Gamerwarper's Optimization Challenge #4: Amazing and Terrible E6 werebeasts

[daremetoidareyo]

Hello, welcome to the the

Game-Warper's Optimization Challenge!

Round 4: Amazing and Terrible E6 werebeasts
The entirety of Dragon #313 is allowed
Gestalt Racial hit dice and Level adjustment (See below)

In this round, you will build a an E6 character with lycanthropy, entomathropy, quasi lycanthropy, or lycanthropic heritage (shifter).

You may use any material found in Dragon Magazine #313.

For this round, in order to open up some of the more wild forms that you can be, we are allowing the gestalt of Racial hit dice and LA with class levels. This racial gestalt works like this:

For this contest, you may ignore the LA from your lycanthrope/emtoma/quasilycanthrope templates. Entirely. You need to be a lycanthrope to enter, so why not get that for free.

Next, on the racial side of the gestalt: The total number of racial hit dice and LA may not exceed 6 (excluding whatever LA you get for free to become a lycanthrope).

Apply Racial hitdice first and LA last. For example: if you are a first level half giant lycanthrope, your first 5 class levels are gestalted with animal HD of up to 5 HD, and the final level on your racial gestalt side is for the +1 LA from the half giant race. Just assume that you grow into your lycanthropy and that you gain your animal HD in sequence with your class levels. You don't have to use all of the 6 alotted gestalt levels, nor are you beholden to filling the racial gestalt solely with animal HD. If your base humanoid or giant form has racial hitdice, they may also be used in the racial gestalt so long as when paired with your animal HD, you do not surpass the 6 HD/LA limit.

This will allow for a wider diversity of racial entries. Maybe even some small giants or weirder humanoids.


This character build will be from levels 1-6 followed by 10 epic feats.

This competition is based on the Iron Chef Competition E6 appetizer edition rules.

Allowable Sources: Same as the Iron Chef Competition.

Rules: We will follow all of the entry rules and requirements of the Iron Chef Optimization Challenge for this contest except Judging and that you are limited to a single entry. A quick recap, no leadership, only first party sources, no generic classes.

PAY ATTENTION THIS IS WAY DIFFERENT THAN NORMAL, WE ARE NOW USING RANKED CHOICE JUDGMENTS:

Judging: By Entering an entrant into this contest, you agree to become a judge. That's right. This is pay to play. Judging works like this:

1. Once all of the submissions are made to the chair: ME (daremetoidareyo) at the end of the challenge period, they will be posted to the forum by the chair, (me).

2. Entrants will read all of the entries and score the other builds by the following metrics:

If there are three entries: The judge will address the following 4 categories: Originality, Power, Elegance, and Use of the ingredient. Each category will need at least two sentences explaining the judge's thoughts and ideas about the build. The submitter only judges the other contestant's build. All Contestants will share the gold/silver/bronze medals.

If there are 4-6 entries: The Builds will be assessed in the following 4 categories: Originality, Power, Elegance, Use of the ingredient. Each category will need at least one sentence that evaluates how the build performs in that categories.

The submitter only judges the other contestant's builds, not their own. The Judge will then rank each of the entire builds based on the insights received through the assessment of the build categories from first to last (first place, second place, third place, etc.) Don't rank each induvidual category, only use them as the axes by which you judge the quality of the build. We are ranking the entire build holistically as it were, not by individual category. If a submitter fails to provide a judgement to every other entrant, all of the scores received for their build rendered by other entrants are treated as zeros. If you want to win, you have to judge.

To determine the medalists, Each build will then receive a number of points depending on what ranks they received from judges. The point gain rubric for this formula is this:

1st place = Number of Contesants -1
2nd place - Number of contestants -2

Each of the builds will then have a tally of the total points from between the judge's rankings. The highest point total wins.

If there are 7 or more entries: Builds will be assessed by the following 4 categories: Originality, Power, Elegance, Use of the ingredient. The Judge will then rank each of the entire builds based on the insights received through the assessment of the build categories from first to last (first place, second place, third place, etc.) Don't rank each induvidual category, only use them as the axis by which you judge the quality of the build. We are ranking the entire build holistically as it were. In your judgment, you are expected to achieve at least this minimum standard:

There must be at least one sentence addressing the Elegance of the Build.

There must be one sentence that begins with "What i liked most about this entry was....."

And there must be one sentence that must begin with "An area of this build that needed more attention was...."

You can write more if you wish. But you don't have to.

The submitter only judges the other contestant's builds, not their own. If a submitter fails to provide a judgement to every other entrant, all of the scores received for their build rendered by other entrants are treated as zeros. If you want to win, you have to judge. We then move to the ranked choice system explained in the "If there are 3-6 entries" section above.

OVERALL Simply use the established definitions of the rating categories (originality, power , elegance, UoSI) from the Iron Chef Optimization Challenge. Again, don't rank each category for every build, simply use them to justify your decision for what rank you give the entire entry.

3. These judgments are PMed to the chair, You can send google doc links or similar formats so long as i don't have to sign up for anything, and I will cut and paste the judgments into the thread.

4. We tally up and determine the winner There is no dispute process, so these scores may wildly fluctuate and some contestants will potentially have to manage feelings of injustice on their own. If someone actively works to game this judging system we will edit it in the future to preclude optimization that hurts the spirit of the contest.

So there it is. Show me your Terrible and Amazing Werebeasts

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DEADLINE For Entry: March 7th Midnight, Eastern Standard Time in the USA.

[daremetoidareyo]

Previous Rounds
Round 1: Flawed Commoner
Round 2: Dragonwrought kobolds are true dragons
Round 3: Beflawed E6 beatsticks


Announcements

I'm seeing some professed unfamiliarity with gestalt rules. That's A -OK. Keep in mind that this is not a true gestalt in that you may only put racial hitdice and LA on a single side of the gestalt. No class levels may be taken on the racial side of the gestalt. Class and prestige class levels only go on the class levels side of the gestalt.

So a dvati were hyena would look like this:

Level	Racial gestalt levels	Class gestalt levels	feats	skills	abilities
1	hyena animal HD	druid	1 feat	class level skill access + animal skill set	dvati abilities, hyena animal HD abilities, lycanthrope abilities, class abilities
2	hyena animal HD	druid		class level skill access + animal skill set	dvati abilities, hyena animal HD abilities, class abilities
3	Dvati LA	druid	another feat	class level skill access	dvati abilities, class abilities
4		druid		class level skill access	dvati abilities, class abilities
5		druid		class level skill access	dvati abilities, class abilities
6		prestige class	yet another feat	class level skill access	dvati abilities, class abilities
Free	lycanthrope LA	-	-	-	-

If you have a race with it's own racial hit dice, you may choose how to mix and match it with your animal HD from lycanthropy. So a lizardfolk were hyena would look like this. I have added the bab and saves to this table to demonstrate how they would work.

Level	Racial gestalt levels	Class gestalt levels	BAB	Saves	feats	skills	abilities
1	hyena animal HD	druid	better of druid or HD	best value between class or HD	1 feat	class level skill access + animal skill set	lizardfolk abilities, hyena animal HD abilities, lycanthrope abilities, class abilities
2	lizardfolk HD	druid	better of druid or HD	best value between class or HD		class level skill access + lizardfolk skill set	lizard folk abilities, class abilities
3	hyena animal HD	druid	better of druid or HD	best value between class or HD	another feat	class level skill access + animal skill set	lizard folk abilities, hyena animal HD abilities, class abilities
4	Lizard folk LA	druid	Druid	as per class		class level skill access	lizard folk abilities, class abilities
5		druid	druid	as per class		class level skill access	lizardfolk abilities, class abilities
6		prestige class	prestige class	as per class	yet another feat	class level skill access	lizardfolk abilities, class abilities
Free	lycanthrope LA	-			-	-	-

You may find a list of vermin for your entomathrope shenanigans here: Vermin

Some creatures get bonus feats because of their animal heritage, you must keep these bonus feats, you may not switch them out. only feats gained from HD on the animal stat block may have alternatives chosen.

Remember that dinosaurs are animals too and that there are a ton of splat books that also have animals.

Remember the size prohibition on the lycanthrope template.

Here is a (probably non-comprehensive) list of creatures with the giant type

[jdizzlean]

so because i'm dense, or maybe because my brain is fried from my 2nd IC entry, we can gestalt the base creature up to 6hd with racial/LA levels, and THEN take 6 levels and 10 feats like normal yes?

never mind, i found the rules for gestalting, something i've not done before

[Bronk]

Sounds awesome all the way around! Can't wait to start!

[RaiKirah]

Hrmmm... lycanthropy and gestalt - two rulesets I've never read. Will get back to you on whether or not I'm in for this one

[daremetoidareyo]

I just updated the second post with examples of how the gestalt will work.

[WhamBamSam]

I'll try to come up with something.

[daremetoidareyo]

Sweet. That's two possible entrants.

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Question: wait, this question needs a caveat.

Caveat: I will absolutely abide the group consensus here.

Question: if I promised to remain neutral and fair in terms of chairperson responsibility, are you comfortable with me entering these contests along with the other entrants? Feedback requested.

Benefits include: 1 extra judge and entry and increased interest in maintaining this competition by me.
Drawbacks include: an air of impropriety about fairness, especially in the wackier rounds, literally no neutral parties to address issues.

[daremetoidareyo]

I just found the dragon #313 chapter on savage progressions for werebeasts (page 24-32). Here are my three thoughts on how to adjudicate them.

1) put them on the racial side of the Gestalt and be finished with it.

2) put them on the class side of the gestalt, thereby freeing up weirder humanoid or giant species to use for your racial gestalt side, but you cannot multi-class out of the monster levels as per the rules in savage species p.27

A monster character using these rules may not multiclass until it completes the full progression in its monster class. This rule keeps characters from gaining the benefits of a monster's type and then quickly switching to a standard class.
A monster class imposes an experience point penalty for multiclassing, just as other classes do (depending on preferred classes for the creature or race). A monster class is a character class for purposes of determining whether a character takes an experience point penalty.

This choice only allows the wererat and the werewolf to choose any class levels. However, a close reading would allow for the use of prestige classes (and maybe paragon classes, i haven't read up on whether or not they behave as a normal class) to escape from finishing the monster class level progression.

3.) The entrant chooses which of the above they use, but they must explicitly say what they are doing, commensurately, judges may not treat these sorts of entries differently than if the entrant didn't use the monster progression in the dragon magazine article.

I would also like some feedback on this.

[RaiKirah]

Question: if I promised to remain neutral and fair in terms of chairperson responsibility, are you comfortable with me entering these contests along with the other entrants? Feedback requested.

Frankly I'm surprised it took you this long to ask :p

From what I can tell, you started this competition because you enjoy messing with weird rules, and I for one have always enjoyed seeing what rabbithole you run down in your builds.

+1 for would approve of your participation!

[Bronk]

Question: if I promised to remain neutral and fair in terms of chairperson responsibility, are you comfortable with me entering these contests along with the other entrants? Feedback requested.

Sure thing! I've been confused every time you haven't entered, especially considering how you set up judging.

I just found the dragon #313 chapter on savage progressions for werebeasts (page 24-32).

I actually thought we might be doing an all #313 contest this time... I was eyeing those ghost elves.

Here are my three thoughts on how to adjudicate them.

1) put them on the racial side of the Gestalt and be finished with it.

2) put them on the class side of the gestalt, thereby freeing up weirder humanoid or giant species to use for your racial gestalt side, but you cannot multi-class out of the monster levels as per the rules in savage species p.27

This choice only allows the wererat and the werewolf to choose any class levels. However, a close reading would allow for the use of prestige classes (and maybe paragon classes, i haven't read up on whether or not they behave as a normal class) to escape from finishing the monster class level progression.

3.) The entrant chooses which of the above they use, but they must explicitly say what they are doing, commensurately, judges may not treat these sorts of entries differently than if the entrant didn't use the monster progression in the dragon magazine article.

I would also like some feedback on this.

I can't immediately see any advantage to the first option, considering the free Lycanthrope LA in this contest, but who knows? How about option 3, in case anyone can figure out something neat?

[daremetoidareyo]

Barring any dissenting views, I'll begin thinking about a build.

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That's one vote for option 3. The most permissive option. Except it can possibly make judging more gruelsome.

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I want to be clear here: all of #313 is on the table, so thar be gold in them thar hills.

[jdizzlean]

build away.

as for racial/were progression, i'm in favor of you take as many ranks in whichever were-form you want and class/racial/template out when you feel like it. especially since we're getting the lycanthropy for free. leave it up to the cooks as to how many, if any, ranks in the werethingy they want to take

[daremetoidareyo]

I updated the second post with a link to most of the creatures with the giant type.

We are allowing the savage species styles monster progressions. If you opt to use this variation, please stipulate that you are doing so, and which side of the gestalt you are putting your lycanthrope levels on.

[jdizzlean]

submitted

and also thinking of "oh my the cheese" that probably everyone is doing right now lol

that ended up actually being more fun that i had thought it would be, and hopefully my schtick isn't Vizzini'd.

[Vizzerdrix]

So do we send you the build or spoiler them here or what?

[jdizzlean]

PM it to daremetoidareyo

[PoeticallyPsyco]

This sounds awesome, but I don't think I know nearly enough about epic feats to participate.

[jdizzlean]

This sounds awesome, but I don't think I know nearly enough about epic feats to participate.

they're just called that, we're not actually using epic feats, you do your "normal" 6 lvl build (this round gestalted w/ your were-thingy) and the "epic" feats are just the 10 normal feats you can take after 6th.

in e6, each time you would get 5k xp beyond 6th lvl, you gain a feat, these are the so called epic feats.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Oh sweet.

Now I just need to try to come up with something original/clever.

[daremetoidareyo]

Thanks for the explanation jdizzlean. My life balance is skewing towards work again

[Bronk]

How do you go about embedding images in our posts? Do we just copy them in, or do we use links somehow?

[daremetoidareyo]

How do you go about embedding images in our posts? Do we just copy them in, or do we use links somehow?

There is a button for it on the advanced editor

[IMG]image url for .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif[/IMG]

[Bronk]

Spoiler: Experimentation...

Show

Nice! Thanks!

[RaiKirah]

I'm not really having any inspiration, so I'll just enjoy what everyone else comes up with!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I find myself with several questions I need answered before I can keep building, and was hoping you kind folks could set me straight.

First, the gestalt. Am I understanding the BAB right? Essentially, you look at both progressions, and if either of them increased at that level your BAB increases? This would potentially let you maintain full BAB by choosing what level you take classes with medium or worse BAB, so I'm suspicious this isn't how it works.

Second, candidates for werebeasts. Are we allowed to use any animal (within the 6HD limit), or are we limited to the five or so official ones? Also, are we allowed to progress the animal HD past the default if the creature has less than 6HD? And finally, assuming we can take other animals, can we take animals with more than 6HD and not finish their progression?

EDIT: One last question: are multiple entries allowed?

[daremetoidareyo]

I find myself with several questions I need answered before I can keep building, and was hoping you kind folks could set me straight.

First, the gestalt. Am I understanding the BAB right? Essentially, you look at both progressions, and if either of them increased at that level your BAB increases? This would potentially let you maintain full BAB by choosing what level you take classes with medium or worse BAB, so I'm suspicious this isn't how it works.

Second, candidates for werebeasts. Are we allowed to use any animal (within the 6HD limit), or are we limited to the five or so official ones? Also, are we allowed to progress the animal HD past the default if the creature has less than 6HD? And finally, assuming we can take other animals, can we take animals with more than 6HD and not finish their progression?

EDIT: One last question: are multiple entries allowed?

Optimize your BAB. Your impression is correct.

You are not limited to the official beasts. Look at the lycanthrope template. The official beasts are just examples.

One entry.

[daremetoidareyo]

We are up to 3 entries. I will extend the deadline until saturday the 9th at midnight to see if we can't get a 4th entry.

[The Kool]

First, the gestalt. Am I understanding the BAB right? Essentially, you look at both progressions, and if either of them increased at that level your BAB increases? This would potentially let you maintain full BAB by choosing what level you take classes with medium or worse BAB, so I'm suspicious this isn't how it works.

You be right in that that's how most people read it, and due to semantics it does in fact work that way, as do saves. However, my groups and I have favored combining the fractional saves and BAB from Unearthed Arcana with gestalt whenever we use it, so if you take your gestalt experience outside of this competition you might find that a worthwhile option. (In essence, a poor BAB goes up 0.5 each level and an average BAB goes up 0.75. Round fractions down and your single-classed characters are exactly the same, your multiclassed characters benefit, and your gestalt characters can't loophole two poor BAB classes into a full BAB). But here they let you run it as written.

[Bronk]

We are up to 3 entries. I will extend the deadline until saturday the 9th at midnight to see if we can't get a 4th entry.

Did we end up with any more entries?