Iron Chef Optimization Challenge In The Playground #XXVIII

[BobVosh]

1 hour and 4 minutes from the first posted build to the complete judging. Impressive.

[TravelLog]

-.5 for super strict judging
+.5 for applying it unbiased and across the board
+1 for super speedy judging

4.0 Judge!!!!!!!!!!

I try, my friends. I try.

[Thurbane]

I'm going to chime in and say nice job with such expeditious judging.

My "honorable mention" also goes to Calipso...

[Rizban]

• Old Man Winter - Human (Illuskan) Wilder 10/Cryokineticist 10
• Calipso the Icicle - Pixie Wilder 6/Cryokineticist 10
• The Antipode - Feytouched Paladin (Harmonious Knight) 3/Ardent 2/Cryokineticist 9/Pyrokineticist 5
• SGACSPD - Dragonborn Human Fighter (Dungeoncrasher) 6/Ardent 4/Cyrokineticist 10
• Bjorn Doragoniru - Human Ardent 3/Icarnate 3/Soul Manifester 9/Cyrokineticist 5

...took me a while to figure out SGACSPD's race!

On the Antipode, you missed a level of Pyrokineticist. Your count only adds up to 19.

[Thurbane]

On the Antipode, you missed a level of Pyrokineticist. Your count only adds up to 19.

No, I think I covered all levels - antipode is Feytouched, an LA +1 race, hence only 19 class levels...
You are correct, build must assume LA buyoff.

[The Gilded Duke]

The other build I was considering was a Cyrokineticist / WE Cyrokineticist, couldn't really figure out a way to make it work though. Although a Weapon Afrost, Weapon Afrost Whip of Frost could be fun.

[Rizban]

No, I think I covered all levels - antipode is Feytouched, an LA +1 race, hence only 19 class levels...
You are correct, build must assume LA buyoff.

It's a bit hidden, but the build posted the explanation in the Ingredients list. Probably could have gone in a better spot though. I didn't notice it at first either.

{table]Level-Adjusted Races|Feytouched race[div](Note I did not take the optional LA level)[/div][/table]

Note: This isn't my build. I got caught up in my birthday a few days ago and totally forgot about the contest.


Edit:

The other build I was considering was a Cyrokineticist / WE Cyrokineticist, couldn't really figure out a way to make it work though. Although a Weapon Afrost, Weapon Afrost Whip of Frost could be fun.

Funny enough, the build I was talking above about mentions exactly that combination as an adaptation to the build.

[Piggy Knowles]

From reading over my scores, I'm probably going to end up being the a-hole judge this time around. I did mention in my judging criteria that I would NOT be grading on a curve for Power and UotSI, and I tried to stick to that. That said, this was a VERY difficult ingredient, and I think everyone who competed brought something unique to the table.

In any case, here are my scores:

Old Man Winter

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Originality:

I'm not really seeing anything new here. I won't penalize you because someone else happened to use Wilder, or Jotunbrud, but you didn't do anything particularly unique or unexpected here. +0

TOTAL: 3.0

Power:

A lot of power for this build relies on grapple. Unfortunately, grappling is not a strong enough tactic on its own to work here. Furthermore, you don't actually qualify for the Improved Grapple feat (lacking Improved Unarmed Strike or Dex 13), and your Gloves of Titan's Grip have limited uses per day, which means that your grapple check potentially drops to +35 - less than many enemies you'll face at CR 20. Finally, even if you successfully grapple, your damage in a grapple is far below par. You also don't have many effective abilities to fall back on if the grapple fails. -1.5

On the upside, your power renewal trick is solid, and the Charisma synergy of your character does help. However, it's a bit of a one trick pony and will have a lot of trouble outside all but the most ideal circumstances. +.5

TOTAL: 2.0

Elegance:

The build matches the fluff, which is always nice. The dispel psionics/grappler combination isn't perfect (and hence didn't net you much in power), but it does flow well, so bonus to you there. I'm also tossing in an extra quarter point because you used Jotunbrud in a way that actually makes sense flavor-wise, instead of just tossing it on for an extra grapple bonus with no explanation. +.75

On the other hand, you failed to qualify for one of your key feats. Also, your build is both contingent on being in an incredibly remote location, and also relies on specific items to stay relevant. That combination strikes me as inelegant, so I'm knocking off another half-point. -1

TOTAL: 2.75

Use of the Secret Ingredient:

You take all 10 levels. However, the only ability you actively use is Frozen Fist to add some extra damage in grapples, and there are many more effective ways of doing this. Most of the other abilities are afterthoughts more than anything else, and you enter the class so late that the abilities become marginalized as a result. Unfortunately, I fail to see how Cryokineticist really gets used at all. -1.5

TOTAL: 1.5

FINAL TALLY: 9.25

Calipso the Icicle

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Originality:

Pixie was unexpected, as was the focus on the footbow. Everything else was pretty much standard, but I'll add in a bonus of +.5 for those two.

TOTAL: 3.5

Power:

You do go to some lengths to max out the DC on your save-or-die, and the pixie brings with it some natural power that exceeds what you could have otherwise gotten from most levels. Although flight and invisibility wane in usefulness at the high levels, they will certainly help you considerably in the early to mid levels. +.5

I'm not going to give you any points for the elvencraft bow/weapon afrost ability, though, because I don't believe it works (see my critique in the elegance section). You rely on Quicken Power, Psionic Shot and Fell Shot to keep your damage up, but don't have any easy way of regaining focus without wasting actions. You don't have the strength to make decent use of a footbow. You have no way of dealing with cold resistance. -1

TOTAL: 2.5

Elegance:

Your listed strategy of using Weapon Afrost on the elvencraft bow is not only a bit cheesy (even if underpowered), it also doesn't really work. RotW explicitly calls out that enhancements to the ranged aspect and the melee aspect of the elvencraft bow must be handled separately.

Magical enhancements to an elvencraft bow only affect its
use as a bow. Enhancements to the melee capabilities of the
weapon must be added separately.

You also take ability focus for an ability that you do not yet have. I suppose that technically it's not spelled out that you need to have the ability to take AF, but I doubt that would fly at most tables. -1

On the other hand, like the previous build, ability synergy and a clean, straightforward build puts you up a half point. +.5

TOTAL: 2.5

Use of the Secret Ingredient:

Like the previous build, you delay taking the secret ingredient until ECL 11, and at that point many of its abilities are marginalized. This is even worse for you, because a lot of your build relies on an ability that you will not pick up until ECL 20.

You do take all ten levels, and you actually do attempt to use some of the ranged elements of the build, in addition to Bone Chill. Ordinarily this would merit you some points. However, you failed to qualify for the build, due to alignment issues. As a result, I'm forced to give you bottom marks here.

TOTAL: 1

FINAL TALLY: 9.5

The Antipode

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Originality:

I expected neither Feytouched nor Paladin, but they both work here, as does Harmonious Knight. Kudos to you. I also didn't expect Pyrokineticist, not because it doesn't work with the build, but because it requires a Chaotic alignment. The Ordered Chaos feat was a nice find for this. +1

Ardent was an expect entry class, thanks to how multiclass-friendly it is, but I'm not going to penalize you too heavily for that, since there are a limited number of entry classes for this SI. -.25

TOTAL: 3.75

Power:

You've got some solid defensive abilities, and you attempt to show some signs of versatility - I like that. Playing Fire and Ice off each other works fairly well in combat, as there are almost no monsters that have resistance/immunity to both. +.5

However, your power points remain so low that you will burn through them almost immediately, and you have no real tricks to refresh them. Your abilities also do not scale effectively with level. You take them fairly early, so you will have a lot of options early in the game, but by the end, you will be very limited. -.5

TOTAL: 3.0

Elegance:

You play the fire/water theme very well, tying the principles of law and chaos into it as well. Your build reflects your character to a T. +1

That said, there are a couple of rules issues. First off, let's start with the "standard chicanery to stretch Ardent", where you use Practiced Manifester to get second level powers with your first level of Ardent. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. At first level, an Ardent can only choose first level powers:

An ardent begins play knowing two of the first powers available to her based on her mantles. Each mantle features at least one power or ability with a cost of 1 power point. An ardent selects two of these powers from her two known mantles at 1st level.

Emphasis mine. When you take your first level of Ardent, you MUST select first level powers, with a cost of 1 power point.

Also, by a strict reading, Ordered Chaos only applies to feats and spells. As a DM, I would certainly allow it to work here, but not every DM would. As it is pretty key to your build, I feel like that merits another half point deduction. -1

TOTAL: 3.0

Use of the Secret Ingredient:

You do lose some points for not building off of all its abilities and not sticking through all ten levels. -.5

That being said, what you did use worked very well. You entered the class early enough that its abilities stayed relevant, and you made a compelling case for the Cryokineticist being a vital part of your build. That's no mean feat, considering the ingredient. +1

TOTAL: 3.5

FINAL TALLY: 12.75

SGACSPD

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Originality:

Dungeoncrasher definitely came as a surprise to me! I know that in general, there's nothing new about it, but I didn't expect to see it here. I was hoping someone would find a clever way to use the at-will Wall of Ice ability, and you did. +1

Ardent was the number one expected entry, though, due to its multiclass friendliness. -.25

TOTAL: 3.75

Power:

You do a pretty decent job of smashing things, I'll give you that. You're not the most tricked out dungeoncrasher, but you're not bad. +.5

But what do you do when bull rushing isn't appropriate? You don't really have any alternative abilities to fall back on. If you're going to have only one trick, it had better be a really good trick - and dealing moderate damage while bull rushing just doesn't quite cut it. -1

TOTAL: 2.5

Elegance:

I have a problem with Mantle Substitution - namely, it is explicitly DM-dependent. OK, sure, everything in this game is DM-dependent. However, just assuming that you will be able to cherry-pick whatever powers you want sounds about as legitimate to me as assuming that wizards can research cleric spells to add to their spell list. After all, there are rules for both available. It's not unreasonable to add Expansion to the Conflict mantle or Energy Emanation to the Elements mantle, so I'm not going to dock you too hard for this, but its use does bother me, and I think it merits a half-point deduction. -.5

On the upside, your build flows better level-by-level than just about any other build here. It sputters out a bit toward the end, but I think it deserves a bonus. +.5

TOTAL: 3.0

Use of the Secret Ingredient:

Very nice use of the Wall of Ice, one of the few truly unique abilities the Cryokineticist has. And instead of awkwardly trying to leverage the Frozen Fist into a powerful ability on its own, you found a decent secondary use for it - allowing you to threaten adjacent enemies when using a reach weapon. It's not mind-blowing, and you could do the same with armor spikes or a natural weapon, but I liked it anyhow, so I'm adding a quarter point for it. +.75

That said, you left several of the Cryokineticist's abilities untouched. You mentioned using Bone Chill as a damaging attack, but as you also mentioned, your Charisma isn't good enough to expect anyone to fail their save, and it doesn't deal enough damage on a failed save to actually be useful. It seems like other than Weapon Afrost, Frozen Fist and Wall of Ice, the abilities were just sort of shoehorned in. -.5

TOTAL: 3.25

FINAL TALLY: 12.5

Bjorn Doragoniru

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Originality:

I was hoping someone would use some Incarnum! In general, it works very well alongside psionics, and I was happy to see its inclusion here. +.5

Again, I expected a lot of Ardent entries, especially with the Fire mantle, so you'll see a slight deduction there. -.25

TOTAL: 3.25

Power:

No question here. With ML 17 on an Ardent and decent meldshaping, you've got a decent number of options (and again, the fire/ice dichotomy isn't bad). That alone merits you a full point. You also have out of combat options that are more than the standard "put a few ranks in Intimidate or Diplomacy, hope for the best." +1.5

My closest thing to a complaint here is that you don't have any one thing that you're particularly good at. If your goal is to be a blaster, you're a bit low on PP (and you don't have a built in recovery-method), and you could probably stand to pick up a few metapsionic feats. If you want to be a better meldshaper, it's tough to see you not take that last level of Soul Manifester for psionic distillation. But I'm not sure that it's enough to merit a deduction, so I'm going to err on the side of caution here and leave it as is.

TOTAL: 4.5

Elegance:

I didn't spot any questionable rules interpretations or similar concerns when reviewing your build. Like most theurge-style character, you have some hiccups in the mid-levels, but you do OK covering them. Your build didn't blind me with its beauty, but it's a good solid ardent/incarnate theurge, and I like it. I'm keeping things even here.

TOTAL: 3.0

Use of the Secret Ingredient:

Sorry, but you had to see this one coming. You don't take a single level in Cryokineticist until ECL 16, and you only take five levels total. You completely miss out on its only unique abilities, and the ones you do get could have easily been reproduced by powers or soulmelds that you already have. You don't even really try to justify its use here, and it makes an otherwise fine build feel awkward. So yeah, if the secret ingredient makes you actively worse at what your build is trying to accomplish, I can't help but give that a hefty deduction. -2

TOTAL: 1.0

FINAL TALLY: 11.25

My vote for honorable mention goes to SGACSPD.

[Thurbane]

Huh, would you believe I have never noticed Dex 13+ as a req for Improved Grapple before?

[cd4]

Like the previous Competetion I have gone through and worked out as much as I can about the alignment of the characters and will probably keep on doing it. Here is the table of alignments:

{table]Character|Given|Mechanics
Old Man Winter|LN|LG, LN, LE
Calipso|CG|LNG (Lawful and Neutral Good)
The Antipode|LG|LG
SGACSPD|None|LG, LN, LE, story says LG
Bjorn Doragoniru|LN|LN[/table]

Though the trouble with Calipso made me look again at pixie and realised my half-fiend pixie that I am creating has a few problems with alignment.

[Piggy Knowles]

My main idea for entry was to use Lurk to enter the class, and use Up the Walls and Battle Jump to run up the Walls of Ice and jump off, dealing double ability damage via Mental Assault. I also planned on adding on Ranged Lurk Augment so I could use Mental Assault on my Glacial Ray, too.

But those were the only two tricks that really had ANYTHING to do with Cryokineticist, and they were iffy at best. Energy Emanation being a second level power, and the lurk's delayed power progression, meant I had to wait way too long to enter Cryokineticst, the build was MAD as all heck, and even its signature trick just didn't work a lot of the time. So I abandoned it...

I also considered a PsyWar zen archer entry, mostly focusing on the ranged elements, and using Peerless Archer to apply a Power Attack-like effect to Glacial Ray. But there were way better ways to pull that off than Cryokineticist, and Peerless Archer would require a lot of updating to bring it up to 3.5.

[Amphetryon]

Not to worry, folks. The next SI will have more meat than this one.

[Venger]

Not to worry, folks. The next SI will have more meat than this one.

ah ha! your pun makes me think acolyte of the skin. I hope I'm right.

[dextercorvia]

The only thing I managed was to find a way around cold immunity/resistance with Weapon Afrost.

Standstill states that the DC is equal to the damage roll, not the damage that would have been dealt, so it ignores DR and immunity.

I was trying to put that into a BFC melee build, maybe using Knight, Unseelie Fey (Winter's Chill), Half-Giant (Stomp), Paladin of Tyranny (Aura of Terror), Polar Chill, Stench of the Dead and a couple of other things. I was having trouble fitting it all in with 4 levels of PsyWarrior, Wilder, or War Mind, in order to get the prereqs for Cryokineticist. I had an almost workable idea a week and a half ago, and then work kicked in to full gear.

[Hunter Killer]

I found a way to use almost everything that Cryokineticist gave me, but I'm sure that it would have been stronger with something else and it didn't really have a "Lord of Winter" feel. That, and I had no time to complete it (Damn this class... I trashed a dozen builds before this one!)

This was my build minus the fluff, tactics, and equipment advice. I'll write up a highlights reel if anyone is interested, but other than that I'm just about ready to wash my hands of this frozen turd:

Hexad, the Six Fists of Frozen Fury...

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Hexad, the Six Fists of Frozen Fury...



Lawful Evil Male Amphibious Anthropomorphic Giant Octopus
Athropomorphic Giant Octopus, Savage Species -- Page 216; Amphibious Creature, Stormwrack -- Page 135
Base Scores on 32 Point Buy -- 12, 16, 12, 12, 16, 8
After Racial and Template Adjustments -- 14, 20, 10, 12, 20, 4
Int at 4th [13], Int at 8th [14], Int at 12th [15], Str at 16th [15], Str at 20th [16]

Alternate Class Features:
Sleeping Tiger Monk, Unearthed Arcana -- Page 52; Invisible Fist, Exemplars of Evil -- Page 21
Hit-and-Run Tactics Fighter, Drow of the Underdark -- Page 58; Dungeon Crasher Fighter, Dungeonscape -- Page 10

{table=head]Level|Class|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Skills|Feats|Class Features

1st|Monster Hit Dice|

+1

|

+0

|

+2

|

+2

|Hide 4, Knowledge (Local) 4, Knowledge (Psionics) 4|Educated|Constrict (2d8+6), Improved Grab, Tentacle Attacks x 6, Bite Attack x 1, Amphibious, Swim 10ft

2nd|Monster Hit Dice|

+2

|

+0

|

+3

|

+3

|Hide +1 (5), Knowledge (Local) +1 (5), Knowledge (Psionics) +1 (5)||

3rd|Sleeping Tiger Monk|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

|

+5

|Concentration 3, Hide +1 (6), Knowledge (Psionics) +1 (6)|Darkstalker, Weapon Finesse (Bonus Feat)|Bonus Feat, Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Strike (1d6), Skill Bonus (Hide)

4th|Sleeping Tiger Monk|

+3

|

+3

|

+6

|

+6

|Concentration +1 (4), Hide +1 (7), Knowledge (Psionics) +1 (7), Knowledge (History) 2|Improved Initiative (Bonus Feat)|Bonus Feat, Invisible Fist

5th|Fighter|

+4

|

+5

|

+6

|

+6

|Hide +1 (8), Knowledge (Psionics) +1 (8)|Multidexterity (Bonus Feat)|Bonus Feat, Hit-and-Run Tactics

6th|Fighter|

+5

|

+6

|

+6

|

+6

|Hide +1 (9), Craft (Alchemy) 1|Wild Talent|Dungeon Crasher Fighter (4d6)

7th|War Mind|

+6/+1

|

+8

|

+8

|

+6

|Concentration +1 (5), Hide +1 (10)||Chain of Personal Superiority +2

8th|War Mind|

+7/+2

|

+9

|

+9

|

+6

|Concentration +2 (7), Hide +1 (11)||Chain of Defense Posture +2

9th|War Mind|

+8/+3

|

+9

|

+9

|

+7

|Autohypnosis 1, Concentration +1 (8), Hide +1 (12)|Multiweapoon Fighting|Enduring Body (DR 1/-)

10th|War Mind|

+9/+4

|

+10

|

+10

|

+7

|Autohypnosis +2 (3), Hide +1 (13)||

11th|War Mind|

+10/+5

|

+10

|

+10

|

+7

|Autohypnosis +2 (5), Hide +1 (14)||Sweeping Strike

12th|Cryokineticist|

+10/+5

|

+12

|

+12

|

+7

|Autohypnosis +.5 (5.5), Concentration +1 (9), Hide +1 (15)|Improved Multiweapon Fighting|Glacial Ray

13th|Cryokineticist|

+11/+6/+1

|

+13

|

+13

|

+7

|Autohypnosis +.5 (6), Concentration +1 (10), Hide +1 (16)||Cold Adaption, Frozen Fist

14th|Cryokineticist|

+12/+7/+2

|

+13

|

+13

|

+8

|Autohypnosis +.5 (6.5), Concentration +1 (11), Hide +1 (17)||Bolt of Cold

15th|Cryokineticist|

+13/+8/+3

|

+14

|

+14

|

+8

|Autohypnosis +.5 (7), Concentration +1 (12), Hide +1 (18)|Multiattack|Weapon Afrost

16th|Cryokineticist|

+13/+8/+3

|

+14

|

+14

|

+8

|Autohypnosis +.5 (7.5), Concentration +1 (13), Hide +1 (19)||Frostfell Creature Insight

17th|Cryokineticist|

+14/+9/+4

|

+15

|

+15

|

+9

|Autohypnosis +.5 (8), Concentration +1 (14), Hide +1 (20)||Cold Walk

18th|Cryokineticist|

+15/+10/+5

|

+15

|

+15

|

+9

|Autohypnosis +.5 (8.5), Concentration +1 (15), Hide +1 (21)|Multitasking|Fear No Cold

19th|Cryokineticist|

+16/+11/+6/+1

|

+16

|

+16

|

+9

|Autohypnosis +.5 (9), Concentration +1 (16), Hide +1 (22)||Greater Weapon Afrost

20th|Cryokineticist|

+16/+11/+6/+1

|

+16

|

+16

|

+10

|Concentration +2 (18), Hide +1 (23)||Wall of Ice
[/table]

Highlights Reel...

Full Attack at 20th with Light Weapons and Flurry of Blows:
(Without Dex modifier added; That's +5 without any enhancement gear)
+12/+12/+12/+12/+12/+12/+12/+7/+7/+7/+7/+7/+7/+2/-3

That's 15 attacks. With the Sweeping Strike ability from War Mind, we also can attempt those attacks on an opponent in an adjacent square. That's 30 attacks in one round. This is my favorite trick, and comes online at 12th level.

Multitasking allows for even more shenanigans. The abilities Glacial Ray and Bolt of Ice can be used three times in a round instead of just once. That actually makes them somewhat useful as backup ranged attacks. (1d6 x 3 @ 15ft for Glacial Ray, 3d6 x 3 @ 60ft for Bolt of Ice).

Improved Initiative (+4), Hit-and-Run Tactics (+2), and Base Dex (+5) give us +11 to Initiative, meaning we normally go first. With Invisible Fist, Darkstalker, and high Hide we can get hidden easily and attack opponents from hidding (Flatfooted FTW!). This works wonders with the Multitasking trick above.

Dungeon Crasher can be used with Wall of Ice to start a combat, if we want. Beyond that I don't see it as a useful strategy round after round, but it's a cool tactical option.

Also, the character has 22 AC from his very first level in Monk onward (+5 Dex, +5 Wis, +2 Natural Armor). Dex gear would be very, very good for him because it would augment To-Hit, AC, and Damage.

[flabort]

I'd figured I only needed 3 levels of psion, and some skill points to qualify. Skill points wise, I could not come up with any ways to break the ranks cap (Now I realize, maybe factotum? I can't remember if it does), so the minimum level I could have entered was 6th, so I needed two more levels of something.

Couldn't find anything to fit that 'something', so I got hung up on it, and couldn't complete my build.

In fact, what you see here was ALL I had. I hadn't even settled on race. I thought there was a feat, maybe, that let me advance past the maximum skill ranks, but... the feats I found only gave a bonus to skill checks, or extra points to apply 'normally', meaning it couldn't break the cap.

[The Gilded Duke]

Two feats would let you get in a level early, but I didn't think it was worth it.

[FyreByrd]

Mine was a wonderful mix of Psyhic Warrior, incarnum and tome of battle, making a solid melee fighter with a few interesting benefits.

Oh yeah it had a few levels of Cyrokineticist in there as well...but we don't like to talk about them!

EDIT: forgot the Psy War(duh)

[TheGeckoKing]

If I entered, I was basically going to try and abuse Ardent, Kalashtar, Overchannel and Practiced Manifester to ignore the horrible things the PrC did to my ML, but I quit because one, i'd still have a pittance of PP, and two, i'd effectively be treating the PrC as that horrible blight on my nice Ardent and thought that defeated the point of the challenge.

[Gotterdammerung]

I thought there was supposed to be tons of judges lining up for this one.

[Amphetryon]

I thought there was supposed to be tons of judges lining up for this one.

It's a little early to start complaining that the judges haven't all posted scores, don't you think? Especially given how quickly Travellog and Piggy Knowles got their scores up.

[Hunter Killer]

I know that I'm not in the running, but could I get the judges to critique the build I posted anyway? I really want to know what anyone things of it.

@Flabort: I ran into the same issue when I was trying to make something work with Arcane Class X / Psionic Class X / Divine Crusader 5 / Arcane Archer 2 / Cryo X

[Gotterdammerung]

It's a little early to start complaining that the judges haven't all posted scores, don't you think? Especially given how quickly Travellog and Piggy Knowles got their scores up.

Didn't mean it as a complaint. Meant it as a question. Was just curious how many more judges were left to go, basically.

I didn't mean to rush anyone. In fact, I would prefer they didn't rush. The more time they spend the longer they have to get familiar with the builds.

[Venger]

Judgings finished. I wanted to make sure I had enough time to thoroughly examine everyone's entry. there were certainly more things than I thought you could do with a cryokinetist present in today's contest.

tell me if my math is off, PM disputes through the chairman if applicable. this is my first time judging and I don't want to unfairly penalise anyone due to a mistake on my part.

(EDIT) I made some mistakes about how bjorn's meldshaping worked and how old man winter wanted to use frozen fist, these two characters have had their sections updated. sorry, ponies.

Calipso: 9.75

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Originality: 3

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-Due to the small pool, you are the only pixie in the contest this time around. however, there seems to be a pixie in every iron chef, so I call this one a wash with no points awarded nor deducted for originality. (+0)

Power: 2

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-You make mention of Calipso being a "ranged attacker" and using "hit and run tactics" but I don't see where your damage is coming from in the mid levels with your weapons, or at the later levels for that matter. The damage from a small footbow, even accounting for your psionic shot (which is usable at the very most once every other round) isn't very high, and I don't understand why you sunk your feats into the fell shot chain. with the high racial bonus to dex you have, your to-hit will be through the roof, so making attacks as touch attacks isn't really necessary. also, why did you take EWP footbow? you dumped str, so are getting no particular utility out of that aspect. (-1)

Elegance: 1.75

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-You take Ability Focus for Bone Chill, which you do not get until the next level (-0.5)
-You also try to use Weapon Afrost to a bow to put it on your arrows, which is against the rules, it only enhances melee capabilities of weapons, not ranged ones. While it would enhance your bow while it is being used as a quarterstaff, it would confer no special properties onto its arrows in bow form. (-0.5)
-Why do you want a belt of giant strength?
-A +0str footbow imposes a penalty to your attack rolls if you have a str below that threshold which you don't seem to address here (-0.25)

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 3
-

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Your use of the "bolt of cold" ability (which is a touch attack) again makes your fell shot redundant. there is no need to make a touch attack for this purpose and also, bolt of cold doesn't count as a weapon attack. (-0.5)
-You take all of the levels of cryokineticist and they definitely feel central to your build. (+0.5)
Overview: I feel that a raptoran may have served your character better due to the interest in ranged combat that you demonstrated, they would also give you more levels to play around with.

Overview

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You probably could have made yourself stand out a little more without the pixie levels, and focusing more on cryokineticist than ranged damage dealing.

The Smashing Good Architect of the Curb-Stomping Platinum Dragon: 16.75

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Originality: 4.5

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-The challenge was to build a cryokineticist and you brought a shock trooper to the fight. I can't say I was even remotely expecting that. You were all over that (+1.5)
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Power:3.5

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-Trippers are good on their own, but you synergize their abilities with what's offered by cryokineticist to make both even stronger. Anything that's trippable and bullrushable is going to be tripped and bullrushed by you.(+0.5)

Elegance: 4.75
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You use dungeon crasher fighter and plan for the contingency of not having walls to slam your enemies into by making your own walls? That is the very definition of Elegance, good sir, well done. (+1)
-Your backstory is written in a fun, engaging style, I liked it a lot (+0.25)
-Max ranks in Craft (Icemasonry) is the classiest thing I've ever seen, especially seeing what you use it for. (+0.25)
-Using Practiced Manifester to get Energy Emanation due to Ardent basing its manifesting off of its effective manifester level instead of being flatly level dependent is a stroke of genius (+0.5)
-You do not qualify for Practiced Manifester due to a lack of any points in psicraft (-0.25)

Use of the Secret Ingredient:4

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-cryokineticist 9 is vital to your primary trick of creating walls to slam your opponents into, it doesn't seem at all forced, but since it requires expending psionic focus, you probably can't create more than a couple of walls in any given combat without falling too far behind in the action economy (+1)

Overview:

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Individually, bull rush, dungeon crashing, and wall of ice are mediocre at best and useless at worst. by combining the three of them, you were able to build quite a potent character. far greater than the sum of his parts, as they say. the idea of a school of fighting based around this technique entertains me to no end.

Old Man Winter 16

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Originality:4

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-Going Wilder for a psionic grappler instead of Psychic Warrior is a welcome change. when I caught "expansion" out of the corner of my eye while uncollapsing your spoiler tags, I though you were going psiwar. way to do something different. (+0.5)
-This is the first time that I've seen Jotunbrud play an important role in a character's backstory. well done (+0.5)

Power: 4.5

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-The way you cover your low AC is inventive and goes a ways to compensating for one of your primary vulnerabilities when you are huge/gargantuan (depending on which point in your career you are manifesting expansion) (+0.5)
-I am a little confused as to why you took Power Attack. You don't take anything else in any chains starting with it, your BA is not especially high, especially at low levels, so the utility you would reap from it is somewhat minor. This feat could likely have been used for something better. (such as improved unarmed strike to make improved grapple better) (-0.5) (EDIT)upon closer inspection, you are more melee oriented than I originally thought, in which case, PA makes perfect sense for you, helping your damage scale (+0.25)
-I believe one of the combos you built you built in is to manifest energy emanation, grapple a foe, and hold them in the area of effect, which is clever given your elephantine check, but would be more effective with Improved Grapple. (+0.25)
-Quick Recovery is a very slick way of getting around Psychic Enervation, especially with Enervation Endurance which is keyed off of your wilder level rather than your overall ML, so while practiced manifested helps with your ML, it won't make you lose more PP. Since there's no listed DC, you'll be making a save against (10+ your HD/2 +cha mod) so the save will get higher as your cha gets better which is an interesting balancing effect (+0.5) You should be able to reliably wild surge pretty much whenever you want due to your good will saves, although you might consider investing more points in wisdom or a save boosting item since the save you'll have to resist will get really high as your cha goes up (DC 31 at level 20 with only a total +11 to your will save, it is only possible for you to outwit yourself on a natural 20
(EDIT) due to defensive precog and your suggestion of a resistance item, you have this largely taken care of

Elegance: 3.5

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-You possess neither Improved Unarmed Strike nor a Dex of 13+, which are prerequisites for Improved Grapple (-0.5) but losing 4 to your enormous grapple check doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things since your mod is so high from other sources (thanks for the breakdown, it made it easy to read)
-You seem to be misinterpreting frozen fist slightly. You only ever get 1d8 bonus cold damage and then whatever the normal unarmed damage is depending on whether you've got expansion on or not. you also do not have improved unarmed strike, so you'd be dealing nonlethal damage with your punches, or taking the -4 penalty to swing lethally with a nonlethal weapon. In either event, you're not stuck with that for long before you get weapon afrost, which is more useful, so (-0) it was I who was interpreting frozen fist incorrectly. you are indeed treated as armed with it, so it does lethal damage, threatens, and damages foes in a grapple, in which case, (+0.25)
-Your backstory is very well written and fun to read. it puts a cool new spin on the escaped slave and rags to riches archetypes. You clearly put lots of effort into this, and it showed. (+0.5)
-You take cryokineticist's most insultingly bad feature, frostfell creature insight and use it in your backstory to beat up other yetis and become the king? damn, that's elegant (+0.25)

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 4

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-Cryokineticist gives a lot of neat tricks and helps you with versatility . Rather than say you should use less levels of it (props on using all 10 levels) I think that your feats might be reconsidered to help synergise with your abilities a little more. It definitely doesn't feel tacked on, which is quite a feat. (+1)

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A very clean, interesting build. Great backstory, and inventive use of grappling and psionics together.

Bjorn Doragoniru 12.5

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Originality: 3.5

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-Incarnate! I can't say I would ever have been expecting that as a way to get into this class. (+0.5)

Power 4

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-Your "Fire Eater" Trick relies on your enemies throwing fire damage at you, which is leaving a fair amount up to chance. while your suggested technique of using firewalls or allies' fire spells/attacks to power up his belt, it only lasts for 1 round and has a range of 60 feet. if you are within 60 feet of an enemy and your ally with fire damage can reach you and fire attacks are a good option against your enemy, why doesn't your ally just blast the enemy with fire himself? (or you blast him yourself if you're using your powers as the source of fire damage) If flame cincture were able to retain a charge for more than 1 round, this combo would be quite potent, but as is, it doesn't add much over using some of your other capabilities (+0)
-the damage on cloak of the fire dragon is low without expending essentia into it, in addition to being one of the most commonly resisted/immune types of damage for monsters, the amount of effort completing this trick isn't worth the payoff (-0.25)it is easier for a meldshaper to reallocate essentia than I thought when I posted my original judging, and soul manifester allows you to juice up your psionic powers with essentia as the situation calls for, and you can deal fire or cold as the situation demands due to your psionic investment/energy emanation to make you very hard to get close to. it actually requires a much smaller investment of resources to keep meleers away, so (+0.25)
-feed the mind, fuel the soul suffers from the same problem. you said yourself that you can only do this maybe once a combat. given your capability for inflicting large quantities of HP damage, your resources are likely not best spent prebuffing in the middle of combat, especially since it requires expending your psionic focus. while it does improve versatility, you will likely be set due to the versatility built into the powers you selected with ardent (EDIT) I thought that meldshaping in the way you were suggesting took more actions than it actually did. reality does not reflect this, so your versatility and pull in the action economy is greater than I originally surmised. this is clever since you use psionic focus for a couple of things in your build (+0.25)
-your theurgic prc went a long way towards restoring lost manifester levels (though it's a shame it was at the cost of more of the SI) (+0.5)

Elegance 3.25

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-You cited Sting and the police in your list of sources. this is hilarious
-I enjoyed your discussion of entropy and thermodynamics in your backstory and it was a somewhat different approach to a cold/fire build, which I was expecting to see in this challenge (+0.25)

Use of the Secret Ingredient 1.75

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-You only took 5 levels of Cryokineticist and 9 of another prestige class. To use the iron chef analogy, the SI is more like a side dish in your meal rather than the focus. (-1)
-while technically your ardent's energy powers do give you the option of cold damage, you focus a lot more on fire damage in a challenge that was supposed to be about cryokineticist. ordinarily this wouldn't be such a big deal, but you built around things that only give you fire damage, like taking Open Greater Chakra to obtain the Flame Cincture, which takes you a pretty big step away from cryokineticist. (-0.25)

Overview

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You depart in a somewhat significant way from cryokinetics in the mechanics of your build. your use of soulmelds is interesting, but goes somewhat beyond the spirit (pardon the pun) of the competition.

The Antipode 16.5

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Originality 4

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- truthfully, I was expecting a hot and cold entry (I was planning on trying out a pyro/cryo myself before I had to surrender to cryokineticist's difficulty of use) but I had no idea it could work so well in practice. I'm very impressed by the versatility and SADness that you achieved (+1)

Power 3.5

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-I don't really understand why dex is your highest stat. while I understand you aren't focusing on manifestation, which is reasonable given you only have 2 ardent levels, but I thought you might be better suited making cha your highest stat since the saves for your pyro/cryo abilities are both keyed off it. (-0)
-whacking people with a weapon that's a frost and afire at the same time can deal some big damage at midlevels and it could easily drop a CR-appropriate foe if you could get off a full attack successfully after your prebuff rounds. (+0.5)

Elegance 4

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-Ordered Chaos to count as both Lawful for Cryokineticist at the same time as counting as Chaotic for Pyrokineticist is a stroke of genius. (+0.5)
-you do not qualify for practiced manifester due to a lack of any ranks in psicraft (-0.25)
-you calculated your BA incorrectly, it is 14 by the time you are done, not 17. it's
1 paladin 1 1/
2 pal 2 2/
3 ard 1 2/
4 pal 3 3/
5 ard 2 4/
6 cry 4/ (you added 1)
7 pyro 1 4/
8 cry 2 5/
9 pyro 2 6/
10 cry 3 7/
11 pyro 3 8/
12 cry 4 9/
13 pyro 4 10/
14 cry 5 10/ (you added another 1)
15 pyro 5 10/
16 cry 6 11/
17 pyro 6 12/
18 cry 7 13/
19 cry 8 14/
20 cry 9 14 (you added another 1)

this doesn't greatly impact your battlefield strategy, it just means you don't get your 4th attack. (-0)

-taking water and fire devotion shows extreme commitment to the flavor of your build. I heartily approve. (+0.5)

-I like the synergy you create with psychic whip, water whip, and flame lash, it again shows real commitment to your concept (+0.25)

Use of the Secret Ingredient 5

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- you take 9 levels of cryokineticist and have it fill in the gaps it leaves with pyrokineticist. while individually, each class begs the question "how do I deal with something highly resistant/immune to my elemental type?" you solve the problem by paradoxically introducing it again. creatures/enemies that are immune/significantly resistant to both fire and cold are quite rare, so I think you use what is normally one of cyrokineticist's biggest weaknesses as a strength, which screams full marks to me. (+2.0)

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Great mingling of the fire and ice motif. They cover each other's backs really well and you show real commitment to the theme of the contest.

I know that I'm not in the running, but could I get the judges to critique the build I posted anyway? I really want to know what anyone things of it.

@Flabort: I ran into the same issue when I was trying to make something work with Arcane Class X / Psionic Class X / Divine Crusader 5 / Arcane Archer 2 / Cryo X

sure, I'd be happy to post a judging for your octopus guy, I'll do it tomorrow in a separate post. I can't wait to dive in! he looks like he's got all kinds of cool stuff going on.

HM for me goes to The Smashing Good Architect of the Curb-Stomping Platinum Dragon

[kestrel404]

Wow, looking at the builds, now I really wish I'd finished my Monk/Ardent/Tashalatora-Cryokineticist build.

[Zipding]

Venger, the Elegence section for SCACSPD should be 4.75 instead of 5.
3+1+0.25+0.25+0.5-0.25=4.75, not 5.
Don't worry, I had quite a few math errors when I judged last round.

[Venger]

Venger, the Elegence section for SCACSPD should be 4.75 instead of 5.
3+1+0.25+0.25+0.5-0.25=4.75, not 5.
Don't worry, I had quite a few math errors when I judged last round.

thank you for your correction. I had originally had him at 5 and then examined his skills and saw he didn't have any ranks in psicraft, which made me sad since I really wanted to give him a perfect score in elegance, that's the source of the error. sorry, chef of SCACSPD!

[gbprime]

I'm finishing my climb out of my flu-induced coma now. Judging will be complete 24 hours after I have a quorum of brain cells once again.

[OMG PONIES]

Sorry I've been MIA, Iron Chefs. It's been a bit of a hectic time, and unfortunately I had to prioritize my real life above my active games above Iron Chef. But I should be back with a vengeance! I was thinking of judging this round (since I was curious to see what others did with this unworkable SI), but it seems we already have a lot of volunteers, so we shall see. Instead, I will step back into my role as archivist, spreadsheet nerd, and table maker.

Tallies after Three Incredibly Quick Judges
{table=head]Entry|Medal/Place|Total|Average*
The Antipode|Gold|42.75|3.56
SGACSPD|Silver|39.25|3.27
Old Man Winter|Bronze|37.25|3.10
Bjorn Doragoniru|Fourth|36.75|3.06
Calipso|Fifth|31.25|2.6[/table]

I was very impressed by our unofficial entry Hexad, as it was the only one to think of qualifying for the manifesting requirement via a prestige class--and a previous round's Secret Ingredient at that!

*rounded to two decimal places

[Hunter Killer]

I was very impressed by our unofficial entry Hexad, as it was the only one to think of qualifying for the manifesting requirement via a prestige class--and a previous round's Secret Ingredient at that!

Thanks, Ponies. You know, it's sad that I didn't complete it on time. It's probably my best work to date. I'm half tempted to complete the story and tactics sections even though I said I wanted to wash my hands of it...

My personal favorite this round was Old Man Winter. The builder addressed nearly everthing and had a kickass story. To bad he's in 3rd; I'm not super impessed with the current winner (No offense to whoever built it, but a VERY similar build was done in the Pyro IC).