Junkyard Wars XI: Magical Darkness + Improved Familiar - Wizard

[Curmudgeon]

OK, I'm very confused about one of the builds, Skyg Shadowfiend.

According to Monsters of Faerûn page 79 (and no change to these stats on page 6 of Player’s Guide to Faerûn Web Enhancement), the Hairy Spider has:

Str 1, Dex 14, Con 10, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 2

The master, Sam Shadowbard, was a Shadowcaster 3/Bard 3. The familiar, Skyg Shadowfiend, was obtained via the Shadow Familiar feat, which says:

For the purpose of determining familiar abilities that depend on your arcane caster level, your levels in all classes that allow you to cast mysteries or arcane spells stack.

That initially gives the familiar the Special Abilities specified on the Familiar Abilities Table for a level 6 master.

Death of a Master
If a master dies and the familiar survives, part of the master lives on in the familiar. It loses any extra hit points and skills it gained from the master but retains most of its familiar abilities. It is treated as having a master two levels lower (but never below 1st level).

Now we're down to a level 4 master, which gets an INT of 7 according to the table.
So that should give stats of:

Str 1, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 2

So, given that this is a character built using the above-cited rules rather than 32 point buy, how does it start with the following stats?

Race: Dark Partly-Fiend Fiendish Ex-familiar Hairy Spider
Ability Scores (level 1): Str 1, Dex 20, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 1

STR and WIS match, but everything else seems wonky.

[Inevitability]

OK, I'm very confused about one of the builds, Skyg Shadowfiend.

According to Monsters of Faerûn page 79 (and no change to these stats on page 6 of Player’s Guide to Faerûn Web Enhancement), the Hairy Spider has:


The master, Sam Shadowbard, was a Shadowcaster 3/Bard 3. The familiar, Skyg Shadowfiend, was obtained via the Shadow Familiar feat, which says:
That initially gives the familiar the Special Abilities specified on the Familiar Abilities Table for a level 6 master.


Now we're down to a level 4 master, which gets an INT of 7 according to the table.
So that should give stats of:

Str 1, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 2

So, given that this is a character built using the above-cited rules rather than 32 point buy, how does it start with the following stats?

STR and WIS match, but everything else seems wonky.

I may be mistaken, but I believe that 32 point buy was, in fact used, applying the modifiers above (-10 strength, +4 dex, +0 con, -4 int, +0 wis, -8 cha) to the bought amounts.

After some messing around with a point buy calculator, I figured that if the creator put 0 points in strength and charisma, 10 points in dexterity, 4 in constitution, 16 in intelligence, and 2 in wisdom, he'd end up with the given stats (assuming no ability score can get lower than 1).

But I agree, the build does depend on some shaky RAW.

[WhamBamSam]

Do we have anyone thinking of judging this round?

[Troacctid]

Oh, yeah, I did say I was gonna do that. I guess I'll do it today. Maybe tomorrow.

[Jurai]

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! I'm so excited!

[Sian]

soo... who throws a coin in the jukebox?

[WhamBamSam]

It's looking as though I may have to judge myself this round. The bad news is that I'm a pretty slow judge. The good news is that we don't have to worry too much about anonymity, as I don't really remember who submitted what without checking my PM box.

[Deadasadoor]

Any word on judging for this?

[Sian]

*pokes corpse*

[dysprosium]

I would have stepped forward earlier but real life is a monster.

That and my free time is being spent on getting entries in for IC and ZS.

[WhamBamSam]

Oh, right. I had meant to judge myself to get the round done, but I've been getting caught up in IC rounds and things.

[sakuuya]

Oh, right. I had meant to judge myself to get the round done, but I've been getting caught up in IC rounds and things.

Haha, I was wondering! Are you still willing to do it?

[Sian]

just a guess but i think part of the issue is that the ingredients is too vague to lean a judging on, meaning that it would be much more of 'who made the objectionally best character that didn't ignore this', instead of 'who used this to make the best character'

[WhamBamSam]

Haha, I was wondering! Are you still willing to do it?

Yeah, I suppose. I'll get to work on it as soon as I'm finished with my IC entry for this round, unless someone else wants to jump in and do it before then.

[Sian]

*orders funeral train*

[Inevitability]

How's the judging?

[Sian]

Can't it just end with no judging done, list the entries, and move onwards to a new edition? ... this optimization variant is simply to interesting to die IMO (and with me running Zinc already i can't take over, even if i would have wanted to)

[WhamBamSam]

Can't it just end with no judging done, list the entries, and move onwards to a new edition? ... this optimization variant is simply to interesting to die IMO (and with me running Zinc already i can't take over, even if i would have wanted to)

Yeah, alright. I really should have just judged this myself, but couldn't find the wherewithal to get down to it somehow. I'll put a new round up sometime tonight.

[Deadasadoor]

I'm sad to see this go unjudged, seeing how much work I put into both of my entries. But I'd also like to see the next round . Can't win 'em all I guess.

[Troacctid]

Dammit I've been holding out on judging this whole time hoping that I wouldn't be the only judge. I really hate being the only judge. It's, like, the worst. There really ought to be, like, a whole panel of judges, and they would all take notes on the contestants, then have a Skype debate about their scoring, and record it, and then release the whole discussion as a podcast. Now that would be a competition.

[WeaselGuy]

Wow, almost 3 months with nobody judging it, and now it just dies. I too am sad to see this happen, considering the amount of work I put into my entry as well.

[Inevitability]

So should we just reveal our submissions? Mine was...

Spoiler

Show

Skyg. Yeah, no big surprise there.

[Sagetim]

oh, now I see this thread, months after it's over. Before I go back and look at the entries, I wonder if anyone did shadowcaster + acquire familiar feat +improved familiar feat at 9? It would be the easiest way to get the ingredients, then you could pick up shadow master from 10 to 19 and turn your familiar into something awesome (a shadow elemental).

[WhamBamSam]

oh, now I see this thread, months after it's over. Before I go back and look at the entries, I wonder if anyone did shadowcaster + acquire familiar feat +improved familiar feat at 9? It would be the easiest way to get the ingredients, then you could pick up shadow master from 10 to 19 and turn your familiar into something awesome (a shadow elemental).

Shadowcasters don't have an arcane spellcaster level and do not qualify for Improved Familiar.

[Troacctid]

But yes, we had two Shadowcasters this round, plus however you count the spider.

[ben-zayb]

So should we just reveal our submissions? Mine was...

Spoiler

Show

Skyg. Yeah, no big surprise there.

I love reading that entry!

Too bad on how it ended, though, seeing as this is my first official optimization contest to have joined in.

[Sagetim]

Shadowcasters don't have an arcane spellcaster level and do not qualify for Improved Familiar.

In the last line of the shadowcaster entry on mysteries and paths it says,

Even though as a shadowcaster you do not “cast spells” in the traditional sense, your levels in this class count for the purpose of determining your overall caster level.

Does that not imply that you have arcane caster levels? I'm pretty sure true namers have an arcane caster level too, despite having no spells per day.

[WhamBamSam]

Caster levels are not the same as spellcaster levels, and there's nothing to suggest that Shadowcaster caster levels are arcane.

[Troacctid]

Caster levels are not the same as spellcaster levels, and there's nothing to suggest that Shadowcaster caster levels are arcane.

However, the Shadow Familiar feat has explicit language that allows Shadowcaster levels to count towards familiars despite not being arcane, which is why it was eligible to be used this round.

[Curmudgeon]

I suggest that it's not a matter of "letting" Junkyard Wars die; it's already dead. If nobody was interested in seeing how the entries compared, the formula just wasn't good enough to sustain the contest.