4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

So on my triumphant return to the community, I present you with a conundrum.

Recently, one of the players in my F2F group decided he’d really like to start GMing some more. So he declared this Thursday to be “ridiculous night.”

“Ridiculous Night” means that each player needs to bring an ECL 20 character made up of literally anything we have the physical books to, with the only rule being that we can’t use infinite combos. So I’ve sat down and I’ve been poring over my books for the last day, and I’ve yet to come up with anything concrete, although I do have a couple options.

Books available:
E. Psionics Handbook
Complete Warrior/Adventurer/Arcane/Divine/Mage
Lords of Madness/Libris Mortis/Draconomicon
Eberron/Dragonlance Core Handbooks
Magic of Incarnum
Races of Stone/Destiny
Planar Handbook
Dragon Magic
Various 3rd-Party Books I’d Rather Not Use For Simplicity’s Sake.
A whole host of Dragon Magazines.

As you can see, I’m not exactly sweating for options. The problem is more from what I want to play.

I’ve come up with a couple ideas, but every day I just seem to come up with more. So I’ll hand you the best few I’ve come up with for your convenience.

Character Ideas:

Mind Flayer 15 (Savage Species rules)/Paladin 5: Hail to the Good Mind Flayer.
Fighter 8/Monk 12, focusing on shields: Captain America throws his mighty shield.
Warlock 5/Monk 15: Because everybody wants to play Superman.
Mind Flayer 15/Mindbender 5 (Assuming that’s possible): The archetypal archvillain.
Wizard 10/Master Transmogrifist 10: Que Sera Sera, whatever I’ll be, I’ll be.
Doppleganger 8/Ninja 12: Can’t touch this.
Goblin Mystic Theurge: Nobody ever suspects the Goblin.

I’m really not sure what I want to play, but as the theme is “Ridiculous Night” and I’m trying to make a character that’s, well, ridiculous, I’m not really sure which of those is the most ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, they’ll all -pretty- ridiculous, but I’m sure I (or you!) could do better...any ideas?

I think http://www.3rdedition.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6598, redesigned for ECL 20, is more along the lines of what people would consider ridiculous. That one requires books like the Spell Compendium and Frostburn which you haven’t listed, so if certain powerful spells aren’t available then you’re fairly limited on how ridiculous a spellcaster can be in comparison to other builds. Probably the most ridiculous melee build I can think of is centered around a weapon from Frostburn and a spell from SC as well, making that too unavailable. You also don’t have the PHB2 listed, which would have opened up many more superb options. If you’re going to make some sort of Mystic Theurge, go with Wizard 10/ Ur-Priest 2/ Mystic Theurge 8 and be sure to get Divine Metamagic: Persistent with a boatload of Night Sticks (LM).

You have the Dragonlance campaign setting listed, so I’d say one of the most ridiculous things you could use would be the White Dragonspawn template. That would mean making a Sorcerer-based build, but luckily I happen to have one that I think you’d like. In Dragon 314 page 36 you’ll find the Master of the East Wind PrC. The build goes Monk 1/ Sorcerer 4/ Enlightened Fist 5/ Master of the East Wind 10, which ends up with 16th level Monk abilities not counting a Monk’s Belt and 18th level Sorcerer spellcasting. White Dragonspawn’s +1 LA would leave you with one fewer MotEW level, which is definitely worth it. Feats should go Stunning Fist (Monk 1), Combat Casting (1), Power Attack (human), Draconic Heritage (gold or red) (3), Ascetic Mage (6), Draconic Breath (9), Arcane Strike(12), Extend Spell (15), and Persistent Spell (18). Don’t worry too much about Int or Wis, your highest stats should go Cha, Str, Con, and Dex in that order.

Use Persistent with Shield, Wraithstrike (CV), Bladeweave (CV), Displacement, and maybe a few other choice low-level spells. Be sure you have Blinding Breath (Draco) as a spell known to use with your Draconic Breath, it even works on constructs and undead because a breath attack is a supernatural ability and ignores magic immunity, while Draconic Breath is a personal-ranged transmutation which affects only your breath weapon. Use mid-level spell slots to Arcane Strike with Power Attack on full attacks, Wraithstrike will make you ignore most of their AC so you should hit every time. Most of your spells known will be for solving problems that your melee and breath weapon abilities cannot solve, such as divinations, teleportations, Dispels, and maybe a few extremely useful offensive spells, plus some buffing spells like Haste, Greater Mage Armor, and Greater Magic Weapon, plus protection spells like Mind Blank. A few good offensive spell choices would be Orb of Acid, Disintegrate, and Mordenkainen’s Disjunction (used to dispel opponents’ buffing spells revealed by Permanencied Arcane Sight).

Get a Ring of Arcane Might (CA) with the effects of an Orange Prism Ioun Stone added to it, the price of the stone should be halved (no item spot cost is x2, so going from no item spot to taking a ring spot is halved) and then increased by 50% for multiple different effects on one item, for 42,500 gp. Everyone in your group would do well to get a Belt of Magnificense +6 (MinisHB), as for only 200,000 gp a +6 to all stats is much better than buying the individual items at 36,000 gp apiece. Instead of getting a Monk’s Belt get a set of Monk’s Bracers, which would be the same thing only made to take a different item spot at no additional cost. A Necklace of Adaptation and a Ring of Sustenance each with the price doubled to not take an item spot is also a superb choice. Get a Ring of Protection +5 with the effects of a Ring of Freedom of Movement added at +50% cost, so it would be 110,000 gp. Get an Amulet of Natural Armor +5 with the effects of an Amulet of Mighty Fists +1 applied so you’ll still overcome DR/magic if your Greater Magic Weapon spells get dispelled, it should cost 59,000 gp. There are also a few Psionic items you should definitely have, such as a Third Eye: Sense and Boots of Temporal Acceleration (with the price multiplied by the number of uses/day you want). Don’t forget about a Cloak of Resistance, and be sure to get a Gemstone of Heavy Fortification (DCN p83). A Pectoral of Maneuverability (DCN) would also be a good item to have.

If this isn’t to your liking, I know of a few other fairly ridiculous builds I think you’d like.

I do like that sort of ridiculousness. However, assuming I can’t find that Dragon Magazine issue (I’ll dig through), what else should I be going after?

Let’s say I’m aiming at the ability to do truly absurd amounts of melee damage round after round, with whatever means necessary. How would I go about doing that?

You could always use my Fighter 2/wizard 4/spellsword 1/ur-priest 2/bard 1/sublime chord 2/fochlucan lyrist 8!

You are a druid.... a neutral evil druid without levels in the druid class. (thus explaining your ability to speak druidic)

You need a ring of evasion, and you’ll need to spend a bunch of cross-class skills.

You’ll have 9th level arcane spells, 9th level divine spells, and a +15 BAB.

Buy as many nightsticks as you can with all your money (Libris Mortis). Screw magic items, you don’t need them.

Extend Spell, persistent spell, and divine metamagic: persistent spell. Those are the three most essential feats (excluding those required to get into these classes. Make sure to take 2 flaws)

Take the spellaim feat from CV (I forget the exact name) and put up a persistent antimagic field around you, excluding you. You get to keep the benefits from all your items and buffs, but you can’t be targeted with spells (no line of effect) and enemies in the field lose their magic. You are now the ultimate melee warrior.

Grab all the buff spells you can cast, and make them persistent.

You win at melee.

If you had the spell compendium, you could really pwn, with spells like bladeweave, dolorous blow, etc.

For melee damage, there’s probably a few really good directions you could go. My favorite melee build goes Wild Shape Ranger 6/ Master of Many Forms 10/ War Shaper 4, with the feat Frozen Wild Shape from Frostburn to take the form of a 12-headed Cryohydra, and the feat Robilar’s Gambit from PHB2 so every time someone attacks you they get hit by a 12-bite AoO. However, you don’t have Frostburn, PHB2, or UA listed so that build is out.

Frenzied Berserker is good for damage, but somewhat lacking in survivability and teamwork. You really need to focus on your Will save with this character so you won’t massacre the whole party every time you stub your toe.

Cleric is one of the best melee classes in the game, especially a Human Cleric of Zarus (RoD). Go Cleric 6/ Divine Oracle 4/ Contemplative 10, with Persistent Spell for Divine Metamagic: Persistent and the Destiny and War Domains. Get a magical Keen Greatsword with Persistent Choose Destiny, Divine Power, Divine Favor, etc. via Nightsticks (LM) and you’ll have a superb melee combatant with amazing survivability. Spell Compendium would make this character a lot better, but this is still definitely good enough by any standard.

Biff’s cleric stuff in the above post applies to the build I presented above as well.

Ur-priest takes the place of cleric in my build, while offering more or less the same amount of power.

My build doesn’t do absolutely UNGODLY damage, but you’re unstoppable. Period. You cannot be defeated. Your AC will be too high with your various buffs on (magic vestements on your armor, magical natural armor etc.) to hit, since nothing can use magic against you, or use magic to aid them in striking you. You can heal yourself, and your damage will be higher than anybody else against you. Just for kicks, grab a contingent antimagic field set up to cast when your current antimagic field is dispelled (mordenkainen’s disjunction) Make sure that you cast it with the spellaim to exclude yourself.

Ungodly ranged damage is easy, but melee is a bit tougher. If you don’t like the build I presented, try out Biff’s Cleric idea.

I think I’m gonna go with the Ur-Priest idea, actually - I just like the class more, for one thing, and I can be the bad guy pretty easily. I like to be the bad guy.

Out of curiosity, what cross-class skills will I need?

Take a look at the classes for skill requirements. You will need a ring of evasion and you’ll need to take druidic as a language, which will take some explaining.

You won’t have an enormous amount of spells per day, but you don’t need it. Just make every spell a buff spell for yourself, and make them persistent. Both your arcane and divine spells. You’ll be casting as a 10th level ur-priest, 10th level sublime chord, and a 5th level wizard.

Your alignment NEEDS to be Neutral Evil, you can’t get around that.

The character explanation I had for this guy when I came up with him, is that he’s a member of a druids circle who believes that nature is supreme. He believes that all divine magic is derived from nature, and that the gods just steal the magic of nature. Thus, he is merely taking the magic back for the benefit of nature.

Ok link - I dub that build absolutely ridiculous. Well done.

First:  “Whatever I’ll be, I’ll be,” is “Lo que seré, seré.”
Second:  Awakened toad psion all the way.  All hail hypnotoad.
Third:  Hi everybody! :D

Thank you, thank you.

Drakey - 04 January 2008 05:39 AM

First:  “Whatever I’ll be, I’ll be,” is “Lo que seré, seré.”
Second:  Awakened toad psion all the way.  All hail hypnotoad.
Third:  Hi everybody! :D

Welcome back!