Iron Chef Optimization Challenge in the Playground XXXIX

[Darrin]

Re: Hardy, I assume his UoSI score was 4? You didn't give a final tally, but the only +/- was a +1 at the end. I've gone ahead and assumed it was a 4 for the tally:

Yes, 4. Thanks.

Oh, and I forgot! Honorable Mention goes to Hezekiah, for creating an entire team of five colossal-sized giant robot megazords smashing everything to bits with their lightning fists. "It's Morphin' Time!"

[Darrin]

Aaaugh! Double post.

Yeesh. Server has been twitchy today.

[Amphetryon]

Final Tally and Chef Reveal time! As has happened in the past, I was half-convinced that we'd wind up with multiple ties for 1st Place this round, prior to any judges weighing in. Good show.

Final Tally
{table=head]Entry|Place|Total|Average
AM-1468, by Piggy Knowles|GOLD|33.25|4.16
Father Aldwin, by rockdeworld|SILVER|30.75|3.84
Hardy, by Xodion|BRONZE|28.25|3.53
Kiryu, by Piggy Knowles|Fourth|28.1|3.51
HM: Hezekiah, by OMG Ponies|Fifth|28|3.5
Kilroy, by Amechra|Sixth|22.15|2.77
Gregor Samsa, by Venger|Seventh|10.5|2.38[/table]

Savannah has indicated there WILL be trophies (all hail Savannah), but asks for a couple of weeks' indulgence, as the end of the semester is at hand.

Iron Chef Optimization Challenge in the Playground XL will be up shortly, connectivity permitting.

[Darrin]

{table=head]Entry|Place|Total|Average
Gregor Samsa|Seventh|10.5|2.38[/table]

Nitpick: Gregor Samsa's total should be 10.5 + 8.5 = 19.0. Average appears to be correct.

Also, Samsa(Venger) did state through the Chairman that "Unarmored Body" got clipped from his build, which I missed (it was late and the last couple of entries may have been a wee bit rushed). In another post, he also mentioned using Construct Exemplar to change into golems and inevitables but... I really needed to see that mentioned somewhere in the original build.

[rockdeworld]

I got second place! That's a huge improvement over my first entry in the previous competition, and it's in an actual optimization competition. Wow! Can I call myself an optimizer now?

And now, since I couldn't do this before to keep anonymity, I dedicate my build to Amechra, whose SCP in the previous round inspired me to make this build.

I have a few closing thoughts:
Amphetryon:
Can you add a question like "Is power everything?" to the FAQ's? I don't know how often this is really asked, but I always thought it was the case, and it might be helpful to new contestants (like myself), who haven't read the 20-odd previous rounds. I imagine the answer would like this:
No. It would be more correct to say that "making the secret ingredient look good" is everything. This is essentially a Practical Optimization contest, and the goal is to turn the secret ingredient into a PC that you could bring to a table and everyone would think it was an original, interesting, and powerful example of that ingredient.

Also, could we get a more specific rubric for the "elegance" category? You wrote "how skillfully your build is put together" in the OP, but based on what I've seen, it seems to have turned into something more like a "miscellaneous" category. Should it be that way, or is there a single, defining aspect of "elegance" that warrants it being a separate category? I'm sorry if this has been answered already in a previous contest. I haven't read them all, and missed it if so.

Vknight:
Thanks for the good scores! I'm curious as to how you got them, since you didn't list much in the explanation section (which I'll definitely grant you, since you had to do a lot of work with all these entries!)

Darrin:
I'm glad the backstory was compelling! I thought it might be droll and scattered.

Edit: And Piggy Knowles entered twice? I thought we could only enter once

[Piggy Knowles]

Edit: And Piggy Knowles entered twice? I thought we could only enter once

Nope, no such restriction. In fact, I believe there was one contest where someone entered three times.

I've done four double entries - Shadowdancer, Mindbender, Shadow Sentinel and now this one. In fact, in the Shadowdancer contest I managed to pull both second and third place.

In this case, I am actually pretty surprised Kiryu placed as high as it did. I entered it more because the idea was bouncing around in my head, to combine Renegade Mastermaker and dragonborn to make a mecha-godzilla themed build, and it was pretty hastily done. I managed to finish AM-1468 pretty early on, and thought it would be fun to throw together the godzilla one. I was originally planning on Duskblade 6/Suel Arcanamach 1/RMM 10/Spellcarved Soldier 3, but I found that the build actually worked out much better by sticking to Suel Arcanamach.

Then I tossed together the Eberron version of a godzilla story, and found that I liked it enough to send it along. I figured it might get some novelty points, although I suspected it would get tanked in power and UoSI when compared to potential 9th-level spells, etc. But luckily, I guess VKnight was a mecha-godzilla fan?

(Oh, and Darrin: the darfellan's bite attack wasn't mentioned because he loses it when he goes dragonborn. Darfellan was mostly there for thematic reasons - I wanted an aquatic race, so that it could come from the seas, and darfellan are by far the coolest aquatic race with no LA.)

AM-1468 was a lot of fun, though. I'm pretty happy with the way the build turned out, even if the entry was a bit longer than I usually like.

I will say I was a little disappointed to see Kilroy place so low, as that was one of my favorites. I really like the way infusions mesh with the secret ingredient, and Kilroy was the only infusion-user here. I'm also a sucker for most of the Dragonmarked PrCs (that book is actually one of my favorite supplements in general), so the inclusion of Cyre Scout was pretty fun.

And kudos to Venger/Samsa on the Metamorphosis reference, although with all the tricks up that build's sleeve, it probably looks a lot more like this version of the story

[Amechra]

I kinda dropped the ball in the fluff for this one, huh?

I kinda just wanted to do a quick one, since I didn't have many ideas, except of course for Mr. NEGATIVE USE OF SECRET INGREDIENT!

Good jobs, everyone else!

[Venger]

Nope, no such restriction. In fact, I believe there was one contest where someone entered three times.

that was death delver. I forget who the chef was, but someone entered 3 dishes.[/quote]

And kudos to Venger/Samsa on the Metamorphosis reference, although with all the tricks up that build's sleeve, it probably looks a lot more like this version of the story

thanks for the kind words, as always. I love that webcomic

[rockdeworld]

Nope, no such restriction. In fact, I believe there was one contest where someone entered three times.

Well color me surprised

If it helps, I was afraid of Kiryu

Edit: I'm also curious what Madara would have rated Father Aldwin.

Edit: And also, if anyone cares, would you critique Father Aldwin for how he could be better? Of course, I could have done his spells more efficiently, rather than simply finding persistent spells to stick on him in every spell slot.

I felt that giving him warforged domain was one of the best ways I could synergize with the RMM class. Currently, he's basically a backup tank and primary buffer, so little more than a regular cleric.

[Amphetryon]

Amphetryon:
Can you add a question like "Is power everything?" to the FAQ's? I don't know how often this is really asked, but I always thought it was the case, and it might be helpful to new contestants (like myself), who haven't read the 20-odd previous rounds. I imagine the answer would like this:
No. It would be more correct to say that "making the secret ingredient look good" is everything. This is essentially a Practical Optimization contest, and the goal is to turn the secret ingredient into a PC that you could bring to a table and everyone would think it was an original, interesting, and powerful example of that ingredient.

Also, could we get a more specific rubric for the "elegance" category? You wrote "how skillfully your build is put together" in the OP, but based on what I've seen, it seems to have turned into something more like a "miscellaneous" category. Should it be that way, or is there a single, defining aspect of "elegance" that warrants it being a separate category? I'm sorry if this has been answered already in a previous contest. I haven't read them all, and missed it if so.

To the first: Any comment made from the Chair on the expectation of Power's importance would seem, to me, to be a restriction on how the judges may score its importance, and I am loathe to make such restrictions. Most judges historically have considered Power to merely be a piece of the puzzle, but some weigh it more heavily than others. I think this is as it should be.

To the second: Elegance has always been a 'catch-all' category for the various parts that make a build work or fall apart and aren't covered elsewhere. We've gone round and round in the past on trying to codify it, but the consensus has been that any attempts at a clearer definition would leave out parts that some judges may wish to consider, with the end result of either an "Elegance loophole" that judges feel proscribed from addressing, or bad feelings from contestants with "the rules don't say this is inelegant!" being the outcry. The best advice, at this point in the game, is to read past contests, particularly those where current judges were also judging, to get an idea of how Elegance is likely to be scored.

[rockdeworld]

To the first: Any comment made from the Chair on the expectation of Power's importance would seem, to me, to be a restriction on how the judges may score its importance, and I am loathe to make such restrictions. Most judges historically have considered Power to merely be a piece of the puzzle, but some weigh it more heavily than others. I think this is as it should be.

To the second: Elegance has always been a 'catch-all' category for the various parts that make a build work or fall apart and aren't covered elsewhere. We've gone round and round in the past on trying to codify it, but the consensus has been that any attempts at a clearer definition would leave out parts that some judges may wish to consider, with the end result of either an "Elegance loophole" that judges feel proscribed from addressing, or bad feelings from contestants with "the rules don't say this is inelegant!" being the outcry. The best advice, at this point in the game, is to read past contests, particularly those where current judges were also judging, to get an idea of how Elegance is likely to be scored.

I hadn't thought of it like that. Thanks for the response Amph

[Xodion]

I didn't want to say anything after Ponies said he recognised a bunch of entries - I had to rush mine and ended up copy-pasting a previous entry format, so it looked absolutely identical.

I completely agree with all the criticisms of Hardy, as the entire build was based around that backstory - there were at least a dozen things I could have changed to make the character better which didn't seem to fit the situation. I hope people found it interesting, anyway

Congrats to the other entrants, there were some great builds in there, with some really nasty combos. Also, how close was that scoring for Bronze!

[rockdeworld]

Congrats to you to too Xodion. The similarity between our builds (at level 1 at least) is uncanny! Both human clerics, both took Warforged domain and got Persistent Spell. I even talked about Cloistered Cleric in my adaptations section!

And I almost forgot: I wrote out the entirety of the raid that took place in Father Aldwin's backstory. I just cut it down (a lot) to save space. If anyone's interested in reading it, I'll post it here:

Spoiler

Show

The full story of the raid:
Although Father Aldwin was seen observed in several other instances related to the acquisition of anomalous objects, the incident on 01/12/2006 distinguished him as a dangerous opponent of the Foundation. Mobile Task Force Beta-4 (aka "The Brothers") were commissioned to raid a sect of the Church of the Broken God, secure any anomalous objects in their possession, and eliminate any threats. At the time, Beta-4 consisted of 5 members. The building was a combination church and soup kitchen, rendering it vulnerable to both intelligence gathering and attack, but at the risk of involving civilians. For this reason, Beta-4 chose a time when few civilians would be present. The following footage is taken from that event, recorded by a hidden camera on Agent Ross's helmet.

Surveillance Log xC76, Date 1-12-2006

14:55 MTF Beta-4 enters the kitchen. Three apparently homeless civilians sit at tables, the room is otherwise empty. Beta-4 ignores the civilians and proceeds to a rear door.

14:56 Beta-4 moves through a sanctuary, chancel, and down a staircase without incident.

14:57 At the bottom of the stairs, Beta-4 encounters a robed figure, later identified as Aldwin, who speaks to them. Agent Ross's gun is leveled at the figure, who raises his hands in surrender. One of the hands appears to have been replaced with a metal gauntlet.

---

1
Audio Log sC76-1 Date: 1-12-2006

<Aldwin> Who-

<Ross> Get on the ground!

<Aldwin> Ok, don't shoot-

<Ross> Hands behind your head! [Aldwin complies, and is handcuffed by Agents Bradley and Lanson. Agent Lanson attempts to remove the gauntlet without success, and barely fits the manacle around it.]

<Ross> Where are the relics?!

<Aldwin> Please don't shoot! I'll tell you, just don't shoot!

<Ross> Tell us!

<Aldwin> At the end of the hall! The room at the end of the hall!

<Ross> Follow us! Bradley, guard him.

---

1
14:59 Beta-4 proceeds to a wooden door at the end of the hall with the figure in tow. Inside is a torchlit room with three objects on an altar. There are no other doors, and no one is inside. Beta-4 clears the room.

15:00 Agent Scott examines the objects, then begins securing the objects in individual containers.

15:01 In the hallway, Aldwin slips out of his manacles and grabs Agent Bradley, who fires point blank. Aldwin is unfazed, and snaps Agent Bradley's neck.

---

1
<Darns> There aren't supposed to be this many!

<Ross> So drop 'em!

Someone shouts "Father Aldwin! Are you ok?"

<Aldwin> Yes, I'm fine. Keep the jailors trapped. They must not be allowed to steal the holy pieces of God!

<Lanson> They saw us coming.

<Ross> Yup. Scott, are you done yet?

<Scott> Almost.

<Ross> Good. Conserve ammo, keep them out of this room. Darns, throw a tox!

<Aldwin> Osmond!

---

1
15:03 Agent Darns lobs a VX neurotoxin grenade into the hallway. Agent Lanson emerges from cover and shoots one man in the head, then a muscular automaton jumps on the grenade. Approximately 10 church members lie wounded or dead on the floor. The camera turns to reveal Agent Ross wounded in the left arm.

---

1
<Ross> Augh!

<Lanson> Commander!

<Aldwin> Retreat! Lest the jailors' gas weapon fell you. Brother Osmond has only stopped the initial discharge.

<Ross> Here's our chance, get ready.

<Scott> Skips secure.

<Alwin> Collapse the hallway.

<Darns> No!

<Ross> Go!

There is an explosion and the sound of moving earth.

---

1
15:05 Beta-4 sprints into the hallway, but Agents Ross and Darns are captured by the collapsing tunnel. Agent Lanson levels his gun at the stairway.

Noises indicate Agent Scott attempts to dig out Agents Ross and Darns.

15:05 Six Church members rush down the stairs while firing assault weapons. Agent Lanson returns fire and the Church members fall.

15:06 Agent Scott falls, revealed to be shot by one of the descending church members. Agents Ross and Darns cannot be seen. Agent Lanson reaches down and takes the anomalous object containers. Then he progresses slowly up the stairs.

15:07 At the top of the stairs, Agent Lanson sees an unarmed Aldwin and three Church members with automatic weapons leveled.

---

1
<Aldwin> Do not be afraid. Drop the sacred relics and you may leave in peace.

<Lanson> Oh yeah? And how's that?

<Aldwin> I have a message for your superiors. You may deliver it, or die here.

<Lanson> Talk, I'll listen.

<Aldwin> Our lord has blessed us with extraordinary knowledge. We knew you were coming. Consider that the next time before you decide to attack us in our homes. You will not win.

<Lanson> That it?

<Aldwin> Yes. Keep your gun if you wish. These men are under my protection, and you will not harm-

Another explosion is heard.

---

1
15:09 Agent Lanson throws a grenade and sprints for the exit. The camera jerks, but continues to rendezvous point C11 before being shut off.

For completing his mission despite being shot in the back, Agent Lanson was promoted to team leader of MTF Beta-4. Father Aldwin himself displayed numerous anomalous properties during the incident, most notably being able to withstand point blank assault rifle bullets and a grenade, neither of which can be accounted for with normal body armor.

[OMG PONIES]

Congrats to everyone!

Rules nitpick: although you are allowed to treat your battlefist as both a manufactured and natural attack, it still counts as a "slam" attack, not an "unarmed strike". Thus, you can't use it in with Dragonmark Fist or Decisive Strike (-0.5). Granted, I know most DMs would handwave that and let you use it as an unarmed strike, but that would still be a houserule...You don't mention where Power Attack came from, I assume from the Overwhelming Attack variant fighting style in UA, but that wasn't mentioned in your sources (-0.5). There's several feats/class features that depend on a DM houseruling your battlefist counts as an unarmed strike rather than a slam, which appears to be a good chunk of the 232 damage you're claiming (-1.0).

I feared a judge would nick me on the whole "battlefist = unarmed" angle I had going on. I relied heavily on the section of the battlefist's text that reads "Your battlefist functions like your hand formerly did, and it does not inconvenience you in the least." It definitely felt a little dubious while cooking, so I thought it might come back to bite me. Also, good catch on the Power Attack; it was indeed from the Overwhelming Attack variant which I forgot to list. That's what I get for procrastinating on my entry formatting .

By the way, re: eyeballing - I've never seen a judge who doesn't eyeball at least a little bit, myself included. It's just too hard to neatly encapsulate everything into tidy little increments of +/- 0.5. That said, OMG PONIES' scoring he did for Hand of the Winged Master came the closest to an objective metric that I've seen any judge use.

Aw shucks, thanks. I tried to go with a bunch of yes/no questions that I could answer easily after thoroughly reading the entry through twice. It seemed to work pretty well (not to mention that it sped up my judging process), so I'll continue to use that rubric for future rounds...granted, I may tweak it a little here and there.

Oh, and I forgot! Honorable Mention goes to Hezekiah, for creating an entire team of five colossal-sized giant robot megazords smashing everything to bits with their lightning fists. "It's Morphin' Time!"

Aw shucks again! I figured that Giant Size and Body Outside Body were pretty standard wu jen-only tricks, so once I realized it could work with this chassis I just went with it. The ability to sync it up so I snag a spell secret at the same time as 9th-level spells was fun, too, but I wish the wu jen's "metal" spells had more on the list that actually fit the Secret Ingredient. Spell Compendium suggests some additions, but I didn't want to open that can of Elegance worms.

Nope, no such restriction. In fact, I believe there was one contest where someone entered three times.

Indeed. That was Lestroisrois in Round XXXV (Death Delver), who submitted Cado Norl, TK-421, and Reach. Besides that, there is a long and storied past of multiple submissions in Iron Chef dating back to Round XI. I don't know who that individual was, but legend holds that he was devastatingly handsome and loved small horses .

I will say I was a little disappointed to see Kilroy place so low, as that was one of my favorites. I really like the way infusions mesh with the secret ingredient, and Kilroy was the only infusion-user here. I'm also a sucker for most of the Dragonmarked PrCs (that book is actually one of my favorite supplements in general), so the inclusion of Cyre Scout was pretty fun.

Agreed; I was toying around with someone who really went whole hog with the House Cannith stuff before I settled on Hezekiah. Glad I scrapped it, because we would have had some similarities: he was a Human Factotum 3/Cyre Scout 2/Dragonmark Heir 5/Renegade Mastermaker 10. I would have missed out on a lot of cool Cyre Scout features, but then RMM would have progressed the infusions exactly to their max without going over. Flavor-wise, he was going to be someone stuck in the Mournland whose body was wasting away from lingering radiation from the Day of Mourning (caused by his own House), so he needed to build himself a new body faster than the cancer could take his natural one away.

And kudos to Venger/Samsa on the Metamorphosis reference, although with all the tricks up that build's sleeve, it probably looks a lot more like this version of the story

The former literature buff in me is kicking myself for missing the reference. Well-played! I really liked Gregor, and toyed around w/ a Changeling Wizard 6/Renegade Mastermaker 10/Recaster 4 to allow me the same tricks Hezekiah had, but on a wizard chassis with some transmutation tricks (namely Toughening Transmutation to stack with RMM's DR and Minor Shapeshift for a decent source of temp HP). I'm glad I didn't pursue it, because you presented it much better than I would have in the backstory department. Also, I kept trying to work in cheesy puns about changeling RMMs being more than meets the eye .

Edit: And also, if anyone cares, would you critique Father Aldwin for how he could be better? Of course, I could have done his spells more efficiently, rather than simply finding persistent spells to stick on him in every spell slot.

I felt that giving him warforged domain was one of the best ways I could synergize with the RMM class. Currently, he's basically a backup tank and primary buffer, so little more than a regular cleric.

I, too, thought the Warforged domain would be a great snag for complementing the Secret Ingredient, what with all of its "only works on constructs" spells. When it comes to Father Aldwin, your problem is that, without nightsticks, you'll run out of turn attempts fast...and you only get 5 per day, which isn't enough to fuel either of your DDM selections. Extra Turning is your friend, especially since you can take it multiple times. The problem is that the cleric's healing skills make Self-Repair a useless feature. If you had taken a bonus warforged feat that makes you immune to healing (like Improved Fortification, I think), then mentioned using self-repair extensively, that would have snagged style points from me if I was judging.

I'll echo the sentiments of another poster who said that embracing some of your "extra cheese" options might have bumped you up for sheer chutzpah. It's always a gamble, and sometimes the judges slap you on the wrist, but it's always good to see someone swinging for the fences.

I didn't want to say anything after Ponies said he recognised a bunch of entries - I had to rush mine and ended up copy-pasting a previous entry format, so it looked absolutely identical.

Was that me? I thought it might have been Piggy or someone else...my attention to detail is lacking, to say the least.

[rockdeworld]

When it comes to Father Aldwin, your problem is that, without nightsticks, you'll run out of turn attempts fast...and you only get 5 per day, which isn't enough to fuel either of your DDM selections. Extra Turning is your friend, especially since you can take it multiple times. The problem is that the cleric's healing skills make Self-Repair a useless feature. If you had taken a bonus warforged feat that makes you immune to healing (like Improved Fortification, I think), then mentioned using self-repair extensively, that would have snagged style points from me if I was judging.

I'll echo the sentiments of another poster who said that embracing some of your "extra cheese" options might have bumped you up for sheer chutzpah. It's always a gamble, and sometimes the judges slap you on the wrist, but it's always good to see someone swinging for the fences.

Well hey-ho! Maybe I should've added it in and showcased it as a TO build then

I didn't this time because I was worried about losing style/originality points on a build that I worked very hard on (I kid you not when I say I spent almost every day of the two weeks on it) and was my second entry to this competition. In the future, I won't be so worried about it and will take the chance if it comes up again

I knew that using Warforged turning as an extra source of fuel for DMM was based on DM interpretation and is not RAW, and am actually a bit surprised none of the other judges marked me off for it. I had a version I didn't submit that basically had Extra Turning as the last 4 feats, and was looking for a 3rd domain that granted turning to get about 63 turning attempts, or enough for 9 Persistent spells. I decided to go for versatility rather than straight power though, and besides wanted something that would fit the RMM flavor better, because I couldn't see how that build wouldn't be better as a straight cleric.

I also had a version that got Fortification for the exact reason you mention, but scrapped it because I thought Adamantine Body was straight better. Perhaps flavor would have been better than power though

Anyway, thanks Ponies!

[Piggy Knowles]

I didn't want to say anything after Ponies said he recognised a bunch of entries - I had to rush mine and ended up copy-pasting a previous entry format, so it looked absolutely identical.

That was me who said that, not Ponies - and it turned out I was right on all counts! Which, er, probably means I spend way more time than is healthy reading old entries.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: A bit of a wake-up.

[Savannah]

And now, the trophies!



And the judges:

[Piggy Knowles]

Excellent! Savannah, your trophies have all been wonderful thus far, but I think these are my favorites. Thanks as always!

[rockdeworld]

Looks awesome, thanks Savannah!