Right, its only 5 levels deep so while it might be used in Junkyard, its a no-go in Iron Chef.
I'm personally hoping for Shiba Protector for giggles :)
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doesn't "widely dipped, rarely completed" make it a strong contender for an interesting Iron Chef? At least thats what i think :)
It does, but there are also PrCs that are mediocre or outright bad the whole way through. Since we just got one of the dippable variety, the assumption is that we won't get another next round.
Anyway, seeing as this round's judging is essentially over, I can probably share the build that I came up with too late (on the day of the final deadline when I already had two entries in).
The stub was Half-Elf Marshal 1/Sha'ir 4/Half-Elf Paragon 3/Spellsword 10/Abjurant Champion 2. Aerni Focus would make Iaijutsu Focus a class skill, and Martial Study (some White Raven maneuver, probably Douse the Flames) would make Diplomacy still be a class skill. The basic idea was to channel a spell into a weapon, Quick Draw it, then use Whirling Blade to hit an entire line, replacing Str with Cha and dealing iaijutsu damage, and channeling the spell into, well, someone (as was discussed earlier in the thread, the channeled spell probably only affects the first one hit, but the spell's effect is instantaneous, so that could be anyone, depending how the DM rules it). It would have been a nifty little Cha-SAD gish. He might have had a little trouble trading full attacks with Tim's kobold, but I'd think an iaijutsu duel (which he has pretty much no chance of losing against an unoptimized enemy) should be equally in the spirit of the thing I would think. For extra cheese, I was planning to work in Mark of the Dauntless for the purposes of multiple channeling into the weapon, Quick Drawing it, then using Celerity for the Whirling Blade attack without being dazed.
*Grumbles and prods halfheartedly at Cloud Anchorite.*Quote:
Originally Posted by WhamBamSam
Well, that certainly took longer than expected. Sorry for the delay, folks.
Standings After Four Judges
Entry Place Total Average Lawrence "Curly" Andmo, by OMG PONIES Gold 69.9 4.36875 Halfdan the Black, by Piggy Knowles Silver 64.78 4.04875 Anti the Kinslayer, by DeAnno Bronze 63.89 3.993125 Anh the Houseless, by Macabaret Fourth 62.55 3.909375 Amueli R'thaceu, by Deadline Fifth 61.42 3.83875 Onnedad Kairdwen, by Darrin Sixth 60.3 3.76875 Drylax, by sideswipe Seventh 57.84 3.615 Giorre, by WhamBamSam Eighth 57.39 3.586875 Starshatter, by Amphetryon Ninth 56.88 3.555 Mekihl Krivim tibur Ptahzur, by Darkcouch Tenth 56.47 3.529375 Subjugator Sarlagiin, by Deadline Eleventh 55.45 3.465625 Aurelius Deadfeather, by TheGeckoKing Twelfth 53.69 3.355625 Balthos of Myr, by Ingus Thirteenth 51.98 3.24875 Balthazar Naught, by Kreuz Fourteenth 51.05 3.190625 Naras, by KrimsonNekros Fifteenth 49.92 3.12 Naphesche Zarna, by Sian Sixteenth 49.71 3.106875 Experiment "Novem", by Vaz Seventeenth 47.33 2.958125 Rohlerryn, by Ingus Eighteenth 43.88 2.7425 Taishi, by smasher0404 Nineteenth 43.83 2.739375 Exavier, by relytdan Twentieth 43.75 2.734375 Meepo, by Wacky89 Twenty-First 35.95 2.246875
A hearty congratulations to all competitors, and a big round of applause for the crazy four judges who showed up!
The next ingredient will be up shortly.
PONIES comes back after a long hiatus and sweeps Gold.
Gotta love this competition.
(Doomlord!)
Actually quite miffed that Halfdan the Black got that high of a score, since i had the exact same build at some point, but ultimately came to the conclusion that it was either going to get punished hard for not actually having 2nd level Arcane spell levels (as in FtQ) or getting major penalties for lack of elegance due to the use of Bloodline feat
*Glances at standings chart* "Oh, PONIES entered? Yeah, well, that placement is hardly surprising. Heck, if Piggy had entered, I'd expect to see his entry right ... oh, there it is! Wow, congratulations to you both! Did I catch 3rd? No? DeAnno took that, well done DeAnno! Well then, let's take a look at 4th ... Macaberet, don't you know that I'm supposed to take 4th? I'll let it slide this time because clearly you were the fan favorite. Nicely done! Ah, here we go, I took 5th ... wait, that isn't my build! I only submitted the one! Where are you build?" *searches standings chart* *blinks* "Wow, 11th? I suppose I should have expected that, there was some seriously fierce competition here!"
Hey Mr. Chairman, Amueli R'thaceu isn't mine.
Congratulations to all of our fine chefs this round! I thought just about everyone's build was better than mine. I just couldn't get inspired, and then I got hung up on the idea of a Yak-Folk. After that, it was all down-hill. :smalltongue:
Amueli was mine.
Funny story. I did know you judged that round, but didn't read your judgings so as not to influence my own.
I do think that Elder Evils is pretty clear about Thrall of X and dedicated to an Elder Evil being a-okay in both fluff and crunch, what with the default group dedicated to Zargon being a cult of Juiblex with a bunch of his thralls, but in the future I'll do a better job of making the case for being able to serve two masters within the entry if such a scenario comes up in one of my builds again. I understand the impulse to smack a build down for grabbing extra feats that way.
Pun intended? And thanks. I really thought the whole swift action move with Travel Devotion+Channel Spell with move action+imbue and fire arrow with standard action was just oh so clever, but I guess I can understand the judges coming down on it from a RAI standpoint.
Thanks! I love Area Attack to bits, and was really pleased with the idea. Maybe I should've gone with my original idea for the trick of dipping Spirit Bear Totem Barbarian, burning an Armor Proficiency feat, and focusing on grapplemancy, but ah well. I'm glad you liked Giorre at least. I was quite impressed with Halfdan as well, and was really glad to see him jump up to a silver medal on the last judge.
Congrats to everyone!
I'm glad that two of my three favourites got up (Admo and Halfdan). The third was Sharlagin, so hi five to Deadline.
The lesson I learned from this journey: next time, I'll add skills :smallbiggrin:
Too late to post this, then:
Human Heritage is not necessary. Illumians already have the Human subtype. Races of Destiny p. 53:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dysprosium
"Humanoid (human): Illumians are humanoid creatures with the human subtype."
Page 90 does mention "Human Heritage" as a feat an Illumian is qualified to take, but I would chalk this up to sloppy editing, as I can see absolutely no purpose to adding a human subtype to a creature that already has a human subtype.
Congrats to everyone, and here's hoping for competition that's just as fierce in the next round (though I may go back to judging for a round or two depending on the Ingredient, my level of inspiration, and my amount of free time).
I felt the same way about my build; I was impressed by the left-field selection of yak folk. Halfdan's Dweomer of Transference trick was fantastic, and I was especially digging Giorre's use of Area Attack. Onnedad's ability to turn enemies into goldfish and trees was hilarious, and the elvencraft bow w/ Elven Archer (Amueli, I think?) was fun, too! All in all, a bunch of interesting tricks from a bunch of interesting characters created by a bunch of interesting characters :smalltongue:. I can't wait for the next round!
Aside from the obvious purpose, of course:
https://i.imgflip.com/as0p1.jpg
I feel like I'm always drawn by the shiny lure of the elegant, simple build. My philosophy was that I would have a really pretty build structure, and be able to get a lot of my tricks out of spell selection which is a huge thing in a Sorcerer stub.
I was particularly proud of the idea of using a Vortex of Teeth channel followed by Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on myself to just tag someone and then wait in the sphere for them to slowly die. It might not always work but it'll be really amusing when it does.
I guess it is a personal pet peeve of mine. Not everyone can be John Constantine (the original comic did a much better job of that then the movie btw). Figures that WotC would have an "official" okay. Not the first wonky thing they would have ok'ed either.
My reasoning came down to the fact that even with a human subtype I don't see them as human, if that makes any sense. They are derived from humans but not exactly humans--they're too different to me. Can humans take illumian only prestige classes?
That being said, I did like the character and did like the build's tricks.
Actually I liked a lot of the builds that were presented this round. There were very clever uses of channel spell put forward and I will plan on using each and every one of them in my own games in the future. Thank you very much!
Congratulations to all of the contestants! It was a difficult round but now we can move on to smaller things like Gnome Giant Slayer.
Congrats to OMG, DeAnno and Macabaret, as well as the rest of the contestants! And thanks again to our judges.
This was a fun round. I was actually expecting my build's big trick to be channeling geas in a single action for no-save enchanting, but the dweomer of transference trick ended up being the one that got the most attention.
I played around a lot with Halfdan's total build structure - my original plan was actually Bard 7/Spellsword 3/Sublime Chord 2/Spellsword +7, with a focus on channeling familial geas, but I decided to keep tinkering (especially because I thought spending two feats on armor proficiencies to qualify for Spellsword was a bit ugly). I also considered dropping half-giant and going Crusader 2/Dread Necromancer 8/Spellsword 10 for a while, which is just enough to hit +16 BAB and 6th-level spells for geas (which Dread Necro oddly gets on its list). But after messing around for a while, I decided to go with NDB, one of my favorite classes.
I still wish I'd gotten the idea for my Cyst-channeling beguiler first, because I thought it was a super fun build, but honestly it wasn't much of a warrior (despite having +16 BAB). I was really only using Spellsword for channel spell. I would have used the same geas channeling trick as Halfdan if I had gone that route, though, to dish out a geas that would force people to take care of her "babies." (Actually, my FIRST Cyst-channeling mother idea was Crusader 6/Corrupt Avenger 4/Spellsword 10, which would have +20 BAB, although I could only jump up to 8th-level spells with the Eldritch Corruption/Extra Slot tricks. Flavor was going to be a knight who had gone mad after losing her family, and so decided to begin creating a new family. But without access to necrotic termination to allow the cysts to be "birthed," I thought the concept fell a bit flat.)
Fun fact: OMG gold and Piggy silver has now happened three times, including my very first competition (Divine Crusader). OMG also continues to outpace me in terms of gold medals - I believe he's up to 8, while I'm still at 6.
Not that I'm counting or anything :smallcool:
This is why I like Iron Chef. Several of those tricks I don't think have ever been used before. They may now wind up in someone else's build or even get played in an actual game. Now, someone on the board could come along and ask, "How can I abuse dweomer of transference?", or "Can I cast transcend mortality on someone else?", or "How can I channel spells with a ranged weapon?", and we can point them to Iron Chef and say "Here's how so-and-so did it."
For Onnedad, I actually misread Multiple Channel on my first draft. I thought it worked like Duskblade's Arcane Channeling (full attack). So... a second spell after transcend mortality? But they were already going to die, so what else could I do to them? Well, duh... explosion! But then I checked on how you dismiss a spell, and realized it was a standard action rather than a free action. Had a bit of panic after the deadline, had to resubmit a few times, but I think I wound up with a much stronger combo: transcend mortality + dispel magic = dead. No save, no SR, no waiting until next turn to dismiss. I think I prefer lesser celerity though... your victim gets one GLORIOUS move action where they in invulnerable, and then... you get to mock them on their last turn while they are dazed.
Yak-Folk are intriguing... Large size, UMD as a racial class skill, Body Meld, Command Genie, and Use Staff for only LA +2? On a BBEG chassis... lots of untapped headscrew potential there.
Death Master was also something I had never looked closely at before. Teir 1 arcane casting with medium BAB! Gish with death effects... this could be very useful for some builds where Bard and Battle Sorcerer wasn't working.
Thank you. I was feeling some butthurt because I felt Dysprosium's Elegance hit knocked me out of placing (and I didn't get a chance to dispute it), but I think that makes up for it.
Random draconic nitpick. I'm not sure Rholleryn qualifies for Spellsword even with skills. The variant Wyrm of War is pretty poorly written and among the things its unclear on is exactly what the ability to exchange spells for maneuvers is there in place of. It could be read as being in place of the bonus feat every 4HD, or it could be read as replacing the entire Sovereign Archetype, proficiencies and all.
It's probably T2 due to its small spell list, but it's high T2 and is indeed a cool class. Rebukes, d8 HD, and 3/4 BAB may not be enough to bridge the gap with the likes of wizards, but they sure do help out a lot in certain builds.
I sort of agreed with you, but I sort of was the only one. But despite that the rest of the build was very solid.Quote:
Actually quite miffed that Halfdan the Black got that high of a score, since i had the exact same build at some point, but ultimately came to the conclusion that it was either going to get punished hard for not actually having 2nd level Arcane spell levels (as in FtQ) or getting major penalties for lack of elegance due to the use of Bloodline feat
Perhaps a case of "All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares?"
Dangit, why do I want to play ALL of these builds now?
Me neither :smallcool:. Ignore the spreadsheet.
You mean we're actually doing something useful and helpful to the optimization community? Aw man, time to shut it down. :smalltongue:
This is the Internet. Making cheap jokes out of the pain of others is what we do best.
i have wanted to say for a few days now, and now i can, i am very chuffed that i got 7th place on my first cook. i have been waiting for an SI that i liked, also just saying but that was the first ever level 20 character i built.
congratulations on the winners for spectacular builds.
and congratulations for the people who did not get such high scores. all of the concepts were excellent, and many took route i would not have expected.
i personally wanted to get a dancing dwarf in mithril heavy plate who cast spells whilst dancing in the heaviest armour, then i decided to try and do a cleric build and use a way to "cast arcane spells" but i just couldn't handle manipulating the feats to doing things they were not supposed to. and i wanted my build to be as elegant as possible with no way of saying "you don't really qualify" or "that interpretation is wrong" so i took a safer route.
cant wait for next round