Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Goal: to create an exceptionally destructive melee character without using magic, magic items, or high-level psionics. This may very well be the most powerful build that doesn't involve the use of items (except for any kind of basic reach weapon, and a flying carpet helps)), although this fact I'm not positive of.
Books Used: Core, Complete (Adventurer/Warrior/Champion), Races of Stone, Tome of Battle (not required), Psionics Handbook, Miniatures Handbook
Assumptions:
1) Battle Jump turns any move action used to fall on an enemy into a charge. This seems like a stretch at first, but the actual wording of the Battle Jump feat appears to actually favor said idea, and I've certainly seen it construed that way before. Read carefully, it appears that Battle Jump turns the action of falling on the enemy to deal fall damage (a move action) into a charge which deals double damage. Without this assumption, the build is still powerful, but less so.
2) Ability to play as a half-giant half-orc, or half-giant with orc bloodline, or half-orc with giant bloodline. Not vital to the build either, but being able to qualify as both races gives some very nice abilities.
3) Assumption that members not of the Taer race can learn the Battle Jump feat. I've seen this commonly used everywhere. In the event that it doesn't work, well, damage output for this build becomes slightly lower, but still higher than any melee build I've seen that doesn't abuse magic items (the character would then be a Taer, and lose Headlong Rush). Indeed: originally the qualification for regional feats was 2 ranks of regional knowledge, and I do in fact see NOTHING in UE that actually forbids use of a region feat or home region by a character not of that region's specific race; it seems like many of the regional races might occasionally raise outsiders as members of their own tribes, for instance.
4) Actually, there's a way around number 3. Start with a Taer, get battle jump, get killed and reincarnated by a druid as an Orc.
Any nonlawful alignment
Half-orc (half-giant) Fighter 4/Psychic Warrior 3/Barbarian 1/Warblade 1 (optional)/Frenzied Berserker 5 (optional)/finish with extra levels of any of the above
Breakdown:
01 Fighter - Battle Jump (UE), Power Attack
02 Fighter - Cleave
03 Barbarian - Spirit Lion Totem (CC), Improved Bull Rush
04 Psychic Warrior - Headlong Rush (miniatures?)
05 Psychic Warrior - Improved Sunder
06 Fighter - Knockback (RoS), (if not half-giant, then Improved Trip)
07 Fighter (Optional - Rampaging Bull Rush (RoS) (if not half-giant, then Knockdown))
08 Fighter (Optional)
09 Fighter (Optional - Intimidating Rage) - Leap Attack (CA)
10 Fighter (Optional)
11 Fighter (Optional- Destructive Rage)
12 Frenzied Berserker (Optional) - Shock Trooper (CA)
13 Frenzied Berserker (Optional)
14 Frenzied Berserker (Optional)
15 Frenzied Berserker (Optional) - Combat Brute (CA)
16 Frenzied Berserker (Optional)
17 Psychic Warrior
18 Warblade - Great Cleave
19 Anything
20 Anything
Note: the Frenzied Berserker levels are optional. These are just an example of what the Circle Mower can do with the extra levels. Other examples are given later.
The orders of the levels are somewhat fluid, although the Warblade level should be taken late enough to get Iron Heart Surge (if we go the frenzy route), and Wall of Blades.
Necessary Psionic Powers Known: Expansion, Vampiric Blade
Necessary Combat Maneuvers/Stances: Wall of Blades, Sudden Leap, Iron Heart Surge (optional), Leaping Dragon Stance
In the event that Tome of Battle is not allowed in your game, replace this with a couple more Psionic Warrior levels, the Leap of the Heavens feat, and the power Hustle.
Tactics:
Using shock trooper, headlong rush, leap attack, battle jump, and spirit lion pounce, the well-known tactic of power attacking -19 AC is applied to every attack; power attack damage is increased 3x and overall damage is increased 3x, which multiplies instead of stacking for a +171 power attack damage on all four hits. After the first turn, combat brute increases the power attack multiplier to 5x, and so each attack has a +285 power attack bonus. If you've decided to go the Frenzied Berserker route, the power attack bonus is replaced by a 3:2 ratio (this is not a multiplier, so it doesn't add like normal multipliers) for a total of +428 power attack damage, or +1710 power attack damage per turn.
Next, the Circle Mower has used the Vampiric Blade power to regain a decent amount of health with each attack, and used the Expansion power to increase one size category (if he has taken enough psionic warrior or other psionic levels with his free levels, he can increase two size categories instead). This, with a reach weapon, gives him a reach of 15-20 feet. As he's coming at his enemies from an angle (thanks to the jump), at some point in the trajectory
he threatens each enemy in a 20-ft radius of his landing site. Furthermore, Great Cleave will let him cleave to any enemy in this circle. Against weaker enemies (that is, any enemy with a CR less than about 20), that means death to everything in the circle; if you packed them close enough, he'd kill an average of 100 enemies/turn (hence the name). Also, the long reach makes it hard for anyone to AoO his Headlong Rush.
Knockback, if you have it, lets the Circle Mower freely bull rush everyone he hits without provoking AoO; he gets +48 to this check (+38 for power attacking, +4 for Battle Jump, +4 for size, +2 for charging, +4 for imp bull rush, -4 for Rampaging Bull Rush); this lets him knock enemies back an average of 50 feet, at which distance they fall prone (due to RBR). This keeps enemies pretty consistently 70 feet away and prone, making it darned hard for them to get up and attack him. If one takes Knockdown instead, there's still a free trip attempt on anyone hit (and who happens to survive)
The fun part: thanks to the wording of Battle Leap (which actually makes sense; it just increases the power of the "drop on an enemy" move action), the Circle Mower can either charge and jump to initiate a charge or attempt a single jump, which lets him move less distance; with Leap of the Heavens, though, he can jump from standstill without penalty as a second move action, getting another full attack on another group of enemies just a hop away. This provokes an AoO from anyone still alive (i.e. nobody). With the Sudden Leap maneuver, he can make a THIRD jump (as a swift action), gaining three full attacks, for total power attack damage of +5310 damage.
I'd say +5310 damage is pretty high, especially without using any magic.
Some variations on the class:
>The aforementioned Frenzied Berserker route gives improved power attack damage, always fun; the character could also give up the tripping feats to gain 10 levels of Frenzied Berserker, giving Supreme Power attack and achieving even more damage.
>The extra levels could instead be applied to Psychic Warrior or something that increases Manifester Level. This is useful if one replaces Sudden Leap with Hustle, or wishes to gain two size categories from Expansion.
>The extra levels could be applied to Barbarian to gain bigger rage bonuses and some useful damage reduction.
>The extra levels could be gained as a fighter, giving as bonus feats Brutal Throw, Power Throw, Quick Draw and Hurling Charge; this would add one ranged power attack to each charge, which I'm pretty sure would also knock back an enemy; this would be especially useful against, say, spellcasters or archers sitting in the back and sniping.
>More focus on combat maneuvers could give Combat Rhythm; used in the first turn of attacks, when damage multipliers are less, this could give an even larger damage output the second turn. Still, it's rather overkill to use on a single enemy.
Just for fun, I'd like to say that (assuming a measly +30 attack bonus), this is enough damage/attacks to subdue an average of 5 tarrasques on the first turn, and 8 every turn after (provided they were packed close enough together, and one had a convenient magic carpet to jump off of).
Final thoughts: would an arcane trampoline or bungee cord give even more jumps/round?
Originally posted by Senevri:
Great Wall of Text! Could you summarize this a bit, please? Oh, and don't think these numbers, even if respectable, are anything closer to "deadliest" in these boards. Also, you'll need to re-read charging minotaur.
Originally posted by jaronk:
A) You can't just wield bigger weapons at a penalty like that. Strongarm Bracers would fix this though. But more importantly:
B) Your reach is determined by your size and whether your weapon has reach, NOT by the size of the weapon. A large character with a reach weapon has a reach of 20', regardless of the size of the weapon, so long as the weapon has reach.
JaronK
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Oh alright, I was assuming it had something to do with this:
"A cumulative -2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder."
It seems odd to me that a character could wield a 40-ft spear and only get 20 ft of reach, but I guess that's how it goes.
Also: I've found some nice feat combos on these boards, but everything's pretty unsorted, and I haven't seen any fighters that can do over 1000 damage/round
And, Charging Minotaur says:
"As part of this maneuver, you make a bull rush attack as part of a charge. Neither the movement nor the bull rush provokes attacks of opportunity." I'd think this applies to the entire charge, even if the maneuver is only part of it.
Originally posted by Senevri:
using a maneuver is a standard action. maneuver is not a part of a charge, the charge is part of the maneuver. It's fair to say that whatever modifies charge damage, or bull rush, applies, but base damage will be what the maneuver states.
You might want to look up King of Smack, or the Hulking Hurler, for damage records. That being said, magic or psionics is usually involved.
Oh, and 1d2 crusader.
Oh, and read up on combat rhythm. Still, it looks like a respectable combination, but it's very hard to read. Could you summarize what you're doing there in a set of concise steps?
Originally posted by Omen_of_Peace:
This is mostly known stuff (no, I haven't read *everything* in the OP).
Take a look at the uberercharger:
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cach...eemax.com+uberercharger&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1(x)
(It's from the Google cache = unfortunately it disappeared from the archive here.)
It's all Pounce+Power Attack+Shocktrooper with sugar on top (you're abusing Battle Jump's vague wording, they use spells - everybody uses PA amplifiers like Leap Attack).
Originally posted by natenate:
Only a member of the Taer RACE can be from the Taer Region! They are Medium-size Giants with 2 racial HD and a +1 LA. They are not large, they do not have powerful build, you cannot use Permanency with Enlarge Person on them, they do not advance by racial hit dice and so will not gain size by advancement, so you cannot combine Battle Jump with Knockback on the same character.
Add that to all the other problems with your build that have been pointed out, and then look at some of the legitimate ways of consistently dealing even more damage than this.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Hmm, you guys are right. I'll have to retitle this thread to something a lot humbler and see if I can consolidate the post a lot more. However, looking at all of those other builds you've mentioned (some of which I've seen before), I realize that none of my ideas are completely new; I've just put more of them together. My analysis of some of the builds you've mentioned:
The hulking hurler IS extremely powerful, but he spends about 5,000 gold/attack on giant balls of lead, which of course he could never carry around when he wasn't raging and buffed. Still, a unique ranged fighting idea.
I've seen the 1d2 crusader before. Of course, this build doesn't do high damage; it does infinite damage.
The King of Smack is a decent build, but for the amount of psionics it uses, I'd think it could be more powerful; with this build, there's 12 free levels some of which could easily be applied to psionic warrior or manifester boosting classes, giving, for instance, Vampiric Blade, which would let this character heal even more than the King of Smack (as he deals about 2-3x as much damage).
The Uber-Charger uses as many spells, scrolls and magic items as possible; while this does give maxed damage, it could also only work once every many battles. I tried to create a build that, without any magic items at all, could still be incredibly deadly in every battle.
But, they do give me ideas for improving the build further...
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Also: you're right that a lot of problems were pointed out with this build. That's what I was hoping for, and I've fixed all of the ones pointed out while simultaneously finding ways to make it in fact more powerful.
Originally posted by Omen_of_Peace:
Vampiric Blade only heals half the base damage from the weapon.
With your interpretation of Battle Jump, why can't you jump up and down to get full-attacks until you have used all your speed for this turn ?
I've seen people do that in the past IIRC. More recently I saw people doing it with Tornado Throw (the Setting Sun capstone) to emulate "Naruto-style" aerial fighting (you throw your enemy in the air, leap after him, full-attack him several times as you both fall down).
Originally posted by idontmuchcareforit:
I like my spike chain tripper personally, your build does alot of damage, but i've seen better.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Originally posted by archerpwr:
Weaksauce. Pretty sure your math is off too.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Originally posted by Omen_of_Peace:
As far as I can tell, jumps are made as part of a move action: you can make as many as you want as long as you don't exceed your speed. And raising your speed is easy.
Also, I suspect you need to optimize Jump some more: you need to fall from 5ft above your opponent. If you consider a Gargantuan opponent that will be a pretty big vertical jump.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Hmm, good point. Although, the pits might count as uneven terrain and thus prevent you from charging across; I'm not really sure. It looks like the rule is that you can't make a jump after you've moved your movement speed, though. I'd guess you wouldn't be able to get more than 3 in per round, at most.
As for falling 5 feet onto your opponents, at level 20, you'd have an unenhanced jump modifier of about 45 (23 ranks of jump + 2 tumble synergy +5 str bonus +10 from leaping dragon stance +5 raging/frenzy str bonus), for a high jump of 11-16 feet. This is fine for jumping on a medium enemy. For larger enemies, I admit you'd need some magical boosts (albeit cheap ones): a ring of jumping would give you +10 to jump and haste would give you +12, for a high jump of 17-22 feet, easily enough to hit large enemies but not much else. This, of course, is why a magic carpet or other floating platform would be so darned useful: you can jump off the carpet so that you're already above your enemy's head, and then use another jump to jump back on.
EDIT: Actually, you probably wouldn't need to jump back on, unless your enemy has more than about 1,500 hp.
Originally posted by bruceleeroy:
A charge is explicitly a full-round action. By using Battle Jump to initiate a charge by falling on your enemy, you're using a full round action. The feat itself may not explicitly state this, but try, just try, getting that past any sane DM, anywhere, ever.
Also, doesn't Leap of the Dragon give +10 foot enhancement bonus to your jump? Which is soooo much better than just a +10 bonus.
Pretty cool build, all in all. Certainly not the most powerful ever, but even without abusing multiple full attacks in a round, it outputs a consistently optimized level of damage and, like you've said, utilizing consumables and magic items would only make it better. I had a Warblade build that took advantage of several aspects of this one, most notably Leap of the Dragon and Battle Jump.
Also, I've never seen the race restriction for the regional feats, either. Could someone back that up?
Originally posted by natenate:
UE page 40, last paragraph under Character Regions, specifically lists Taer as one of the nonhuman regions being introduced. UE 41, in the description of the Taer region, assumes that only members of the Taer race would be members of that region. As per PGtF, the Taer region has been changed to The Icerim Mountains region, which only lists the Taer race as its residents. PGtF page 8, at the very top left of the page continued from page 7, choosing a region that is normally not available to a member of your race or subrace is entirely up to the DM to allow, based on your character's backstory. An explanation of, "I want this regional feat to exploit the rules" would not be sufficient in any game.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Oh, okay. I assumed that if they were specifically racial traits, they'd be called Racial Feats. My bad. I have, however, seen plenty of other builds on these boards that give Battle Jump to a non-Taer.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Also: a Taer could get himself killed, then get a druid to reincarnate him as a different race.
Originally posted by bruceleeroy:
Any game except for every game I've played, that is.
Originally posted by Endarire:
Thanks for the inspiration for my build!
Originally posted by reis:
Originally posted by arogenith:
nay sir, its called Last Breath. Reincarnate within 6 seconds of death = no level loss. I remember that happening a few times in my last campaign
(I think its last breath, its something like that, maybe I got the name completely wrong though)
Originally posted by Grumman:
Originally posted by Endarire:
For another generation.
Originally posted by jameswilliamogle:
I prefer my Barbinder builds to this. No item dependency, at all, and still can break a Celerity and/or auto-win initiative.
Hulking Hurler builds bust this damage to hell.
Originally posted by hijaxx:
Barbinder? Break celerity? Auto-Win initiative? Please give me the details...
Originally posted by jameswilliamogle:
The Barbarian Handbook has the Instantaneous Rage / Intimidating Rage / Imperious Command combo.
Binder for the usage of staves, grappling, divinations, social skills, pouncing-c,c,c,combo-damage, etc etc. Just generally really useful abilities.
Originally posted by hijaxx:
thats..... awesome. I really have to look more at binders...
Originally posted by PlzBreakMyCampaign:
I saw this initially but I checked again after looking over the hood's link to this.
Ignore Arch. This is decent. Yes the regional stuff is hard to track through, but could I ask for a disclaimer?:
This is a multi-pouncing build (even without the shadowlord PrC). The 'triggering' of extra attacks is always going to allow you to rack up massive damage. What is harder is to get such damage in 1 attack action (aka 1 pounce).
Also about the regional stuff it says PGtF 8 says "[assigning your character a region that doesn't fit his subrace] is not against the rules" so while it might be cheesy, it appears to be RAW (so long as that race exists at all in Faerun)
My advice to calm the cheese if you really want the region: choose one of the 'other race regions' and migrate to the rashemen area's low icerim mountains from either narfell, great dale, thesk, thay, or hordelands. So you could be a gnoll or centaur slightly moved from the plataeu of thay for instance - but that's just an opinion.
Originally posted by Endarire:
This is helpful enough to warrant saving.
Goal: to create an exceptionally destructive melee character without using magic, magic items, or high-level psionics. This may very well be the most powerful build that doesn't involve the use of items (except for any kind of basic reach weapon, and a flying carpet helps)), although this fact I'm not positive of.
Books Used: Core, Complete (Adventurer/Warrior/Champion), Races of Stone, Tome of Battle (not required), Psionics Handbook, Miniatures Handbook
Assumptions:
1) Battle Jump turns any move action used to fall on an enemy into a charge. This seems like a stretch at first, but the actual wording of the Battle Jump feat appears to actually favor said idea, and I've certainly seen it construed that way before. Read carefully, it appears that Battle Jump turns the action of falling on the enemy to deal fall damage (a move action) into a charge which deals double damage. Without this assumption, the build is still powerful, but less so.
2) Ability to play as a half-giant half-orc, or half-giant with orc bloodline, or half-orc with giant bloodline. Not vital to the build either, but being able to qualify as both races gives some very nice abilities.
3) Assumption that members not of the Taer race can learn the Battle Jump feat. I've seen this commonly used everywhere. In the event that it doesn't work, well, damage output for this build becomes slightly lower, but still higher than any melee build I've seen that doesn't abuse magic items (the character would then be a Taer, and lose Headlong Rush). Indeed: originally the qualification for regional feats was 2 ranks of regional knowledge, and I do in fact see NOTHING in UE that actually forbids use of a region feat or home region by a character not of that region's specific race; it seems like many of the regional races might occasionally raise outsiders as members of their own tribes, for instance.
4) Actually, there's a way around number 3. Start with a Taer, get battle jump, get killed and reincarnated by a druid as an Orc.
Any nonlawful alignment
Half-orc (half-giant) Fighter 4/Psychic Warrior 3/Barbarian 1/Warblade 1 (optional)/Frenzied Berserker 5 (optional)/finish with extra levels of any of the above
Breakdown:
01 Fighter - Battle Jump (UE), Power Attack
02 Fighter - Cleave
03 Barbarian - Spirit Lion Totem (CC), Improved Bull Rush
04 Psychic Warrior - Headlong Rush (miniatures?)
05 Psychic Warrior - Improved Sunder
06 Fighter - Knockback (RoS), (if not half-giant, then Improved Trip)
07 Fighter (Optional - Rampaging Bull Rush (RoS) (if not half-giant, then Knockdown))
08 Fighter (Optional)
09 Fighter (Optional - Intimidating Rage) - Leap Attack (CA)
10 Fighter (Optional)
11 Fighter (Optional- Destructive Rage)
12 Frenzied Berserker (Optional) - Shock Trooper (CA)
13 Frenzied Berserker (Optional)
14 Frenzied Berserker (Optional)
15 Frenzied Berserker (Optional) - Combat Brute (CA)
16 Frenzied Berserker (Optional)
17 Psychic Warrior
18 Warblade - Great Cleave
19 Anything
20 Anything
Note: the Frenzied Berserker levels are optional. These are just an example of what the Circle Mower can do with the extra levels. Other examples are given later.
The orders of the levels are somewhat fluid, although the Warblade level should be taken late enough to get Iron Heart Surge (if we go the frenzy route), and Wall of Blades.
Necessary Psionic Powers Known: Expansion, Vampiric Blade
Necessary Combat Maneuvers/Stances: Wall of Blades, Sudden Leap, Iron Heart Surge (optional), Leaping Dragon Stance
In the event that Tome of Battle is not allowed in your game, replace this with a couple more Psionic Warrior levels, the Leap of the Heavens feat, and the power Hustle.
Tactics:
Using shock trooper, headlong rush, leap attack, battle jump, and spirit lion pounce, the well-known tactic of power attacking -19 AC is applied to every attack; power attack damage is increased 3x and overall damage is increased 3x, which multiplies instead of stacking for a +171 power attack damage on all four hits. After the first turn, combat brute increases the power attack multiplier to 5x, and so each attack has a +285 power attack bonus. If you've decided to go the Frenzied Berserker route, the power attack bonus is replaced by a 3:2 ratio (this is not a multiplier, so it doesn't add like normal multipliers) for a total of +428 power attack damage, or +1710 power attack damage per turn.
Next, the Circle Mower has used the Vampiric Blade power to regain a decent amount of health with each attack, and used the Expansion power to increase one size category (if he has taken enough psionic warrior or other psionic levels with his free levels, he can increase two size categories instead). This, with a reach weapon, gives him a reach of 15-20 feet. As he's coming at his enemies from an angle (thanks to the jump), at some point in the trajectory
he threatens each enemy in a 20-ft radius of his landing site. Furthermore, Great Cleave will let him cleave to any enemy in this circle. Against weaker enemies (that is, any enemy with a CR less than about 20), that means death to everything in the circle; if you packed them close enough, he'd kill an average of 100 enemies/turn (hence the name). Also, the long reach makes it hard for anyone to AoO his Headlong Rush.
Knockback, if you have it, lets the Circle Mower freely bull rush everyone he hits without provoking AoO; he gets +48 to this check (+38 for power attacking, +4 for Battle Jump, +4 for size, +2 for charging, +4 for imp bull rush, -4 for Rampaging Bull Rush); this lets him knock enemies back an average of 50 feet, at which distance they fall prone (due to RBR). This keeps enemies pretty consistently 70 feet away and prone, making it darned hard for them to get up and attack him. If one takes Knockdown instead, there's still a free trip attempt on anyone hit (and who happens to survive)
The fun part: thanks to the wording of Battle Leap (which actually makes sense; it just increases the power of the "drop on an enemy" move action), the Circle Mower can either charge and jump to initiate a charge or attempt a single jump, which lets him move less distance; with Leap of the Heavens, though, he can jump from standstill without penalty as a second move action, getting another full attack on another group of enemies just a hop away. This provokes an AoO from anyone still alive (i.e. nobody). With the Sudden Leap maneuver, he can make a THIRD jump (as a swift action), gaining three full attacks, for total power attack damage of +5310 damage.
I'd say +5310 damage is pretty high, especially without using any magic.
Some variations on the class:
>The aforementioned Frenzied Berserker route gives improved power attack damage, always fun; the character could also give up the tripping feats to gain 10 levels of Frenzied Berserker, giving Supreme Power attack and achieving even more damage.
>The extra levels could instead be applied to Psychic Warrior or something that increases Manifester Level. This is useful if one replaces Sudden Leap with Hustle, or wishes to gain two size categories from Expansion.
>The extra levels could be applied to Barbarian to gain bigger rage bonuses and some useful damage reduction.
>The extra levels could be gained as a fighter, giving as bonus feats Brutal Throw, Power Throw, Quick Draw and Hurling Charge; this would add one ranged power attack to each charge, which I'm pretty sure would also knock back an enemy; this would be especially useful against, say, spellcasters or archers sitting in the back and sniping.
>More focus on combat maneuvers could give Combat Rhythm; used in the first turn of attacks, when damage multipliers are less, this could give an even larger damage output the second turn. Still, it's rather overkill to use on a single enemy.
Just for fun, I'd like to say that (assuming a measly +30 attack bonus), this is enough damage/attacks to subdue an average of 5 tarrasques on the first turn, and 8 every turn after (provided they were packed close enough together, and one had a convenient magic carpet to jump off of).
Final thoughts: would an arcane trampoline or bungee cord give even more jumps/round?
Originally posted by Senevri:
Great Wall of Text! Could you summarize this a bit, please? Oh, and don't think these numbers, even if respectable, are anything closer to "deadliest" in these boards. Also, you'll need to re-read charging minotaur.
Originally posted by jaronk:
I didn't read the rest, but this is wrong.
A) You can't just wield bigger weapons at a penalty like that. Strongarm Bracers would fix this though. But more importantly:
B) Your reach is determined by your size and whether your weapon has reach, NOT by the size of the weapon. A large character with a reach weapon has a reach of 20', regardless of the size of the weapon, so long as the weapon has reach.
JaronK
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Oh alright, I was assuming it had something to do with this:
"A cumulative -2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder."
It seems odd to me that a character could wield a 40-ft spear and only get 20 ft of reach, but I guess that's how it goes.
Also: I've found some nice feat combos on these boards, but everything's pretty unsorted, and I haven't seen any fighters that can do over 1000 damage/round
And, Charging Minotaur says:
"As part of this maneuver, you make a bull rush attack as part of a charge. Neither the movement nor the bull rush provokes attacks of opportunity." I'd think this applies to the entire charge, even if the maneuver is only part of it.
Originally posted by Senevri:
using a maneuver is a standard action. maneuver is not a part of a charge, the charge is part of the maneuver. It's fair to say that whatever modifies charge damage, or bull rush, applies, but base damage will be what the maneuver states.
You might want to look up King of Smack, or the Hulking Hurler, for damage records. That being said, magic or psionics is usually involved.
Oh, and 1d2 crusader.
Oh, and read up on combat rhythm. Still, it looks like a respectable combination, but it's very hard to read. Could you summarize what you're doing there in a set of concise steps?
Originally posted by Omen_of_Peace:
This is mostly known stuff (no, I haven't read *everything* in the OP).
Take a look at the uberercharger:
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cach...eemax.com+uberercharger&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1(x)
(It's from the Google cache = unfortunately it disappeared from the archive here.)
It's all Pounce+Power Attack+Shocktrooper with sugar on top (you're abusing Battle Jump's vague wording, they use spells - everybody uses PA amplifiers like Leap Attack).
Originally posted by natenate:
Only a member of the Taer RACE can be from the Taer Region! They are Medium-size Giants with 2 racial HD and a +1 LA. They are not large, they do not have powerful build, you cannot use Permanency with Enlarge Person on them, they do not advance by racial hit dice and so will not gain size by advancement, so you cannot combine Battle Jump with Knockback on the same character.
Add that to all the other problems with your build that have been pointed out, and then look at some of the legitimate ways of consistently dealing even more damage than this.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Hmm, you guys are right. I'll have to retitle this thread to something a lot humbler and see if I can consolidate the post a lot more. However, looking at all of those other builds you've mentioned (some of which I've seen before), I realize that none of my ideas are completely new; I've just put more of them together. My analysis of some of the builds you've mentioned:
The hulking hurler IS extremely powerful, but he spends about 5,000 gold/attack on giant balls of lead, which of course he could never carry around when he wasn't raging and buffed. Still, a unique ranged fighting idea.
I've seen the 1d2 crusader before. Of course, this build doesn't do high damage; it does infinite damage.
The King of Smack is a decent build, but for the amount of psionics it uses, I'd think it could be more powerful; with this build, there's 12 free levels some of which could easily be applied to psionic warrior or manifester boosting classes, giving, for instance, Vampiric Blade, which would let this character heal even more than the King of Smack (as he deals about 2-3x as much damage).
The Uber-Charger uses as many spells, scrolls and magic items as possible; while this does give maxed damage, it could also only work once every many battles. I tried to create a build that, without any magic items at all, could still be incredibly deadly in every battle.
But, they do give me ideas for improving the build further...
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Actually, I already read through the entire section on regions in UE, and I can't seem to find this anywhere. Perhaps a page number or citation? I don't think it says that every member of a region is in fact of that regional race.
Also: you're right that a lot of problems were pointed out with this build. That's what I was hoping for, and I've fixed all of the ones pointed out while simultaneously finding ways to make it in fact more powerful.
Originally posted by Omen_of_Peace:
Vampiric Blade only heals half the base damage from the weapon.
With your interpretation of Battle Jump, why can't you jump up and down to get full-attacks until you have used all your speed for this turn ?
I've seen people do that in the past IIRC. More recently I saw people doing it with Tornado Throw (the Setting Sun capstone) to emulate "Naruto-style" aerial fighting (you throw your enemy in the air, leap after him, full-attack him several times as you both fall down).
Originally posted by idontmuchcareforit:
I like my spike chain tripper personally, your build does alot of damage, but i've seen better.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Oh. Thanks!
I was pretty sure that you can only make one jump per move action. Is that not the case? In any case, battle jump requires at least a 10' high jump, which is about 20 feet of movement
I'm sure there's better out there, but every build I've found or people have shown me involves massive amounts of magic items, often consumable ones. Sure, I could make this build better with consumable items, but I haven't seen anyone who can do as much damage with under 100 gp worth of items. Also, I plan at some point in the future to actually play this character (when I have a DM I want to get back at).
Originally posted by archerpwr:
Weaksauce. Pretty sure your math is off too.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Oh? I've run through all the calculations twice, and I didn't see anything off. If you see something I've wrong, please go ahead and tell me (this is my first optimized character build), but dismissive comments are completely useless and a little mean.
Originally posted by Omen_of_Peace:
So if you have 2 5ft pits separated by 15ft you can't jump-run-jump ?
As far as I can tell, jumps are made as part of a move action: you can make as many as you want as long as you don't exceed your speed. And raising your speed is easy.
Also, I suspect you need to optimize Jump some more: you need to fall from 5ft above your opponent. If you consider a Gargantuan opponent that will be a pretty big vertical jump.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Hmm, good point. Although, the pits might count as uneven terrain and thus prevent you from charging across; I'm not really sure. It looks like the rule is that you can't make a jump after you've moved your movement speed, though. I'd guess you wouldn't be able to get more than 3 in per round, at most.
As for falling 5 feet onto your opponents, at level 20, you'd have an unenhanced jump modifier of about 45 (23 ranks of jump + 2 tumble synergy +5 str bonus +10 from leaping dragon stance +5 raging/frenzy str bonus), for a high jump of 11-16 feet. This is fine for jumping on a medium enemy. For larger enemies, I admit you'd need some magical boosts (albeit cheap ones): a ring of jumping would give you +10 to jump and haste would give you +12, for a high jump of 17-22 feet, easily enough to hit large enemies but not much else. This, of course, is why a magic carpet or other floating platform would be so darned useful: you can jump off the carpet so that you're already above your enemy's head, and then use another jump to jump back on.
EDIT: Actually, you probably wouldn't need to jump back on, unless your enemy has more than about 1,500 hp.
Originally posted by bruceleeroy:
A charge is explicitly a full-round action. By using Battle Jump to initiate a charge by falling on your enemy, you're using a full round action. The feat itself may not explicitly state this, but try, just try, getting that past any sane DM, anywhere, ever.
Also, doesn't Leap of the Dragon give +10 foot enhancement bonus to your jump? Which is soooo much better than just a +10 bonus.
Pretty cool build, all in all. Certainly not the most powerful ever, but even without abusing multiple full attacks in a round, it outputs a consistently optimized level of damage and, like you've said, utilizing consumables and magic items would only make it better. I had a Warblade build that took advantage of several aspects of this one, most notably Leap of the Dragon and Battle Jump.
Also, I've never seen the race restriction for the regional feats, either. Could someone back that up?
Originally posted by natenate:
UE page 40, last paragraph under Character Regions, specifically lists Taer as one of the nonhuman regions being introduced. UE 41, in the description of the Taer region, assumes that only members of the Taer race would be members of that region. As per PGtF, the Taer region has been changed to The Icerim Mountains region, which only lists the Taer race as its residents. PGtF page 8, at the very top left of the page continued from page 7, choosing a region that is normally not available to a member of your race or subrace is entirely up to the DM to allow, based on your character's backstory. An explanation of, "I want this regional feat to exploit the rules" would not be sufficient in any game.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Oh, okay. I assumed that if they were specifically racial traits, they'd be called Racial Feats. My bad. I have, however, seen plenty of other builds on these boards that give Battle Jump to a non-Taer.
Originally posted by 17flyingaxes:
Also: a Taer could get himself killed, then get a druid to reincarnate him as a different race.
Originally posted by bruceleeroy:
Bolding mine.
Any game except for every game I've played, that is.
Originally posted by Endarire:
Thanks for the inspiration for my build!
Originally posted by reis:
Which has a less than one in ten chance of turning you into a half orc and costs you a level every time. Who's abusing magic now?
Originally posted by arogenith:
nay sir, its called Last Breath. Reincarnate within 6 seconds of death = no level loss. I remember that happening a few times in my last campaign
(I think its last breath, its something like that, maybe I got the name completely wrong though)Originally posted by Grumman:
He has to hold it in the middle, so the back 20 feet counterbalances the front 20 feet.
Originally posted by Endarire:
For another generation.
Originally posted by jameswilliamogle:
I prefer my Barbinder builds to this. No item dependency, at all, and still can break a Celerity and/or auto-win initiative.
Hulking Hurler builds bust this damage to hell.
Originally posted by hijaxx:
Barbinder? Break celerity? Auto-Win initiative? Please give me the details...
Originally posted by jameswilliamogle:
Probably easier to show the link... http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3821.0(x) for Barbinders
The Barbarian Handbook has the Instantaneous Rage / Intimidating Rage / Imperious Command combo.
Binder for the usage of staves, grappling, divinations, social skills, pouncing-c,c,c,combo-damage, etc etc. Just generally really useful abilities.
Originally posted by hijaxx:
thats..... awesome. I really have to look more at binders...
Originally posted by PlzBreakMyCampaign:
I saw this initially but I checked again after looking over the hood's link to this.
Ignore Arch. This is decent. Yes the regional stuff is hard to track through, but could I ask for a disclaimer?:
This is a multi-pouncing build (even without the shadowlord PrC). The 'triggering' of extra attacks is always going to allow you to rack up massive damage. What is harder is to get such damage in 1 attack action (aka 1 pounce).
Also about the regional stuff it says PGtF 8 says "[assigning your character a region that doesn't fit his subrace] is not against the rules" so while it might be cheesy, it appears to be RAW (so long as that race exists at all in Faerun)
My advice to calm the cheese if you really want the region: choose one of the 'other race regions' and migrate to the rashemen area's low icerim mountains from either narfell, great dale, thesk, thay, or hordelands. So you could be a gnoll or centaur slightly moved from the plataeu of thay for instance - but that's just an opinion.
Originally posted by Endarire:
This is helpful enough to warrant saving.
