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2019-05-30, 11:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2004
- Location
- In eternity.
- Gender
What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Intro
Greetings, all!
Recently, a friend and I have been debating what the most powerful core 3.5 character would be. 'Most powerful' in this case is one able to survive and thrive in a variety of situations, preferably able to handle the game solo when a party of 4+ is normally expected. (Minions gained from spells, class features, skills, feats, and similar sources are allowed and don't count against the 'solo' assumption.) Thus, assume some combination of overworld/overland travel, interplanar travel, dungeon/underground exploration, social situations, knowledge situations, combat situations, and otherwise for this character.
This character's ability to overcome challenges is continually tested since this character is continually being challenged. (Off-days are still permissible and likely, but reaching level 20 is still the end goal.)
No (nearly) infinite loops.
Character Creation
-Sources: PHB1, DMG1, and MM1 only with the latest errata.
-Classes: PHB1 base classes only. No prestige classes. No multiclassing.
-Ability Score Generation: 32 point buy.
-Starting ECL: 1
Modifier 1
-Multiclassing and PrCs are allowed. Favored class penalties exist only if you want them to. How do things change?
Modifier 2
-Ability score generation is any number of points, though all stats are capped at 18 before modifiers from race, items, age, etc. How do things change?
Modifier 3
-Minions obtained via money are allowed, such as animals and hirelings.
Modifier 4
-All SRD content is allowed, except gestalt.
Modifier 5
Gestalt is allowed.
My Thoughts
Dwarf Druid all the way (except perhaps dipping Monk1 for its goodies) is probably best in this case due to darkvision, a CON bonus, and not needing to highly prioritize STR and DEX. You get 4+INT modifier skill points per level, Spot and Listen as class skills, d8, 2 good saves, and other goodies. Take Leadership at level 6 for a Cleric cohort (Magic and Travel domains) who might be a Dwarf and Natural Spell at 9.
Alternatively, a Human or Dwarf Generalist Wizard may be more viable due to his utility and crowd control spells.Last edited by Endarire; 2019-06-01 at 02:51 AM.
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2019-05-30, 11:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2013
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
No modifier: Holy Word (And friends)-focused Cleric with at least +10 to CL;
Modifier 1: not sure, maybe Holy Word Cleric with Hierophant, or Archmage with the right arcana;
Modifier 2: doesn’t change much
Modifier 3: well, spell point is SRD content...
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2019-05-31, 01:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
- Location
- California
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
I feel like the answer is very clearly druid.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Handbooks: The Warlockopedia | The Warmagepedia (WIP) | Tier List (2019 Update)
Spreadsheets: Spellcasting classes | Deities | Useful items
Homebrew: Gestalt Theurge | Fighter and Monk fixes | Warlock stuff | Houserules and quick fixes
Original Fiction: The Wizard's Familiar
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2019-05-31, 04:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2009
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Assuming you mean a PO build without excessive cheese, I would probably go with Commodore Guff, Doc Roc's build found here, that was competing in this contest.
It uses a debatable wording in Magic Jar (arguing that having no defined place where your soul goes means you keep your current body), though. The judge in this competition ruled it legal, but there are other opinions.
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2019-05-31, 07:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Starting at ECL 1, must-be-able to solo all encounters normally for 4+, is a very different character compared to ECL 20.
If power is measured only at the end, but 1-20 survival was required, then access to lvl 9 spells is crucial.
If power is measured for each level, with the best character simply being the best at as many levels as possible, then casting level is far less of a concern compared to spell access. Such a character will be blasting lvl 8 spells (available per the PHB equipment rules) as soon as possible.
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2019-05-31, 07:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
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2019-05-31, 07:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
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2019-05-31, 09:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
You have 3 options, maybe.4, cleric, druid, or wizard. Psion maybe since its srd. Everything else does not compete.
Without dmm cleric has to optimize for CL, which is plus 6 max in core? Or for rebuke/animate undead. Prayer bead, domain plus 1 and orange ioun stone? Think thats all unless there is a psionic trick I am unaware if with those sources. Planar ally is nice as well but its more restrictive than binding. Animate dead is online at 5 for you plus semi permanent rubuked creatures but I do not think command undead is in a phb domain. Dwarf cleric in full plate is pretty durable early fwiw.
Druid is great at 1 through 6, dwarf is nice but gnome might be better since you more easily ride a mount. You get pet upgrade at 4 (is dire bat a 4th level option) wild shape at 5, and at 6 it gets pretty dang great with natural spell. You remain great but not insane 7 through 20.
Wizard is trash 1 and 2, though sleep and a heavy pick should do it most the time. Elf for longbow and kiting good vs. most foes. Halfling gets more survivability but medium longbows a lot better than small slings. At level 3 with downtime wizard can surpass because of command undead. Find some big zombies and zombie away your problems. Or maybe something better situationally that fails a save. At 7 you get animate dead and lpb, so you win from there on out. Plus polymorph.
Psion might make it if there is an infinite pp trick just in the srd, I do not think there is, but idk I am very weak on psionics.
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2019-05-31, 09:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
- Location
- Nottingham, England
- Gender
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2019-05-31, 09:35 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
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2019-05-31, 09:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Huh. It has never occured to me in the year or so of playing that you can buy animals. We mostly end up getting our druid to befriend wild ones or new characters come wit-
We were literally in a town that sold dire wolf puppies and it never occured to me when I had all the monies...
Ok I need to up my game and stop playing spellcasters for a bit. I get a bit magic-tunnel visioned and forget that nonmagical stuff is useful.OI YOU! Join this one Discord where people talk 3.5 stuff! Also chicken infested related things! It’s pretty rad! https://discord.gg/6HmgXhUZ
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2019-05-31, 09:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
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2019-05-31, 09:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
- Location
- Colorado
- Gender
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2019-05-31, 10:19 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
This is mostly true (although a wizard with sleep and color spray will still outperform most PCs for combat contribution and utility beginning at level 1. Druid is still better).
I dispute 5. But it really doesn’t matter. Even if Druid clearly wins 1-6 and wizard 7-20, still isn’t much of an argument for Druid.Last edited by Gnaeus; 2019-05-31 at 10:20 AM.
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2019-05-31, 10:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
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2019-05-31, 10:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Sleep's 1 round casting time is an extremely poor choice on a lonely frail dude who'll routinely end up surprised due to abysmal perceptive/infiltration skills.
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2019-05-31, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Have a look at my complete list of wizard spells, last updated 07/08/2015.
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2019-05-31, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
1. Why do you think he has poor perception infiltration skills? He has a pile of skill points and a familiar. He can trivially have a bat, with blindsense, or an owl, with +16 listen. Wizard has the best perception skills of any level 1 character.
2. Sleep isn’t a poor choice. It’s a situational choice. Sleep can disable multiple enemies from 110 feet away. No other core level 1 Spell can do that. If enemies are in your face, use color spray instead. If they are 95 feet off and your tank is between you, sleep is amazing.
And you know what is amazing about situational choices for wizards? You get a lot of them. Scribe scroll is free. If you can win 1 fight a week later you could have scrolls of sleep, grease, charm person, mage armor, mount, expeditious retreat, animate rope, color spray, comprehend language for 112 gp.Last edited by Gnaeus; 2019-05-31 at 11:13 AM.
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2019-05-31, 11:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
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2019-05-31, 11:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
- Location
- Meridianville AL
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
There are also too many things that are flatly immune to sleep to depend on it when you only get 3-5 level 1 spells at level 1-2. It's situational, you won't want to prepare it more than once.
If I'm actually going to game this, say there's an impartial GM, you have to advance by soloing 4 encounters per day with EL=your level or one level lower, leveling is only at the end of the day, with some downtime between days, I start at level 1 and end at level 20, with a prize for making it to 20, I go druid.
Same conditions, but there are 100 contestants, and those who survive to 20 fight a tournament (random seeding) to the death at level 20 and the winner of that gets a prize. It's cleric, he's less survivable than druid at early levels, but may make it to 5, at which point desecrate+animate makes him effectively unkillable and he's got a real chance at 20 due to having stuff like miracle available. Note that druid still wins if the point buy or rolling method for abilities isn't extremely generous, the cleric needs strength+con to survive low levels (he's basically a self-healing fighter with some spells level 1-4), but then he needs to have high wisdom for things like save DCs at higher levels. Use 25 point buy or elite array or something similar as ability generation, and low level survival basically requires druid.
Make low level survival a lot easier than above, and I'll go wizard.
Survival is never a problem after level 5, as all characters take leadership at level 6 and take a generalist wizard cohort, unless the character is a wizard, then he takes a cleric. Since your cohort will be level 18 when you reach the endgame, you can choose domains and races for early survival, knowing that all level 9 wizard magic is available endgame.Last edited by Doug Lampert; 2019-05-31 at 11:13 AM.
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2019-05-31, 11:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
- Location
- Colorado
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Handle Animal (Cha; Trained Only) 'Guard (DC 20): The animal stays in place and prevents others from approaching.'
good luck with that dc 10 untrained check of yours... Even if you make it just means the dog will stand there and watch you get shot to death. These shenanigans really depend on how much bs and how easy going of a dm you have.
So it seems to me that this whole thing comes down to who will make it to level 6 alive soloing because after that it is kind of irrelevant, sure a wizard gets awesome spells but they are also statistically most likely to die from levels 1-5. Also there isn't enough of a difference in survivability for a wizard compared to a druid level 7-20. In the end It seems like the druid is the best choice, followed by the cleric, and the wizard takes up the rear.
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2019-05-31, 11:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
- Location
- Tharggy, on Tellene
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
I think the bigger issue is, is that the Wizard is going through all of their money to get a dog to keep them safe while the Druid got a better one for free.
I put money on the Druid being the best, as while a Wizard can get truly insane, they have no room for error while the Druid is far more survivable and can do their own shapeshifting BS without eating spells.
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2019-05-31, 11:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
It's hard to say. It's easy to make a decent core druid, it's hard to make a great one. Wizard or perhaps sorc has the most good options, but in core only unless you cheese it hard a beatstick is ahead against monsters at many levels. Especially if this is solo level 1 to 20. For that matter soloing at all at high level is hard, because it only takes 1 failed save to end the campaign. You'd at least need an NPC to rez your corpse from time to time. Maybe some kind of miniomancer so you don't roll saves yourself?
Rolling 1s and dying aside, maybe a gish like an EK? Level 1 can be a high HP beatstick who later sheds his armor. You're only 1 spell level behind so this can be a gish that usually uses his spells rather than his sword. Later on anyway. Or maybe straight wizard who simply tries for easy challenges at low level and avoids anything else ("Those bandits must suck, sorry, bye."). Or is this solo adventurer supposed to actually replace a party of 4 at equal encounter level? I know a wizard can do ok at low level in core, but he doesn't do great and too much encounter level will stomp him. Just like the druid can do decently at all levels, but not necessarily that great in core.
Btw the druid riding dog trip trick requires 5-6 weeks of prep. 6-7 including the trick to let him attack all creature types. And that's if the druid has a pumped handle animal to take a 10. Otherwise he'll take much longer. Before that the riding dog is much weaker. During which time any class could make some profession checks and also get plenty of money for a variety of useful things.Last edited by ericgrau; 2019-05-31 at 12:11 PM.
So you never have to interrupt a game to look up a rule again:
My 3.5e Rules Cheat Sheets: Normal, With Consolidated Skill System
TOGC's 3.5e Spell/etc Cards: rpgnow / drivethru rpg
Utilities: Magic Item Shop Generator (Req. MS Excel), Balanced Low Magic Item System
Printable Cardstock Dungeon Tiles and other terrain stuff (100 MB)
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2019-05-31, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
- Location
- UK
- Gender
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2019-05-31, 12:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
A guard dog is much weaker than a riding dog btw. CR 1/3 instead of CR 1 for a reason. Less HP, less attack bonus and less damage. The druid riding dog is missing his trip attack and only understands 1 trick to start. The trick the druid selects is most likely to attack any of 4 creature types. But it's still much better than a guard dog. OTOH the guard dog most likely knows 4 tricks from the start rather than just 1:
Originally Posted by Handle Animal
That magical beast restriction might be the most painful restriction. That or undead. Both classes need to get their animal better trained ASAP or they risk a really ugly fight. And even for the druid the DC is not nice at level 1. He needs a 14 cha to take a 10 at level 1. Or a feat.Last edited by ericgrau; 2019-05-31 at 12:12 PM.
So you never have to interrupt a game to look up a rule again:
My 3.5e Rules Cheat Sheets: Normal, With Consolidated Skill System
TOGC's 3.5e Spell/etc Cards: rpgnow / drivethru rpg
Utilities: Magic Item Shop Generator (Req. MS Excel), Balanced Low Magic Item System
Printable Cardstock Dungeon Tiles and other terrain stuff (100 MB)
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2019-05-31, 12:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
- Location
- Nottingham, England
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Last edited by Biggus; 2019-05-31 at 12:17 PM.
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2019-05-31, 12:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
So you never have to interrupt a game to look up a rule again:
My 3.5e Rules Cheat Sheets: Normal, With Consolidated Skill System
TOGC's 3.5e Spell/etc Cards: rpgnow / drivethru rpg
Utilities: Magic Item Shop Generator (Req. MS Excel), Balanced Low Magic Item System
Printable Cardstock Dungeon Tiles and other terrain stuff (100 MB)
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2019-05-31, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Sigh, why don't you actually read the entire skill before questioning someone who actually used those rules in a real game?
Originally Posted by Handle Animal
Wizards get an army of pit fiends at level 15. What do druids get?
You can buy a riding dog too but if you can buy one you can buy a heavy warhorse and the heavy warhorse is much better.
The Guard command is not restricted by attack's type restrictions. Guard attacks anything that threatens you or the animal.
It's just a normal dog that's trained to guard.Last edited by RoboEmperor; 2019-05-31 at 12:27 PM.
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2019-05-31, 12:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2005
- Location
- Vancouver, BC, Canada
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2019-05-31, 12:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Gender
Re: What's the most powerful 3.5 core build?
Yes, eventually both riding dog and warhorse are options to consider. But a riding dog isn't affordable at level 1.
The Guard command is not restricted by attack's type restrictions. Guard attacks anything that threatens you or the animal.
Originally Posted by SRD
Also arguably an animal companion or even a friendly dog might protect its owner even without any tricks, though only after he was attacked or otherwise realized his owner was threatened. He most likely will protect himself regardless.
Sounds great at high level, but that's the easy part. Besides the need for rez help from even a single failed save at high level. If this is meant to survive low level like 1-4 or perhaps even 1-7ish, maybe gestalt wizard with something more stabby like barbarian & fighter. I mean druid is already a little bit of a gish in a can, so gestalting with a full caster is partially redundant. Sure it gets you more dakka later on, but that may not be the issue. And all this assumes "all SRD" includes optional rules like gestalt. It may not.Last edited by ericgrau; 2019-05-31 at 01:03 PM.
So you never have to interrupt a game to look up a rule again:
My 3.5e Rules Cheat Sheets: Normal, With Consolidated Skill System
TOGC's 3.5e Spell/etc Cards: rpgnow / drivethru rpg
Utilities: Magic Item Shop Generator (Req. MS Excel), Balanced Low Magic Item System
Printable Cardstock Dungeon Tiles and other terrain stuff (100 MB)