Author Topic: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?  (Read 8650 times)

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Endarire

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What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« on: December 24, 2010, 11:57:10 PM »
Intro
With all this talk of magic and mundanes, let's discuss what mundanes can actually do when pushed to their limit at ECL 20.

Let's assume no magic is involved.  This means no wishes (from genies, Pazuzu, or otherwise), no magic items created nor used (not even with Use Magic Device/Use Psionic Device), no vestiges bound, and so on.  Let's use WotC-only material (but no "Dragon" Magazine) and determine what purely Extraordinary abilities can do.

All races and templates are available, assuming they only use Extraordinary abilities.  I'll forgive a quasi-magical origin, meaning Dragonborn, Outsiders, Illithids, Warforged, and so on are OK, but only if they only use Extraordinary abilities.

Forseen Tricks
Combat Medic: Devoted Spirit maneuvers and stances can heal yourself and your allies as (Ex) abilities.

Diplomancer.  Makes everyone who understands him his friend.

Know-It-All: Can tell you anything worth knowing and plenty that isn't.

Shadow Warper: Shadow Jaunt, Shadow Stride, and Shadow Blink let you teleport as (Ex) abilities.  To my knowledge, they are the only Extraordinary teleports.

Super Saver: The Diamond Mind maneuvers Action Before Thought, Moment of Perfect Mind, and Mind Over Body let you use a Concentration check instead of your normal save with a natural 1 being a possible success.  Diamond Defense adds your initiator level to all saves.  The hard part is keeping all these readied for when you need them.

The Ninja: Very sneaky.  May also be very perceptive.  Does not necessarily have the Ninja or Swordsage classes.

Uberdamager: Hood, sneak attack expert, and so on.  Deals lots of damage, the vast majority of it physical.

Zookeeper: Uses Handle Animal or Wild Empathy to make animals his friends.  (Alternatively, may use other mundane means of getting lots of minions, hirelings, henchmen, and so on.)  May keep lots of pets.  May act as a Diplomancer.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2010, 03:01:37 AM by Endarire »
Hood - My first answer to all your build questions; past, present, and future.

Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"

ninjarabbit

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2010, 12:07:11 AM »
Maxed out intimidate + intimidating rage + instantaneous rage + never outnumbered skill trick = poor man's celerity

Ikeren

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #2 on: December 25, 2010, 01:06:23 AM »
Tome of Battle has lots of goodies in it. Just, lesser goodies.

Eldariel

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #3 on: December 25, 2010, 03:15:33 AM »
Well, blot out the sun with arrows. Alone. An Eternal Blade Archer chassis can launch over 40 arrows in one round. And one that's hard to codify fluff-wise due to the abstract nature of turns and actions, but Eternal Blade's capstone "Island in Time" is definitely up there: Taking a full-round action as an immediate action, Ex-ability.

Hulking Hurler can throw moon-sized objects which definitely counts for something. Many notable strength-increases such as Warhulk, various varieties of Rage and such are Ex so you can get quite high Str just with Ex-abilities. You do miss out on size increases but that doesn't stop you from getting "impressive" amounts of stuff to throw. Also, all the damage you can deal can be converted into many impressive feats like destroying the planet, splitting mountains and stuff like that. Provided we can template or such things up; I have a hard time seeing us going into millions a round without using magical multipliers increasing our size, strength, throw capacity and such.

Supermount is definitely up there; a non-magical character can have a very, very impressive companion/mount-thingy (Dragon without Su-abilities is still a Dragon and something like Ashworm or such is unquestionably acceptable and quite efficient).

There are non-magical HiPS forms so it's fully possible for an e.g. Ranger to stand right in front of you and be unnoticed. They have certain limitations but provided those limitations are fulfilled, we're left with a rather impressive ability overall.


If we have Diplomance and Know-It-All in there, adding Bluffmaster, Jumplomancer and other such variations that Exemplar-Diplomance, or use another, skill extensively well to the list makes sense.

Talore

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #4 on: December 25, 2010, 03:49:06 AM »
I'd add Factotum to the list of tricks. It's just that awesome. (Even if they do get a bit of optional spellcasting)
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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #5 on: December 25, 2010, 08:08:41 AM »
Well, blot out the sun with arrows. Alone. An Eternal Blade Archer chassis can launch over 40 arrows in one round. And one that's hard to codify fluff-wise due to the abstract nature of turns and actions, but Eternal Blade's capstone "Island in Time" is definitely up there: Taking a full-round action as an immediate action, Ex-ability.
A 10th-level bloodstorm blade may make an attack against "as many targets as he wishes". Attack each square millimeter of ground out to his maximum range. With a +1 explosive weapon if possible.
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Eldariel

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #6 on: December 25, 2010, 10:16:41 AM »
Well, blot out the sun with arrows. Alone. An Eternal Blade Archer chassis can launch over 40 arrows in one round. And one that's hard to codify fluff-wise due to the abstract nature of turns and actions, but Eternal Blade's capstone "Island in Time" is definitely up there: Taking a full-round action as an immediate action, Ex-ability.
A 10th-level bloodstorm blade may make an attack against "as many targets as he wishes". Attack each square millimeter of ground out to his maximum range. With a +1 explosive weapon if possible.

I think Explosive Weapon is beyond the scope of this compendium but BSB definitely warrants a mention; surely there are non-magical ways to make it do something.

Prime32

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #7 on: December 25, 2010, 10:18:38 AM »
Does using cheese to pick up an epic feat count? There's the Distant Shot trick...
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

Amadi

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #8 on: December 25, 2010, 10:21:25 AM »
At lower levels, poisons. Poisons are great. For reference, Arsenic and Old Lace handbook is around here somewhere.

This also depends on your DM. Cold environments can suck without a guide with survival if he's strict about it, giving yet another role for non-casters. Same with climb, etc. It's not about a single place to climb in a day. It's about putting a lot of them there, so that castes either exhaust their magic on fly-spells or let someone with actual ranks in a skill do it. Dropping people in water also works, although it screws up the full-plate-warrior even more than the wizard. The point still stands, a lot of skills aren't as needed in campaigns as they could be.

Also, Iaijutsu Focus allows people to hit for surprisingly much damage.

Lycanthromancer

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2010, 11:18:29 AM »
A level 20 wizard.

...Spellcasting is Ex...
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skydragonknight

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #10 on: December 25, 2010, 11:25:35 AM »
Well, blot out the sun with arrows. Alone. An Eternal Blade Archer chassis can launch over 40 arrows in one round. And one that's hard to codify fluff-wise due to the abstract nature of turns and actions, but Eternal Blade's capstone "Island in Time" is definitely up there: Taking a full-round action as an immediate action, Ex-ability.
A 10th-level bloodstorm blade may make an attack against "as many targets as he wishes". Attack each square millimeter of ground out to his maximum range. With a +1 explosive weapon if possible.

I think Explosive Weapon is beyond the scope of this compendium but BSB definitely warrants a mention; surely there are non-magical ways to make it do something.

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Sunic_Flames

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #11 on: December 25, 2010, 12:11:16 PM »
At lower levels, poisons. Poisons are great. For reference, Arsenic and Old Lace handbook is around here somewhere.

This also depends on your DM. Cold environments can suck without a guide with survival if he's strict about it, giving yet another role for non-casters. Same with climb, etc. It's not about a single place to climb in a day. It's about putting a lot of them there, so that castes either exhaust their magic on fly-spells or let someone with actual ranks in a skill do it. Dropping people in water also works, although it screws up the full-plate-warrior even more than the wizard. The point still stands, a lot of skills aren't as needed in campaigns as they could be.

Also, Iaijutsu Focus allows people to hit for surprisingly much damage.

And then you look and realize most of the Survival DCs are 10 or 15, and the ones that are not are 20. So minimal ranks + Wis + take 10 covers the hardest ones. For the others, no actual ranks are needed.
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Amadi

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #12 on: December 25, 2010, 03:46:49 PM »
And then you look and realize most of the Survival DCs are 10 or 15, and the ones that are not are 20. So minimal ranks + Wis + take 10 covers the hardest ones. For the others, no actual ranks are needed.

White-out in glacier is DC 30 or get lost. Recognizing the threat of a lightning pillar is DC 25. There might be others.

ninjarabbit

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #13 on: December 25, 2010, 04:05:45 PM »
How often does a white-out in a glacier come up?

Realistically 5 ranks in survival + masterwork item + synergy bonuses from other skills should be enough for 98% of the survival checks you make so even a character cross-classing survival should be okay....like a wizard or cloistered cleric with skill points to spare.

Truth is many skills don't need to be maxed out, you really only need only 1 rank to make the check or 5 ranks for synergy bonuses, a masterwork item, and a decent stat modifer. For example a character with 1 rank in open lock with a masterwork item and 14 dex will be able to pick an average lock (DC 25) on a take 20.

Amadi

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #14 on: December 25, 2010, 05:29:23 PM »
It's up to the DM, but I'm pretty sure that different planar areas would have a lot of scary natural hazards, too.

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #15 on: December 25, 2010, 05:48:47 PM »
How often does a white-out in a glacier come up?

Every time those fraking Ice Climbers get the smash ball...
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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #16 on: December 25, 2010, 06:13:44 PM »
A level 20 wizard.

...Spellcasting is Ex...

yet to be proven, iirc. i believe it was completely "untyped" (to borrow a word), the last i was reading those arguments.
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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #17 on: December 25, 2010, 08:21:12 PM »
How often does a white-out in a glacier come up?

Every time those fraking Ice Climbers get the smash ball...

Better them than Sonic, IMO.

Endarire

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #18 on: December 25, 2010, 09:56:05 PM »
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say spellcasting is (Ex).  All spells you cast are NOT (Ex), at least for our purposes.
Hood - My first answer to all your build questions; past, present, and future.

Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"

Amechra

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Re: What are the best tricks of a character who doesn't use magic?
« Reply #19 on: December 26, 2010, 02:56:57 AM »
I remember making an almost pure Fighter build, using ACFs and pair of Keen Elven Courtblades to get 7 attacks that were all criticals. All of them. With no chance of failure, except for those pesky crit-immunes...

There's always Knowledge Affiliation; or, for the uninitiated, the-ability-that-makes-the-monsters-cry. 1/day bypass any one ability a creature has. Including immunity, so you can scare the paladin so hard he craps his pants...

Darkstalker+High Hide/MS Mod=Non-magical invisibility. That is all.
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