With +17 BAB and 7th-level maneuvers, Ursula can hold her own in combat with the best of them despite not relying on common melee staples such as Power Attack. On her own side she has several ways of boosting damage such as sneak attack and Punishing Stance, as well as ego manifestation. She also has Stormguard Warrior’s combat rhythm which, when combined with her Sickening Grasp reserve feat, gives her a powerful one-two punch against strong foes. However, her true martial talents lie in her ability to lead others: with access to
haste, her various auras and her maneuvers focused on positioning allies and granting them extra actions, she can make sure her allies shine. She also has a myriad of debuffs that assist both herself and her allies: dark companion gives a -2 across the board to most relevant rolls and she can shaken opponents with Dreadful Wrath or mass demoralization attempts, sicken them with her Sickening Grasp (easily activated thanks to Stormguard Warrior) and stagger them with Staggering Strike.
These same debuffs also leave her opponents vulnerable to Ursula’s necrotic infections and her
charm spells. Ursula can quickly charm or suggest opponents and use her force of personality to control them, or she can bring them in as part of her brood by implanting necrotic cysts in them and later scrying and dominating them.
Mobility during combat is paramount, and with maxed out tumble checks (able to be boosted via Confidence of the Fated) and stances like Press the Advantage alongside a reach weapon and spells like
expeditious retreat, Ursula should have no trouble positioning herself where she needs to be.
From a utility perspective, Ursula is surprisingly competent for a melee brute/leader. Her social skills are top-notch and further augmented by Fatemaker spells and abilities. Her powerful debuffing skills aren't restricted to combat. She has the ability to implant cysts and turn their hosts into unwitting moles, scrying on them with the no-save
necrotic scrying or even dominating them outright for more than a week at a time. Her action-granting maneuvers aren't limited to simply helping her allies swing a sword, either, and she can use them to augment the movement and actions of every member of her party (including charmed, dominated or coerced allies).
Finally, Ursula was designed to remain effective at every point in the game, with her abilities scaling well from level 1 to level 20:
Spoiler: Level by level
Show
Level 1 (Warblade 1): Like most Warblades, Ursula starts off strong. In combat she can easily serve as the team’s brute thanks to high damage maneuvers such as Charging Minotaur and the powerful Punishing Stance. Dreadful Wrath is also fantastic in the early game, forcing weak enemies to shake with fright as she charges around the battlefield, and she can also provide some boosts to her allies with Leading the Attack. Moment of Perfect Mind shores up her weakest point, her poor Will save. Outside of combat she remains useful thanks to excellent social skills, in particular her +10 intimidate score.
Level 3 (Warblade 1/Hexblade 2): By jumping into Hexblade for a couple of levels, Ursula picks up an incredibly useful defensive ability: arcane resistanc. This allows Ursula to shake off the effects of many magical attackers as she cuts through her opposition. Ironheart Aura is a nice passive buff for her allies’ saves as well, and her good mobility should help ensure she can keep allies adjacent to benefit from its effects. Offensively she also gets access to the hexblade’s curse once a day, which she uses to further debuff strong opponents. Hexblade also lets her start training in bluff to add to her social skills.
Level 4 (Warblade 2/Hexblade 2): A quick jump back into Warblade gives Ursula access to Wall of Blades. This is a great way to mitigate some of the defensive drawbacks of relying on light armor for mobility and Punishing Stance for damage. Uncanny dodge is also a great defensive ability: despite her mediocre Dexterity, it is incredibly useful for avoiding attacks such as sneak attack.
Level 6 (Warblade 2/Hexblade 4): Ursula gets quite a lot from these two levels of Hexblade. In addition to getting another great defensive ability in the rare Mettle, she also gets access to a dark companion. This companion provides a passive debuff to all its adjacent enemies, lowering their defenses and making them more vulnerable to her attacks, curses and fear effects, as well as the attacks of her party. She also picks up an iterative attack, which is great alongside Punishing Stance and Stormguard Warrior.
Stormguard Warrior deserves special mention all on its own. Channel the Storm is a solid ability even without Combat Reflexes, as her mobility and reach means Ursula can generate attacks of opportunity almost every turn. Combat Rhythm, however, is the real draw. This is a fantastic damage engine for tougher foes, and helps make up for her lack of Power Attack (which is a far more common source of damage for martial characters). With her multiple ways of debuffing AC and her good mobility making it easy to grab flanking bonuses, touch attacks should almost always hit, giving her a sizable damage bonus for the next round.
Finally, on the social side, a decent bluff skill and access to the 24-hour duration undetectable alignment spell makes it easy to hide the necrotic cyst that has been growing underneath her rib cage, that throbbing reminder of an old war wound that seems to be growing a mind of its own…
Level 8 (Warblade 2/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 2): There are some significant changes once Ursula begins taking levels in the secret ingredient. First off, her skills see a huge improvement. Her excellent skill points allow her to catch up on all of her social skills and even start taking some other skills for synergy bonuses, and Confidence of the Fated is a nice boost to any of her checks. Second, her spells give her another powerful option both in and out of combat in charm person. With multiple ways to lower Will saves (intimidation/Dreadful Wrath, dark companion, hexblade’s curse), Ursula can easily convert enemies to allies. Take-charge appeal is another fantastic all around boost: it improves her social skills, boosts the DC of her spells, curse and Dreadful Wrath, improves her arcane resistance and makes her more likely to win the Charisma checks necessary to force charmed foes to submit to her will.
Level 9 (Warblade 3/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 2): Another hop back into Warblade lets Ursula pick up the near game-breaking White Raven Tactics. This is timely, as she can now convert enemies to allies mid-combat with charm person and then grant those same allies actions with WRT. Never Outnumbered is a great skill trick as well, letting her demoralize multiple foes with a single action (and because you only make one intimidate check for all foes, Confidence of the Fated is a great way to buff this up). She also grabs the Mother Cyst feat, which she uses to sense others with the same growing presence under their skin…
Level 10 (Warblade 3/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker3): ...until the next level, that is, when her access to second level spells gives her necrotic cyst as a spell. Now Ursula’s brood can grow, as she spreads the tumorous, malevolent mass to other foes. With the ability to dish out as much as a -6 penalty to saves, she can pick and choose how she would like to spread these cysts, then use her necrotic scrying to turn their carriers into unwitting spies and moles.
Ursula also picks up another source of damage in sneak attack, as well as some very useful utility spells in invisibility and resist energy.
Level 12 (Warblade 3/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 5): Two more levels of Fatemaker provide another Charisma boost and a passive aura for allies, assisting Ursula in buffing her companions. They also give her access to third level spells. This lets her pick up one of the all-time best combat spells in the game, haste. It also lets her qualify for the reserve feat Sickening Grasp.
Sickening Grasp is an interesting reserve feat in that it doesn’t grant any new actions or attacks, but instead applies a sickening effect on all of its user’s melee touch attacks. This is huge for Ursula, who can now apply this condition as she charges up her combat rhythm. Now Ursula can expect to reasonable dish out -6 penalties to most relevant saves and checks throughout combat, and possibly as high as -8 if she adds her curse.
Other than that, Acrobatic Backstab alongside a good tumble check gives Ursula more ways to activate sneak attack in combat. This is always nice for a damage boost, but becomes even more relevant later.
Level 15 (Warblade 3/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 8): All of Ursula’s Fatemaker abilities continue to improve. Her Confidence of the Fated, which now provides a very sizable +8 bonus to any given skill check, gets an additional use, and her sneak attack and aura of confidence improve. Her spellcasting also improves as she gets her hands on fourth level spells. Fatemaker’s fourth level spells are actually quite impressive: Ursula can now charm any creature, rather than just humanoids, and picks up some significant defensive/utility spells in stoneskin, restoration and neutralize poison. She also now gets access to the incredibly powerful necrotic domination, which allows her to temporarily dominate those she has infected with necrotic cysts. In addition to the combat utility this provides, this has incredible implications out of combat, as the spell already lasts more than a week at this level, especially when combined with necrotic scrying.
Ursula’s debuffing increases even further with access to the Staggering Strike feat. Staggered is an incredibly potent condition to apply, and now Ursula can easily leave opponents shaken, staggered and sickened, and further weakened via her dark companion.
Level 17 (Warblade 3/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 10): Ursula’s Fatemaker abilities improve even further and she reaches the capstone, allowing her to manifest her ego in great and terrifying ways. In significant combat she can now use the excellent buff spell righteous might, giving her a tremendous damage boost, extending her reach, increasing the number of adjacent allies she can effect with her various auras, and providing a significant boost to her already overcharged intimidate check.
Level 18 (Warblade 4/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 10): Now that her Fatemaker levels have concluded, Ursula finishes things off with Warblade. She gets an additional readied maneuver and gets to retrain Leading the Attack, which has long since diminished in usefulness, for the powerful team boost Order Forged From Chaos, which can allow her entire party to swiftly move into position before the enemy is prepared. She also gets a new stance, and chooses Press the Advantage, which she uses to keep up her mobile fighting style without sacrificing the ability to make full attacks.
Song of the Dead is an interesting feat that, for a +1 level adjustment, converts mind-affecting spells into necromancy spells and allows them to work on the undead. For Ursula this provides a dual usage: in addition to allowing Ursula to use her suggestions against undead, necromancy spells have +2 DC against those harboring a necrotic cyst. This makes charming her necrotic minions a viable alternative to using the higher level necrotic domination in many circumstances.
Level 19 (Warblade 5/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 10): A mother must stay alive to protect her brood. Another level in Warblade means another maneuver, and Iron Heart Endurance lets Ursula quickly heal up without slowing down the pace of combat. A bonus feat from the Warblade list gives Improved Initiative, which is always welcome.
Level 20 (Warblade 6/Hexblade 4/Fatemaker 10): Finishing off with a last level of Warblade means Ursula can no longer be flanked except by high level rogues. While this level does not grant a new maneuver, Ursula is permitted to retrain one, and she gets rid of Charging Minotaur, which has long since stopped providing level-appropriate damage, for Clarion Call. This is a huge boost, easily as game-changing as Order Forged From Chaos: when you drop a foe you can have your entire party, as well as any dominated or charmed allies, immediately attack or take a move action.
Originally Posted by Ursula Utrennyaya
Re: Iron Chef Optimisation Challenge in the Playground XCI
Quotebox
The only person in the past two pages who has known what (s)he has been talking about is Heliomance.
Reply With Quote