Please help me build something around a vague idea.

[Fuuga]

Hi everyone,

As I've said in the past, I'm not good at optimizing as of now, but I'm willing to learn, now, there's a new campain starting and I'm going to be a player, so far I've been wondering what to do about this. The party is made of a Druid (1-20 pure druid) , a Cleric (No idea what PrC he has), a Warblade/Disciple of Dispater/Swordsage/Eternal Blade (This will be going really high in epic levels, so he planned his char for about 40 levels) and a God built Wizard. That leaves me with plenty options, as most roles are already taken. I don't know if it counts as great optimization, but that warblade and the wizard know what they are doing, so I need something that won't fall behind them a lot, specially because everyone has played a lot (they have been my players for long, as I DMed the last couple of years), and I know what they are capable of, I managed to challenge them well, with homebrew monsters, and traps, but eventually my campain ended, and now one of my old players has decided to take the DM spot, by my request, as I wanted to play.

Now, the thing is, the DM, who is in fact my best friend, took on several of my ways of DMing, meaning, each encounter has a 50/50 chance of survival, leveling goes fast, as the risk is high, each death brings a penalty, and a few other things, basically it's very challenging to finish encounters.

At first I wanted to play something that would do things at will, Warlock was my first thought as I said in another thread, then I saw the Gundam inspired char builds using DFA, and I liked the concept aswell. But with either of those I think I'm falling way behind compared to the rest of the party. I have a Wiz/Incantatrix built around arcane thesis (We play with the rules before errata, meaning metamagic can go down to negative levels, several metamagic applies, and a lot of stuff of the sort), but somehow I don't know if the concept would be the best, now I'm turning to you, to help me build something, here are the requeriments:

- Starts at lvl 6, will go up to 40ish, but I'm not asking for a full progression unless you want to give it
- Wealth according to level
- 36pts buy
- Every WoTC book available as long as it's 3E or 3.5. No dragon magazine.

I want the character to be able to end encounters fast and efficiently, as I'm going to face quite a few solo challenges along the way, now, I'm open to ideas about everything, but I would prefer something that can come up to the power level of the party, been looking a lot into making a character centered in SoD spells, but I'm not sure how to build it. Any concept will be deeply appreciated.

Thank you all in advance.

[Ubernoob]

In that party I'd gish it up with swiftblade.  Swiftblade has a *very* smooth progression and is fucking haus in epic like all other gishes.

[InnaBinder]

Given the glut of topics about them floating around at the moment, I'm probably going to be smote for this, but consider Factotum.  Your party is a bit light on skillmonkey.  Factotum 5/Warlock 2/Chameleon 10/Factotum +3, then Epic Chameleon on out.  Warlock means you're never unarmed and can detect magic at will; Factotum 10/Chameleon 10 is likely almost as useful.

[shadowlancer]

+1. Chameleons are amazing in epic. There's no official epic progression, though, so make sure you and your DM are on the same page about that.

[Fuuga]

Thanks everyone

I'm considering all the ideas presented, I'll read about all those clases in a bit, and see what can I build with them.

I have a question tho, is basing a wizard in SoD spells not effective? , or has some sort of big downside? .

Thanks again!

[shadowlancer]

It comes down to probability, really. What are the chances that the target will save, thus making your action useless? If you're OK with that possibility, SoD isn't half bad. If you want to make sure that your action has at least some effect, though, you'd be better off focusing on debuffing. Less magnitude of effect, but higher rate of effect while still keeping a similar flavor.

[Fuuga]

Is there a way to optimize SoD casters to the point where there's at least an 80% chance of killing or incapacitating the target with each casting? , I'm ok with failing 1 each 5 castings, even 1 each 4, but less would make me fairly useless, I already fear the fact that the warblade will take everything on its own and I'll end up just watching him kill thing after thing. I've always liked a specific way of gaming, which was based on doing a single action in a battle, that would change the outcome in our favor, and then leave the rest of the party to finish things up. Be it with good B/C or killing the biggest threat, problem is, the wizard is taking care of B/C already, and he's really good at it. So I would have to do hard control in the way of SoD's if I play a caster, or play a Gish, which I haven't before, ever, so it would be a new experience.

[Sunic_Flames]

In epic immunities are all over the fucking place, so that the only thing that reliably works is HP damage (then you need to do thousands of points of that a round, otherwise don't bother).

Now before that, it works very well. Especially if you have something debuffing saves such as a cohort with Hexblade and Paladin of Tyranny levels (PoT aura, Hexblade spirit thingy, curse probably won't work though, note this also gives him very good saves so he doesn't die easily). Make him use Intimidate a lot with Fearsome aura for further save reduction.

[Rebel7284]

Well Incanatatrix is certainly the best offensive wizard.  As a wizard, you can even switch roles are you move forward.  Battlefield control in early levels, Empowered, Split Rayed Enervation mid level.  Crazy Epic Incantatrix shenanigans at epic levels.

Edit: and of course the best way to make sure the save or dies are successful, use spells that have no save.

[Ubernoob]

Is there a way to optimize SoD casters to the point where there's at least an 80% chance of killing or incapacitating the target with each casting? , I'm ok with failing 1 each 5 castings, even 1 each 4, but less would make me fairly useless, I already fear the fact that the warblade will take everything on its own and I'll end up just watching him kill thing after thing. I've always liked a specific way of gaming, which was based on doing a single action in a battle, that would change the outcome in our favor, and then leave the rest of the party to finish things up. Be it with good B/C or killing the biggest threat, problem is, the wizard is taking care of B/C already, and he's really good at it. So I would have to do hard control in the way of SoD's if I play a caster, or play a Gish, which I haven't before, ever, so it would be a new experience.

1-16 or so SoDs are damn fucking good.  Past that they aren't good.  By level 30 they are wastes of actions.  Attack AC, not saves.

[Ubernoob]

Given the glut of topics about them floating around at the moment, I'm probably going to be smote for this, but consider Factotum.  Your party is a bit light on skillmonkey.  Factotum 5/Warlock 2/Chameleon 10/Factotum +3, then Epic Chameleon on out.  Warlock means you're never unarmed and can detect magic at will; Factotum 10/Chameleon 10 is likely almost as useful.

Needs more Ted.

Factotum 11/ Chameleon the rest.

SR is a bitch in epic.

[InnaBinder]

Given the glut of topics about them floating around at the moment, I'm probably going to be smote for this, but consider Factotum.  Your party is a bit light on skillmonkey.  Factotum 5/Warlock 2/Chameleon 10/Factotum +3, then Epic Chameleon on out.  Warlock means you're never unarmed and can detect magic at will; Factotum 10/Chameleon 10 is likely almost as useful.

Needs more Ted.

Factotum 11/ Chameleon the rest.

SR is a bitch in epic.

Ted as in Ted the Enabler?

[Ubernoob]

Given the glut of topics about them floating around at the moment, I'm probably going to be smote for this, but consider Factotum.  Your party is a bit light on skillmonkey.  Factotum 5/Warlock 2/Chameleon 10/Factotum +3, then Epic Chameleon on out.  Warlock means you're never unarmed and can detect magic at will; Factotum 10/Chameleon 10 is likely almost as useful.

Needs more Ted.

Factotum 11/ Chameleon the rest.

SR is a bitch in epic.

Ted as in Ted the Enabler?

Version 2.0, but yeah.

[Fuuga]

Well, after thinking it over, I ended up deciding to use the wizard/incantatrix combo. As to not make a new thread, I would like to ask for advices on what spell to arcane thesis, being the way it works in our group, it opens the door to a lot of combos, some of which can get pretty damn good. Enervation seems good, and it's not real DD, and in lower levels I can use scorching ray. Also, after I'm done with incantatrix, what class should I take? , I was thinking about the 7 veils one, or any that advances full spellcasting.

Thanks again for all the help given, it made my life a lot easier, and I ended up researching a bit about gishes, which I had never done, so thanks.

[Ubernoob]

Well, if you want the to play around with incantatrix I'd suggest you top it off with shadowcraft mage 3/ nightmare spinner 1/ mindbender 1 and then head into epic incantatrix.  Y'know, cuz there's no wrong time for a shadowcraft mage.

[Fuuga]

Well, if you want the to play around with incantatrix I'd suggest you top it off with shadowcraft mage 3/ nightmare spinner 1/ mindbender 1 and then head into epic incantatrix.  Y'know, cuz there's no wrong time for a shadowcraft mage.

Hmm, thanks a lot, I'll look into that, I've heard about shadowcraft mage a few times, so I suppose it's time to look into it. Thanks again.

[Brainpiercing]

What you want to understand is that in epic, the Incantatrix is the king of gishes. The only thing that fights better is a cleric with an incantatrix cohort. As in, the Cleric takes the cake with mostly everything in epic.

Now in order to rock, later you need to somehow be able to cast at least the odd miracle every day, perhaps two. The reason being that only miracles let you emulate EVERY FRICKIN spell in existence up to 7th level without any extra cost at all, and 8th level cleric spells at that.
So you want at the lest, Arcane Disciple(any with Miracle).

Or, late in epic you might even consider that damned Rainbow Servant. It sucks pre-epic, but it might just be worthwhile, later. If you can get it to be 10/10, then much the better.

[ninjarabbit]

beguiler14/mindbender1/shadowcraftmage5

[Fuuga]

Ok! new question, is there any class, or combination of classes, that without the use of magic or shapechanges of anykind, can kill an opponent in a single blow, at level 15+ , the idea is using 1 strike, and killing the strongest target in the encounter, I don't mind if it means going nova, but it should be able to be done once per encounter. I was mostly thinking about something out of the ToB , I read the combos/tricks/etc in 339 and there are a few that seem to work, but most involve several attacks. Not that I mind it, just was going for another concept.

Thanks again.

[Risada]

Ok! new question, is there any class, or combination of classes, that without the use of magic or shapechanges of anykind, can kill an opponent in a single blow, at level 15+ , the idea is using 1 strike, and killing the strongest target in the encounter, I don't mind if it means going nova, but it should be able to be done once per encounter. I was mostly thinking about something out of the ToB , I read the combos/tricks/etc in 339 and there are a few that seem to work, but most involve several attacks. Not that I mind it, just was going for another concept.

Thanks again.

Err.... Psion X and metapsi (Linked power and something else) away to death?

EDIT: just found that it doesn't kill in a round.... forget what I said about the linked power...