| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1SixGunLoverSep 07, 2011 2:18:01 | The campaign I'd been preparing for has been changed to gestalt rules, much to my relief (I have a build I can use). Thanks very much to those who helped me with build suggestions prior to this change, but I'm afraid your ideas won't see use. I apologize for starting a new thread on a similar topic so quickly, but figured it best to start afresh - moderators/admins may freely lock the other thread as it is no longer relevant. That said, I've been in discussion with the other members of our group and I've been asked to act as the go-between/middle man mining shiny gold nuggets of CharOp knowledge from the great minds of the forums. In other words, please help me optimize our party. Feel free to post opinions/advice/suggestions/tips etc. for any or all of the characters mentioned. First off, about the Campaign: - It's gestalt. - The DM is lenient, open-minded and agreeable (I was able to talk him into allowing a Psionic version of Swiftblade), as well as very good at what he does. - The setting is homebrew. - All WotC sources (including Dragon and online material etc.) is available, including setting specific stuff which will be house ruled/re-fluffed. Third party MAY be allowed, but we'd rather not and I'd definitely have to check with the DM. Homebrew stuff is a no-go. - We're planning our builds to 20th level. - We're trying not to step on each other's toes/steal each other's thunder. By this I mean, while it's fine (and even makes some tactical sense) to be able to fill a fellow party member's generic role in a pinch (e.g. the tank, the Batman, etc) we're trying to avoid straight-up duplicating each other's classes/abilities if at all possible - we should all be unique little snowflakes. Okay, here is what we have so far . . . NG Human male Spell to Power Erudite 20//Factotum 8/Chameleon 2/Swiftblade 10 As played by me, and as kindly built by KellKheraptis and the suggestions of various posters in the past (thanks again). I'm considering negotiating a Deathless (BoED) variant of the Necropolitan template, both for the immunities etc. and for "experience is a river". If I can pull this off, will it be worth it? CG Strongheart Halfling male Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 1/Swordsage 2/Warblade 2/Master Thrower 5/Bloodstorm Blade 4/Whisper Knife 3//Beguiler 20 From what I understand, this is the ToB Build Compendium's Stormwhisper build with Beguiler taped onto the other side as a Gestalt character. The player also mentioned the possibility of instead going Wilderness variant Feat Rogue. Which is more optimized? I guess he'll be filling the ranged striker/glass cannon/skill monkey role. LG Goliath Dragonborn male Knight 4/Crusader 16//??? This player hasn't made up his mind on the second side. He'll be the primary tank and battlefield lockdown/controller (using a ranseur) and he's almost settled on Dragonfire Adept 18 for ranged options/additional battlefield control options, but if he goes that route he's not sure what to take with the remaining two levels. He mentioned buying off the Goliath LA and taking Vassal of Bahamut for some special armor or something, although that seems a little sub-par. LN Warforged male personality Artificer 20//??? Likewise, this player hasn't settled on their second side either. He'll be taking the delicious Warforged Artificer racial substitution levels. He wants to make the most of Int synergy if possible, and suggested perhaps going Warblade and making the character a Meleeficer. Is that a good choice? Straight Warblade 20? NG Human female Wizard 5/War Weaver 5/Incantatrix 10?//Archivist 20 The party's primary divine caster and buffer/booster. She's not 100% settled on Incantatrix and wants reassurance that this is the optimal choice. She's not going to be fulfilling the primary arcane caster/Batman/God role (which will be left to me), so she's considering specializing further and going Transmuter or even Focused Specialist: Transmuter. As I said before, any and all input on any of these characters will be greatly appreciated by their players (including me). Thanks in advance to those who respond. Finally, any general thoughts on party composition/synergy? I think we should have our bases covered and be quite formidable with a few tweaks here and there. |
| #2Tempest_StormwindSep 07, 2011 14:03:05 | NG Human male Spell to Power Erudite 20//Factotum 8/Chameleon 2/Swiftblade 10 You're playing the only Tier Zero class (the spell-to-power erudite can actually outperform even the artificer or a prepared wizard with a bit of finesse, and can match them without it) on one side, limited only by stamina, and filling the other side with the paragon of versatility and one of the best prestige classes ever printed. You could probably show up asleep, and give the character one eye and a peg leg, and the list of what he couldn't "pull off" would fit on the inside of a matchbook. Necropolitan is one of the niftiest templates for the experience river, since it sets you back a level through revival but doesn't actually impose a level adjustment. You'd need something to spend the bonus XP on to take advantage of the experience river, though. Consider item creation feats or some of the XP-heavy psionic powers. CG Strongheart Halfling male Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 1/Swordsage 2/Warblade 2/Master Thrower 5/Bloodstorm Blade 4/Whisper Knife 3//Beguiler 20 It's pretty close to stormwhisperer, as I recall. Unless he's got some method of advancing sneak attack AND some two-weapon fighting, though, I'd suggest feat rogue over sneak attack rogue every time. Doubly so since the stormwhisperer uses Stormguard Warrior to boost its damage far more than sneak attack could (as I recall). The addition of beguiler is interesting. I'm curious as to what spells he'll favor. With a high enough Intelligence, I think he could turn some of them into pretty powerful effects in their own right (Legion of Sentinels can be downright scary with the right teammates, despite being a hilariously low-level spell.) LG Goliath Dragonborn male Knight 4/Crusader 16//??? Guisarme, not ranseur, I presume. With access to goliath and the combination of the only good Knight class features and Crusader's abilities, I'd suggest the other side be based off of increasing his reach. Have him spike his armor (to threaten within his reach) and fill the other side up with things like Goliath Barbarian (transforms Powerful Build into actual Large size when raging), either Psychic Warrior or War Mind (for Expansion and the Reach power; Psywar is great for a few feats and is far easier to take, but War Mind gets you power points faster and gives him the ungodly strong Sweeping Strike, which can be combined with martial strikes for ZOMG effects), and so on. Psywar actually has another excellent alternative in the Mind's Eye called Mantled Warrior, which can be used to give you Dimension Hop - a small-scale swift-action teleport that's amazing for AoO tanks and chargers alike. I think ardent might be able to do this as well, but I forget if they have Expansion on any of their mantles. The idea behind all of this is that the character's threatened area becomes its own amazing debuff, so why not make the threatened area on the same scale as, say, the entire freaking battlefield? Do note that if he doesn't have Combat Reflexes, he'll definitively lag behind everyone here, and he should prioritize Dexterity something fierce. If he has a lot of feats to spare, the only other way I know of to add to your AoO count per round is by using Psychic Weapon Master, but that's really feat-intensive. One other interesting direction here that's reasonably feat-lite is to look into the Dungeon Crasher figher variant in Dungeonscape, which can be combined with the Knockback feat (Races of Stone) to turn any Goliath or Half-Giant into a perfect position controller. As a side effect, you end up picking up most of the required feats to become an Ubercharger as well along the way, so transitioning from battlefield control to pouncing damage is easy as pie, and since they both operate off of Power Attack, the two modes synergize both with each other and with your AoO tanking. This lets you charge in for huge damage, set up an AoO tank effect instantly, smack down and reposition the opposition, and then do it all again round after round (because everything you take synergizes with everything else). I've used this before and would be quite happy to share the build - it was the most fun I've ever had with a non-ToB melee character since the early days of Complete Warrior. LN Warforged male personality Artificer 20//??? Generally that's a fine choice - Warblade doesn't need much support on its own - but another alternative would be Duskblade. I think warblade would be more fun, personally, but it's an option. To know more, I'd like to know what he's using his artificer side for. Cheap item creation? Blastificing? Buffing? There's a lot of options here - the artificer is tier 1 for a reason - and without knowing what he's doing, I can't offer good synergy choices here directly. NG Human female Wizard 5/War Weaver 5/Incantatrix 10?//Archivist 20 Anyone making good use of metamagic will be hard-pressed to find a better choice than incantrix. It's one of the first-choice PrCs for any wizard who has access to it for a reason. However, I'm not very familiar with archivist, transmuter, or war weaver optimization, so I can't really think about anything to say on this character otherwise. Once I know more about the last two, I'll offer thoughts on party synergy. |
| #3sirpercivalSep 07, 2011 15:55:41 | LG Goliath Dragonborn male Knight 4/Crusader 16//??? Ardent can do it if you use the ACFs in Mind's Eye -- actually, Ardent can do pretty much anything if you use those. Check out the Ardent handbook for more tanking fun you can do with the Ardent. Only problem then is MAD. Another option for this character (going with the Con synergy) is Totemist. With Powerful Build all his natural attacks are one size up, and for even more cheese throw in VoP since he can make his own "magic items". LN Warforged male personality Artificer 20//??? How about Psionic Artificer? Twice as many infusions, make LITERALLY anything in the game. Seriously, though, Tempest is right -- there are too many different builds for an Artificer to be able to pick a gestalt out of a hat. Warblade or Duskblade for melee, Bard or Marshal for buffing, etc. Here's one idea though -- go Binder, to be able to adjust for any situation (particularly deadly with Zceryll since you have access to online enhancements), and you could include some Anima Mage for it's wonderfulness (and the ability to ignore UMD for any arcane wands since they'll be on your class list). NG Human female Wizard 5/War Weaver 5/Incantatrix 10?//Archivist 20 Incantatrix is basically Wizard but better in every way. IMHO it's up there with Planar Shepherd for brokenness, so go for it! I'm not as sold on War Weaver; you could do so many wonderful things with Wiz5/Incant10. Io7V? You could also put in some Incarnum and Soulcaster (via the build I have posted) to get free persists on everything, and it's made even easier with Archivist on the other side. Archivist is just a wonderful class as is, and my favorite build is Archivist 11/Thaumaturgist 3/Malconvoker 5/Paragnostic Apostle 1 (to get fast healing 5 on all your summons). Add in Knowledge Devotion and you're golden. Option #3 is Dweomerkeeper, since you can cast both arcane & divine spells already. |
| #4Tempest_StormwindSep 07, 2011 16:21:33 | Another option for this character (going with the Con synergy) is Totemist. With Powerful Build all his natural attacks are one size up, and for even more cheese throw in VoP since he can make his own "magic items". Two points of interest. 1) Vow of Poverty is a trap. It is useful in pretty much only one circumstance: A polymorpher who wouldn't get their items in their combat form anyway, and doesn't want to buy wilding clasps or enchantments for everything. For any other character, it only looks good. Don't take it. 2) Powerful Build does not enlarge your natural weapons. It treats you as one size larger or your regular size, whichever is more beneficial, for three things: Size modifiers, size-related thresholds for attacks and magic effects, and the ability to wield weapons of one size larger than themselves. Natural weapons are not on that list. Of course, most Powerful Builders have ways of enlarging themselves otherwise, and those do work on natural weapons, so the point is minor. But important. How about Psionic Artificer? Twice as many infusions, make LITERALLY anything in the game. Psi artificer, last I checked, was a variant on artificer, and could no more be gestalted with artificer than illusionist could be gestalted with transmuter, or egoist with nomad. However, most of the good psionic items were pirated by mages in the MIC to be made using normal magic, so there you go. Interesting ideas - I'm always a fan of binder, and think it could go well in just about anything. Note that all of them are high CHARISMA classes, and artificers actually reward that to some extent given their high reliance on Use Magic Device. (Artificer is, in a way, a dual-stat casting class in disguise since very few of his Intelligence-based infusions use saving throws and the charisma-based UMD lets you emulate ability scores for purposes like DC. The fact that it's still tier 1 despite having this limitation shows just how powerful it is.) If you do this, note that this character is the only one on the team with decent face abilities, unless you went with the right skills as a factotum. One other crazy possibility is Diplomancer. (It's harder to do as a non-half-elf, but hardly impossible.) The drawback, of course, is a racial penalty to Charisma. ...If this character were evil, though, I think I could come up with a crazier idea. Warforged are easily the best LA +0 race to enter Soul Eater with, and that class can be made positively menacing if you're full-base-attack and have multiple natural attacks. Warforged not only can get those (Jaws of Steel, Second Slam, etc) but the warforged artificer abilities can make them obscenely good. (Your other suggestions are either great, or unfamiliar to me, so I can't really improve on them in either case.) |
| #5sirpercivalSep 07, 2011 16:26:16 | Psi artificer, last I checked, was a variant on artificer, and could no more be gestalted with artificer than illusionist could be gestalted with transmuter, or egoist with nomad. However, most of the good psionic items were pirated by mages in the MIC to be made using normal magic, so there you go. Interesting and unrelated question -- could one gestalt Psion and Erudite? Erudite is a variant psion, but the power-learning mechanism is different. |
| #6SixGunLoverSep 07, 2011 18:05:45 | Thank you for all the replies - I'll try to get to everyone. Sorry I don't know how to quote individual lines of text, and quoting everyone's messages would just look messy, so I'll try to be as clear as possible. Tempest_Stormwind: With the floating feat from Chameleon, I'll be able to switch in whatever item creation feat I desire for the day, so crafting items with the XP from experience is a river shouldn't be a problem. The Dragonborn told me ranseur because of some ability to deal double damage on a flying charge using a piercing weapon or some such. If this is a sub-par choice, let me know and I'll pass it on. Barbarian (Lion Spirit Totem, and perhaps Barb2 for Wolf Totem for Improved Trip), Goliath Barbarian substitution, Dungeon Crasher fighter are all possibilities he's considering (he'll have to change his alignment and character concept). Please do post the build you used, it'd be good for brainstorming. Psychic Warrior/Ardent options look like a very nice option, too, although I guess it's MAD. Dimension Hop is via the Freedom Mantle, correct? What about if he ditched the Goliath/Dragonborn race combo and instead went with something like Water Orc (or whatever works really) plus the Half-Minotaur template? He'd be Large size, get a whole bunch of tasty ability bonuses, and he could put War Hulk on his other gestalt side for massive strength and even more battlefield control. Would the complete lack of ranks in Int, Wis and Cha based skills cripple the character? Or is this just flat out not optimized? The Artificer (from what I understand) is likely going the meleeficer route, buffing etc. and then being another front-line combatant. However, as he's the last player to join our group, he's essentially happy to fill whatever role would synergize best with the party and be of most use (so feel free to suggest a generalized role in addition to a build). Of course he'll also be the cheap item crafter for the group - truth be told that's the main reason he's playing an Artificer. Someone suggested Artificer 20//Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 10/Druid 5 for wild-shaping into Modrons, but even the player thinks this is pretty cheesy and isn't keen on wild shape (plus the lack of Int/Cha synergy) - he'll keep this build on the shelf, probably. Finally, I read somewhere Psionic Artificer can craft both Magic and Psionic items, thus getting the best of both worlds. Would he be better optimized as a Psionic Artificer? Also, I'm afraid Soul Eater is out as we're avoiding having evil party members - cool idea, though. The War Weaver is focusing on party buffs/playing the booster role, able to cast her spells (both arcane and divine, including healing spells if we ever needed to) through the tapestry she creates on our entire party simultaneously. She's the "team mom". What other role she plans on focusing on I'm not sure - I don't know if she is either. If she goes Transmuter she loses two schools (Evocation and Enchantment, she says) and Incantatrix means another (Necromancy, most likely). Focused specialist would mean another, which is obviously too much. In fact, could standard specializing be too much, since she loses three schools overall? Is it worth it, given her role? I don't know much about optimizing divine casters, but would going Cloistered Cleric instead of Archivist and using DMM Persist be a good idea? Could this be done through the tapestry, giving us all persisted buffs? SirPercival: Thanks for the Ardent info. For the Artificer, Bard or Marshal provide more options. EDIT: I'd initially dismissed the Magic of Incarnum/Tome of Magic classes as neither I nor any of the other players (to my knowledge) has any firsthand experience with them (or even a comprehensive understanding of them), but I've been doing some reading (both of the sourcebooks and the optimization handbooks) and they seem very cool. The Binder in particular could (as you suggested) be very cool for the Artificer and synergizes well, provided the player can get to grips with it (and optimizing/playing it) very quickly. Could you please help in this regard? I'll keep reading. |
| #7Tempest_StormwindSep 07, 2011 19:15:01 | Thank you for all the replies - I'll try to get to everyone. Sorry I don't know how to quote individual lines of text, and quoting everyone's messages would just look messy, so I'll try to be as clear as possible. Press Quote, then edit the response with proper forum code. [ /quote ] (without spaces) signals the end of a quotebox, and [ quote ] (again, no spaces) begins the next. Quote this one and you'll see it in action. With the floating feat from Chameleon, I'll be able to switch in whatever item creation feat I desire for the day, so crafting items with the XP from experience is a river shouldn't be a problem. Good use for it. There are a few guides floating around about optimized item crafting that may be worth looking into as well, so be sure to check those out. The Dragonborn told me ranseur because of some ability to deal double damage on a flying charge using a piercing weapon or some such. If this is a sub-par choice, let me know and I'll pass it on. Sounds like Diving Charge (maybe named Plunging Charge, I forget the name), a flying-creature feat from Races of the Wild. (I don't have Races of the Dragon, so I didn't know dragonborn got wings.) Note that this is nice, certainly, but the ability to trip where you cannot execute a diving charge will be invaluable, as Diving Charge carries very tight restrictions on how you can move. Likewise, the best Uberchargers can outperform it easily on any charge. The typical Ubercharge combo (I'm sure you know it, but for illustration) is Power Attack, Leap Attack, Improved Bull Rush/Shock Trooper, and some method of Pounce (nowadays that's Lion Totem Barbarian 1, but there are alternatives). You can add Diving Charge to that without much trouble, but like its predecessor Battle Jump (another double-damage-on-charge feat that followed tighter movement restrictions), it's usually better to go without and look to other multipliers. See, Pounce will let you attack with all your attacks, and Shock Trooper will give your Power Attacks a dramatically improved chance to hit. You can get all of this by level 6 with next to no problems, so working with that as an example, every -1 you take on your attack rolls gives you +6 damage from Leap Attack for every successful hit you make, and if you subtract -5 from all your rolls, it goes to your AC instead of your attack rolls. In summary, this means that a level 6 character with an effective 18 Strength (15 starting, +1 at level 4, +2 magic item) and a +1 weapon Power Attacking for -5 gives us two attacks at +13/+8, dealing [weapon damage]+1(enhancement)+6(Strength)+30(Power Leap Attack). The guisarme and the ranseur both do 2d4 base damage, so that averages out to 42. According to Optimization by the Numbers, CR 6 opponents have an average of 18.8 AC and 69.2 HP. That means that we have a 80%/55% chance of hitting on those two attacks, for an expected total damage of 56.7, or 81.9% of the average monster's HP in damage from your charge. (Also note that since it's a reach weapon, strictly following charge rules, you now stop 10' away from him. If you're using Thicket of Blades or the knight's difficult-terrain trick, that means that he'll be unable to avoid an AoO if he moves to engage you, and that AoO will be made at +11. That's a 70% chance to hit for the same 42 damage - Power Attack lasts all round, remember - or another expected 29.4 damage. Total expected damage: well over the monsters' average HP at this level.) Note how high that was without Diving Charge, and that it can be done even if you can't fly, are indoors, or similar. Diving Charge makes it bigger, yes, but this scaling will increase (with bigger breakpoints at each new attack you get) as well and not have the same limits on mobility. If a Diving Charger can't dive, he loses a lot of his damage. If a reach pouncer can't charge, he's still acting as an AoO tank, which tends to be best if he's locking down targets (i.e. using his AoOs on things like Trip or Stand Still). Barbarian (Lion Spirit Totem, and perhaps Barb2 for Wolf Totem for Improved Trip), Goliath Barbarian substitution, Dungeon Crasher fighter are all possibilities he's considering (he'll have to change his alignment and character concept). Please do post the build you used, it'd be good for brainstorming. Psychic Warrior/Ardent options look like a very nice option, too, although I guess it's MAD. Dimension Hop is via the Freedom Mantle, correct? Goliaths tend toward chaos. A neutral good goliath is still lawful by their standards and can rage just fine. Likewise, if it's Mountain Rage, perhaps it's not anger but the same subtle external forces that the Stone Dragon discipline draws upon that's making him enlarge. And yes, Mantled Warrior is almost always taken with Freedom in mind for that reason. The build I used is actually posted here. I've since decided it's better to tweak the order the powers are taken, and to consider the role of utility powers like Empty Mind or Detect Hostile Intent when choosing them, and to take Practiced Manifester (War Mind) at level 18. When I wrote that, I forgot that you can't manifest powers while raging. It uses flaws, sadly, but since you're using Gestalt you can probably get away with using fewer, especially if you're progressing Crusader far earlier (just rework the later levels to get more War Mind sooner; it's not the greatest PrC but it synergizes damn well with everything you've got). Note that if you do take Mantled Warrior for a swift-action teleport, you are able to charge a foe one round (delivering a pounce, each hit of which works just like described above, except with a built-in superior Bull Rush), then AoO tank when it isn't your turn, then teleport 10' away, then immediately jump exactly 10', triggering both a charge pounce and Sweeping Strike and Combat Brute, raising the damage even higher and spreading it out over a larger area. What about if he ditched the Goliath/Dragonborn race combo and instead went with something like Water Orc (or whatever works really) plus the Half-Minotaur template? He'd be Large size, get a whole bunch of tasty ability bonuses, and he could put War Hulk on his other gestalt side for massive strength and even more battlefield control. Would the complete lack of ranks in Int, Wis and Cha based skills cripple the character? Or is this just flat out not optimized? The extreme level adjustment would make this weaker than it needs to be unless level adjustment buyoff is included. War Hulk, however, is not optimal in this scenario. It looks like it'd be good (and gestalt nullifies its main weakness of +0 base attack), but it tends to nullify a lot of good options due to No Time To Think. For example, it would prevent you from ever using War Mind, which gives you a great source of size increases and Sweeping Strike, which (unlike a lot of related options) can improve martial strikes, Pounces, and AoOs as well. (Great Swing is a full-round action, while Sweeping Strike modifies any existing melee attack roll, including AoOs and "as part of this maneuver, make a melee attack". Mighty Swing is its own separate attack action, which may work on AoOs but will not work with maneuvers, as I'm reading it.) However, if you don't want to use Expansion, and can't think of a good use for your mental skills, and your DM says that Mighty Swing works on AoOs and strikes, War Hulk may actually prove useful here if you have a Large race anyway and have no problems with the LA. The question then becomes: is if being Large is enough, or do you want to use psychic warrior (instead of war mind) for Expansion? The Artificer (from what I understand) is likely going the meleeficer route, buffing etc. and then being another front-line combatant. However, as he's the last player to join our group, he's essentially happy to fill whatever role would synergize best with the party and be of most use (so feel free to suggest a generalized role in addition to a build). Of course he'll also be the cheap item crafter for the group - truth be told that's the main reason he's playing an Artificer. Someone suggested Artificer 20//Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 10/Druid 5 for wild-shaping into Modrons, but even the player thinks this is pretty cheesy and isn't keen on wild shape (plus the lack of Int/Cha synergy) - he'll keep this build on the shelf, probably. Finally, I read somewhere Psionic Artificer can craft both Magic and Psionic items, thus getting the best of both worlds. Would he be better optimized as a Psionic Artificer? Also, I'm afraid Soul Eater is out as we're avoiding having evil party members - cool idea, though. Strictly speaking, an artificer could Use Magic Device his way into mimicking Mental Pinnacle and using a Syberis shard in Magic of Eberron that can store and swap powers known; using this he could mimic any spell or psionic power (since he isn't spellcasting when he uses his infusions or his UMD ability). That, plus most good psionic items appearing as magic items in the MIC, means that regular artificer is probably better than psionic artificer except perhaps at the lower levels, and even then I'd side with the regular arty due to magic just being plain better than powers at most levels. Note that if you're reading through MoE, the Power Link shard has a typo in it that was confirmed by both WotC and the author on the psionics boards, but the thread was pruned. Power Link shards cannot be used to break the ML cap. For the Artificer, Bard or Marshal provide more options. Neither myself nor any of our players are familiar with Binders/Pact Magic or Incarnum, so going those routes would require a lot of research and might not end up played to its full potential. I'll definitely look into it though, I've been meaning to learn that stuff anyway, just haven't got around to it. Pact Magic is definitely worth the read. The Consolidated Binder Handbook is a great place to start and you'll be pleasantly surprised what's possible. Marshal is sadly a dip class at best. I've never seen anyone take more than 5 levels in it, and by far the most common choice is just one level, followed shortly by 2. (Usually people just get it for Motivate Charisma, essentially doubling your Charisma bonus to social skills like Diplomacy. If they get a second minor aura at all, it's Motivate Dexterity (for +Initiative) or Motivate Tactics/Over the Top (used in niche builds), and the major aura they almost always choose is usually Motivate Urgency (since it's a good bonus that benefits just about any character)). I did set out to fix this a while back by converting the Marshal into a Tome of Battle class centered around White Raven (since with that, the warblade was a better marshal than the marshal), and it was quite popular in many of the CO fronts, but you did say no homebrew, so... |
| #8SixGunLoverSep 07, 2011 20:37:33 | Press Quote, then edit the response with proper forum code. [ /quote ] (without spaces) signals the end of a quotebox, and [ quote ] (again, no spaces) begins the next. Quote this one and you'll see it in action. Whoohoo! I can quote. Thanks for the tip. Thanks also for the information and advice on charging, I'm sure the player will appreciate it. The mix of BFC and charging looks quite potent and surprisingly versatile/useful (for a melee combatant). By the way, I neglected to mention, LA buyoff is allowed and we are allowed two flaws maximum. War Hulk, however, is not optimal in this scenario. You're right, and made some good points in this regard. I was going over the build with the player, and we realized Goliath offers nothing (aside from the racial substitution Barbarian level, which is really only to get large size, right?) that the Half-Minotaur template doesn't, and Half-Minotaur has many more (admittedly far too many) goodies for the same level adjustment. In addition, because of the nature of the Dragonborn ritual transformation, the character would retain his original size (Large), ability modifiers (which I believe the DM will tone down some, since Half-Minotaur currently has better ability adjustments than a full Minotaur; probably eliminate the additional size increase modifiers) and only lose out on bonus feats and other racial traits - I'm guessing this includes the gore attack, which is a shame. Because Half-Minotaur is a template, the player can also pick another medium-size race with nice bonuses to whatever scores would be best (feel free to recommend a race). The level adjustment gets bought off. Finally, I'm guessing that combined with the build you mentioned, using expansion, you'd be a size category bigger still, with even greater reach/battlefield control? In other words, whatever base race Half-Minotaur Dragonborn? . . .regular artificer is probably better than psionic artificer except perhaps at the lower levels . . . Understood. Pact Magic is definitely worth the read. The Consolidated Binder Handbook is a great place to start and you'll be pleasantly surprised what's possible. I've only just begun but it (and Tome of Magic) are making for excellent reading. |
| #9SixGunLoverSep 07, 2011 22:56:19 | So I spoke to the Artificer's player and he's not keen on going the Magic of Incarnum/Tome of Magic route, as he doesn't want to have to learn an entirely new class and try to optimize it and play it to it's full potential in a hurry - too much pressure. I told him what you said about Artificer essentially being a dual stat caster, and he's considering focusing on Charisma and the White Raven Discipline with a Meleeficer build likely based (on the opposite Gestalt side) around Bard and Warblade (using Song of the White Raven and Snowflake War Dance and Dragontouched/Dragonfire Inspiration, Words of Creation, Song of the Heart plus a Badge of Valor and Vest of Legend?), which would have good synergy with his two key stats and make him a secondary buffer/booster/skirmisher type. He's also immune (as a Warforged) to the fatigue effect of Snowflake War Dance and to the subdual damage of Words of Creation, which is neat. Any ideas for fleshing such a build out? Bard 4/Warblade 16? Work in Paladin of Freedom 2 for Charisma to saves, and use Smite to Song feat and Harmonious Knight substitution level for more Inspire Courage? Sublime Chord? Marshal? I've never optimized or played a Bard (or that role) before. EDIT: Paladin looks unnecessary, since Artificer gives good Will, Warblade gives good Fort and has a class ability that improves Reflex saves. Bard 4/Warblade 16 seems pretty solid. In addition, I've been thinking more about what other role our War Weaver can fill (currently primary buffer/booster/divine caster/healer) and figured she could probably prepare a few summoning spells. Summoned creatures would synergize well with her buffs and the abilities of our Warforged Bardblade, since they'd get all the bonuses too. The more I think about it, the more going Cloistered Cleric instead of Archivist seems like a more optimal choice for her. Sure, it makes the build more MAD and loses the ability to learn Heal as an adept spell (5th level) and cast it on the entire party via the tapestry, but Divine Metamagic: Persist would surely be more powerful. After all, she could cast a single spell to give persisted buffs to the entire party, provided they're not personal ranged. This is more powerful, right? If she did go this route, maximizing turn attempts would be a must. EDIT: Also, Sanctum Spell would potentially be used to lower the effective level of a Heal spell to be cast via the tapestry, so she wouldn't lose that ability, either. EDIT II: Persistent spell only works on spells with a range of personal or a fixed range. I imagine this severely limits the selection of available buffs it could be used on? Perhaps to the point where it wouldn't be useful for tapestry casting? I suppose you could persist mass spells, but you wouldn't even need to be a War Weaver to do that. The build I used is actually posted here. EDIT III: Spoke with the player of the Battlefield Controller and that build is definitely appealing. Unfortunately, he can't gestalt both Knight and Barbarian due to alignment constraints. Should he ditch Knight entirely? The alternative would be manifesting Psionic Lion's Charge whenever he needed to pounce. Would you say Psychic Warrior with the Mantled Warrior ACF (Freedom Mantle) is better than Ardent? Also, the two levels of Crusader would be superfluous and could be replaced with something else - what would you recommend? EDIT IV (I know, getting ridiculous): Did a little research and Ardent seems a better route all round, thanks to more PP and more powers known with no visible drawbacks thanks to gestalt. The DM apparently has agreed to allow the simultaneous Knight/Barbarian levels, stipulating that the character cannot rage as long as he is lawful and may never advance in Barbarian levels after 1st (irrelevant). Thus, the build he's contemplating is looking like (inspired by Tempest_Stormwind) Knight 4/Crusader 16//Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian 1/Dungeon Crasher Fighter 6/Ardent 2/War Mind 10/Ardent +2. Thoughts and opinions? Sounds quite cool, some sort of Psionic Knight/Crusader teleporting all over the show. |
| #10SixGunLoverSep 08, 2011 19:27:32 | THE ARTIFICER - GONE, REPLACED BY BARDBLADE WAR CHANTER? One of us with the Leadership feat is going to have a Warforged Artificer cohort, so the guy who was playing the Artificer has decided to change his character completely, since the cohort can handle crafting duties. He's changed his race to Dragonwrought Jungle Kobold and will be venerable, giving him ability adjustments of -4 Str, +2 Dex, +1 Int, +3 Wis and +3 Cha. With Dragontouched he'll also have access to Draconic Heritage, and Battle Dragon has been allowed (admittedly it fits the flavor of the build), so Dragonfire Inspiration will be adding sonic to damage. The build he told me is the following (what are your thoughts?), level by level: Bard 1//Warblade 1 Bard 2//Warblade 2 Bard 3//Warblade 3 Bard 4//Warblade 4 War Chanter 1//Marshal 1 War Chanter 2//Marshal 2 War Chanter 3//Marshal 3 War Chanter 4//Marshal 4 War Chanter 5//Marshal 5 War Chanter 6//Marshal 6 War Chanter 7//Marshal 7 War Chanter 8//Marshal 8 War Chanter 9//Marshal 9 War Chanter 10//Swordsage 1 Warblade +1 (is this possible? it's on the opposite side from the original levels)//Swordsage 2 Then Virtuoso, Bard and/or Sublime Chord levels on the Bard side and 2 Paladin of Freedom levels and Warblade levels to finish off the other side. In essence, he'll be based around Dragonfire Inspiration and CHA to everything - attacks (Snowflake War Dance), saves (Paladin), various skills/checks (Marshal), AC (Swordsage with Ascetic Mage) etc. He'd have Full BAB, 4d12+10d8+1d12+2d10+3d12+CON HD, 4 or 6 skill + Int skill points at all levels, a decent Initiator level and access to a decent selection of White Raven maneuvers plus all the CHA to everything goodies, the CHA auras of the Marshal etc, plus plenty of Bardic Music uses (War Chanter advances Bardic Music uses) to grant everyone ?d6 sonic damage. In addition, he gets (via War Chanter) the ability to use two Bardic songs simultaneously, which he'd be using on Dragonfire Inspiration and Inspire Legion (War Chanter capstone), which grants all allies within 60 feet who heard the song the highest BAB among them, which will always be Full BAB by virtue of him having full BAB. He loses out on a decent spellcasting progression but that's what our primary wizard/buffer party member is for. I think if it is legal as a build, it's pretty amazing for what it adds to the party (no wonder it's based on a build called Mr. Awesome). So what are everyone's thoughts, opinions (and corrections, if need be)? THE PARTY WIZARD/BUFFER It's more MAD, but our party Wizard/War Weaver is looking at changing to Factotum 10/Chameleon 10? or something similar on the other side would grant extra actions, better passives (HD, BAB etc), Int to a bunch of stuff, various abilities and most importantly a whole bunch more arcane spells per day (up to 6th level) and still grant up to 6th level divine casting. Arcane spells are generally better buffs for putting into the War Weaver tapestry (and she'd have a heap more of them), and she could still probably Sanctum Spell heal into the tapestry, while retaining all the other divine spells she can fit into the tapestry. Of course, she'd have to ditch the PrC levels on the other side (excluding War Weaver, which is fine) and go straight Wizard. Worth it? Seems like it to me, but what are everyone's thoughts? |
| #11Tempest_StormwindSep 08, 2011 22:55:45 | He's changed his race to Dragonwrought Jungle Kobold and will be venerable, giving him ability adjustments of -4 Str, +2 Dex, +1 Int, +3 Wis and +3 Cha. With Dragontouched he'll also have access to Draconic Heritage, and Battle Dragon has been allowed (admittedly it fits the flavor of the build), so Dragonfire Inspiration will be adding sonic to damage. The build he told me is the following (what are your thoughts?), level by level: First, yes, there's no problem. In fact, the concept of "side" doesn't really exist in Gestalt. That's just an artifact of how we discuss it. At every level, you're choosing two classes and fitting them together; you aren't building two 1-20 builds and squishing them together. Go level-by-level and it all works. Second, nine levels of Marshal? There's simply not that many good auras out there for it, especially because you're stuck to one major and one minor at a time. The rules of the game with marshal are: One level for charisma-to-a-key-ability (usually Motivate Charisma, since the one-level-dip is usually seen in diplomacy builds), three levels for the ability to switch between forms (typically between Motivate Dexterity and one other ability, with a major in there for kicks), four for Grant Move Action (bail the party out of a bad situation), or five for the extra minor and major aura. Never more than that. (Since you only have one aura of each type active at a time, the levels that grant you alternative auras are essentially not doing anything for you once you're in the right aura.) What are his minor aura choices? Also, there's some serious theme overlap between the marshal and a White Raven warblade. Leading the Charge vs Over the Top, Tactics of the Wolf vs Wolf Pack Tactics, Grant Move Action vs Order Forged From Chaos, and so on. Now, on some of these you can double up for seriously high numbers, but in most cases it's better to pick just a handful of choice auras, and use the stances or other abilities to either round out your options (my choice) or double up on key strategies (which may be the case here). Don't try to do both - the cost of doing that is the insane number of marshal levels you'll be taking. Replace most of those Marshal levels with more White Raven warblade. The warblade and crusader are better marshals than the marshal, except if you need the exact mechanics of an aura. (This is one of the reasons I remixed the marshal into a martial adept itself. But I digress.) An alternative is more swordsage (why is that there, anyway?), earlier Paladin of Freedom, or even more Bard (yes, you can get both Bard and War Chanter at the same time. You won't double-up on uses per day of Bardic Music (since you get that class feature on both sides, you only get it once), but you will gain access to the bard's Inspire Courage progression (very useful for Dragonfire Inspiration) and a whole suite of other bardsong abilities that will give you options inside and outside of combat. I don't feel confident in my ability to optimize a war weaver,and I have no direct experience with the factotum (we had a player who was going to do a pretty unusual build* in our last game, but personal circumstances prevented him from joining.) Someone else will have to help here. * Show Middle-aged Sun Elf Factotum 20 with Font of Inspiration for every single feat (it's barely doable, but doable), using two flaws for even more of them, armed with an elvencraft longbow (simultaneously a melee and ranged weapon). One of his flaws was Coward, which basically says that you fail all Fear saves; he mitigated this with ranks in Autohypnosis. Consider what such a character is capable of - or rather, what she is not capable of. |
| #12SixGunLoverSep 09, 2011 1:20:52 | Thanks again for your input, we really do appreciate it. I agree regarding Marshal, and after speaking with the player about it he's changed his build again. The new build currently looks like: Bard 1//Warblade 1 Bard 2//Warblade 2 Bard 3//Warblade 3 Bard 4//Warblade 4 War Chanter 1//Marshal 1 War Chanter 2//Bard 5 War Chanter 3//Bard 6 War Chanter 4//Bard 7 War Chanter 5//Paladin of Freedom 1 War Chanter 6//Paladin of Freedom 2 War Chanter 7//Swordsage 1 War Chanter 8//Swordsage 2 War Chanter 9//Warblade 5 War Chanter 10//Warblade 6 Swiftblade 1//Warblade 7 Swiftblade 2//Warblade 8 Swiftblade 3//Warblade 9 Swiftblade 4//Warblade 10 Swiftblade 5//Warblade 11 Swiftblade 6//Warblade 12 to end up: Bard 7/War Chanter 10/Swiftblade 6/Warblade 12/Marshal 1/Paladin of Freedom 2/Swordsage 2 Thoughts? The passives (BAB and HD etc) don't seem to offset each other quite as well as the last build but overall it seems quite potent and good at what it does - using Charisma to Initiative, bardic music which will grant us a large bonus in sonic damage on melee attacks, giving us all Full BAB, White Raven maneuvers to enhance party combat further, all while being quite a competent melee skirmisher. He considered Sublime Chord but we already have a dedicated buffer in our wizard and Swiftblade seemed to enhance his role more effectively. |
| #13awaken_D_M_golemSep 09, 2011 14:55:53 | Erudite side needs: 1) imprint powerstones b) Elemental Envoy - retrained either at 5, or 6, or 7 (psyref) back to psicrystal h) the +1 uniques feat from dragon 3) Linked power metapsi 5) Psi meditation and then you try to be a psuedo-Psion for another level or 2. Level 7 = psyref in all powers. Switch to an in vs. out-of-combat build approach. Font for Facto is not necessary with all of Psi's action adders. Just becareful on surprise and 1st round. And you rock - maybe even "boringly". May I suggest a Big Guy build after 7th level ?! |