Author Topic: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam  (Read 2135 times)

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Foxwander

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I've been playing in a long running campaign and we're finally nearing the epic battle with the big bad (god of death that essentially wants to become an elder god!).  Problem is, even though our characters are ridiculously powerful due to a three character amalgam/gestalt thing (I'll explain that in a bit) I'm worried that we're still going to have problems when this thing goes down.  At this level, one wrong move or hole in your defenses and the power of the things we're facing could annihilate almost anyone.  

So I'm looking for advice on...
   1) areas I could further optimize my character
   2) spells or attack combos to use
   3) weaknesses that could get me killed
   4) check my math/rules on some of the combos and CO stuff
Basically anything at all that could help in the coming battle.

That amalgam/gestalt weirdness I mentioned
Basically our characters are three characters that have been fused into one.

We ran our first characters up to 15th level- mine was a Wizard 5/Incantatar 10.  Then the campaign got pseudo-restarted to several thousand years in the past and we ran new characters to experience the origin of the whole story arc.  These characters went to 15th level also- I ran a Barbarian 1/Sorcerer 6/Swiftblade 8.  Then those two character got fused together (by the goddess of fate to be her champions) and we reworked our characters as a modified gestalt.  We got most of the feats and all the skill/hit points of both characters adding our ability bonus for skill/hit points once.  From that point on (16th level+) we advanced as normal single-class characters.  I took the 9th level of Swiftblade and then went into Ultimate Magus.  

For the final twist we just recently had yet another character fused into the mix- but these were only 3rd level.  It was actually pretty interesting- in the campaign we're assembling the obligatory pieces of the lost god-killing weapon spread across the multi-verse to protect it from blah-blah... you know the drill.  Anyway, the second to last piece was in a dungeon protected by an enchantment that prevented high-level/powerful beings from entering- i.e. our characters.  So the DM had us gen up 3rd level characters.  Suspecting that these PCs would also be doing the fusion dance with us as soon as they got the widget, we created characters that would enhance our main characters "if" that were to happen.  So my character was a Spellthief 1 (Trickster acf)/ Sorcerer 2, and of course I took Master Spellthief. :smirk

We're now "19th" level.  I'll put a detailed breakdown in a spoiler but I've got full caster progression on the wizard side with metamagic out the wazoo AND all the incantatrix cheese.  For melee I've got lion-totem pounce, leap/power attack, arcane strike on a weapon focused tetsubo amped up to "colossal" size with greater mighty wallop to dish out ridiculous damage AND almost all of the swiftblade haste cheese.  And finally there's master spellthief to top off the madness for an arcane caster level of 42 that's ready for whatever abuse I can think of.
 
Here's the detailed build
[spoiler]
Race
Grey Elf

Class
Wizard 5 / Incantatar 10 // Barbarian 1/ Sorcerer 6 / Swiftblade 8 // Spellthief 1 / Sorcerer 2
Swiftblade 1 - Ultimate Magus 3

ACFs - Elven Generalist Wizardry (RoW), Spontaneous Divination (CC), Stalwart Sorcerer (CM), Air Lineage sorcerer (custom variant from ENWorld), Spell Shield (DS), Lion Totem barbarian (CC), Whirling Frenzy rage (UA), Trickster spellthief (Dragon 353)

Effective Wizard level - 19    (5 + 10 Inc + 1 Swiftblade + 3 UM)
Effective Sorcerer level - 15    (8 + 5 Swiftblade + 2 UM)
Effective Spellthief level - 1     (35 for stealing spells, 19+15+1)  
Caster level (from master spellthief) - 42    ((19+15+1) + 3 UM Arcane Spell Power + 4 Practiced Sorcerer)

BAB - 14

Stats
STR- 18 >> 24 (+6 Belt)
DEX- 18
CON- 15 >> 17 (+2 from Relic)
INT- 24 >> 30 (+6 Headband)
WIS- 10
CHA- 21 >> 27 (+6 Headband)

Familiar
Musteval Guardinal, equipped with torch bug paste to mark any invisible enemies he sees.

Feats
Collegiate Wizard (combined w/ generalist wizardry, learn 5 new wizard spells every level)
Apprentice
Extend Spell
Iron Will
Spell Focus - Spellcraft
Quicken Spell
Sculpt Spell
Improved Familiar
Maximize Spell
Alacritous Cogitation (instead of Scribe Scroll at Wiz 1)
Empower Spell (Incantatar bonus)
Split Ray (Incantatar bonus)
Chain Spell (Incantatar bonus)
Twin Spell (Incantatar bonus)
Dodge
Mobility
Improved Initiative (Air Lineage Sorcerer)
Spring Attack (Swiftblade)
Bounding Assault (Swiftblade
Precocious Apprentice (from the 3rd level character, taken to get master spellthief)
Master Spellthief

Noteworthy class abilities

Incantatar
Focused study (dropped Illusion school)
Cooperative Metamagic, 13x/day (3+INT mod)
Metamagic Effect, 13x/day (3+INT mod)
Metamagic Spell Trigger
Seize Concentration
Instant Metamagic, 2x/day
Snatch Spell
Improved Metamagic (meta-magic level adjustment -1)

Swiftblade
Swift Surge  (+2 to attack, +2 to AC/Reflex saves, +10' to all movement,  +1d6 to damage w/ 10' move)
Blurred Alacrity  (w/ haste, 50% miss chance)
Sudden Casting  (all haste spells are quickened for free)
Arcane Reflexes (add CHA bonus to initiative)
Evasive Celerity  (w/haste, 50% miss chance for targeted spells)
Fortified Hustle  (haste effect becomes EX, can't be dispelled, works in AMF)
Diligent Rapidity  (freedom of movement effect w/ haste)
Perpetual Options  (under haste can take an extra standard action instead of the extra attack w/ full attack)  :smirk

[/spoiler]

Some abuse-worthy capabilities/tactics and questions thereof:
  • +51 to spellcraft, 19 ranks + 10(INT) + 10(item) + 3(skill focus) + 2(apprentice) + 2(precocious apprentice) +2 (familiar aid) + 3(PF class bonus).  So I can beat the DC for metamagic effect to persist up to 9th level spells with ease.  We haven't abused this too much so far, but we might want to start.  So that's up to 13 spells persisted every day. Any suggestions?
  • +50 for jump checks while hasted, so I can do a 50' leaping charge ending with a full whirling frenzy attack for 5 hits. With my standard buff spells (wraithstrike, bite of the werebear, gr. mighty wallop) and tactics (full power attack, 8th level arcane strike) I'll hit touch AC 36 on an average hit roll for 132 points (50 weapon/arcane strike + 82 STR/power attack) each time = 660 damage each full attack, if they all hit.  What other buffs can I throw into the mix if going into melee?
  • Perpetual Options gives me old-school haste (almost) so I can cast a quickened spell + 2 more every round.  And that's without using the Belt of Battle or Arcane Fusion.  Dimensional Lock + Maw of Chaos (or some less obscenely damaging spell considering it is uncapped CL damage) + Force Cage takes care of most Bad Things.  What are some other nice 3 spell combos I could dish out?
  • Caster level 42!!! That's gotta be all kinds of exploitable.  I know spell resistance and dispel magic shouldn't be any problem now. And I don't need to extend spells much anymore.  But what else can one do with a ludicrous CL?
     
Ok, that's enough for now.  So help me out.  This is pretty good so far, but I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement.  What have I missed?  What should I watch out for?  What spells should we have up all the time?  Any and all ideas will be most welcome.  Thanks.  :)

PS- Sorry for the long post.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2010, 03:27:10 AM by Foxwander »
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Tenebrus

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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2010, 04:00:53 AM »
This is well beyond my pay grade.  Good luck!

Foxwander

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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2010, 04:14:03 AM »
I was afraid that might be why no one has taken a crack at it.  But I've seen crazier stuff posted. 

Mainly the advice I need would be applicable to any high-level game.  Our group has never played to epic levels, so the amount of options and the kind of tactics/defenses you need are a little overwhelming.  Beyond any tweaks and what-not to do with my specific character build, advice on how to just survive in an epic game would be very welcome.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2010, 05:20:41 AM »
Epic = have epic spellcasting.

That's really the long and the short of it.  The game is so broken at that point it's pretty much beyond optimization.
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Ramaloke

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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2010, 05:49:29 AM »
Epic = have epic spellcasting.

That's really the long and the short of it.  The game is so broken at that point it's pretty much beyond optimization.

This.

This is pretty much what you need. Everything else is just gravy but for more general tips, take improved spell capacity over the automatic quicken/silent/still/etc feats. By just having Improved Spell Capacity 4 times you have a passable equivalent to Automatic Quicken Spell for levels 1-9 (except you didn't spend like 6 feats on it, just 4). Then take Multispells and improved metamagic. Switch between the 3 and you should end up being fairly powerful.
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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2010, 06:08:08 AM »
You've got 9th-level Wizard spells.  Take 1 more level of Swiftblade to make yourself fully epic-ready (nevermind the kinds of insanity that the time stop ability has in epic play) and go from there.  If you want to take 3 more levels of Ultimate Magus for double 9's in Wizard and Sorcerer, then that's an option, too, and probably worth a bonus feat from Epic Swiftblade.  UM's metamagic abilities, however, are not that hot in Epic play.  Does not work on spells already affected by metamagic, and in Epic play that should be pretty much everything important.

Beyond that... yeah, Epic Spellcasting.  To be completely honest, it only gets really bad if you combine it with Leadership -> Epic Leadership -> Legendary Commander for thousands of followers giving up spells to reduce the Spellcraft DC.

Foxwander

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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2010, 08:44:54 AM »
We haven't actually talked about it but I'm fairly certain, in the interest of keeping the game even remotely playable, that we aren't even going to touch epic spells.  That seems like pretty much a mutually-assured-destruction-nuclear-arms-race kind of thing.  And believe it or not we're actually trying to keep the game from getting too crazy. I know that sounds completely oxymoronic considering the so-ludicrous-I'm-bordering-on-plaid level of cheese in my character (or the triple "gestalt" thing we've got) but it's actually true. There's no gating in efreets for infinite wishes or popping over to quick-time planes to craft gizmo.  Heck, we don't even dabble in shapechange abuse.  We've got some crazy builds for our characters (the other two characters are a summoner cleric/malconvoker/thaumaturgist//rogue/invisible blade/assassin/teflammar shadowlord and a ninja/monk//swordsage/warblade!! :p) but we try not to exploit our capabilities to the point of breaking the game.  My master spellthief CL trick was the absolute limit of pushing into plaid, and that was only allowed because we're so close to the endgame.  I know this must seem like driving a bugatti veyron for a corner store milk run but that's how our game goes.

Now- that being said, with these artificial limits on ourselves (or just not understanding what our characters are truly capable of because we've never played at this level before) so far our characters have been killed once (saved by surprise contingency effect) and then we nearly died twice just in the last battle. So I'm thinking it's time to stop playing nice, throw that milk out the window and put the pedal down! (so to speak)  But, again- first time at this level so I need some help with the smackdown tactics, but without epic spells.
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Mixster

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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2010, 02:08:26 PM »
Get the Ferocity of Sanguine Rage from Dragon Magic, it will add +21 on all your damage rolls for 42 round (more if persisted)

Get Maw of Chaos (from spell compendium) it will do 42d6 damage, and have them test will or be dazed (take no actions) for 42 rounds. Battlefield control and de-buff in one neat package.

If you can somehow get Hunter's eye each of your attacks will deal 14d6 sneak attack damage, which is quite decent with something like a persisted cloud of knives.

Also remember that it is perfectly legal for you to persist a Time stop (range is personal). Just think of that, you could take a standard action to renew all your spells and reprepare, brush your teeth, comb your hair, read a book, summon a bunch of followers and get it on. All it takes is something like a DC60 Spellcraft check, which you should be able to do, or at least be able to buff yourself into doing.
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Re: CO advice for my crazy incantatar/swiftblade/master spellthief amalgam
« Reply #8 on: December 03, 2010, 06:36:05 PM »
It's of questionable legality, at best, to persist Time Stop.

Further, you're a Swiftblade in an Epic campaign without epic spellcasting.  Get some obnoxiously-high-level spell slots and use them to power the 10th-level Swiftblade ability.