Iron Chef Optimisation Challenge in the Playground XCIX

[daremetoidareyo]

Any guesses on the next comp ingredient?

[Venger]

I'm guessing one of the thralls from bovd.

[Thurbane]

*fingers crossed* Dragon Samurai

[KrimsonNekros]

DotU Arachnomancer!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

My proverbial money's on Blackguard.

[daremetoidareyo]

*fingers crossed* Dragon Samurai

eww

eeeeeewwwwwwww

[Zaq]

I have a hunch we’re gonna get rage mage.

That or something actually insanely strong. Dweomerkeeper, maybe.

[The Viscount]

I'm going for Yathrinshee.

[jdizzlean]

it's dragon, but i've always been intrigued w/ mind mage

[WhamBamSam]

I still think all of Spinemeld Warrior's pompous titles make it a likely round 100.

Maybe Defiant?

[Venger]

Defiant would be interesting. I always thought blighter should let you trade in levels of druid like defiant and blackguard do.

[Heliomance]

Alright, lets get this done! I'm really sorry for the wait, I've been getting this really annoying aversion to doing the thing. Anyway, without further ado, the scores!

Namel	Race/ALignment	Stub	Quentinas judgement	Average	Position	Chef
Old Jhonny Blackspine	LE>CE Skarn	Cobra Strike Monk 5/Life Eater 5/Scaled Horror 2/Jaunter3/Life Eater 10	15.75	15.75	First	The Viscount
Oroba	NE lesser tiefling	Incarnate 7/ Necrocarnate 3/Life Eater 10	15	15	Second	Venger
Sybil Soule	CE Unseelie Fey Jerren Ghost	Rogue 3/Eidolon6/Life Eater 10/Swordsage 1	14.25	14.25	Third	jdizzlean
Qua'tro	CE (non-psionic) Thri-Keen	fighter 1/barbarian 1/ninja 2/life eater 10/sword-sage 1/ninja+2	14	14	Fourth	DeTess
Huntsman	CE Silverbrow Human	Ranger 2/Fighter 4/Chameleon 4/Life Eater 10	13.5	13.5	Fifth	Piggy Knowles
Hunger	Dragonborn Warforged (wings) CN -> CE	Crusader 1/Barbarian 1/Totemist 6/Binder 1/Swordsage 1/Life Eater 10	13	13	Sixth	Efrate
Sound&Silence	NE Dvati	Rogue 2 / Totemist 2 / Barb 2 / Rogue +1 / Life Eater 10 / Disciple of Mephistopheles 2	12.75	12.75	Seventh	Darkcouch
Ana Piranha	CE Aquatic Human	Factotum 10/Life Eater 10	12.5	12.5	Eighth	WhamBamSam
Maldred	CE Human	Paladin of Slaughter 2/Hexblade 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Life Eater 9	9.75	9.75	Ninth	Falontani

Congratulations to The Viscount, Venger, and jdizzlean for their trophies! Next thread up shortly

[Thurbane]

Congratulations to The Viscount, Venger, and jdizzlean for their trophies! Next thread up shortly

Indeed. And congrats to everyone who got an entry in!

Alright, lets get this done! I'm really sorry for the wait, I've been getting this really annoying aversion to doing the thing. Anyway, without further ado, the scores!

We all very much appreciate your efforts. And if you ever need a break, I'm sure one or more of us would be willing to fill in as needed.

[Heliomance]

New thread!

[Venger]

Thank you. This was a fun round. congrats to The Viscount and jdizzlean. nice dishes both of you

[The Viscount]

Great round everyone, I had a lot of fun.

We really owe you a lot Heliomance. Thank you so much for helming our competition for so long.

[Wolfem]

Updated ICO Spreadsheet to match dishes to their chefs.

[Venger]

You're the best, Wolfem

[Falontani]

I have some things I'd like to have a quick discussion that doesn't need to hold up the next competition, but can't be done until scores are revealed

Spoiler: Maldred 9.75

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Note I judged power as he has written, even if in elegance I said that for me that is incorrect

Spoiler: Originality 3.25

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I expected the human race, but not paladin hexblade or the champion (+0.25) But your feats are the traditional tripping build even if with the SI that would not be expected (+0)

Spoiler: Power 4

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So what we have here? One melee fighter which is a tripper with the spiked chain especially with the trip… but that can only do one attack per round because he doesn’t have combat reflexes so it will trip mainly during his round to gain more attack reaching a good number of attack and that is good surely (+1) If you are hidden or invisible you could do even the sneak attack but you don’t have darkstalker so the best bet is using the familiar for flanking the enemy risking his life that is not so good for your experience points but is awarding to do the sneak attack (-0.25) Out of combat you can try to use intimidate with your charisma and can be good, and using light armor for the hexblade you can sneak around good except that you are misssing Darkstalker . You can try knowledge religion but is not your main focus (-0.25) On the save you are good on the most important but you are not good on reflex which is the least important among them (+0.25) You have some spell and you can use wand from the two list of the paladin and of the Hexblade, and with the spell you found this is good(+0.25)

Spoiler: Elegance 1

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Well this could be expected but you did not pay your feat taxes… Where is your dodge for the Life Eater? It was required to all character and you did not have taken that (or did not you say that you would have retrained in some way this is BAD) (-0.5) And you could expect even this but I’m sure that the increase of the caster level for classes like hexblade or paladin doesn’t work as you said for two motivation . First it would be an absurd for build like paladin 10 / prestige class that boost the caster level 10 (it would finish at caster level 30 by level 20 by your method without spell to learn) and the second (more RAW) by the text you have quoted

The piece that I put in bold say how the caster level increase like if you had gained a level so at each level it boost the caster level of the hexblade like it had taken a level in the hexblade so you doesn’t arrive at gaining the level 4 spell as you said (sadly) and even if the DM would buy your argument it would be quite inelegant (-1 this include the shift of power that would be) Probably your build was the last that was submitted but it lacks completely the source list and a good formatting with the spoilers that are not so good made The formatting is not so a big problem but the source list yes (-0.5) You overspent 2 point at level 6 (knowledge religion is cross class for the hexblade) you spent one point less at level 8 (-0.25)

Spoiler: Use of Secret Ingredient 1.5

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This is the build that for me used in the worst manner because his focus is not on the SI , but more on the Abjurant Champion, you have a big problem at doing sneak attack and you don’t talk about the other SI abilities, you don’t gain feed which is the capstone of the SI (is more a money saver than anything else but is the capstone) you use a style of combat that is more difficult to use with the sneak attack from many other that I know … at the end the Life Eater for this build doesn’t do so much

Spoiler: Mordred's spellcasting

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How does this all work. It is a specific reading, and it is headache inducing. Blame half casters like Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spellthief, etc.
First a quote:

Spells: Beginning at 4th level, a hexblade gains the ability to cast a small number of arcane spells, which are drawn from the hexblade spell list (see Chapter 3). He can cast any spell he knows without preparing it ahead of time, just as a sorcerer can. To learn or cast a spell, a hexblade must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level (Cha 11 for 1st-level spells, Cha 12 for 2nd-level spells, and so forth). The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a hexblade’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the hexblade’s Cha modifier. Like other spellcasters, a hexblade can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table 1–1. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Charisma score. When Table 1–1 indicates that the hexblade gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level (for instance, 1st-level spells for a 4th-level hexblade), he gains only the bonus spells he would be entitled to based on his Charisma score for that spell level. The hexblade’s selection of spells is extremely limited. A hexblade begins play knowing no spells, but gains one or more new spells at certain levels, as indicated on Table 1–2. (Unlike spells per day, his Charisma score does not affect the number of spells a hexblade knows; the numbers on Table 1–2 are fixed.)

Upon reaching 12th level, and at every third hexblade level after that (15th and 18th), a hexblade can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. In effect, the hexblade “loses” the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell’s level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level hexblade spell the hexblade can cast. For instance, upon reaching 12th level, a hexblade could trade in a single 1stlevel spell (two spell levels below the highest-level hexblade spell he can cast, which is 3rd) for a different 1st-level spell. At 15th level, he could trade in a single 1st-level or 2nd-level spell (since he now can cast 4th-level hexblade spells) for a different spell of the same level. A hexblade may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.

Through 3rd level, a hexblade has no caster level. At 4th level and higher, his caster level is one-half his hexblade level.

So for each level that a half caster gains a level in their class, they gain half a caster level.

Spellcasting: At each level, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming an abjurant champion, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

There are several ways to argue this point:
Option 1: You increase your caster level (in this case from CL 2 to CL 3), but only put yourself to level 5 on the Hexblade table (in which case you should only have CL 2). This means you gain no new spells known, no new spells per day, you just get a CL boost.
Option 2: You increase your caster level (again from CL 2 to CL 3), and since you are now CL 3 you put yourself on the Hexblade table where you would have CL 3 (level 6).
Option 3: You increase your “hexblade” level from 4 to 5, granting you nothing. No CL increase, no new spells per day, no new spells known, nothing.

To me the only fair way to treat the advancement from a prestige class on a half caster, is to increase their placement by 2 on the spells portion. This does not give them “early” access to spells. You need just as many caster levels to reach 4th level spells on a Hexblade in this manner as a wizard. You still get 4th level spells at CL 7. Same as Assassin and wizard.

I do not want to be a sore loser; I am bringing this up after the fact specifically because I do not want to argue about this for more points. I bring this up now because I want to see what others believe from information above. I can honestly see and agree with the reading that Quentinas used. It is a good RAW reading, however to me it is not the only RAW reading. If others believe it to be the only RAW reading as well then I will not use this type of combination in the future contests, however if you agree that my reading could in fact be a RAW reading I may attempt do something akin to it again, and it may inspire builds in future competitions.

[The Viscount]

The correct reading is option 3. The important part is the text just after what you've bolded "as if you had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level."

At every level that you would advance casting, act as if you took another level in your base class. Yes, for hexblade this means that you go from effective 4 to effective 5 and get nothing. This is why half casters have a hard time at life.