How strong is an Epic level commoner?

[kentma57]

Exactly how powerful can you be with 21 levels of NPC classes? And at what level will a PC class beat a 21st level NPC class hands down?

[BRC]

Epic Level Commoners get accsess to the class ability Ultimate Awsomeness, allowing them to cast WISH as a SLA for no EXP cost.

[SamTheCleric]

Epic Level Commoners get accsess to the class ability Ultimate Awsomeness, allowing them to cast WISH as a SLA for no EXP cost.

Yeah, but the wish is restricted to summoning moldy bread and beer. Really only useful for dwarf commoners.

[BRC]

Yeah, but the wish is restricted to summoning moldy bread and beer. Really only useful for dwarf commoners.

But they summon alot of it, have you ever seen a guy get crushed to death by stale moldy bread? It isn't preety.

[Tempest Fennac]

Do they even get any class features beyond the pathetic HD, BAB, 2 skill points/level and feats from levels?

[Ninjalitude]

Do they even get any class features beyond the pathetic HD, BAB, 2 skill points/level and feats from levels?

You could always ditch NPC classes for the more flavorful Humanoid race class, which has better BAB and HD

[Tempest Fennac]

Good point (technically, it would cease to be a level 21 Commoner, though).

[SamTheCleric]

Or you could make him a level 6 Commoner with the Paragon Template. Nothing says lovin' like +29 to AC, +25 to Attack, +20 to damage and DR 10/Epic.

(Adds +15 to the CR... so you may be able to squeeze out a few more commoner levels actually...)

[GryffonDurime]

Hmm...a 21st level Adept might be able to bother some PCs. Not very high level ones, but mid-range.

[Funkyodor]

Well, the only thing that a Commoners got going for him are skills. That is the only aspect of him that is no different that a PC, skill use. Max ranks in Handle Animal, and by lvl 21 he should be able to use his actions to command all sorts of Circus performances. "Bobo! Go for the throat!" Other than that, his low HP, crappy saves, and non-existant class features means Game Over when confronted by a PC of equal level. An epic commoner might pose some problems for a 10th level PC, but only if it wasn't a primary spell caster... Or even able to cast spells... Or um, maybe he'd pose a threat for a lvl 10 Fighter/Barbarian... Or maybe not...

[SoD]

Give the epic guy vow of poverty. That gives some nasty looking benifits.

Coupled with as many combat orientated feats he can apply to his quaterstaff...

[SamTheCleric]

Vow of Poverty Paragon Commoner.

That's just wrong.

But... oh so right...

:)

[Signmaker]

You forget, an Epic Commoner has all the epic WBL associated with pure epicness.

No 10th level party is going to be able to touch Joe when he's tricked out with phat loot.

[Aotrs Commander]

I once threw a 20th level Expert at a party of level 5s. He was granted, old, but they still kicked the crap out of him in short order.

Remember, an Epic level Commoner is still only CR 10-11 (at best).

Epic WLB sucks. A 21st level commoner has slightly less gear than a 16th level character (which isn't enough to be all that dangerous). At higher Epic levels, Epic NPC's can't actually afford to have gear even approaching what the PCs have (epic weapons, for example).

[Roderick_BR]

Can an NPC class even have the same WBL that a PC have?
And considering the abilities that the commoner have, he's similar to a 10th level warrior. Not 10th level fighter, warrior. He'll have 20d4 HP, and a +10/+5 BAB. He'll have to spend 5 feats to be marginally equal to a warrior in equipment (1 for any martial weapon, or get the use simple weapon feat, to use all simple weapons, 3 for all armors, and 1 for shield).
Yeah, commoners were NOT meant to be battle types. If a commoner constantly gets into battles, he would start to multiclass at least into warrior, unless he insists into keeping his "pacific ways". "Don't be silly, there's no way the orcs will attack by the 134th time. I'm not wasting time learning how to wield a sword and wear armor. I have shores to attend, ya know."

[nagora]

Exactly how powerful can you be with 21 levels of NPC classes? And at what level will a PC class beat a 21st level NPC class hands down?

I don't know how strong he'd be but he'd definitely be lame, as would the DM.

[Yakk]

A level 1 paragon commoner...

Is it really CR 16?

[SamTheCleric]

A level 1 paragon commoner...

Is it really CR 16?

It looks that way, but he'd only have 16+con hit points. :P

[kentma57]

The Epic NPC if not stuck with the commoner class, they can pick from any PNC class...

Also they do get epic feats...

I will have to play a VOP paragon commoner one day...

[Ganurath]

An epic adept who picks up Epic Spellcasting can be a fair ammount of trouble, but an epic commoner will always lose the Game.

[Squash Monster]

The epic level commoner is very strong. He has Epic Leadership and the like, what else do you need?

And epic adept doesn't qualify for epic spellcasting. You need 9th level spells. Though, if it did, it'd be almost exactly as strong as every other epic spellcaster.

[SadisticFishing]

Epic level Warriors are almost as good as Fighters, at half the CR!

For a good time: Make your level 15 group fight a level 34 warrior as a boss, possibly with a few barbarian levels (replace 2 warrior levels with 1 barbarian one). Don't give it epic feats, as that's just silly, but that's a lot of BAB (if you don't treat it as an epic character it still gets full, like a vermin or dragon).

[Illiterate Scribe]

An epic adept who picks up Epic Spellcasting can be a fair ammount of trouble, but an epic commoner will always lose the Game.

I see what you did there.

Still, an epic adept could still use epic spell capacity to get up to epic spellcasting. Remember, there's always also the gate trick.

[Indon]

Well, if you take an intelligent creature with epic HD, commoner levels would always be unassociated - so a 20 HD, CR 20 dragon with 18 levels of Commoner tacked on would be CR 29. That has some potential, though obviously for NPC's, not PC's.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Epic level Warriors are almost as good as Fighters, at half the CR!

Well, if you take an intelligent creature with epic HD, commoner levels would always be unassociated - so a 20 HD, CR 20 dragon with 18 levels of Commoner tacked on would be CR 29. That has some potential, though obviously for NPC's, not PC's.

I'm not 100% sure of this but I think I read somewhere that after a certain number of unassociated class levels the unassociated class starts counting as an associated class, in that case these dirty little tricks wouldn't work.

Edit:

Nonassociated Class Levels

If you add a class level that doesn’t directly play to a creature’s strength the class level is considered nonassociated, and things get a little more complicated. Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by ½ per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice. At that point, each additional level of the same class or a similar one is considered associated and increases the monster’s CR by 1.

Levels in NPC classes are always treated as nonassociated.

So Indon's trick works, but SadisticFishing's scheme doesn't work.