Villainous Competition XXVIII Bad Things Come in Small Packages

[jdizzlean]

Welcome to Round 28 of the Villainous Competition!

Previous Competitions
Round One: Leader of Armies
Round Two: Nature's Revenger
Round Three: Double Agent
Round Four: Grave Keeper
Round Five: Crime Lord
Round Six: Ultimate Predator
Round Seven: Wicked Witch
Round Eight: Master of the Tundra
Round Nine: The Power of Villainous Thinking
Round Ten: Henchman Are Villains Too
Round Eleven: The Higher They Rise The Harder They Fall
Round Twelve: Power Comes at a Price
Round Thirteen: The Gadgeteer - You Are Not Batman
Round Fourteen: The Thing That Should Not Be
Round Fifteen: The Horsemen Are Drawing Nearer
Round Sixteen: Burn Baby Burn
Round Seventeen: It's Alive!
Round Eighteen: This is Heresy
Round Nineteen: He Slimed Me!
Round Twenty: Elder Evil
Round Twenty-One: Yarr!
Round Twenty-Two: I Am The Night!
Round Twenty-Three: Two Heads Are Better Than One!
Round Twenty-Four: Wrong For The Right Reasons!
Round Twenty-Five: Keeper of the Gate
Round Twenty-Six: Get In MY BELLY (Swallow Whole)
Round Twenty-Seven: Multiple Personality Disorder

We're a little different than most of the optimization threads. We run on CR instead of ECL.

Contestants:
You will need to present a write-up of your build with at least one of the following points: 5 CR, 10 CR 15 CR, 20 CR, and a "sweet spot" that you feel is the high point of the build, as well as presenting a fully-fleshed out 20 CR build in the table below. Feel free to present as many of these as you like, and please give a rundown of the build's abilities and playability at all of the levels you didn't show. The rules are as follows:

Secret Laboratory:
Competitors will be free to use any official 1st party (WotC) 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon Compendium is allowed, but Dragon magazine is disallowed. Unearthed Arcana is allowed. Unupdated 3.0 materials, as well as web exclusives by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion. Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Item Familiars and Taint are also banned from the competition. Leadership and all similar abilities are banned for sanity reasons.
Builds that are fully monstrous are allowed at no penalty. All class levels are to be added on as associated class levels.

Elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is the assumed ability score generation method.
Some monstrous characters can technically qualify for Epic feats as soon as their ECL is over 20. While regular Epic feats will be allowed, Epic Spellcasting and all other Epic feats that affect spells, psionic powers, or item creation are not permitted. Including these would give an unfair advantage over standard characters. For Incarnum characters, Epic Open Chakra feats are allowed; other Epic Incarnum feats are not. The Essentia Capacity increases for Epic capacity as described on p. 212. For all characters, please note that Racial Hit Dice do not count towards Epic Progression; use the regular progression even if the BAB ends up higher than 20.

Deadlines:
Contestants will have until 23:59 GMT Saturday August 18th to create their builds and PM them to the Supreme Chancellor. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges will have until 23:59 GMT Saturday Sep 18th to judge the builds and submit their scores. If no judges have scored by that point, only the scores of the first judge to submit will be counted. Deadlines are subject to extension as/if required.

Judging:
Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each build rated on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (exemplary) in each area: Originality, Build Elegance, Competence and Power, Memorable Villainy.
Keep these questions in mind when judging each category:
Originality - Is it unexpected?
Build Elegance - Is it mechanically pretty?
Competence and Power - Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
Memorable Villainy - Is this a villain with style? Will it be the BBEG players long to finally kill and then talk about for weeks?
Unearthed Arcana can be penalized for elegance if the specific feature seems unnecessary or makes the playing field unfair (In this case, you can give a 1 if it makes the field unfair.)
Power level is up to you. Cheese is acceptable, but should be kept to a sane level unless you're showcasing a new TO build you've discovered. As the Iron Chef competition states, a little cheddar can be nice, but avoid the mature Gruyere unless you're making a cheese fondue.
You may not judge if you entered the contest, unless you withdraw your submission.

Presentation:
Builds will be posted anonymously, in order to avoid the potential of bias towards a particular competitor. For this reason, please don't put your name in the build, as I'm likely to miss it when reviewing the entries!

Note:
There is now a hard limit on two (2) entries per competitor.

Using the table below, the easiest way to use it is to go to the top left of the private message, and click the little a/A icon. It allows you to see what you're writing.
Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, I'd like everyone to try to use the following table for their entry.[/SPOILER]
You can use the table below for Spells.

Spoiler

Show

Spells per Day/Spells Known
Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
8th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
10th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
11th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
12th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
13th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
15th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
16th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
17th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
18th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
20th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Code Immediately Below,

Spoiler

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[B]Spells per Day/Spells Known[/B]
[B]Spells per Day/Spells Known[/B]
[table="class:head alt1 alt2"]
[tr]
[th][B]Level[/B][/th]
[th][B]0lvl[/B][/th]
[th][B]1st[/B][/th]
[th][B]2nd[/B][/th]
[th][B]3rd[/B][/th]
[th][B]4th[/B][/th]
[th][B]5th[/B][/th]
[th][B]6th[/B][/th]
[th][B]7th[/B][/th]
[th][B]8th[/B][/th]
[th][B]9th[/B][/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1st[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2nd[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3rd[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[td]-[/td]
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[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[td]-[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11th[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]12th[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]13th[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]14th[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]15th[/td]
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[/tr]
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[td]16th[/td]
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[td]17th[/td]
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[/tr]
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[td]18th[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]19th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[/tr]
[tr]
[td]20th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
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[/tr]
[/table]

Speculation:
Please don’t post or speculate on possible builds until the reveal, in order to avoid spoiling the surprise if a particular competitor is producing a build along those lines.
Once builds are revealed, please do not comment on errors or rules issues on entries unless you are a judge. If you have such a comment, wait until the final reveal to post it.

Get ready to share those Evil thoughts. This edition’s villain is:

It’s not the size that counts!
Tiny ONLY!!

Limitations

• can never have a size larger than Tiny (Dimunitive, Fine, these things are also ok to be)
• For THIS ROUND, you can ignore size increases from HD
• CR increases from the size increase you are ignoring, will still take effect as normal
• For THIS ROUND, psionics are banned

We will award 1st through 3rd places, and a possible Honorable Mention.
So, start your evil plotting!

Entry	Competitor	Field 1	Field 2	GrayDeath Score	Final Score
The Shiv	JyP			12.5	-
Tom	Falontani			16	-
Zahasehsh the Tiny	Sejoran			17	SILVER
Lind Loheen	LionHeart			15	-
Frostwrym	Falontani			12.25	-
Zughor, Hand of Baalzebul	Thurbane			16.5	BRONZE
Ma'kee the Littlest Giant	WhamBamSam			17.5	GOLD
The Meerking	Sian			14.5	-
Krogfur the Everhealing	Sejoran			15.25	HM

Submission:
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:

PM: Jdizzlean
Subject: Villainous Competition 28, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mail box.
More questions? PM me with Villainous Competition 28 Questions in the header.

Tips for submitting your entry, provided by Weaselguy:

- Use capitalization and punctuation, correctly.
- Make good use of Spoilers, for cleanliness.
- Don't forget your sources. If it's something that can be found in the contents section, then book title seems to be fine. Obscure stuff, may want to include page number too.
- DeviantArt has about 9 billion pictures that you can reference, I can almost guarantee you can find one there to fit your character.
- Make good use of tables. In addition to the Build table and the Spells table, I like doing on e for my Ability Scores, just to keep it neat.
- Do a build stub at the top of your Build Table, something like Wizard 2/Fighter 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 10

As always: let's keep it nice.

I'll mention that again - LET'S KEEP IT NICE! Bickering, name calling and nasty comments on the entries or other forum members are not tolerated.

New competition rule: if I feel an individual has been overly disruptive during the course of competition discussion, I will not be accepting and revealing any entries from that individual, and they will also not be allowed to judge. Any judging they enter will not be taken into account for the final tally.

Spoiler

Show

It's sad that it had to come to this, but here's a list of permanently banned (from this Villainous Competition) members:

Novolin
Yklikt

[jdizzlean]

Clarifications

Unearthed Arcana variant rules are limited: The variant character options (such as Wildshape Ranger and Thug Fighter) should not be penalized. Flaws and traits may be penalized by judges, whereas item familiars, gestalt, alternate skill systems, alternate magic systems, alternate crafting rules, generic base classes, LA buyoff, fractional saves/BAB, and bloodlines are banned. Anything not mentioned here is up to individual judges.

d20 Rokugan is not allowed material.

The Dragon Magazine update for Oriental Adventures is in use.

Leadership is banned. Any material that grants you leadership without you specifically taking it should be ignored and may not be traded away for another feat or ACF. Undead Leadership and Dragon Cohort are likewise banned. Wild Cohort and Obtain Familiar are allowed. If you are not sure if a specific feat violates the 'no leadership' rule, err on the side of caution, or ask me.

However, Leadership may be taken to qualify for another feat or class (such as the Great Captain feat or Legendary Leader prestige class), though a character still doesn't get its usual benefit in those cases. This is to allow characters to access unproblematic material that'd otherwise be made unavailable because of the Leadership ban.

On the subject of messaging the chair (me), a few guidelines:
- I am not here to give critiques on your build or guess how the judges might score it!
- For entries, please keep the entry to no more than 2 message, if at all possible.
- For entries, don't expect me to search through your entry and edit in or out material. Entries should be sent to me complete - if there is a later revision, re-submit the full build. PLEASE DON'T INCLUDE TEXT IN YOUR SUBMISSION YOU WANT ME TO EDIT OUT FOR THE POST - SUBMIT IT TO ME EXACTLY HOW I WILL POST THE FINISHED PRODUCT.
- Please make sure the name of your entry is clearly present in the message.




Everyone, have fun!

[ben-zayb]

Well, this is interesting. Funny because just a few days ago, I was thinking if I could find a mechanical backbone for a specific type of gimmick character that would certainly be fitting here. I'm yet to find one, though.

[Venger]

interesting. i'm in.

[The Viscount]

Well well well. I'll certainly have my eye on this one.

[Thurbane]

Interesting theme.

I'll see what i can come up with.

I have a round specific question, but not sure whether to post publically or not...

[zlefin]

how does the CR work when you apply a template to a creature with less than 1 cr?
i.e. if you apply a +2 cr template to a 1/3 cr creature, where do you end up?

[Venger]

how does the CR work when you apply a template to a creature with less than 1 cr?
i.e. if you apply a +2 cr template to a 1/3 cr creature, where do you end up?

then you're at 2 1/3.

[NontheistCleric]

I'm just wondering, what is the rationale behind banning psionics? Is it because of powers like Compression?

then you're at 2 1/3.

I contend that you would end up with CR 1. Goblin and kobold NPC-class mechanics prove that fractional CR are treated as whole numbers for the purposes of the system.

[unseenmage]

Too bad this isn't for PF, there's a itty bitty troublemaker I've been itching to write up.

[jdizzlean]

i have amended somewhat the limitations to include specificity that it is ok to be fine/diminutive, this of course still means that you can't ever be larger than tiny.

psionics was removed in part because of the ludicrousness of emulating The Virus from a previous round.

a question was raised as to whether slight build would qualify as Tiny. My interpretation is that it doesn't actually change your size to tiny, it just gives you the beneficial effects of that size when it's convenient. Using Slight Build to qualify should incur a large Elegance penalty, but that of course would be up to the individual judge's discretion.

and on fractional CR's. unless your racial choice is a whole number, it is to be treated as 1 to which any applications then raise it. in the above example, if you are CR 1/3, you will treat that as CR 1 and go from there. (1 1/3 would be CR 2, etc)

[NontheistCleric]

and on fractional CR's. unless your racial choice is a whole number, it is to be treated as 1 to which any applications then raise it. in the above example, if you are CR 1/3, you will treat that as CR 1 and go from there. (1 1/3 would be CR 2, etc)

Is that in the game rules, or a Chairman ruling? I don't recall fractional CR working that way. In fact, your example isn't even internally consistent. If it really worked that way, +2 CR to CR 1/3 would make CR 3.

[jdizzlean]

it's a chair ruling. we don't deal w/ fractional rules in any other way, so why would we use them for races given that this round basically might force you to have a fractional cr rating at creation which you could exploit to apply a +1 template essentially for free in order to bring your race up to cr 1 from which to build off of.

[NontheistCleric]

Well, I would say that it's not that we don't deal with fractional rules, but rather that they rarely come up. If it's a Chair ruling then that's all good, though.

Using that ruling would still make the example in your post CR 3, though, not 2.

[PrismCat21]

For THIS ROUND, you can ignore size increases from HD
CR increases from the size increase you are ignoring, will still take effect as normal

So we can choose to not take the increase in size from HD. That means we wouldn't get any of the benefits from it, but it will still increase our CR as if we got some sort of benefit from it?
We'd be paying for something whether we get it or not. Is this intentional?

For THIS ROUND, psionics are banned

psionics was removed in part because of the ludicrousness of emulating The Virus from a previous round.

If the issue is with the creature that made it possible, the Puppeteer, then just say no Puppeteers.
It's overkill to ban an entire system because you don't want to see a certain monster.
What were the other reasons?

You might want to get rid of the big bold 'Tiny ONLY!!!', since smaller sizes are actually allowed.
It will confuse people.

[Falontani]

[Redacted]

[jdizzlean]

So we can choose to not take the increase in size from HD. That means we wouldn't get any of the benefits from it, but it will still increase our CR as if we got some sort of benefit from it?
We'd be paying for something whether we get it or not. Is this intentional?

Yes. you have to figure that into your build and make it work.

If the issue is with the creature that made it possible, the Puppeteer, then just say no Puppeteers.
It's overkill to ban an entire system because you don't want to see a certain monster.
What were the other reasons?

there are several, but in the interest of not having yet another 2+ page diatribe (and 52 revisions to the OP) about clarifying one aspect of the rounds limitations and the reasoning behind it, i'm afraid that i'm simply going to say "because".

You might want to get rid of the big bold 'Tiny ONLY!!!', since smaller sizes are actually allowed.
It will confuse people.

it's clarified in the limitations, again, I don't see the need to constantly redefine the OP.

SNIP

please refrain from speculating about build ideas. If you have specific questions, please PM them to me or another board member, or use the RAW threads to get clarification :)

---------

((apologies to anyone that reads this or the other posts as instigating. I'm still only operating at about 70%, and that will continue for quite awhile unfortunately. Clearly this affects my outlook on things. I try to reread things before posting, but while it may not seem inflammatory to me, that doesn't mean it isn't going to be taken that way :( ))

[NontheistCleric]

((apologies to anyone that reads this or the other posts as instigating. I'm still only operating at about 70%, and that will continue for quite awhile unfortunately. Clearly this affects my outlook on things. I try to reread things before posting, but while it may not seem inflammatory to me, that doesn't mean it isn't going to be taken that way :( ))

Don't worry about it. The Chairman always has to be somewhat strict and decisive, as we can see from previous rounds, and no one is about to blame you for being ill.

[zlefin]

sending it via pm per request;
though imho it should really more be a thread question since it's about rules and it makes more sense to let everyone know.

[Venger]

zlefin, please pm questions like that to jdizzlean, this is speculation.

[Thurbane]

Another question related to advancement/fractional CR: if a creature advance by CR +1 per X HD, what happens if the max HD would result in a partial CR. For instance, a hypothetical creature increases by CR +1 per 4 HD; it has 4 HD and it's max racial HD is 6. You add +2 RHD: do you add +1 CR, or is it rounded down to CR +0? I believe RAW leans towards rounding down, but I'd like to be sure.

[jdizzlean]

Another question related to advancement/fractional CR: if a creature advance by CR +1 per X HD, what happens if the max HD would result in a partial CR. For instance, a hypothetical creature increases by CR +1 per 4 HD; it has 4 HD and it's max racial HD is 6. You add +2 RHD: do you add +1 CR, or is it rounded down to CR +0? I believe RAW leans towards rounding down, but I'd like to be sure.

let's see if i'm reading that right.

creature advances CR based on 1 for every 4HD.
you take creature to max HD which is 6
you add 2HD to total it to 8HD

if so, then you've met the thresh hold to take an additional CR of 1

i suppose if you could make a good enough argument that once you've attained max HD in a creature, that the thresh hold would reset, but that would be between you and the judge to figure out.

if you're going to 6HD in this or even 7HD in this, I don't think the fractionality of it would come into play based on your example.

[Thurbane]

I guess the crux of my question is this: if a creature is +1 CR per 4 RHD added (as for Undead etc.), and you only add 2 RHD (maximum allowed in advancement), does that bump up the CR or not?

[jdizzlean]

I guess the crux of my question is this: if a creature is +1 CR per 4 RHD added (as for Undead etc.), and you only add 2 RHD (maximum allowed in advancement), does that bump up the CR or not?

in that case, no cr change

[liquidformat]

I think I might try my hand at this after stocking some of the back competitions it seems pretty cool. My first idea is already shot, silly vargouille how is a creature supposed to be the size of a human head small.... On to the next idea!

[NontheistCleric]

You're not supposed to talk about potential build ideas until after the reveal, liquidformat. Even if you scrapped a particular idea, someone may be doing something similar.

[liquidformat]

You're not supposed to talk about potential build ideas until after the reveal, liquidformat. Even if you scrapped a particular idea, someone may be doing something similar.

oops my bad, will keep my lips sealed.

[White Blade]

If I sub in a class for HD, do I get some CR back from that, or am I still paying for the full thing?

So, say, I have Dragon 1HD/CR1 and I plug in a level of Sorcerer instead, does that increase my CR to CR2?

[jdizzlean]

If I sub in a class for HD, do I get some CR back from that, or am I still paying for the full thing?

So, say, I have Dragon 1HD/CR1 and I plug in a level of Sorcerer instead, does that increase my CR to CR2?

no, each class level is +1 CR rating in this competition, so you can't sub a class level in place of a racial HD for free

[Sejoran]

Hmm i might actually do more in this competition. Tiny or smaller is quite a limitation, but ive got a few ideas...