Junkyard Wars XXIV: VoPe + S - DC

[Falontani]

3 Psionic builds, nothing about the ingredients scream psionic, and they are all different psionics even.

[weckar]

Only build I was working on was for an entirely non combat game. A Cathedral Builder.

[Thurbane]

Congrats to all entrants. I'll try to get judging done, after my VC entry is wrapped up.

This was my stub. Full Sorcerer casting (18), picked up some auras, use the Dilate Aura feat. Just wasn't overly happy with it:

Spoiler

Show

Saematus Rechtmanen

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Sorcerer 1	+0	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Axiomatic BloodlineB, Sacred Vow	Summon Familiar Divine Companion
2nd	Sorcerer 2	+1	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	-
3rd	Sorcerer 3	+1	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Vow of Peace	-
4th	Sorcerer 4	+2	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	-
5th	Sorcerer 5	+2	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	-
6th	Sorcerer 6	+3	+2	+2	+5	Skills	Vow of Nonviolence	-
8th	Saint Template (LA +2)	+3	+2	+2	+5	Skills	-	DR, fast healing, holy power, holy touch, immunties, keen vision, protective aura, resistances, SLAs, tongues, Wis to AC
9th	Ruathar 1	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	Word of friendship, gift of the elves
10th	Ruathar 2	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	Low-light vision, elfwise
11th	Ruathar 3	+5	+3	+5	+8	Skills	Dilate Aura	Star blessing, Arvandor's grace
12th	Paragnostic Apostle 1	+5	+3	+5	+10	Skills	-	Holy texts, knowledge is power (Penetrating Insight), lore
13th	Sacred Exorcist 1	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	Exorcism, turn undead
14th	Sacred Exorcist 2	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Protection Devotion	Detect evil, resist possession
15th	Sacred Exorcist 3	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	Chosen foe +1 (undead)
16th	Sacred Exorcist 4	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	Dispel evil 1/week
17th	Sacred Exorcist 5	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Rapid Metamagic	Consecrated presence
18th	Sacred Exorcist 6	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	Chosen foe +2 (undead)
19th	Sacred Exorcist 7	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	-	Dispel evil 2/week
20th	Sacred Exorcist 8	+11	+5	+7	+16	Skills	Quicken Spell	Holy aura 1/day

[Macabaret]

How go the judgings, judges?

[Thurbane]

How go the judgings, judges?

I'll be honest, I've not touched it. Still frantically trying to get a VC entry in...

[Thurbane]

I'll be honest, I've not touched it. Still frantically trying to get a VC entry in...

I've got some real life stuff going on meaning my time I can dedicate to this forum and D&D is a bit limited right now.

I may may taking a leave of absence from these forums for a bit.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to withdraw my offer at this time.

[Macabaret]

I've got some real life stuff going on meaning my time I can dedicate to this forum and D&D is a bit limited right now.

I may may taking a leave of absence from these forums for a bit.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to withdraw my offer at this time.

That's unfortunate, but understandable. Real life has to come first. Good luck to you in taking care of what needs taking care of. We'll keep the forums open until you can make it back.

Until then.....

...anyone else out there with an interest/willingness/ability to judge? No experience necessary; rookies and veterans of the cause are equally encouraged to apply!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I might be able to. I've got disputes to lodge in the Villainous Competion and judging to do in Gamewarpers, but after that I remember thinking this one would be interesting to judge.

[weckar]

I do not think I could even though I would like to. The builds presented do not really feel like they embody the vow of peace the way I see it, so there is ground zero disagreement.

[RaiKirah]

I do not think I could even though I would like to. The builds presented do not really feel like they embody the vow of peace the way I see it, so there is ground zero disagreement.

That's a perfectly valid reason to recuse yourself. It also seems like an interesting discussion point - I know I had issues making a build that really embodied/thematically showcased the Vow of Peace (I did not follow through on my gut instinct to make a straight up merchant character, or build a stronghold and hang out in a personal demi-plane for all time), and I agree that the other submissions didn't necessarily do so either. I'm curious what you think might actually embody the Vow of Peace.

[weckar]

Yeah. To me the one taking the vow of peace - as an extension of the vow of nonviolence, I may add - should never seek out combat, and philosophically should not even prepare for the eventuality of encountering it (violence on an imaginary level and all that). This runs exactly counter to the idea of high-level character building, so I am still quite impressed the entrants got as close as they did. Somehow, however, I feel a true vow of peace character should spend all available power and levels on things that either aid others or enlighten the self - whether that is healing, scholarship, construction or art.

[MisterKaws]

Huh, just came back to take a look.

Funny thing is I also thought of a Psionic build: Hobo-Gamesh, a Gilgamesh rip-off made using one of the many ways of getting thousands of weapons and buffing them to hell with VoP plus Subdual Strike to shoot them at people with Telekinetic Thrust.

Oh well, Finals are coming. Afterwards I'll be able to actually try something.

[Macabaret]

Until then.....

...anyone else out there with an interest/willingness/ability to judge? No experience necessary; rookies and veterans of the cause are equally encouraged to apply!

I might be able to. I've got disputes to lodge in the Villainous Competion and judging to do in Gamewarpers, but after that I remember thinking this one would be interesting to judge.

Thanks for the interest, PP. Any updates?

Anyone else wanting to make it a multiple-judge round?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Might have some free time this weekend. I'll see what I can do.

[RaiKirah]

Might have some free time this weekend. I'll see what I can do.

That would be lovely, thank you!

[Macabaret]

Hello again, all. I hope everyone is well.

Are there any updates for prospective judges?

[weckar]

Not to sound like a broken record, but why are we so adamantly sticking to a judge based system when it slows literally every round down by weeks? It's not like we have a panel of expert/celebrity judges to justify the practice...

[jdizzlean]

i've said it before, I'll say it again. unless you have folks step up ahead of time to judge, then judging takes awhile. unless folks sign up a few rounds out and stay accountable to that, it'll never get better. sometimes judging gets done quickly, but more often than not it just takes awhile.

[weckar]

Or, and I have said this before, too: Switch to a judge-less system.

[DeTess]

I've started judging.

[DeTess]

Well then, I'm done judging this round. There's a couple of things I want to say before I get to the judgements themselves though. First of all, I've got to admit I'm not exactly a expert on psionics, so if I missed some obvious interaction somewhere, I do apologize.
Second of all, I'd like to quickly go over my way of scoring things. Every score starts at 3/5 points and is adjust ed up or down depending on the build. For originality, you generally lose points if you follow a well-know optimization trick, and you gain points for doings something truly unique. I generally award a 0.5 point bonus here as well if there's something of a backstory of fluff for the character. For power, I look at both in-combat and out-of-combat power. You don't need to do perfectly on both counts to get a perfect score, but you won't get a 5/5 if you're all in on one or the other. In the elegance category I generally penalize building mistakes. penalties range from 0.5 point for something that's fairly easily corrected without heavily changing the build, to 1.5 points for something that the build depends on but can't be corrected. As I penalize these things here, I'll generally assume they work as advertised in the power category. In elegance you can also get rewarded for particularly elegant and clean ways of making your build. Lastly for use of secret ingredient I'll be looking at how your build makes use of the ingredients. In this particular case, I'll also award up to one bonus point if your build adheres to the spirit of the vows, and not just the letter.

Spoiler: St. Colham 10/20

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Originality
Soulbow into Kensai for splitting arrow fun is a pretty well-known optimization trick. (-1) Having something of a background is always nice though, and this one was very evocative of your character’s main trick(0.5)
2.5/5

Power
That stunning volley hits very hard and you’ve got enough uses that you can do it a couple of times per fight but I haven’t seen much suggestions for how you or your allies would capitalize on the conditions inflicted by these arrows(+0.5), given that the stun has a fairly short duration. Your AC is completely bonkers.(+0.5) You also don’t have much in the way of out-of-combat utility.
4/5

Elegance
Remember to include a list of your sources. I don’t know about junkyard wars, but in the appetizer you’ll get penalized for forgetting it.
You should list the flaws you took to get those additional feats(-0.5 for not listing the flaws, -1 for taking flaws).
You’ve also traded away the flurry of blows class feature, which is a pre-requisite for the whirling steel strike(-0.5).
Lastly, I’d say that applying stunning to all your arrows is a tricky proposition. Yes, stunning strike specifies that you have to specify before making an attack roll, but it also only ever refers to a singular attack. If I was the DM, I’d rule it the same way as crit and precision damage, applying it only to one arrow in the volley. I didn’t penalize further here, nor did I rule it this way for power, but I did want to point out you’re on very shaky ground, RAW-wise here.
1.5/5

Use of ingredients
It is rather telling that you consider your sweet spot to occur before you’ve taken any of the ingredients. None of the ingredients contribute much to the build beyond some extra numbers either (-0.5), and they all come online very late in the build(-0.5).
2/5
edited: my math was off here, but it didn't change the total. Seems like two mistakes make something that works out?

Spoiler: Ser willem, the gentle 10/20

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Originality
This seems like a fairly standard pyromancer, all things considered. I appreciate a background fitting the various more fluff-heavy bits of your build together, however (+0.5).
3.5/5

Power
You can sling some decent fireworks down-range, but as far as I can tell none of it is particularly big or impressive. You’ve got a decent diplomacy score, but given how much skill points you ‘lost’(having invested 13 in diplomacy over your career), you’re not all that much better than someone that only put full ranks into diplomacy.
3/5

Elegance
Nonlethal substitution is a metamagic effect, which means you can’t apply it to things that are not spells, such as psionics or class abilities like fire lash. This is true even when magic-psionics transparency is in effect. (-1.5)
Ability focus is for creature special attacks. Since the monster manual mentions that special attacks can be Ex, Su or spell-like, I can see an argument that it could be applied to a psi-llike ability, but even then you have to specify which one as you get to pick only one (-1)
AFAIK, psionics where updated to 3.5 with the XPH, so anything not included is no longer valid. This competition also does not specify that 3.0 materials are still allowed, unlike the main iron chef competition, or the appetizer (which specifies that 3.0 psionics is out in its entirety). A quick check of the psionics handbook reveals that the psionic modes are part of the overall psionics subsystem, which got replaced in the XPH as a whole.(-0.5)
1/5

Use of ingredients
Your vows make it a bit more difficult to dodge a couple of your psionic powers, and the saint template makes you a bit tougher, but I don’t think your build does much to show-case what makes these ingredients good, as most of your all-day attack modes require attack rolls, not saves(-0.5)
2.5/5

Spoiler: Xx 12/20

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Originality
Nothing really stands out here, in positive or negative sense.
3/5

Power
You get a decent spread of defensive powers(+0.5), and a number of useful skills for out-of-combat use(+0.5). Your damage isn’t particularly high, but touch of golden ice could land you some surprise kills, or at least get you some debuffs going(+0.5).
4.5/5

Elegance
Please actually list what things are from which source. Just a list of books isn’t particularly useful if there’s more than 4 sources on the list.
Eagle claw attack requires taking the improved sunder feat first. (-0.5)
You’re taking bind vestige, of a non-good vestige, that manifests its influence in ways that go directly counter to your vow of poverty. RAW it might all work out on paper, but actually at a table this’ll get the rules for falling from your exalted state brought up pretty quickly. (-0.5)
I am fairly certain touch of golden ice still falls foul of the requirements from vow of peace to not cause ability damage to a living creature. (-1)
1/5

Use of ingredients
Being built around being in melee with the enemy means you’re getting plenty of use out of the vow of peace aura, while your power selection means you’re getting some use out of the vow of nonviolence prerequisite as well. Saint mostly gives you higher numbers, but you’re also once again getting a bit more use out of its defensive tricks because you’re planning on fighting in melee for your disarming tricks. More importantly, your fighting style seems to be focused on taking away the enemies of your weapons to render them incapable of hurting you, which fits pretty well wit the fluff of the vows(+1). That having been said, you take saint way later in the build than you have to meaning that for most of the build you’re not using that half of the ingredients(-0.5)
3.5/5

[RaiKirah]

Thank you Randuir, for stepping up and judging! Much appreciated. No disputes - all of your notes on my build are spot on (sadly :P ).

[Macabaret]

A great many thanks for your time and efforts in judging, Randuir! Such efforts are always appreciated, and this is no exception.

Spoiler: Dispute

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Well then, I'm done judging this round. There's a couple of things I want to say before I get to the judgements themselves though. First of all, I've got to admit I'm not exactly a expert on psionics, so if I missed some obvious interaction somewhere, I do apologize.

Don't feel bad about that, I had to learn Ardent, Mantles, and a slew of powers to accomplish my build.

Second of all, I'd like to quickly go over my way of scoring things. Every score starts at 3/5 points and is adjust ed up or down depending on the build. For originality, you generally lose points if you follow a well-know optimization trick, and you gain points for doings something truly unique. I generally award a 0.5 point bonus here as well if there's something of a backstory of fluff for the character. For power, I look at both in-combat and out-of-combat power. You don't need to do perfectly on both counts to get a perfect score, but you won't get a 5/5 if you're all in on one or the other. In the elegance category I generally penalize building mistakes. penalties range from 0.5 point for something that's fairly easily corrected without heavily changing the build, to 1.5 points for something that the build depends on but can't be corrected. As I penalize these things here, I'll generally assume they work as advertised in the power category. In elegance you can also get rewarded for particularly elegant and clean ways of making your build. Lastly for use of secret ingredient I'll be looking at how your build makes use of the ingredients. In this particular case, I'll also award up to one bonus point if your build adheres to the spirit of the vows, and not just the letter.

This makes sense, and thank you for posting how you do it!

Elegance
Please actually list what things are from which source. Just a list of books isn’t particularly useful if there’s more than 4 sources on the list.

Understood. I believe I was running out of time when I sent the build in, either IRL or for the competition. I should have done better at time management.

Eagle claw attack requires taking the improved sunder feat first. (-0.5)

I gain Improved Sunder from my class feature (Destruction Mantle) at the same time that I take Eagle Claw Attack. Since you take your level in whatever way is most advantageous I believe I do meet the prerequisites for Eagle Claw Attack when I take it; however I could see it being shaky RAW that depends on a DM.

You’re taking bind vestige, of a non-good vestige, that manifests its influence in ways that go directly counter to your vow of poverty. RAW it might all work out on paper, but actually at a table this’ll get the rules for falling from your exalted state brought up pretty quickly. (-0.5)

Aym is very directly against the Vow of Poverty. Yes, however I do not see vestiges as inherently evil, nor Aym as being portrayed as evil, just greedy. It states that even when under the sign of Aym I am just begrudgingly giving my coin/items, not that I can't. I see it more as Frodo, hesitating to toss the ring into Mount Doom, not as Isildur deciding not to toss the ring and keep it for himself. In the end Xx will give the item up every single time. Nowhere in Vow of Poverty do you have to be happy to give up your loot, just that you do. If I were to play a Dwarf with the Vow of Poverty I would be roleplaying my dwarf saying, "But Moradin, its so shiny... No your right, I gave me oath, and me oath I be bound to." before handing over the magic hammer.

I am fairly certain touch of golden ice still falls foul of the requirements from vow of peace to not cause ability damage to a living creature. (-1)

You know what. I'll give the same argument that I would give to my DM with this type of character, weak as it may be. Vow of Peace states that I may not deal ability drain/damage through the use of a weapon or spell. Touch of Golden Ice is neither a weapon nor a spell. It is a ravage that turns an evil creature's corruption against them. It is the evil creature's corruption dealing damage to the evil creature.

Use of ingredients
Being built around being in melee with the enemy means you’re getting plenty of use out of the vow of peace aura, while your power selection means you’re getting some use out of the vow of nonviolence prerequisite as well. Saint mostly gives you higher numbers, but you’re also once again getting a bit more use out of its defensive tricks because you’re planning on fighting in melee for your disarming tricks. More importantly, your fighting style seems to be focused on taking away the enemies of your weapons to render them incapable of hurting you, which fits pretty well wit the fluff of the vows(+1). That having been said, you take saint way later in the build than you have to meaning that for most of the build you’re not using hat half of the ingredients(-0.5)
3.5/5

The only reason that I took saint so late, is because to me a saint needs to represent something. It is akin to transcending your mortal coil. It just didn't feel right applying it sooner; however I'll admit that you could easily apply it wherever makes the most sense in game. After some specific deed or sacrifice.

[ChaosStar]

I gain Improved Sunder from my class feature (Destruction Mantle) at the same time that I take Eagle Claw Attack. Since you take your level in whatever way is most advantageous I believe I do meet the prerequisites for Eagle Claw Attack when I take it; however I could see it being shaky RAW that depends on a DM.

Why do people think this? No you don't. You level up in a specific way outlined in the PHB, and class features are the last thing on the list. You don't qualify. PHB pages 58-59. Level Advancement.

[DeTess]

I gain Improved Sunder from my class feature (Destruction Mantle) at the same time that I take Eagle Claw Attack. Since you take your level in whatever way is most advantageous I believe I do meet the prerequisites for Eagle Claw Attack when I take it; however I could see it being shaky RAW that depends on a DM.

Hmmm, if the mantle directly gave you the feat I'd agree. However, the mantle specifies that you need to be psionically focused to have the feat, which makes this a bit more tricky. It seems to me we're in the same territory as using spells or similar to qualify for a feat at level-up. If I'd docked you a full point here I'd have reduced it to -0.5 points, but as it is I'm going to let the penalty stand.

Aym is very directly against the Vow of Poverty. Yes, however I do not see vestiges as inherently evil, nor Aym as being portrayed as evil, just greedy. It states that even when under the sign of Aym I am just begrudgingly giving my coin/items, not that I can't. I see it more as Frodo, hesitating to toss the ring into Mount Doom, not as Isildur deciding not to toss the ring and keep it for himself. In the end Xx will give the item up every single time. Nowhere in Vow of Poverty do you have to be happy to give up your loot, just that you do. If I were to play a Dwarf with the Vow of Poverty I would be roleplaying my dwarf saying, "But Moradin, its so shiny... No your right, I gave me oath, and me oath I be bound to." before handing over the magic hammer.

Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy to ignore your vestige's influence unless you manage to make a good pact. The binding check is 1d20+CHA mod+your effective binder level, which in your case means you're making a 1d20+2 check against DC15, which means you've got a bad pact more than half the time. While under a bad pact, the vestige actively influences your demeanour and actions. You will be extremely stingy and you will be giving money to dwarves.
All of this wouldn't be much of an issue if you where merely a good character. However, as an exalted character such influence can cause you serious trouble. Maybe this penalty would have been more in place in the 'use of secret ingredient' category though.
(also, Frodo too decided to keep the ring, so that analogy doesn't really work here :P)

You know what. I'll give the same argument that I would give to my DM with this type of character, weak as it may be. Vow of Peace states that I may not deal ability drain/damage through the use of a weapon or spell. Touch of Golden Ice is neither a weapon nor a spell. It is a ravage that turns an evil creature's corruption against them. It is the evil creature's corruption dealing damage to the evil creature.

By that same reasoning, a lot of creatures that inflict some kind of deadly condition through a touch attack or breath weapon or other effect not specifically called out here could take those oaths and continue using that ability to inflict harm(Imagine a golden dragon swearing these oaths, and then happily roasting all evil-doers with their breath-weapon because it isn't a weapon or spell). As a counter, I'd like to point out that 'don't cause suffering to living creatures' is also part of the vows of nonviolence and peace, and the touch of golden ice definitely falls foul of that.

The only reason that I took saint so late, is because to me a saint needs to represent something. It is akin to transcending your mortal coil. It just didn't feel right applying it sooner; however I'll admit that you could easily apply it wherever makes the most sense in game. After some specific deed or sacrifice.

I can respect the RP reasons, but from the PoV of the competition it just means you took one ingredient at the last possible moment, so I'm going to let the penalty stand here as well.

[weckar]

Thank you Randuir, for stepping up and judging! Much appreciated. No disputes - all of your notes on my build are spot on (sadly :P ).

Maybe shouldn't have said this, as we now know what build is not yours

[DeTess]

Maybe shouldn't have said this, as we now know what build is not yours

If he's not planning on sending in a dispute, I don't think it matters at this point. If there where others still waiting to judge or something like that, it'd be a different case.

[Falontani]

No disputes from me.

[jdizzlean]

I have a general item that can wait til after, no disputes from me.

[Macabaret]

Place	Entry	Entrant	Score
First	Xx	Falontani	12
Second	Ser Willem	jdizzlean	10
Second	St. Collam	RaiKirah	10

Congratulations to our medalists. And thank you again to our judge.

The next round will be up shortly.