+1+D 5+D 3+D
    20th Spirit Shaman 11 6 6+1+D 6+1+D 6+1+D 6+D 4+D 2+D

    Spoiler: Spells Retrieved
    Show
    Level Class 0th 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th Turn Attempts
    HM - - Wood Wose; Deep BreathP; Crabwalk; Aspect of the WolfP Bone Talisman; Countermoon; Acorn of Far Travel Augment Object; Nature's Rampart - Druid Grove; Echo Skull Spellstaff; Ironwood; Liveoak -
    9th Spirit Shaman 1 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 1: Longstrider/Rapid Burrowing 0
    10th Spirit Shaman 2 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 2: Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 7
    11th Spirit Shaman 3 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 2: Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 1: Master Air 7
    12th Spirit Shaman 4 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 1: Master Air 8
    14th Spirit Shaman 5 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 1: Master AirP 1: Giralon's Blessing 16
    15th Spirit Shaman 6 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 2: Master AirP; Align Fang 1: Giralon's Blessing 16
    16th Spirit Shaman 7 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 2: Master AirP; Align Fang 1: Giralon's Blessing 1: Friendly FireP 16
    17th Spirit Shaman 8 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 2: Master AirP; Align Fang 2: Giralon's Blessing; Jagged Tooth 1: Friendly FireP 24
    18th Spirit Shaman 9 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 3: Master AirP; Align Fang; Earthbind 2: Giralon's Blessing; Jagged Tooth 1: Friendly FireP 1: Bite of the WeretigerP 24
    19th Spirit Shaman 10 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 3: Master AirP; Align Fang; Earthbind 2: Giralon's Blessing; Jagged Tooth 2: Friendly FireP; Magic Fang, Superior 1: Bite of the WeretigerP 24
    20th Spirit Shaman 11 3: Naturewatch; Silvered Weapon; Detect Magic 3: Power Sight; Longstrider; Rapid Burrowing 3: Master AirP; Align Fang; Earthbind 3: Giralon's Blessing; Jagged Tooth; Giant's Wrath/Downdraft 2: Friendly FireP; Magic Fang, SuperiorP 1: Sirine's GraceP 1: Bite of the WerebearP 36*
    P - spells for Persistent spell use.
    *- number of turns including turns from Charisma improved via Sirine's Grace spell.

    Spoiler: Some Spell Usage
    Show
    1) Acorn of Far Travel + Liveoak give me a treant ally everywhere.
    2) Acorn of Far Travel + wearable bonsai oak + familiar's Share Spells = my selfbuffs all day long working for my familiar without needing to be close to me.
    3) Familiar + Aspect of the Wolf. Thanks to Share Spells I could cast this spell onto my weasel familiar. With shared buffs from #2 it gives me powerful melee buddy. If I want persist Aspect of the Wolf I need to find some additional turn attempts (for example via Bone Talisman) or replace some spell from my regular persist list. In Spells Retrieved Aspect of the Wolf most likely replaces Power Sight. If it isn't enough Aspect of the Wolf opens opportunity to use Animal Growth onto familiar. Yes, I have no options to add this spell into my Spells Retrieved (Sirine's Grace is more important), but it's a solvable problem (Spellstaff, Attune Gem or some another item).
    4) Creating Spellstaff of Spellstaff and the next day using it to create Spellstaff of any other useful sixth level spell (spells up to fifth levels I could preserve without Spellstaff of Spellstaff) is some long but cool way to get around spells retrieved limitations.
    5) Druid Grove also is a method to get extra spells. Especially if I got Orange Prism. Four spell levels preserved for next usage is great.
    6) Spellstaff/Druid Grove + Ironwood and Augment Object. My spells' storages really need to have the most possible hardness.
    7) Power Sight is a very unique spell. It's a very good method to study foe. Yeah, I'll not know what levels he has, but the number of levels is already quite good information.

    8) Rage and spells overall. Yes, I can't cast spells while I raging and badgers rage has wording
    ...until either it or its opponent is dead. ... The creature cannot end its rage voluntarily
    But I'm not just a badger, I'm a natural lycanthrope. I can end my rage in any moment just by turning into my maeluth form.

    9) Attune Gem isn't spell itself, but it is free feat that gives me another way to preserve spells for future.

    Spoiler: Spell Sources
    Show
    Book Spells
    Spell Compendium Naturewatchp. 146; Crabwalkp. 53; Rapid Burrowingp. 166; Wood Wosep. 242; Align Fangp. 9; Countermoonp. 53; Master Airp. 139; Earthbindp. 76; Giralon's Blessingp. 106; Jagged Toothp. 126; Nature's Rampartp. 146; Giant's Wrathp. 105; Downdraftp. 72; Magic Fang, Superiorp. 136; Bite of the Weretigerp. 28; Sirine's Gracep. 191; Echo Skullp. 77; Bite of the Werebearp. 27; Deep Breathp. 61; Aspect of the Wolfp. 16;
    Web Silvered Weaponlink; Bone Talismanlink; Acorn of Far Travellink;
    PHB Detect Magicp. 219; Detect Animals or Plantsp. 218; Longstriderp. 249; Spellstaffp. 282; Ironwoodp. 246; Liveoakp. 248;
    Masters of the Wild Power Sightp. 92; Druid Grovep. 87;
    Stronghold Builder's Guidebook Augment Objectp. 41;
    Exemplars of Evil Friendly Firep. 27;

    Death Delver's spell list isn't very useful, but at least Lesser Restoration could find its place.


    Spoiler: Snapshots
    Show
    Spoiler: ECL 8
    Show
    Here we start. Natural Lycanthrope synergizes well with Feral template. All Animal HDs became Monstrous Humanoid HDs. Fast healing, improved grab and pounce, all this is good. I take advanced dire badger as Trogdrak's animal counterpart. There is no restrictions in template description against this.

    Spoiler: ECL 13
    Show
    Real class levels. Four of Spirit Shaman and one of Death Delver. I found DMM Persistent as a good option to use my badger's rage and spells at the same time. At this level it works only with Master Air and maybe with Deep Breath, but later this tactics will significantly improve.

    Spoiler: ECL 20
    Show
    It's the apex. With all my persistent spells and dire badger form I'm a very dangerous melee combatant even with not so good BAB and not very combat oriented feats. Even during rage I have very high AC with two times Cha mod (Glory of the divine and Sirine's Grace) and 14 NatAC, plus persistent Friendly Fire gives perfect protection against ranged attacks.
    I also have options to fight with flying enemies and/or with enemies at the range. Plus I have methods against various DR. Of course not all my spells could by persistent and I anyway have limited amount of turns, but with round or two for preparation I could deal with almost everything.
    I also have a familiar now and I could make it good combatant, too, by casting on it some spells that I use for selfbuff.


    Spoiler: Miscellaneous
    Show
    Spoiler: Guardians of the Green affiliation
    Show
    It isn't very useful for my entry, but it's some free numbers that I can obtain. I have at least 17 Affiliation Score with one-time criterions only and easily could get more with multiple use criterions.
    Full affiliation's description is in the Complete Champion, p. 68.

    Spoiler: Items
    Show
    I want to obtain Orange Prism Ioun Stone. This +1 CL significantly improves several of my spells.
    If I'd have at least +4 Wis item I will be able to cast enough Bone Talismans to feed all needed persistent DMM spells.

    Spoiler: DMM issue
    Show
    I know, not everybody allow to use DMM with non-undead turns (Plant Defiance and Rebuke plants in my entry). If you feel the same way I point at the Bone Talisman spell. It could provide me enough turn attempts. For all spells, but one (I'd choose to skip the Master Air) or for totally all with two Bone Talismans from the Druid Grove.


    Spoiler: Books
    Show
    Type Name Book Page
    Race Maeluth Fiend Folio 136
    Race Lesser Player's Guide To Faerun 190
    Race Lycanthrope Monster Manual 170
    Race Dire Badger Monster Manual 62
    Template Feral Savage Species 115
    Class Spirit Shaman Complete Divine 14
    Prestige Class Death Delver Heroes of Horror 93
    Prestige Class Holt Warden Complete Champion 84
    Prestige Class Mystic Wanderer Magic of Faerûn 35
    Feat Iron Will PHB 97
    Feat Extend Spell PHB 94
    Feat Track PHB 101
    Feat Persistent Spell Complete Arcane 81
    Feat Alertness PHB 89
    Feat Plant Defiance Masters of the Wild 24
    Feat Divine Metamagic Complete Divine 80
    Feat Spell Focus PHB 100
    Feat Blind-Fight PHB 89
    Feat Power Attack PHB 98
    Feat Ability Enhancer Dragon Compendium 91
    Feat Attune Gem Magic of Faerûn 21

  19. - Top - End - #49
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2019

    Default Wander, Shifter Psychic Rogue


    Wander
    True Neutral Shifter (razorclaw) Cleric 1 / Psychic Rogue 16 / Weretouched Master 3


    “But how? How did you penetrate my trap-filled labyrinth and reach the ritual chamber in time?!”
    “Elementary. All it takes is the right tools, and a little intellect. I make sure never to leave the house without either.”
    “So now what? Is this where you spout a long-winded explanation, as you reveal your genius to the audience?”
    “Actually, this is where I pretty much just beat you to death.”

    Wander is, well, a wanderer, traveling from place to place and adventuring for the thrill of testing their skills and growing ever stronger. They've got a whole lot of tricks up their well-armored sleeve, and are equally at home wading into battle or sneaking through a trap-filled lair. Wander works best in a party with flanking buddies, but has more than enough stealth to get the drop on enemies, and is far tankier than any rogue has a right to be.

    Spoiler: Build
    Show
    Cleric 1/ Psychic Rogue 8/ Weretouched Master 3/ Psychic Rogue +8
    Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
    1st Cleric (Sovereign Host: Plant, Travel) 1 0 2 0 2 16: {+4} Knowledge (nature): 4; {+4} Survival: 4; {+4 CC} Hide: 2; {+4 CC} Move Silently: 2; Shifter Ferocity Aura, Spontaneous Domain Casting (Plant) ACF, Turn Undead
    2nd Psychic Rogue 1 0 2 2 2 8: Knowledge (nature): 4; {+2 CC} Survival: 5; {+2} Hide: 4; {+2} Move Silently: 4; {+1} Search: 1; {+1} Disable Device: 1; Sneak Attack +1d6, Trapfinding
    3rd Psychic Rogue 2 1 2 3 2 8: Knowledge (nature): 4; {+2 CC} Survival: 6; {+2} Hide: 6; {+2} Move Silently: 6; {+1} Search: 2; {+1} Disable Device: 2; Razorclaw Elite Evasion
    4th Psychic Rogue 3 2 3 3 3 8: Knowledge (nature): 4; {+2 CC} Survival: 7; {+1} Hide: 7; {+1} Move Silently: 7; {+2} Search: 4; {+1} Open Lock: 1; {+1} Disable Device: 3;
    5th Psychic Rogue 4 3 3 4 3 8: Knowledge (nature): 4; {+2 CC} Survival: 8; {+1} Hide: 8; {+1} Move Silently: 8; {+2} Search: 6; Open Lock: 1; {+2} Disable Device: 5; Sneak Attack +2d6
    6th Psychic Rogue 5 3 3 4 3 8: Knowledge (nature): 4; {+2 CC} Survival: 9; {+1} Hide: 9; {+1} Move Silently: 9; {+2} Search: 8; {+1} Open Lock: 2; {+1} Disable Device: 6; Darkstalker Danger Sense
    7th Psychic Rogue 6 4 4 5 4 8: Knowledge (nature): 4; {+2 CC} Survival: 10; {+1} Hide: 10; {+1} Move Silently: 10; {+2} Search: 10; Open Lock: 2; {+2} Disable Device: 8;
    8th Psychic Rogue 7 5 4 5 4 8: {+1 CC} Knowledge (nature): 4.5; {+2 CC} Survival: 11; {+1} Hide: 11; {+1} Move Silently: 11; {+1} Search: 11; {+1} Open Lock: 3; {+1} Disable Device: 9; Sneak Attack +3d6, Danger Sense (Uncanny Dodge)
    9th Psychic Rogue 8 6 4 6 4 8: {+1 CC} Knowledge (nature): 5; {+2 CC} Survival: 12; {+1} Hide: 12; {+1} Move Silently: 12; {+1} Search: 12; {+1} Open Lock: 4; {+1} Disable Device: 10; Improved Unarmed Strike
    10th Weretouched Master 1 6 6 8 4 4: Knowledge (nature): 5; Survival: 12; {+2 CC} Hide: 13; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 13; Search: 12; Open Lock: 4; Disable Device: 10; Weretouched I (Wolverine)
    11th Weretouched Master 2 7 7 9 4 4: Knowledge (nature): 5; Survival: 12; {+2 CC} Hide: 14; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 14; Search: 12; Open Lock: 4; Disable Device: 10; Shifter Multiattack (B) Bonus Shifter Feat, Wild Empathy
    12th Weretouched Master 3 8 7 9 5 4: Knowledge (nature): 5; Survival: 12; {+2 CC} Hide: 15; {+2 CC} Move Silently: 15; Search: 12; Open Lock: 4; Disable Device: 10; Shifter Savagery Weretouched II (Wolverine)
    13th Psychic Rogue 9 8 8 9 6 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; Survival: 12; {+1} Hide: 16; {+1} Move Silently: 16; {+2} Search: 14; {+2} Open Lock: 6; {+2} Disable Device: 12; Danger Sense (Improved Uncanny Dodge)
    14th Psychic Rogue 10 9 8 10 6 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; Survival: 12; {+1} Hide: 17; {+1} Move Silently: 17; {+2} Search: 16; {+2} Open Lock: 8; {+2} Disable Device: 14; Sneak Attack +4d6
    15th Psychic Rogue 11 10 8 10 6 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; Survival: 12; {+1} Hide: 18; {+1} Move Silently: 18; {+2} Search: 18; {+2} Open Lock: 10; {+2} Disable Device: 16; Craven, Psicrystal Affinity (B) Special Ability (bonus feat)
    16th Psychic Rogue 12 11 9 11 7 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; {+1 CC} Survival: 12.5; {+1} Hide: 19; {+1} Move Silently: 19; {+1} Search: 19; {+2} Open Lock: 12; {+2} Disable Device: 18;
    17th Psychic Rogue 13 11 9 11 7 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; {+1 CC} Survival: 13; {+1} Hide: 20; {+1} Move Silently: 20; {+1} Search: 20; {+2} Open Lock: 14; {+2} Disable Device: 20; Sneak Attack +5d6
    18th Psychic Rogue 14 12 9 12 7 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; {+1 CC} Survival: 13.5; {+1} Hide: 21; {+1} Move Silently: 21; {+1} Search: 21; {+3} Open Lock: 17; {+1} Disable Device: 21; Extra Shifter Trait (Swiftwing) Special Ability (Skill Mastery (Hide, Move Silently))
    19th Psychic Rogue 15 13 10 12 8 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; {+1 CC} Survival: 14; {+1} Hide: 22; {+1} Move Silently: 22; {+1} Search: 22; {+3} Open Lock: 20; {+1} Disable Device: 22;
    20th Psychic Rogue 16 14 10 13 8 8: Knowledge (nature): 5; {+1 CC} Survival: 14.5; {+1} Hide: 23; {+1} Move Silently: 23; {+1} Search: 23; {+3} Open Lock: 23; {+1} Disable Device: 23; Sneak Attack +6d6

    Spoiler: Ability Scores
    Show
    Abilities Initial Race / Template 4th 8th 12th 16th 20th
    STR 16 1 1 1 1 1
    DEX 8 2
    CON 14
    INT 16 -2
    WIS 14
    CHA 8 -2


    Level \ Abilities STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
    1st 16 10 14 14 14 6
    2nd 16 10 14 14 14 6
    3rd 16 10 14 14 14 6
    4th 17 10 14 14 14 6
    5th 17 10 14 14 14 6
    6th 17 10 14 14 14 6
    7th 17 10 14 14 14 6
    8th 18 10 14 14 14 6
    9th 18 10 14 14 14 6
    10th 18 10 14 14 14 6
    11th 18 10 14 14 14 6
    12th 19 10 14 14 14 6
    13th 19 10 14 14 14 6
    14th 19 10 14 14 14 6
    15th 19 10 14 14 14 6
    16th 20 10 14 14 14 6
    17th 20 10 14 14 14 6
    18th 20 10 14 14 14 6
    19th 20 10 14 14 14 6
    20th 21 10 14 14 14 6


    Spoiler: Spell Slots & Power Points
    Show
    Character Level 0th Divine 1st Divine Power Points
    1st 3 2+1 0
    2nd 3 2+1 1
    3rd 3 2+1 3
    4th 3 2+1 5
    5th 3 2+1 8
    6th 3 2+1 11
    7th 3 2+1 14
    8th 3 2+1 17
    9th 3 2+1 20
    10th 3 2+1 20
    11th 3 2+1 20
    12th 3 2+1 20
    13th 3 2+1 24
    14th 3 2+1 28
    15th 3 2+1 32
    16th 3 2+1 36
    17th 3 2+1 40
    18th 3 2+1 48
    19th 3 2+1 56
    20th 3 2+1 64


    Spoiler: Powers Known
    Show
    Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
    1st
    2nd compression
    3rd control light
    4th defensive precognition
    5th
    6th control sound
    7th animal affinity
    8th feat leech
    9th
    10th
    11th
    12th
    13th hustle
    14th telekinetic force
    15th greater concealing amorpha
    16th
    17th correspond
    18th psionic freedom of movement
    19th psionic dimension door
    20th



    Spoiler: Levels 1-5
    Show
    Nothing wrong with taking help where you find it... a little well-placed help from above is well worth a little faith. Cleric 1 doesn't give us many spell slots, but the Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF lets us devote all of them to whatever utility spells are best for the day and still have a solid combat option in spontaneously casting entangle. Access all armors lets us dump Dex, a much-needed reduction to our MAD; once you can afford it, an Animated shield is another solid boost to your AC that most rogues can't enjoy. Our domains also give us crucial access to Survival and Knowledge (nature) as class skills. +2 to the two most important saves in the game is just icing on the cake.

    As a Shifter, we get access to a lot of perks, several of them quite good. Shifter Ferocity is a massive boost to our early-game survivability, being essentially 10 extra HP right from level 1. Its utility fades as your level rises, so if your DM allows retraining you might want to look into that later (I'd recommend Healing Factor or Reactive Shifting), but in this level bracket it's gold. Then Razorclaw Elite gives us a pseudo-pounce. And while shifting is at best rage-adjacent, later on it gives us access to true Rage. Last but not least, having two primary claw attacks is even better than TWF for Sneak Attacking, more than making up for our lost point of BAB.

    In Psychic Rogue, we get the lovely Trapfinding (though our Disable Device is a little low early) and the lovelier Sneak Attack. Our powers are aimed at bolstering our stealth and defenses. Defensive precognition is currently only worth casting as a prebuff, but once we get some power points to spare it can be manifested as a swift action, and it scales quite nicely through augmentation.

    Skill-wise, we're investing hard into Survival, Move Silently, Hide, and Search as our utility tools. We invest a more modest number of ranks into Knowledge (nature) for identification and into Disable Device. We even send a few into Open Lock, though we won't be good at that for a while. Aw, well, just carry an ax.


    Spoiler: Levels 6-10
    Show
    Darkstalker, a necessity for any build interested using stealth. Between this, compression, perhaps animal affinity, and ideally some mithril armor if you can swing it, we're almost as good as a traditional sneaky Rogue, only with control sound and control light for creating our own favorable environments.

    Combat-wise, we're a few D6s behind that traditional Rogue, but with a much higher Str contributing to damage, and at the end of this bracket we get Improved Unarmed Strike and a bite attack, bringing us up to five attacks per full-attack while shifting (which also now gives us a +2 to Con).


    Spoiler: Levels 11-15 (sweet spot)
    Show
    Finally, Rage! Early in this bracket, we pick up the two abilities that bring the combat side of this build fully into gear. Weretouched II lets us enter Rage whenever we take damage while shifting, and Shifter Savagery gives all of our natural weapons (which I believe includes our unarmed strike, but I could be wrong about that) a massive boost while we're both raging and shifting. Enemies are put in a very awkward position; Rogues are typically glass cannons, but Wander has comparable damage without the fragility, and if hit will actually heal automatically (increased Con) and start doing even more damage! Plus, hustle lets us move and full-attack to open the fight for when charging with Razorclaw Elite isn't quite enough (or when conditions prevent it). At level 15 we get Craven for a flat damage boost (which takes advantage of our increased threat range in a way that more D6s can't), and Psicrystal Affinity gives us our own flanking buddy.

    Speaking of our Psicrystal, it shares our skills like a familiar, making it even better at sneaking than we are, but it's also got its own feats... which we can steal with feat leech. I haven't created a table just for the familiar, but some good psionic feats for it are Hidden Talent and the Metapsionic feats. Darkstalker can't be stolen from the Psicrystal (and we already have it), but it'll probably need it.

    This is the sweet spot for the build, with all the powers and feats you need. You can't cast while Raging, but that won't start until the second turn of the battle (unless you've picked up Reactive Shifting somewhere and your DM rules that it does let you shift before your first turn in combat), giving you a round to spend on buffing and/or a control spell/power if you don't want to wade into the fray immediately.


    Spoiler: Levels 16-20
    Show
    As mentioned, the build is already fully online at this point; nothing left to do but shore up the gaps. Our numbers keep rising, and we get some sweet level 4 powers. The last feat is highly flexible, as is the last Psychic Rogue Special Ability, but I went with Extra Shifter Trait (swiftwing) to give you guaranteed flight while shifting, even if stripped of your magic items and buffs, and Skill Mastery to take 10 in your best skills. We also get Disable Device back up to max ranks, and Open Lock up to max ranks for the first time.


    Spoiler: Sources
    Show
    Champions of Ruin - Feats: Craven.
    Eberron Campaign Setting - Races: Shifter (razorclaw, swiftwing). Classes: Weretouched Master. Feats: Extra Shifter Trait, Healing Factor (mentioned only), Shifter Ferocity, Shifter Multiattack.
    Expanded Psionics Handbook - Feats: Hidden Talent (mentioned only), Metapsionic feats (mentioned only), Psicrystal Affinity.
    Lords of Madness - Feats: Darkstalker.
    Races of Eberron - Feats: Razorclaw Elite, Reactive Shifting (mentioned only), Shifter Savagery.
    SRD - Classes: Cleric. Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike. Other: Plant Domain, Travel Domain, Psicrystal. Powers: animal affinity, compression, control light, control sound, defensive precognition, feat leech, greater concealing amorpha, hustle, psionic dimension door, psionic freedom of movement, telekinetic force.
    Web - Classes: Psychic Rogue.

  20. - Top - End - #50
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2019

    Default Batsu, the Bat-man

    Batsu, the Bat-man

    Raging Dances of the Toxic Storm

    Spoiler: Regarding the Build
    Show

    While doing my researches for the build and browsing through dozens of threads and even some handbooks, I often (not always!) noticed some misconceptions imho.

    1. "Don't dip monk as a druid, take a Monk's Belt"


    2. "Druids are not great at persisting spells. Most spells can't either be persisted or already have a long duration."
    (In fact, it's hard to find any recommendations to persist as druid at all. I sole found 2 threads with a list and both are very small..)

    3. Vermin Shape (city-shape) ain't as good as regular Wild Shape and is more of a fluff choice.
    (This assumption is even claimed by the druid handbooks.)

    4. Druidic Avenger is a bad ACF and should be generally avoided unless it's for fluff or to meet some requirements. It's not worth to give up the Animal Companion.
    (Again, the handbooks and discussions on several forums, show no love for this ACF)

    (1) The Monk's Belt doesn't provide you with the Unarmed Strike (US) ability of a monk, but sole with the US "damage". Thus you still provoke AoO when using US and can't use spells and effects as if they would be manufactured/natural weapons. It makes a difference to have the monk's US, when you are in forms that sole have a single attack otherwise. With imp. US you can get iterative attacks on those forms and can still use your natural weapon(s) as secondary attack(s). This is an important difference here. So unless you want to invest into the Imp. US feat along the Belt, a monk dip is still recommended (if you wanna focus on Wild Shape).

    (2) Druid has a lot of interesting spells to persist as I will showcase in this build. I have done the hard work and have gone through most books I have access to, to make a nice list specific for this build.

    (1+2) Since persisting ain't easy (+6 spell lvl increase), we need one of the workarounds to easily persist spells.
    DMM can be an option, if we get Turn Undead somehow. But since turning pools are very limited (especially as druid), this only persist a few spells at best.
    Incantratrix could work with the Southern Magician feat, but that would also limit the spells persisted to the daily uses of the feat. The "Alternate Source Spell" feat would solve that limitation, but the feat is from Dragon Magazine and thus only available outside of this contest.
    Which leaves us with Spelldancer as last option to easily persist spells. But that prc comes with heavy feat taxes (4!), which further limits the build (4 + Extend + Persist = 1 feat left for the build). Dipping monk comes really handy here due tot he bonus feats. We get 2 required feats and some nice monk stuff that has imho a good synergy with the druid class (imp US, Monk AC).
    Conclusion: Spelldancer is the best option for a druid to persist spells. And avoiding monk is not always the best option to go. Monk also gives Perform as class skill, which also helps to enter Spelldancer and to max the ranks for the Spelldance ability. So overall its a fitting supplement to a druid.

    (3) Vermin Shape has some really nice forms. But beside from that, there is another rule exploit that I'm gonna showcase here.

    (4) While an animal companion has great value in the first half of the lvls (1-10), it starts to lose on value at the later lvls. 3/4 BAB and unless you fully build around your Animal Companion, it will have lesser HD too (and thus again lesser BAB). It has a harder time to reliably hit stuff at higher levels (unless you specifically build around your animal companion).
    Rage doesn't lose on value over the levels and has later multiple uses. In fact, this build has more synergy with Rage than a normal Barbarian has imho. While most builds sole use Rage for improving their normal (Full) Attacks, this build further can use it to improve the DCs of some Special Abilities used by the Wild Shape forms. Most DCs are CON based and thus profit from the untyped bonus provided by Rage. And imho a +2 to DC retains its value over all levels, while the Animal Companion loses on value at later levels. Same with the STR bonus from Rage. It value doesn't diminish over the levels.
    Finally, Rage ain't that problematic for the typical "gish" build, since those barely spend more then 1 round on buffing at the start of combat (you don't want to waste multiple rounds for buffing). (assuming that we are already wild shaped) You cast the standard action spell you want to use and still have your swift & movement action and can enter Rage as free action at the end of the first turn (ideally before the two parties/factions get into combat range).

    As a final note I want to say that the build turned out much more optimized than initially intended.
    The build was originally intended just as Druidic Avenger that combines Rage with Persisted Spells. Since we are talking about druids here, the options for build variations are overwhelming. To such an extend that I thought: "OK, I guess I have to make two Drudic Avenger builds..".
    But then something happened..
    While double checking the Wild Shape rules and all its updates for a lil trick I intended to showcase in the build, I noticed some major misconceptions about our perception of the rules here.
    This build will be a TO showcase of the "current broken state of Wild Shape" and why this makes the T1 druid even more of an issue to handle as DM..^^
    But this new TO exploit also allowed me to merge the two build concepts back together into a single one. So be prepared for a totally overloaded build.

    Note that new TO showcases are legal entries according to the competition rules. Finally, the build ain't really relying on the TO stuff to be strong. Just the power to persist basically any spell needed and to pounce full buffed with any wild shape form is already very strong. So for normal games there is really no need to go this far. But since I noticed this RAW exploit, I wanted to share it with you here for the contest's sake

    Finally I'm a bit sorry to make you read this much, but as said "It's the fault of the druid's complexity..."




    Batsu's Backstory


    Batsu wasn't born. He was made via illegal experiments by an evil caster. As the local authorities noticed the experiments they arrested his master and executed him after a trial. At first the authorities didn't know what to do with the experiments. Their code forbids to kill the innocent and Batsu himself hadn't done anything evil and seemed calm, friendly and intelligent (language). As the king himself was informed about this innocent, he decided that he should be trained as elite soldier if possible. And that he shall one day join the royal guard, when he has grown up and finished his training.
    From Batsu's point of view his early years felt very chaotic. His former master (the evil caster) wasn't very nice to him and did all kinds of painful experiments on him. As such he was kinda relieved when he was rescued by the royal guards. At the same time this new and big world was overwhelming for him. Finding a place to belong to, was his first desires outside. But he quickly did manage to make some friends amount his comrades. And he kinda feels at home for the first time. This has become his family and he feels the urge to protect em. After his base training has finished he joins a special unit of the royal guards. His duty is to identify and eliminate all threads to the kingdom. Batsu seems to have a goal for his life now. Become as strong as possible to protect those that he loves.
    He gets a personal coach that plans and helps him with his special training. His coach thought that some "hand to hand combat" (monk) would be the best way to start his special training. Since Batsu has some Natural Weapons, there is a lesser focus on weapon training (sole monk weapons and later druid weapons).

    Let us all find out how Batsu's abilities will evolve over time and what kind of other special training he will do...


    Alignment: Lawful Neutral
    (monk requires you to be lawful and a druid needs a neutral component)

    Race: Anthropomorphic Bat
    While it may seem like a pure optimizers choice, there aren't many other options here. To avoid XP penalties I needed a race with either monk or druid as favorite class that is also a non-humanoid (Fangshield Druid). The sole other options are other anthropomorphic animals or Killoren. And while I would have normally taken Killoren, I had a hard time to imagine one in a city environment (City-Shape) due to their super strong connection to the nature. This kinda forced me into an Anthropomorphic animal and I ended up going for the bat since I thought it doesn't matter anymore if I pick a cheesy +4WIS race or one with +6WIS..


    STR: 10 ( 14 base -4 race)
    DEX: 12
    CON: 14
    INT: 16
    WIS: 20 (14 base + 6 race)
    CHA: 6 (8 base -2 race)

    Wisdom is the mainstat and gets maxed.



    Monk 2 / Druid 17 / Spelldancer 1


    Spoiler: Rules
    Show


    1) "Familiarity with the assumed Form"
    This is a topic often discussed and assumed as something that is in the DM's duty to determine the needed requirements. But as it seems, Rules Compendium did get rid of the word "familiarity".
    Let us have a look at the current limitations for picking a target form:
    Quote Originally Posted by RC - Wild Shape
    The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid has seen or could reasonably know about. The assumed form’s Hit Dice can’t exceed the character’s druid level.
    Besides from the unchanged HD limitation, we sole need to either have seen or reasonable know about the target form. If we have seen it or not is either part of the backstory your DM agreed upon or what you did see during your adventures. To find out if you reasonably "know" something about a target form, you need to make knowledge rolls (DC = 10 base + HD) in the right knowledge category (nature for most wild shape stuff). Which means a single point in K. Nature per Druid level is enough to know all forms you can possibly shape into (take-10 + K. Nature). It's basically a skill-tax for wild shape to gain its full potential (to not to be limited to sole the forms you have seen). So by RAW it's very easy to access all possible forms just by raising the skill.


    2) The change to Alternate Form
    "In the beginning there was Wild Shape and it referred to Polymorph. And that referred to Alter Self. And everything was good."
    Quote Originally Posted by Alter Self
    You are effectively disguised as an average member of the new form’s race.
    "But then mankind (WotC) has sinned and changed Wild Shape for no reason to now refer to Alternate Form and everything went to ****..."
    Alternate Form doesn't have the same limitations Alter Self has.
    This allows Wild Shape to target possible non-average members of the target forms. Like those with an HD Advancement (just pass the higher Knowledge DC). You can get all the stuff an advanced creature would get like a possible size increase (and the changes according to the new size).
    Note that since our HD doesn't change, anything related like ability DCs (10 base + 1/2 HD + CON) of the target form should scale accordingly with our own HD. BTW, this is another lil piece that changed over time. Originally the formula (in the MM) used RHD, which got later changed into "character's HD" in the Rules Compendium.


    3) Enhance Wild Shape
    This is already known to be very powerful. But the true RAW scale seems even more broken. We all know that selecting the option to get EX abilities is the most powerful. Wild Shape suddenly gives you all the EX feats.
    Note: most feats default into the EX category unless they are magical and/or have a friendly reminder (SLA; SU). This statement (that most feats are EX) can also be found in the BoED (which sets all exalted feats to be SU and thus excludes em for here for us).
    The cheese here is that Wild Shape uses the druid's own HD. And since "Advanced Monsters/Creatures" are "unique", we can even change our choices with each new use of the Wild Shape ability. And as long as the selected feats are EX, Wild Shape will provide the druid with em.


    4) Vermin Shape + Enhance Wild Shape
    Vermin Shape doesn't get the attention it deserves imho. Most handbooks and discussions I have found see it as fluff option and think that it is weaker compared to regular animal shape forms. Well, they ignore the interesting rule interaction here. Most vermin are normally mindless due to "INT: - ". The general rule for nonabilities excludes them from picking any feats according to their HD. But Wild Shape retrains the druid's mental scores. Thus the target form is now eligible to pick feats according to its HD. And it's HD is the druid's HD..
    This is like Awaken(ing) a tree or a construct. Both suddenly have an INT score and the "new sentient being" may freely pick feats.
    This allows to pick freely a new set of feats according to our HD for the vermin forms, making em very optimizer friendly.

    5) Humanoid Shape + Enhance Wild Shape
    Similar abuse options like vermin shape. We just lack Knowledge: Local to "reasonably know about target forms". But anything we see is a potential target for abusing feats. Have a drink with some other adventurers in the tavern to see/know em. How about a Fighter? Or a Rogue? Or maybe you want to have a drink with some crafters? Endless abuse potential. I mean, you could suddenly realize that the totally random looking guy sitting in a tavern has sneak attacks.

    Final Conclusion:
    All this mess boils down to that Wild Shape ain't limited to "an average member of the new form’s race" anymore.
    While I can see an argument to be made that the assumed (advanced) form's HD should limit ability DC and Feats, that would sole be a houserule and not RAW.
    The INT rule of Wild Shape is more specific than the target (vermin) form's original non-ability for INT. And that nonability was the reason why the creature couldn't pick feats in the first place. Without that limitation it can pick feats accordingly to its "HD". Just like an Awakened tree or construct suddenly gets an INT score and can now pick feats.
    I hope you get now what I meant with "current broken state of Wild Shape". Multiple changes at different parts of the rules did imho lead to this unintentional mess. I think that maybe the change to Alternate Form was really intended to give druid "scaling Wild Shape forms", whitout thinking about Enhance Wild Shape and the consequences. But it is as it is...
    *Reminder at myself to introduce Wild Shape houserules for my local group..^^*
    For the showcased wild shape forms I included the base HD and the Advancement HD for the audience, if they wanna use this build at a real game outside of RAW TO.


    Spoiler: The Build
    Show

    LVL Class BAB For Ref Wil Skills

    * cross class skill
    Feats

    Bonus F.
    M=monk
    D=druid
    Class Features
    1st (Cobra Strike) Monk

    (Unearthed Arcana)
    +0 +2 +2 +2 Balance: 4
    Concentration: 4
    Craft (Poisonmaking): 4
    Knowledge (Nature): 2*
    Listen: 4
    Perform: 4
    Spot: 4
    Combat Casting

    Dodge (M)
    Unarmed Strike 1d6

    Flurry of Blows

    Monk AC bonus (WIS)

    Bonus Feat
    2nd (Cobra Strike) Monk +1 +3 +3 +3 Balance: 5
    Concentration: 5
    Craft (Poisonm.): 5
    Listen: 5
    Perform: 5
    Ride: 1
    Spot: 5
    Mobility (M) Evasion

    Bonus Feat
    3rd Druid (1)

    Variant: Druidic Avenger
    (Unearthed Arcana)
    +1 +5 +3 +5 Concentration: 6
    Knowledge (Nature): 4 (+2)
    Listen: 6
    Perform: 6* (+2)
    Spot: 6
    Endurance Fast Movement +10ft

    Nature's Sense

    Rage 1/day

    Wild Empathy (-4)
    4th Druid (2) +2 +6 +3 +6 Concentration: 7
    Knowledge (Nature): 6 (+2)
    Listen: 7
    Perform: 7* (+2)
    Spot: 7
    Woodland Stride
    5th Druid (3) +3 +6 +4 +6 Concentration: 8
    Knowledge (Nature): 8 (+2)
    Listen: 8
    Perform: 8* (+2)
    Spot: 8
    Trackless Step
    6th Druid (4)

    Iron Constitution
    (Cityscape Webenhancement)
    +4 +7 +4 +7 Concentration: 9
    Craft (Poisonm.): 6
    Knowledge (Nature): 9
    Listen: 9
    Perform: 9* (+2)
    Spot: 9
    Extend Spell

    Strong Stomach (D)
    Bonus Feat
    7th Druid (5)

    Fangshield Druid
    (Champions of Valor)

    City-Shape (Cityscape)
    +4 +7 +4 +7 Concentration: 10
    Craft (Poisonm.): 7
    Knowledge (Nature): 10
    Listen: 10
    Perform: 10* (+2)
    Spot: 10
    City-Shape (small/medium animal; hands) 1/day
    8th Druid (6) +5 +8 +5 +8 Concentration: 11
    Craft (Poisonm.): 8
    Knowledge (Nature): 11
    Listen: 11
    Perform: 11* (+2)
    Spot: 11
    Rage 2/day
    City-Shape 2/day
    9th Spelldancer

    (Magic of Faerun)
    +5 +8 +7 +10 Knowledge (Nature): 12* (+2)
    Listen: 12* (+2)
    Perform: 12
    Spot: 12* (+2)
    Persistent Spell Spelldance
    10th Druid (7)

    Fangshield Druid
    +6 +8 +7 +10 Concentration: 13 (+2)
    Knowledge (Nature): 13
    Listen: 13
    Perform: 13* (+2)
    Spot: 13
    City-Shape (humanoids)
    11th Druid (8) +7 +8 +8 +11 Concentration: 14
    Craft (Poisonm.): 9
    Knowledge (Nature): 14
    Listen: 14
    Perform: 14* (+2)
    Spot: 14
    City-Shape (small/medium animal/vermin)
    12th Druid (9) +8 +9 +8 +12 Concentration: 15
    Craft (Poisonm.): 10
    Knowledge (Nature): 15
    Listen: 15
    Perform: 15* (+2)
    Spot: 15
    Reach Spell

    (Complete Divine)
    Venom Immunity
    13th Druid (10) +8 +9 +9 +12 Concentration: 16
    Craft (Poisonm.): 11
    Knowledge (Nature): 16
    Listen: 16
    Perform: 16* (+2)
    Spot: 16
    City-Shape 3/day
    14th Druid (11) +9 +10 +9 +13 Concentration: 17
    Craft (Poisonm.): 12
    Knowledge (Nature): 17
    Listen: 17
    Perform: 17* (+2)
    Spot: 17
    Rage 3/day

    City-Shape (Tiny animal/vermin)
    15th Druid (12) +10 +10 +9 +13 Concentration: 18
    Craft (Poisonm.): 13
    Knowledge (Nature): 18
    Listen: 18
    Perform: 18* (+2)
    Spot: 18
    Poison Spell

    (Drow of the Underdark)
    City-Shape (animal/vermin swarm; no size limitation, sole HD limiation)
    16th Druid (13) +11 +11 +10 +14 Concentration: 19
    Craft (Poisonm.): 14
    Knowledge (Nature): 19
    Listen: 19
    Perform: 19* (+2)
    Spot: 19
    A Thousand Faces
    17th Druid (14) +11 +11 +10 +14 Concentration: 20
    Craft (Poisonm.): 15
    Knowledge (Nature): 20
    Listen: 20
    Perform: 20* (+2)
    Spot: 20
    City- Shape 4/day
    18th Druid (15) +12 +12 +10 +15 Concentration: 21
    Craft (Poisonm.): 16
    Knowledge (Nature): 21
    Listen: 21
    Perform: 21* (+2)
    Spot: 21
    Mad Foam Rager

    (PHB II)
    Timeless Body

    City-Shape (Large Animal/Vermin)
    19th Druid (16)

    City-Soul
    (Cityscape)
    +13 +12 +11 +15 Concentration: 22
    Craft (Poisonm.): 17
    Knowledge (Nature): 22
    Listen: 22
    Perform: 22* (+2)
    Spot: 22
    Rage 4/day

    City-Shape
    (Animated Object small/medium/large 1/day)
    20th Druid (17) +14 +13 +11 +16 Concentration: 23
    Craft (Poisonm.): 18
    Knowledge (Nature): 23
    Listen: 23
    Perform: 23* (+2)
    Spot: 23
    Tireless Rage

    (Part 1 of 2)

  21. - Top - End - #51
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2019

    Default Batsu, the Bat-man

    (Part 2 of 2)

    Batsu, the Bat-man

    Raging Dances of the Toxic Storm



    Spoiler: Spells per Day
    Show

    Spells per Day
    Level 0lvl 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
    1st - 2nd - - - - - - - - - -
    3rd 3 1 - - - - - - - -
    4th 4 2 - - - - - - - -
    5th 4 2 1 - - - - - - -
    6th 5 3 2 - - - - - - -
    7th 5 3 2 1 - - - - - -
    8th 5 3 3 2 - - - - - -
    9th 6 4 3 2 1 - - - - -
    10th 6 4 3 3 2 - - - - -
    11th 6 4 4 3 2 1 - - - -
    12th 6 4 4 3 3 2 - - - -
    13th 6 5 4 4 3 2 1 - - -
    14th 6 5 4 4 3 3 2 - - -
    15th 6 5 5 4 4 3 2 1 - -
    16th 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 - -
    17th 6 5 5 5 4 4 3 2 1 -
    18th 6 5 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 -
    19th 6 5 5 5 5 4 4 3 2 1
    20th 6 5 5 5 5 4 4 3 3 2




    Spoiler: Spells and Spelldance
    Show
    Spells:
    While the snapshots explain what will be persisted early on when we get Spelldance, this is a full list here that shows the recommended options for the later levels/endgame (when we can abuse Sheltered Vitality with Reach spell to persist it). I also included some of the more important daily spells that can't be persisted (or where it doesn't make any difference due to long base durations).
    I initially sole wanted to point some spells out and refer to a "handbook" for the remaining spells. But there ain't no good handbook/list for persisting druid spells. I found only a few, but those where very small. Due to this, I'm afraid that most people aren't really aware of the options a druid has here. The list got much bigger than I initially expected.

    S = Spelldance:

    P = Persistable Spell
    T = Touch Spell, needs Reach Spell to be persisted (can also be used to buff allies)
    D = Duration of clvl/hour or more. Not worth to persist.
    # = can not be persisted

    color code:

    x = Highly Recommended / Mandatory
    x = Important but gets replaced later
    x = Recommended
    x = Nice to have but less important (may also be situational)
    x = Niche and barely needed

    LVL
    Spell Name Source S Details
    0th Detect Magic PHB P
    Detect magic all day long as soon as you concentrate on it
    0th Read Magic PHB P Again situational useful. Doesn't hurt to have it.
    0th Detect Ghost Ghostwalk P Situational, but since it is sole a 0th lvl spell slot why not be prepared for those niche situations.
    1st Camouflage Spell Comp. P +10 circumstance bonus to Hide
    1st Produce Flame PHB P Fire based melee or ranged touch attack 1d6 +1/lvl (max +5).
    2nd Blood Frenzy Spell Comp. #
    /
    #
    The spell replaces a daily charge for our Rage ability, thus giving the option for extra Rages early on. At later levels it loses a bit on value since we get more daily Rage uses from Druid lvls.
    2nd Lesser Restoration PHB #
    /
    #
    Mostly used to get rid of fatigue (rage & spelldance) and ability damage (spelldance). Sole interesting until lvl 12 when we can persist Sheltered Vitality (with Reach Spell).
    2nd Lion's Charge Spell Comp. P The first spell to persist, since it provides the build with Pounce in all forms.
    2nd Master Air Spell Comp. P First option to fly. Will get later replaced by Stormrage
    2nd Animalistic Power PHB II T +2 enhancement bonus to physical ability scores. Gets replaced by Chasing Perfection.
    2nd Barkskin PHB T enhancement bonus to Natural Armor. Gets later replaced by Tortoise Shell.
    2nd Halo of Sand Sandstorm P Up to +4 deflection bonus to AC
    2nd Linked Perception PHB II P Each nearby ally gets +2 Listen & Spot for each other ally. example: 4man party, everybody gets +6 (untyped)
    2nd Wild Instinct Races o. Eberron P +10 insight bonus to Listen & Spot; retrain DEX to AC when flat-footed or attacked by an unseen opponent
    2nd Embrace the Wild Spell Comp. P Low-light vision + Blindsense 30ft.; +2 untyped bonus to Listen & Spot
    2nd Easy Trail Spell Comp. D Creates a path trough underwood and gives +5 to DC to track you(r allis).
    2nd Body of the Sun Spell Comp. P Deal up to 5d4 fire dmg within 5ft.
    2nd Frost Weapon Frostburn T +1d6 frost dmg for target weapon.
    2nd Scrimitar of Sand Spell Comp. P Scrimitar that can make "touch attacks" at the cost of no STR-modifier. Enemies hit must make a save or dehydrate. Can be situationally useful (against high AC enemies or water based creatures).
    2nd Flame Blade PHB P Similiar to Scrimiar of Sand but ignites combustable stuff like clothes.
    2nd Conjure Ice Objects Frostburn P Create objects made from ice. Complex items need a craftcheck (sadly 0ranks in craft^^). Can be situationally be useful.
    2nd Nature's Favor Spell Comp. T
    /
    T
    Taget "animal" gets up to +5 luck (!) bonus to attack & dmg. Becomes interesting when we persist Shapechange. We could Shapechange all day in a animal form (to get the type) and still use Wild Shape on top to profit from this. The +5 dmg is especially nice for single target Poison Spitting (since it boosts the poison dmg).
    3rd Girallon's Blessing Spell Comp. T Grow an additional pair of arms and turn all "hands" (incl. from Frangshield Druid) also into claws. We have now 4 claw attacks in all forms..^^
    While a DM might intervene, by RAW this seems also be true for the swarm forms.
    3rd Primal Instinct Dragon Magic D 24h base duration, +5 to Initiative & Survival
    3rd Venomfire Serpent Kindgom D While the build really doesn't need any more dmg, I wanted to mention it for completeness sake. And it's always nice to have some acid dmg.
    3rd Charge of the Triceratops Spell Comp. T Get a "Gore" attack that deal double damage on a charge. Note that Gore attacks don't interfere with Bite attacks as can be seen on the Gargoyle.
    3rd Frostfold Spell Comp. P +10 competence bonus to Hide & Move Silently
    3rd Edward's Menacing Tentacles PHB II P 2 tentacles with 10ft reach; each provides a free attack each turn for 1d8 + STR dmg; each has its own AoO per turn.
    3rd Corona of Cold Spell Comp. P 10ft emanation; save or take 2d6 dmg + move at half speed and -2 penalty to STR and DEX
    3rd Wreath of Flames Dragon Magic P Adjecent enemies take 1d6 fire dmg at the end of your turn. Melee Attacks deal +1d6 fire dmg
    3rd Quillfire Spell Comp. P Gives a Quill attack for 1d8 dmg that is poisonous (1d6 STR primary and secondary).
    3/4 (Gr.) Blindsight Spell Comp. T Blindsight 30ft (Gr. = 60ft).
    4th Enhance Wild Shape Spell Comp. D The next Wild Shape form gives all EX abilities. Preparing it in multiple slots it recommended
    4th Sheltered Vitality Spell Comp. T Provides immunity to ability damage/drain, fatigue & exhaustion. Perfect for Persisting more spells. Each normal cast lets Batsu persist multiple spells. After hitting lvl 12 he can use Reach Spell to persist this spell 1st each day and than persist all spells he wants.
    4th Last Breath Spell Comp. # this is a no-level-loss Reincarnate witht the sole downside that it can only be cast immediately after death (within next round). You should always have at least one slot prepared with this.
    4th Contagious Touch Spell Comp. #
    /
    T
    Can be used with "Poison Spell" either as combat starter or be persisted. The former is mostly interesting for swarm forms due to their autohit mechanism for "Attacks". The latter causes it to become a ranged touch attack all day long (thus not compatible with US and Natural Attacks sadly). Both interesting options.
    4th Friendly Fire Exem. of Evil P Redirect ranged (touch) attacks made against you to another target within 30ft.
    4th Essence of the Raptor Spell Comp. P increases speed to 60ft; +8 untyped bonus to Hide, Jump, Listen, Spot, Survival
    4th Bite of the Wearboar Spell Comp. P +4 enhanc. bonus to STR; +6 enhanc. bonus to CON; +8 enhanc. bonus to natural armor; + Blind Fighting + grow Natural Weapons (get later exchanged for Bite of the Werebear)
    4th Superior Magic Fang Spell Comp. P up to +5 enhanc. bonus to all Natural Weapons.
    4th Freedom of Movement PHB P
    &
    T
    Pesisting it provides so many immunities against movment hapering effects. Very nice to have all day long.
    4th Cone of Euphoria Dragons of Fearun P standard action cone breath - save or be dazed for 1d6 rounds; 1d4 round cool down between breaths
    4th Spore Cloak Races of Faerun P Anyone who shares the space with us (incl. grapple, trample, overrun..) makes a save or takes 1d6 / 2d6 CON dmg (poison). Ideally for trampling forms with Wild Shape; also provides 20% concealment misschance. Downside is, it becomes inactive while indirect sunlight.
    4th Raptor Cloud Secrets of Sarlona P Concelment + soft cover; melee attackers take 1d8 dmg. +5 untyped bonus to Jump & Tumble
    4th Blinding Beauty B.o.E.D. P Humanoids within 60ft. make a Fort. save or get blinded; can be suppressed and reactivated as free action.
    5th Owl's Insight Spell Comp. T + 1/2 clvl insight bonus to WIS. With the 24h duration we should be getting even more bonus spells. Now we can persist even more spells.. a Win-Win situation^^
    5th Death Ward PHB T Immune to: death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects
    5th Plant Body Spell Comp. T Allows spells and effects to treat us as "plants" but doesn't give the type. Instead we just get the immunities to: extra damage from critical hits, mind-affecting spells and abilities, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and polymorphing
    5th Sirine's Grace Spell Comp. P +4 enhancement bonus to DEX & CHA; CHA as deflection bonus to AC; 60ft swim speed; breathe water; move & fight unhindered under water. This is mosty for the swim speed due to our low CHA..
    5th Poison Thorns Spell Comp. P 1d4 STR / 1d4 STR poison dmg when enemy makes successful Unarmed Strike or Natural Weapon attacks; also buffs our own Unarmed Strike with the poison.
    5th Radiance PHB II P
    /
    P
    Nearby Undead are dazed as long as in effect range + 1d6 round after leaving; no save no SR !! While this is a niche spell, if you ever intend to fight undead, this gets mandotory to persist every morning.
    6th Superior Resistance Spell Comp. D 24h base duration, +6 resistance bonus to saves, boosts our good saves even more.
    6th Energy Immunity Spell Comp. D 24h; By default we pick fire.
    6th Vigorous Cycle Spell Comp. P Fast Healing 3 for all nearby allies
    6th Bite of the Werebear Spell Comp. P +16 enhanc. bonus to STR; +2 enhanc. bonus to DEX; +8 enhanc. bonus to CON; +7 enhanc. bonus to Natural Armor; Natural Weapons; Multiattack + Power Attack + Blind Fighting
    6th Chasing Perfection PHB II T +4 enhancement bonus to all stats. Besides from the 50g costs for the material component just a great spell to benefit in all forms.
    6th Tortoise Shell Spell Comp. T up to +9 enhancement bonus to Natural Armor.
    6th Fires of Purity Spell Comp. T up to +15 fire dmg to all melee attack and also backlashes at melee attackers.
    6th Shuffle Shining South T Teleport as move action up to 50ft (depending on lvl) all day long. Perfect for swarm shapes to avoid AoO.
    7th True Seeing PHB T Immunity to any illusion based effect and see trough transmutation effects.
    7th Master Earth Spell Comp. # Effectively Teleport without error (on the same plane) for the druid only.
    7th As the Frost PHB II P Immunity to cold; DR 10/magic piercing; Creatures in 15ft make a save or take 2d6 cold dmg + "Slow" effect (as the spell); This would get a much higher rating if it could be surpressed (for being in town). For combat this is great and highly recommended.
    7th Gr. Aura of Cold Frostburn P 2d6 dmg to creatures in 10ft range.
    8th Word of Recall Spell Comp. # Teleport back to a location defined while preparing the spell. You can also take your allies with you.
    8th Stormrage Spell Comp. P 40ft fly speed (good); Immune to ranged thrown attacks and projectile weapons; Immune to (magical) wind effects; as a Standard action shoot electricity at your enemy up to 100ft range for 1d6/2lvls (should be useable while in Rage, since we don't cast it and sole use the spells effect to make a touch attack)
    8th Earth Glide Races of Stone T Gain the ability to glide in earh without leaving any evidance. Batsu can move anywhere^^
    9th Shapechange PHB P Shapechange all day. I don't think I need to explain this one^^
    9th Foresight PHB P Never be surprised or flat-footed. Always have a clue what will happen next or what you should do next to avoid hazards.
    9th Undermaster Spell Comp. P Gain a bunch of earth related SLA all day long. Most notable is Xorn Movement here imho

    Since we get 5+ spell slots for most of the spell lvls and can have 40+ WIS for a bunch of bonus spells, we can cover most of the spells we want for those levels. There are some level with more options than spell slots or where we might need some spell slots for regular spell usage. Remind you that you can prepare spells in higher lvl slots if you want to have some flexibility here.

    If we go all out, we get a bunch of abilities (e.g. fly, SLA, shoot electricity from our eyes); high bonuses for our deception and perception skills (hide, spot, listen..); a bunch of rider dmg for our Unarmed Strikes; multiple dmg auras and other cool stuff. Most notably here is the long list of immunities.
    Batsu can persist more spells than an Incantatrix can and even more than non-druid spelldancers. I hope that I could also showcase that druids have a lot of interesting spells that can be persisted.

    Thx to persisting most of our spells, it doesn't interfere with our Rage ability use in combat. We could even start combat with casting a spell (E.g. (gr.) Whirlwind or Poison Spell: Contagious Touch) and use a free action for Rage afterwards. If we don't want/need to cast a spell at the start of combat, we can immediately pounce into combat.
    If our physical attacks should be somehow ineffective (e.g. Immunities against Weapon Damage & poison), we can rely on our Stormrage attacks (or Undermaster SLA abilities) and dmg auras as fallback strategy.



    Spoiler: 1-5
    Show
    We start as (Cobra Strike) Monk. The bonus feats Dodge and Mobility are feat taxes. The same is true for our remaining feat choices, thus we try to make the best of it here..

    Soon Batsu has finished his hand to hand combat training with flying colors. While his trainer is kinda happy about the results, he is also concerened if all the disciplin holds to much of his true animalistic powers back.
    As such the focus of the training now shifts to his animalistic Rage and natural powers (druid).
    His trainer was afraid at first that his animal Rage could interfere with his disciplin (lawful), but as it seems Batsu has found a good balance between balance and rage. (Note that the Rage alignment rule is part of the "Ex-Barbarian"-rule and not part of the rage ability itself. Rage itself has no alignment restrictions.)
    Due to the high adrenalin this kind of training produces, he always seems to be in a hurry (+10ft base speed).

    The Blood Frenzy spell gives her additional Rage usage, if she has used up her regular Rage charges. Due to this, she can Rage more often then most other builds at this (or any other) lvl if she wishes (and prepares the spell). Also note that Blood Frenzy really works with your own Rage ability and ain't just a cheap ripoff like the normal "Rage" spell is. Thus it has full compatibiity with anything that affects the normal Rage (imporant for Mad Foam Rager later).



    Spoiler: 6-10
    Show
    Trackless Step is a nice gadget for scouting and infiltration to leave no evidence that you have been there.

    Strong Stomach negates sickening effects and nauseated gets reduces to sickened. The real deal is that we can't get nauseated (which otherwise would reduce our actions). Real immunity to nauseated is hard to get, thus this is one of the few options to deal with it. This is the start of the long list of immunities this build will get.

    With Wild Shape he gets access to the well known Fleshraker (MM III) form. This is the first source that provides the build with Pounce. For the start this will be the main combat form.
    Note that Fangshield Druid allows Batsu to grow "hands" in any form he Wild Shapes into (if he wants). Due to this, I didn't want to spend a feat slot for "Natural Spell", and instead rely on a "Perl of Speech" or a permanent "Tongues" spell to cast spells in shaped form. Since we will (soon) persist most spells, there is no real need to cast spells in wild shaped form. But having the option to cast still gives some extra options (e.g. Combat spells before/at the start of combat, or Last Breath in real emergencies). Finally, bot the Perl and/or the Tongues spell are normally easy available stuff. So I hope for no "item dependency penalty" here, since the build ain't really relying on this and the stuff is normally easy to get.



    Batsu's trainer soon realizes that his emotions while fighting (Rage) interferes with his spellcasting and tries to find at least a workaround to this. The coach comes up with the idea the he should learn to persist his spells all day long, as some casters do it. As such his coach arranges some special metamagic training for Batsu.
    His trainer also notices that Batsu likes to dance often after the training for releasing the stress of the intense training. He sees the value of this and thinks it could be implemented into his magical training. He often heard stories about casters that involve dancing to release incredible amounts of magic. Maybe Bastu can become one of em (Spelldancer).

    When Bastu finally unlocks his Spelldance ability, he immediately can start to persist lots of spells. We will use Lesser Restoration and/or Sheltered Vitality to spelldance more than we would normally be able to. If you can, buy a wand to save the spellslots for the regular daily use. This allows to persist even more spells early on. We can already persist more spells as a DMM build (even without relying on wands).
    Don't forget that since we persist the spells out of combat we can always take-10 on the Perform rolls. Thus even with our CHA penalty, we will succeed the roll by default.
    Example @ lvl 9:
    Take 10 + 12 ranks -2 CHA = 22 Perform
    DC = 10 base + spell lvl (e.g. 4th) + 6 (persist) = 20
    Since spell lvl doesn't increase/improve as fast as our Perform skill does, this will never change (that we succeed by default).

    The spell Lion's Charge gives pounce and is the first spell we want to persist. Batsu can now pick other forms instead of Fleshraker and still have access to pounce. This allows for much more options to choose from. Note that if the form doesn't have multiple attacks, we can fall back to monk's Unarmed Strike to get iterative attacks and add the Natural Attacks as secondary attack. Since US can be made with different body parts, it doesn't interfere with any kind of Natural Weapon we might have. Due to this we have much more (pounce) options than the typical druid-gish here.
    Master Air is the second spell that should definitively be persisted early on since it gives the ability to fly. Now we can make diving charge/pounce attacks with any from and don't need to rely on specific flying forms (diving charge/pounce deals double dmg with piercing and slashing attacks). Out of combat it helps with scouting from the air or to reach spaces that would otherwise be to difficult to get (e.g. on top of buildings/trees).

    Enhance Wild Shape is another staple spell of this build. It enables Wild Shape to access the EX abilities of the target form, which unlocks all kind of sweet things. Immunities, EX feats (most feats are EX), special senses, regeneration, fast healing,... almost anything you could ask for. Just find the fitting form for the given situation...
    Which brings us to Humanoid Shape. Remind you that Wild Shape ain't restricted to the average forms of a race and that seeing the target form is enough to Wild Shape into it. (Sadly we lack Knowledge: Local to really abuse this..^^).
    So any humanoid NPC that your DM uses is a valid target. And let me remind you to think of all the nice things Enhance Wild Shape provides, if we pick "get EX abilities" with it. Get any EX-feat and EX-abilities the target humanoid has. Including it's EX-class abilities, since the class is part of the specific form's HD/Advancement we are emulating here.
    So when a new humanoid NPC comes up in a game, the DM can basically hand over the relevant stats for Enhanced Wild Shape to you.. which brings us to possible metagaming exploits^^



    Spoiler: 11-15
    Show
    Batsu further improves his abilities (City-Shape, Rage, Spells).

    Batsu starts to learn new combat forms (vermin). To keep the size of this build manageable, I will sole showcase the main options for this build. There are other interesting options too, but mentioning everything ain't possible here. But before showcasing the form, we need to have a lil biology lesson regarding a spider's anatomy. Spiders have Pedipalps which are appendages. This should allow to grow the "hands" ability of Fangshield Druid on em. With this we can avoid that it interferes with other attacks like, bite, claw or legs (slam). The hands can either be used to wield a weapon (e.g. 2h quarterstaff) alongside of the natural weapons of the spider; to make Unarmed Strikes or for the somatic spell component when casting spells.

    Spoiler: Recommended Vermin Shape Forms
    Show



    Spitting Spider (7HD base; Adv: 8-14HD (large) can't further advance due to size limitation)
    (Drow of the Underdark; P 141-142)
    This nice form comes with inbuild pounce:
    Bite 1d8+6 + poison (1d6 DEX/ 2d6 DEX)
    2x Slam (with the front legs) 1d6+3
    Together with the additional "hands" we have a pretty long Full Attack chain.
    This form can also spit its poison with a ranged touch attack. We will abuse this with our feat selection:
    (1) Deadly Spittle (Serpent Kingdom) - spits poison in a cone
    (3) Ability Focus (poison) - add +2 to poison DC
    (6) Martial Study (Tome of Battle): Cloak of Deception (ToB) - Gr. Invisibility until end of turn
    (9) Virulent Poison (Savage Species) - another +2 DC to poison
    (12) Martial Stance (Tome of Battle): Assassin's Stance - Sneak Attack +2d6
    (15) Craven (Champions of Ruin) - for a -2 penalty against fear we get +1 to Sneak Attack dmg per character lvl! Note that we are not mindless in this form and thus not immune to fear/minaffecting.
    (18) Telling Blow (PHB II) - Deal sneak attack dmg on critical hits
    Note that precision dmg (sneak attack) has the same dmg type as the original attack (see Rules Compendium). In case of the (single target) Spitting ability this means +2d6 DEX dmg totaling to 3d6 DEX dmg. With Cloak of Deception we can ensure to get at least one sneak attack in a battle. Craven adds to this madness by adding our character lvl to the sneaky poison dmg^^. Anything that fails the save and ain't immune will instantly die.
    And those who are immune still have to face our long pounce attack chain. (remind you of Unarmed Strikes/quarterstaff + iterative attacks)
    An alternative feat option would be the TWF line to wield a quarterstaff as mainhand, Unarmed Strikes as offhand and all natural weapons as secondary weapons. This would further enhance the pounce chain and would be more interesting if you know that you are going to fight mostly poison immune targets (undead, constructs,...).




    Tangle Terror (12HD; Advancement: 13–20 HD (Medium))
    (Drow of the Underdark; P 142)
    This spider has 2 interesting abilities. It's poison deals 2d6 WIS/ 1d6 WIS which is an interesting alternative to DEX dmg. Maddening Webs is the other interesting ability that confuses enemies on a failed will save.
    While this form can also make use of pounce (with "hands"), we will focus more on the abilities with our feat selection here:
    (1) Spit Venom (Serpent Kingdom) - Turn the poison into a ranged touch attack
    (3) Deadly Spittle (Serpent Kingdom) - turns the poison spitting into a cone
    (6) Martial Study: Cloak of Deception (ToB) - Gr. Invisibility until end of turn
    (9) Ability Focus (MM):Poison - +2 DC
    (12) Martial Stance (ToB): Assassin's Stance - Sneak Attack +2d6
    (15) Craven (Champions of Ruin) - (see above)
    (18) Ability Focus (MM): Maddening Web - +2 DC
    Again we can pull of the trick with the ranged touch attack spit and Gr. Invisibility. 4d6+(lvl) WIS dmg should kill most stuff with ease.
    2d6 WIS dmg as cone attack is also an interesting attack AoE option.



    With access to Reach Spell we can finally go all out. Suddenly "Sheltered Vitality" becomes persist-able and allows Batsu to persist as many spells as he wants (and is willing to spend the spellslots for). This is a huge power spike for this build and heavily changes our playstyle with spells. We will use most slots to persist spells and only use a handful of situational spells that can't be persisted. Have a look at the Spells and Spelldance table to get an impression of the spell options to persist and those that are interesting otherwise for this build.

    Poison Spell can be abused with Contagious Touch to apply poison to all Unarmed Strike and Natural Attacks for several rounds. This becomes a nice option to start combat. Especially for the swarm forms, since they automatically hit their attacks. As poison we use either Terinav Root (Arms & Equipment) (1d6/2d6 Dex; contact DC 16) or Sasson Juice (BoVD) (1d4/1d4; contact DC18). Both are cheap to craft (or buy) and stacks well with the DEX dmg of our Spitting Spider and Scorpion Swarm forms.

    Spoiler: Recommended Swarm Shape Forms
    Show
    Note that a swarm's "Swarm Attack" scales with its HD, thus the druid's HD in our case. This gives any swarm form we take decent weapon damage.
    While the Fanshield Druid's "Hands" ability may seem questionable, imho by RAW there is no limitation. While the examples doesn't provide a swarm, the rules still never exclude such an option in any way. Due to the low STR (1) it is recommended to use one of the "touch attack weapon spells" (persist Scimitar of Sand or Flame Blade if you want).
    Finally, swarm forms extend the list of immunities the build has access too. And the sole downside (+50% area dmg) is compensated by (buffed) high saves and Evasion to negate the entire dmg taken. Except maybe AMF, there aren't that many spells that can affect these forms at all when we are full buffed. Unless your DM spams AMF encounters, these forms are really EZ-mode for most encounters, if you wanna play "better safe than sorry".
    Also note that most swarms have INT: - and thus the same rules as with vermin shape allows us to pick feats freely according to our HD.

    Swarm, Murder of Crows (4HD; NO Advancement)
    (Tome of Magic)
    This swarm forces additional Reflex saves (in addition to the Fortitude saves against the Distraction ability all swarms have) or otherwise "blinds" your foes. The sole lil downside here is, that this blindness can also be cured by healing the swarm damage you have taken. Another point of note is, since the blinding effect is bound to the swarm attack, it comes at the end of our turn, compared to the distraction ability which leaves the enemies time until their turn (for immediate actions or to get help from their allies to move em out of the area). The form has Improved Initiative and Alertness as racial bonus feats.
    (1) Ability Focus (Distraction)
    (3) Ability Focus (Blinding)
    (6) Martial Study: Crusader's Strike - Heal 1d8 +1/Initiatorlvl
    (9) Martial Stance: Martial Spirit - Heal 2 HP (you or an ally in 30ft) with each successful autohit of the swarm attack(s) (since this form doesn't get fully immune to weapon dmg, this is a nice way to compensate for that)
    (12) Combat Expertise - Since we use our "regular attacks" at best to make "melee touch attacks" (e.g. Flame Blade) this is imho a nobrainer.
    (15) Martial Study: Cloak of Deception (gr. Invisibility until end of turn to avoid AoO)
    (18) Combat Reflexes - With "hands" and a (summoned) weapon we threaten squares again. Because the "hands" ability is more specific then the forms general inability to threaten squares.



    Swarm, Scorpion (9HD, NO Advancement)
    (Sandstorm)
    These stingy lil things come with a bunch of nice things. First, Weapon Finesse as racial bonus feat allows for easier use for touch attacks (E.g. Flame Blade). It gets 4d6 Rend dmg on anything that it successfully distracted. And the 1d4/1d4 DEX Poison dmg is just the icing. Since these are Diminutive, their are fully immune to weapon damage. Which means, this form doesn't need to fear AoO from moving to much.
    (1) Ability Focus: Distraction - a +2 bonus to the DC
    (3) Ability Foucs: Poison - adds +2 to the DC
    (6) Virulent Poison: adds another +2 to the Poison DC
    (9) Martial Study: Vanguard Strike - allies get +4 to hit ally you hit with this attack
    (12) Martial Stance: Iron Guard's Glare - enemies we threaten (in our spaces due to 0ft range) get -4 to hit our allies
    (15) Martial Study: Action Before Thought - use Concentration check in place of a Reflex save
    (18) Martial Study: Burning Brand - turns weapon damage into fire dmg until end of turn. handy to bypass DR and immunities.






    Spoiler: 16-20
    Show
    A Thousand Faces is a nice gimmick (since we already have humanoid shape). Maybe it can help to let the spider forms look more friendly (e.g. humanoid face)?^^

    At lvl 17 we get access to 8th lvl spells. Most notably here is Stormrage which we will persist. It allows to fly in any wind condition (even magical), which can be combined with "Control Weather" or the "(Greater) Whirlwind spell" as battlefield control. Fly freely around while everyone else has to deal with a Hurricane..^^
    Stormrage further allows as a standard action a ranged lightning attack every turn (1d6 / 2 caster lvl). This should also be legal attack option for Rage, if we should need a quick ranged lighting attack for some reason.

    Mad Foam Rager is another interesting defensive ability this build has access to. While Raging it allows to delay the effect of a single attack, spell, or ability used against you until the end of your next turn. As if it wouldn't be hard enough to harm this build at all, now we can even cheese out an extra turn (for countermeasures) if something unexpected should happen to our lil Batsu.

    Another game changer is Shapechange , which we'll unlock at lvl 19 and will persist too. The most basic use it to make "Enhance Wild Shape" obsolete, since it provides already EX abilities together with SU abilities on top. This frees some spellslots, which we can use to persist other spells. But there is also a spell combo (mentioned in the spells section: Nature's Favor) for extra cheese if you want. If you intend to abuse this spell itself, have a look at this nice handbook as reference.

    Also at lvl 19, we get the ability to shape into Animated Objects. These are another cheesy option for Enhanced Wild Shape (The same as with vermin and swarm shape. the target form suddenly has an INT score and can pick feats).
    Become an adamantine statue to gain hardness and some other nice stuff. Nothing world changing (compared to the other stuff of this build), but still a nice option and imho more fitting for this characters theme as elemental wild shape. And since we can freely pick the feats for it, it's more flexible as the elemental shapes. Note that Knowledge Arcane is the required skill to "know" about constructs (which we sadly don't have any points in). So, either we rely on our random roll luck or need to see the actual target statue at least once for a reasonable time (DM decision).


    Tireless Rage is the Capstone of the build...
    Well.. we might Rage in an Anti Magic Field and after the fight...
    You get the point how useless this is. I just couldn't find a good single level dip. I thought about taking Spelldancer 2 for the evasion ability (and take Invisible Fist ACF for monk), but that would cause a delay for either Evasion or the rest of the build, which I disliked. Can't help it, but this is the capstone of this overloaded build..^^


    Spoiler: Recommended Gear
    Show

    Here are some nice to have items that enhance the build:

    Necklace of Natural Weapons +1 + Assassination + Fury (effectively a +3 weapon for pricing)
    (Assassination is from the City Scape web enhancement; Fury from Heroes of Battle)
    We get this for Claws, Bite, Slam, Spitting attack and for Unarmed Strikes (as natural weapon). Note that Superior Magic Fang's enhancement bonus trumps the items bonus, while still having normal synergy with the Assassination ability.
    Both abilities add "+1d6 extra damage", which is important for Poison spitting (single target), since there the extra dmg becomes poison dmg. Deal up to 5d6 + character lvl as DEX dmg in spider forms. The Assassination ability further increases the poison DCs by the enhancement bonus (of Superior Magic Fang= up to +5).

    Pearl of Speech
    Nice to skip Natural Spell for this build, since we already can already have hands while wild shaped for the somatic spell components. It's not mandatory but helps to stay in Wild Shape form all day long without hampering our ability to communicate with our allies. Imho most druids get it anyway even if they have Natural Spell. It's just that this build profits more of this item than a regular druid would normally.

    Quarterstaff (large) (non-magical)
    If you wanna go for the quarterstaff spells.


    Wish and even more Wishes
    Mainly for WIS. If the DM rules that you keep inherit bonuses to physical scores while wild-shaping, get it for STR, DEX and CON too. Maybe even for all scores, since the build doesn't really rely on magic items as much as other builds do.

    Wild Shape Armor
    Just for the extra AC to maintain a high (tank) AC over all lvls.
    If you wanna go all out, stack all the elemental resistances as high as you can get em.

    Animated Shield
    For the same reason as the armor.

    Metamagic Rod: Chaining (MIC)
    If you wanna play the party buffer, buy a few of these and chain some of the persisted touch spells. (e.g. Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Plant Body, Chasing Perfection, just to name a few. have a look a the touch spells in the list for all options)
    I also thought to pick this as feat instead of either Poison Spell or Mad Foam Rager, but this is how it ended (as gear option). If anyone want to play this build, this is an interesting alternative feat option.



    Final Words
    I wish every contestant good luck and I'm curious to see what the others have under their sleeves. I enjoyed this contest's topic more then I initially expected. And as said, I feel sorry to make you all read this much. Especially the judges..
    But this (druid class) quickly escalated into an unexpected amount of complexity. It was not my original intention. I swear it^^
    Imho this almost feels more like a Master of all Trades than anything else I have build so far.

  22. - Top - End - #52
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2019

    Default Grakk "Halfdead"


    by Guillaume Martinet

    Born as an Frostblood orc, raised only by father, Grakk wasn't a happy child even by the orcish standards. His father was a stupid warrior and wanted to make the son into a "real orc". For him there is no virtue better than furious blow and there is no disgrace worse than magical arts. Grakk's upbringing was brutal and violent, especially when his parent found out that Grakk has arcane gifts. Batterings and exhausting exercises were things that, father thought, will enable extirpate taint of magic from his son and will give him the gift of battle rage. Well, he probably died as a happy orc - he achieved his goal, Grakk flew into a rage finally and immediately killed hated parent.

    Grakk realized long ago: all that his father told is wrong. He said the sky is blue, so it's actually red. He said magic is a taint, so it's a gift. First thing Grakk did after father's murder was to go to the shaman and ask to be his apprentice.

    Grakk's father's study didn't give young orc many things which are needed for full-fledged shaman, but actually wasn't worthless. Grakk was tireless and strong enough to hammer respect for him directly into a bully's fangs. After all, orcs respect brute force very much. Especially from somebody who is expected to be weakling like a shaman's apprentice.

    And, in addition, Grakk was making progress in his apprenticeship. He found in himself great affinity to the power of the very Death. He was becoming a master of undead and terrifying curses. This gives him even more respect than he had before. When he finished his studies he formed the gang of young orcs and went to raid. And again, and again. He turned out to be a lucky warlord who not only rushed into battle in the front lines, but also supported his warriors with powerful spells and inspirational warcries.

    Even dead orcs raised up and continued to fight after his words. "Gruumsh! Command! You! Rise!" he shouted! "Death isn't cause for desertion!" he yelled! And his orcs, alive and undead, rushed to the foes in bloody final rage.

    CE Frostblood Orc Unholy Fury Barbarian 1/Dread Necromancer 14/Orc Warlord 5
    Spoiler: Stats
    Show
    Abilities Initial Frostblood orc Levels Total
    STR 11 4 15
    DEX 10 10
    CON 14 14
    INT 14 -2 12
    WIS 10 -2 8
    CHA 17 -2 5 20

    Spoiler: Build
    Show
    Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
    1st Barbarian 1 1 2 0 0 20: {+4 CC} Concentration: 2; {+4} Intimidate: 4; {+4} Jump: 4; {+4} Ride: 4; {+4} Survival: 4; Tireless, Endurance (B) Dragonblood subtype, illiteracy, rage 1/day, resistance to cold 10, unholy fury, vulnerability to fire
    2nd Dread Necromancer 1 1 2 0 2 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 5; Jump: 4; {+1} Knowledge (religion): 1; Ride: 4; {+1 CC} Survival: 4.5; Charnel touch, rebuke undead
    3rd Dread Necromancer 2 2 2 0 3 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 6; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 1; Ride: 4; {+1} Spellcraft: 1; {+1 CC} Survival: 5; Fell Animate Lich body DR 2
    4th Dread Necromancer 3 2 3 1 3 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 7; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 1; {+1 CC} Ride: 4.5; {+1} Spellcraft: 2; Survival: 5; Negative energy burst 1/day
    5th Dread Necromancer 4 3 3 1 4 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 8; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 1; {+1 CC} Ride: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 3; Survival: 5; Advanced learning (Kelgore’s Grave Mist), mental bastion +2
    6th Dread Necromancer 5 3 3 1 4 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 9; Jump: 4; {+1} Knowledge (religion): 2; Ride: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 4; Survival: 5; Leadership Fear aura
    7th Dread Necromancer 6 4 4 2 5 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Jump: 4; {+1} Knowledge (religion): 3; Ride: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 5; Survival: 5; Scabrous touch 1/day
    8th Dread Necromancer 7 4 4 2 5 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 11; Jump: 4; {+1} Knowledge (religion): 4; Ride: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 6; Survival: 5; Lich body DR 4, summon familiar
    9th Dread Necromancer 8 5 4 2 6 3: Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 12; Jump: 4; {+1} Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Blood of the Warlord Advanced learning (Negative Energy Wave), negative energy burst 2/day, undead mastery
    10th Orc Warlord 1 6 6 2 8 5: {+2} Bluff: 2; Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 13; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; {+2} Sense Motive: 2; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Gather horde ×150%
    11th Orc Warlord 2 7 7 2 9 5: {+2} Bluff: 4; Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 14; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; {+2} Sense Motive: 4; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Inspire courage
    12th Orc Warlord 3 8 7 3 9 5: {+2} Bluff: 6; Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 15; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; {+2} Sense Motive: 6; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Accelerate Metamagic (Fell Animate) Gather horde ×200%
    13th Orc Warlord 4 9 8 3 10 5: {+2} Bluff: 8; Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 16; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; {+2} Sense Motive: 8; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5;
    14th Orc Warlord 5 10 8 3 10 5: {+2} Bluff: 10; Concentration: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 17; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; {+2} Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Final rage
    15th Dread Necromancer 9 10 9 4 10 3: Bluff: 10; {+2} Concentration: 4; {+1} Intimidate: 18; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Mad Foam Rager Negative energy resistance
    16th Dread Necromancer 10 11 9 4 11 3: Bluff: 10; {+2} Concentration: 6; {+1} Intimidate: 19; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Light fortification 25%
    17th Dread Necromancer 11 11 9 4 11 3: Bluff: 10; {+2} Concentration: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 20; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Lich body DR 6, scabrous touch 2/day
    18th Dread Necromancer 12 12 10 5 12 3: Bluff: 10; {+2} Concentration: 10; {+1} Intimidate: 21; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Practical Metamagic (Fell Animate) Advanced learning (Animate Dread Warrior), enervating touch
    19th Dread Necromancer 13 12 10 5 12 3: Bluff: 10; {+2} Concentration: 12; {+1} Intimidate: 22; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; Negative energy burst 3/day
    20th Dread Necromancer 14 13 10 5 13 3: Bluff: 10; Concentration: 12; {+1} Intimidate: 23; Jump: 4; Knowledge (religion): 5; Ride: 5; Sense Motive: 10; Spellcraft: 7; Survival: 5; {+2} Swift Concentration; Mental bastion +4

    Spoiler: Arcane arts
    Show
    Level Class 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th
    2nd Dread Necromancer 1 3
    3rd Dread Necromancer 2 4
    4th Dread Necromancer 3 5
    5th Dread Necromancer 4 6 3
    6th Dread Necromancer 5 6 4
    7th Dread Necromancer 6 6 5 3
    8th Dread Necromancer 7 6 6 4
    9th Dread Necromancer 8 6 6 5 3
    15th Dread Necromancer 9 6 6 6 4
    16th Dread Necromancer 10 6 6 6 5 3
    17th Dread Necromancer 11 6 6 6 6 4
    18th Dread Necromancer 12 6 6 6 6 5 3
    19th Dread Necromancer 13 6 6 6 6 6 4
    20th Dread Necromancer 14 6 6 6 6 6 5 3
    All spells but advanced learning are from PHB and Heroes of Horror.


    Spoiler: First thing first
    Show
    I want to explain what I did with SI. Our SI in this round are spellcasting and rage. You can't cast spells while you rage. Okay, I said, then I need to fully control when I rage and when I don't. Which means I need an endless amount of rages per day and the ability to fly into a rage more than once during a single encounter. I already may prematurely end my rage as it said in the rage description. And of course I need to deal with fatigue.
    Orc Warlord's capstone and Tireless feat give me all I want. Invoking the final rage is a free action and there are no per day or per encounter limitations. I think it is implied that fatigued and exhausted conditions were enough limitations itself, but for me this doesn't work.
    More of than there even are no limitations per round, so nothing prevents me to incite myself and all my nearby allies into greater rage every round. It's of course a very permissive reading, but I'm ok even with regular rage every round.
    Of course I want to end every turn with another final rage after casting all spells that I want to cast. Also every time I rage I have a new use of Mad Foam Rager feat and Smite from Unholy Fury ACF. Because final rage is free action I even can use it after casting a spell and before touch attack to get +Cha mod to attack roll via smite.
    Fatigue and exhaustion actually are issues. Not for me, I'm immune, but for my allies. That's why I want to have undead around me. They are immune, too, plus, raging is a limited tactic for undead in normal, because of only 3 rounds duration. I solve this problem for them.


    Spoiler: Level breakdown
    Show
    Spoiler: 5
    Show
    One-level barbarian goodies and four levels of dread necromancer. Second level spells (most interesting are Spectral Hand with various touch spells and Charnel touch and Kelgore’s Grave Mist), negative energy attacks, rebuke undead, 1/day rage as last argument. Fell Animate exists, but is unusable at this moment.

    Spoiler: 10
    Show
    Enter orc warlord after eight dread necromancer levels. Two prerequisite feats, undead mastery, ghostly visage familiar, fear aura, third and fourth level spells (good for me are Vampiric Touch, Animate Dead, Enervation, Phantasmal Killer, Negative Energy Wave from advanced learning) and ability to use Fell Animate. I can have my undead horde with me now.

    Spoiler: 15
    Show
    Orc warlord is finished and I return to the dread necromancer. I obtain at these levels my main trick, looking also limitless inspire courage and Accelerate Metamagic feat, thanks to my draconic ancestry.

    Spoiler: 20
    Show
    Five final dread necromancer levels. Spells up to seventh level (most useful are Animate Dread Warrior, Vile Death, Control Undead, Harm, Greater Dispel Magic, several SoD), fortification 25%, Practical Metamagic, some extra goodies from dread necromancer features.


    Spoiler: Books
    Show
    Type Name Book Page
    Race Frostblood Orc Dragon Magic 10
    Class Barbarian PHB 24
    Class Dread Necromancer Heroes of Horror 84
    Prestige Class Orc Warlord Races of Faerûn 184
    Class variant Unholy Fury Exemplars of Evil 22
    Feat Tireless Player's Guide To Faerûn 46
    Feat Endurance PHB 93
    Feat Fell Animate Libris Mortis 26
    Feat Leadership PHB 97
    Feat Blood of the Warlord Races of Faerûn 161
    Feat Accelerate Metamagic Races of the Dragon 98
    Feat Mad Foam Rager PHB 2 80
    Feat Practical Metamagic Races of the Dragon 101
    Spell Kelgore’s Grave Mist PHB 2 116
    Spell Negative Energy Wave Tome and Blood 94
    Spell Animate Dread Warrior Unapproachable East 48
    Skill Trick Swift Concentration Complete Scoundrel 90

  23. - Top - End - #53
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2019

    Default Sana Bogle

    Sana Bogle



    CG Human Paragon 1 / Sha'ir 1 / Human Paragon +2 / Geomancer 7 / Blood Magus 1 / Dread Witch 5 / Blood Magus +1 / Geomancer +2

    Sana Bogle / all alone
    Lost and hungry / skin and bone
    Watch her come now / run and hide
    Or she'll give you / quite the fright

    Spoiler: I made a meme
    Show


    Spoiler: Backstory
    Show
    Long, long ago, there was a little girl. She was kind and gentle and curious, and yet none of the other children in the village wanted to be her friend. Never was she invented to join their pretend-plays, their scavenger hunts, or their sleepovers. And so the little girl would wander the woods all by her lonesome, and sit by the babbling brook, and talk to it merrily.

    One day, it began to talk back.

    The brook offered her friends, lots and lots of them, and endless warm summer nights and smiles and no bedtime at all. And the little girl accepted happily, and was whisked away to a magic place where all she had been promised came true, and she made friends with the fairies and spirits who lived there, and they played all day long and had the best time.

    But then, one day, something went wrong when playing, and the little girl just laid there, eyes unblinking and unfocused, some weird red jelly streaming down the back of her head. The fairies tried and tried, but nothing they did made the little girl get up again, not even when they looked for all the cracks in her body and fixed them right up. This made the fairies very sad, and they cried a small lake, but at last the cleverest of them spoke up, and told the others that humans had something called a soul that made them move and talk and breathe, and the little girl must've lost hers.

    So the fairies all split up and crawled through the mud and the clouds and places beyond, looking for the little girl's soul. And when they came back, they all proudly showed the little bits of soul they'd found, and carefully put it back inside of their playmate. But nothing they did seemed to work, and when they tried to take the bits of soul out again, they could not find them.

    At this, the fairies got really scared, and they ran over to the babbling brook, and asked it what they were to do. The brook got very angry at them, and they hid under rocks and behind trees, but at last it calmed down and went over to the girl. And though he fixed her right up, and she walked and talked and breathed again, he too could not take out the little bits of soul.

    The little girl, who never quite realized what had happened, went right back to playing with her friends, but discovered that they had now become scared of her. She didn't look the same, they said. She kept scratching at her skin, they said. She was creepy now, they said. This made her really sad, and she cried and cried until the babbling brook came, who said that it was best if she went home again. That made her even sadder, because she was not quite sure what home was anymore, so the babbling brook gave her a little friend made of dewdrops and laughter, and that made her happy enough to agree to leaving.

    Now the little girl, who by now is not very little anymore, walks the earth again, roaming the ruins of what, a long time ago, was her village. Sometimes people find her, and try to do bad things to her, but she's really good at making them go away (without hurting them; she does not like to hurt people). She knows, vaguely, that her head is not quite right anymore, that something that isn't her gets her brain really mad sometimes, especially when she's distracted by doing magic. On good days, she forgets about this right away.

    And so she waits, kind and gentle as ever, hoping another friend will soon come by...


    Spoiler: Build Table
    Show
    Ability scores: 10/10/14/14/8/18, all increases to charisma.

    Human Paragon class skills: Chosen skills are Bluff, Concentration, Diplomacy, Hide, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Nature), Move Silently, Intimidate, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device

    Languages: Common, Aquan, and Sylvan.

    Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
    1st Human Paragon 1 +0 +0 +0 +2 Bluff 2, Concentration 4, Diplomacy 4, Intimidate 4, Knowledge (Arcana) 4, Knowledge (Nature) 4, Move Silently 1, Spellcraft 1, Use Magic Device 4 Tireless, Able LearnerHB Adaptive Learning (Intimidate), Guisarme Proficiency
    2nd Sha'ir 1 +0 +0 +0 +4 Concentration +1 (5), Diplomacy +1 (5), Intimidate +1 (5), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (5), Knowledge (Nature) +1 (5) - Spellcasting, Summon Gen Familiar
    3rd Human Paragon 2 +1 +0 +0 +5 Bluff +1 (3), Concentration +1 (6), Diplomacy +1 (6), Intimidate +1 (6), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (6), Knowledge (Nature) +1 (6), Use Magic Device +2 (6) Nymph's Kiss, Great FortitudeHPB
    4th Human Paragon 3 +2 +1 +1 +5 Bluff +2 (5), Concentration +1 (7), Diplomacy +1 (7), Intimidate +1 (7), Move Silently +2 (3) Use Magic Device +1 (7) - +2 Charisma
    5th Geomancer 1 +2 +3 +1 +7 Concentration +1 (8), Diplomacy +1 (8), Hide +1 (1), Intimidate +1 (8), Knowledge (Arcana) +2 (8), Move Silently +1 (4), Use Magic Device +1 (8) - Drift 1 (Hair becomes vines), Spell Versatility 0
    6th Geomancer 2 +3 +4 +1 +8 Concentration +1 (9), Diplomacy +1 (9), Intimidate +1 (9), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (9), Spellcraft +1 (2), Use Magic Device +1 (9), Never Outnumbered Skill Trick Imperious Command Drift 1 (Feathers), Ley Lines (Forest) +1, Spell Versatility 1
    7th Geomancer 3 +4 +4 +2 +8 Concentration +1 (10), Diplomacy +1 (10), Intimidate +1 (10), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (10), Move Silently +1 (5), Spellcraft +2 (4), Use Magic Device +1 (10) - Drift 2 (Dryad's Beauty), Spell Versatility 2
    8th Geomancer 4 +5 +5 +2 +9 Concentration +1 (11), Diplomacy +1 (11), Intimidate +1 (11), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (11), Move Silently +1 (6), Spellcraft +2 (6), Use Magic Device +1 (11) - Drift 2 (Elk's Swiftness), Spell Versatility 3
    9th Geomancer 5 +5 +5 +2 +9 Concentration +1 (12), Diplomacy +1 (12), Hide +1 (2), Intimidate +1 (12), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (12), Spellcraft +2 (8), Use Magic Device +1 (12) Toughness Drift 3 (Antlers), Spell Versatility 4
    10th Geomancer 6 +6/+1 +6 +3 +10 Concentration +1 (13), Diplomacy +1 (13), Hide +2 (4), Intimidate +1 (13), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (13), Spellcraft +1 (9), Use Magic Device +1 (13) - Drift 3 (Gills), Ley Lines (Forest) +2, Spell Versatility 5
    11th Geomancer 7 +7/+2 +6 +3 +10 Concentration +1 (14), Diplomacy +1 (14), Hide +1 (5), Intimidate +1 (14), Move Silently +1 (7), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (14), Spellcraft +1 (10), Use Magic Device +1 (14) - Drift 4 (Wolverine's Rage), Spell Versatility 6
    12th Blood Magus 1 +7/+2 +8 +3 +10 Concentration +1 (15), Diplomacy +1 (15), Intimidate +1 (15), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (15), Spellcraft +1 (11), Use Magic Device +1 (15) Intimidating Rage Blood Component, Durable Casting, Stanch
    13th Dread Witch 1 +7/+2 +8 +3 +12 Concentration +1 (16), Diplomacy +1 (16), Intimidate +1 (16), Knowledge (the planes) +2 (2), Use Magic Device +1 (16) Unnatural WillDWB Master of Terror
    14th Dread Witch 2 +8/+3 +8 +3 +13 Concentration +1 (17), Diplomacy +1 (17), Intimidate +1 (17), Knowledge (the planes) +2 (4), Use Magic Device +1 (17) - Absorb Fear
    15th Dread Witch 3 +8/+3 +9 +4 +13 Concentration +1 (18), Diplomacy +1 (18), Intimidate +1 (18), Knowledge (the planes) +2 (6), Use Magic Device +1 (18) Raging Luck Fearful Empowerment 1/day
    16th Dread Witch 4 +9/+4 +9 +4 +14 Concentration +1 (19), Diplomacy +1 (19), Intimidate +1 (19), Knowledge (the planes) +2 (8), Use Magic Device +1 (19) - Delay Fear, Greater Master of Terror
    17th Dread Witch 5 +9/+4 +9 +4 +14 Concentration +1 (20), Diplomacy +1 (20), Intimidate +1 (20), Knowledge (the planes) +3 (11) - Fearful Empowerment 2/day, Horrific Aura, Reflective Fear
    18th Blood Magus 2 +10/+5 +10 +4 +14 Concentration +1 (21), Diplomacy +1 (21), Intimidate +1 (21), Knowledge (the planes) +3 (14) Heroic Companion Scarification
    19th Geomancer 8 +11/+6/+1 +11 +4 +15 Concentration +1 (22), Diplomacy +1 (22), Intimidate +1 (22), Knowledge (the planes) +2 (16), Spellcraft +3 (14) - Drift 4 (Scent), Spell Versatility 7
    20th Geomancer 9 +11/+6/+1 +11 +5 +15 Concentration +1 (23), Diplomacy +1 (23), Intimidate +1 (23), Knowledge (Arcana) +2 (17), Spellcraft +3 (17) - Drift 5 (Feathered Wings), Spell Versatility 8



    Spoiler: Spells
    Show
    Spells per Day
    Level 0lvl 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
    1st - - - - - - - - - -
    2nd 4 3 - - - - - - - -
    3rd 5 4 - - - - - - - -
    4th 5 5 2 - - - - - - -
    5th 5 6 4 - - - - - - -
    6th 5 6 4 2 - - - - - -
    7th 5 6 5 4 - - - - - -
    8th 5 7 6 4 2 - - - - -
    9th 5 7 6 5 4 - - - - -
    10th 5 7 7 6 4 2 - - - -
    11th 5 7 7 5 5 4 - - - -
    12th 5 7 7 6 5 4 2 - - -
    13th 5 7 7 6 5 4 2 - - -
    14th 5 7 7 6 5 5 4 - - -
    15th 5 7 7 6 6 5 4 1 - -
    16th 5 7 7 7 6 5 5 4 - -
    17th 5 7 7 7 6 6 5 4 1 -
    18th 5 7 7 7 6 6 5 5 3 -
    19th 5 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 3 1
    20th 5 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 4 3

    Spells Known
    Level 0lvl 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
    1st - - - - - - - - - -
    2nd 5 3 - - - - - - - -
    3rd 6 3 - - - - - - - -
    4th 6 4 - - - - - - - -
    5th 7 4 2 - - - - - - -
    6th 7 5 3 - - - - - - -
    7th 8 5 3 2 - - - - - -
    8th 8 6 4 3 - - - - - -
    9th 9 6 4 3 2 - - - - -
    10th 9 7 5 4 3 - - - - -
    11th 9 7 5 4 3 2 - - - -
    12th 9 8 6 5 4 3 - - - -
    13th 9 8 6 5 4 3 - - - -
    14th 9 8 6 5 4 3 2 - - -
    15th 9 9 7 6 5 4 3 - - -
    16th 9 9 7 6 5 4 3 2 - -
    17th 9 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 - -
    18th 9 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 -
    19th 9 9 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 -
    20th 9 9 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

    Spells known (level learned):
    0: Detect Magic (2), Ghost Sound (2), Light (2), Prestidigitation (2), Read Magic (2), Caltrops (3), Disrupt Undead (5), Mending (7), Arcane Mark (9)
    1: Blockade (2), Grease (2), Mage Armor (2), Summon Monster I (4), Enlarge Person (6), Friendly Face (8), Instant Diversion (10), Cause Fear (12), Benign Transposition (15)
    2: Web (5), Deflect (5), Invisibility (6), Eagle's Splendour (8), Familiar Pocket (10), Scare (12), Detect Thoughts (15), Snake's Swiftness (17), Doom (19)
    3: Permeable Form (7), Stinking Cloud (7), Dispel Magic (8), Haste (10), Greater Mage Armor (12), Alter Fortune (15), Disobedience (17), Daylight (19)
    4: Polymorph (9), Voice of the Dragon (9), Ruin Delver's Fortune (10), Friendly Fire (12), Dimension Door (15), Solid Fog (17), Greater Invisibility (19)
    5: Summon Monster V (11), Mind Fog (11), Swift Etherealness (12), Dominate Person (15), Teleport (17), Dismissal (19)
    6: Greater Dispel magic (14), Wages of Sin (14), Summon Monster VI (15), Ghost Trap (17), Forcecage (19)
    7: Plane Shift (16), Constricting Chains (16), Forcecage (18), Greater Teleport (20)
    8: Maze (18), Sunburst (18), Irresistible Dance (19)
    9: Dominate Monster (20), Prismatic Sphere (20)

    Sana can usually retrieve spells on an encounter-by-encounter basis, and prefers to have a few swift and a few standard-action spells to get two rages a turn when needed. When she's able to fit a single divine spell in there, the best option is the Luck domain's underleveled Freedom of Movement, with Dispel Law, Earthquake, and Divination all occasionally useful as well.


    Spoiler: Spotlights
    Show
    ECL 5
    At low levels, we're a basic charisma-based caster. The sha'ir's quirky spell preparation mechanism lets us quickly retrieve random sorc/wiz utility spells, and maxed social ranks combine with 21 charisma and Nymph's Kiss to grant us insane Intimidate and Diplomacy bonuses (+17 to both at ECL 5). We also have a water gen familiar that can fly, swim, and make use of our stealth ranks when scouting. It's probably an alright scout, though for now (foreshadowing!) it's mainly an awkward spell preparation mechanism. That said, it can use a lot of magic items (being humanoid and capable of speech) so maybe offload random wands or other magic loot on to it.

    We improve on the basic Sha'ir into Geomancer progression by heading into Human Paragon, which gives us a bonus feat, +2 charisma, a cherrypicked list of skills (that with Able Learner become essentially permanent class skills), and guisarme proficiency.

    Why a guisarme? We have 10 strength and +2 BAB, so not to make melee attacks. The answer is twofold; firstly a reach weapon improves our threatened area, which lets us Demoralize foes 10 ft. away (not quite relevant now, but soon it'll be). Secondly, tripping only cares about strength and size, not BAB, meaning we're at least passable at it: if a 16 strength fighter charges us, we have reasonable odds of landing an AoO trip and winning the 1d20 vs 1d20+3 contest. It's a last resort, but not an insignificant one, and it sure beats praying for a low attack roll. Note that we can switch between holding our guisarme in one hand and wielding it in two as a free action, so somatic components won't be a problem.

    Our spells include Mage Armor and Deflect for defense, Grease and Web for BFC, and Blockade and Summon Monster I to put some things between ourselves and enemies. As the levels go on, we'll have a slight preference for swift/immediate action spells and magic with a visual component: you'll soon see why.

    ECL 10
    A bunch of Geomancer levels leave us with various physical mutations, most notably granting us +4 Diplomacy (useful when preparing spells) and a gore attack (useful to threaten adjacent foes in addition to nonadjacent ones). Outside of that, we're mostly advancing sha'ir casting with slightly better HD, saves, and skills than actual sha'ir levels would've given us. We also grab Imperious Command and Never Outnumbered. Intimidation is still just a side business for us, but forcing substantial saves vs Cowering once per encounter is rather nice.

    Notable spells include Friendly Face and Voice of the Dragon for optimizing Diplomacy, Enlarge Person, Haste, and Eagle's Splendour as buffs, Familiar Pocket to keep our little XP liability safe, and Ruin Delver's Fortune to turn our sizeable 22 charisma into a defensive bonus. Instant Diversion is a stylish way to escape melee, creating several illusionary doubles that can bait enemy AoOs for us. Polymorph is its own amazing self.

    ECL 12 (SWEET SPOT)
    With another level of Geomancer to get 'rage like a wolverine', as well as a level of Blood Magus, the build's main trick has come online.

    See, Geomancer says you enter a rage 'if you take damage'. Blood Magus lets us use our own blood as a component when casting spells, which deals 1 damage to us, so every time we cast a spell we can immediately start raging afterwards. This activates Intimidating Rage, allowing for a free action demoralize attempt. If we fail, we just dismiss the rage (negating the fatigue with Tireless) and cast a swift action spell to enter rage a second time in one turn. Spells fuel rage, which fuels demoralize attempts, which keeps your foes away from you (the caster) and within reach of your Grease, Web, or summons' full attacks, allowing you to stick around and cast more spells.

    Now, and this is critical, we want to stay raging when it's not our turn. +2 Fortitude, +2 Will, and +2 HP/level are all significant defensive buffs, and +4 strength helps with our guisarme trip technique (which, I want to stress again, scales surprisingly well). Ending rage isn't stated to be an action, so you can possibly do it even when it's not your turn, in which case even immediate action spells remain castable. If your DM rules against that, just dismiss rage when you think you might need Ruin Delver's Fortune in the coming round, and don't be afraid to switch it back on with a Deflect or Permeable Form when necessary.

    (Obviously, don't dismiss rage if losing the extra HP would kill you: just down a potion or intimidate someone and realize a normal caster would have died there)

    ECL 15
    Raging Luck gives us a free action point every time we rage, which is every time we cast a spell and then some. That's 3d6b1 added to a roll of your choice (averaging slightly less than a +5 bonus). We'll typically use it to boost the Intimidating Rage check, but you could keep it in reserve to improve a saving throw or even a guisarme trip attempt (going from a +0 to +7 modifier in an instant feels great, and more importantly gives great odds to trip all sorts of casters and even weaker strength-types). Not only is rage directly boosting our survivability, it's indirectly doing so as well.

    Speaking of Intimidate, we've started taking levels in Dread Witch (despite Sana looking and acting like a horror movie villain, all these classes are compatible with Exalted CGs!), giving us a scaling Intimidate bonus, a big bonus against fear and the ability to absorb it for our own benefit, and the 1/day ability to apply the Shaken condition with a spell. We're mostly here for the intimidate bonus, but a lot of our spells are compatible and free debuffs are never bad.

    Spells like Greater Mage Armor and Alter Fortune further improve our survivability, Wages of Sin is a great way to deal with Evil foes, and Summon Monster V and VI give us some muscle for dealing with magic-resistant foes. Swift Etherealness is the ultimate escape button, and you can delay the Intimidating Rage check to when you reappear 1 round later. Friendly Fire is a very fun and underrated answer against ranged attacks, which are otherwise a bit of a concern, and lets you no-save turn enemies' attacks against them. You can even cast it as an immediate action!

    ECL 20
    Our Rage-fueled action points have two awkward sides. The first is that we can generate two per round, but are prohibited from actually spending both. The second is that we only have the action points while raging, which means we can't use them to boost skills that rely on patience and concentration (Knowledge, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device). However, with Heroic Companion, our gen familiar can access the second action point and use it on Rage-locked skills (or, sometimes, its own saving throws). With its Intelligence and Dexterity exceeding ours, frequently the best course of action when making a check will be to cast a cantrip, take 1 damage, get mad, and delegate our familiar to make the actual check: how many builds can say they use Rage to augment their knowledge rolls? (UMD ranks are optimized so that with a +4 bonus from the action point and a roll of 2, our familiar succeeds on the DC 25 checks to activate items blindly)

    Our final class levels give us more bonuses with Fear spells and the ability to apply them to normally immune targets, a touch attack that Panics (and whose to-hit benefits from the Rage strength bonus!), Scent and wings from geomancer, and a creepy Scribe Scroll variant from Blood Magus. The latter interacts very favorably with Sha'ir: you can look for powerful divine spells (Miracle!) during downtime, inscribe them, and not have to worry about waiting 1d6+9 hours when it matters anymore.



    Spoiler: Final metrics
    Show
    All listed statistics are before factoring in items.

    Our base caster level is 18. Blood Magus improves this by 1 if we damage ourselves while casting. Dread Witch lets us absorb fear effects (even our own) to fuel a CL increase of up to +3. While in a forest, our CL increases by another 2.

    Our save DC is 10+level+7. Dread Witch adds +2 to the DC if we're casting a Fear spell (our 2/day Fearful Empowerment can make any spell qualify).

    Our saves are +15/+5/+14, with an addition +2 Will and Fortitude while raging, an additional +7 on saves against Fear, and various spells (Like Ruin Delver's Fortune) helping out on the side. Note that despite looking like a wizard, our Fortitude is on par with a fighter's, which should pose a nasty surprise to anyone trying to hit a Disintegrate.

    We have 8+1d4+2d8+9d6+2d6+5d4+40+3 = 113 HP, or 153 while raging. Our HP while not raging is comparable to a 14 constitution rogue. While raging, it's that of a 16 constitution cleric. While we don't exactly enjoy attacks coming our way, we're not quite as frail as the full caster role implies, and can certainly hang around melee even if we don't want to join it.

    Our Diplomacy modifier is +38 (+7 charisma, 23 ranks, +2 Nymph's Kiss, +4 Dryad's Beauty, +2 Synergy). We can boost this further with Eagle's Splendour (+2), Friendly Face (+5 against non-hostile creatures), and Voice of the Dragon (+10).

    Our Intimidate is +44 (+7 charisma, 23 ranks, +2 Nymph's Kiss, +10 Dread Witch, +2 Synergy), which is buffed by Voice of the Dragon as well; if we make the check while raging, we can add an action point to add around +5 to the result.


    Spoiler: Sources
    Show
    Sha'ir - Dragon Compendium
    Human Paragon - UA
    Geomancer - Complete Divine
    Blood Magus - Complete Arcane
    Dread Witch - Heroes of Horror

    Tireless - Player's Guide to Faerun
    Able Learner - Races of Destiny
    Nymph's Kiss - Book of Exalted Deeds
    Imperious Command - Drow of the Underdark
    Intimidating Rage - Complete Warrior
    Raging Luck - Eberron Campaign Setting
    Heroic Companion - Magic of Eberron

  24. - Top - End - #54
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Okay, entries are all in. Thanks to everyone for entering.

    From here:
    - I'll write up the table of the seven entries we got.
    - Feel free to discuss any failed entry ideas, ingredients, failed build stubs, and so forth.
    - Everyone can vote for their choice of the comp's Honourable Mention. If you're a contestant, you can vote via PM (obviously you can't vote for yourself)
    - If you're interested in judging, feel free to volunteer. Don't worry if you don't feel like you have a great amount of system mastery or there are systems you don't understand well, judging a comp is a great way to gain that understanding, and you can always ask questions on forums or look up answers to fill in gaps in your knowledge if the books themselves aren't answering your questions. I've personally found judging is great for expanding my understanding of many different game systems and gaining an understanding of how to improve my entries for future contests. The forum is only as good as it is when people make these contributions, and they're very much appreciated.

    After judging is completed, I'd love feedback on how this Junkyard was run. Anything you think I can improve, or was done well, or whatever. It's my first time Chairing, so all feedback, positive and negative, is appreciated.

  25. - Top - End - #55
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Build table

    Name Alignment/Race Class Levels Chef Total Place
    Trox, Shaped By War NG/Saint Frostblood Half-Orc Barbarian 1 / Cleric of Heironeous 3 / Ordained Champion 4 / Flux Adept 10
    Ragnor Kolbjorn TN/Maenad Fighter 6 / Berserk 4 / Warmind 10
    Trogdrak of the Badgers TN/Ferral Natural Weredire Badger Lesser Maeluth Spirit Shaman 6 / Death Delver 1 / Holt Warden 2 / Mystic Wanderer 3
    Wander, Shifter Psychic Rogue TN / Shifter (Razorclaw) Cleric 1 / Psychic Rogue 16 / Weretouched Master 3
    Batsu, the Bat-man LN / Anthropromorphic Bat Monk 2 / Druid 17 / Spelldancer 1
    Grakk "Halfdead" CE / Frostblood Orc Unholy Fury Barbarian 1 / Dread Necromancer 14 / Orc Warlord 5
    Sana Bogle CG / Human Paragon 1 / Sha'ir 1 / Human Paragon +2 / Geomancer 7 / Blood Magus 1 / Dread Witch 5 / Blood Magus +1 / Geomancer +2

  26. - Top - End - #56
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    NecromancerGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by Trox
    "Humans, orcs, dwarves, elves, halflings; all were created by the gods. In that creation, we can already find the potential for war: the strength to wield weapons, the frailty to be killed by them. But why did the gods make it so? Why allow for their creations to kill one another? Why not give us the stony hide of gargoyles, which no spear or blade may pierce? Why not the vitality of trolls, that may survive even beheading? Or, if need be, why not remove our strength, and thus make violence impossible? The gods are neither cruel nor short-sighted: they must have known their design capable of great evil: why did they not make it less so?"

    However paradoxical, we were made frail so we may twist ourselves away from frailty.
    I like that answer. Imperfection breeds progress. That's an optimistic answer. But there is a pessimistic side to it. The violent war against demons is not meant to be fought by mortals, but by angels, and powerful agents from beyond. It is meant to protect mortals, and they fight in this war not by sword and strength, but with philosophy and morale. A mortal giving in to violence may roll back a few demons in their lifetime, but becomes an eternal soldier of chaos after their death. No, we weren't given strength to fight outside of our cradle plane. But then why? Imperfection breeds progress. Unsatisfaction breeds progress. And gods know better than anyone that all mortals are eternally unsatisfied. They gave us enough strength to wield weapons, enough strength to kill each other, so that we don't realize that there could be so much worse we can do to each other.
    Fireballs in item shapes, launched at a frightening frequency by magically enhanced giant crossbows, cloudkills permeating entire battlefield, mass mindrapes of whole children generations, flying constructs dropping large-scale weapons, repeated fimbulwinters on enemy areas, the ability to increase temperature on entire planets through epic spells, we can even imagine devastating spells that could be launched from anywhere on the planet, scorching an area with fire and releasing a cloud of disease killing every survivor there in a matter of days or weeks. What determined countries may accomplish should regular weapons not be sufficient to kill their neighbour and claim resources or morale right is truly frightening.

    Gods made us frail because they trusted us to improve. Gods made us strong because they feared what would happen if we improved.
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  27. - Top - End - #57
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    Inevitability's Avatar

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Some thoughts on the entries:

    I expected at least one person to go for the 'raging caster in a can' classes (Champion of Gwyyyyyyr or Runescarred Berserker), glad to see neither show up. I also considered Disciple of Thrymm as one of the few caster classes open to barbarians (perhaps entering as a werebadger), but beyond Frozen Berserker + Fire Immunity I didn't see any real synergy there.

    Also very happy to see a druidic avenger build (I think I can safely reveal that one isn't mine, people know I'm not much for TO), and surprised that not one but two people used some type of frostblood orc this round. It's not exactly a common ingredient, is it?

    ------------------------------

    My most fleshed-out unsubmitted idea was a Human Inspire Awe Bard 1/Marshall 1/Bard +2/Celebrant of Sharess 6/Sublime Chord 1 /Wyrm Wizard 2/Chord +7, to get Pounce, Rage, 9th-level wizard spells, 7 bardic music attempts, and solid charisma synergy across the board without taking the expected barbarian dip.

    Feats were very tight: I was thinking of taking Celebrant's prerequisite vows at level 1, at level 3 Snowflake Wardance and Haunting Melody as a bard bonus feat, Knowledge Devotion (Arcana) at level 6, at level 9 any metamagic (Smiting Spell?), and then Arcane Strike, Intimidating Rage, and Extra Rage at higher levels.

    Bard would fuel snowflake wardance for charisma to-hit, marshall would offer charisma to damage when charging, celebrant of sharess gives Rage, Pounce, and casting, which then qualifies us for Sublime Chord entry, and Wyrm Wizard gives us Divine Power on the Sublime Chord list so we can keep BAB high. There'd be some fear synergy between our charisma focus, Haunting Melody, Inspire Awe, and Intimidating Rage, but keeping intimidate ranks high would've been a bit of a chore as they would generally be cross-class.

    I ended up not going with the build because it felt like a lot of work for relatively little payoff, and being restricted to one-handed weapons made the whole thing disappointingly reliant on Arcane Strike to keep damage high enough. Plus, wading into melee all but required a turn of buffing with Divine Power, and between light armor and low HDs the character was disappointingly frail.
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  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    That reminds me, did anyone come across Waveservant while building? It's not the most straightforward ingredient, but it is a full casting advancement class that grants Rage, and making it work would've been a fun challenge. Plus, entering it isn't as big of a pain as it seems: both its requirement feats are obtainable as bonus feats quite easily.
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  29. - Top - End - #59
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    DrowGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    I had idea around Halfling Outrider's Defensive Riding. It's quite a "rage" according to round restrictions, but it's too cheese to go such textually, I think, and I didn't manage to find out something smart around this single ability.

    I also had an idea with Drunken Master, but it was killed by chair. )
    If you could make anything and everything welcome to the Zinc Saucier XLV: Figaro

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  30. - Top - End - #60
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    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by loky1109 View Post
    I had idea around Halfling Outrider's Defensive Riding. It's quite a "rage" according to round restrictions, but it's too cheese to go such textually, I think, and I didn't manage to find out something smart around this single ability.

    I also had an idea with Drunken Master, but it was killed by chair. )
    I can see where you're coming from with Drunk Master, but a stat drop doesn't forbid your casting. I mean, unless you dip under 10, but there's no way to guarantee that.

    Still not sure I should have treated defining "Rage" as a Chair. In retrospect, I think the best way might have been to say that "Rage" doesn't have to be specifically the "Rage" ability, as long as you pick an ability in similar function and you can argue your case in your build. But maybe people prefer how I defined it so there's no "is this Rage enough for a build?".

    However, we did have seven entrants in this Junkyard, which is a really solid number for this comp, so something must have went right in all of this.

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