Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Caelic 10-03-04, 01:10 PM	It popped into my head that it might be useful to have a thread set aside specifically for brainstorming: not the compilation of completed builds, but rather a place for folks to toss out new ideas and see what people can do with them. I'll start with a few random ideas that have been bouncing around my head. These mostly rely on Races of Stone, since that's what I'm toying with right now: *Goliath wrassler: With his ability to take Clever Wrestler AND be treated as large, a Goliath might actually make Reaping Mauler work very well. *Skylord/Cragtop Archer: "Aerial Bombardment," anyone? The CA works best when you have the high ground. With Skylord, you're pretty much guaranteed the high ground. The idea of a Goliath mounted on a roc is pretty darned cool, too. *The Flea: A two weapon fighting, sneak attacking Whisper Gnome Blade Bravo/Invisible Blade/Shadowdancer who uses an item of persistent Reduce Person to make himself almost impossible to see or hit. "Where is the little...ow! OW! He's in my pants! OW! Get him out, get him out!!!"
Mucknuggle 10-03-04, 03:25 PM	Here's what I'm toying with: Spontaeneous divine archer: I'm sick of the divine power/spikes cleric, so I'm trying to find an effective way to make a spontaeneous divine archer using either the Evangelist (drag 311), Favored Soul (Complete Divine) or Mystic (Dragonlance Campaign Setting). I haven't done much yet thanks to midterms, but I've been toying with Funny's Ranger 2/ Favored Soul 5/ Windwalker 3/ Harper Paragon 10 I'm trying to see what I can do with 5 Evangelist levels instead of FS. I'd eventually like to find other ways of doing lots of damage without giving up too many caster levels. I've been thinking about Prestige Ranger.
Maarten 10-03-04, 04:23 PM	I'm trying to figure out a way to make an Monk / Ur-Priest / Sacred Fist build work. But the skill requirements for Ur-priest are giving me a headache.
DBoot 10-03-04, 04:50 PM	Unstoppable Sorc: Using Marshal, Hexblade, and Sorceror levels, a base 18 Star elf can have a spell penetration of 15 (CL) + 4 (Practiced Caster) + 13 (Cha bonus)= +32 at level 20. If 'lower Spell Resistance' lands, effectively a +47. All that with no feats devoted to Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration. Also: very nice saves, and mettle. You can then start throwing around No Save spells all over the place. Or you can consentrate on shutting opponents down with Antimagic Ray and the like. The Return of the Crit Machine: Fighter 6/Warmind 6/Psychic Weapon Master 8. Or if you don't like PWM, the regular one will do and add Disciple of Dispater. Just get boots of lions charge. Your weapon: The Talenta Sharrash. Why? Better damage than a scythe, 10 ft reach, and 19-20/x4 crits (I can find no errata for this). Take with Shocktrooper. This makes for some really tasty Power attack charges. Sure, the Frenzied Berserker may be the king of power attack, but I got consistant x5 crits. More Goliath Wrassler: How about some Justicar for its improved hogtie? Also, if you choose to do nonlethal damage while grappling, the extra damage is nice. Hey, if you're hogtied, no dex bonus, right? Also. Half-Giants work here too. The great faux caster: Motivate Charisma and UMD, anyone? Great for Artificers I should think. Out of Combat: with a reach weapon and Improved Unarmed Attack or a spiked/chain, large and in charge, and Push back, it should be mostly impossible for your opponent to stay too close. The benifits of this? Dubious at best, but I throw it out there. Hong Kong Film Star: Half Orc Paragon, Monk, Shou Disciple, and Exotic Weapon Master 3 (from masters of the wild), and you can wield practically anything with skill. If you can fit in Shiba Protector 1 and intuitive strike, your simple weapons are ridiculous. Grappling Block if you can fit it (might require flaws). I don't have Unapporchable east with me at the moment, but flurrying with an certain wizard's annoying familiar seems like a gas to me. Some Psychic Junk: War Mind is a wonderful back door into the psychic PRCS, and while the Role playing element is a little heavy, versatile: K: psionics, and Wild Talent/a psychic race is all you need to qualify. Likewise, Kineticist 8 is great for the abilities it gives you. Again, Wild Talent or a psychic race for free entrance. Sono is the best unless your DM decides to use the modified damage rules, in which case, you might want to give consideration to Cryo (use fort instead of reflex) a look. Its better than Dragon Samurai (IMO). Marshal/War Chanter with Leadership. Why? Well, Inspire Legion and Inspire Recklessness makes for a great instant army. Art of War gives bonus to all sorts of tactical manuevers. You might not be too popular for leading your followers to slaughter, however, with those bonuses to disarm, they might just surprise themselves. Also works great if your cohort has a lot of tactical feats. Hell. In epic levels, War Chanter 10 is utterly broken. In place of your bab, you can use the War Chanter's Level x 2 if you accept the penalty from reckless attack. Great if you don't care about being hit (chain tripper). I really like the Meditant (check epic insights). I'm sure there's some synergy to be had between some of its stat and pp boosting abilities. Metaconcert maybe? Devoted Defender and sidestep. Two levels of Devoted Defender, with an AC crazy Duelist build (with Imp. Combat Expertise and so forth), would work great. You hit attempt to hit my charge, I get an attack. I hit you (most likely miss due to AC craziness, though trips only need a touch attack... hmm.... EWM 1?) move one step back. I switch places with my charge. She is now one step out of your reach and your blow glances off my chiseled chin. Makes for a great cohort. Thats all I can think of for now.
AlienFromBeyond 10-03-04, 05:45 PM	An Illithid Savant who uses the abilities from it to become a Teflmmar Shadowlord like character. Use Half-Illithid, and take stuff like Shadow Pounce, Blink Dog's Dimension Door ability, and others. Hell, Illithid Savant anything that uses its abilities to combine stuff that you normally can't or is too hard to. It becomes quite good if you can convince a DM to to let you use Aquire Class Feature to get Aquire Special Attack/Quality, or vice-versa.
SigmaJargon 10-03-04, 05:56 PM	I'm currently toying with a throughly evil build that focuses on thrwing negative levels and ability damage around. I'm nearing completeion, so I think I'll wait, and reserve the general content for its own thread.
Caelic 10-03-04, 05:57 PM	The Sharrash has been errataed to 19-20/*3. They haven't actually released the errata, yet, I don't think...but when the setting designer says repeatedly, "This is a mistake and will be errataed," that's official enough for me. It's still broken at 19-20/*3, but at least it's not AS broken. Marshal does, indeed, work VERY nicely with Artificer, and pops up in many of my Artificer builds.
DBoot 10-03-04, 06:04 PM	Ooo, haven't seen that notice. I hang out almost exclusively on this board. [shrug] Still, Disciple of Dispater->Weapon Master with Lion's charge and Shock trooper. Fun!
LightAcolyte 10-03-04, 06:30 PM	Hmm..where can one pick up Boots of Lion's Charge? :confused: Sounds...fascinating.... :D
LordKiwi 10-03-04, 06:35 PM	Someone with Improved Trip could polymorph into a creature with the Trip ability, making attack/trip/attack all one attack. You could make a good cohort body guard, something like a (Multiheaded?) Worg Devout Defender/Warhulk. They can guard you as well as making everyone within reach get attacked twice and fall over. Needs some work to get the reach up on the attacks, or a change of race. Lord Kiwi
handforged 10-03-04, 10:43 PM	Here is my Goliath Wrassler. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=317283) ~hf
SaintX 10-04-04, 09:15 AM	I'm trying to figure out a way to make an Monk / Ur-Priest / Sacred Fist build work. But the skill requirements for Ur-priest are giving me a headache. human paragon 1 monk 6 ur priest 1 sacred fist 10 human paragon 2 or ur priest 2 (UP2 earlier of you want topower divine feats) shiba protecter 1
HoshiAdam 10-04-04, 10:17 AM	One build that I have been toying with is the Tactical Fighter - not specializing in one type of combat, but able to do Power Attack / Tripping / Expertise / Two Weapon Fighting(or flurry) / Spring Attack / Disarm tolerably well. Everyone keeps saying some of the combinations are sub-optimal, but the goal of the build is to have flexibility in combat.
Spellbinded 10-04-04, 10:23 AM	I came up with something rather insane recently - there's really nothing else to call it except "Mr. Adventurer". Half Elf Paragon 3/Human Paragon 3/Nentyar Hunter 5/Sword of Righteousness 3/Wonderworker 3/Exotic Weapons Master 3. What I started with, a "just for fun" build, actually came up fairly useful. I specifically like making him focus on either a double weapon or a spiked chain (usually the chain, in which case I drop a Sword of Righteousness level and add a Swashbuckler level - gotta have weapon finesse ;) ). He ends up with a +14 base attack, though if he takes flurry of strikes (hence the double weapon or chain), it drops to +12 and gives him four attacks. He has some pretty nice saves with +14, +10, +12, (or 13/11/12 if you take a 3rd Sword of Righteousness level instead of the Swashbuckler) and some inane skill bonuses - +2 Search, +3 Listen, +5 Gather Information, +7 Diplomacy, +8 Spot, and +4 to all other Charisma based skills. Feats go like so - 1st - Nymph's Kiss, Alertness. 3rd - Skill Knowledge (at the same level you take Adaptive Learning - three adaptive skills!). 4th - Track. 6th - Combat Casting. 9th - Knight of Stars. 12th - Gift of Discernment, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (whatever you want). 13th - Nimbus of Light. 14th - (Either another Exalted feat or Weapon Finesse). 15th - Sanctify Weapon and Weapon Focus (same as the EWP). 16th - Liira's Blessing. 17th - Sacred Vow. 18th (Depends on your weapon of choice.)
Maarten 10-04-04, 10:48 AM	human paragon 1 monk 6 ur priest 1 sacred fist 10 human paragon 2 or ur priest 2 (UP2 earlier of you want topower divine feats) shiba protecter 1 Where can I find Human Paragon? Isn't it in Arcana Unearthed?
SaintX 10-04-04, 11:36 AM	Unearthed Arcana
RPGhaulsass 10-04-04, 12:41 PM	Where's the Artificer? The closest thing I've found was a Gnome Artificer, in the Unapproachable East. Is that the correct one? If not, is this Prc any good?:)
Norad 10-04-04, 01:12 PM	Goliath Wrassler(just for you, Caelic, cuz I love Goliaths so much:D): Level 1: Wolf Totem Barbarian(UA) - Mountain Rage(Racial Substitution), FEAT: Endurance Level 2: Wolf Totem Barbarian(UA) - FEAT: Improved Trip(bonus) Level 3: Stoneblessed(Dwarf) 1 - Stonebond, FEAT: Power Attack Level 4: Stoneblessed(Dwarf) 2 - Racial Battle Technique Level 5: Stoneblessed(Dwarf) 3 - Stoneborn, +2 Con Level 6: Fighter 1 - FEAT: Cleave, Reckless Rage Level 7: Battlerager 1 - Rage +1/day, Rock gut, Gruff Level 8: Battlerager 2 - Fearless, FEAT: Close Quarters Fighting Level 9: Battlerager 3 - Rage +1/day, FEAT: Owlbear Berserker, Improved Unarmed Strike(bonus) Level 10: Bear Warrior 1 - Black Bear form Level 11: Bear Warrior 2 Level 12: Bear Warrior 3 - Scent, FEAT: Clever Wrestling Level 13: Bear Warrior 4 Leve 14: Bear Warrior 5 - Brown Bear form Level 15: Reaping Mauler 1 - FEAT: Snow Tiger Berserker, Improved Grapple(bonus), Mobility(bonus) Level 16: Reaping Mauler 2 - Adept Wrestling +1 Level 17: Reaping Mauler 3 - Counter grapple, Sleeper lock Level 18: Reaping Mauler 4 - Adept Wrestling +2, FEAT: Ettercap Berserker Level 19: Reaping Mauler 5 - Devastating grapple Level 20: Warshaper 1 - Morphic Immunities, Morphic Weapons Grapple check(assuming base 18 Str and all adds going into Str): +8 Base Str, +4 Powerful Build, +4 Owlbear Berserker, +4 Improved Grapple, +2 Adept Wrestling, +10 Rage Str bonus, +18 BAB = +50 Grapple damage: 2d6+18 Snow Tiger lets him make a full attack with his natural weapons at the end of a charge as well. And gets better against larger opponents obviously. This build waits a long time to go into Reaping Mauler, but it is one of those PrCs I figure you don't want to go into until you have a lot of tricks lined up to make everything really click. Many DMs I know also allow Goliath Bear Warrior to take Powerful Wild Shape since the Bear Warrior ability is very similar to Druidic Wild Shape, if your DM is amenable to this you can add another +4 to the grapple check and another d6 to the grapple damage.
Kabol 10-04-04, 01:21 PM	Artificer is a Core class - found in the Eberron CS - its a Class built around makeing/Useing Magical Items
RadicalTaoist 10-04-04, 05:45 PM	Pseudowizard builds BESIDES Artificers, such as maxed UMD rogues and Magic Domain Clerics/Human Paragons. Dwarven Defender War Mind. The War Mind's Sweeping Strike, great against being mobbed, is only usable if you don't move very far. The DD don't move very far. Throw in Expansion, the Stand Still feat, a large and painful weapon, and the fear of being dogpiled by 8+ opponents who swarm past you to kill the party's arcane caster is gone.
Snow Savant 10-04-04, 06:04 PM	On average, I make about 1 build per day that keys in on a specific concept/theme, combinatorial mechanic, or individual mechanics. The fun thing about buildcraft today, is *plundering*. Taking official game mechanics from 3.0/3.5 books such OA, Eberron, 3.0 Ghostwalk, FRCS & its Supplements, 3.0 splatbooks, 3.5 generic sourcebooks, Licensed Dragonlance, and Licensed Rokugan (OA) ... and combining them into one big yet effective 20 level aggregate build. So when you are looking for new build ideas, plunder all your sourcebooks. OA, FRCS, and Eberron stuff can go to together surprisingly well. Sometimes you need tweakage, sometimes not. But it often pays to root through your books to find some obscure or interesting nugget of a game mechanics that can totally amp or even break your build. XO, Snow :cloud9:
Caelic 10-04-04, 06:44 PM	Here's my latest pet project--it's a group concept, not an individual, so there's a LOT of latitude, and I'd be curious to see where others will take it: The All UMD party. Consider the possibilities of a party in which EVERY character effectively has UMD. Perhaps the Fighter takes that level of Human Paragon, and the Cleric takes the Magic domain (not quite UMD, granted, but totally effective for use of wands, staves, and scrolls.) The Rogue, of course, already has his UMD maxed out. The magic-user takes a Paragon level, or perhaps finds a UMD-friendly prestige class. Then you have the Artificer...or two Artificers...or an Artificer and an Artificer cohort. Consider the implications. EVERYONE in the group walks around with Persistent Divine Power. EVERYONE in the group walks around with Persistent Draconic Polymorph. EVERYONE in the group has an assortment of other nifty Persistent spells, like Know the Shadows for the Rogue. The Artificers, of course, get ALL non-essential magical loot the party acquires, as well as a steady supply of gold, so they can keep creating the wands and staves that drive this juggernaut. The spellcasters are geared to the teeth with countermagic, to keep those nasty Disjunctions away. I ask you...would this not be a party to fear?
Sir Gummibaerchen 10-04-04, 07:38 PM	I just made my NEW favourite psionic melee build over in another thread: Ranger1/Ftr2/Psw2/Wmd8/EWM1/Hexblade3/Illthid Slayer3 (Not necessarily in that order). Feats: EWP: Bastard Sword, WF: Bastard Sword, Power Attack, 8 feats left, pick as you like. BAB 19 14D10 + 6D8 HPs saves 18/10/8 manifests as a level 10 War Mind. Special stuff: Track, fav. enemy, wild empathy, 2 Ftr bonus feats, 2 Psw bonus feats, Uncanny blow (EWM), mettle, arcane resistance, hex curse 1/day, Chain of personal superiority +4, Chain of defensive posture +4, Sweeping strike, Enduring body (DR 2/-), Favored enemy +2 (IS), enemy sense (IS), Brain nausea, Lucid buffer. At first I picked Hex/IS only for the will save, but I come to think they fit quite good. This build just overtook the Rng1/Psi6/IS9/Elo4 in terms of psionic gish builds I like to play in the future. (I know the latter build is more flexible due to his manifester level 17, but it is not quite as resistable to damage) Wow, I really like that build.
Mucknuggle 10-04-04, 09:28 PM	On average, I make about 1 build per day that keys in on a specific concept/theme, combinatorial mechanic, or individual mechanics. The fun thing about buildcraft today, is *plundering*. Taking official game mechanics from 3.0/3.5 books such OA, Eberron, 3.0 Ghostwalk, FRCS & its Supplements, 3.0 splatbooks, 3.5 generic sourcebooks, Licensed Dragonlance, and Licensed Rokugan (OA) ... and combining them into one big yet effective 20 level aggregate build. So when you are looking for new build ideas, plunder all your sourcebooks. OA, FRCS, and Eberron stuff can go to together surprisingly well. Sometimes you need tweakage, sometimes not. But it often pays to root through your books to find some obscure or interesting nugget of a game mechanics that can totally amp or even break your build. XO, Snow :cloud9: Ever consider making a thread about this? "Snow's Optimized Build o'the Day" I would certainly read this. Or perhaps a website? How do you go about organizing all these builds on your hard drive? You must have hundreds...
RadicalTaoist 10-04-04, 09:53 PM	Here's my latest pet project--it's a group concept, not an individual, so there's a LOT of latitude, and I'd be curious to see where others will take it: The All UMD party. Consider the possibilities of a party in which EVERY character effectively has UMD. Perhaps the Fighter takes that level of Human Paragon, and the Cleric takes the Magic domain (not quite UMD, granted, but totally effective for use of wands, staves, and scrolls.) The Rogue, of course, already has his UMD maxed out. The magic-user takes a Paragon level, or perhaps finds a UMD-friendly prestige class. Then you have the Artificer...or two Artificers...or an Artificer and an Artificer cohort. Consider the implications. EVERYONE in the group walks around with Persistent Divine Power. EVERYONE in the group walks around with Persistent Draconic Polymorph. EVERYONE in the group has an assortment of other nifty Persistent spells, like Know the Shadows for the Rogue. The Artificers, of course, get ALL non-essential magical loot the party acquires, as well as a steady supply of gold, so they can keep creating the wands and staves that drive this juggernaut. The spellcasters are geared to the teeth with countermagic, to keep those nasty Disjunctions away. I ask you...would this not be a party to fear?That party will be sextaculous :drool:
Shovel-Whipped 10-04-04, 10:17 PM	I imagine there was a big hullabaloo about these guys when SK was released, but I must have missed it. Anyway, here's my idea: The Sarrukh. There's potential here, I think. They cast spells as a sorcerer IIRC, so their charisma is gonna be high. Then, they take leadership. Combined with that utterly ridiculous ability of theirs to alter the forms of reptiles, all that is needed are some abilities mesh with Leadership to add followers and then you can actually logically have a reason and meathod to include just about all of the over-templated monstrosities that I've seen floating around here, as long as you tack on reptilian. Sounds like a good BBEG to me, leading his overpowered army across the planes and such.
ming_the_meaningless 10-04-04, 10:30 PM	Combine DBoots Hong Kong Film Star with the Disarmatron (if possible). Take their weapon away from them unarmed, then administer a butt-whooping to them with their own weapon, flurry style. I don't know if this has any real synergy in terms of an actual build, but it would amuse me no end :D "Stop hitting me with that...ow...you're doing it wrong....ouch...I'm offended to be near such bad technique....right, that's it! <disarm> <bash> <bash> <bash>" etc