Need hyper-optimized characters for overwhelming odds

[Jack Simth]

Let's see....

You need a Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) Cleric for one of the party members - spell of choice? Mass Lesser Vigor. Give everyone fast healing all day. Use hit and run tactics; take down one or two ... ah, drat, it's a 3rd level spell, and you're only going to have access to 2nd level spells. Hmm.

Likewise, you're a bit low-end for Druid Wildshape tricks.

Let's see...

The Touch of Healing reserve feat (Complete Mage) could help, provided you arrange things so that you don't really need more than 1/2 HP for any given battle.

Maybe four stealth-oriented characters? A Ranger, a Trickery Domain cleric, a Rogue, a Beguiler, a Rogue-1/Wizard-X (heading for Unseen Seer/Arcane Trickerster), or similar. Again, reserve feats would help - only this time, you want the offensive ones... particularly the one that gives no indication of where it is coming from (Fiery Burst). Goal being to sneak up on an opponent, kill him, without ever being noticed and without consuming limited resources (such as HP or spell slots). With this strategy, *one* character could, in theory, take out the army (eventually). Goblins are, curiously, one of the best races for this strategy - as they have bonuses to Move Silently and Hide both.

 

[Runestar]

I would advocate the use of ToB as well, not least because I do have a dragonborn warforged warblade1/dragon shaman1/crusader1/warblade+1 build in mind I feel is worth trying out. Bearing your unique circumstances in mind, I felt that endurance was the way to go, and so kept this in mind when designing said character. Not really optimized in the sense of the word, but should suffice in your case.

Adamantine body gives you dr2/adamantine, which should be useful when facing tons of mooks. Dragonborn gives you an area-affecting breath weapon you can use every 1d4 rounds. Crusader nets you access to martial spirit and crusader's strike, which are always welcome as a reusable source of healing. Stone bones improves your dr if you ever get swamped and need a little more protection. Warblade paves the way for steel wind, which lets you attack 2 foes at once. And the best thing is that both martial adpet classes can recover their maneuvers quite readily. Dragon shaman offers dr/magic for the whole party, or fast healing later on when everyone is bloodied.

So you have a little bit of everything for whatever may come your way.

 

[Nadaka]

You know, for the most part, I do not think that this experiment of yours is going to show what you hope. You are looking for the most optimized characters from the standpoint of facing an army of relatively frail foes.

The most abusive and destructive builds do not deal will with this. Instead they focus on dealing hundreds or thousands (sometimes millions) of damage to a single target.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

I agree on the 4 Crusaders. With each using Stone Power and Martial Spirit, pretty much nothing but masses of archers will be able to take them down.
And they can use terrain and/or tower shields to keep the encounter distance down to a manageable force. Tome of Battle > not having Tome of Battle. Seriously.

go go 300!

 

[blargney the second]

Dragonborn gives you an area-affecting breath weapon you can use every 1d4 rounds.

Dragonborn warforged warblade ftw! Personally, I like the wings more than the breath weapon. There's fun synergy when you combine d-born flight with the Bounding Assault strike and a piercing weapon: you can make a double move up into the air and back down, then attack at the end for double damage. Soooo much fun. (I just used that combo last game for 100 damage on a non-critical hit at 9th level.)
-blarg

 

[Nifft]

I think you're right, Nifft. However, I don't own Bo9S, and this is my first time DMing with most of the Complete books

Okay. Honestly, a lot of the stuff in the Complete books is more broken than what you'd find in ToB:Bo9S, but a lot of it is also just plain poorly written.

I suggest ToB:Bo9S specifically for this issue, not because it's more broken than other sources.

Anyway, it seems you're looking to optimize endurance. There's nothing game-breaking about high endurance, and in fact the highest endurance class in the Complete books is generally regarded as being on the weak side: the Warlock. You'll want one of those.

Next, from the PHB-II, another weak class with high endurance: the Dragon Shaman. The Dragon Shaman's aura of Vigor can heal the party up to half between combats, and will prevent bleeding to death in combat. At 4th level he gets a breath weapon, so he can do some crowd-control too. His auras should also include Energy Shield (2 fire damage to a foe who hits you or an ally).

You'll want a Cleric, too, to use the Wand of Cure Light Wounds -- the Warlock can use it if the Cleric drops, but he's not guaranteed to succeed. The Cleric might take War and Fire for domains, so he could pick up Fiery Burst [Reserve] as his 3rd level feat. Heavy armor, shield, longsword, and 2d6 fire damage at range 30 at-will? Not too bad.

For the last PC, you could make a Cleric who took a different [Reserve] feat by way of a different Domain -- that'd be a strong choice. You could also try a Bardarian Archer (Barbarian 1 / Bard 3, feats are Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot and Extra Music), to give everyone a nice boost to attack & damage rolls.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Iku Rex]

Suggestions:

Make sure all characters have a high Con.

Fiery Burst (CMag) lets a spellcaster blast away after using his spells on buffs. Available to druids and clerics as well as arcane casters.

Entangle is unmatched at low levels when it comes to slowing down lots of enemies. You may want a druid, cleric with the plant domain or a ranger just for that one spell. A wand could do.

Any character with cure light wounds on his spell list can and should use a wand of cure light wounds.

Protection from arrows can protect a low AC character from archers.

Color spray is a pretty good spell for killing lots of weak opponents.

Alter self (troglodyte), mage armor, shield = nearly unhittable mage.

An invisible cleric could keep healing the wounded (wand) with little chance of being attacked. Add sanctuary for full effect.

If you want a fighting cleric, consider a cleric archer with Elf and War domains.

I made an example character using a spiked chain. I think two of these guys, and two spellcasters healing, buffing and blasting behind/between them would be an ideal 4 character party for army-killing.

Dwarf Fighter 4

32 pb
Str 16
Dex 16
Con 16
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 8

+2 Con, -2 Cha Dwarf
+1 Dex level 4

Feats; 1,1,3,1,2,4

Power Attack, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, EWP: Spiked Chain, Great Cleave

Equipment:
250 5 potions of enlarge person (CL 1)
300 7 potions of cure light wounds
325 MW Spiked Chain
25 backup spiked chain
2500 +1 full plate
2000 Ring of Protection +1

5400 total

Tactics: Once he quaffs his potion of enlarge person (or a spellcaster casts the spell on him) he has 20' reach. Anything moving inside that reach suffers an AoO (3/round when enlarged). Any regular goblin hit is killed. Any opponent killed triggers a cleave attack. He should refrain from taking the first few AoOs if he's attacked by a large group, to ensure that he gets full use of Great Cleave. Remember the +1 attack bonus against goblinoids.

A good target for a barkskin to improve AC or a cat's grace for more AoOs.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

You'll want a Cleric, too, to use the Wand of Cure Light Wounds -- the Warlock can use it if the Cleric drops, but he's not guaranteed to succeed.

Cheers, -- N

A 4th level Warlock with UMD maxxed out and a 16 Cha can take 10 and use a wand 100% of the time. Or a 12-14 Cha with something with UMD synergy.

A wand of Lesser Vigor used ocasionally could keep people going, if there's no Dragon Shaman.

Unit Tactics: keep one side of the group near a wall and keep tower shields handy. Leave one row of squares open against the wall for maneuvering behind the shield wall. (Anything trying getting in the back is going to be within reach of nearly everyone, and blocking the next enemy's way in) You can pop them up, let those in the back heal everyone, continue fighting.
A pair of Crusaders with Shield Block and Iron Guard's Glare in the front and no hits are getting through.

 

[unundindur]

Scrolls of fireball would be suitable... Its not like a scroll 1 level up is out of lv 3-4 characters league, and the tactic the goblins use tell me to use 4 of these scrolls, of course at a range of 600 or so feet, with protection from missiles on.

Alternatively you can use a necklace of fireballs I-II. One character should be capable I would think.

In this kind of combat nothing beats a simple prepared mage, and its not even very optimized

 

[Nadaka]

Scrolls of fireball would be suitable... Its not like a scroll 1 level up is out of lv 3-4 characters league, and the tactic the goblins use tell me to use 4 of these scrolls, of course at a range of 600 or so feet, with protection from missiles on.

Alternatively you can use a necklace of fireballs I-II. One character should be capable I would think.

In this kind of combat nothing beats a simple prepared mage, and its not even very optimized

I avoided the issue of scrolls because it would depend on UMD as a spellcaster c an not automagically cast from scrolls of a higher level than he could cast.