Hmm... Do you have any special skills? / I can hold my breath for ten minutes!

[snakeman830]

All these things that are boosting Fort saves: they DON'T WORK FOR THIS!

Fort saves never come into play when holding your breath.  Just Constitution checks.

Endurance is, for a change, a must-have feat.  Expert Swimmer as well.

Human Barbarian 20.  Everything but Endurance and Expert Swimmer go to Extend Rage for now.  Without magic (except to get those inherent bonuses), he has a Con of 28.  That's 84 rounds of holding your breath before Con checks are even required.  At the end of these 84 rounds, Rage.  The additional +8 Con give another 16 rounds before any Con checks for a total of 100 rounds before any check.

Now, the Rage lasts for 46 rounds (3 base + (5*6 Extra Rage)+ 13 Con modifier).  This may or may not be important, but I'll leave it there for now.

For holding your breath, you have a +21 modifier to your Con check rolls.  This means 12 rounds before any chance of failure (assuming you started raging when I suggested, that's 28/46 rounds gone).  So, you hold your breath for between 112 and 131 rounds, depending on the dice rolls.

This is as long as I can think of without any items or Dragon feats.  The Silithar Bones graft is nonmagical and gives an unnamed +2 bonus to Constitution for another 5 rounds of breath-holding.

[altpersona]

marshal? motivate Con? maybe a pixie does this challenge best?

[Negative Zero]

Willing Deformity: Obese would help, too.

[snakeman830]

A 1-level dip in Marshall would be worthwhile, assuming a decent charisma score.  That would add Cha modifier rounds instead of just 5 from the Mighty Rage.  Only worthwhile if the Cha score is 22 or higher. (note: build below doesn't care)

I forgot about Willing Deformity entirely.

So, 28 point buy Human: 18 Con, everything else is unimportant.  Barbarian 11, Human Paragon 3, Stoneblessed 3, Dwarf Paragon 3

Feats: Endurance, Expert Swimmer, Willing Deformity (flaw), Deformity (Obese) (flaw), Reckless Rage, Extend Rage*5


Con at the end: 38 (18 base, +5 level, +5 inherent, +2 Silithar Bones, +2 Deformity (Obese), +2 Human Paragon, +2 Stoneblessed, +2 Dwarf Paragon).  46 (+6 Greater Rage +2 Reckless Rage) when raging.
Rage duration of 46 rounds (3 base +25 Extend Rage + 18 Con).

Remember, rage must begin at the very end of the duration of holding breath for maximum effect.
Rounds before any check is required: 139 (almost 14 minutes)
Modifier for Con checks made to hold breath: +26 (+18 Con, +4 Endurance, +4 Expert Swimmer)
22 rounds before the rage ends.

17 rounds of garunteed success for a garunteed time of 156 rounds (15 minutes, 36 seconds)  5 rounds to go before the failure chance suddenly jumps by 20% (total of 45% chance of failure when this happens).

Note: this build does not tap into Dragon material and only uses one "item" (the graft)

[SorO_Lost]

I see XXX 3, theres some room for improvement, shame frenzy berserker doesn't give con bonuses. Loth-Touched comes to mind, are templates banned?

[snakeman830]

I see XXX 3, theres some room for improvement, shame frenzy berserker doesn't give con bonuses. Loth-Touched comes to mind, are templates banned?

Yeah, the XXX3 can go to anything.  Unfortunately, there isn't much out there that will help in only 3 levels without sacrificing rage time (and thus shortening the duration).

The 2 levels of Warchief can go, though, if we find something that gives a Con boost in 5 levels.  +2 Con = 7 more rounds of holding breath while +2 Cha only gives an additional round.

[awaken DM golem]

For the check itself, Psi-focus is Take 15.
One of the Ardent Mantles gives a further +5 to the check.
Obviously a small pile of items gives + whatever to the check.
There are limited ways to have more than one psi-focus at a time, but
a feat gets you a psi-focus every round via a move action, but
takes a con dc 20 check to get it.

CON should be lots higher via polymorph + the usual increaser + a few weird things.

Way off the deep end is:
do the level 5 pun-pun build, but
instead of Sarrukh, pick the Shambling Mound for the Con craziness.
Needs a helper to tag you with Lightning.

[snakeman830]

For the check itself, Psi-focus is Take 15.
One of the Ardent Mantles gives a further +5 to the check.
Obviously a small pile of items gives + whatever to the check.
There are limited ways to have more than one psi-focus at a time, but
a feat gets you a psi-focus every round via a move action, but
takes a con dc 20 check to get it.

CON should be lots higher via polymorph + the usual increaser + a few weird things.

Way off the deep end is:
do the level 5 pun-pun build, but
instead of Sarrukh, pick the Shambling Mound for the Con craziness.
Needs a helper to tag you with Lightning.

How does Psionic focus help in the least?  That only affects Concentration checks which have no effect on holding your breath.

He's also trying to see this without any magic whatsoever, so no spells, magic items, Supernatural abilities, etc (although apparently inherent bonuses are okay).

[altpersona]

i dont guess Ex fast healing / regen would help any..

[snakeman830]

i dont guess Ex fast healing / regen would help any..

No, especially since drowning is specifically called out as being unreparable by such methods.

[deuxhero]

And even  if they did, it would fall under "stay underwater and remain alive" not "hold your breath"

[Phaenix]

I see XXX 3, theres some room for improvement, shame frenzy berserker doesn't give con bonuses. Loth-Touched comes to mind, are templates banned?

Yeah, the XXX3 can go to anything.  Unfortunately, there isn't much out there that will help in only 3 levels without sacrificing rage time (and thus shortening the duration).

The 2 levels of Warchief can go, though, if we find something that gives a Con boost in 5 levels.  +2 Con = 7 more rounds of holding breath while +2 Cha only gives an additional round.

Stoneblessed 3 gives you +2 CON.

[snakeman830]

All right, that will work for now (nice that it doesn't steal away feats for prerequisites).  I'll recalculate.

EDIT: my above post has been updated.

[deuxhero]

I see XXX 3, theres some room for improvement, shame frenzy berserker doesn't give con bonuses. Loth-Touched comes to mind, are templates banned?

Yeah, the XXX3 can go to anything.  Unfortunately, there isn't much out there that will help in only 3 levels without sacrificing rage time (and thus shortening the duration).

The 2 levels of Warchief can go, though, if we find something that gives a Con boost in 5 levels.  +2 Con = 7 more rounds of holding breath while +2 Cha only gives an additional round.

Stoneblessed 3 gives you +2 CON.

Doesn't Stonebless also let you into Dwarf Paragon for another +2 boost in 3 levels?

[snakeman830]

Doesn't Stonebless also let you into Dwarf Paragon for another +2 boost in 3 levels?

It does, but we'd be losing on +2 Con elsewhere, so it wouldn't make any progress.  We only have the 2 Warchief levels to trade around and Dwarf Paragon doesn't give us what we need until level 3.

EDIT: actually, if we drop Marshall and Warchief (and thus any Charisma Focus) for Dwarf Paragon, we can eke out 1 more round of holding breath.

EDIT2: or another 3 rounds, actually.  Interesting.

[NiteCyper]

No Iron Heart Surging the water.

boost your Con checks.

Mineral Warrior (Stony) template gets +4 CON. Although, it seems templates' LA doesn't count towards feats.

re: holding it in a canvas sack: That made me think, surgery to replace lungs with Bag of Holding?

Do what sea-monkeys do on land: metamorphose into a shell in a comatose state until rehydrated (but the reverse here).

Monk Bonus feat-ACF for 2? free feats of any kind.

[veekie]

re: holding it in a canvas sack: That made me think, surgery to replace lungs with Bag of Holding?

Surgery to install a ring gate in your throat?

[snakeman830]

Well, I've gotten it up to 15 minutes, 36 seconds (156 rounds) of garunteed success with 5 rounds until the Rage ends.  This means we can swap one Extra Rage feat for another feat that allows us to hold our breath even longer or gives us a Con boost.