Iron Chef Optimisation Challenge in the Playground LXXXII

[Troacctid]

Okay, here it is, the judging you've all been waiting for.

Spoiler: Criteria

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I grade holistically and I don't like fractions. And I do not start each category at 5, so brace yourself for lower scores than you got from my esteemed colleague ZamielVanWeber.

Spoiler: Marg, Comet of Sharn

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Originality: 3
Psychic warrior is expected, and orc chargers are nothing new. Roof-Jumper isn't too surprising, given the prerequisites for the round? But I will admit I wasn't expecting anyone to go full-suicide with it. Psion Uncarnate is also mildly interesting. Anyway, I think you fall into an average score here.

Hopefully the other entries will pull through with Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen!

Elegance: 2
While the build is mostly legal (you don't qualify for Martial Study at the time you take it, but you could easily swap it with Mobility or Roofwalker to fix it; and your oak body power is effectively unusable because the -2 Dex penalty it gives you disqualifies you from your feats, but you can get gloves of dexterity solve that problem easily enough), which means you're exempt from a minimum score, your Elegance really suffers because you don't have any way of negating the 20d6 falling damage you take every time you do your thing. I think you thought Scorn Earth would protect you, but rules-wise, there's no reason that it would, and even if it did, Death from Above doesn't work if you use any ability to slow your fall. I'm afraid I cannot overlook the gravity of this error, and it is your downfall in this category.

Power: 3
An excess of short-duration standard action buffs hurts you here somewhat, as it makes it difficult to leverage the power of the psychic warrior class. Generally, I see a lot of redundancy in your power selection. Furthermore, your PP reserve is very small, so you're lacking in stamina. But you've got great mobility, and at least you deal some pretty decent charge damage, even when you aren't committing suicide. (Teleporting 50 feet above your opponent with dimension door is still going to hurt them a lot more than it hurts you.) Unfortunately, it only works in large open spaces. In a typical dungeon environment—which you've got to assume is going to be a factor in most campaigns—you might have more trouble contributing.

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 3
You get a decent power boost out of the extra skills, teleportation, levitation, and accelerated action, but those are the easy parts. They're good on almost everyone. On the other hand, Flanker, Opportunistic Strike, and Spring Attack take a bit more finagling to get use out of, and I think they're feeling neglected in your build. And you do okay with Dodge and Mobility, although maybe not so much Spring Attack. On the whole, meh, okay.

Total: 11

Spoiler: Tsillah

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Originality: 3
Well, I'll tell you one thing, the Light and Darkness Mantle is certainly an unorthodox choice. And while wilder was not unexpected, nor was scout, the combination of the two is...interesting. Overall, though, a melee skirmisher is nothing terribly novel, and I don't think you're doing anything wilder than anything the others did.

Elegance: 3
The main thing darkening your elegance score is that wilder and scout really don't play very nicely together. There's no real synergy between them, and the scout levels dilute your manifesting, which is pretty awkward when you already have the wilder's delayed progression and you're losing three more levels from Elocater.

Power: 2
I'd say you're basically an aristocrat at low levels, but since you don't even have martial weapon proficiency, I don't know, maybe you're actually weaker than that? You're ostensibly a melee skirmisher, but with only 1d6 skirmish, 12 Strength, and no way to enable Opportunistic Strike, I don't see how you're supposed to be dealing level-appropriate damage before you get metamorphosis—which doesn't come until waaaay late, all the way at level 15. This really casts a shadow over the whole build. And while you get up to 7th level powers, your actual power selection seems unimpressive. What are you even doing while you're temporally accelerated if you can't attack? And ultrablast, your 7th level power, is a worse version of energy burst, a 4th level power, not to mention that you already have a perfectly serviceable AoE power in light beam, so choosing a redundant power when you're already as severely constrained on powers known as you are hurts you a lot. Psionic powers can be very strong, but you're not leveraging them effectively. Anyway, I don't mean to throw shade, but I think you end up being fairly unoptimized overall, and metamorphosis and teleport aren't enough to help you run away from a below-average score here.

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 3
Skirmish works well with Capricious Step, so that's something, and you make good use of Spring Attack. But you aren't benefiting much from flanking or Opportunistic Strike. I'm giving you the same score as Marg for basically the same reasons.

Total: 11

Spoiler: Izzlyn Oussana

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Originality: 3
While Psychic Assassin is definitely uncommon, all the other pieces of this build are either commonly used or expected, so you're not exactly catching me flat-footed here. Of course, they're not usually used together, so I think you can get an average score.

Elegance: 3
You don't qualify for Weapon Finesse at the level you take it, and while you do avoid multiclass penalties, you only manage to do so by contorting your build to include a pretty suboptimal prestige class that costs you multiple levels of manifesting (and some skills)—not a very elegant solution to the problem. Also, side note, I don't know where you got that entangling ectoplasm makes them flat-footed. None of this really poisons the build, so I'll give you an average score, but it comes with a stern glance.

Power: 3
While I'm not blown away or anything, I'll definitely give you credit for accomplishing your goals. This looks like a decent skillmonkey/utility/secondary melee build. You make decent use of the PsyRogue power list (although bolt seems like a questionable choice—personally, I would have gone with conceal thoughts and put some ranks in Bluff, probably over Craft (poisonmaking), to add "party face" to your repertoire for not much investment), and it looks like you can contribute well both in and out of combat. My main complaint is that you appear to fall off at high levels. The abilities that come online towards the latter half of the build just aren't really up to snuff for a character of that level. You get hammered hard by the delayed manifesting progression, and you're obviously feat-starved as well, which shows. (Taking feats to get 1st level powers at levels 13 and 19? Not exactly where you want to be.) Oh, also, it didn't affect your score, but you really should have used the Savage Progression version of the drow, it's basically a free +2 Int.

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 4
This build does a pretty decent job of playing to some of Elocater's strengths. Most of the class features are seeing good use. This is why I expected psychic rogue—it has natural synergy.

Total: 13

Spoiler: Ardatha Lilim

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Originality: 2
It feels like you're using a bunch of generic psionic tricks on a typical ardent with typical "good" mantles. While the ranger levels are unexpected, they also don't really feel like they do anything much, so I'm not inclined to give you a lot of credit for them.

Elegance: 2
You're a melee build with 10 Strength. You can't even perform your basic function until level 9. That's pretty inelegant. You also took bestow power exclusively to use with an infinite PP trick that relies on a favorable reading of an ambiguously-worded ability to work, and you're taking what looks like a pretty questionable interpretation of Spring Attack. Oh, and you twisted yourself into knots taking random dips in order to avoid a multiclass penalty rather than just going straight ardent or picking a race with fighter as a favored class. Anyway, you get a 2.

Power: 3
This is the second build in this competition that can't function without metamorphosis and does basically nothing at low levels as a result. To your credit, you at least get it sooner than Tsillah, and yours is definitely more powerful thanks to Metamorphic Transfer, which does admittedly earn you a higher score than she got, since you end up transforming into a more powerful build eventually. But the sluggishness and inefficiency of the build takes what should have been an easy 4 or 5 and knocks it down to a mere 3.

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 2
Yeah, okay, you're an Elocater, the obviously good abilities are obviously good. Sure. But that's about it. Honestly, I think Elocater actually hurts this build much more than it helps! All you really want to do is use metamorphosis and smash people, but you're losing nine manifester levels in order to accommodate a prestige class that doesn't particularly do anything to advance that plan. That's a lot, even if you do get four of them back! I can't help but think you'd have been a lot better off as a single-class ardent!

Total: 9

Spoiler: Geoffrey Fourmyle

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Originality: 5
The Psionic Assassin base coming off of monk and warblade and then going into Jaunter is about as original as I could reasonably ask for. Okay, divine mind would have been more original, but it's hardly reasonable. Anyway, I'm willing to offer you a 5, but I don't give those out much, so take it quick before I change my mind.

Elegance: 3
What is it with people this round thinking that you can just ignore Strength on a melee-focused character? It's your primary combat stat! I don't know, it's like you just forgot you were supposed to take Weapon Finesse. Anyway, the build is actually pretty elegant aside from that (okay, Carmendine Monk is cross-setting, but whatever, it's not like you couldn't have also used Kung Fu Genius), so I'll give you an average score anyway, but this could have easily been higher.

Power: 2
Here is where you really get hammered for your stat array. Your build is all melee, all the time, but you don't have the stats to support it. Your attack and damage modifiers are invisible. On the upside, you can scout and stealth, and your mobility is obviously very good. But without any real combat chops, it's hard for me to justify you as anything but below average.

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 3
You get points for not caring much about the 7/10 progression due to only having 10 levels of manifesting to worry about in the first place! And you've got Shi'Quos School going, and a little sneak attack to go with Flanker. On the other hand, Jaunter kind of makes the Transporter ability seem, y'know, redundant, and you don't have a way of enabling Flanker or Opportunistic Strike on your own. So, eh.

Total: 13

Spoiler: North and East

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Originality: 5
Psychic Assassin was unexpected, and the focus on Intelligence damage is actually a really neat take on this round, and I like it. Dvati is pretty uncommon, and Divine Minion of Set is not something you see often. Overall, above average.

Elegance: 4
Not many black marks that I'm seeing here. You do take multiclass penalties for one level, but you do fix it up quick at least. And Knowledge Devotion is actually looking really awkward here—not only do you not have ranks in all Knowledge skills, but it's an insight bonus that doesn't stack with Opportunistic Strike. And it's unfortunate that picking Set as your deity priced you into taking an extra LA that you didn't really have to. But these are relatively minor issues that don't affect the fundamentals of the build too much; I think you still come out above average. You might have scratched a 5 if you'd found a way to fix them.

Power: 3
The big sticking point is the twin LAs from your race and your template. You get good value out of them, sure, and I think both of them are good, but losing out on the raw numbers provided by extra hit dice—particularly HP, since you're very squishy—is still too painful to bear, as is the delay in your progression. You still do pretty good work and accomplish your goals for the build, but I'm skeptical as to whether you actually end up above average.

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 4
I think you actually do a fantastic job with the secret ingredient, probably better than any of the other builds! Dvati has so much great synergy with the class. I'd really like to give you a 5, but you know I can't really do that if you don't take all 10 levels.

Total: 16

Spoiler: Gripp

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Originality: 5
Okay, this was completely out of left field. I was not expecting a grappler, and I certainly was not expecting a constrictor snake of all things.

Elegance: 5
I can't actually find any strikes here. It looks like everything is in place and working synergistically. Nice job.

Power: 4
I think you do pretty well for yourself as a melee brawler with some extra utility. You can do stealth, perception, mobility, melee, and some control via grappling, with some curiosity value via call item. High raw stats give your bite attack some real teeth, and allow you to excel at your primary role as a damage-dealer. Pretty solid.

Use of the Secret Ingredient: 2
The issue that I'm grappling with for this category is that I'm really not sure why you're in the class? The prerequisites constrict your early feat selection and don't mesh well with your strategy, and you're not doing much with the class abilities outside of Scorn Earth (which you could have picked up with a one-level dip and gone back to PsyWar). Even Transporter, one of the class's best abilities, looks a little less impressive when you could have just stayed in your base class and taken psionic teleport as an ordinary known power. It feels like the build really wanted to go into Slayer, and only begrudgingly took Elocater because the contest required it. I mean, you do use it a little, which is why you don't have the minimum score, but still, I'm not impressed.

Total: 16

There you go! All done! As usual, I'm sure there will be no disputes, since I am perfect and my judging is perfect and everyone agrees with me on everything.

[danielxcutter]

"don't think you're doing anything wilder than anything the others did."

*ba dum tiss

[Muggins]

The puns in those judgings are the best part. 10/10.

[Muggins]

Holy ties, Batman! Here are the current scores, before disputes.

Place	Build	Judge ZamielVanWeber	Judge Troacctid	Total
1st	North and East	17.5	16	33.5
1st	Gripp	17.5	16	33.5
3rd	Izzlyn Oussana	17.5	13	30.5
3rd	Geoffrey Fourmyle	17.5	13	30.5
5th	Marg, Comet of Sharn	16.5	11	27.5
5th	Tsillah	16.5	11	27.5
7th	Ardatha Lilim	15.5	9	24.5

[Inevitability]

Well, I guess the ties are in less important places now?

[Darrin]

Place	Name	Build	1st Judge Score	2nd Judge Score	Total Score
1st (Gold)	North and East	LE Dvati Divine Minion of Set Fighter 2/Lurk 3/Elocater 7/Psychic Assassin 5	17.5	16	33.5
1st (Gold)	Gripp, the Husk That Was	Chaotic Neutral Anthropomorphic Giant Constrictor Snake Psychic Warrior 5/Elocater 10	17.5	16	33.5
3rd (Bronze)	Izzlyn Oussana	NE Dark Lesser Drow Psychic Rogue 2, Hit and Run Fighter 2, Warblade 1, Psychic Assassin 4, Elocater 10	17.5	13	30.5
3rd (Bronze)	Geoffrey Fourmyle	LE kalashtar cobra strike monk 2/warblade 3/psionic assassin 1/elocator 10/jaunter 4	17.5	13	30.5
5th (Tinsel)	Marg, Comet of Sharn	CG Female Insane Skydiving Orc Skilled City-Dweller Psychic Warrior 6/Elocater 10/Psion Uncarnate 3/Psychic Warrior +1	16.5	11	27.5
5th (Tinsel)	Tsillah	Synad, CN, Scout 3/ Wilder 7/ Elocater 10	16.5	11	27.5
7th (Coal)	Ardatha Lilim	CG Savage Progression Tiefling Ranger 2/Ardent 2/HnR Fighter 1/Elocater 4/Fighter +1/Mantled Wilder 2/Ardent +1/Elocater +6/Ardent +1	16	9	25

If this is how the final scores shake out, I'd be tempted to award two gold, two silver, and two bronze. That leaves only one entry possible for HM, so... everybody wins? However, I looked up how the Olympics handles ties, and although it's up to each ruling organization in each sport to decide how ties work, it looks like the general pattern is two golds mean no silver is awarded.

Based on this ranking, my HM goes to the insane skydiving orc: Marg.

Thanks to KrimsonNekros for the table. [Edit] And thank you to Muggins for being faster than me.

[Muggins]

If this is how the final scores shake out, I'd be tempted to award two gold, two silver, and two bronze. That leaves only one entry possible for HM, so... everybody wins? However, I looked up how the Olympics handles ties, and although it's up to each ruling organization in each sport to decide how ties work, it looks like the general pattern is two golds mean no silver is awarded.

Based on this ranking, my HM goes to the crazy skydiving orc: Marg.

Thanks to KrimsonNekros for the table. [Edit] And thank you to Muggins for being faster than me.

Just barely! Those levels in Swordsage sure paid off.

Traditonally, two-way ties in this competition remove the next placing; two golds mean no silver, for example. For the sake of posterity, I say we leave it as-is. I'm happy with giving consolation prizes, though.

On which note, my Honorable Mention would go to Geoffrey, but he placed. As such, I'm going to go with Marg as well; I like his style, even with his mechanical flaws. He reminds me of an attempt I made at a roof-jumping Ezio build a couple of years ago. Shame he didn't think of using the Catfall power to negate some of that self-damage (legally, as far as I can tell), because he really is suicidal.

[danielxcutter]

Thirding Marg for HM. I mean, come on. Weaponized falling isn't something you see every day.

[Venger]

Looks like christmas came early! Thanks for judging, Troacctid. As you predicted, I have absolutely no disputes.

If this is how the final scores shake out, I'd be tempted to award two gold, two silver, and two bronze. That leaves only one entry possible for HM, so... everybody wins? However, I looked up how the Olympics handles ties, and although it's up to each ruling organization in each sport to decide how ties work, it looks like the general pattern is two golds mean no silver is awarded.

Based on this ranking, my HM goes to the insane skydiving orc: Marg.

Thanks to KrimsonNekros for the table. [Edit] And thank you to Muggins for being faster than me.

I think that's a nice idea.

Just barely! Those levels in Swordsage sure paid off.

Traditonally, two-way ties in this competition remove the next placing; two golds mean no silver, for example. For the sake of posterity, I say we leave it as-is. I'm happy with giving consolation prizes, though.

On which note, my Honorable Mention would go to Geoffrey, but he placed. As such, I'm going to go with Marg as well; I like his style, even with his mechanical flaws. He reminds me of an attempt I made at a roof-jumping Ezio build a couple of years ago. Shame he didn't think of using the Catfall power to negate some of that self-damage (legally, as far as I can tell), because he really is suicidal.

Thirding Marg for HM. I mean, come on. Weaponized falling isn't something you see every day.

Definitely sticking with Marg for my HM.

[The Viscount]

I would like the idea of 2 golds, 2 silvers, and 2 HMs, but if we're sticking as is then my HM nomination is for Marg.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Lemme put my HM down for Izzlyn Oussana.

[Troacctid]

I don't know if I'm ready to take the leap and make my own HM vote, but it looks like the thread is hovering around a consensus even without me, so if it was up in the air before, it's certainly falling into place now.

[KrimsonNekros]

Sticking as things are my HM is for Alta- I mean Marg

[Thurbane]

In case the chair missed my PM, and everyone else seems to be posting to the thread, my HM in North and East.

[Heliomance]

Only one dispute!

Thanks for judging.

Originality:

I'm not so sure roof-jumper is as expectable as you're saying. I admit that two out of the three feats it requires have to be taken anyway, but that alone shouldn't be enough to make it an obvious pick.

There's dozens of feats requiring Dodge, Mobility or Spring Attack, and punishing me just for picking one of them seems illogical. Isn't making creative use of class prerequisites encouraged?

Besides, it's not like Roof-Jumper is highly popular as far as feats go. If I'd picked something like Elusive Target or Bounding Assault I'd agree, but as it is now I feel like I'm just getting points deducted for no reason.

Elegance:

The supposed inability to reduce falling damage, I must disagree with. The feat says:

You cannot use any ability to slow your fall (such as the monk's slow fall ability, or the feather fall spell) while attacking in this manner.

The feat doesn't say 'this fall cannot be slowed' or anything like that, it just says that while attacking, no fall-slowing abilities can be used. I'm free to use them after the attacks.

There's definitely reason to assume that Scorn Earth protects me against falling damage. How am I supposed to take it if I never hit the ground? The class feature itself says something along the lines of 'unconcerned with the hard earth'.

[Troacctid]

I'm not so sure roof-jumper is as expectable as you're saying. I admit that two out of the three feats it requires have to be taken anyway, but that alone shouldn't be enough to make it an obvious pick.

There's dozens of feats requiring Dodge, Mobility or Spring Attack, and punishing me just for picking one of them seems illogical. Isn't making creative use of class prerequisites encouraged?

Besides, it's not like Roof-Jumper is highly popular as far as feats go. If I'd picked something like Elusive Target or Bounding Assault I'd agree, but as it is now I feel like I'm just getting points deducted for no reason.

Roof-Jumper is why you have a 3 instead of a 2.

The supposed inability to reduce falling damage, I must disagree with. The feat says:

You cannot use any ability to slow your fall (such as the monk's slow fall ability, or the feather fall spell) while attacking in this manner.

The feat doesn't say 'this fall cannot be slowed' or anything like that, it just says that while attacking, no fall-slowing abilities can be used. I'm free to use them after the attacks.

There's definitely reason to assume that Scorn Earth protects me against falling damage. How am I supposed to take it if I never hit the ground? The class feature itself says something along the lines of 'unconcerned with the hard earth'.

This idea that you're not hitting the ground doesn't seem to appear in the ability anywhere that I'm seeing.

No change.

[Inevitability]

I'll come and say it: I made Marg, and I'll (at least for the sake of speeding stuff up) raise no further disputes. I'm okay with ending the round.

[KrimsonNekros]

I chucked a couple disputes, but doubt they'll change anything.

[Korahir]

I got no disputes. Wonderful round.

[Muggins]

I've got no disputes to make either, so you can scratch a couple more builds off the "allowing time for disputes" list. Really happy with how this one turned out.

[Darrin]

I have no disputes. Ready for the next ingredient.

[Heliomance]

Last dispute - I won't accept any more after this.

First off, thanks for judging.

Quick answers to what i think are the major problems you are seeing. My damage is scaled up as I progress by sinking more points into claws of Darkness to increase the damage they can do.

The use of Opportunistic strike and flanker is accomplished by use of Shadow Eft, which we can summon with Temporal Acceleration, or before a major fight.

As to the power selection this was largely due to being unfamiliar with the system. I had initially looked at Ultrablast for an emergency escape when surrounded as opposed to Light Wave which was intended for more regular use.

[Troacctid]

Okay, but now you're taking two rounds to set up before you even do anything. Which admittedly makes temporal acceleration more useful, but it also makes you function a lot less effectively without it. Also, your big problem in Power is at low levels anyway.

Oh, and now that you mention it, I probably should have docked you in Elegance for taking a 4th level power as a 3rd level power? I knew I was forgetting something. Oh well. Meh.

No change.

[The Viscount]

Wonderful, fast response. Now we can move on, then.

[Venger]

I'm excited to see what the next round will be. Here's hoping for anything except shining blade.

[Thurbane]

I'm excited to see what the next round will be. Here's hoping for anything except shining blade.

Anything non-psionic/non-incarnum and I'll try to get a build in while I'm on my break from work!

[Korahir]

@Thurbane: i learned every subsystem while competing. It actually isn't that much reading.

[KrimsonNekros]

@Thurbane: i learned every subsystem while competing. It actually isn't that much reading.

I have found out about so many wierd rules and interactions because of this I don't want to think about it.

[Sian]

... soo ... some wrapping up and new?

[WhamBamSam]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next round. Between actual free time and catching up on sleep, my optimization brain is firing on all cylinders. I had a brainwave for a Thunder Guide build of all things last night, so I'm ready for anything.