Junkyard Wars XLIII - Natural Weapons + Spellcasting - Druid

[H_H_F_F]

Making progress already. Hopefully I can keep this up.

[H_H_F_F]

Something I wrote for Iron Chef, but will be largely relevant here as well:

Spoiler: For those who haven't seen me judge before:

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I don't really do the whole "X points for this, Y for that" thing. I don't like constricting myself this way if half of your ECL is spent on playing an inevitable or something, and it makes sense and is brilliant and unexpected, I don't want to sit here and say "the maximal half-point for a creative race" and give you the same score as the "didn't see Skarn coming" entry. The point isn't that high rhd/la is necessarily helpful in originality (not the case). The point is that you could make or break a build with a single feature in any of these categories, if you go hard enough. So, no "guidelines" per se, but here's some of the things you'll see rewarded (and punished) anyway:

Spoiler: originality

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Fluff: I'll usually ignore it here. You might get a small boost if you blew me away, and you'll always get a penalty if it's none-existent. I know this isn't a creative writing competition, but give me something.

mechanics: Obviously, common cheese will get you hurt here (craven, persistomancy, etc), as will "this is the kind of build I expected for this SI." However, if you want a full 5 here, you'll need more than "didn't see this class coming, didn't see this race coming." You need to show me something new. So, a creative trick or two can do a lot for you here, regardless of your chassis.

BUT WHAT DOES IT DO: to clarify further: just going "bet you didn't see a maenad CW samurai coming!" is going to do very little for you here if there's no reason for it except to get good originality. You'll be a lot luckier here with a human-fighter doing something very weird than with whatever class-race combo you thought up that doesn’t have a raison d'etre.

martial supremacy: I'm a little bit of an ******* when it comes to clerics and wizards. Even if you think a caster is unexpected for an SI, expect to be fighting an uphill battle here if you're going tier 1. It's not impossible to get a 5 here with a full caster, but if you're just going CODzilla with some SI on top, you're not going to do well.

Spoiler: Elegance

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Some judges basically treat this as "legality", and will give you a five for any old build with no "mistakes." However, any old "Warblade 5/ SI 10/ Warblade +5" with no internal cohesion or synergy isn't elegant to me. If you want a 5 here, you'll need to avoid the negatives – but also have the positives.

Rules issues: Illegal stuff hurts, obviously. Disqualifications hurt you. Ambiguity hurts you. Alignment shenanigans, "I only need to qualify while entering the class", etc also hurt you. Same for qualifying for something with a non-permanent part of your build.

Presentation issues: You need to tell me which book every non-srd, non-SI element of the build comes from – page numbers are welcome, but the important part is the book. In addition, if you use web material, you need to link the [internet-archived] article.
I want to see running totals of all your skills, as well as a clear indication of which skills you've increased at every level.
I want tactical sections that showcase the unique aspects of your build. If you're a prepared caster, a meldshaper, or otherwise a highly-augmentable character, tell me what your typical setup is.

Item reliance: This isn't a WBLmancy competition. Specific item reliance is bad, but much less so if you can assure access to it. It's worse the more specific and rare the item is – "I have to have a keen weapon" is less of an issue than "I have to have a feycraft collision suglin".

miscellaneous issues: I penalize multiclass penalties, and I penalize them more the more severe and long-term they are. Don't shy away from them if you need them, but be watchful – if you can achieve the same result without falling prey to them, it's better.
Same logic goes for cross-setting material.

Cohesion and synergy: Ideally, you want everything in your build to work together, and you want it all to be absolutely necessary for whatever the build does to work. A build being a convoluted mess is bad only if it's unnecessary. A straightforward entry that has 4 feats and five levels which could be replaced by others without impacting the way it plays will do a lot worse here than a convoluted mess that would break apart if you take any of its levels away.

Efficiency: Dead weight is bad, throwing away build resources is bad. Qualifying for three different PRCs with the same unique racial bonus feat is good. Simple as. Show me that you put thought into squeezing everything you can from every level, every feat.

Live by the RAW, Die by the RAW: As mentioned, illegal stuff will hurt you here, as will reliance on ambiguity. However, exactly how much it'll hurt heavily depends on how your build approaches the rules. If your build is RAI and common sense, I'll be more lenient on you if you rely on a sensible DM to handle slightly dysfunctional RAW. However, if at any point in your build your defense is "it's stupid, but it's RAW", then you better make sure that you don't have any ambiguity, legal issues, or appeal to common sense in your build, because I'll come down on you hard. Basically, you can either say "any sensible DM would rule X" or "RAW is RAW" – but never both in one build.

Spoiler: power

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Least interesting category. I tend to be pretty combat-focused here, so if you build an entry that's not great at it, make sure to highlight how it can excel in other parts of the game, and don't come in expecting a 5. I consider defense as well as offense, but I'm not rigid. If your build is omniscient and can kill with a thought, I don't care that your saves are trash or that you're a bad skill monkey. Lean into your strength.
My main note here is to make sure you support what you do. If you're a tiger-claw swordsage, don't let your jump score stagnate because UMD is a better skill. FOCUS.

Spoiler: UoSI

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What do you do with the features? Like always, the scores don't have an upper bound here. If you broke the game with a single feature from the class, you can get a lot of credit even if the rest is underutilized. The more the merrier, obviously, but fully expect to do worse here with a build that's "just fine" with all the features than with a build that does nothing with half of them but absolutely relies on one for everything it does.

How do you deal with the downsides? Tough prereqs? It's good if you made them work for you. Low bab? It's good if you circumvented the issue. You get it.

How many levels did you take? Don't really care.

Well, that's an over-simplification. Like I said, you'll always have an easier time here the more you use the features and deal with the downsides. If you bail out on downsides and give up on features, there's going to be an impact here – but if you can push the level 9 feature to the stratosphere with one more level, NEVER give up on that because you "need" to go SI 10. It's a balancing act, I trust you to figure it out.

[H_H_F_F]

I've hit some motivation issues, but I have 6 builds fully judged and I'm chipping away at the seventh.

[H_H_F_F]

Just one build to go, which I should find time for in the coming 24 hours - so expect judgement by then.

[loky1109]

Just one build to go, which I should find time for in the coming 24 hours - so expect judgement by then.

Great! Thank you!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Just one build to go, which I should find time for in the coming 24 hours - so expect judgement by then.

Thank you very much, and good luck for everything!

[H_H_F_F]

Apologies for the delay folks, stuff just keeps piling on. I just need to find 40 minutes.

[H_H_F_F]

Apologies for the delay there, folks! Honestly, judging this round was more fun than I thought it'd be, and I appreciate all your contribution. As always, I try to be fair even when I'm harsh, and please remember that any criticism I provide is meant to be constructive, and help you build better in the future! I know how much effort and thought goes towards every entry, and I appreciate that.

Anyway, here are your judgements! (part 1 - don't post 'till I post part 2!)

Spoiler: The Lonely Fir

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Originality:

That meter with that slant rhyming scheme for just the 2 first lines is so uncomfortable. Maybe I'm just chanting it wrong in my head, but it's like an axe going through each of the stanzas just by the end. If it was meant to make me feel uneasy, it certainly did.

Anyway.

Can't say a rapidstrike build is revolutionary, but this isn't really what it is. It's a build with a ranged natural attack, which you use to capitalize on corrupt spells, which happens to be a plant with claws so you get to take rapidstrike. Even though a few of the basic ingredients (fangshields ranger, Thayan Gladiator) aren't too surprising, they're still not exactly expected in a context in which you'd expect deeper investment in spellcasting. What's left – impure prince, needlefolk, blackguard list, heavy corrupt spell focus, your ranged touch spell tactic – is all great, and done with reason and care.

Overall, very original approach.

Score: 4.75 points.

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Power:

So, as I think you know, this is clearly under the expected power curve for this round. I recognize that you managed to pull a lot of juice from a half-caster spells and non-pounce-no-(at-will)-rider natural weaponry, but when push comes to shove, you're really not up to snuff.

I'm also concerned about ability damage. Lesser restoration, and later mitigate suffering, offer some help, but not nearly enough – especially with only one instance of lesser restoration prepared, and once you cast that mitigate suffering is gone. I feel like you may have wanted to show off the fact that you get more than expected utility out of ZoNP, but that "more than expected utility" is still pretty damn low utility, especially considering how much you need lesser restoration. I think your breakdown should have simply noted that you get use out of the spell, for days when you'll be defending an area from enemies immune to corrupt spells. Having it as a default prepared spell exasperates the main issue with your build. You've got two spells per day causing you 1d6 damage to a vital ability each, and your answer is 4 points of temporary replacement from level 16 onward as a standard action, and one spell healing 1d4 of one ability ability score. I acknowledge that with your tactic of shoot-and-run, mitigate suffering can be effectively used, much moreso than for most combatants. It's still insufficient once you consider a couple of days in a row of combat, or any less favorable encounters.

That being said, your build is capable of preparing lesser restoration twice, significantly reducing harm, and I'm not going to really dig into your score here just because I find your default prepared spells insufficient. One can assume that if actual play sees your ability damage ramping up, you'd address it. It's still an issue your build suffers from, in my opinion, but its admittedly not as bad as mitigate suffering would be on builds that tend to get ability-damaged in more action economy intense situations.

Other than that… You make for a decent (though no more than that) melee in your later career, you provide some utility, and you have a decent DC on your spells in your early career despite not really investing in your casting stat. They're still low level spells, accessed late in your career, so still not great. Your early levels are rough, with dead feats galore, rhd, and LA.

Overall, I think you know this category is far from being your focus on this build, and it's scored appropriately.

Score: 1.75 points.

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Elegance:

I really don't buy your arguments for the needles being a natural weapon. "Plausible deniability because 3.0" and "from its body means FROM ITS ENTIRE BODY, requiring a special action taken by ITS ENTIRE BODY" aren’t strong argument when compared to language like "each round" in the ability description.

I won't call it strictly illegal; I wouldn't call manticore spikes strictly illegal either. That's mainly because it's too much of a hassle for me to figure out where I stand in the argument, and I'm trying not to spend the next 3 hours bookdiving and reading the forum backlog, on the first point made by the first entry I'm judging this round. Either way, it's very shaky language at best. Take a hefty penalty, and we'll be done with it.

Speaking of natural weapons, I think you're relying on slightly ambiguous language when it comes to the tentacle whip. First, it's unclear whether you can use a natural weapon with the hand its attached to or not. Second, and much more significantly, you're making some assumptions when it comes to "attacking with it as a weapon." That is, it's unclear to me that you wouldn't need to grab it with your hands if you're using it as a weapon. It's a one handed weapon. What happens if you power attack with it? Can you hold it with both hands? You also talk about weapon attacks in addition to claws before you first mention tentacle whip. How would that work? I feel like the commonsense interpretation just holds better. You've presented a case for rapidstrike, increasing your score.

This all comes to another hefty penalty – though that is somewhat counteracted by the very elegant use you make of impure prince in general. Expanding your spell list to allow you to better deal with the corrupt component (through a feat, too, which you couldn't have accessed otherwise), conserving your full BaB, and granting you a way to attack with a weapon and your claws simultaneously (or so you claim). Aberrant anatomy is superfluous, which is a shame.

Qualifying for pious templar and thayan gladiator with the same feat is non-trivial and worthy of praise.

I should note that cross-setting material is something I penalize here. Speaking of annoyances, you also forgot to source your spells, which are pulled from all over the place – nor did you refer me to the MMII update, which is necessary to understand where you pulled playable needlefolk from.

I'm also giving you a slap on the wrist for not clarifying that you include bonuses from wisdom-before-items in the spells per day table, since the assumed default is to not include it. I'm not giving you a slap on the wrist for drow fighter or Fangshields ranger, since I believe the inclusive language in the text itself overrules the exclusive language implied by the name.

Overall, I think this build is very smooth and synergistic, despite a couple of features not getting any support and a table that might be a tad jumpier than it had to be. Unfortunately, it relies on two instances of shaky interpretation to get its main tactics across, and has a few miscellaneous issues.

Score: 2.3 2.55 points.

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UoC:

Good stuff. You're not satisfied with "I have spells that buff/create natural weapons" or druid-light "the class that grants me spells also grants me natural weaponry". You have spells that improve your use of natural weapons and natural weapons that facilitate better-than-expected use of spells.

Overall, top notch.

Score: 5 points.

Total Score: 13.8 14.05 points. I feel like you've given yourself a lot of leeway when it came to rules, and you didn't really create a very powerful character – but you achieved what you set out to do, which was an excellent integration of both the components into a larger whole. That's what I like to see!

Spoiler: Spiker

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Originality:

On the one hand, this is the most basic approach to "big dude with rapidstrike can buff himself and get some movement/utility", and psychic warrior / ardent were the most obvious choices IMO from the moment it was declared psionics were allowed.

On the other hand… this is psychic weapon master. Yes, it's some elemental I've never looked at before, but it's also psychic weapon master. Which definitely isn't meant for natural weapons (more on that later), making it very unexpected this round, but what makes it even more unexpected this round is that it's PSYCHIC WEAPON MASTER.

Other than the racial choice and PWM, I don't see anything too compelling about this entry or its tactics. However, it's hard to deny that 15/20 ECL and a whole bunch of feats are directly tied to that premise, so it's not like there was too much else you could've done.

Overall, well done.

Score: 4.5 points.

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Power:

You start out on ECL 6 with 4 rhd, but having a +16 to strength, +12 con, and a heap of NA certainly helps make up for that. Your feats are trash, obviously, and you only get rapidstrike deep into late levels, but you can still make for a decent melee opponent throughout your career. I'd say you shine most at early levels and at 20, with everything in between suffering from slow advancement.

I'm not in love with the binder choice here. All of this… for Aym? Very situational, and the text doesn't really make the case for it. I feel like you could've done much better with this level.

Just as a note regarding manifesting, you have more PP than you claim you do. Text trumps table, and the text clearly states that its done by ML, not class level. No penalty, of course.

Overall, you make for a decent brute with a rough patch in your middle career, and you can taxi by the end.

Score: 3.25 points.

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Elegance:

So, the crystal thing. It's very ballsy, but I'm not sure it holds up to scrutiny. Let's review.

As you've noted, the class was clearly made with the crystals from XPH in mind, and gets real weird real fast if you do it with a natural weapon. However, given that the rules for bonded weapons are independently presented as a riff on psicrystal rules, and do not directly refer to intelligent item rules, I'm not inclined to say you've done something illegal by having conscious arms. We'd have to explore whether the class's description of "crystal weapon" is really as imprecise as you say it is, and if so, does it apply to your slam attack.

Well, the words "crystal weapon" don't appear as-is in the XPH, which is good for you. Deep crystal does convey that it is like a "mundane crystal weapon", but context makes it very clear that this is a "mundane-crystal weapon", and not "mundane crystal-weapon".

However, the bonded weapon ability itself does mention it has to be "a standard crystal melee weapon". I'd say the word "standard" carries a lot of weight here. Sure, you could claim it just means "without any enhancement", but I find that reading and its assumption of repetition not fully convincing.

More severe than that, I think "Crystal tipped" really does a number on your credibility here. If you had a claw attack, it'd be more convincing. A claws attack is done with the claws, and you'd have crystal claws. A slam attack, however, is done with the appendage, and you don't have crystal arms.

Now, I can't fully say that your interpretation is out. I'm not overruling it. I am saying the language here is far less beneficial to you than you present it as being, and that you're taking a penalty for relying on a shaky interpretation.

In addition, the idea that you can enchant both slams as one weapon isn't obvious, and could be easily contested, toppling your build. This is untrue, as addressed in the dispute.

I should relay that other than your core trick, I don't see too much synergy here in this build. You get prereqs, and you execute. Not too much to praise here (either than the usual meticulous sourcing, down to the page level, which I always appreciate.)

Dex and dodge: I guess that works, yeah. My brain doesn't want it to, but you certainly were a medium sized creature with 14 dex when you took these feats. Clever.

Shield: it's explicitly a variant rule, so it's a penalty. A small one, since it’s not something-for-nothing, but it's still a penalty. Which is a shame, because I'm really unclear on what you'd use an extreme shield for. It's strapped to your arm and held by your hand. You need both your arms for your routine – and oh, did I mention you have no hands?

Overall, I don't see this build as particularly elegant, and it very much suffers from relying on ambiguous language.

Score: 1.5 2 points.

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UoC:

I have to admit, I'm pretty disappointed in this category. You've made a significant effort (which I'm sure took a lot of time) to find a monster that'd let you get bonded weapon on a natural weapon. But like… why? What's the big upside when compared to using a manufactured weapon? From where I'm sitting, it seems like the main answer to that is "because that's what the components are".

PWM grants you improvements to critical hits, combat reflexes, and whirlwind attack. So, you want a crit-heavy weapon and reach. A slam is neither. I guess it is (arguably) a way to get more attacks with the "same" weapon.

I say all of that to preface that I can't just say "maybe there's not that much synergy between your powers and natural weapons, but the class that gives said casting synergizes in ways XYZ". Sure, you buff your natural weapons, but these buffs could have been applied to manufactured weapons just as well.

Overall, you make heavy investment into both components, and you manage to force natural weapons down PWM's throat – but you never achieve real synergy, which is a shame.

Score: 2 points.

Total Score: 11.25 11.75 points. This was a cool find! But you spent too much time asking if you can, and then went ahead anyway without a clear answer, never asking if you should.

Spoiler: Big Little Lady

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Originality:

Not personally a fan of all the AI generated stuff. No penalty, just wanted to throw that out there.

Marshal/Cha caster isn't revolutionary. I can't say bard was anywhere near the top of my list, though. Halfling's cute, and I guess it's surprising in a natural weapons round, even if that isn't really relevant to you. Greenbound summoning is somewhat of an eyeroll.

Overall, I didn't get the chance to be surprised by anything, and your tacitcs seem like they're pretty bog-standard, but the heavy bard focus deserves some credit here.

Score: 2.25 points.

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Power:

Hmmm. What do I do with your spells? Ignoring them would be double penalizing, but I can't assume optimization for free. I guess I'll assume what I'd consider a baseline level of competence for a low op table, and be done with it.

Also, what the heck is up with your stats? Why do you need 10 str? 10 wis? Why do you suddenly go for con in the middle of the build? Inefficient. This build could've finished with 23 Cha easily, and it finishes with 19 for no real reason.

There is also the question of being a halfling. I've got no qualms with halflings, and I like seeing none-strongheart ones. But why aren't you glimmerskin? You take draconic aura, you could've quadroupled its efficiency. It would have gone from +1 to +4 by level 20.

I don’t at all get what's going on with your feat and skill progression. You take greenbound summoning, but only at 18 – for a feat with such high usefulness at early levels, that's strange. You pounce on the chance to take UMD, but then you slow down, forget about it, pick it up again, slow down again, forget about it again. Generally, you're less of a skill monkey and more of a hodgepodge. You're riding a hippogriff from mid-levels, right? Why the sudden urge to take balance?

Overall, I'm having a hard time judging this category, due to lack of information as we'll discuss next category. However, I have to give some credit to a lot of helpers, some well-known feats, and nearly full bard casting.

Score: 2.5 points.

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Elegance:

First, please, do not link websites like realmshelps. This is the link you should've used. Please make sure you link only original sources next time around.

Second, a slap on the wrist for some mild cross-setting material, and a penalty for multiclass penalties.

Third, no penalty, but I found your presentation somewhat disorienting. It didn't feel like there was any reasoning behind the choice to place the songs where you did, it was a weird move to put the whole table before the stats, with a song in between… I don’t know. Felt very jarring.

Fourth, this build is a ****show.

You don't give me a spells per day table, nor (and far more importantly) do you give me your spells known. You've got 18 levels of spellcasting, in a spellcasting competition, and the word spell doesn't even show up in your entire entry. What the hell. This is insane. You see that this is insane, right? I swear, I've tripled checked that I opened every spoiler tag, and I'm still doubting myself.

You don't stat out your animal companion, or your wild cohort.

As for your stats: I questioned your choices in power. Here, I'll note that no halfling I know of has +0 to dex and strength. Seems like you just forgot to adjust them – which is weird, since you obviously knew you should be adjusting them, given that they're the only stats noted with a 0 next to them in the race/template section.

Why do you only give yourself your 1st level bard abilities at level 2?

You don't qualify for obtain familiar (no knowledge arcana). You don't source Improved Familiar, but since you're using a hippogriff I believe that means you take the CW version, which means you don't qualify for a hippogriff because your BaB is too low. You don't tell me which perform skill you have, and I'm mentioning the perform skill because guess what, you don't have enough ranks to qualify for music of growth. You do have enough ranks for melodic casting, but you didn't take spellcraft, so you don't qualify for that either. I can assume from context clues that you take some iteration of summon nature's ally, which you have access for as a savage bard, which would qualify you for greenbound summoning. Other than that "would qualify", the only feats you qualify for are the two that don't have any prerequisites, and draconic aura. And taking the draconic aura feat for an Dragon Shaman aura is a somewhat shaky reading of RAW, in my opinion.

I find your snapshots severely lacking. You don't mention any specific buffs, or summons, or what you even do at levels 1-2. Shoot a bow, one would presume. Or a sling, given that you're a halfling.

Overall, this build qualifies for nothing, and has a huge amount of other issues. It'd be a 1 in a heartbeat. However, it is also strictly incomplete. It's an edge case, because if you had a single level of bard for something, I'd probably not give you a 0 because you didn't tell me which cantrips you know. However, I'd also not give a 0 to a build for forgetting to choose skills at level 20, while I would give a 0 to a build that didn't bother with allocating skills at all. Given that you're a main caster for 18/20 ECL, I'd say it's more like the latter than the former.

Score: 0 points.

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UoC:

You have spells, even if you don't select them and never mention them. You don't have natural weapons, though your pets do (not what the contest is about). You're not a druid.

That's enough for this to not be a 0, though you did come close. I've only ever given 0s in elegance, because as I once pointed out: we only give 0s in elegance because straight up illegal or incomplete builds happen, but something would have to be straight up plagiarism to get a 0 in originality from me, something would have to be literally solely detrimental to itself and the party to get a 0 in power, and something would have to literally not take the components to get a 0 in UoC.

This came close.

Score: 1 point.

Total Score: 5.75 points. This entry kind of baffles me. At points, it almost felt like AI played a larger part than the obvious. I don't mean to offend, it's just… weird.

Still, I'll try to assume good faith. This could very well be a relatively new chef that ran out of free time. If so, I hope my criticism has been helpful, and I hope you take it to heart. I know I'm a harsh judge, but I try my best to also be fair and constructive. In the future, ensure that all the basic elements of the build (such as known spells) are present, and go through all your classes, ACFs, and feats to ensure that you qualify for them. Having an idea you like simply isn't enough; you have to do the legwork. Better luck next time!

Spoiler: Tattooed Whitch-Twins

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Just had to say this: I love the way that sometimes I'll be reading through an entry, English very clearly being a second language for you, and out of the blue you'll hit me with a word like "preambular". Always makes me smile.

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Originality:

"Colored" has an icky history when applied to people. How 'bout "painted", "colorful" or "iridescent"?

Dvati don't get the same treatment here from me as humans do, but as you know by now, they do get an eyeroll. Less expected on a full caster, though. There's no doubt in my mind that you needed this, but it's a small penalty nonetheless.

Speaking of what you needed to be Dvati for: you naughty, naughty boy. You tricked me with your emphasis on magic tattoos, so that I wouldn't figure out what you were doing when it came to explosive runes. Bravo. We'll further discuss the trick in the coming categories. Magic of the dragonheart abuse is also really interesting, and will also be addressed.

It's interesting as a part of a whole though: going all in on draconic feats through a PRC and your feat choices. That's pretty surprising, and it's not done as a mere novelty; you have legitimate motivations behind your choices. Argent savant isn’t something you see every day either.

These two tricks sit on a chassis – sorcerer casting – that I can't say is mindblowing to me. Full casters have a hard time in this category from me, especially in a time like this.

Overall, unsurprising core ingredients advanced by unusual PRCs and cooked in a very interesting way. I like it.

Score: 3.5 points.

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Power:

I've just had a discussion with someone else on the forums on how much I lean towards "raw power" in this category, rather than "power compared to the expected power of your chassis." So it should be no surprise to you that you're doing well here.

Honestly though, this build can pull off a few impressive tricks from level 9 forward, that significantly increase your damage output when compared to a normal sorcerer.

I'm obviously concerned, however, with survivability. It's always the issue with Dvati, and that's true here too. You have 3 HP per twin at level 1. I like having healing through the divine companion to help with that, but come on. A house cat can take you down in one round.

Overall though, despite some difficulties, you obviously make for a competent caster with a few unique tricks up your sleeve.

Score: 4.25 points.

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Elegance:

Dvati is, as you well recognize, inherently inelegant and a headache to deal with. Note that I don't consider this double penalization: it's a very common cheesy race (hence the originality penalty) and it causes a ton of messy rules issues in the build (hence the elegance penalty).

I swear, I dislike Dvati more and more every time I have to judge a pair. Ugh. You had a good reason, but ugh.

Slap on the wrist for not specifying that you speak Draconic. Dvati have bonus languages: any, so with 14 int you're fine, but you should've still explicitly had it in the build.

I really don't want to push back on this, because I'm really impressed with the arcane preparation trick, but I think it's a little more limited than you think. The spell goes "while this spell is active… for example… in addition… for example… finally". So, unless you want to claim the "finally" part works regardless of the spell being active, you'd have to recognize that the spell has to be active for you to benefit from "in addition". However, the specific language of in addition doesn't reference "this spell" or "the spell", but tells you to "treat magic of the dragonheart as if its spell level equaled 1/2 your caster level."

So, while magic of the dragonheart is in effect (because you've cast it) you treat magic of the dragonheart (the one you prepared) as being this level or that. So your trick does work (and is brilliant, in my opinion), but it's limited to you actually casting the spell as well. Also, I think there's a much better argument against you when it comes to Draconic Arcane Grace. No language like on dragonheart mage to help you avoid the "spell slot" limitation.

Okay, let's talk runes.

This trick is obviously a brilliant attempt at something really cool. Pumping your resistance that high would make you functionally immune: the chance of rolling 31 and above on a 6d6 roll is ~1%. It kind of runs into the issue of "is it a free action to read", and "are there infinite such actions in a turn" and "can you read in an explosion", but these aren't really solid objections, in my opinion. There's also the fact that True Dragons outside the monster's manual explicitly require DM permission, which means you're getting a malus here for your choice of heritage regardless. However, you have two big issues here, one of which unfortunately nullifies your trick.

The first is "do you keep the runes when you stop being an object". What happens to a magnet that was stuck to you when you were a piece of metal? It gets dropped, right? There's an argument to be made that the same thing is true for PAM. I'm not going to delve into that argument, however, since I believe your other issue conclusively ruins the trick.

You gain resistance to the energy type associated with your draconic heritage equal to three times the number of draconic feats you have, including draconic feats you take after gaining this feat.

This feat grants no benefit to a character whose draconic heritage is not associated with an energy type, such as a sorcerer with pan lung heritage.

Is force an energy type? I'd say no, but that’s a trick question. The unfortunate truth is that Draconic Heritage clarifies things for us.

Many of the draconic bloodlines listed on the table don't grant a bonus on saves against effects of a particular energy type. Instead, you gain a bonus on saves against spells and abilities associated with the effect (such as force for the Tarterian dragon) or subschool (such as compulsion for the chaos dragon) that matches the entry on the table, as well as the normal bonus provided by the feat against magic sleep and paralysis effects.

I'd say this is unfortunately very conclusive. Draconic heritage grants you a bonus against [force] effects, but it explicitly calls out that this isn't an energy type – which in turn, means draconic resistance grants you no benefit, which means the whole trick is gone.

Oof.

So on the one hand, a very focused build achieving some very cool synergies. On the downside, the big one doesn't work.

No issues I can see outside of those, and the build has some real upsides in this category, and as always is meticulously sourced and well communicated. My main criticism, in the end, was directed at a failed strategy moreso than something actually breaking the build. So despite the thrashing, your score here is still pretty good.

Score: 3.65 points.

Spoiler

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UoC:

Very weak category. Sure, you (barely) have natural weapons, but those are very unessential to your build, and are radically overshadowed by your spellcasting. They're vestigial. Sure, you blew the "spellcasting" out of the water, but you're nearly a full T2 caster. Blowing spellcasting out of the water is easy, synergizing it with natural weapons was the point of this round.

I undersold your investment in enhancing natural weapons with your spells, and your ability to use them. I think the action conflict between blood wind and draconic claw is still problematic, for someone who'd stil ideally like to avoid melee plenty of turns. Still, I better than I gave you credit for.

Score: 1.25 1.75 points.

Total Score: 12.65 13.05 points. There was a lot of brilliance on display here. Just as I finished writing the UoC part, I remembered that you said that this was adapted from another round, which explains a lot of my complaints. It's a brilliant build – shame it doesn't work, and shame that you didn't find a more "appropriate" context to show it off in.

Part 2 coming in a bit!

[H_H_F_F]

Spoiler: Bros in the Sharn

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Originality:

Maybe this would've caught me more off-guard a couple of years ago, but as things stand, Sharn is a big eyeroll from me. Taking an infamously OP creature (and perhaps one of the only monsters WoTC ever gave too low of an LA to) with natural weapons and innate spellcasting and saying "yeah, that" isn't the sort of thing I really tend to reward in this category.

I also don't think you built on the basic chassis in a very interesting way. "I went for lyrist rather than just theurge" isn't interesting enough to distract from the fact that you went the default route of theurging (though more thoughts on the specifics of that approach are coming later).

Some of your spells aren't default, but many are. The main thing here showing real creativity, in my opinion, is spell flower and the way you've built on it – but overall, I think this build isn't doing too much on this category. Could've been much worse without some of your spell selection.

Score: 2 points.

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Power:

I mean, yeah. I'm not going to sit here and waste my time and yours. You're very powerful, you've mostly made good spell choices, and you take some game-breaking TO by the end.

Score: 5 points.

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Elegance:

So, when I judge, things like TO when and cheesing Fochlucan Lyrist's prereqs make your build contend with a heuristic I like to call "Live by the RAW, die by the RAW". This means that I take RAW very seriously here, even in places where you wouldn't necessarily want me to.

PRCs that advance casting do so by referring to "casting classes you had before entering". There are exceptions: Naga Overlord (Serpent Kingdoms), for example, says "The character gains new spells… as if he had also gained a level in whatever arcane spellcasting class he had (or could cast spells as).

As you've probably noted, Mystic Theurge and Folhucan Lyrist have no such stipulation.

"But H!" I imagine you saying, incensed. "Sharn lets me advance it as a theurge! Specific trumps general!"

Well, first of all, this wouldn't help you with Lyrist. Second of all: does it?

"Sharns often take levels in mystic theurge, since they already meet the entrance requirements".

Where in this sentence do you learn that Sharns can advance with mystic theurge? It says they often take it, and already qualify. That could easily mean anything, including "they take one level of each of their favored classes, and then mystic theurge (which'd normally take 6 more levels) because they already qualify", or "they often take mystic theurge to advance whatever classes they take, because they already qualify". Is there an implication that the writer didn't realize that it doesn't advance them? Sure. Is that an ironclad RAI case? Far from it. Is it RAW? Absolutely not.

Now, you'll note that I didn't kill your power score. Obviously, this is largely fixable, and pretty easily so. Tanking your power score would feel like breaking the one-mistake-one-penalty in this case; it's not like without the interpretation all your power would go away, and you give me a clear idea of how you'd build the character right. it'd be an extreme case of cascading an error, since you could obviously just take the base classes and be slightly behind or avoid Lyrist altogether, missing some skill points and solely relying on your Divine Power.

Still, this means I have to rebuild your character from the ground up for it to function – and with a build that adorns itself as nearing pun-pun, I take this very seriously.

Overall, this build is illegal.

I got so caught up by the (perceived) illegality last time, that I didn’t manage to really address the build, so this is more like a re-evaluation of your elegance than a simple dispute response.

In general, the build is decently synergistic, with a couple of spell choices (especially Spell Flower) that take it to the next level. Cheesing druidic is always a rules argument, but qualifying with innate evasion is great.

You fail to qualify for Arcane Strike when you take it – fixable, but a shame, and always a penalty from me. I'm paranoid now that I'm missing something else, so hit me up with a second dispute if I am.

Power attack feels like a somewhat wasted feat here, which I dislike. Sure, wraithstrike + PA is a powerful combo, but with your to-hit not being that awesome even with Divine Power, you'd find yourself underutilizing it against plenty of enemies.

Overall, other than these issues, this is a pretty elegant entry.


Score: 0 3.25 points.

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UoC:

I hate to say this, but with arcane flower you've made a legitimately compelling case for your natural weapons being an integral part of your approach to casting. I say "I hate to say this" because I don't like this type of casting optimization, but I have to be honest with myself here: you've not just picked a strong caster with natural weapons, you made a legitimately impactful use of those natural weapons. You want to have as many hands as possible, you have 9, and you add two for good measure. You have a reason to want to hit with them, you buff them to do so, and given that you're actually doing that you're adding very decent damage capabilities.

Overall, it doesn't get much better than that.

Score: 4.75 points.

Total Score: 12 15.25 points. I can see and appreciate that this build was a lot of effort, and really gave thought to the advancement and spell selection to make for a powerful build that fit the theme of the round. Don't let the catastrophically unfortunate rules error/disagreement or my personal dislike for this type of optimization deter you for a moment; this was a great idea, and aside from said error/disagreement, very well executed.

Spoiler: YASSS queen!

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Come on, tell me that wasn't intentional.

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Originality:

Eberron! Easy way to get me to approach your entry with a good mood is having it feel entrenched in its setting, and it's much better if wer'e talking about The Good Setting^TM. I'm not a fan of your choice to have enlightened fist as some Tashalotra-inspired stuff. I feel like eberron did a very good job making psionics and spellcasting feel distinct, and I don't like the idea that skills from one would be so transferable to the other. In my opinion, the obvious approach would be the order of the Mystic Fist from PGtE, which is explicitly a sorcerer/monk order. PGtE doesn't give them a lot of grounding in the setting, but in this dragonmark article, Keith Baker suggested placing them in the Lhazaar Principalities, as heritors to a pre-sundering Sarlonan tradition.

I like Eberron.

As for other aspects of the build: rapidstrike, as I mentioned, was very high on my list of things to expect. We'll talk about it more in elegance. Abjurant Champions are very obvious in the context of the competition. Enlightened fists – less so, and an interesting direction to go with.

I also thought Deepwyrm Half-Drow was an interesting racial choice, but it doesn't feel like it has any mechanical use beyond being a dragonblooded race. I don’t see what's the (again, mechanical) upside here compared to, say, silverbrow human. If I'm missing something, feel free to table a dispute.

Cyran avenger is cute, and even if I'm not too impressed with how well its utilized, it can't be said not to have a role within the build.

Overall, this is a pretty basic arcane-gish, but it made a couple of surprising choices I'm pleased with.

Score: 3 points.

Spoiler

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Power:

This build gets some nasty spells. Between both Shivering Touch spells, haste, and polymorph, you run a lot of the "to sorcerer spells" early on. (Greater) Arcane Fusion gives you the action economy to really stack on some buffs and attacks, and Limited Wish is limited wish.

I do feel that the neglect towards your main casting attribute impacts you a lot – though obviously, you have enough no-save options to remain a threat even without high Charisma.

I'm not as impressed by the none-spellcasting parts of your build. I think you can easily suffer from the flurry of misses phenomenon, and have a hard time doing significant damage.

Overall though, this makes for a potent (if narrow) spellcaster that can hold their ground in melee.

Score: 3.75 points.

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Elegance:

You've got a couple of presentation issues: one is an issue with your table: you messed around with your levels, and class features show up in the wrong place. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that your table onluy mentions the class (not the level) and you don't have a stub. That means I have to do some legwork to figure out what's going on with your build at any point, even if I know the classes. Might I suggest that next time, you fill the class column in your table with Sorcerer 1, Sorcerer 2, etc? And it'd be really helpful if you added "Ranger 1 / Battle Sorcerer 4/ Monk 1/ Enlightened Fist 4/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Cyran Avenger 5" to "Lawful Good Half-Elf (Deepwyrm Half-Drow)". A build stub like that means I can make a mental note of how your build looks like at 20, and it helps me reorient myself if I get lost in the weeds of your table.

In a similar vein, I'd also like levels attached to your spells known. If you're not going through each new spell in your snapshots, it leaves me needing to reverse-engineer your necessary sorcerer level to qualify for minor shapeshift, and then go to your messy table to figure out if you qualify in time (you do).

Finally, if I was to look at your table, I'd say you never take Draconic Claws. It seems like a copy-paste error more than anything else – you mention having them by 5, and you don't take a feat at 3 – but it's still very messy.

Oh, but let's remember that you can use a natural weapon or unarmed strike to make the touch attack for a spell.

Can you?

I really don't want to get into the weeds of this argument if I don't have to. I personally believe that "holding the charge" happens after you've cast the spell, and that the touch attack granted by the spell is part of the spellcasting process itself, and cannot be subsumed by an action that's allowed while "holding a charge" without further evidence. I also think the permissive interpretation makes Complete Arcane's rules for IUS unnecessary, which is another argument against it.

That being said, those Complete Arcane rules (given under the "weaponlike spells" section) make most of your spell choices a valid target for this strategy. They apply to any touch-range spell that deals damage; Shocking Grasp and vampiric touch deal damage, the Shivering Touches deal ability damage (which is still considered damage), and Mummify deals damage (if they fail the save, but I'd say that's enough to be considered damage-dealing). Touch of fatigue, touch of idiocy, and dispelling touch deal no damage, and touch of years deals ability drain (which isn't damage).

Snap kick is infamously badly written, but I'd say it still works on top of a swift action claw attack, which means even with the spells that don't let you transfer them with an unarmed strike can be followed by a claw attack + snap kick.

Arcane fist obviously lets you do the rest of your spells, which is why you didn't see any significant impact on power, and only a mild penalty here. The length of this discussion was more about setting things straight than tearing into you.

What's far more impactful for your score, though, is not qualifying for the rapidstrike feats. Did you think dragonblood gave you the dragon type, perhaps? It doesn't. You straight up don't qualify, and there's nothing even approaching an easy fix for this.

You didn't source your spells, which I dislike. You're pulling them from all over the place (Frostburn, Phb II, Complete Mage, Sandstorm) and they need to be properly sourced.

Holler at me with a dispute if I'm missing some rules here, but I don't get how you get Dragontouched instead of Draconic Heritage from your sorcerer substitution levels, and I don't know what'd be the advantage of that anyway, given that it disqualifies you from draconic claws. I think you just mistyped a feat, and forgot to elaborate on your heritage. Given that deep dragon isn't one of the options, I don't even have a "default" option.

Other than all my criticism, I'm having a hard time seeing how everything in this build harmonizes. You labor to get into Cyran avenger, but mechanically speaking, why? Cyran Avenger comes in far too late, in my opinion, for avenging strike to be all that meaningful. It's Cha/day, and 5d6 is a lot more impressive in level 10 than 17. Besides, you can't even nova with it really well, since you have to announce before rolling the attack, and you're extremely likely to miss later attacks in your flurry. I also feel that you feel to squeeze a lot except swift boosted shield and full BaB from Abjurant Champion. This class is an automatic ding in originality because it's such a powerhouse, but your CL is 1 away from your BaB anyway, you barely have any abjuration spells, your action economy is doing fine as-is, and you want your swift actions for something else.

Overall, I think this build is very messy, suffers from rules issues, and has little to speak of when it comes to synergy aside from the spell choice on an enlightened fist.

Score: 1.15 points.

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UoC:

You make use of spells that encourage you to get up close and personal, and have a couple of buffs that can help with that and the action economy to implement them. Unfortunately, a lot of your build is focused on an alternative to your natural weapons (no, I'm not willing to consider unarmed strikes a natural weapon for the purposes of this category) and the attention they do get is illegal. You could take out draconic claws from this build, and it'd function virtually the same outside of levels 3-8 or so.

You still get valiant attempt credit, and it's far from the worst we've seen here. Arcane fist and Draconic Claws mean you have every incentive to attack with your claws while spellcasting, because you might as well, and you have a couple of buffs that directly enhance the impact of these attacks.

Overall though, I'm not convinced that this build really needed its claws, or that it plays all that differently because of them.

Score: 2.75 points.

Total Score: 10.65 points. This build obviously had some issues, but I'd definitely say it shows deeper care towards the round components and the rules at large than the other build that received similar criticisms from me – and definitely helped abate my worries that the other one was some sort of trolling attempt or an AI generated build. It's clear you didn't have the time to check every detail in your submissions, but I hope my commentary has proved helpful. I'm sorry if at any point I offended or insulted you, I know that getting a harsh judgement can suck. Thanks for your submission, and better luck next time!

Spoiler: Nars Three-Spirits

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Originality:

More Eberron? Come on guys, you're spoiling me. PgTE seems to suggest that Wu-Jen magic is younger than druidic magic, not older, but Nars can believe what he believes. I feel like your fluff doesn't make sense though: it seems to say that Nars had no access to symbionts before becoming an impure prince, but mechanically speaking, separation from his gauntlet would kill him in two weeks.

I like the heavy focus on the aberration hunter theme, expressed both mechanically and through your background.

Daelkyr Half-Bloods I only saw coming in the context of easy access to rapidstrike, like Elans. You're not doing that at all, and I didn't see coming the way you approach this – the whole tactic is certainly creative, even if (as we'll explore later) problematic. Impure Prince's great, Barbarian and full casting classes less so. Such heavy investment in Wu Jen spirit feats, however, is surprising in principle – but I don't see you having any unique use for them. Same goes for Echoing Spell.

Buff persistomancy always gets a thrashing from me here, and in this round it is especially expected. Alter-self and polymorph tactics aren't too new either.

Your saving grace here is mostly the main tactic: buff sharing with symbionts is an interesting direction to take the build. Unfortunately, even that isn't as innovative as I'd like for this category to really make an impact, since "abusing share spells" is already such a staple of a lot of buffing.

Overall, this build has a lot of classics, has a core premise (creating and buffing NW with spells) that's extremely expected in this context, and not enough weirdness to counteract the issues.

Score: 2 points.

Spoiler

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Power:

Just let me make sure that I get your fifth level recommended strategy straight: You spend the first turn in combat casting fist of stone, and then you make attacks from a distance, with two of them allowing you to pull the enemy towards your 10 AC self if they hit? You do that with 32 HP?

Maybe not, since you explicitly only mention improved grab in the context of turning into a carrion crawler… Which would addmitedly let you target medium creatures, but in no way shape or form is able to cast spells with verbal and somatic componnents. So like, I'm not sure what you're about at these levels, but it seems like a lot of ****ing around and finding out. The only alter self form you propose is one that nullifies your entire deal, and your entire deal doesn't do well with 10 AC.

I'll discuss the utility of your shared combat buffs in elegance.

Mimics do have hands, though, and they speak common – so polymorph didn't go to waste (obviously). So you can use the pull trick on them.

I really like Solid Fog + FOM +Listening Lorecall, but it's not as effective as you make it up to be – you're relying on a lot of independent attacks and Aoos by your symbionts, who don't get blindsight, since they don't have 10 ranks in listen.

Before persistomancy comes into effect, and in large part even after, you're extremely reliant on buffing pre-combat.

Something I haven't mentioned thus far but was the first thing I noticed about the build: your to-hit SUCKS. Your bab is low, your Str stagnates. You're not good at grappling and you're not good at hitting people. Your tentacle whips, which you rely on to make attacks on their own, have 1 Bab. Give them all the natural attacks you want: they'll still miss every single one. Giant size is great, and it's good for your grappling, but it only exacerbates the problem for your tentacles.

Overall, I can assume you eventually have some decent Wu-Jen spells prepared, but you have a rough start, you don't have the numbers to back up your approach to combat, and you require a lot of buffing to work.

Score: 2.25 points.

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Elegance:

Having a 40% multiclass penalty from level 5 is something I penalize here.

You forgot to list Symbiont Mastery in your feats, which is just a slap on the wrist. No penalty, but you source to Car a spell that was reprinted in SC.

I'm sorely missing a typical prepared spells list for Wu-Jen. It's fine to just name spells in your tactical section, but you name 2 first level spells (one of which is pretty useless when you mention it – you can only treat your natural weapons as thrown weapons for the round Blood Wind is cast), 1 second level spell, 1 third level spell (and much later, heart of water), 2 fourth level spells (and later, heart of earth), no fifth level spells I don't think, no sisxth level spells I don't think, and one seventh level spell.

I'd have liked to see either a typical spells prepared list, or something like "this level opens up third level spells, including staple options such as X, Y, Z (with those being spells your character uses at least as well as the average wu-jen – not spells that utilize high range or count on maxxed Int). Of particular note is (spells that your build really relies on)." That'd been fine; being completely oblivious to most of your wu-jen spellcasting isn't.

I was confused at first about your statement that there are 4 attacks happening with bloodwind. The gauntlet takes its own action in addition to granting you a claw attack – cheesy, but sure – and a clever way to get over the tiny creature having no reach. It grants you a claw attack, and fist of stone grants you a slam attack with your other hand. It took me a minute to figure out what you were doing, a tactic which defines your build – fist of stone supposedly giving the symbionts a slam attack.

Well, no. Fist of stone, like every spell in SC, has a little fluff blurb and then starts mechanically describing the spell – and the description clearly states "you transform one of your hands into a mighty fist of living stone, granting you…"

A dude without hands can't benefit from fist of stone, and your symbionts are dudes without hands. They gain nothing.

Same argument for Evard's Menacing Tentacles and shoulders. Ghostly tail is fine, with no body-part-specific language. Girallon's Blessing is allowed – the fluff text says Torso, so I'm giving you a slap on the wrist, but it's just the fluff text so no more than that and I'm not overruling it. Bite of the werewolf / wearbear is fine, except granting you a bite and granting a mouth isn't the same, and tentacle whips don't have mouths – or if they do, those ae 100% attached to your arm. The SRD explains that a bite attack is "a creature attacks with its mouth". It's not as clear as say, fist of stone, but it's still an issue, and a penalty.

I really like the idea where it works (which is mostly just Ghostly Tail, but still) and I find it very synergistic. However, that’s not very true for many other parts of the build.

Counter synergy between an extra crawling gauntlet taking the space for your slam attack. I'm not a fan of bite of the wereboar coming two levels after bite of the werewolf – feels like one of these is a huge waste of a spell known. Being so very MAD without a real solution is tough. None of those are a huge deal, but they do stack up.

Overall, Though there are a couple of bright spots, this build has a lot of mess within it.

Score: 1.65 points.

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UoC:

It took me a minute to figure out, and therefore appreciate, what you were going for here. Granting symbionts extra attacks through share spells, and basically getting bonus utility for spells you're already casting on yourself – that's a good idea. Some of it doesn't work by the rules (but still gets valiant attempt credit here) and some of it does work, even if it's not as strong as I'd have liked it to be.

From level 10 to persistomancy, you go through a period of simply not having a natural attack if you didn't get to buff, and your natural weapons being dispellable is a miss for me.

But overall, it's an interesting combination of the components.

Score: 3 points.

Total Score: 8.9 points. I liked this build way more than the score might represent. It's bold and interesting. I do find myself wondering if you could've found more spells without restricting language, and if a version of this build that could overcome the symbiont's basic attack issue could be done. Something based on divine power would be the obvious go-to, but I wonder if there's a more fun way around the issue.

Spoiler: A. Jade

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Originality:

I like Jaebrin too! I worked on one for the Unseelie Dark Hunter round of Iron Chef, but it sort of fell apart. It's certainly a creative choice – not one I would've seen coming, and it naturally births a creative tactic for this round – using natural weapons to enhance spellcasting, rather than vice versa.

JPM, on the contrary, shows up very often and is very expected in the context of a gish round – especially one that wouldn't naturally be a full attacker. Beguiler is not where my mind would immediately go to, however, even if it is a full caster.

Your tactics, once the chassis has been established, don't do anything too innovative. Net of shadows would've gotten you a nod here if it was better supported, but as-is I don't feel it's significant enough to count.

Overall, this build is based around a decently creative idea, but follows through quite predictably.

Score: 2.25 points.

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Power:

No adaptive style is bad here, in my opinion. Maneuvers are supposed to be your way out of your bite sucking, but they can't be refreshed. On top of the fact that JPM grants you just one maneuver of the sort of force multipliers that you'd want, I feel like your character would struggle more in combat than a version that could afford a warblade dip or something like that.

JPM is a great augmentation to beguiler regardless of anything, as it offers you ways to be helpful against enemies that are immune to mind affecting. I still would like to see you doing better martially, though – your to-hit isn't awful with your knowledge devotion, but it is still of some concern.

Overall though, you manage to maintain a stable amount of power throughout your career, and do so while appropriately supporting the basic gist of the beguiler core.

Score: 3.75 points.

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Elegance:

I really like paragnostic apostle here. It loses you a point of BaB, which is a shame, but you wanted to stagnate beguiler – and doing so with a prc you already qualify for that also offers you an ability that's tailored to your main tactic was a great move. That's the sort of efficient thinking I always want to see more of!

Slap on the wrist for not sourcing net of shadows. Also, just a couple of notes with no associated penalty: you mention Arcane Strike (a feat you don't have) when you presumably mean arcane wrath (a class feature), and you only show collector of stories when you take it; I'd really like to see something like that remaining in your skills listing, since you're showing me running totals, and that's especially the case when you don't mention it in-text.

Overall, I felt that this was a simple but efficient and clever entry.

Score: 3.9 points.

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UoC:

Will sapper is the highlight of this category. Using natural weapons to enhance your spells is very clever. I wish it'd give something more uniquely helpful than a save malus you can save against, but it's still good.

Putting beguiler on top of a build that's all about reducing will saves is of course a great way to synergize with it.

Overall, this is a simple and clever amalgamation of the components.

Score: 4 points.

Total Score: 13.9 points. Nice work. I would've liked it more if it was less focused on maxed casting, and more so on expanding Will Sapper utility for said casting as much as possible – but I recognize that this is no easy task, and that you managed to do it well enough even while devoting yourself to nearly full casting. Not my favorite entry this round, but a well-deserved high score!

My Honorable Mention goes to Nars Three-Souls.


As for future rounds: I think it's possibly been brought up before, but what do y'all think about Karsite+spellcasting_classes-draconic_heritage? I get that it's extremely limiting, very hard, and I don't have any idea what I'd do with that, but I thought it could prove a worthy challenge!

[pabelfly]

Thanks again for judging, H_H_F_F.

First dispute:

Thank you H_H_F_F for judging, I very much appreciate it.

I have a few remarks regarding Bros in the Sharn, one being more subjective and one being more objective.
First, the subjective one, about Originality. I can get that persistomancy is a pretty well-known tactics, but I'm confused why you seem to penalize the Sharn here. I can't remember this race being chosen even once either in Iron Chef or Junkyard Wars (there may have been one or two sharn builds over the years but it really doesn't strike me as common), and Spell Flower seems to me like a pretty unique spell to persist (at least I've never seen Persisted Spell Flower spoken of literally anywhere), making good use of both the class and race, which makes me feel a bit weird about only getting a 2 in Originality.

And then, the more objective dispute :
Your main gripe in elegance seems to be that I cannot advance the bros' innate spellcasting through a prestige class. However, the FAQ of this very competition includes the following answer : "A2: Possessing innate spellcasting from your race is treated as a spellcasting class for the purposes of prestige classes which provide new spells per day, an increase in caster level, and spells known (if applicable)."
Since the rules of the competition obviously supersede strict RAW, I don't see how this build is illegal in any way. Also, thanks, I didn't know the word "incensed" before your comment.

[H_H_F_F]

My bad when it comes to the ruling! Managed to miss it. Obviously, it changes everything. I'm AFK, but I'll edit this comment to address the originality dispute and adjust the score soon as I'm back on my laptop.

[loky1109]

Table!

Spoiler: Old table

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#	Name	Alignment / Race	Class Levels	Chef	H_H_F_F	Total	Place
1	The Lonely Fir	NE Needlefolk	Trap Expert Spiritual Connection Fangshield Ranger 2/Hit-And-Run Tactics Fighter 1/Pious Templar 3/Impure Prince 5/Thayan Gladiator 5		13.80	13.80	2nd
2	Spiker	TN Stone Spike	Binder 1/Ardent 2/Fighter 2/Psychic Weapon Master 9		11.25	11.25	5th
3	The Big Little Lady	CG Halfling	Marshall 2/Savage Fey Bard 18		5.75	5.75	8th
4	Coloured Whitch-Twins	TN Dvati	Divine Companion Dead Levels Dragonblood Planar Sorcerer 5/Dragonheart Mage 10/Argent Savant 4		12.65	12.65	3rd
5	Bros in the Sharn	CN Sharn	Bard 1/Mystic Theurge 5/Fochlucan Lyrist 5		12.00	12.00	4th
6	Jas’Quinn Liadon	LG Deepwyrm Half-Drow	Arcane Hunter Ranger 1/Dragonblood Battle Sorcerer 4/Monk 1/Enlightened Fist 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Cyran Avenger 5		10.65	10.65	6th
7	Nars Three-Spirits	NG Daelkyr Half Blood	Bear Totem Hunter Barbarian 1/Wu-Jen 3/Metamagic Specialist Sorcerer 1/Impure Prince 5/Ultimate Magus 10		8.90	8.90	7th
8	A. Jade	CG Jaebrin	Dead Levels Beguiler 7/Swordsage 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 10/Paragnostic Apostle 1		13.90	13.90	1st

Looks like it will change drastically after disputes. But for now it is what it is.

Thank you, H_H_F_F!

Updated table is here!

#	Name	Alignment / Race	Class Levels	Chef	H_H_F_F	Total	Place
1	The Lonely Fir	NE Needlefolk	Trap Expert Spiritual Connection Fangshield Ranger 2/Hit-And-Run Tactics Fighter 1/Pious Templar 3/Impure Prince 5/Thayan Gladiator 5		14.05	14.05	2nd
2	Spiker	TN Stone Spike	Binder 1/Ardent 2/Fighter 2/Psychic Weapon Master 9		11.75	11.75	5th
3	The Big Little Lady	CG Halfling	Marshall 2/Savage Fey Bard 18		5.75	5.75	8th
4	Coloured Whitch-Twins	TN Dvati	Divine Companion Dead Levels Dragonblood Planar Sorcerer 5/Dragonheart Mage 10/Argent Savant 4		13.05	13.05	4th
5	Bros in the Sharn	CN Sharn	Bard 1/Mystic Theurge 5/Fochlucan Lyrist 5		15.25	15.25	1st
6	Jas’Quinn Liadon	LG Deepwyrm Half-Drow	Arcane Hunter Ranger 1/Dragonblood Battle Sorcerer 4/Monk 1/Enlightened Fist 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Cyran Avenger 5		10.65	10.65	6th
7	Nars Three-Spirits	NG Daelkyr Half Blood	Bear Totem Hunter Barbarian 1/Wu-Jen 3/Metamagic Specialist Sorcerer 1/Impure Prince 5/Ultimate Magus 10		8.90	8.90	7th
8	A. Jade	CG Jaebrin	Dead Levels Beguiler 7/Swordsage 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 10/Paragnostic Apostle 1		13.90	13.90	3rd

[pabelfly]

To go to administrative stuff, I'd like someone else to take over the position as Chair after this contest is over. I've not really got the time to be dedicating to the role of Chair at the moment, I just want to finish up judging Villainous Competition and take a bit of a break from chairing and judging comps for a while.

[pabelfly]

A dispute from Spiker:

Straight to the point.

Spoiler

Show

I'm not in love with the binder choice here. All of this… for Aym? Very situational, and the text doesn't really make the case for it. I feel like you could've done much better with this level.

I don't think Dwarven Step is too situational for pouncer. I really want have enchanted full plate at the 20th level. After all, it doesn't interfere with my psionics.
And I don’t share the majority opinion that Sunder is worst attack option. In my eyes Sunder is great. Yeah, it looks like you destroy your money, but "Don't divvy up the fur of an unkilled bear." Yes, there is issue that not every foe has something to Sunder, but it depends. Very very depends. I could imaging games with any percentage of enemies with sundering items from 0% to 100% and non of them is unusual.

---

In addition, the idea that you can enchant both slams as one weapon isn't obvious, and could be easily contested, toppling your build.

Sorry if it was unclear, but I didn't have such idea at all. I want enchant single one slam, not both. Look here:

Four attacks with bonded slam (plus one with regular slam)

See? "Regular" slam means it isn't enchanted one.

---

Dex and dodge: I guess that works, yeah. My brain doesn't want it to, but you certainly were a medium sized creature with 14 dex when you took these feats.

Why doesn't your brain want it?
All way I have enough Dex to qualify for Dodge. Firstly it was 14, at 4 HD it became 13, which is enough. I understand you didn't give me penalty here, but I'm curious what is issue.

---

You need both your arms for your routine

No, I don't.

If you have a pair of natural weapons, such as two claws, two wings, or two slams, you can make two or more extra attacks with one of those weapons

Nothing here force me use both natural weapons with rapidstrike routine. I need have pair to qualify and I "can make two or more extra attacks with one of those weapons." For what I need the second (weaker) one? I'm free to use it for using a shield.

---

I don't see it in your judgement, but did you found my Psionic Dodge getting elegant or non-elegant? In my eyes it was pretty elegant finding. Without which I couldn't qualify for PWM at time.

---

PWM grants you improvements to critical hits, combat reflexes, and whirlwind attack. So, you want a crit-heavy weapon and reach. A slam is neither.

I'm Large, so my slam has a reach.

---

If you had a claw attack, it'd be more convincing. A claws attack is done with the claws, and you'd have crystal claws.

Agree. But I don't find crystallin creature with claw attack, not stratospheric starting ECL (there is crystallin troll in some FR book, I maybe get two or three PWM levels with it at best).

[pabelfly]

A dispute from Whitch Twins

Thank you for judging again (or firstly? who knows...)

Spoiler: Dispute

Show

and out of the blue you'll hit me with a word like "preambular"

Funny. )))
Actually it is a word in my first language, too. Not very widespread, but existent.

"Colored" has an icky history when applied to people. How 'bout "painted", "colorful" or "iridescent"?

Ouch. I see. Sorry if it was insulting for somebody. I didn't want it. I just don't have cultural background of this expression.

I'd say this is unfortunately very conclusive. Draconic heritage grants you a bonus against [force] effects, but it explicitly calls out that this isn't an energy type – which in turn, means draconic resistance grants you no benefit, which means the whole trick is gone.

I see. Well, I have some objections, but they make this topic questionable at best. Force is poorly worded. There are some evidences of RAI at least some authors think it is energy type (description of Animate Breath spell from Draconomicon for example), but it looks like they didn't even have consensus on this among themselves.

Very weak category. Sure, you (barely) have natural weapons, but those are very unessential to your build, and are radically overshadowed by your spellcasting. They're vestigial. Sure, you blew the "spellcasting" out of the water, but you're nearly a full T2 caster. Blowing spellcasting out of the water is easy, synergizing it with natural weapons was the point of this round.

Sure, I knew it'll be weak, but is it so weak as you evaluate it?

Of course I'm nearly a full T2 caster, but look at my spell known. Big part of my spells is built around natural weapons or has synergy with them.
Look:
Shield, Mage Armor, Shimmermantle, Justice of the Wyrm King - very needed defenses for melee type.
Firestride Exhalation and Overland Fly give me mobility needed for melee type.
Tail Slap - arguably gives semblance of natural weapon itself.
Fuse Arms + Girallon's Blessing combo gives me great Str which synergy with claw attack is obvious.
Ferocity of Sanguine Rage, Craft Magic Tattoo and Superior Magic Fang directly improve natural weapons.
Blood Wind - need I say something about this spell and how it synergies with natural weapons?

And do you remember, there is inherent synergy it the Draconic Claw itself. I could cast spell any attack with a claw (maybe twice) in the same round. It work especially great with Firestride Exhalation (I described this in the 9th Level). Yeah, there are some dvati mess, but even if we look at this combination in the worst way: single dvati (or even non-dvati) casts Firestride Exhalation, makes damage to the enemy, teleports into adjacent square and attacks with (highly likely very buffed) claw. Isn't it synergy?

Just as I finished writing the UoC part, I remembered that you said that this was adapted from another round, which explains a lot of my complaints. It's a brilliant build – shame it doesn't work, and shame that you didn't find a more "appropriate" context to show it off in.

Looking at it now I think in the "Abjuration + Exotic Weapon Proficiency - Abjurant Champion" round it'd be even more out of theme. Exotic Weapons works with this entry's spellcasting worse than Draconic Claw.

[Inevitability]

My HM goes to Spiker. Thanks for bringing a very cool monster race to my attention!

[pabelfly]

A dispute from Lonely Fir

Greetings and thank you for the judging of the builds, H_H_F_F!

This isn't a real dispute, but I'm sad to see no comment on the symbiont share spells tricks. I know they're not exactly uncommon, but c'mon, I've never seen someone use Invesiture of the Erinyes like that!

You also talk about weapon attacks in addition to claws before you first mention tentacle whip. How would that work?

In that case, I am simply referring to wielding a weapon in one hand and using the other for claw attacks. Rapidstrike works with any paired natural weapon - it doesn't require you to be attacking with both of the pair. We attack with our right claw, we use rapidstrike to make an extra attack with our right claw, the fact that our left claw is wielding a weapon is irrelevant.

Similarly, at higher levels we get our base right claw, our rapidstrike right claw, and four improved Rapidstrike right claw attacks, plus either a left claw attack or four tentacle whip attacks. Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike are separate feats and I don't see anything about the latter superseding the former's effect.

Though upon second reading - perhaps I was overly ambitious there. At any rate, one fewer claw attack only slightly decreases our total damage.

Would this mitigate some of the 'hefty penalty' that all this comes to?

[Inevitability]

Also, I might be interested in taking over after this round - no hard promises yet, though.

I'm interested in the Divinations + Precision damage - Unseen Seer idea, but I'll probably go with a more "how do you even qualify" round first, like loky's Weapon Specialization + Bonded Weapon - Fighter idea, or maybe something wild like Invisibility + Devotion Feats - Spellcasting. I also do still like the Abjurations + Melee - AbjChamp idea, but that one needs a little rest after two out of the last three rounds were gish-focused.

[H_H_F_F]

First thing first, sorry to see you leave, Pabelfly! Thanks for your time as a chair, and I hope to see you come back to the comps once you've had a decent time-off. I'd be very much in favor of Inevitability running the show going forward.

Dispute responses:

Spoiler: Bros, increased to 15.25

Show

As I said, completely valid dispute for the objective part. A reevaluation of your elegance will replace the current section shortly. As for the more subjective part - I don't think that not showing up on Iron Chef or most previous comps is relevant. Iron Chef wants you to take 10 levels in a class, and never offered a theurge before. Even with that being said, we still had a sharn, and it even took gold - though two of the three judges only granted it a 3.5 in originality, and that was in a context it wasn't expected in.

Which comes back to my point: it's about context. You don't see as many true dragons in Iron Chef as you do in the VC, because the context is different. A round with no class limitations and an emphasis on spellcasting and natural weapons will draw more "notoriously op monster with these things" entries, when that monster basically requires an advancement path that's invalidated by any Iron Chef round and plenty of JW rounds. So, to me sharn is indeed expected, and classic theurging + persistomancy buries you completely (before accounting for spell choice).

I did recognize the impact of spell flower, and it raised your score by a significant amount. We just disagreed on how low I should've gone if it weren't for these factors, I think.

No change in score on that front - not that you need it.

Spoiler: Spiker, increased to 11.75

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As for Aym, I just don't think you're movement-based enough to give up armor just because it would have slowed you down. Agree to disagree, I guess.

I really wanted to avoid getting into the weeds here, but I guess I have to: (improved) rapidstrike is a freaking mess, and has to withstand a lot of interpretation to be usable at all. RAW, it's borderline meaningless. People often get swept up in the "is it possible to get 4 extra attacks without 16 BaB" and "is the penalty for the second and later strikes cumulative or static", but the issues start way beforehand:

you can make one extra attack with one of those weapons at a —5 penalty

You can make two or more extra attacks with one of those weapons.

What the hell does that mean? When? Whenever you attack with your natural weapon? Whenever you make a full attack? Whenever you take the feat? This feat is terribly written, and misses a lot of language to be coherent at all. So we're left with the heavy lifting - and fortunately, I think it's very clear there's a RAW interpretation that seems RAI - "whenever you make a full attack with just your natural weapons"

However, I fully recognize that your build doesn't break because you can only bond to one slam. On the shield issue though, my point stands:

You strap a shield to your forearm and grip it with your hand.

You can't use shields, you don't have hands.

Found psionic dodge clever, but not enough to make an impact on your score. Dex and dodge - I just have this tendency to ignore the fact that monsters don't come out evolved, it happens over time. If it's unclear - it was praise, not condemnation.

Being large would grant you reach even with manufactured weapons, and there are plenty of large forms you could've gotten with a 6 ECL investment. My point - "I don't see the utility of using a natural weapon rather than building something using a manufactured weapon" - still stands.

Spoiler: Tattooed Twins, increased to 13.05

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I agree that there is a certain case for [Force] occasionally being treated as an energy type, but the feats in question unfortunately are very clear that it's not in this case. Sorry.

In UoSI, I agree that I undervalued your spell choice investment, especially as it comes to the offensive spells. It's still not the sort of synergy I'd ideally like to see, but it's better than you got credit for, for sure. Score will be updated.

Spoiler: Fir, increased to 14.05

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I rambled for a bit about Investiture of the Erinyes originally, but it felt too argumentative and didn't have any point, so I deleted it - and failed to keep the part where I acknowledged the cleverness. It was accounted for.

As for rapidstrike, I talked about that in my reply to Spiker, and same points apply to you - in your case, it's a reading I find less convincing, but I'm willing to recognize enough validity to bump your score.

Original judgement post will be updated with new scores momentarily.

[loky1109]

Table is updated.

[FactualArcher]

No (potentially further, you'll never know until the reveal) disputes from me. I have a couple of comments for after the reveal, but nothing that'll really change my score.

On the subject of chair stuff: Thanks for chairing Pabelfly. I hope you take some well deserved time off. I'd happily support Inevitability as next chair, assuming they remain happy with that. I think the "How do you even qualify?" ideas seem cool

Also, my HM goes to Jas Quinn Liadon for an interesting story and concept. I always feel bad for Cyre, so it's nice to see them getting some love.

[H_H_F_F]

No (potentially further, you'll never know until the reveal) disputes from me. I have a couple of comments for after the reveal, but nothing that'll really change my score.

On the subject of chair stuff: Thanks for chairing Pabelfly. I hope you take some well deserved time off. I'd happily support Inevitability as next chair, assuming they remain happy with that. I think the "How do you even qualify?" ideas seem cool

Also, my HM goes to Jas Quinn Liadon for an interesting story and concept. I always feel bad for Cyre, so it's nice to see them getting some love.

Anyone who's not a hardcore Karrnathi nationalist gets their originality score set to 0. Sorry folks, that's just how it is.

[FactualArcher]

By the Flame, a supporter of the dastardly Karnns! My life for Thrane, the undisputed victors of the Last War!

Thrane actually did win the Last War, as far as I'm concerned. They got Thaliost and lost no territory. Everyone else lost at least a small country, and Cyre lost even more. Plus, Jaela Daran's awesome.

[H_H_F_F]

By the Flame, a supporter of the dastardly Karnns! My life for Thrane, the undisputed victors of the Last War!

Thrane actually did win the Last War, as far as I'm concerned. They got Thaliost and lost no territory. Everyone else lost at least a small country, and Cyre lost even more. Plus, Jaela Daran's awesome.

I have to disagree that winning/maintaining territory is the measure of winning a war - especially a war that wasn't started as a territorial dispute. If we look at the goals set by Thalin, then the fact that his house has lost all power can't be considered a great victory.

Also, IIRC Forge of War says Thrane lost some territory to the Brelish. Keith really hates Forge of War though, so there's a question of Kanon versus Canon there.

But we should probably not derail the thread into a Skyrim-Civil-War-Esque discussion of the Last War. All hail to Ulfric, you are the High King!

[FactualArcher]

That's a really good point about Thalin. I also didn't know the part from Forge of War. Anyway, you're right about not derailing the thread. I'll obey the treaty of Thronehold from now on.

[pabelfly]

Dispute from "The Big Little Lady"

Thank you again for judging, even if it was a bit humbling.
You are correct that I ended up pressed for time and made several copy-editing errors. The most egregious of which is that I forgot to paste the spell list from the document I was working on. Obviously that won't effect your judgement but I'd rather you know it where the error lay...

Spoiler: Spells

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Spells
In order of first learned to last of each level.

Cantrips (6)
Mage Hand
Prestidigitation
Ghost Sound
Dancing Light
Summon Instrument
Read Magic

1st (5)
summon nature's ally I;
Cure Light Wound
Ray of Hope
Disguise Self
Immediate Assistance

2nd (5)
summon nature's ally II;
Bull’s strength
Heroism
Tactical Precision
Shatter

3rd (5)
summon nature's ally III;
Haste
Good Hope
Cure Serious Wounds
Dispel Magic

4th (5)
summon nature's ally IV;
Insect plague
Shout
Greater Invisibility
Dimension Door

5th (5)
summon nature's ally V;
commune with nature
Greater Heroism
Song of Discord
Dance of Blades


6th (4)
summon nature's ally VI;
reincarnate,
creeping doom,
Mass Cure Moderate Wounds

The next one is that the character was intended to be a Halfling early on, hence the title, but I switched it last minute to a Half-Elf to get around the multi-class penalty and decided the title would still work, updated my notes and made a few references to a human parent in the flavor text, and then completely forgot to update the actual slug at the top. So... ****.

I did use AI for the musical numbers. Sorry if that was a sore spot. I got overly ambitious in my concept and cut corners. I'm also neurodivergent so the prose might read a bit robotic, but that actually was a very tired me.

Lastly, I want to apologize for favoring a weird layout. My idea was to make a Disney Musical Pitch that happened to be a D&D character but I see in retrospect how hard it is to read. I see several ways I could have arranged it so you could gloss over the fluff when trying to look at the crunch and that's entirely on me for not thinking through how it would present. Clearly it screwed me over too since I missed the whole spell section and didn't even see it when the post went live.

Anyway, I guess no real disputes. Just shame.
I will be better in the future.

[H_H_F_F]

I appreciate the explanation given by this Junkyard Warrior. Copy-pasting while tired and stressed is very prone to such things. I'm sure you'll do better next time!

Also, there's nothing to be ashamed of. For real. I know my tone when I judge can be very stern and harsh - that's partly due to the headspace I'm in when judging, and partly just the nature of the task. But criticism is just criticism, no more. Also, me not being a fan of something personally (AI "art" in your entry's case, or high-level casting optimization for Bros in the Sharn) does not mean the thing is bad, or even penalized by itself in my judging.

Especially given that you've noted you're neurodivergence, I feel the need to make this very clear: you and I are all good, I have no beef with you. We all make mistakes. Gods know I've submitted some messy entries in my life. Live and learn! Hope to see you do better next round

[pabelfly]

Dispute from 'Jas'Quinn Liadon of Cyre"

YASSS queen!
Come on, tell me that wasn't intentional.

Absolutely! Combined with a running joke one of my tables has about naming every Half-Elf "Something Quinn" that I couldn't resist. Thank you for catching that, as well as for judging, and for sharing my LOVE of Eberron!

I also thought Deepwyrm Half-Drow was an interesting racial choice, but it doesn't feel like it has any mechanical use beyond being a dragonblooded race. I don’t see what's the (again, mechanical) upside here compared to, say, silverbrow human. If I'm missing something, feel free to table a dispute.

What's far more impactful for your score, though, is not qualifying for the rapidstrike feats. Did you think dragonblood gave you the dragon type, perhaps? It doesn't. You straight up don't qualify, and there's nothing even approaching an easy fix for this.

Holler at me with a dispute if I'm missing some rules here, but I don't get how you get Dragontouched instead of Draconic Heritage from your sorcerer substitution levels, and I don't know what'd be the advantage of that anyway, given that it disqualifies you from draconic claws. I think you just mistyped a feat, and forgot to elaborate on your heritage. Given that deep dragon isn't one of the options, I don't even have a "default" option.

You are correct twice over. I miswrote Dragontouched instead of Draconic Heritage and I thought the Dragonblood Subtype qualified me for Rapid Strike (particularly since I had it from both the Deepwyrm Drow Dragonblood and Draconic Heritage). Chalk that up to misunderstanding some of the Byzantine elements of 3.5. I've seen handbooks recommend Draconic Races for just that reason, so I'm guessing this is a common misconception, but looks like on closer reading that I'm still wrong.

I guess the only rebuttal besides "you appear to be correct" is the Special bit for Draconic Heritage

Special
With your DM's permission, you can choose a draconic heritage associated with a kind of dragon not found in the Monster Manual. For details and more options, see Draconic Heritage, page 102 of Races of the Dragon.

Which should allow Deepwyrm to fly here, but don't think I got dinged. I dunno.

[H_H_F_F]

Unfortunately, no help there I'm afraid. By default, you can pick any true dragon from the MM. With DM approval, you cab pick one from the list in page 102, which still does not include deep dragons. Given that that list has no deep dragon, going for heritage (deep) would be homebrew (since you'd have to pick a skill and spells known).

Better luck next time!

[Inevitability]

No further disputes.

So I've been toying with more possible ideas for the next round, and... do we want something winter/christmas-themed? A lot of competitions are doing such rounds (VC and Monster Mash at the least, IC vaguely, no clue about ZS and ICE6 (huh, Ice Six)). Of course, I'd be watching out for redundancy and trying to prevent too much overlap - but what I'm most interested in knowing is whether this sort of thing appeals to people at all.

If so, I might have an idea ready to go. It'll be a noncaster round, after all the recent rounds focused on casting (or emulating a casting class), with a little bit (but not much) of 'how do you even manage this' energy.