Author Topic: Epic-level Melee (whoops)  (Read 2633 times)

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zeroasterisk

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Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« on: March 03, 2011, 08:12:23 PM »
Hey all,
I'm part of a 3.5 campaign that's just starting to pass level 20, and I am starting to regret playing a melee character.

Info:

Me:
Warforged (with some irrelevant templates thrown in there) Warblade 10 / Lion Totem Whirling Frenzy Barbarian 1 / Warforged Juggernaut 5 / Fighter 1 / Frenzied Berserker 4

I have the relic artifact warforged-only cloak from one of the Eberron books (sorry, feeling lazy, don't want to look things up) that allows me to fly with perfect maneuverability, so my battle strategy thus far has been to fly at things and hit them with my sword in the typical 'ubercharger' style.

My DM likes to homebrew loot for the party, so I have the option of being in multiple stances at once (1 warblade stance, 1 stone dragon stance that ignores the stone dragon stance movement/ground-based penalties, 1 shadow hand/desert wind stance, 1 setting sun stance), and initiate maneuvers as a swordsage of my hit die (restricted to shadow hand/desert wind, and setting sun of 1/2 my hit die) I can also teleport as dimension door in place of an attack roll.

Also, there are 5 of me, due to the wizard doing some funky stuff with gating Phanes.
My Party:
As mentioned, the 'wizard', whose build I do not know, besides that he has levels in Initiate of the Seven Veils, and specializes in abjuration magic. (I think he also dropped the transmutation school, but I'm kind of unsure about that) Human, actively pursuing the Necropolitan template.

The psionic character, whose build I know even less about, can somehow cast any power using obligatorily high amounts of power points due to NI-levels of taint, and has two undead minions, built as hulking hurlers with levels in warblade for White Raven Tactics :) Gravetouched Ghoul, still level 19 due to the LA

Yes, there are only 3 players.

Our Campaign:
Our DM has obviously given up pulling things out of WotC's Books besides the Epic Level Handbook, and typically makes his own characters to oppose us. There tend to be lots of repercussions for hitting them with sharp objects.

He also vetoes just about anything you'd find on the 'You Break it, You Buy it' boards, with good reason. Wish has been limited to a case-by-case approval basis, and if cast too many times in a row, simply doesn't work. Celerity has been banned for PCs, and he capped the Past Time Duplicates at 4, despite the (supposedly) infinite amount of Phanes the wizard could gate in.

He is, however, a big fan of 'fuzzy wording', and tends to approve things working one way, despite the obvious lack of intention on behalf of the writer, simply because the text isn't explicit.

Most battles take place hundreds of feet in the air due to the fact that the party flies everywhere it goes.

This brings me to my request:
Though homebrewed epic ToB-style maneuvers loom in my near future, I'm still pretty weak.
Obviously, I can dish out obscene amounts of damage when given the opportunity, but I'm not a big fan of charging headlong into 'emanates from self' spells surrounding the boss, my weapon is made of metal, (and was very expensive, i would not like to lose that) and my damage is pretty easily counteracted by equally-obscene amounts of health on the foes we face.
Increasing my damage output only serves to make my teammates less useful, (oh, hindsight, how I hate thee)

so I'm asking here for tips/advice on feats, prestige classes, gear, what have you - with the intention of
keeping my character from being disabled,
increasing his ability to attack (read: hit) magically-guarded foes
increasing my versatility, so I'm not entirely limited to 'rage, charge, powerattack, cry' round after round

Thanks in advance ;)

Rebel7284

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2011, 09:13:47 PM »
Well in epic levels, hitting things will become less and less effective as epic magic comes into play more.  So some suggestions:
1) If at all possible, get magic!  There are several fast progression classes.  Something like Divine Crusader + substitute domain + Emerald Phoenix Mage or Ur Priest into RKV.  A few templates can help too.
2) Abuse magic items, I have a few ideas here:
- Wear a bunch of daggers with the spellblade +1 enchantment (PGtF I think) allowing you to become immune to a lot of targeted spells.  Perhaps make them into custom warforged components.
- Wear a bunch of belts of battle combined into a single item for getting more standard actions.
3) Feats
- I believe intimidating rage is not mind affecting.  Get that+instantaneous rage to potentially lock down enemies that are not specifically immune to fear.
4) You are already immune to a lot of things with your race/class choices.  Try to find more immunities.
Negative level on a chicken would make it a wight the next day.  Chicken the other wight meat. -borg286

Amadi

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2011, 04:56:24 AM »
Gain access to Time Stop somehow. Even if it's an SLA 1/day.

Then: Spell Stowaway (Time Stop).

The BBEG will never see it coming. Depending how you run it, either you both get back-to-back timestops, or you both are stuck in the new timeframe. (The first one is RAW, I suppose, but has issues about deciding which one goes first.)

JaronK

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2011, 06:21:24 AM »
- I believe intimidating rage is not mind affecting.  Get that+instantaneous rage to potentially lock down enemies that are not specifically immune to fear.

Fear is always mind effecting.

Quote from: SRD
All fear attacks are mind-affecting fear effects.

JaronK

Rejakor

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2011, 06:29:03 AM »
Sounds like your DM has figured out 'screw the beatstick' counters without the harder 'screw the wizard' counters.

Also, those are two high cheese party members.  Unless you're abusing diplomancy or are literally immune to everything and have multiple ways to murder everything (as a beatstick, this is hard to do but possible), there are very few things as powerful as those two combos.

I'd retrain some levels.  Either use various melee dips+items+templates to become immune to everything and have multiple ways of killing things (bloodstorm blade so you can melee at ranged is nice) and getting past stuff like walls of force and epic magic, or use urpriest/sublime chord to give yourself casting.

Ur-priest + RKV keeps most of your current flavour and gives you full cleric casting.

skydragonknight

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2011, 10:21:50 AM »
Use the Souldrinker (reflavored as the weapon of your choice and maybe with more enhancements) and try to get yourself as many attacks as possible. If the Phanes don't have your gear, get them Souldrinkers (or Life-Drinkers if strapped for cash) too.

You will be debuffing the enemy until they lose all their Timestop slots (nifty penalties to other stuff too), your friends then drop the epic dispel and you proceed to mop the floor with the remains since they can't rebuff fast enough.

The natural counter is to throw undead at you. There's a spell somewhere that when cast on an Undead removes a lot of their immunities...I forget if Energy Drain is one of them. If someone else can think of the name or sourcebook, you should look into that with your teammates. Alternatively, once you can afford a Keen Undead Dread weapon, that should be sufficient as a backup.

Also, is you're cheese enough, go into Teflammar Shadowdancer or Crinti Marauder for Shadow Pounce. Since you can Dimension Door in place of an attack and Shadow Pounce lets you full attack after a teleportation effect, that is effectively an infinite attack loop.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2011, 10:23:39 AM by skydragonknight »
It always seems like the barrels around here have something in them.

juton

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2011, 01:18:39 PM »
This could be a bit on the munchy side, and it's something I'd only contemplate in epic. Try getting permanently shape changed into a Planetar or other creature that has casting. Maybe your DM will let you burn a Miracle to make shape change permanent, or if you're really keen on being a warforged use the miracle to retake your original shape while not dispelling the shape change.

Rejakor

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2011, 04:22:50 PM »
Or you could just cast Polymorph Any Object on yourself twice and be a white slaad.  [Or gold dragon or solar if you really must be a natural caster.  Retraining your levels to be a urpriest/RKV is nicer though.  Or even urpriest/sublime/MT.]

And then, y'know, wear a hat of disguise.  Or Alter Self to be a warforged again, while retaining the stat bonuses.

Teflammar Shadowpounce (use all your regular attacks to DDoor - preemptively self-nerf it so you can't use shadowpounce attacks to DDoor) sounds like a nice way to go.  With a touch attacking souldrinking intelligent weapon that casts Spark of Life at some absurd irresistable save/CL(assuming it allows SR/Save), while you have the mage-slayer, pierce magical concealment and pierce magical protection feats.

Secondly you coat this weapon in a prismatic wall, permanencied, and wander around in an antimagic field with Initiate of Mystra (requires you cast this field yourself) or Extraordinary Spell Aim so you aren't affected by it.

Finally, carry on your person, spellblades that ward against Epic Dispel, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Greater Dispel Magic, and anything else you think might screw you up.  Only 6k per pop.  If you don't have enough things you can put spikes on to get them, get free artificer's arms (eberron), 2 of them, and have them hold a double weapon in each hand, enchant the weapons as spellblades with +1 defending, cast greater magic weapon on them each morning, and enjoy your free +20 to AC that stacks with everything and applies to FF and touch.

Also, you want to be undead.  As a living construct I think you can get undead.  Otherwise, take Incarnate Construct and then become a necropolitan and another +1 template.  Go nuts.  Being undead is nice.  Veil of Undeath, cast a number of times, makes you immune to turning (each turn attempt strips away one veil of undeath and does nothing else, explicitly and specifically).

As a epic-level beatstick, you want all the things I listed above, AND you want buffs out the ass.  Having a natural AC of 100+ would be nice, and saves of 50+, and all immunities, but you're not going to have those because you aren't good at optimizing and making something like that would take a good optimizer hours and hours and I don't have that sort of time.  So you're going to do it with buffs.  With spellblades and inside a antimagic field, this isn't a big deal.

If you're casting the buffs yourself, undead/no con score + spelldancer 1 gives infinite free metamagic at a cost of rounds = spell level increase.

So Nixie's Grace, Divine Agility, Conviction, Scintillating Scales to turn your PaO Nat Armour into deflection and then Spiderskin or Turtle Blah to get more NA.  Necrotic Empowerment adds to everything.  Try to get your wis or cha to AC or saves a few times.  Righteous Might, Recitation, Improvisation etc to help your attack.

Nerveskitter.  Whatnot.  Your goal should be to wipe out the major threat, in the surprise round, before anyone else gets a turn.  Barring that, your goal should be to wipe out the major threat, in the first round, before anyone else gets a turn.  Your little clones can either focus fire or go engage ancillary threats.  Unlikely you'll be able to retrain them or buff them properly or get them proper weapons.  Still, they're useful as flying fodder.

Your sword now forces saves (hopefully at a high DC) against a number of effects, drains levels, and does massive hitpoint damage.  A combination of these three things hopefully will make you relevant.  The only thing I can think of that would make it more relevant is if your sword Disjunctioned whatever you hit.  Or disintegrated.  Or both.

On a defensive note, anyone near you is in an AMF, which should be bad for them.  High AC + Saves should keep you safe from Ex attacks.  Spellblades should protect you from being disjunctioned and you should have backup AMF options if someone nukes your AMF with a disjunction.

And you're as close to being relevant as a beatstick is at epic, hurrah!

Apparently spellfire is pretty cool if you're into gamebreaking stupidity, too.  Dunno.  Never seen the feat.

bearsarebrown

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2011, 04:38:08 PM »
Unlike Shadow Pounce? Which will grant you infinite attacks and takes five levela to gain, tr that Sun tactical feat for Monks. I thinks it's in Complete Warrior.

zeroasterisk

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2011, 12:34:50 AM »
Wow, okay, you guys are amazingly helpful, thank you so much!
I'm still unclear on a couple of things, however:

Amadi, I've actually been thinking about the Spell Stowaway feat for a little while now. Is there a list somewhere of creatures that have it as a special ability? (I like the Ur-Priest idea people have suggested, but Time Stop isn't on the cleric spell list) Or, alternatively (and easier for me, haha) does anyone know any ways offhand?

Rejakor, how exactly do I go about coating a weapon in a prismatic wall? Also, the "Free Artificer's Arms" you mentioned: are you talking about the 'Spare Hand' from Magic of Eberron?

Skydragonknight, you recommended the 'teflammar shadowdancer', can I assume you meant telflammar shadowlord, and the shadowdancer (DMG) has nothing to do with the build?

Bearsarebrown, I checked out the feat you pointed to, but it only allows one attack after a teleport, which is handy, to be sure, but I'm not sure it's worth a feat, (and a class, flurry of blows is a prereq) were you maybe confusing it with something from another book?

Again, you all have been a huge help, thanks a ton.

bearsarebrown

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #10 on: March 05, 2011, 12:54:01 AM »
Didn't know the feat had Flurry of Blows as prereq, that makes it tough to get. I suggested it because it basically changes the range of your melee strikes to Dimension Door length. That's pretty neat for a single feat. The issue with the Teflmmar Shadowlord is that you will gain infinite attacks. Each attack action will grant you a full round worth of new attack actions.

Rejakor

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2011, 03:40:21 AM »
Yeah, that's kind of alright, if he wanted to nerf himself into the ground.

What I said he do is get shadowpouncing and then self-nerf to only original attacks letting him DDoor.  That gives him full-attacks = normal amount of attacks, which is nice.  Plus he can bounce around murdering different people.

Knock-down + Improved Trip gives you twice as many attacks if you can consistently trip (yes you can trip flying creatures, yes you can trip 'prone' creatures - trip don't care if they're already prone, it just sets them to prone.  If they're already prone, they're still prone.  If they weren't prone, well, they're prone now - more specifically it never says that you can't use it on prone people.  Anywhere.  In any book.  Cue 'realism' 'fighters can't have nice things' and 'at MY table' brigade).) so your full attacks will go twice as far.

Wraithstrike or item of continuous wraithstrike gives you touch attacks.  Bloodstorm Blade lets you melee at range, fun times for all involved.  Greater Blink gives flatfooted AC to all enemies.  Then you have as high a hit bonus as you reasonably can.  If you don't have pounce, get it.  Charge a point in space, or a rock, at the end of that rock use all your pounce charge attacks to DDoor, use shock trooper, power attack, and leap attack, and diving charge, and heedless charge to get like 10xBAB to damage, and then DDoor around the place getting that bonus damage on all your full-attacks (lasts til end of turn).

I forget how you get prismatic wall on a weapon.  Something about changing spell range and extraordinary spell aim or something.  Ask on the boards, someone will remember.

Yep, spare hand.  You don't need to be a monster with 15 tentacles to get it, it applies to any humanoid form.  You can also get grafts to get tails and arms and things which can hold defending weapons.  Animated +5 tower shield is also nice.  Especially when the +5 is from vestment and it actually has some good properties on it.  And it's also a +5 defending weapon, with the +5 from GMW.  A lesser rod of chain spell and GMW is a nice thing to do each morning.

Initiate Of The Seven Veils is a nice way to get some immunities.  Permanently on self-wall of prismatic is just nice.  Plus when you punch people, they take the effects.  If you can't get a prismatic wall on your weapon, make your weapon one of those weapons that channels your unarmed strike and then be a Iot7V and stab people with a punch that is a prismatic wall.

Time Stop is in the Time domain.  Dunno if urpriest gets domains.  If not, there's ways to get domains from PrC's (contemplative) and the Customize Domain feat.  Spell Stowaway is a bit of a meh trick in any case.  Better to murder the enemy before he knows you are there.  In the surprise round.  While your clones kill all his cronies.

Nondetection is a fun spell.  So is darkstalker and that bard spell that makes all scrying ever not see you.

skydragonknight

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Re: Epic-level Melee (whoops)
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2011, 07:17:16 AM »
Skydragonknight, you recommended the 'teflammar shadowdancer', can I assume you meant telflammar shadowlord, and the shadowdancer (DMG) has nothing to do with the build?

Yeah, I meant Shadowlord. And Rejakor's idea on how to use it might make it a little more sane (but still very, very good). Full attacks = normal attacks would basically be squaring your number of attacks per round.
It always seems like the barrels around here have something in them.