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Okay, so a little background here: My friend is DMing a game and he fancies himself a right-tough power gamer (his example of a "soldier" was someone with 30 strength. Without magical enhancements) so I was attempting to think of a good character build to counter this. There's only three of us and the other two players are going the goofy route (one's a sorcerer with only utility spells and the other's a multi-classing nightmare with 10 attacks), so there's need for a rogue and a crowd-controller. Well, while looking over the Artifcer class I noticed it had options for both, so that's what I settled on.

Basically, what I'm asking is if anyone really experienced with the class has some decent builds for it. Maybe with the option of a robot army. Heh.

May I direct you towards CharOp? They have a marvelous track-record for breaking the game. Just a brief search there brought up the Optimized Artificer and Artificer Handbook. Just ask and I'm sure they will come up with some way of having your robot army slaughter your opposition.

Cool! Thanks a bunch. I'll check that stuff out.

A way to counter a fighter with 30 Strength? As the player of a barbarian with STR in the upper 30s when he needs it, I have some insight into this.

First, mind-affecting effects. A good enchanter will take that 30 Strength and put it to work for him. Or you could just spam ray of enfeeblement at him. Or just fly; that STR score won't help him much when he can't get into melee with you. If you don't want to turn a wizard loose on him, a rogue can snipe him to death. If you want to really embarrass him, go the Clericzilla route and beat him at his own game with a caster. Really, fighters in D&D are pathetically easy to counter; the only real skill they can effectively possess is hitting things. They have no magic, they're not stealthy, and they can't see shit.

Just want to point out that the DM had a "soldier" according to Erik. This could cover a wide variety of base and prestige classes, not simply "fighter" although that would be the simplest answer. As an example, this "soldier" build could destroy the planet in a single throw. Bit extreme, but martial classes do have the potential to get retarded when you start adding books.

Er, sorry. By "soldier" I meant the nation's basic fighting troops. Could be warriors, could be fighters. He didn't specify.

The cleric option's always a good one, though.

His example is insane. Why would a soldier have a strength of 30? That's demihuman levels--unless his is a nation of trolls and giants, having 30 strength is evidence of some kind of massive magical influence, and I have no idea how it would be possible to achieve without things like rage, magical enchants, or being an amazingly high level. Your average soldier is going to have a strength closer to 12 or 14, since they're peasents and just drafted into the military to serve as pikeman and such. If you're talking about badass professional soldiers, consider a strength of 14 to 16 as more normal with strong badasses going to 18 and slimmer ones at the 14ish side.

What level are you working at? This is clearly an immensely high-power campaign. As stated, there's ways to ruin his shit easy. If you can tell us more about the class we can help. We can also give you embarassingly powerful classes that are just straight-up fighters to piss him off, like some really insane Monk or Tripfighter builds (might I chance to say a Spiked Chain tripfighter?) which will insure that not only does he never have a chance to stand up and do anything, but will also deny him the chance to say that you didn't actually fight him.

He did it by giving them 32 point buy (uhm), several levels and a draconic template or the other. Yeah, it's really nuts. He said he wanted us to think "outside the box" or some such thing, going for something other than melee.

Oh, man, those spiked chain guys. I played one once, wasn't very fun when everything had more than two legs and was bigger than me. I might be willing to try it again if it's better. Otherwise, I was looking for the artificer to basically shore up the party so far. While I'd like to see a decent crowd control character (that blaster build on the d20 website was insane), I'd be pretty much up for anything that can counter-act the stupid levels of power gaming he's likely to pull.

If there's something better than an artificer out there that could basically take over for the party rogue while also taking over for the sorcerer/wizard for crowd control that'd be good. I'd rather not do a monk since the last game I played I was a monk/wizard, so I'd like to do something else, as well.

The Factotum might be up your alley; it's a 20 level class from Dungeonscape, and there's a pretty in depth opt-guide for it. It's a "jack of all trades" class, and it's very, very adept at doing everything if you go about it the right way. It's got trap-finding, every skill is a class skill (Read: EVERY SKILL. So he could have Iaijutsu Focus and Autohypnosis if he wanted), 6+int skill points per level, and it's main class feature lets you use "inspiration points" gained through the feat I link below and from natural class progression to improve your abilities or emulate features from another class entirely, and also a limited, if "robust", access to arcane spells.

Relevant Thread: thread

And if you go here: Linka

There's a feat for the Factotum that is "must have" in the same way that every wizard "must have" a spell-book.

Additionally, Crystal Keep is one of your best friends ever if you need references to different materials.

Joviwan wrote: There's a feat for the Factotum that is "must have" in the same way that every wizard "must have" a spell-book.

I'm still of the opinion that feat is fundamentally broken. If you'd still take it at 1 or 2 IP per feat, (AND YOU WOULD) it's totally broken as written.

That said, sounds like your friend's looking to run a busted-ass game as it is. You could try the Bag of Rats trick.

It's possible, I guess, but I'm not convinced. Not any more broken than anything found in Tome of Battle, certainly. Have you ever seen an entire party of warblades using White Raven Tactics? Everyone goes 2-3 times per round, using greater insightful strike on x4 multiplier weapons "just in case."

Get Composite Great Bow (EWP: Great Bow. Complete Warrior) with high str bonus. Get splitting enchantment. Get Bracers of Archery. Shoot for Exotic Weapon Master Class for Close Combat shot. Get the feat or magic item that allows you to use 'power attack' with bows (cant remember it off the top of my head)

Laugh insanely as you pepper guards with 10+ arrows per round at higher levels.

ETA: Depending on level, use winged template from Savage Species, be a human. +2 wis +4 dex for low LA, as well as perfect flight (if dex is high enough)

If he also allows it snag Hank's Energy Bow and mod that with splitting. Call yourself Pit. Laugh Insanely

Someone let me play with the Artificer and epic gestalt way too much (and actively encouraging my twinkery), ended up with a character capable of single-handedly taking down anything or any combination of things short of a God with the Hand of Life and Death power.

Would have to know more about what's available to you, but things like the unerrata'd Craft Dragonmark (I forget the name) can lead to some seriously broken Artificers.

Think outside the box, huh?

Step 1: Create a lycanthrope character. We shall go with a wereduck in this example.
Step 2: Use all money given to you at character creation to buy as many of your chosen animal as possible. So, for our wereduck, buy yourself hundreds and hundreds of ducks.
Step 3: Lycanthropic Empathy (Ex)
In any form, lycanthropes can communicate and empathize with normal or dire animals of their animal form. This gives them a +4 racial bonus on checks when influencing the animal’s attitude and allows the communication of simple concepts and (if the animal is friendly) commands, such as "friend," "foe," "flee," and "attack."
Step 4: Nibble the soldier to death. Quack quack.

Alternatively, you could be less creative and go the route of Pun-Pun. Total omnipotence and omniscience by level 5. That ought to fix that soldier for good.

Everything under the sun is available, since he's doing the exact same thing back. I think he'd disallow Pun-Pun, though, since that's just epic cheese.

That ranged character sounds pretty interesting, though. That'd he hilariously awesome.

Do you know what level your character is going to be? And what's his view on houserules?

I made a cheesy ranged character just for giggles at ECL 14. Human Fighter (it's a varient, but the varient abilities don't change the feats he took) with 2 flaws for the bonus feats (In our group, we have our own list of fairly penalizing flaws. Straight Unearthed Arcana flaws are made of win because they penalize you not at all and you get 2 free feats out of them).

One homebrew feat is involved: Quicksheath, makes putting away a weapon a free action. You can argue that Quickdraw lets you do this to save a feat. Basically, the build has 2 repeating crossbows that he essentially "juggles" using two-weapon fighting, rapid reload, quickdraw, and quicksheath, to make 6 attacks per round. Add in weapon specialization feats because you're a fighter, and some dragon magazine feats (Like "If you miss a ranged attack against a single opponent, all other ranged attacks against that oponent this round have +4 to hit", or "Add half your dex to all ranged attacks", or "Add dex to your ranged attacks against Sneak-attackable opponents"), and maybe shot-on-the-run, you've got a very bizarre John Woo akimbo crossbows character.

Erik von Nein wrote:Everything under the sun is available, since he's doing the exact same thing back. I think he'd disallow Pun-Pun, though, since that's just epic cheese.

That ranged character sounds pretty interesting, though. That'd he hilariously awesome.

Hmm... if you want, PM me the char creation rules, and I'll see if I can find my full build somewhere (tho a lot of it can be found in char op, where i originally got it)

If he allows Hank's energy bow (google it. should be on the wizards website. from the old dnd cartoon) then you're golden. mod it into a greatbow (for exotic weapon master), and add splitting enchantment. It gives you unlimited composite str mod bonus to damage, the ranged power attack, and its arrows are force arrows, so they ignore DR AND energy resistance (dunno about spell resistence). Only neg is you can't use magic arrows with it as it makes its own, and doesnt technically have a bow string, but its a nasty item to use archer wise.

add in consecrated harrier PRC and some scout levels for skirmish damage, and you're golden

Heh. That's always awesome. We're starting at 9th level and, considering he played a completely made-up character class last time I think homebrew/houserules are pretty open for the most part.

Also, if its a vanilla good vs. evil campaign, you could consider a ranger x-1 (x=the level you get your second favored enemy choice)/fighter y (y=levels needed to qualify for SoK PrC, preferably even level so it's not a dead level)/stalker of Kharash 2 or 3/Ranger 1/Foe Hunter 10.

SoK gives you Favored Enemy: Evil. The ranger level afterwards gives you an additional +2 bonus vs. evil (as its a favored enemy choice you currently have, which qualifies for the bonus). You also gain scent vs. evil. But the fun part comes from Foe Hunter.
Death Attacks, SR, DR, Bonus Damage, ALL vs. anything evil.

Fun fact 1: The SR STACKS with exisiting SR. Be a stereotypical Drow, and laugh in the face of any evil spellcaster throwing SR-able spells at you.

Choose other evil type creatures as your other favored enemy choices (you get two others from ranger levels. I usually choose undead (Fun Fact 2: Foe Hunter's Bonus Damage works on it if its evil) and outsiders.

You're very one dimensional, but its a wide dimension, and everything you do against it is hella nasty. Since you are, do so even more: take exalted feats from the book of exalted deeds, be a paragon of niceness, and destroy all evil before you! You don't need 30 strength when your very gaze can turn evil beings into meaty chunky salsa.

Fun Fact 3: Adding in Complete Warrior Weapon enhancements which double your FE bonus damage= good times!

Books needed: PHB, Book of Exalted Deeds, Master of the Wild (3.0), Complete Warrior.
Again, PM me for more details if interested.

Opposing a strength of 30 makes it a bad idea to rely tripping or grappling attacks unless you can get even higher.

At level 9 you are two levels away from being able to make a Horizon Walker archer who is virtually impossible to catch in melee. 5 levels in Ranger and 8 skill points take care of the prerequisites, and then after 5 levels of unremarkable abilities you get to dimension door every 1d4 rounds at HW 6. It treats character level as caster level, so at level 11 you have a range of 840 feet and can bring 3 party members along for the ride.

Depending on how the campaign is set up Trapfinding may or may not be a high priority. Basically, do you expect to dungeon crawl?

Civil War Man wrote:Think outside the box, huh?

Step 1: Create a lycanthrope character. We shall go with a wereduck in this example.
Step 2: Use all money given to you at character creation to buy as many of your chosen animal as possible. So, for our wereduck, buy yourself hundreds and hundreds of ducks.
Step 3: Lycanthropic Empathy (Ex)
In any form, lycanthropes can communicate and empathize with normal or dire animals of their animal form. This gives them a +4 racial bonus on checks when influencing the animal’s attitude and allows the communication of simple concepts and (if the animal is friendly) commands, such as "friend," "foe," "flee," and "attack."
Step 4: Nibble the soldier to death. Quack quack.

Would it be possible to use Chicken and have Chicken infested instead?

Alternatively, you could be less creative and go the route of Pun-Pun. Total omnipotence and omniscience by level 5. That ought to fix that soldier for good.

IIRC, it's been brought down to level one, for something like a Kobold Paladin with enough Knowledge (Planes) or something like that.

Cyborg Stan wrote:

Civil War Man wrote:Think outside the box, huh?

Step 1: Create a lycanthrope character. We shall go with a wereduck in this example.
Step 2: Use all money given to you at character creation to buy as many of your chosen animal as possible. So, for our wereduck, buy yourself hundreds and hundreds of ducks.
Step 3: Lycanthropic Empathy (Ex)
In any form, lycanthropes can communicate and empathize with normal or dire animals of their animal form. This gives them a +4 racial bonus on checks when influencing the animal’s attitude and allows the communication of simple concepts and (if the animal is friendly) commands, such as "friend," "foe," "flee," and "attack."
Step 4: Nibble the soldier to death. Quack quack.

Would it be possible to use Chicken and have Chicken infested instead?

Of course, I just used duck as an example to make the reference to the phrase "being nibbled to death by ducks." Hell, the first time I heard this idea, it involved creating a werechicken because chickens only cost 1 copper.

Basically, any cheaply purchased animal works, since it allows you to buy massive amounts and swarm. Things will turn out poorly if you go head-to-head with the 30-strength soldier, because if the DM even wants to pretend to be a powergamer, he will have pretty much every cleave feat in the handbooks.

Civil War Man wrote:

Cyborg Stan wrote:

Civil War Man wrote:Think outside the box, huh?

Step 1: Create a lycanthrope character. We shall go with a wereduck in this example.
Step 2: Use all money given to you at character creation to buy as many of your chosen animal as possible. So, for our wereduck, buy yourself hundreds and hundreds of ducks.
Step 3: Lycanthropic Empathy (Ex)
In any form, lycanthropes can communicate and empathize with normal or dire animals of their animal form. This gives them a +4 racial bonus on checks when influencing the animal’s attitude and allows the communication of simple concepts and (if the animal is friendly) commands, such as "friend," "foe," "flee," and "attack."
Step 4: Nibble the soldier to death. Quack quack.

Would it be possible to use Chicken and have Chicken infested instead?

Of course, I just used duck as an example to make the reference to the phrase "being nibbled to death by ducks." Hell, the first time I heard this idea, it involved creating a werechicken because chickens only cost 1 copper.

Basically, any cheaply purchased animal works, since it allows you to buy massive amounts and swarm. Things will turn out poorly if you go head-to-head with the 30-strength soldier, because if the DM even wants to pretend to be a powergamer, he will have pretty much every cleave feat in the handbooks.

or a wand of fireball with umd ranks. one area attack and your swarm= kfc

I like necropolitan tainted scholar, for infinite spells at infinite DC. If you can manage to find epic slaads, you can make them fight for quick xp (no spell resistance).

Or you can do cancer mage and festering anger and vile rigidity. Str 30 is nice, but what will that do against Str 3000 and AC 3000?

Guys, guys. Obviously cheese isn't going to be allowed. No Loops of Doom.

While the werechicken idea is hilarious it'll pretty well fail miserably.

The DM was talking about being in love with dragonbloods, poisons, and traps (in that order) and, since we don't have anyone really capable of handing the last two I need to able to fill that role effectively enough to make up for it.

So far I'm kind of mixing and matching the ideas for the Artificer from the D20 website linked before, only throwing leadership in, as well, to make up for whatever I can't already do. But is leadership really worth it? Another (two level lower) party member plus helpers for item creation seem like a pretty big boon to me, but I could be wrong. Yeah, it's extra paper work, but I can live with it.