I will try to make this story short, but it definitely requires at least some explanation.
My DM has set me and my friends into this freaking dungeon normally for a full party of 12th level characters, however, he bumped it up a notch and made it for 16th level.
(He says he increased the CR due to a different group who have rather broken characters, apparently someone crit for over 700 damage.)
So, using my limited knowledge of the books I have I made an 11th level fighter/5th level warforged juggernaut (yep I like the warforged.) But this character is nowhere near powerful enough to survive.
(There's this 6 headed 6 armed serpent thing that has 24 attacks and completely decimates our entire party, and this thing apparently has a CL of 16 or 17.)
We cleared a few levels of the dungeon with great difficulty, but can't beat the serpent lady. We aren't powerful enough or strong enough. I have exceptional stats, an AC of 43, dr 6/adamantine.
I have a large hammer that does 3d6+24 damage including all relative damage bonuses, it crits on a 17-20 and has a crit multiplier of 4. HP is 341. Got lots of the weapon focus/spec feats and such.
Within the rules that I know I don't know if you could say my character is optimized or not, but I bought the best stuff that I could afford. There is a warmage in the party, a barbarian and a cleric. all at 16th level and have been tweaked as much as could be, but we're not used to min/maxing or optimizing or whatever.
I am looking for advice on a rather powerful melee build. One that hits like a truck and hopefully has a high ac, as I am the main tank. I would prefer not to use abilities that are limited to 3/day or stuff like that, he needs to be consistent and he needs to be the equivalent of 16th level. I don't care what race it is, but it should be a melee class.
Any suggestions here will be greatly appreciated!!!
I hope someone can help!
Given that you want to play a melee character, there is one important question: Is Tome of Battle allowed?
Do you want a tweaked version of your character? Then we need more info. Or do you want a new level 16 character?
Getting Goliath or Half-ogre or something similar in the build lets you take the awesome Knockback feat.
If it is the former, it's hard to go wrong with a classic uber-charger. A level of Lion Totem Barbarian will give you the pounce ability (full attack on a charge), and from there take Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, Battle Jump, and Leap Attack. Since you already have your character built out as far as you do, this may not be of much help for you until you can make a new character.
Lion Totem Barbarian 2/Fighter 2/Psychic Warrior 2/Warforged Juggernaut 5/Lion Totem Barbarian 9
If you are trying to be the primary tank, then go into the Knight class. With their d12 HD and various "come attack me" class abilities, you will keep the monsters off your cleric and live through the fight. The feat Improved Toughness gives you an extra HP per level you have, and most DMs will allow it to stand in place of the normal Toughness feat as a prerequisite. If you want to increase your DR, take the feat Roll With the Punches. As long as you have Con 20 and (Improved) Toughness, you will gain DR 2/-, which should stack with your existing DR. These methods may not be the greatest, but you can at least implement them with your existing character, rather than wait to make a new one. Still, if given the opportunity:
Knight 6/Warforged Juggernaut 5/Knight 9
Dungeon crasher fighter build below is strong.
I also would recomend
Fighter 2/Barbarian 1(Lion Totem)/Warblade 2/Frenzied Berserker 10.
Take feats like Leap Attack, Power Attack, and Shock Trooper. Extra Rage is helpful too.
Your tactics are run at stuff and power attack for huge ammounts without losing any to hit bonus. Then if they survive and deal damage to you, you don't die because you are a frenzied berserker. Warblade has manuvers that can help with those will saves. As does the feat "Steadfast Determination"
Be nice and buy someone in the party a wand of lesser vigor mass, and an eternal wand of grease.
If you are trying to be the primary tank, then go into the Knight class.
I'm going to pretend you didn't just write that. ;)
Seriously, knight? Even the stock fighter is a better tank half of the time. A knight's poor Fortitude save and code of conduct will hamper their abilities to tie up multiple opponents, and they lack real killing power for single tough fights.
Crusader's the best base-class tank in 3.5.
To the OP, your options at this point are either charge damage (in which case charge damage multipliers + Power Attack + Pounce and/or Dungeoncrasher are your best bets) or multi-target tanking (Crusader, chaingun fighter, Lester the Molester, etc). You can blend the two together a bit by dabbling in Stone Dragon; it's a shame you aren't a dwarf or I'd suggest the Deepstone Sentinel. (not only is it capable of tanking and slowing down a large area at once, it's also built for charging - and it can create walls wherever it needs to, which it can then Dungeoncrash people into.) But Warforged Juggernaut isn't too bad at the charge schtick on its own either.
Crusader has solid AC, d12HD the ability to delay damage, and heal yourself when you hit something.
Swordsage can push absurd AC due to being able to get Wisdom to AC while wearing light armor and dish out very solid damage
Warblade can push out absurd damage while having slightly lower AC than the above (though with a d10 HD)
You can easily twink out other builds to be comparable or better, but the above are very easy to overpower.
Or try and convince your GM to allow the alternate rules from the Book of Experrimental Might :D
Enlarge + Reach weapon, and force Snake Lady to stick in one place, and kill her with Defensive Sweep.
Better yet, use Robilar's Gambit, and for every single attack she gives you, you deal a double damage attack back to her. She WILL run out of hit points before you do.
OverPowering Attack, Combat Reflexes, and Robilar's should eat Snake Lady right up. based on your build, your MINIMUM dmg back to her would be something like 400 pts of dmg. Just make sure you get at least a 20 Dex, hokay?
===Aelryinth
Look at my Lockdown build. You're level 16...the build completes there with Overpowering Attack.
Enlarge + Reach weapon, and force Snake Lady to stick in one place, and kill her with Defensive Sweep.
Better yet, use Robilar's Gambit, and for every single attack she gives you, you deal a double damage attack back to her. She WILL run out of hit points before you do.
OverPowering Attack, Combat Reflexes, and Robilar's should eat Snake Lady right up. based on your build, your MINIMUM dmg back to her would be something like 400 pts of dmg. Just make sure you get at least a 20 Dex, hokay?
===Aelryinth
Paperweight fighter 11/wf juggernaut 5
Str 31 (using +5 tome and +6 belt)
dex 12
con 33 (using +5 tome and +6 amulet)
int 14
wis 16
cha 16
hp 341
ac 43 (adamantine armor, +5 nat, +5 deflection +7 shield etc)
weapon great hammer Large weapon damage 3d6 +24 crit 17-20 x 4 (impact speed)
exotic wp great hammer
weapon focus gh
weapon spec gh
melee weapon master bludgeon
adamantine body
improved dr
shock trooper
improved bullrush
power attack
this is just about it.
Aelryinth how is it you say I will be doing 400 pts of damage back to her as a minimum? I am confused.
When even if i crit it's around 120 or 130 pts.
basically, you get 2 AoOs against ANY opponent who tries to attack you, whether they hit you or not
furthermore, he uses overpowering attack, that lets you forfeit all your consecutive attacks in your turn to deal double damage with one attack (and any AoO you do)
thus you get: your damage*2(overpowering attack)*2(2 AoOs) each time you are attacked - assuming you have AoOs left (and with combat reflexes and dex 20 that should be 6 - and thus plenty)
so assuming your opponen has at least 3 attacks against you :
1 attack on your turn
6 AoOs
= 7 attacks
sooooo each round you deal.
your weapon damage (3d6+24)*2*7 (NOT including crits) ... that should give you around 500 dmg
Guaranteed he'll try to steal this and use it in another one of his campaigns.
(Never should have told him of quantum crystalline armor in the SW rpg. had the bad fortune of meeting a sith lord in a mechanical body covered in it. -shudder-)
@ Neo_Leviathan: Warblade has d12 HD, FYI (no insult intended). And what is the "Book of Experrimental Might?"
By george you're right! My bad
The BoXM is a Monte Cook book designed to very much overhaul 3.5, and bring fighters up to the level of Mages & Clerics in terms of raw power (ie, a Fighter is actually really really *good* at Melee combat). It's not overly mixable with standard rules though
I put six 17th level Gestalt PCs in an antimagic field against a 20th level Fighter from the BoXM (the AMF was a heck of a playing field leveler I admit). The players literally could not scratch the fighter, they ended up surrendering.
For eg, a Fighter specialised in Sword & Board ends up with abilities like "One attack per round that would damage you, doesn't" and "Take -10 to all your attacks this round. All your attacks this round are crits". Plus massively higher AC than usual (I think I was pushing AC40 in the AMF).
Rogues end up with things like "Make a single attack as a standard action. It deals +7d6 damage and stuns your opponent until just after your next turn, no save"
he means via using robilar's gambit + karmic strike/evasive attack
basically, you get 2 AoOs against ANY opponent who tries to attack you, whether they hit you or not
Isn't there also a magic item in the Magic Item compendium that also lets you make an extra attack on an AoO? So you'd get three attacks per AoO.
It doesn't really matter. If you've got the AoO's to spend, you can throw tons of damage back at any enemy. with Defensive Sweep, you even get an Attack if they DON'T move!
basically, you use your primary attack to slam her once for double damage (probably for 80+ dmg). If she tries to move or teleport, you slam her for double dmg...her Stand Still Reflex save is 90ish, or she WILL blow the concentration check to teleport if you've taken Mage Slayer; then she attacks, and you're slamming her back for 80+ pts every time she SWINGS at you (note: she doesn't have to hit with Robilar's, she does with karmic strike. Robilar's also is easier to get). She'll kill herself swinging at you.
If you still have AoO's left, at the end of her turn, since she hasn't moved, you get a Defensive Sweep AoO to finish her off.
Overwhelming Attack is awesome.
==Aelryinth
You're welcome. The BoXM sounds like fun, would you happen to know where I could find it?
I got mine from www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpres...
Some game shops sell it, some don't, depends on the store.
Warning though, it's intended to completely override the way 3.5 works a lot of things (eg, all class features are turned into feats, spells are broken down into 20 levels rather than 9, etc).
EDIT: confirmed.
Book of experimental might 2:Bloody bold and resolute. I believe this is the book you refer to as the first one has everything but fighters in it.
EDIT: confirmed.
Point, I believe there was two, and the hardcover one I linked is both of them in the one book.
I have no idea what his feats are and stuff. Don't generally look at his character sheet. Seeing as you guys gave such awesome suggestions for a melee master, you got anything for a caster?
If not you guys already helped me out a GREAT deal, we should have a much higher chance of survival now.
Thanks MUCHLY.
Paperweight AKA Sir Reginald.
Look for Force Missile Mage builds, take Arcane Thesis, Metamagic Spell (MM), and Efficient Metamagic (Twin Spell), Empower, Energize, Twin Spell, Quicken, and possibly Admixture. You can get off Energize and Empower for free, Twin Spell for +2, and then use Quicken as a finisher. Use Metamagic Rods to expand your blasting power, and Sudden feats as crushers.
And when the enemy soaks his magic missiles, he still has ALL his other spells he can still use...
If you can use Pathfinder, Intensify Spell gives him another +2 missiles, for potentially NINE of them slamming folks, and with Arcane Thesis, +0 level adjustment...MM feats that allow you to stack Metas for free, or replicate them on successive rounds for no cost (that tactical mm feat in complete arcane) are all good.
His problem is basically going to be knowing enough MM feats to do the job. Happily, MM is a low level spell, so Metamagic Rods are going to be cheap.
Note that an Empowered Twinned Admixtured Intensified MM is doing 9 missiles x 6, or 54d4+54 dmg, +2x Edge, and, say, Fiery Spell would add another 54 dmg if you were doing fire dmg. On top of this you could Rod for a Maximize, Sudden quicken a double of it, and Energize it for another +50% dmg against Undead for no level adjustment. Pounding out over 300 pts of dmg from a level 6 slot at level 11 should excite him...
==Aelryinth
I thought all the characters I made over the years were awesome and powerful. Turns out their backstory was epic and fun to roleplay, but they were just generic unoptimized weaklings.
I thank you and the rest of the community for opening my eyes a little and showing me the real potential all our characters has.
:D
If I ever come up with something crazy and epic (chances are it may already be done) i'll be sure to return the favor.
Cheers!
-Paperweight/Reginald
he wants to play a blaster mage? Force Missile Mage and Warmage is a fairly devastating combo. Arcane thesis, the right metamagic feats, and stack and layer metamagic feats. He should be able to put out a hundred point MM in a 5th level slot.
Look for Force Missile Mage builds, take Arcane Thesis, Metamagic Spell (MM), and Efficient Metamagic (Twin Spell), Empower, Energize, Twin Spell, Quicken, and possibly Admixture. You can get off Energize and Empower for free, Twin Spell for +2, and then use Quicken as a finisher. Use Metamagic Rods to expand your blasting power, and Sudden feats as crushers.
And when the enemy soaks his magic missiles, he still has ALL his other spells he can still use...
If you can use Pathfinder, Intensify Spell gives him another +2 missiles, for potentially NINE of them slamming folks, and with Arcane Thesis, +0 level adjustment...MM feats that allow you to stack Metas for free, or replicate them on successive rounds for no cost (that tactical mm feat in complete arcane) are all good.
His problem is basically going to be knowing enough MM feats to do the job. Happily, MM is a low level spell, so Metamagic Rods are going to be cheap.
Note that an Empowered Twinned Admixtured Intensified MM is doing 9 missiles x 6, or 54d4+54 dmg, +2x Edge, and, say, Fiery Spell would add another 54 dmg if you were doing fire dmg. On top of this you could Rod for a Maximize, Sudden quicken a double of it, and Energize it for another +50% dmg against Undead for no level adjustment. Pounding out over 300 pts of dmg from a level 6 slot at level 11 should excite him...
==Aelryinth
Ah, I love a good force missile mage build
If you can convince your GM to allow it, add in War Mage from Dragonlance for an extra three damage PER MISSILE for a mere five levels.
==Aelryinth
The war mage ability was errata'd to a limited number of times per day. Not nearly as strong as unlimited usage.
==Aelryinth
Darn, I never saw that one
The other possible setup for Force Missile Maging is going Sorcerer and abusing the Arcane Fusion & Arcane Spellsurge spells, along with the Arcane Preparation Feat.
Step 1) Prep yourself a few Twinned Arcane Fusion spells
Step 2) Cast Arcane Spellsurge
Step 3) Cast a Prepared Twinned Arcane Fusion for four magic missile spells, metamagiced as you like (within the spell limits). This one is quickened thanks to Arcane Spellsurge
Step 4) Cast another Arcane Fusion, this time spontaneously Twinning it. Sorcerer rules put this to a full round action casting time, which Arcane Spellsurge drops to a standard, netting you another four magic missiles metamagiced as you like
So, requires some higher level spells than your example, but it's netting you eight magic missile spells per round
I've searched this site and google, but may have missed it. I'll try again to find this build you mentioned.
He has even less experience with character optimization than I do. Not his fault at all, he's just used to choosing a class, choosing skills and feats rolling dice and going to town. We're not used to major feat planning.
I suppose you could say we weren't looking at the big picture. :D
Bonus - Metamagic Spell (Magic Missile)
1) Energize Spell feat
3) Empower Spell
5 - Warmage - Sudden Empower
6) Arcane Thesis
6) Enter Force Missile Mage class.
9) Twin Spell
12) Efficient Metamagic (Twin Spell)
15) Warmage - Sudden Maximize
15 - Quicken Spell
18 - Admixture Spell
20 - Sudden Quicken
Empower and Energize Spell cost nothing once you have Arcane Thesis.
Twin Spell costs 2 levels.
You get 7 magic missiles + Edge at level 10. Empower is +50% dmg, Twin is x2. So, 21 Missiles + 3x Edge in a level 3 slot, +50% dmg against undead. That's like 80ish dmg in a level 3 slot, it can be any energy type, not just force.
Lesser Metamagic Rods of Maximize, Fiery Spell are very useful.
You can cast a Quickened Empowered Energized MM out of a 4th level slot.
You can cast an Admixtured, Twinned, Empowered, Energized Spell out of a 6th level slot.
You can Quicken it into a 9th level slot.
Biggest thing here is always having enough feats avaailable to get the job done. Note this is always considered a level 1 spell, so you only have to use lesser Metamagic Rods, which cuts way down on costs.
If you cast Elemental Sheathe (Acid is the default) and adjust MM dmg to the type, +1 dmg/die.
Just with the above feats, your base 7 Missiles + Edge is going to be doing 80 dmg at level 10, 120 to undead, +21/+31 if Sheathed. In a level six slot, it's doubled once you get Admixture. You can still Maximize it for 5 pts x # of missiles + Edge and Sheathe add-ons.
Opening salvo at level 9? Twinned Empowered MM's for x3 dmg, Followed by a Quickened Empowered MM, should be about 120 dmg.
And guess what? He still has ALL his other Direct Damage feats if, for instance, he wants to drop a Sudden Empowered Fireball on a bunch of splives.
===Aelryinth
You'll want human, because you're going to be scrounging for feats.
Bonus - Metamagic Spell (Magic Missile)
1) Energize Spell feat
3) Empower Spell
5 - Warmage - Sudden Empower
6) Arcane Thesis
6) Enter Force Missile Mage class.
9) Twin Spell
12) Efficient Metamagic (Twin Spell)
15) Warmage - Sudden Maximize
15 - Quicken Spell
18 - Admixture Spell
20 - Sudden Quicken
Empower and Energize Spell cost nothing once you have Arcane Thesis.
Twin Spell costs 2 levels.
You get 7 magic missiles + Edge at level 10. Empower is +50% dmg, Twin is x2. So, 21 Missiles + 3x Edge in a level 3 slot, +50% dmg against undead. That's like 80ish dmg in a level 3 slot, it can be any energy type, not just force.
Lesser Metamagic Rods of Maximize, Fiery Spell are very useful.
You can cast a Quickened Empowered Energized MM out of a 4th level slot.
You can cast an Admixtured, Twinned, Empowered, Energized Spell out of a 6th level slot.
You can Quicken it into a 9th level slot.
Biggest thing here is always having enough feats avaailable to get the job done. Note this is always considered a level 1 spell, so you only have to use lesser Metamagic Rods, which cuts way down on costs.
If you cast Elemental Sheathe (Acid is the default) and adjust MM dmg to the type, +1 dmg/die.
Just with the above feats, your base 7 Missiles + Edge is going to be doing 80 dmg at level 10, 120 to undead, +21/+31 if Sheathed. In a level six slot, it's doubled once you get Admixture. You can still Maximize it for 5 pts x # of missiles + Edge and Sheathe add-ons.
Opening salvo at level 9? Twinned Empowered MM's for x3 dmg, Followed by a Quickened Empowered MM, should be about 120 dmg.
And guess what? He still has ALL his other Direct Damage feats if, for instance, he wants to drop a Sudden Empowered Fireball on a bunch of splives.
===Aelryinth
Just wanted to say thanks for this. I haven't been around for a while ;)