Ridiculous Character Concepts 2: Slam-Dunk!

[Jormengand]

Welcome to the second Ridiculous Character Concepts Contest! In this contest, we compete to see how viable you can make a completely ridiculous character concept. And generally, how fun it would be!

First up, the concept! The Droplomancer! This means that you are using falling damage as your main, or only, source of damage. Magical or non-magical, dropping things on the opponent or the opponent on things, it's your choice. Droplomancy.

You can make up to 3 characters. If you make more than three, the last three will count. Post them straight onto this thread.

Build your items in. Use standard WBL allowances, and start with 100 gold at level 1, just to standardize everything

LA can be either just hit dice, or ECL. Expect me to look more favorably on ECL, because it limits your options a but more.

THIS SHOULD BE STRICTLY 3.5 CONTENT. NOTHING ELSE.

Builds will be presented at levels 1, 4, 7, and 13. No level 20, and no high point.

Some ground rules for source use - these have changed slightly from the original due to differences in chair.
1. No dragon magazine, yes dragon comp.
2. Yes splatbooks
3. UA will be allowed, but should be used sparingly.
4. No cohorts or followers of any kind.

Points will be awarded based on 6 categories. These are
Viability: How well do you do what you do? /100
Originality: How weird, wacky and left-field is your class? /100
Elegance: How well does your class mesh together? Are you multiclassing every level and using a million different UA variants, or using a simple, cohesive, well thought-out class? /100
Theme: How well does the build fit the theme? /100
Fun to play: How fun do I think this class will be to play? /50
Difficulty challenge: +1 up to 10 for each monk or similar level, +30 no magic/psionics/sp/ps, +10 no multiclassing.

A maximum of 500 points will be awarded. Once the competition is over, the top 3 builds will be rated. A composite score will be provided, but not scores for individual categories.

Standard 32 point buy will be used.

Contestants have until 11:00 PM GMT on March 23rd to submit builds. After that, posting ends.

Builds should be formatted in the same manner as Iron Chief entries.

Spoiler: Entry format

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
2nd	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
3rd	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
4th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
5th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
6th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
7th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
8th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
9th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
10th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
11th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
12th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
13th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities

There will be a first, second and third place winner, however, you may not win with more than one character!

Bragging rights to the winner, and happy building!

[sideswipe]

i have a very cliché idea.

[WhamBamSam]

I have a thought which I might try hammering out into a full build. Do we submit builds anonymously ala Iron Chef, or just toss them up in the thread like the last one of these when we're done?

[Darrin]

I think we need an official ruling on how Battle Jump (Unapproachable East) works. Specifically, does it turn any action that results in a fall into a full-round charge? If not, then do Roof-Jumper (Cityscape) and Mantis Leap (Sword & Fist) have the same restriction?

Also, assuming Battle Jump works, are you going to allow the 3.0-era rule that lets you take regional feats with 2 ranks of Knowledge: Local (region)?

[Jormengand]

I have a thought which I might try hammering out into a full build. Do we submit builds anonymously ala Iron Chef, or just toss them up in the thread like the last one of these when we're done?

Unless I have someone else helping me judge, anonymity won't matter. I don't have the faintest clue who any of you are anyway, if what helps.

I think we need an official ruling on how Battle Jump (Unapproachable East) works. Specifically, does it turn any action that results in a fall into a full-round charge? If not, then do Roof-Jumper (Cityscape) and Mantis Leap (Sword & Fist) have the same restriction?

Also, assuming Battle Jump works, are you going to allow the 3.0-era rule that lets you take regional feats with 2 ranks of Knowledge: Local (region)?

Give me the wording/the bit of the wording that makes it unclear and I'll be able to tell you.

3.5 only. No 3.0 madness.

[Troacctid]

An elasmosaurus hits the damage cap for falling object damage and can be taken as an animal companion at 7th level. Give it a Blink Shirt and it can repeatedly teleport 10 feet above an enemy each round, dealing 1d6 damage to itself and 20d6 damage to them, and you don't even need to spend your own action.

I don't have a full build, but just thought I'd mention it.

[daremetoidareyo]

An elasmosaurus hits the damage cap for falling object damage and can be taken as an animal companion at 7th level. Give it a Blink Shirt and it can repeatedly teleport 10 feet above an enemy each round, dealing 1d6 damage to itself and 20d6 damage to them, and you don't even need to spend your own action.

I don't have a full build, but just thought I'd mention it.

awakened elasmosaurus totemist 2/ factotum X then? (inspiration points for multiple drops per round)

[Darrin]

Give me the wording/the bit of the wording that makes it unclear and I'll be able to tell you.

Text from Unapproachable East:

"You can execute a charge by simply dropping from a height of at least 5 feet above your opponent. For example, a ledge 10 feet above the floor of a cavern would suffice for jumping on a Medium-sized creature, while a ledge 15 feet high is required for a jumping on a Large creature. You can’t jump from more than 30 feet above your opponent, nor can you effectively battle jump while under the influence of a fly or levitate spell or effect, as you have to hurl yourself down on your foe."

The text doesn't specify what sort of action you would use to start your drop. I contend that any action (swift, move, or standard) can be turned into a charge whenever it results in a fall from the appropriate height. This allows up to three drops on your turn, so long as you can figure out a way to get above your opponent with the three different action types.

However, Curmudgeon contends that Battle Jump only changes the movement portion of the charge. The action required to make a charge remains the same: full-round action, and the restrictions on movement (must be in a straight line) also are still in effect. By his reasoning, this means Battle Jump can only be used if you have started your turn with your opponent immediately beneath you, and you haven't used any move/standard actions to get into position. The geometry of the ledge is also problematic, because if you're standing on a ledge then you can't "charge around a corner" to jump off the ledge, as this would violate the "must be in a straight line" rule.

I disagree with this interpretation because it makes the feat almost impossible to use the way I imagine it was intended. You'd have to be hanging on a shear vertical surface and wait for a stupid/unaware opponent to walk directly beneath you.

3.5 only. No 3.0 madness.

Battle Jump is a regional feat, which means only a character from the Taer region can take it. Unfortunately, the only residents of the Taer region are savage apelike medium-sized giants that fly into a murderous rage at the slightest provocation. The 3.0 rule allowed non-Taer to take the feat if they put two ranks in Knowledge: Local (Taer) to justify "living in that region" (or learning the technique from a resident) for some indeterminate period of their backstory. If you insist on enforcing the PGtF "rescinding" this rule, then any non-Taer that uses Battle Jump will be an illegal build. You're much more likely to get interesting builds if non-Taer have access to the feat.

[Jormengand]

Text from Unapproachable East:

"You can execute a charge by simply dropping from a height of at least 5 feet above your opponent. For example, a ledge 10 feet above the floor of a cavern would suffice for jumping on a Medium-sized creature, while a ledge 15 feet high is required for a jumping on a Large creature. You can’t jump from more than 30 feet above your opponent, nor can you effectively battle jump while under the influence of a fly or levitate spell or effect, as you have to hurl yourself down on your foe."

The text doesn't specify what sort of action you would use to start your drop. I contend that any action (swift, move, or standard) can be turned into a charge whenever it results in a fall from the appropriate height. This allows up to three drops on your turn, so long as you can figure out a way to get above your opponent with the three different action types.

However, Curmudgeon contends that Battle Jump only changes the movement portion of the charge. The action required to make a charge remains the same: full-round action, and the restrictions on movement (must be in a straight line) also are still in effect. By his reasoning, this means Battle Jump can only be used if you have started your turn with your opponent immediately beneath you, and you haven't used any move/standard actions to get into position. The geometry of the ledge is also problematic, because if you're standing on a ledge then you can't "charge around a corner" to jump off the ledge, as this would violate the "must be in a straight line" rule.

I disagree with this interpretation because it makes the feat almost impossible to use the way I imagine it was intended. You'd have to be hanging on a shear vertical surface and wait for a stupid/unaware opponent to walk directly beneath you.



Battle Jump is a regional feat, which means only a character from the Taer region can take it. Unfortunately, the only residents of the Taer region are savage apelike medium-sized giants that fly into a murderous rage at the slightest provocation. The 3.0 rule allowed non-Taer to take the feat if they put two ranks in Knowledge: Local (Taer) to justify "living in that region" (or learning the technique from a resident) for some indeterminate period of their backstory. If you insist on enforcing the PGtF "rescinding" this rule, then any non-Taer that uses Battle Jump will be an illegal build. You're much more likely to get interesting builds if non-Taer have access to the feat.

It doesn't change the action type as a charge is still a full-round action, it just means that you're not restricted to running along the ground at least ten feet and can instead fall on someone. Even if that weren't the case, unspecified actions are standard unless there's something else we can default to (in this case the action to charge).

I mean, I'll give you standard if you want it, because yes it's necessary to make it work at all as intended, but I don't want anyone trying to have infinite attacks by thinking with portals.

Backstory requirements are fluff requirements. There's no reason that a human couldn't come from Taer just because no humans have come from Taer yet.

[daremetoidareyo]

do we have to do a full build? cuz I just figured out a fun idea.

[Frostthehero]

An elasmosaurus hits the damage cap for falling object damage and can be taken as an animal companion at 7th level. Give it a Blink Shirt and it can repeatedly teleport 10 feet above an enemy each round, dealing 1d6 damage to itself and 20d6 damage to them, and you don't even need to spend your own action.

I don't have a full build, but just thought I'd mention it.

This sounds like a "cohort sort of deal" to me, but I would ask the OP.

[Jormengand]

Yes you need a full build and yes animal companions are okay and no cohorts aren't.

[Darrin]

It doesn't change the action type as a charge is still a full-round action, it just means that you're not restricted to running along the ground at least ten feet and can instead fall on someone. Even if that weren't the case, unspecified actions are standard unless there's something else we can default to (in this case the action to charge).

No, (Su) and (Sp) abilities default to standard actions. Battle Jump doesn't identify itself as either, so if we assume it's (Ex), then the default for those is a free action.

I mean, I'll give you standard if you want it, because yes it's necessary to make it work at all as intended, but I don't want anyone trying to have infinite attacks by thinking with portals.

Infinite attacks isn't really a danger here, unless there's a way to generate infinite actions. And if someone were capable of such a thing, then whatever they did with Battle Jump would be the least of your worries.

Would you say Roof-Jumper (Cityscape) has the same full-round activation issue? The text for Death from Above:

"You do substantial damage if you deliberately leap down to attack a foe beneath you. You must drop at least 20 feet. You must roll to hit; this qualifies as a charge attack, with all relevant bonuses and penalties."

Fortunately, Mantis Leap (Sword & Fist) does talk about activation a bit:

"Designate an opponent who is within the maximum distance you can reach with a successful Jump check. Make a normal Jump check; if your check is successful, you can make a normal charge attack against the opponent you designated as part of the same action."

Unfortunately, it doesn't specify what a "normal Jump check" would be. Based on the Skill section in the PHB... looks like a normal Jump check usually piggybacks on a move action, so I think that works for at least two per turn, but how would you rule on a swift action Jump check, such as with the Sudden Leap maneuver or via Travel Devotion?

Also, how do you propose we settle the "stacking" issue once the falling creature lands in the target creature's square? Should the two creatures make opposed Str rolls to see who gets knocked prone?

[JDL]

Something something Wizard something something Tenser's Floating Disk and Mount spell something something Imbued Summoning and Swift Fly on Celestial Baleen Whale with Statue.

[daremetoidareyo]

“Chuck” Goliath
monk 2/psychic warrior 2/warblade 3/Drunk master 1/Bloodstorm blade 4/hulking hurler 2/warhulk 1/fighter 1/Champion of legacy 4

32 point buy:
Str 22, Con 15, Dex 13, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 3 All ability bonuses applied to Strength.

This Build is one that will challenge any rational DM, but it should work, there are a bunch of crumple zones to get you to where you need to be. This build is almost entirely built upon the feat "Fling Enemy" from Races of Stone. Almost entirely. RAW between drunken master and hulking hurler and bloodstorm blade, you should be able to grab a bad guy and throw him at huge distances. If you can get fly, (go dragonborn, wings, and switch the ability array to 22 Str, 13 Dex, 12 Con, 10 int, 14 wis, 3 cha, and at level 15 grab snatch level 18 plunging shot)

Spoiler: The Build

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Level Class BAB Fort Ref Will Skills Feats Class Features Source(s) 1 monk 0 2 2 2 16 (balance 4, tumble 4) Rock Hurling (1), Improved Grapple (monk), Great Fortitude (flaw, if allowed) Decisive Strike (PHB2), Bonus Feat, Unarmed Strike RoS 2 monk 1 3 3 3 20 (Balance 5) (Tumble 5) Combat Reflexes (monk) Evasion, Bonus feat 3 psychic warrior 1 5 3 3 22 Fling enemy (3), Dodge (psywar) Bonus feat, 1 power known (expansion), 0+wis bonus PP (1) RoS, XPsi 4 psychic warrior 2 6 3 3 24 Point Blank Shot (psywar) Bonus feat, 2 powers known (pick one), 1+wis bonus PP (4) 5 warblade 3 8 3 3 28 (balance 8)(knowledge: history 1) Battle Clarity, Weapon Aptitude, 3 maneuvers known and readied (1 must be ironheart), 1 stance (must be ironheart) TOB 6 bloodstorm blade 4 10 3 3 32 (tumble 8) Scorpions grasp [or great fortitude if flaws aren’t allowed](6), Throw anything (bb) Returning attacks, Throw anything, Weapon aptitude Sa, ToB 7 drunken master 4 12 5 3 36 Drink Like a Demon, Improvised Weapons CW 8 bloodstorm blade 5 13 5 3 40 (knowledge history 5) Martial Throw, Thunderous Throw TOB 9 bloodstorm blade 6 13 6 4 44 Power attack (9), Weapon focus: flung enemies (bb) Fighter Bonus Feat TOB 10 hulking hurler 7 13 8 4 46 Snatch arrows (hh), throw anything (again?! see if you can trade this for far shot) Catch Weapon, Really Throw anything! CW 11 hulking hurler 8 13 9 4 48 Two handed hurl trick, (overburdened heave) CW 12 fighter 9 15 9 4 50 Least Legacy (12), Cleave (f) Fighter Bonus Feat 13 bloodstorm blade 10 16 9 4 54 Lightning Ricochet ToB 14 war hulk 10 18 9 4 56 No time to think, Ability boost Str. +2 Mini 15 legacy champion 10 18 9 6 60 Multigrab (DM permission to stack on scorpions grasp)/far shot/improved rock hurling Reduced Ritual Cost, Bond of Lore WoL, SK, SS 16 legacy champion 11 18 9 7 64 Replace legacy ability (least), +1 existing class features (great swing, ability boost) 17 legacy champion 12 19 10 7 68 Extra legacy ability use (least), +1 existing Class features (Mighty rock throwing, ability boost) 18 legacy champion 13 19 10 8 72 channel legacy (lc), precise shot, martial study, plunging shot HAHA Bonus legacy feat, +1 existing Class features (Mighty swing, ability boost ) WoL 19 warblade 14 20 10 8 76 Uncanny Dodge, 4 maneuvers known (IL 5)3 readied, 20 warblade (if LA buy off is allowed) 15 20 11 9 80 Battle Ardor (5 maneuvers known IL6) (You can also switch out war blade with legacy champion and pair it with war blade instead)

Spoiler: Level 1

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At level 1, We have a goliath with Rock Hurling. He is right now ECL2. If your DM allows flaws, take great fortitude, it will help with feat taxes later on. The powerful build is a component for making your carrying capacity go up and therefor your throw range & damage.

Spoiler: Level 4

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At level 4, Chuck is a monk 2/ psychic warrior 2 with expansion who can fling his enemies through the fling enemy feat. The feat reads:

Spoiler: Fling Enemy Text

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When you're grappling a foe, you can fling that foe away from you with a successful grapple check. Flinging the enemy requires a standard action. For every 5 points by which your grapple check beats your foe's grapple check or Escape Artist check, you can throw that foe 10 feet. Your foe lands prone in the square you designate. You can't throw a foe farther than you could throw an ally (as described in the Fling Ally feat). You must be strong enough to lift an enemy over your head (the enemy's weight cannot exceed your character's maximum load) to throw him. See page 162 of the Player's Handbook for more information on carrying capacity and maximum load. The enemy does not provoke attacks of opportunity for this movement.

Spoiler: The language for max distance from Fling Ally

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: Allies one size category smaller than you have a range increment of 5 feet, while allies two size categories or more smaller than you have a range increment of 15 feet. If you have the Improved Rock Hurling feat or the racial ability to throw rocks, the range increments improve to 20 feet and 40 feet respectively. Goliaths are treated as Large creatures for the purpose of this feat, allowing them to fling Medium allies with a range increment of 5 feet and Small or smaller allies with a range increment of 15 feet. You must be strong enough to lift the ally over your head (the ally's weight cannot exceed your character's maximum load) to throw her. See page 162 of the Player's Handbook for more information on carrying capacity and maximum load.

At strength 22 (or 24 expanded) with powerful build, 346 lbs is a light load, 692 is a medium load, and your max is 1044 lbs (or 924, 1848, 2800 when expanded). When expanded, you can throw a horse, with a rider, assuming you can best the horses grapple check, to which you get a +8 (larger size, improved grapple). Each 10 feet away, the damage should be 1d6.
At the second level of monk, the balance and tumbling should be at 5.

Spoiler: Level 7

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A lot has happened since level 4 and level 7!! Chuck’s picked up a level in warblade, added a point of strength (23), picked up a level of bloodstorm blade, wherein he can “throw anything” that can be used as a melee item, and he added a level of drunken master.

Fluff: Let’s just say that Chuck picked up warblading, did some research into the new martial abilities (hence the +1 knowledge history) which he used to track down the bloodstorm blades. After being accepted to the bloodstorm blades, he partied real hard with the fringe monks from the keep in the next town over and picked up some drunken moves as he developed his friendship with them.

Somewhere in all of that research, Chuck finds out that a pair of gauntlets +1 that he bought are bullybasher gauntlets. This is totally DM dependent, and the only reason to have this interlude is so that when we get to war hulk, our BAB continues to increase by using legacy champion as a shell which uses “+1 existing class features” to make war hulk good, which all happens after the level 13 write up. But Chuck is optimized for 19 if not 20 levels. Deal with it. But, you actually save a feat at level 12 if you are willing to part with the BAB by not wrapping war hulk in a champion of legacy skin. Or maybe your DM won’t allow this or any similar weapon of legacy. in which case, at your level 12 you got some decisions to make.

Chuck should be able to also purchase a winged mask by now for flight. At character level 5, Balance goes up to 8, knowledge history goes up to 1. At Character level 6, tumbling goes up to 8.

Droplomancy: If your DM let you take great fortitude with a flaw, you can take scorpion’s grasp, otherwise you need great fortitude for entry into drunken master. Scorpion’s grasp allows you to grapple with one hand! Plus, it lends suspension of disbelief when you say that you are throwing a dude with your “Throw Anything” feat as an improvised weapon. If you don’t need scorpion grasp maybe grab psionic shot. +2d6 damage if you hit another enemy with the enemy you threw! If your DM is not letting you use enemies as improvised ranged weapons yet (don’t worry, we still have one more trick up our sleeve), take “Improved Rock Hurling” which will vastly increase your range with “Fling Enemy”.

Mechanically, Chuck can can use expansion (using all his PP for 2 minutes of large size acting as huge size through “powerful build”. Then he drinks his similarly expanded Flagon of mead, adding another +2 str and +2 con and subtracting -2 wisdom. His strength is now 27, but his AC is trash, but at least he can carry a horse as a light load. He can throw anything he can use as a melee weapon from bloodstorm blade, he can also use anything as an improvised weapon, adding 1d4 damage to the top to whatever he hits. With scorpion’s grasp, hopefully he can use the wriggling body of the dude he just improved grappled as a melee weapon, which he can therefor use as an improvised returning ranged weapon. Some DMs will say that you are assuming too much, which might be a fair assessment. But the language that I’m relying on here is Throw anything feat/ Improvised Weapons

Spoiler: Throw anything feat/ Improvised Weapons

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Throw anything: Benefit: You can throw a melee weapon you are proficient with as if it were a ranged weapon. The range increment of weapons used in conjunction with this feat is 10 feet.
Normal:You can't throw a melee weapon without taking a -4 penalty unless it has a range increment (such as a hand axe or a dagger).
Improvised Weapons (Ex): While bottles and tankards are a drunken master's preferred improvised weapons, he can use FURNITURE, farm implements, or NEARLY ANYTHING ELSE AT HAND to attack his foes. A drunken master's improvised weapon deals as much damage as his unarmed strike plus an extra 1d4 points. Most improvised weapons deal bludgeoning damage, although some (a broken glass bottle, for example) would deal piercing or slashing damage. When a drunken master rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll while using an improvised weapon, that weapon breaks apart and becomes useless.

If your DM isn’t buying it, buy an item that allows flight, one with a high speed, grapple anything under your light load, fly up, and throw him at the ground or at other enemies using the fling enemy feat, the returning property from bloodstorm blade should return this projectile to you at the cost of an iron heart maneuvre, to hurl down again. Remember that you can only ascend at half of the rate at which you have a fly speed, so yeah. +23 to your grapple check, so if you are grappling with a medium sized cleric, you can probably fling medium enemies 20 to 45 feat, and if the direction you choose, is on a 45 degree angle from the horizontal, that means they fall from 15 to 30 feet of height.
Round 1: grapple, toss, fly up return does 1d6X the number you beat the opposed grapple check by, divided by 5.
Round 2, grapple to maintain hold, fly up, toss with the additional 2d6 worth of height. The projectile keeps returning to you to throw further down for additional d6 damage per 10 feet height. Etc.

Hopefully, the DM now appreciates what you’re going for here, but don’t worry if he is still a naysayer. There is even more expansive language in the hulking hurler entry coming up!

Spoiler: Level 13

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Well, All the working parts are in place by now. 3 more Bloodstorm blade levels, 2 hulking hurler levels, and a fighter level are gained, along with another point in strength. Feat taxes are catching up to us here. But we can really toss some people around now.

If your DM allows to you to throw people with bloodstorm blade, you can now throw them thunderously, (with a power attack attached) you have weapon focus (flung enemies), and your hulking hurler levels give you an even more expansive permission to throw live enemies as improvised returning weapons: The class ability is literally called “REALLY THROW ANYTHING” and it gives you a range increment for the enemies you grab that isn’t pasted in from the fling enemy feat. This allows you you to apply far shot to really throw anything. If your DM has already been on board with your so far, ask him if you can replace the second free "throw everything feat" with another feat (like far shot, or maybe martial study?)

Spoiler: Really throw anything

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Really Throw Anything (Ex): A hulking hurler gains the Throw Anything feat (described in Chapter 3 of this book) as a bonus feat. However, since a hulking hurler depends on brute strength more than skill, he can throw anything (not just weapons) he can lift as a light load. If the item is an improvised weapon, he takes a —2 penalty on his attack roll instead of the normal —4. Use the rules in Chapter 4 of this book to determine the amount of damage the thrown weapon does. The range increment of a thrown weapon or improvised weapon wielded by a hulking hurler is 10 feet + 5 feet per size category the hulking hurler is beyond Large (this is a modification of the Throw Anything feat).

With your Two handed hurl trick, you have two great decisions! My favorite, and the one suggested, is to take

Spoiler: Overburdened Heave

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: The hulking hurler can throw a weapon up to two sizes larger than his size category, or an item that weighs as much as his medium load (so a Large hulking hurler with a Strength score of 25 could heave a Gargantuan javelin or a rock weighing up to 533 pounds).

which helps support you throwing caravans of horses at people as ranged Lightning returning weapons, which is no longer limited by the number of your iron heart maneuvers. I do have a sick part of me that likes using enemies as area attacks against other enemies, but that means the size of the enemy you can fling is theoretically smaller (again, depends on DM) By now, you can be sure that you can absolutely throw an enemy as a returning weapon, which, paired with flight, makes for the most ridiculous flesh yoyo ever conceived.

Chuck Can afford a belt of giant strength +4 and a periapt of wisdom +2 (Improve that AC & PP per day, man) and a ring of freedom. Chuck’s unenhanced Strength is 24. Chuck’s best case scenario strength is 24 +4 belt, +2 expansion to Huge, + 2 drink like a demon = 32 (3200 light load (two bison), 6400 medium, 9600 max). Again, if your DM is the biggest killjoy in the world, you can still fling enemies as the feat instructs, with the huge grapple bonus from your strength and size, for considerable distance.

Chuck opened up his bullybasher gauntlets when he takes the least legacy feat, after taking knowledge history up to 5 at level 8. Again, if your DM don’t want you to use weapons of legacy, you can either take a level of warblade, or barbarian instead of fighter. Or keep fighter and nab some other feat you need, (something for that terrible will save maybe).

Spoiler: The Rest

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Now that you are set up for throwmomancy, time to increase the amount of weight you can toss and for how far. WARHULK!, at +2 strength per level, you are a killer on the range increment. By level 18, your expanded, drunk self has a strength of 42! All the money in the world to increase wisdom and strength some more. With legacy champion, you gain a BAB during those levels. The final levels are in war blade, or legacy champion channeling war blade levels to get level 5 and 6 initiator moves. You can snag multi grab to play off of scorpions grasp or plunging shot if you can fly to do an addition 2d6 damage (in addition to that 1d4 from improvised weapons) to people you throw your enemy at. Maybe psionic shot if your dm is friendly towards psionically charging an enemy is an option. At 42 strength, your light load is 22,000 lbs, Your grapple is 15 (BAB) +4 Improved grapple +16 str +8 huge = 43, meaning that if you beat the grapple check of something, chances are that it will be by very little or by a ton, in which case you fling them into the sun, or 60 feet or so into the air.

[JyP]

Obelix the Gaul, Menhir Crafter



Human monk 1 / infected lycanthrope 2 / Dire Boar 7 / Hulking Hurler 2 / Warblade 1 / Bloodstorm Blade 5 / Warshaper 2

For those who don’t know : http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelix
Here I explain the magic potion which grants a fabulous strength the D&D way : all the village’s inhabitants are dire boar lycanthropes ! So they hunt all boars in nearby forest, as this is their turf. Maybe Getafix’s way is to suppress the alternate form and Strength bonus for all, except for Obelix... So I really focuses on Str bonus there, with a late blossoming for Hulking Hurler funhouse.

Spoiler: The Build

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ECL	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Human monk 1	+0	+2	+2	+2	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 4, Hide 2, Listen 2, Move Silently 2, Spot 4, Swim 1	improved unarmed strike (monk 1), stunning fist (monk 1), Sacred Vow (1), Vow of Poverty (human), Nymph's kiss (poverty 1), Brutal Throw (flaw) / Flaw : weak will	AC bonus, flurry of blows / +4 exalted AC bonus / aura of good
2nd	infected lycanthrope 1 (fall in magic potion cauldron when he was little !)	+0	+2	+2	+2	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 4, Hide 2, Listen 2, Move Silently 2, Spot 4, Swim 1		Wis +2, natural armor +2, alternate form (dire boar), low-light vision, shapechanger subtype
3rd	infected lycanthrope 2	+0	+2	+2	+2	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 4, Hide 2, Listen 2, Move Silently 2, Spot 4, Swim 1	Iron Will (lycanthrope 1)	+2 Str, Alternate form (hybrid), dire boar empathy, damage reduction (5/silver)
4th	Dire Boar 1	+0	+4	+4	+4	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 4, Hide 2, Listen 4, Move Silently 2, Spot 5, Swim 1	Vow of Abstinence (no more magic potion for you Obelix)	+2 Str, +1 Con
5th	Dire Boar 2 :	+1	+5	+5	+5	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 4, Hide 2, Listen 6, Move Silently 2, Spot 6, Swim 1	Power Attack (3 HD)	+2 Str, +1 Con / AC bonus +5, endure elements
6th	Dire Boar 3	+2	+5	+5	+5	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 5, Hide 2, Listen 7, Move Silently 2, Spot 6, Swim 1	Defender of the Homeland	+1 Str (4HD) / +2 Str, +1 Con / Exalted strike +1 (magic)
7th	Dire Boar 4	+3	+6	+6	+6	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 5, Hide 2, Listen 8, Move Silently 2, Spot 8, Swim 1		+2 Str, +1 Con / Sustenance
8th	Dire Boar 5	+3	+6	+6	+6	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 6, Hide 2, Listen 8, Move Silently 2, Spot 9, Swim 1	Point Blank Shot (6HD), Vow of Obedience (to Getafix)	+2 Str, +1 Con / AC bonus +6, deflection +1
9th	Dire Boar 6	+4	+7	+7	+7	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 6, Hide 2, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 10, Swim 1		+2 Str, +1 Con / Resistance +1, ability score enhancement +2 Str
10th	Dire Boar 7	+5	+7	+7	+7	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 7, Hide 2, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 11, Swim 1	sanctify natural attack	+1 Str(8HD) / +2 Str, Ferocity (Ex) / Natural armor +1, mind shielding
11th	Hulking Hurler 1	+6/+1	+7	+9	+7	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 7, Hide 2, Intimidate 3, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 11, Swim 1	Weapon Focus (club) (9 HD), Throw Anything (hurler)	Catch weapon, really throw anything / AC bonus +7
12th	Hulking Hurler 2	+7/+2	+7	+10	+7	Balance 3, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 7, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 11, Swim 1	Favored of the Companions	Overburdened Heave / Exalted strike +2 (good), damage reduction 5/magic
13th	Warblade 1	+8/+3	+9	+10	+7	Balance 8, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 7, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 11, Swim 1		Battle Clarity, Weapon aptitude, iron heart Stance, iron heart maneuver / Ability score enhancement +4 Str/+2 Con
14th	Bloodstorm Blade 1	+9/+4	+11	+10	+7	Balance 8, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 11, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 11, Swim 1	Monkey Grip (12HD) can use a two-handed improvised melee weapon weighing up to 200 lbs : an unconscious roman, a tree trunk... for 4d6 damage, Touch of Golden Ice	+1 Str (12HD) / Returning attacks, Throw Anything, weapon aptitude / AC bonus +8, deflection +2, greater sustenance
15th	Bloodstorm Blade 2	+10/+5	+12	+10	+7	Balance 8, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 16, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 11, Swim 1		Martial throw, thunderous throw / Resistance +2, energy resistance 5
16th	Bloodstorm Blade 3	+11/+6/+1	+12	+11	+8	Balance 8, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 16, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 11, Swim 1	Improved Grapple, Gift of Faith	Exalted strike +3, freedom of movement
17th	Bloodstorm Blade 4	+12/+7/+2	+13	+11	+8	Balance 8, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 16, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 16, Swim 1	Fling Ennemy (15HD)	Lightning ricochet / AC bonus +9, ability score enhancement +6 Str/+4 Con/+2 Dex, damage reduction 5/evil
18th	Bloodstorm Blade 5	+13/+8/+3	+13	+11	+8	Balance 8, Climb 2, Craft (menhir) 19, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 17, Swim 1	Gift of Discernment	+1 Str (16HD) / Blood wind ricochet / Natural armor +2
19th	Warshaper 1	+13/+8/+3	+15	+11	+8	Balance 8, Climb 2, Concentration 3, Craft (menhir) 19, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 17, Swim 1		Morphic immunities, morphic weapons / Exalted strike +4, resistance +3, regeneration
20th	Warshaper 2	+14/+9/+4	+16	+12	+9	Balance 8, Climb 2, Concentration 5, Craft (menhir) 20, Hide 2, Intimidate 6, Listen 10, Move Silently 2, Spot 17, Swim 1	Fling Ally(18HD), Nimbus of Light	Morphic body +4 Str +4 Con / AC bonus +10, deflection +3, true seeing

Spoiler: Level 1

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Obelix is a young warrior, timid and only knowing the gauls’ way - fistfights. As he is very innocent, I used the Vow of Poverty line to separate him from the other gauls, and monk as there’s no penalty on nonlethal damage - nobody ever dies in this comics. I had to take one Flaw though, so he can use his already great Strength to throw clubs.
Str 18, Con 16, Dex 10, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 8
Club +4 ranged, 10 ft range increment max 50 ft, 1d6+4 ×2

Spoiler: Level 4

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As he felt in the magic potion cauldron at level 2, he is starting to gain more Strength in hybrid form.... And as all Dire Boar levels are bland, Vow of Poverty helps adding some fun.
Str 22, Con 17, Dex 10, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8
Club +6 ranged, 10 ft range increment max 50 ft, 1d6+6 ×2 damage

Spoiler: Level 7

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With great Strength comes great BAB
Str 29, Con 20, Dex 10, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8
Club +13 ranged, 10 ft range increment max 50 ft, 1d6+10 ×2 magic damage

Spoiler: Level 13

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Str 42, Con 24, Dex 10, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8
Let’s compute :
Medium load 346×16×2 lbs = 5.5 metric tons
An appropriately sized granite menhir would be for example 5.4 metric tons, for a volume around 2,2 m × 140 cm × 70 cm (a very thick stone door). So :
menhir, 2-handed improvised thrown weapon, 52d6 improvised damage.
Attack : menhir +26 ranged, 10 ft range increment max 50 ft, 52d6+18 magic good-aligned damage.

Spoiler: Ils sont fous ces romains

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The 3 remaining non bonus feats after 13th level are for signature moves : hit a roman with another roman, fling a roman away, fling Asterix. Bloodstorm Blade unlocks another signature : hit many romans at once with a thrown menhir. Finally, at level 20, Warshaper raises Strength up to 50 - which would allow to throw up to 266×64×2 lbs = 17 metric tons / 173d6 damage. Here we unlock last signature move : throw a mature oak tree.

Spoiler: Sources

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Asterix and the Big Fight, Book of Exalted Deeds, Champions of Valor, Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior, Player’s Guide to Faerun, Races of Stone, Savage Progression rules, Tome of Battle, Unearthed Arcana.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Hm. I see cohorts are prohibited...is it prohibited to spend wealth on NPC spell-casting? If so, I have a crazy build...

[Ermac]

Half-giant warlock with maxed out strength, Fell Flight, and improved grapple.

[Jormengand]

Hm. I see cohorts are prohibited...is it prohibited to spend wealth on NPC spell-casting? If so, I have a crazy build...

If you use it to build your character, it's fine, but you shouldn't be spending money each time you go into combat.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

If you use it to build your character, it's fine, but you shouldn't be spending money each time you go into combat.

Exxxxxxxxxxxxxcellent.

Edit: Nevermind. Forgot we can only go to 13th level. My living 17,000 cubic foot block of steel will not work.

[Jormengand]

Exxxxxxxxxxxxxcellent.

Edit: Nevermind. Forgot we can only go to 13th level. My living 17,000 cubic foot block of steel will not work.

Aww.

How was it gonna work?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Aww.

How was it gonna work?

Firstly, it's actually only 1,700 cubic feet of steel. Sadness.

Anyway, here's The Thwomp.

Astral Seed (the 8th level self-only power I needed to make it permanent) + NPC-cast Polymorph Any Object + Mind Switch allows you to, through shenanigans, take anything you can polymorph, turn it into a creature for a short time, Mind Switch with it, and make the end effect permanent via Astral Seed. Polymorph allows you to turn up to 100 cubic feet of material per caster level (caster level 17) into something else. Rock -to- Steel has enough of a modifier to be permanent (and rock is easy to come by, especially with Wall of Stone available). Steel -to- Chipmunk won't last long, but that doesn't matter: kill yourself (put yourself in the astral storage crystal), Mind Switch with the chipmunk from inside the crystal, smash the crystal, wait out the effect to turn the chipmunk back into 1,700 cubic feet of steel.

Congratulations. You're now a Psion occupying a body made of 1,700 cubic feet of steel.

Now fight by manifesting Psionic Overland Flight. Fly 10 feet above your opponent, fall, and make a DC 15 Jump or Tumble check. You take 0 damage. Your opponent takes a lot of damage.

Fall damage can be a little wonky: it's not entirely clear from RAW whether the 20d6 damage is a maximum for all fallling object damage, or whether or not it's a maximum for distance-based damage, and weight-based damage is separate. Both readings are reasonable given the text in the SRD. In the former case, you deal 20d6 damage, every time. In the latter case...well, you weight about 833,000 pounds. So they take a lot of damage. Even more if you take the reading from an old 3.0 book (and to my knowledge the only source of really heavy falling object damage), which says that spiky objects deal falling damage as if they were twice their weight. So just add some spikes to the bottom of the cube when you cast Polymorph Any Object and have a blast.

You also occupy approximately a 40x40x40 foot block, so there's going to be some collateral there as well.

Now, a challenge to everyone: make a more ridiculous build than a giant cube of steel with the mind of a Psion.

And yes, I could get Astral Seed via an item...but that feels like cheating, since I could just be a pure commoner with an item of Mind Switch and an item of Astral Seed and Psionic Overland Flight.

[Darrin]

T'chub-t'chub

Race: Non-Psionic (ahem) Thri-Kreen
Build Stub:Thri-Kreen 2/Psychic Warrior 1/Ardent 2/Monk 7
Ability Scores: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8
Ability Scores (Obese): Str 18, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8
Ability Scores (Expansion): Str 20, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8
Ability Increases: Wis 17 (5th), Wis 18 (9th), Wis 19 (13th)
Languages: Thri-Kreen, Common, Auran
Alignment: LE
Multiclass Penalty: Yes (10-13).

Spoiler: Background

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It was a slow afternoon in the noodle shop, but when three men dressed in black monk's robes entered, the few patrons, save one, quietly abandoned their noodles and left as quickly as politeness would allow. The owner bowed his head to the three monks, but a quick dismissive motion from the thin monk in front told him it was a personal call, not a business visit, and the owner quickly decided there was something important he had to do in the kitchen. The thin monk, with two shorter, thicker companions in tow, approached the remaining patron calmly but deliberately.

The remaining patron, a thri-kreen of considerable girth, regarded the three monks approaching with disinterested, multi-faceted eye, then returned to eating his firegrub noodles. But he also inched his chair back just slightly.

The thin monk stopped in front of the thri-kreen's table and smiled brightly. "Good afternoon, most distinguished sir. Is it not a most pleasant and propitious day?"

A noodle ascended up into the thri-kreen's mandibles, but there was no response.

The thin monk tried again. "Forgive my manners, most honorable sir! I am Shin Xu, a lowly and humble servant to his most exalted and benevolent Big Brother Pi. I would not dare intrude on your meal if it were not for my unfortunate duty to inquire into a matter that is of utmost importance to my benefactor. Are you, most respected sir, aware of the unspeakably tragic accident that befell Threetooth Nangi, the proprietor of the Three Dragons Brewery?"

An uncomfortable silence stretched out, but after a long pause, the thri-kreen turned to regard the three monks, and then turned back to his noodles. He said, "I am enjoying my noodles in peace. I would prefer to remain so."

Undeterred, Shin Xu went on. "I am told by the authorities that the roof of the brewery had collapsed in three different places. Threetooth and his two sons were crushed, but I am told not by the roof. Threetooth himself, I am told, was so flat you could roll him up as a rug."

Another uncomofrtable silence streatched out. The thri-kreen set down his bowl of noodles and gripped the edge of the table with all four claws. He said slowly, "It is such a nice day, I would hate to spoil my meal with talk of such business."

Shin Xu's smile widened. "You misunderstand me, my most respected sir! While the accident that befell Threetooth Nangi is truly horrible to comprehend, it was a blessing in disguise for my most gracious benefactor. I am not privileged to know the particulars, but it is my understanding that there was a serious disgreement between Big Brother Pi and Threetooth Nangi regarding a business arrangement, but after the accident at the Three Dragons Brewery, my master now finds that the disagreement has been rectified in a manner that he finds most pleasing to his present wishes. Again, may I beg of you a thousand pardons for interrupting your meal, but my master directs me to extend to you this boon, a mark of his gratitude and a symbol of the debt he has the pleasure to owe towards you."

One of the shorter monks reached into his robes and produced a small painted wooden box. Shin Xu took the box and opened it, revealing a piece of bright green rice paper crisply folded into the shape of a grasshopper.

A third uncomfortable silence stretched out, but after a pause the thri-kreen extended a claw and accepted to origami grasshopper.

Shin Xu bowed deeply. "Most pleasant sir, it pains me beyond my most imminent death to trouble you further, but if your most glorious person were to request an audience with Big Brother Pi, then it would undoubtedly overwhelm him with boundless joy to grant it. I will not disturb your meal any further, and withdraw my worthless presence in the most immediate manner possible. Good day to you, most kind sir."

T'chub-t'chub regarded the origami grasshopper a moment, and then slipped it carefully into his pouch. Threetooth was an "old schoolmate" that had needed a lesson on the consequences of picking on other students that did not match a particular race or body type. T'chub-t'chub hadn't been aware that he'd also run afoul of Big Brother Pi. If the Triad boss owed T'chub-t'chub a favor... well, now, there were several other "old schoolmates" that could use a similar lesson...

Spoiler: The Full Bug

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Build Progression:

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Thri-Kreen 1	+1	+2	+4	+5	Balance 4, Jump 4, Tumble 2	Willing Deformity, Deflect Arrows	Speed 40', Darkvision 60', Immune to sleep, +3 Natural Armor, Poison, Leap, 4 Claws/Bite
2nd	Thri-Kreen 2	+2	+2	+5	+6	Climb 1, Balance 5, Jump 5
3rd	LA +1	+2	+2	+5	+6
4th	Psychic Warrior 1	+2	+4	+5	+6	Tumble 5	Deformity (Obese), Speed of Thought	Skilled City Dweller ACF (Tumble)
5th	Ardent 1	+2	+4	+5	+8	Concentration 3		Freedom Mantle, Elemental Mantle (Air)
6th	Ardent 2	+3	+4	+5	+9	Concentration 6		Mental Mantle
7th	Monk 1	+3	+6	+7	+11	Jump 9, Tumble 6	Power Attack (Overwhelming Attack), Shape Soulmeld: Sphinx Claws	Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Strike
8th	Monk 2	+4	+7	+8	+12	Jump 10, Tumble 10	Improved Bull Rush (Overwhelming Attack)	Evasion
9th	Monk 3	+5	+7	+8	+13	Concentration 9, Jump 11, Tumble 11		Still Mind, Standing Long Jump ACF
10th	Monk 4	+6	+8	+9	+14	Concentration 12, Jump 12, Tumble 12	Open Least Chakra: Hands	Wall Walker ACF
11th	Monk 5	+6	+8	+9	+14	Climb 3, Concentration 13, Jump 13, Tumble 13		Purity of Body
12th	Monk 6	+7	+9	+10	+15	Climb 5, Concentration 14, Jump 14, Tumble 14	Improved Trip	Standing High Jump ACF
13th	Monk 7	+8	+9	+10	+15	Climb 7, Concentration 15, Jump 15, Tumble 15	Mantis Leap	Wholeness of Body

Spoiler: Psionic Powers

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Level	PP	Powers Known
4th	1	expansion
5th	4	dimension hop, elemental steward
6th	11	hustle
7th	11	-
8th	11	-
9th	13	-
10th	13	-
11th	13	-
12th	13
13th	13

Spoiler: Embryo (Level 1)

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There's no offical breakdown of non-psionic thri-kreen into monster/racial class levels, but if there were, it might look something like:

Level	Hit Dice	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skill Points	Class Features
1st	1d8	+1	+0	+2	+2	(2 + Int mod) x 4	+2 Strength, -2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, -4 Charisma, +1 natural armor, speed 40', Hide +4, Jump +10, darkvision 60', immune to sleep, multiple limbs/natural attacks, weapon familiarity
2nd	2d8	+2	+0	+3	+3	2 + Int mod	+2 Dex, +2 natural armor, Jump +20
3rd	-	+2	+0	+3	+3		+2 Dex, +3 natural armor, Deflect Arrows, Jump +30, poison

At first level, T'chub-t'chub is already large for his size, which means he gets picked on. Even worse, he has no psionic abilities, so among typical psionic thri-kreen he's treated as a disabled mutant. Fortunately, he has a coping strategy to deal with this: overeating. His only job at this point is to survive long enough to stoke a burning, unquenchable hatred for everyone that picks on "the fat bug".

Spoiler: Larva (Level 4)

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After a endless amounts of humiliation and shame, T'chub-t'chub has finally unlocked his long-dormant psionic abilities. Unfortunately, the only thing he can do is what got him picked on in the first place: getting even fatter! But now, expansion along with Deformity: Obese, assuming an average starting weight for a thri-kreen, T'chub-t'chub has maxed out the "Two-Ton" limit for falling object damage. 212 lbs x 3 (obese) x 8 (expansion) = 5088 lbs. This unlocks his first signature move, the "Bugsplatter": With a 20' running start and a couple very affordable magic items, he can perform a 15' high jump, which should be sufficient to smash any medium-sized creature with 20d6 falling object damage.

Jump check:
10 (Belt of Ultimate Athleticism, 3000 GP, MIC)
+30 (Racial bonus)
+8 (50' speed bonus)
+5 (Skill ranks)
+5 (Strenth bonus)
+2 (Tumble synergy)
----
60 = 15' high jump

If he's wearing Boots of Landing (500 GP, MIC), he takes no damage from the 15' fall and automatically lands on his feat. He only has 1 PP at this level, so expansion only lasts 10 rounds, but with a double-move every round he can back up 20', get another 20' running start, jump up 15', fall 15', and still have movement left over. That's 10 straight rounds of 20d6 damage for an ECL 4 character... not too shabby for a fat bug. Without expansion he's still 600+ pounds, which is 3d6 falling object damage. When he's not crushing his opponents under his corpulent thickness, he has 5 attacks when he uses a full attack action: unarmed/claw/claw/claw/claw/bite. He doesn't bother with Flurry, as he gets more attacks with his natural weapons, and it's not worth trading in for Decisive Strike either, as his Dex is too low to take advantage of Combat Reflexes.

Spoiler: Pupa (Level 7)

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T'chub-t'chub thought joining a monastic order would put an end to the teasing, but it got worse. The monks didn't tease him openly, but they were much more accomplished at humiliating him in other not-so-obvious ways: slipping things into his food, replacing his clothes with smaller sizes, weakening the frame of his bed. Of course, all that ended when he flattened Brother Blanka into a bloody throw-rug. And he's found a new mentor: Master Kurgan. His new master is a cruel man, but as T'chub-t'chub is learning, cruelty is just a weapon you can use to get what you want. Master Kurgan has been teaching him how to turn his disadvantages into advantages, and how to leverage his shame into his greatest weapon.

T'chub-t'chub's Jump check is now high enough that he doesn't even need the Belt of Ultimate Athleticism to high jump 15' (although the 1/day "Take 20" option would still be useful for getting the drop on a large-sized opponent).

1 (minimum roll)
+30 (racial bonus)
+12 (60' speed bonus)
+9 (skill ranks)
+5 (Str bonus)
+2 (Tumble synergy)
+1 (Sphinx claws)
----
60 = 15' high jump

With the Elemental (Air) mantle, he no longer needs the Boots of Landing to negate the 15' fall damage. If he picks up a pair of Boots of Striding and Springing (5500 GP, DMG) he has enough speed to perform his Bugsplatter as a move action: 20' backup, 20' running start, 15' high jump, and 15' fall = 70'. Boots of Jumping (2500 GP, MIC) are cheaper, and he even has movement to spare: 10' backup, 10' running start, 15' high jump, and 15' fall = 50' (to stick the landing, he'd need a dorje of catfall or move the Landing property to Bracers of Armor). This would allow him to perform a "Double Bugsplatter" every round for 40d6 falling object damage. If we add hustle for 2 PP, he can perform a "Triple Bugsplatter" for 60d6 falling object damage.

While taking monk levels may not be the most optimized choice for a 5000-pound bug, the AC Bonus helps him make up for his weak Dex score, and he's still pretty decent in melee. He can attack with unarmed strikes as his primary weapon and has five secondary natural attacks, so something should hit at least once. Improved Grapple + expansion gives him an excellent lockdown option, I've gone with the Overwhelming Attack variant style here with the idea that he'll probably be picking up Leap Attack and Shock Trooper later.

Spoiler: Imma Butterfly, Mutha#&%@! (Level 13)

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This is where T'chub-t'chub unlocks Mantis Leap, and his ultimate combo is now possible: the "Triple Bugsplatter with Cheese". T'chub-t'chub has two move actions + hustle for a third, Mantis Leap turns each move action into a charge, and Sphinx Claws bound to the Hands chakra turns each charge into a full attack. He gets 7 attacks on a pounce:

unarmed#1 +12/unarmed#2 +7/claw#1 +7/claw#2 +7/claw#3 +7/claw#4 +7/bite +7

Mantis Leap doubles his Str bonus on damage (+10 with expansion, +8 without), and he can power attack for more damage if he likes. Assuming every attack hits, each Bugsplatter does 251.5 damage on average. For all three, that's 21 attacks at the expense of 3 PP on top of 60d6 falling object damage, so about 754.5 average damage if everything hits. With 13 PP, he can do this at least 4/day, and if he runs out of PP he can still do Double Bugsplatters with Cheese while expansion lasts. Even without expansion, at 600+ pounds, he can use Mantis Leap for full attack + 3d6 falling object damage twice a round whenever he likes. Assuming he has acquired at least Bracers of Armor +1 with the Landing propert (+4000 GP, MIC), Sandals of Springing (10000 GP, MIC), and a Ring of Jumping (2500 GP, DMG), he can make 20' standing high jumps or 80' standing long jumps without a running start.

1 (minimum roll)
+30 (racial bonus)
+12 (60' speed bonus)
+15 (skill ranks)
+10 (enhancement, Sandals of Springing)
+5 (competence, Ring of Jumping)
+5 (Str bonus)
+2 (Tumble synergy)
+1 (Sphinx claws)
----
81 = 20' high jump or 80' long jump

From here, T'chub-t'chub should probably take some fighter levels to pick up Shock Trooper and Leap Attack, and possibly look into Dodge/Mobility/Roofwalker/Roof-Jumper for additional damage on the downstroke. Putting more levels in Ardent + Practiced Spellcaster also helps him augment expansion up to huge size as well as expands his repertoire of powers.

Spoiler: Sources

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Cityscape: Skilled City Dweller ACF
Complete Psionic: Ardent, Mantles
Dungeonscape: Standing Jump ACF, Wall Walker ACF
Magic Item Compendium: Belt of Ultimate Athleticism, Boots of Landing, Landing property, Sandals of Springing
Magic of Incarnum: Shape Soulmeld: Sphinx Claws, Open Least Chakra: Hands
Shining South: Non-psionic Thri-Kreen
Sword & Fist: Mantis Leap. Yes, this is a 3.0 source. Yes, it's 3.5 legal as per the 3.5 DMG page 4.
Unearthed Arcana: Overwhelming Attack

[daremetoidareyo]

T'chub-t'chub

Race: Non-Psionic (ahem) Thri-Kreen
Build Stub:Thri-Kreen 2/Psychic Warrior 1/Ardent 2/Monk 7
Ability Scores: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8
Ability Scores (Obese): Str 18, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8
Ability Scores (Expansion): Str 20, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8
Ability Increases: Wis 17 (5th), Wis 18 (9th), Wis 19 (13th)
Languages: Thri-Kreen, Common, Auran
Alignment: LE

I thought that I loved the psionic thwomp. But a fat bug, that is delicious!

[Darrin]

Thumpelina

Race: Dragonborn Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale
Build Stub: Anthro Whale 3/Simple Ranger 1/Monk 2/PsyWar 2/Drunken Master 2/Totemist 2/Monk +1
Ability Scores: Str 22, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 20, Cha 8
Ability Scores (Post-Dragonborn): Str 22, Dex 16, Con 20, Int 12, Wis 20, Cha 8
Ability Scores (Expansion): Str 24, Dex 14, Con 20, Int 12, Wis 20, Cha 8
Ability Increases: Wis 21 (4th), Wis 22 (8th), Wis 23 (12th)
Languages: Common, Aquan
Alignment: LN
Multiclass Penalty: No.

Spoiler: Whale-Tale

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A southwesterly wind pushed the airship over a thick forest, mottled into dark patches by scattered cloudcover. The quartermaster paced across the quarterdeck, waiting for the watchman to call the hour and end his shift. The shift had been quiet and uneventful, and yet... he kept finding himself looking up, searching the clouds for... something. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for.

A hatch opened on the deck below, but it wasn't the watchman he was expecting. Three angry crewmen spilled onto the deck, yelling and shoving each other. The quartermaster turned sharply and strode toward the center rail, stamping his boots in agitation to let the men know he was still on deck.

"Just a fancy! Just a fancy, is all!" protested one of the men, an older sailor with a salt-and-pepper beard and a green cap.

"Tell 'im!" shouted another man, a bald and well-rounded cook. "Tell 'im what yer saw!"

"Lay off! I ain't sauced, an' it warn't nothin'," said the third man, thin and sallow-faced with coal-black hair.

The quartermaster gripped the rail and glared down at the three men. "Gentlemen, is there a problem?"

The cook pointed at the older sailer. "He saw it! Port side, barely a tallowdrip ago!"

"Saw what?" demanded the quartermaster.

"W-w-whu... W-well, see now..." stammered the old sailor. "A fancy, you see? Had maybe just a sip, just a sip mind you... might'a been a dragonfish, a mer-whale, or one'a those giant flying babies y'see from time to time..."

"Giant flying baby... wait, did you say mer-wh..." and then understanding suddenly hit the quatermaster. "GENERAL QUARTERS!" he shouted. "GENERAL QU--"

A hundred feet above him, banking gently out of a dark cloud, Thumpelina smiled wickedly to herself. Too late, quartermaster, too late... She furled her wings tight into her body, and felt the firm grip of gravity envelope her and hurl her mercilessly down toward the deck of the airship. She activated the scarab hanging around her neck just before her bullet-shaped body blasted through the deck, sending splinters everywhere, smashing straight down through two lower decks and right through the bottom of the hull. As ballast stones dribbled out of the hole in the bottom of the airship, Thumpelina unfurled her wings and flapped back up towards the deck. Payback time.

Spoiler: Hail to the Whale!

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Build Progression:

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Anthro Baleen 1	+1	+6	+6	+7	Listen 4, Spot 4, Tumble 2	Great Fortitude	+9 Natural Armor, Blindsight 120', Hold Breath, Tail Slap
2nd	Anthro Baleen 2	+2	+6	+7	+8	Listen 5, Spot 5, Swim 1
3rd	Anthro Baleen 3	+3	+7	+7	+8	Swim 2, Tumble 3	Air Heritage
4th	Simple Ranger 1	+4	+10	+8	+8	Jump 5, Tumble 5	Track -> Dragon Tail (Dragonborn)	Fast Movement +10', Favored Enemy: Krill, Spiritual Connection ACF, Skilled City Dweller ACF (Tumble), Tail Slap 1d8
5th	Monk 1	+4	+12	+10	+10	Balance 5	Dodge (Cobra Strike)	Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Damage, AC Bonus
6th	Monk 2	+5	+13	+11	+11	Balance 7, Tumble 8	Mobility (Cobra Strike), Roofwalker	Evasion
7th	Psychic Warrior 1	+5	+15	+13	+11	Jump 7, Tumble 9	Versatile Unarmed Strike	Skilled City Dweller ACF (Tumble)
8th	Drunken Master 1	+5	+17	+13	+12	Concentration 4, Tumble 10		Drink Like a Demon, Improvised Weapons
9th	Drunken Master 2	+6	+18	+14	+12	Concentration 7, Tumble 12	Roof-Jumper	Stagger
10th	Psychic Warrior 2	+7	+19	+14	+12	Concentration 10	Speed of Thought
11th	Totemist 1	+7	+21	+16	+12	Jump 9, Tumble 13		Wild Empathy, Skilled City Dweller ACF
12th	Totemist 2	+8	+22	+17	+12	Jump 12, Tumble 15	Open Least Chakra: Hands	Totem Chakra, Skilled City Dweller ACF
13th	Monk 3	+9	+22	+17	+12	Jump 16, Tumble 16		Still Mind, Speed Bonus +10'

Spoiler: Psionic Powers

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Level	PP	Powers Known
7th	2	expansion
8th	3	-
9th	3	-
10th	7	catfall
11th	7	-
12th	7	-
13th	7	-

Spoiler: Level 1

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Savage Species does not break the anthropomorphic animals into monster/racial class levels, but if they did, it might look something like:

Level	Hit Dice	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skill Points	Class Features
1st	1d8	+1	+0	+2	+2	(2 + Int mod) x 4	+2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, +3 Natural Armor, Tail Slap 1d3, Blindsight 60', Darkvision 60', Hold Breath, medium size
2nd	2d8	+2	+0	+3	+3	2 + Int mod	+2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, +2 Wis, +6 Natural Armor, Blindsight 90'
3rd	3d8	+3	+1	+3	+3	2 + Int mod	+4 Str, +2 Wis, +9 Natural Armor, Tail Slap 1d4, Blindsight 120', large size

If the DM has suffered enough blunt head trauma to allow such a monstrousity to be played at ECL 1, Thumpelina starts off as just a meatbag, wielding a simple two-handed spear and her tail slap along with her high ability scores to dish out/soak up DPS. Shunned and misunderstood by her own kind, she lives off the land by herself, occasionally finding work as a caravan guard or hired muscle for bandits. Her blindsight gives her the ability to see her surroundings in complete darkness, which helps her detect ambushes or melt into the night when discretion proves the better part of valor.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Thumpelina's first class level! Woot! After some time living on her own, she's acquired the skills of a ranger, tracking game and living off the land. Her experience with caravan guards, bandits, and merchants has also taught her the imporance of improving her combat skills, such as Jump and Tumble. Striking up a friendship with a local bronze dragon named Fraxilara, she is introduced to the worship of Bahumat, which she takes to it like a whale to water.

Becoming a Dragonborn of Bahumat via the Ritual of Rebirth removes her natural armor, blindsight, and tail slap, but she gains a better tail attack by swapping the Track feat for the Dragon Tail feat. She now uses large-sized halberd with her tail slap as a secondary attack. She can also use a ranseur with her natural reach, which means she can threaten out to 20', and use her tail to attack anyone who gets inside her reach. The simple ranger variant gives her Fast Movement as a Barbarian and she takes the Spiritual Connection ACF to get more detailed information from the animals and plants around her.

Spoiler: Level 7

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When Fraxilara is killed by an evil band of looting adventurers, Thumpelina swears revenge. But first, she has to find a safe place for Fraxilara's hidden cache of eggs. This leads her to the Disciples of the Shining Scales, an order of monks dedicated to the worship of metallic dragons. They agree to safeguard the eggs, as well as help Thumpelina track down Fraxilara's murderers and teach her how to remove their spines with her fists. While studying with the Disciples of the Shining Scales, Thumpelina taps into her latent psionic abilities, and learns how to become... a lot more of herself, let's say.

As a monk, the AC Bonus helps shore up the loss of her natural armor a bit. If she's using a ranseur for reach, Improved Unarmed Strike lets her full attack adjacent targets with her tail slap as a secondary attack. The monks teach her how to move around in an urban environment and how to get out of tight spots (Dodge/Mobility/Roofwalker).

At ECL 6, her Dragonborn wings give her a 30' fly speed, improved to 70' with Air Heritage and Fast Movement. At ECL 7, Expansion opens up her first finishing move, the basic "Cannonball": She can fly directly over her opponent, expand to huge size, and deliberately stall, falling on them for 20d6 falling object damage. Savage Species doesn't give height/weight tables for anthropomorphic animals, but if we assume she's at least a svelte 500+ pounds at large size with all of her equipment, then she's at least 4000+ lbs when expanded. A single PP lasts for at least 10 rounds, so she can "Cannonball" 10 rounds in a row if need be. If she adds Boots of Landing (500 GP, MIC) or Bracers of Armor with the Landing property (+4000 GP, MIC), she can do this from 20' in the air and receive no falling damage. Without the boots, a Jump and/or Tumble check can reduce the falling damage. She also has a Dive Attack that she can perform with a piercing weapon, most likely with a two-handed piercing weapon such as a halberd or ranseur, but Versatile Unarmed Strike allows her to use unarmed strikes as piercing weapons as well. Ideally, we want to combine the Cannonball with the Dive Attack, but we're not quite there yet... first, we've got to get her really drunk...

Spoiler: Level 13

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What shall we do with a drunken whale-her?
What shall we do with a drunken whale-her?
What shall we do with a drunken whale-her?
Heave her up t'the wild blue yonder...

Two levels of Drunken Master gives Thumpelina the next part of her combo: Stagger (Ex). This ability allows her to make a charge that isn't in a straight line, which means she can fly straight up, make a 180-degree turn, and fly straight down as a Dive Attack. We could also do this without Drunken Master, taking Fleet of Foot (Complete Warrior) + Psionic Charge (XPH) to make a 180-degree turn on a charge, but you'd have to expend your psionic focus to do it. Drunken Master's Stagger works every single round and lets Thumpelina move around anything that might get in her way. At the same level she gets Stagger, she also gets the next piece of her combo: Roof-Jumper. She doesn't need this so much to turn her fall into a charge (Stagger and Dive Attack already do that), but it does add +1d6 damage to each 10' she falls after the first 10'. The last piece of the combo she needs is Pounce, and she gets that from Totemist, grabbing Sphinx Claws and binding to the hands chakra with a feat. She gets another two soulmelds, so we'll grab Wormtail Belt to get back some of her natural armor bonus and Girallon Arms for giggles (and the four secondary claw attacks).

Once she unlocks Pounce at ECL 12, if she acquires a Pectoral of Maneuverability (12000 GP, Draconomicon), she can fly straight up, turn 180 degrees, Dive Attack on the way down, full attack with everything, and then Cannonball for 20d6 falling object damage. The monk level after Totemist 1 is to grab a +10' speed boost, so she can squeeze more bonus damage out of Roof-Jumper. With a fly speed of 90', she can move up to 180' on a charge. This gives her enough movement to fly 70' straight up (costs double, so 140'), make a 180-degree turn, fly 70' straight down (costs half, so 35'), Pounce kicks in on the Dive Attack (x2 damage), and Roof-Jumper gives her +6d6 damage on all her attacks. She gets 7 attacks on a pounce:

unarmed#1 +15/unarmed#2 +10/claw#1 +10/claw#2 +10/claw#3 +10/claw#4 +10/tail +10

Assuming all her attacks hit, that should be about 47 average damage for each unarmed strike and 35 average damage for each claw/bite, and another 70 for the 20d6 falling object damage... total should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 339 average damage. And if that isn't enough, she can dimension hop as a swift action for another 20d6 falling object damage.

If she can't fly (high winds, underground, religious holiday, etc.), Stagger and Pounce work perfectly well together on the ground. So long as she has 10' to back up from her opponent, she can charge + pounce every single round. She doesn't get the extra damage from Roof-Jumper, but 7 attacks with at least a +6 Str bonus should be plenty of DPS.

After ECL 13, Thumpelina should probably pursue a fighter dip to pick up the standard Ubercharger package: Power Attack/Leap Attack/Improved Bull Rush/Shock Trooper, along with anything that can increase her flight speed: the higher she can fly straight up, the more bonus damage she can squeeze out of Roof-Jumper.

Spoiler: Sources

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Cityscape: Roofwalker, Roof-Jumper, Skilled City Dweller ACF
Complete Champion: Spiritual Connection ACF
Complete Warrior: Drunken Master
Draconomicon: Pectoral of Mobility.
Magic Item Compendium: Boots of Landing, Landing property, Scarab of Invulnerability
Magic of Incarnum: Totemist, Sphinx Claws, Girallon Arms, Wormtail Belt, Open Least Chakra: Hands
Planar Handbook: Air Heritage
Player's Handbook II: Versatile Unarmed Strike
Races of the Dragon: Dragonborn of Bahumat, Dragon Tail
Savage Species: Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale.
Unearthed Arcana: Simple Ranger, Cobra Strike variant monk style

[JyP]

JonRa’mbo

Half-Drow Ranger 5 / Yathchol Webrider 2 / Wildrunner 2 / Dungeon Lord 4

And now for something completely different - which works at low levels...

Spoiler: The Build

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ECL	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Half-drow’ Elf Ranger 1	+1	+2	+2	+0	Climb 4, Craft ( trapmaking ) 4, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 4, Hide 4*, Jump 2, Knowledge (nature) 4, Listen 4’*, Move Silently 4*, Search 4’, Spot 4’*, Survival 4*, Swim 2	Skill Focus (trapmaking)	1st favored enemy (servants of Lolth*), Trapfinding, Spiritual Connection
2nd	Ranger 2	+2	+3	+3	+0	Climb 5, Craft ( trapmaking ) 5, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 4, Hide 5*, Jump 2, Knowledge (nature) 5, Listen 5’*, Move Silently 5*, Search 5’, Spot 5’*, Survival 5*, Swim 2
3rd	Ranger 3	+3	+3	+3	+1	Climb 6, Craft ( trapmaking ) 6, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 4, Hide 6*, Jump 2, Knowledge (nature) 6, Listen 6’*, Move Silently 6*, Search 6’, Spot 6’*, Survival 6*, Swim 2	Dodge	Endurance
4th	Ranger 4	+4	+4	+4	+1	Climb 7, Craft ( trapmaking ) 7, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 5, Hide 7*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 7², Listen 7’*², Move Silently 7*, Search 7’², Spot 7’*², Survival 7*², Swim 2	Mobility	Spiritual guide², bonus feat, (no spells)
5th	Ranger 5	+5	+4	+4	+1	Climb 8, Craft ( trapmaking ) 8, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 8*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 8², Listen 8’*², Move Silently 8*, Search 8’², Spot 8’*², Survival 8*², Swim 2		2nd favored enemy (orcs*), spider shape
6th	Yathchol Webrider 1	+5	+4	+6	+1	Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 4, Craft ( trapmaking ) 9, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 9*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 8², Listen 9’*², Move Silently 9*, Search 9’², Spot 9’*², Survival 8*², Swim 2	Brachiation	Web hide, web ride (20 ft.)
7th	Yathchol Webrider 2	+6/+1	+4	+7	+1	Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 8, Craft ( trapmaking ) 10, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 10*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 8², Listen 10’*², Move Silently 10*, Search 10’², Spot 10’*², Survival 8*², Swim 2		Spider climbing, summon spider (Large)
8th	Wildrunner 1	+7/+2	+6	+9	+1	Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 8, Craft ( trapmaking ) 10, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 11*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 10², Listen 11’*², Move Silently 11*, Search 10’², Spot 11’*², Survival 10*², Swim 2		Fast movement, trackless step
9th	Wildrunner 2	+8/+3	+7	+10	+1	Balance 4, Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 8, Craft ( trapmaking ) 10, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 12*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 10², Listen 12’*², Move Silently 12*, Search 10’², Spot 12’*², Survival 10*², Swim 2	Spring Attack	Primal scream, scent
10th	Dungeon Lord 1	+8/+3	+6	+12	+3	Balance 4, Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 8, Craft ( trapmaking ) 13, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 12*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 10², Listen 13’*², Move Silently 13*, Search 10’², Spot 13’*², Survival 10*², Swim 2		Dungeon mastery,horde lord +1
11th	Dungeon Lord 2	+9/+4	+6	+13	+4	Balance 4, Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 8, Craft ( trapmaking ) 14, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 14*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 10², Listen 14’*², Move Silently 14*, Search 10’², Spot 14’*², Survival 10*², Swim 2		Dungeon step
12th	Dungeon Lord 3	+10/+5	+7	+13	+4	Balance 4, Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 9, Craft ( trapmaking ) 15, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 15*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 10², Listen 15’*², Move Silently 15*, Search 10’², Spot 15’*², Survival 10*², Swim 2	Able Sniper	Complete awareness, dungeon minions
13th	Dungeon Lord 4	+11/+6/+1	+7	+14	+5	Balance 4, Climb 8, Craft (poisons) 10, Craft ( trapmaking ) 16, Craft ( weaponsmithing ) 4, Heal 6, Hide 16*, Jump 4, Knowledge (nature) 10², Listen 16’*², Move Silently 16*, Search 10’², Spot 16’*², Survival 10*², Swim 2		Animate objects

Spoiler: ”Level 1 - First Blood”

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JonRa’mbo is a young half-drow from the Underdark conscripted for a war in a great jungle against wild elves… All drows scorn him for his inferior blood, until he turns rogue and traps them all in the forest !

So here I devise droplomancy through traps - which implies a different kind of adventurer : not the shock troop who invades dungeons, more the kind to defend a known area through attrition versus hordes of servants of Lolth.
Trapmaking has 2 major flaws : prohibitive costs which infer weeks of work. But this is because we are talking about traps in dungeons, where you have to basically dig holes yourself, camouflage your traps with architecture and big stones in mind.
My solution is to use Knowledge (nature) and Survival checks to help him gather all required parts on his traps and found the best area to use - to drop rocks from tall trees, and existing holes.

Str 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 16, Cha 8
Equipment : Dagger (masterwork Survival kit), trapmaker tools, silk rope...
Craft ( trapmaking ) 4 +3 skill focus +4 Intelligence + take 10 = 21. He is already able to create CR 1-3 traps easily... for example cover a deep hole with folliage, with fire-hardened spikes at the bottom.
Survival 4 +2 tools +3 Wisdom +3 favored enemy + take 10 = 22.

Spiked Pit Trap
CR 3; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 20 ft. deep (2d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+2 each); Search DC 21; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 3,600 gp.

Spoiler: ”Level 4 - Ra’mbo : First Blood Part II”

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Our young half-drow is on a perilous path, between invading drows and defending wild elves. Even if he pilfered better tools, he still has to find a place in this great war.

Equipment : +1 Dagger of Survival (+4 competence bonus) 3902 gp, Magical Trapmaker Tools (+3 competence bonus) 950 gp, Dust of Tracelessness, light crossbow ...
Craft ( trapmaking ) 7 +3 skill focus +4 Intelligence +3 tools + take 10 = 27 => CR 4-6 traps
Survival 7 +3 tools +3 Wisdom +3 favored enemy +1 divine + take 10 = 27.

Spiked Blocks from Ceiling
CR 6; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; Atk +20 melee (6d6, spikes); multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 24; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 21,600 gp.

Spoiler: ”Level 7 - Ra’mbo III”

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Drows infected the jungle with hordes of spiders, as they could not battle the wild elves directly. The Queen offered free holds to those who can reclaim some space before all trees die.

On level 5, yet another variant : Spider Shape (which is a druid variant for drows on change shape, but we also applied another variant to gain change shape as a ranger here). Because I found this gem in Monstrous Spider Web description : A single strand is strong enough to support the spider and one creature of the same size. So a great material to both trigger a trap and also support the weight of various rocks above unsuspecting characters. Plus, I like Hisoka from Hunter X Hunter, and it’s a great explanation to circumvent those pesky trap costs.

Why didn’t I use the obvious Trapsmith prestige classes after 5th-level ? Because they are designed for shock troops invading dungeons - to find traps and use quick traps which are only ok at low levels. As our ranger is defending is home turf, I think he can take the time to prepare his traps. Yachthol webrider allows stronger web strands as Ra’mbo can summon a Large monstrous spider, and climbing speed.

Craft (trapmaking) 10 +3 skill focus +4 Intelligence +3 tools + take 10 = 30 => CR 7-10 traps.
Poisoned Spiked Pit Trap
CR 10; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; hidden lock bypass (Search DC 25, Open Lock DC 30); DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 50 ft. deep (5d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+5 plus poison each); poison (purple worm poison, DC 24 Fortitude save resists, 1d6 Str/2d6 Str); Search DC 16; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 19,700 gp.

Spoiler: ”Level 13 - Ra’mbo”

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After level 5 I got stuck on many choices : Dread Commando, Dungeon Lord, Yathchol Webrider, Wildrunner... But it seems to me Dungeon Lord should be the last if we go up to level 13, as it shows whenever our ranger finally found his own place, as a buffer between hordes of spiders sent by drows and maybe at peace with the wild elves.

Craft (trapmaking) 16 +3 skill focus +4 Intelligence +3 tools + take 10 = 36 => whatever traps - some additionnal options in Dungeonscape for higher CR traps, but I didn’t see an update on Craft skill to create them higher than CR 10 - so it would be house rules there.

Spoiler: ”Sources”

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Ranger 1 : Trap Expert (no track) (Dungeonscape)
Ranger 1 : Elf Ranger Racial Substitution Level (8+Int skills), d6 hp, +3 vs orcs. (RotW)
favored enemy ability grants him a +3 bonus on Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, and Survival checks used against Servants of Lolth, and a +3 bonus on weapon damage rolls against such creatures. "Servants of Lolth” includes drow, monstrous spiders of all sizes, and driders;
Ranger 1 : Spiritual Connection, no wild empathy (CC) (speak with animals / plants 3/day)
Ranger 2 : No Combat Style but wild shape at 5th level (UA)
Champion of the Wild : no spellcasting, bonus feat level 4 (CC)
Ranger 4 : no animal companion but spiritual guide (CC) (+1 divine bonus on Handle Animal, Knowledge (nature), Listen, Search, Spot, and Survival checks, commune with nature 1/day)
Ranger 5 : Spider Shape (DotU)
Brachiation : Complete Adventurer
Yathchol Webrider : Underdark
Wildrunner, Able Sniper : Races of the Wild
Dungeonlord : Dungeonscape

[Darrin]

Now, a challenge to everyone: make a more ridiculous build than a giant cube of steel with the mind of a Psion.

Challenge accepted. I give you...

Ker'plunk - The Jellobomber

Race: Silverbrow Human
Build Stub: Druid 8/Incarnate 2/Thrall of Juiblex 3
Ability Scores: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8
Ability Increases: Wis 17 (4th), Wis 18 (8th), Wis 19 (12th)
Languages: Common, Druidic, Aboleth
Alignment: NE
Multiclass Penalty: No.

Spoiler: Backstory

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As the hobgoblin horde charged the gate, the elven archers along the walls of the fort let loose another volley. The horrible screams of the wounded and dying intensified, but the hobgoblins renewed their push, and were rewarded with the sound of splintering wood. A terrible cheer rose up from the hobgoblin ranks, and the entire horde pressed in closer, hoping to break open the gate. From a wooded bluff overlooking the battle, a four-poster bed emerged from the trees and floated towards the battlefield. Some of the hobgoblins or elves might have noticed the bed, but there were more pressing matters that demanded their immediate attention.

There was one, however, who did notice the flying bed, and curious enough to investigate further. As the bed got closer to the battlefield, a pixie suddenly appeared next to the bed.

The pixie addressed the bed, "Mister bed, sir?"

The smooth wood at the footboard dimpled and bulged as a vaguely human face appeared. "Yes?"

The pixie turned toward the face, flying backward but keeping pace with the bed. "Whatcha doin'?"

The bed said, "Destorying a fort."

"Oh," said the pixie. "You here to help the hobgoblins, then?"

"Not exactly", said the bed. "Are the fey folk involved?"

The pixie shrugged. "Not really. I was just sorta hangin' out, 'cause you know... all those big folk, stabbin' each other and cuttin' off limbs and blood spurtin' everywhere... that's *kinda* interesting. But I ain't never seen home furnishings getting involved, outside of catapults and such. Normally us dainty types help out the elves, but they've been really snotty lately, and our King Jollyhop said something about them borrowing a hedge-trimmer and not bringing it back... well, the elders talked it over last night, and they thought us dainty-folk should sit this one out. So... you don't like the elves? Did they borrow somethin' and not give it back?"

"Not really. In fact, what I'm about to do has a good chance to wipe out both sides."

The pixie frowned at the bed. "Well, that doesn't make any sense! How can you not be on a side?"

"I am not always given the reasons behind my instructions. I am bidden to reduce this fortress to rubble, and if any creatures happen to have the misfortune to be there, then so be it."

The pixie smirked. "Well, I seen a few tables get tipsy and tear apart a house, and I once saw a credenza demolish an entire glassblower's shop, and my Aunt Tallywhicker has this armchair that you absolutely do not want to get on it's bad side... but how exactly is one four-poster bed going to destroy an entire fort?"

"Why, by bombing it with several hundred gelatinous cubes, of course. You might want to back off just a bit... this is about to get very messy."

The bed stopped, hovering about a hundred feet directly above the main gates. With a wet *splorch*, a large cube of quivering protoplasm appeared on top of the bed, which dipped slightly and then flipped over, dropping the cube onto the gates below. After a few seconds, another cube appeared and dropped. And then another, and another, and another...

Spoiler: Breaking the Jello Mold

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Build Progression:

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Druid 1	+0	+5	+2	+5	Concentration 4, Know:Nature 4, Know:Dung 2, Escape Artist 2, Spot 4	Aberration Blood (Bulging Eyes), Natural Heavyweight	Nature Sense, Rootwalker ACF: Vermin Empathy, Wasteland Companion: Vulture
2nd	Druid 2	+1	+6	+2	+6	Concentration 5, Handle Animal 3, Spot 5		Rootwalker ACF: Earthen Stride
3rd	Druid 3	+2	+6	+3	+6	Concentration 6, Know:Dung 3, Escape Artist 3	Willing Deformity	Trackless Step
4th	Druid 4	+3	+7	+3	+7	Concentration 7, Handle Animal 5, Spot 7		Rootwalker ACF: +4 saves vs aberrations
5th	Druid 5	+3	+7	+3	+7	Concentration 8, Know:Dung 4, Escape Artist 4		Wild Shape 1/day
6th	Druid 6	+4	+8	+4	+8	Concentration 9, Handle Animal 7, Spot 9	Aberration Wild Shape	Wild Shape 2/day
7th	Druid 7	+5	+8	+4	+8	Concentration 10, Know:Dung 5, Escape Artist 5		Wild Shape 3/day
8th	Druid 8	+6	+9	+4	+10	Concentration 11, Handle Animal 9, Spot 11		Wild Shape (Large)
9th	Incarnate 1	+6	+11	+4	+12	Know:Arcana 1, Know:Religion 1, Know:Planes 1	Thrall to Demon (Juiblex)	Aura, detect opposition. Soulmelds: Airstep Sandals, Planar Chasuble
10th	Incarnate 2	+7	+12	+4	+13	Know:Arcana 2, Know:Religion 2, Know:Planes 2		Chakra Bind (Crown). Soulmeld: Elder Spirit
11th	Thrall of Juiblex 1	+8	+14	+6	+15	Disguise 2, Move Silently 1		Sickening Slime
12th	Thrall of Juiblex 2	+9	+15	+7	+16	Disguise 3, Move Silently 3	Open Least Chakra: Feet	Corrosive Touch
13th	Thrall of Juiblex 3	+10	+15	+7	+16	Disguise 5, Move Silently 4		Summon Ooze

Spoiler: Druid Spells

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Typical Druid Spells Prepared
0lvl: create water, cure minor wounds, dawn (SC), detect magic, light, read magic
1st: cloudburst (SC), conjure ice beast (Frostburn), faerie fire, impeding stones (Cityscape), spider hand (BoVD), wood wose (SC)
2nd: cloud wings (SC), heart of air (CMage), summon swarm, soul ward (CChamp)
3rd: conjure ice beast III (Frostburn), dispel magic, heart of water (CMage), sleet storm
4th: enhance wild shape (SC), flame strike, sheltered vitality (SC)

Druid Spells per Day

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	5	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	5	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	6	5	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-
8th	6	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-
9th	6	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-
10th	6	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-
11th	6	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-
12th	6	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-
13th	6	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-

Spoiler: Level 1

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Ker'plunk didn't really "fit in" with most other druids. Where most druids saw vermin and oozes as agents of decay and the despoiling of nature, Ker'plunk saw them as just another part of nature. Disease, infestation, and rot were not examples of nature's weakness, but instruments of nature's strength. Breaking down biomass so that other creatures can use those resources... this is the power of rejuvenation, not destruction. And where most druids saw aberrations as abominations of nature, to be hunted down and purged from the "natural" world, Ker'plunk saw them only as the next step in evolution, a response to other creatures interfering with the natural order. Were not all creatures aberrations at some point? Don't all creatures deserve a chance to find their place in the natural order? Who are we to try and define "natural order" when the world allows wizards to rip apart the very fabric of the universe and reorder it as they see fit? To demand that some proud few get to determine which creatures are "natural" and which are "unnatural"... does that not make us the monsters?

Aside from all that, Ker'plunk starts out much like any other druid, except he prefers vermin, oozes, and aberrations to "normal" animals. Actually, it's best not to bring up the whole natural/unnatural creature thing... bit of a sore spot with him, you'll definitely get an earful.

Spoiler: Level 4

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As Ker'plunk explores the whole "what is natural/what is unnatural?" problem, he's begun experimenting on himself (hence the Willing Deformity), trying to determine what causes some creatures to mutate or evolve. Disease, poison, parasites... many creatures die, but some of them survive, change, and get stronger... what happens when he himself has to deal with these "destructive" aspects of nature? If these things do not kill him, and he survives... will he, too, change? Into what, exactly?

Spoiler: Level 7

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At 5th, Ker'plunk gains Wild Shape, but animals are boring. He pushes himself even further, and at 6th he's tapped into his own Aberrant Blood heritage, turning himself into forms that most other druids would never dare. These new forms, how did they emerge from what they were before? How much more do they need to change or outcompete the "natural" animals before they become "natural"?

From a mechanical standpoint, Ker'plunk diverges from most treehugger builds here because he doesn't take Natural Spell. Aberrant Wild Shape gives him some new forms to explore... well, ok, mostly the choker, but Quickness is (Su) and he can't get that yet. But there are some interesting (Ex) abilities he can access via the enhance wild shape spell... which will become much more important shortly.

Spoiler: Level 13

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Ker'plunk's fascination for oozes eventually leads him to a revelation of momentous importance... he realizes that oozes and slimes are the oldest creatures, the primordial soup from which all subsequent creatures evolved. These simple mindless creatures are the wellspring of all life. This realization drives him to explore the cult of Juiblex, patron demon lord of all things slimy, and Ker'plunk is compelled to devote himself to the worship of Juiblex.

At ECL 8, Ker'plunk has access to the Nilshai (Unapproachable East), which has an ability called Fearsome Celerity (Ex). When he casts enhance wild shape, this ability gives him an extra standard action every round, allowing him to cast two spells on his turn. But that's not really what we're here for. We're here for carpet-bombing with oozes. Thrall of Juiblex 3 has a Summon Ooze ability that lets you summon a gelatinous cube as a standard action at will. According to the Monster Manual errata, a gelatinous cube weighs 15000 pounds, and that's what I want to drop, an infinite number of gelatinous cubes. But there are several problems we need to overcome.

First, we need a surface that will support the cubes. According to the PHB page 172: "It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it." So that's why we need a large-sized aberration: the mimic. When we cast enhance wild shape, we get access to the Mimic Shape (Ex) ability, which allows us to assume any shape up to roughly 150 cubic feet. A 10' by 10' platform, 18 inches thick, should be sufficient. The shape also needs to be a quadraped for reasons we'll get into later, so for now we can just call it a four-poster bed.

Second, we need to be immune to the gelatinous cube's acid and paralysis. The Incarnate dip takes care of this with two soulmelds. Planar Chasuble gives our evil druid acid resistance 10. And the Elder Spirit soulmeld (Dragon Magic) bound to our Crown chakra gives us immunity to paralysis.

Our third soulmeld solves our third problem: we need to be flying to drop things on targets from above. Airstep Sandals may not be the best method for flight here, only 30' with both points of essentia invested, but we can use cloud wings (Spell Compendium) or heart of air to increase our speed, and the perfect maneuverability makes aiming our drops easier. We can hover and presumably flip over, dumping the gelatinous cube on whatever is below us. Note: I'm assuming the perfect maneuverability here trumps the "You must end the flight solidly supported or fall" text from the basic soulmeld ability. If the DM rules otherwise, the Phoenix Cloak (50000 GP, MIC) is still within WBL.

The fourth problem is considerably trickier... we need our flying four-poster bed to be able to actually support the weight of a 15000 pound gelatinous cube long enough that it doesn't immediately piledrive us into the ground. Even assuming we can get our max load up that high, the rules are exceedingly vague on what actually happens when you try to fly while heavily encumbered, and there are no rules at all which say what happens when you exceed your max load. There are several different flying effects, and it depends a great deal on how you got your flight speed to determine what happens when you try to fly while encumbered. Air Step Sandals actually don't say anything about flying while encumbered, so we have to use the default rules in the SRD, but they put them in a weird place and they're still pretty vague: "A creature with a fly speed can move through the air at the indicated speed if carrying no more than a light load." It doesn't say here that we *can't* fly with a medium or heavy load, just that we can't fly at the indicated speed. To determine the reduced speed, we just use the same encumbrance rules we'd use for land speed. For a 30' fly speed, it gets reduced to 20', which should be sufficient to get out from under the gelatinous cube. To avoid the problem of figuring out what happens when we exceed our max press while flying... well, then we need to get our max load up to 15000 pounds.

A mimic has 19 Strength, which gives us a max load of 350 pounds to start with. Here's where we need the quadraped form comes in handy (or footy?), as that gets us a x3 multiplier. The Natural Heavyweight feat gives us another x2 multiplier, and if the mimic is wearing a Belt of the Wide Earth (8000 GP, MIC), we can get another x2. But that's only a max load of 4200 pounds... not enough for an ochre jelly (5600 pounds), much less the full cube. As it turns out, we need a Strength score of 29 with all those multipliers to get our max load up to 16800 pounds. The Magic Item Compendium says we can combine the effects of a Belt of Giant's Strength with our Belt of the Wide Earth, adding a +6 enhancement bonus for 36000 GP, but we're still short 4 points of Strength. There's at least two methods we can use to get there within our WBL for 13th level:

1) Bridle of Burden-Bearing from the Arms & Equipment Guide. While this costs the same as the Belt of Giant's Strength, the item description never mentions the word "enhancement". So if we get the +4 version, the bonus is "untyped" and stacks with the +6 enhancement bonus from our combined Belt of Wide Earth/Giant's Strength. Belt/Belt + Bridle = 8000 GP + 36000 GP + 16000 GP = 60K, just over half our WBL.

2) If Ker'plunk casts enhance wild shape twice, he can give his wild shape form a +2 untyped bonus to Strength. If he also smokes some devilweed (Book of Vile Darkness) or drinks some jhuild (Lords of Darkness), he gets a +2 alchemical bonus to Strength for 1d3 hours. Both of these drugs have drawbacks, but negating the Wis damage and addiction checks are laughably easy at this level. Also, the drugs are much cheaper than the bridle. A dose of devilweed or a dose of jhuild both cost only 6 GP. If we buy the Belt/Belt combo for 44000 GP, there's plenty of gold left over for drugs.

So now we can summon gelatinous cubes onto our flying 10' x 10' platform and drop them wherever we like. It's a standard action to summon the cube (SLA) and a move action to flip over, tilt it off one side, or slide out from underneath it. We can drop one cube every round, 60 cubes per hour, for however many hours until the duration on either wild shape or enhance wild shape expires. The cube can't hurt us (Planar Chasuble and Elder Spirit render us immune to the acid damage and paralysis), and so long as we drop it quickly, never gets a chance to engulf or attack us. Whatever the cube hits takes 20d6 falling object damage, and then (if the cube survived the fall... on average, any fall 160' or higher will kill the cube) has to deal with the acid damage, the save vs. paralysis, and engulf. I'm actually not entirely sure what happens when a creature is crushed underneath a gelatinous cube... I'd be inclined to say it auto-engulfs for simplicity's sake, but technically the cube doesn't do any acid damage, paralysis, or engulfing until it's turn comes up in the initiative order. Before that happens, you'd have to resolve the "stacking" issue with a large creature occupying the same square as the target creature, presumably with some sort of roll to see if either the target creature or the cube gets knocked prone... and I'd really like to know what a gelatinous cube looks like when it gets knocked prone.

Well, there you have it: carpet-bombing with gelatinous cubes made easy. Bombs away!

Spoiler: Sources

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Arms & Equipment Guide: Bridle of Burden-Bearing.
Book of Vile Darkness: Willing Deformity, Thrall to Demon, Thrall of Juiblex, Devilweed.
Dragon Magic: Silverbrow Human, Elder Spirit Soulmeld.
Lords of Darkness: Jhuild/Thrallwine.
Lords of Madness: Aberration Blood, Aberration Wild Shape.
Magic Item Compendium: Belt of the Wide Earth, Phoenix Cloak
Magic of Incarnum: Incarnate, Air Step Sandals, Planar Chasuble, Open Least Chakra.
Planar Handbook: Natural Heavyweight.
Sandstorm: Wasteland Companion: Vulture.

[Jormengand]

Show's over, folks. I'll try to get up judging tomorrow.

[Darrin]

I had some other ideas, but I didn't find them quite as interesting as my other three entries:

Build Stub: Anthro Snake 3/SLT Barbarian 1/Psychic Warrior 2/Totemist 2/Swordsage 1/Telflammar Shadowlord 4
Shadowpouncer with the usual: dimension hop (swift), shadow jaunt (standard), blink shirt (move). I wanted to add Cavestalker 4 in there, so it could MWF with four spiked chains before the falling damage, but had to settle with Girallon Arms + four kusari-gama. But more or less a typical shadow-pouncer, if there is such a thing.

Build Stub: Anthro Cheetah 2/Wildshape Ranger 5/Psychic Warrior 2/Totemist 2
A reworking of this Swanmay build from Iron Chef LIX. I'm not sure Cheetah's Speed will double up with Sprint (Ex), but the idea is to activate the x10 twice for a 9000+ charge, fly straight up, then dive attack for 449d6 damage on the way down. I was also hoping to get Mark of Minauros in there for a +1800 attack bonus, but wasn't sure what to do with that (Power Attack would only reduce it by about -9). This build was too similar to Thumpelina, and even though that build doesn't get nearly as much damage out of Roof-Jumper, she can do it every round, whereas using Fleet of Foot/Psionic Charge to make the 180-degree turn only works when you expend your psionic focus, so every-other round. Still, probably had the best shot at "highest damage" award (if there were such a thing).

[WhamBamSam]

I had thought about trying something involving an outsider Thrall of Juiblex turning into a Jovoc (MMII) with Alter Self+Assume Supernatural Ability/Metamorphic Transfer so that when he dropped head first from a distance of a few hundred feet, everyone within 30ft would take the same damage he did, then using some manner of death prevention to survive the fall himself. I didn't end up with anything good that fit into a 13 level build though.