The Perfect Character Project - Intro

[PerfectChar]

Hello, everyone.

The Perfect Character Project is a project where whoever on this forum wishes to participate in making - you guessed it - the perfect D&D character. The project itself will be starting tomorrow, in which I will post the first part, where the character's race will be determined. I am the only one responsible for the project, and just to eliminate any possible doubt, let me say that I have no affiliation with the mods.

People will disagree on what "perfect" means. Therefore I've made a few guidelines:

• The character must be extraordinarily competent at fighting solo.
• The character must be extraordinarily competent at participating in a fight with a team.
• The character must have an excellent character concept and personality based on the facts we collaboratively decide about his or her stats.
• The character must not be Pun-Pun or similar characters.
• Any and all non-core books used must be suggested to me via PM and approved by me. In the PM there must be a description of whatever feature you wish to suggest.

If you have any questions or comments, post them here. If you wish to participate in judging, PM me.

[Kurald Galain]

How do you propose to do this - majority vote?

[*]The character must be extraordinarily competent at fighting solo.[*]The character must be extraordinarily competent at participating in a fight with a team.

Those two appear to be contradictory.


The most obvious answer would appear to be "Druid / 20".

[Caracol]

I suggest the DUNGEON MASTER!!!!

[MeklorIlavator]

How do you propose to do this - majority vote?


Those two appear to be contradictory.


The most obvious answer would appear to be "Druid / 20".

Add in the book with planar shepherds (some ebberon book), and he/she can fight well in either situation. The Planar Bubble abilities are fun for the whole family!

[Emperor Demonking]

Those two appear to be contradictory.

They don't to me it just says they have to work in a team and solo rather than just one.

[ZeroNumerous]

Rogue 19/Shadowdancer 1 is effective in a team and solo. Team-wise, you just flank and stab. Solo, you just sneak past everything.

[Gardakan]

Human is the best race. I suggest a human rogue 1, After he choose 5 level of wizard, 1 level of assassin, multiclass into a arcane mystificator... just perfect...

[Arbitrarity]

The Ghola Character?, Like pun-pun, but not, as he lacks the defining ability?

[PerfectChar]

How do you propose to do this - majority vote?


Those two appear to be contradictory.


The most obvious answer would appear to be "Druid / 20".

Yes, majority vote. EDIT: To clarify, I will include all core options, and a "non-core" option in polls. Anyone voting "non-core" will have to PM me with their vote for which non-core option they'd like to include. Since fewer people are familiar with non-core books, if the non-core poll option wins, me and a couple of judges will look at the list of non-core options we've been suggested. The one that has been suggested the most will win. If any option recieves an exactly equal amount of votes, the judges and I will decide.

They are not contradictory. The character must be able to do both.

Though your druid idea works, there are many non-core obscure prestige classes that I'm sure people will PM me about. Also, level won't be mentioned. Assume the character is mid-level, if that makes you happy.

The Ghola Character?, Like pun-pun, but not, as he lacks the defining ability?

Fixed.

[Kurald Galain]

Yes, majority vote.

Wouldn't that mean you're actually locating the most liked character class?

For instance, I recall a recent poll on the WOTC boards where the Warlock was among the most popular classes; whereas according to optimizers it is hardly "perfect" in terms of power.

I'm just curious what you're trying to do here.

Also, level won't be mentioned. Assume the character is mid-level, if that makes you happy.

Sure but some classes are powerful ("perfect") at low level, whereas others are powerful at high level. There are certain prestige class combinations that are pretty weak until level ten or so, at which point their combo falls together.

[FlyMolo]

Thri-keen with fighter/warmind levels. Multiweapon fighting, greater multiweapon fighting, combat reflexes, Cleave and Great Cleave. Spiked Chain. And a permanent enlarge person. If you want to know what this guy would look like, just imagine a tornado that went through a razor blade factory. Even without magic weapons, this guy can hit 6-8 squares with his weapon, basically spread out within 4 squares. With great cleave, This guy can hack through nigh unlimited amounts of weak enemies. Sweeping Strike is just that good. Best of all, he gets manifesting abilities too.

[PerfectChar]

I'm just curious what you're trying to do here.

See my clarification above.

Sure but some classes are powerful ("perfect") at low level, whereas others are powerful at high level. There are certain prestige class combinations that are pretty weak until level ten or so, at which point their combo falls together.

Hence mid-level. My experience shows that most classes are equal around about there.

[Crow]

Just stick to core. Otherwise the options are just too staggering.

[PerfectChar]

Just stick to core. Otherwise the options are just too staggering.

See:

The most obvious answer would appear to be "Druid / 20".

We're a couple of people on this project, each with access to this account, so I expect it's not going to be too hard. Thanks for your concern, though.

[Benejeseret]

Spellthief 8 with 2 to 3 levels of hexblade with Master Spellthief feat.

Sneaky and lots of skills (stealth as solo). Despite charisma deficit a dwarf (+2 spell saves) would work well.

Any spell it has a base save bonus of +2dwarf+1spellgrace+charisma mod+base saves+ability save boni.

Pickup feats like Steadfast Determination to limit MAD on saves (con replaces wisd on will saves). Perhaps down the mage slayer path since stolen spells are cast as if the original caster had cast them. Pretty much any spell from any source you will save, take no effects/damage, absorb it, send it right back at them.

Focus (if point buy) on Con (if spare), Charisma (higher the better), and Dex and prepare to be shooty in combat.

In a party, act as the rogue, use flank etc to gain Sneak Attack and always offer to look after enemy casters. Hexblade curse aids the whole party to damage/effect the enemy.

[Miles Invictus]

Wouldn't that mean you're actually locating the most liked character class?

I'm a strong advocate of Wizard >> lots of classes...but I don't like playing as a Wizard. I think most of the people here are rational enough to separate the classes they like from the classes they think are powerful.

PerfectChar: I think you need to clarify what sorts of abilities will be banned. No infinite loops clears out the obvious things like Pun-Pun and candles of invocation. What about spells like Alter Self, Polymorph, Shapechange? What about unintended one-shots like Shivering Touch? What about poorly written abilities, like Iron Heart Surge or that White Raven one?

You should also clarify the difference between "fighting solo" and "fighting on a team". I assume that "fighting on a team" means that the character can perform actions that help everyone (bard song, haste spell, mass heal), but wouldn't hurt to clear this up.

I'm going to predict that a Cleric is going to be the agreed-upon base class, simply for the fact that they're a strong class by themselves and they have lots of abilities that can bolster allies.

One possible character would be a Cleric 17/Prestige Paladin 3. They trade one caster level ("Thou shalt not give up caster levels!"...blah, blah, blah. ) for enhanced saves, a slightly higher default base attack, an at-will spell-like ability, a free mount, immunity to fear and disease, and a few less-important abilities. As an added bonus, you can build it with just the SRD.

[ZeroNumerous]

ability save bonuses

Dwarf adds a +2 Saving Throw Bonus VS Spells. Not +2 to the DC of spells you cast.

[mabriss lethe]

I think what you'll wind up with isn't a "perfect" character, but a "good enough" character. Concensus means compromise. Compromise means inherent flaws will more likely be left alone or go unnoticed for the sake of agreement and moving the project along.

Now that I've gotten all that out of my system, I'm very curious to see what will take shape. I'll be stopping by to put my 2 cents in if I can.

Benejeseret: Don't go mage slayer with a spell thief. While admittedly you get a few neat abilities, you'll lose out on access to the spell thief spell list (or be strictly hampering it.) It's that spell list that will see you through when there's no mage to smack around, and a spellthief without access to Whirling blades isn't much of a spellthief at all. You'd be trading focus for versatility at the cost of a key ability.

[Devils_Advocate]

Rogue 19/Shadowdancer 1 is effective in a team and solo. Team-wise, you just flank and stab. Solo, you just sneak past everything.

Ah, but sneaking past something isn't "fighting", is it? The requirements given are actually more specific than one might expect, given the title. (This is probably a good thing, and hopefully will keep discussion from getting too broad.) PerfectChar's specifically looking for an ideal combat character.

Edit: Might I humbly suggest adding the requirement

• All of the above must be true of the character at every level from 1 to 20

?

Implicitly assuming that character level doesn't matter strikes me as being likely to lead to nonsensical results, because, well, character level does matter. And surely a truly perfect build would be good at every level, right?

[Irreverent Fool]

Druid 20 or Wizard 20. You don't even need PrCs.

[Crow]

Druid 20 or Wizard 20. You don't even need PrCs.

If we add in the following;

All of the above must be true of the character at every level from 1 to 20

Then we're back to Druid 20.

[Benejeseret]

Yep, I agree on dropping the mage-slayer feats from my spellthief. It was once suggested to me (I am a fan of the spellthief) but then I realized it might nullify the feat Master Spellthief by dropping caster levels.

Zeronumbers, yes the dwarf adds it only to the saves...which is kind of the whole point of the spell absorber extraordinariness (spells cast by this spellthief would only be self buffs with a few of the swift distraction spells). And as for my spelling, well I may not be a Latin student, or an English student, but as a scientist I have made up words almost my entire career

One feat I would add in is Arcane Strike, so that I can funnel spells through to increased chance of stealing more and doing more damage. There are multiclass issues as well with the build as stated, so going human, bumping charisma and taking a few more save-boosting feats might be the way to go as well as taking 4 levels of hexblade to go the Dark Companion variant to drop the saves/AC of targets.