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Originality:2, nothing terribly original here. Dirty birdman is kinda cool, but not terribly impressed.
Power:2, precision damage, poison, disease. If something resists one, its probably gonna resist all 3, completely neutering your build. Weak defenses. Extremely limited by a low ceiling. Will probably get mauled by another flyer, like a CR appropriate dragon. Does get to 16/20 BAB.
Elegance:1, I see lots of inelegant dips. Stranded cleric casting, stranded druid casting, very little ability synergy other than the ability to stack on 3 circumstantial effects on the same attack. Class order probably could have been switched around a bit with druid at 1st to take advantage of the time when the animal companion is really strong.
Use of Secret Ingredient:1, good cancer mage build, bad birdlord build. What does birdlord add here? I feel like if you changed out the birdlord levels with COMMONER levels, cancer mage is still good enough to get you by.
Sway
Spoiler
Originality:4, Yuan Ti are pretty sweet.
Power:4.5, Sway is definitely strong. I docked her a half point because she would probably play better as either a solo character, a character in a VERY specialized intrigue game, or as an NPC badguy. I feel like a typical adventuring party would slow her individual style down a bit. The cloak dancer + Surprise Strike combo is good, but requires your party to adapt to your strategy similarly to assassin’s Death Attack. Souleater is definitely strong, and really adds something to snakelord. Sway’s alpha strike is definitely strong, with a good chance to completely take out most foes around her level. Starts a little slow, but gets strong quickly. RG + DS + Necrotic Focus weapon makes her very scary to stand next to. Unfortunately, most things immune to negative levels are immune to poison, which hurts her. Still, things that aren’t are gonna get trashed. Would have liked to see a level of Exotic Weapon Master for Flurry of Strikes, but solid as-is.
Elegance:4, lots of synergy between Yuan-Ti, bard, cloak dancer, and snake lord. Probably should have swapped Combat Reflexes and EWP in the build. Do like that it gets into snake lord pretty early to start utilizing its features.
Use of Secret Ingredient:4, build oozes snaky goodness. The synergy between Soul Eater, lots of attacks, and poison DCs that go up as foes effective level goes down. Slight nit-pick, summoned creatures can not be milked for poison, as they, and all bits of them, goes back to wherever it was they came from before being summoned.
Fistbear Bearfist
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Originality:4.5, creative pun-play on a familiar theme. Made me smile!
Power:5, great raw beatstick power. If I was a support mage/bard/cleric, this is the guy I’d want to be standing in front of me dealing massive amounts of damage with his *snigger* bear hands. Requires almost no buffing because he brings most of the required resistances/immunities to the table. Great saves, massive amounts of HP, amazing AC, including touch AC, no weak levels and good damage. Attack routine is great by combining UAS attacks with natural secondaries.
Elegance:4, Build flows well, and even though it has a large number of classes, everything comes together well. Nothing seems out of place. Gets a little hard-up if he has to fight more than 3 fights a day, but is full strength for those at least.
Use of Secret Ingredient:5, Improved Grab from Bear Lord really adds a lot in the build. Grappling isn’t always the best option, but when it is, it is very strong; this allows you to grapple as an afterthought. Great synergy between Con focus regarding FotF/Deepwarden/SteadfastDetermination and the Con increases from Bear Lord, Bear Warrior, and Warshaper. This character truly is the lord of the bears.
Felix, Hobo King of the Felines
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Originality:4, I really hope this was a Felix the Cat reference. Nice use of Beastmaster.
Power:4, damage isn’t terribly remarkable, but survivability is not really an issue. Real power lies in stealth, which with Darkstalker is pretty amazing. Would have liked to see some kind of status debuff, but dead is a pretty good debuff to give. Beware the small underfoot kitteh, for he will bit off your ankles!
Elegance:4, great use of variants to squeeze exactly the features you need. Would have liked to see more cat lord come into play earlier, but still a good use. Great Int synergy though, which leads to MASSIVE amounts of skills and the ability to apply Int to nearly every feature of the build.
Use of Secret Ingredient:4, fights like a cat, cunning and stealthy. Really is a cat lord. Int synergy also plays well into Cat Lord, as does the focus on stealth.
Ruszel
Spoiler
Originality:3, most of the stuff here is pretty good. Uncanny Trickster progressing Animal Lord is pretty cool.
Power:3, decent strength. A bit dependant on foes being vulnerable to SA and poison, which would make damage suffer. Gets to 16/20 BAB, which is good. Craven is good, well worth the assassin dip. Whip Dagger + Thicket + Standstill is decent, but I’m concerned that the damage won’t be high enough to actually force a standstill since most situations that trigger AoOs don’t qualify you for SA and thus Craven, the bulk of this build’s damage.
Elegance:2, lack of description of abilities hurts you here. No mention of Arcane Dilettante spells known other than Heroics (which makes a terrible Arcane Dilettante ability anyway). No description of synergy between classes other than Beastmaster.
Use of Secret Ingredient:2, I wouldn’t really consider this build to be an iconic snake lord. Unlike other snake lords presented, barely synergizes snake lord abilities with other classes and abilities.
Urog Wind Bear
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Originality:3.5, flying bears? That’s kinda cool.
Power:2.5, Starts very strong, but doesn’t seem to scale well. Aquires a pretty impressive strength, but doesn’t seem to capitalize on it. High level strategy of fly-by snatching is only marginally useful for a PC, given that its incredibly limited underground or against large flyers like dragons. Claw damage is low, and as a primary source of damage is really low. Also, grapple damage is based on UAS damage, without houserules, and without some sort of scaling UAS damage, grapple damage will be stuck at 1d3 (1d4 large) +str.
Elegance:3, decent synergy between Primeval and Bear Lord, a curious combination. Great Str and decent Con growth through wildshaping, but no real way to swing it efficiently. No other real synergy. Could have used Steadfast Determination to help with droopy will save.
Use of Secret Ingredient:3, 6th level is a good break point for Animal Lord. Even though the build doesn’t use all 10 levels, 6 is plenty enough to get the point across. If you had found some way to further synergize those 6 levels with your other abilities, I would have rated you higher.
Brolly
Spoiler
Originality:4, nice use of optimized Animal Empathy, and making use of the harpoon as notated.
Power:3, similar to Sway, this character build is a GREAT NPC to fight in his own environment, but might cause trouble trying to work within a party structure. Dungeoneering will make it tough to bring the whole pack to bear, as will flying foes. High level foes with AoE attacks (like dragons and anything that can drop high level nuke spells) will wreak havoc on your pack. That said, this character in the proper environment is extremely competent. You have Combat Reflexes, but you don’t have the Dex to gain any extra AoOs, which makes it a dead feat.
Elegance:3, pack tactics synergy here is amazing. Vexing Flanker + the eventual Crusader synergy is pretty amazing, although I’d recommend Leading the Charge over Bolstering Voice. One thing that is wrong is the fact that you can’t apply metamagic to a spell-like ability. SPs don’t actually take up spell slots, and thus can’t take up slots +3 levels higher. Thus, no using Chain Spell on Animal Growth.
Use of Secret Ingredient:5, Animal Empathy optimization in this build is phenomenal. Use in this build to diplomatize an entire pack is pretty amazing. It becomes the strongest feature the class has to offer when utilized like this.
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A beholder’s favorite foods include small live mammals, exotic mushrooms and other fungi, gnomes, beef, pork, colorful leafy vegetables, leaves, flower petals, insects, and birds.
I thought all of the builds were pretty cool, with a diverse array of backgrounds and abilities. This is not a comment on judges, but I personally would have scored Bertram and Felix higher. I am surprised that Sway scored so well in power and elegance tbh.
Akal Saris deserves credit for creating this handy reference.
And third place caught up to me... Exactly... Arrgg
As a note for damage being low, when in Dire Eagle form, damage is 2d6+str... Sure not much, but still more than the 1d3 you mentioned. Otherwise why do monsters deal lots of damage when grappling?
And when not in bird form, has power attack, a great source of damage. The grapple tactic is when the skys are free and can make use of falling damage to kill people.
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And when not in bird form, has power attack, a great source of damage. The grapple tactic is when the skys are free and can make use of falling damage to kill people.
That is awsome, if only for the image of a bear executing a piledriver at 2000 feet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keld Denar
I docked her a half point because she would probably play better as either a solo character, a character in a VERY specialized intrigue game, or as an NPC badguy
The background and character was inspired by a V:TM Follower of Set NPC in one of my games. Props for picking up on that.
Well, crap, Keld, you brought up a few things I didn't notice. Far from wanting to argue (like I wish to with some of the other's judgments ) I'm over here kicking myself.
Since I haven't received a rough draft of the trophies yet, and I detest ties, I'm going to open the official debate post.
true_shinken
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Bertram
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertram
Even those enemies immune to poison AND disease AND precision damage have to deal with the fact that Bertram's a competent archer and summoner with a WIS based attack routine, four attacks a round, and built-in flight. The fact that he's able to fulfill a recon and archer and secondary summoner role makes him fairly 'party friendly,' unless there's some other, specific criteria there.
Longer backstories to explain the character's evolution are typically rewarded within this contest, yet this one gets a complaint for being too long, despite fitting in a single post?
9mm
Spoiler
Bertram
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertram
The only ability called superlative was the faux-wildshape, which the wording of the Improved Flight feat makes useless. The build's ability to infect the summoned creatures relies on their having a longer duration than rounds/level. I'm sorry I didn't quote verbatim all the abilities of the secret ingredient to make that clearer.
Ozymandias9
Spoiler
Brolly
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brolly
"Realistically, I can imaging a conservative DM saying no to this just as easily as to Leadership (-1)"
I can imagine many of the builds not being allowable by a conservative DM. Many conservative DM's won't allow psionics for instance. The rules are fair and square and not shady in the least.
I don't think it is necessary to give a negative score on what a theoretical DM may or may not allow into his game as that possibility is as broad as the game itself.
It's not Leadership. There is no feat here. It is the equivalent, sure, but using the crunch 'and' the fluff of the PrC to achieve it. That's the definition of Elegance is it not? If you're going to penalize me for that I'd think the score should also be increased at the same time.
"I can't realistically see this build being non-disruptive unless other players were also using significant minions or they were controlling a significant portion of yours. (-1)"
And why is the latter deserving of a negative score? This character is based off of a main NPC from a game I ran. He was only 5th level, but he was providing all the transportation for this sled dog race (which was a cover for the whole thing being a secret scouting mission for the players).
He had dozens of dogs to transport the other players faster and also keep them warm, protect them, the whole kaboodle. It worked fantastically, and I can just imagine how it would have worked out if the game had lasted longer for me to provide him with additional levels such as I did here.
This is something that benefits everyone as well as himself. He manages to be a main warrior AND a support character. You might as well penalize a bard for most of his abilities being specific to supporting the group.
"You do need a class that advances wild empathy, but unless Animal Telepathy is the deal-breaker, Animal Lord simply doesn't stand out as more than an optional 1 level dip. (-1)"
Animal telepathy is the big one. It lets me direct the army, which is the mainstay of the build.
However, not only wild empathy and animal telepathy, but you can't normally chain spell animal growth either. It only works on spells that normally affects a single target. Animal Growth is normally multiple targets. However, it specifies in Animal Lord that the ability affects only affects a single animal, but is otherwise identical. As such, I can use the feat, but only Animal Lord provides such ideal wording.
You couldn't even grow 9 animals unless I'd taken 18 levels of druid or wizard, but Animal Lord doesn't grant spellcasting advancement. Even if it had it'd have had to be full spell progressing to match what I did and I'd have had to wait to the end of the build to use it.
As it stands, by 11th level I'm casting the equivalent of a 9th level spell.
I can't realistically see this build being non-disruptive unless other players were also using significant minions or they were controlling a significant portion of yours. (-1)"
And why is the latter deserving of a negative score? This character is based off of a main NPC from a game I ran. He was only 5th level, but he was providing all the transportation for this sled dog race (which was a cover for the whole thing being a secret scouting mission for the players).
He had dozens of dogs to transport the other players faster and also keep them warm, protect them, the whole kaboodle. It worked fantastically, and I can just imagine how it would have worked out if the game had lasted longer for me to provide him with additional levels such as I did here.
This is something that benefits everyone as well as himself. He manages to be a main warrior AND a support character. You might as well penalize a bard for most of his abilities being specific to supporting the group.
I'm not Ozzy, but I took his comment to mean your action economy in combat is incredibly high and in any given round, you are going to take a VAST majority of the time.
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Just out of curiosity, is there an established protocol for a draw? I have seen scores revised before, but not a draw.
For what it is worth here is my opinion on a couple of points. Hope this is not out of line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertram
The only ability called superlative was the faux-wildshape, which the wording of the Improved Flight feat makes useless. The build's ability to infect the summoned creatures relies on their having a longer duration than rounds/level. I'm sorry I didn't quote verbatim all the abilities of the secret ingredient to make that clearer.
Seems like a fair comment. The birdlord does provide an odd Wild Aspect ability.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brolly
"You do need a class that advances wild empathy, but unless Animal Telepathy is the deal-breaker, Animal Lord simply doesn't stand out as more than an optional 1 level dip. (-1)" Animal telepathy is the big one. It lets me direct the army, which is the mainstay of the build.
Snipped the quote. Animal telepathy is very useful for this build in so many ways. Silent commands that go into the animals mind irrespective of any distractions. It could enable the use of more complex tactics or even tricks that trigger off telepathy, though that is speculation. It also offers great roleplaying potential.
Longer backstories to explain the character's evolution are typically rewarded within this contest, yet this one gets a complaint for being too long, despite fitting in a single post?
Pffttt, I wish the longer stories were rewarded. Seriously, I've always gotten just as many complaints. I've experimented by making my last two entries considerably shorter.
Judges seem to prefer quality over quantity (not to say yours isn't). Starry-Eyes I just went all out, so it had both.
As a note for damage being low, when in Dire Eagle form, damage is 2d6+str... Sure not much, but still more than the 1d3 you mentioned. Otherwise why do monsters deal lots of damage when grappling?
This was in direct reference to his grapple damage, not his normal attack damage. Since by RAW, grappling monsters (and monsterous PCs) get rather shafted on damage due to the UAS line, you'd be reliant on drag and drop tactics or party help to kill foes. This lowers your ability to be a total package grappler in the manner that Fistbear is.
If anyone else thinks I missed something, please follow standard operating proceedure and direct your questions anon through Prinny. If I did miss anything really important, it still might affect your score, but I'm pretty sure I was thorough on my assessments.
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A beholder’s favorite foods include small live mammals, exotic mushrooms and other fungi, gnomes, beef, pork, colorful leafy vegetables, leaves, flower petals, insects, and birds.
"Realistically, I can imaging a conservative DM saying no to this just as easily as to Leadership (-1)"
I can imagine many of the builds not being allowable by a conservative DM. Many conservative DM's won't allow psionics for instance. The rules are fair and square and not shady in the least.
I don't think it is necessary to give a negative score on what a theoretical DM may or may not allow into his game as that possibility is as broad as the game itself.
It's not Leadership. There is no feat here. It is the equivalent, sure, but using the crunch 'and' the fluff of the PrC to achieve it. That's the definition of Elegance is it not? If you're going to penalize me for that I'd think the score should also be increased at the same time.
The idea that you consider it a backdoor leadership would actually incline me to penalize it further. I had considered it, but ultimately, the fact that they're all animals inclines me not to: it is ultimately somewhat less abuse-able. I made no secret that I was going to deduct if the build included elements I think would be often banned. And I do think this would be banned, both for its similarity to leadership and its heavy reliance on what is, essentially, the epic diplomacy mechanic. A back door doesn't change this.
The fact that the mechanics and fluff work well together to further the theme of wolf lord did actually get you half a point, as noted in the initial scoring.
But the underlying point behind the deduction stands: this is a Practical Optimization exercise, and if the result is something that is expected to be unplayable (for whatever reason) for a reasonably segment of the audience, its practicality is diminished. That makes the result less desirable than one that is expected to be playable for a larger range.
Quote:
"I can't realistically see this build being non-disruptive unless other players were also using significant minions or they were controlling a significant portion of yours. (-1)"
And why is the latter deserving of a negative score? This character is based off of a main NPC from a game I ran. He was only 5th level, but he was providing all the transportation for this sled dog race (which was a cover for the whole thing being a secret scouting mission for the players).
He had dozens of dogs to transport the other players faster and also keep them warm, protect them, the whole kaboodle. It worked fantastically, and I can just imagine how it would have worked out if the game had lasted longer for me to provide him with additional levels such as I did here.
This is something that benefits everyone as well as himself. He manages to be a main warrior AND a support character. You might as well penalize a bard for most of his abilities being specific to supporting the group.
I noted in my rubric that a build that would be limited to being playable under a small number of conditions would be penalized. I noted that this would include villainous NPCs, and if you see this primarily as an NPC build, I would treat it the same way even though its not villainous: it would have started out with at least a 0.5 penalty in elegance.
As it is, however, you're bringing to bear a significant strain on the action economy in the combat engine. In the absence of actively adapting normal play to suit your character, you're going to have one character taking a disproportionate number actions. That's loosing out in elegance simply because it's an often un-fun proposition: you're causing play to overemphasize one player. If you've played a summoner regularly, you know that there are ways around it: but you you do have to work around it, which is an undesirable element.
In short, Kesnit is reading the core of this objection correctly.
Quote:
"You do need a class that advances wild empathy, but unless Animal Telepathy is the deal-breaker, Animal Lord simply doesn't stand out as more than an optional 1 level dip. (-1)"
Animal telepathy is the big one. It lets me direct the army, which is the mainstay of the build.
However, not only wild empathy and animal telepathy, but you can't normally chain spell animal growth either. It only works on spells that normally affects a single target. Animal Growth is normally multiple targets. However, it specifies in Animal Lord that the ability affects only affects a single animal, but is otherwise identical. As such, I can use the feat, but only Animal Lord provides such ideal wording.
You couldn't even grow 9 animals unless I'd taken 18 levels of druid or wizard, but Animal Lord doesn't grant spellcasting advancement. Even if it had it'd have had to be full spell progressing to match what I did and I'd have had to wait to the end of the build to use it.
As it stands, by 11th level I'm casting the equivalent of a 9th level spell.
Only animal lord allows me to do this.
A chained 5th level very much isn't the equivalent of a 9th. It's certainly not worth 6 levels on its own for 1/day. Either way, the last two levels are still entirely a waste in my eyes though, and while I like the role of Animal Telepathy in principle (and can easily see it being used to great effect in some games), I still view it as largely trivial in practice (since in the absence discussing this particular ability, I expect in combat control of a character's minions will almost universally default to the character's player anyways).
However, you have convinced me that the build does a better job than I initially thought of supporting the class when operating under the presumption that Animal Telepathy is necessary. That warrants +0.5, I suppose. I'll adjust my scoring accordingly.
Edit: As I had, apparently, however, incorrectly summed your Use of Special Ingredient Score, nothing actually changes here. Sorry about that.
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Last edited by Ozymandias9 : 08-14-2010 at 12:26 PM.
Even those enemies immune to poison AND disease AND precision damage have to deal with the fact that Bertram's a competent archer and summoner with a WIS based attack routine, four attacks a round, and built-in flight.
That damage is so low it does not matter, here. I don't see a point being made here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertram
The fact that he's able to fulfill a recon and archer and secondary summoner role makes him fairly 'party friendly,' unless there's some other, specific criteria there.
Being able to fulfill a role does not make you party friendly, it makes you efficient. Bertram is a guy that walks around spreading disease with a lot of sick birds. He could easily get one member of the party sick and lots of characters wouldn't agree with his methods - and he can't really hide'em (like, say, Sway could).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertram
Longer backstories to explain the character's evolution are typically rewarded within this contest, yet this one gets a complaint for being too long, despite fitting in a single post?
It's simply I matter of taste. As I mentioned in the judging, I took no points for it, I just didn't enjoy it.
Also, congrats to Sway. That's the biggest lead I ever saw here on Iron Chef!
Last edited by true_shinken : 08-14-2010 at 01:39 PM.
What do people think of using homebrew PrCs from the GitP PrC Contests in the homebrew forums?
Quote:
Kitchen: Competitors will be free to use any official 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon magazine is disallowed, and Unearthed Arcana is allowed; but see Elegance below. Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Also, item familiars are forbidden because I hate 'em.
Seems pretty clear to me; no homebrew in Iron Chef.
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Seems pretty clear to me; no homebrew in Iron Chef.
Sorry, I was a little unclear. I agree that normally it would not be allowed. But what about possibly making one of those classes the secret ingredient?
Sorry, I was a little unclear. I agree that normally it would not be allowed. But what about possibly making one of those classes the secret ingredient?
Edited for spelling
To repeat myself, as I was apparently unclear: No homebrew in Iron Chef. You're more than welcome to open an offshoot competition here or in the Homebrew forums for a homebrew PrC, but it's not what this iteration is about, and 'alternate systems' are specifically against the rules of the contest.
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I'm all for starting another while the trophies are worked on
QFT.
Is fun spending time thinking of weird things to combine then throwing them out as someone else will have thought of it, instead of working on assignments
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I will say from a "Viewer" perspective, Sway suprised me the most. Great Build and tricks.
Yeah ... I'm disappointed how this competition went and how some things in my build went unnoticed or misunderstood, but I haven't bothered raising objections to them or arguing or whatever, because I could come up with at least two other entries (Sway included) that I have to freely admit were thoroughly superior to mine.
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If you feel like something was missed, you probably should have elaborated on it a bit more. I know I really kicked myself after the GSA event because I didn't quite expound enough on the awesome CL combo between Suel, GSA, and AbjChamp, and I feel like most of the judges missed it. I like to think I do a really good job analyzing the builds for combos/synergy, but I'm not all knowing. I spend a lot of time reading the crunchy write-ups, often reading those entries 2-3 times to make sure I don't miss anything important. If something was missed by 1 judge, shame on him. If something was missed by all judges, shame on you.
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A beholder’s favorite foods include small live mammals, exotic mushrooms and other fungi, gnomes, beef, pork, colorful leafy vegetables, leaves, flower petals, insects, and birds.
It is easy to get snarky at judges. I have done so before and I am not proud of it. Putting yourself out there to critique anothers work is not easy.
I took a different approach with this entry and made sure to clearly list how my build utilised the features of the secret ingredient. This made it easier to read (my writing style is not the most coherent) and got me thinking about how to improve upon those features. I am sure this played a major part in the Judges scoring.
I appreciate peoples kind words about my build. I think everyone that played deserves some credit, as well as the judges and our host.
I know I really kicked myself after the GSA event because I didn't quite expound enough on the awesome CL combo between Suel, GSA, and AbjChamp, and I feel like most of the judges missed it.
But Keld, with the reading of GSA's CL being only equal to class level (as in +10 in 10 levels instead of +15 in 10 levels) was in play. That way, you gain very very little from GSA. I don't remember the specifics of your build, but the most you could squeeze out of it without making Abjurant Champion redundant (rememeber AbjChamp advances one single class of casting; you can't jump around like most PRCs) is Arcanamach 1/AbjChamp 5/GSA 8. That's CL = BAB +8 with 3 losses in BAB. You could do a lot higher without GSA in this environment. It actually slows the build's caster level progression.
I dropped out simply because the only redeeming feature of GSA was that +15 in 10 levels. I had a few builds centered around that in my master spellthief mini-guide, even. With the 3/4 bab and only 10/10 in caster levels, it simply feels poor.
To repeat myself, as I was apparently unclear: No homebrew in Iron Chef. You're more than welcome to open an offshoot competition here or in the Homebrew forums for a homebrew PrC, but it's not what this iteration is about, and 'alternate systems' are specifically against the rules of the contest.
Out of curiosity, how many people would be interested in participating and/or judging in such a contest?
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