| DKFever |
Hey all, I need a little help here. I'm going to be in a new campaign with a new GM that I haven't played with before, but my playgroup has. This GM is rather notorious for creating really insane stuff for us to deal with, but we also get to make insane characters to try to duke it out. I need y'all's help with creating a pretty broken character that can withstand the onslaught that's about to be unleashed.
Format: Level 20 Character, 2 Mythic Tiers. Allowed: templates, custom races, all 3.5 material. Following the "lose CR of templates as you level" rule, where you lose half your total CR (rounded up) at a rate of one CR every 3 levels. (So a level 19 character could have a CR +3 template, and still count as level 20)
It's about as open ended and OP as you can get lol. What I'm looking for is a good template or monstrous race that can go with a Swashbuckler Inspired Blade. I'm going the strength 2 weapon fighting rapiers build. I need help picking a race/template to complement that. Currently it's kind of a toss up between the Dread Devourer or the Grave Knight.
What I need: Lots of Feats, lots of Strength and HP, and Pounce. Not really interested in a ton of limbs, unless someone makes a really compelling reason to have such a thing.
So: Pimp my swashbuckler, please!
Midnighter
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Pick up a Cape of Feinting and use it along with the Superior Feint deed (7th level) and trivialize any single opponent.
| kestral287 |
Strength-based TWF means you don't want a Swashbuckler; they're really bad at it. Run a Daring Champion Cavalier instead. And Strength-based TWF is generally kind of suboptimal unless you're a Slayer, but with a good template you just might have the Dex to pull it off.
Starting at level 20 means that capstones are a very real thing, and for that reason I frankly wouldn't look above a +1 template (as that's free). The Swashbuckler in particular has a very solid capstone, so the only template I'd consider is this: Agile
Might require some talk with your GM on how to handle the mythic rank (personally, I would offer to have it count as one of your mythic tiers, so you start as a level 20/Tier 1 Agile Human), but that's easily the strongest template in the game.
After all, who needs Pounce when you get +20 initiative and a second round's worth of actions at your initiative -20?
Dafydd
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Crystal Drow Noble Penanggalen/Vampire, just remember to save the GM time and slap yourself before every game, maybe after too.
Oh, and the dueling cape mentioned above.
Mind, this is for swashbuckler. You want lots of DEX as a swash, as it almost all keys of DEX and CHA.
Crystal, among other things, removes the "light is bad" bit of both Vamps and Penanggalen.
Penanggalen also adds 2 natural attacks (vs 1 from vampire) and 2 more skills with a +8 racial (KN arcana and Fly). However, it's DR is only 5/silver and slashing compared to the DR 10/magic and silver of the Vampire. You do also lose many vampire abilities and weaknesses.
Also, going Penanggalen opens the opportunity to a 3rd template (what I do not know). Handy if the GM says the Noble in Drow Noble is another +1 CR template.
You can literally dump Con with this, dump Str (you get a +8 but all it will do for you is swim and carry capacity so not really worth the magic item or array allocation).
Do not forget a katana, for strong damage and high crit range.
| kestral287 |
It's easy for them to do (two feats) and reduces your stat spread, which decreases MADness. The fewer stats you need to worry about, the better.
For example, let's talk about the Daring Champion Cavalier (which, again-- is basically a Swashbuckler that doesn't suck at TWF like a regular Swash does).
Dex-based Daring Champion Cavalier (assuming Human with a template on top).
Since you're at 20 this is in no particular order but...
1: Weapon Focus: Scimitar
1H: Slashing Grace: Scimitar
3: Two Weapon Fighting
5: Combat Reflexes
6C: Improved Two Weapon Fighting
7: Chain Challenge
9: Double Slice [if required for Dex TWF; ask your GM] or open feat
11: open feat
12C: open feat
13: open feat
15: open feat
17: open feat
18C: open feat
19: open feat
Buy two Effortless Laces and apply them to your scimitars (or rapiers, or katanas, or whatever). If the Laces aren't an option, switch to Half-Elf for Sawtooth Sabre proficiency and you don't need them.
You've got seven to eight open feats. You should be able to set up whatever you want.
| DKFever |
Stats so far:
Raolin Darksbane, Level 20 Kitsune Dread Devourer Inspired Blade Swashbuckler
Str - 18 (+10 DD)(+6 B)(-2 Kit)(+2 AI) = 34 (+12)
Dex - 17 (+2 DD)(+1 AI)(+2 Kit)(+6 B) = 28 (+9)
Con - 11 (+1 AI) = 12 (+1)
Wis - 16 (+6 DD)(+6 B) = 28 (+9)
Int - 12 (+6 DD)(+6 B) = 24 (+6)
Cha - 18 (+6 DD)(+6 B)(+2 Kit) = 30 (+10)
HP = 306
AC = 49 (10 + 11 Armor + 5 Dex + 13 Natural +5 Dodge +5 Deflection)
BAB = +19/+14/+9/+4
Fort Save = + 21 (6 Base +5 Misc + 10 Absco)
Reflex Save = + 25 (11 Base +5 Misc + 9 Absco)
Will Save = + 20 (6 Base +5 Misc + 9 Absco)
Panache = 16
Initiative = +13
Feats:
(Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus Rapiers, Improved Critical free) 1: 2 Weapon Fighting 3: Double Slice 4: Oversized 2 Weapon Fighting 5: Improved 2 Weapon Fighting 7: Weapon Specialization Rapiers 8: Greater Weapon Focus 9: Critical Focus 11:Two Weapon Rend 12: Penetrating Strike 13: Swift Vulpine Shapechanger 15: Vulpine Pounce 16:Greater Penetrating Strike 17:Improved Initiative 19: Greater Weapon Specialization
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Dafydd
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It's Swashbuckler Finesse. It is LITERALLY made to be the DEX Based fighter. It is also the only class that can use Slashing Grace to open up dex to damage outside the Rapier, Scimitar, Aldori Dueling Sword and Whip.
Also, many of the abilities are turned off by 2handing or 2wf. Precise strike is the biggest, but there are others Bleeding Wound, Deadly Stab (DC based off Dex) and Stunning Stab (again, Dex based DC).
You are also stuck in light armor, so you can not get much bonus from it. Most of your AC will come from Dex on a normal Swash (you will likely have a large Natural Armor too with templates).
My suggestion, forget 2WF, grab a buckler and a blade, and enjoy hitting and doing damage, lots of it, in single thrusts.
| DKFever |
Sorry, I should have gone over this. I'm trying to do a crit build. At level 20 the Swashbuckler Inspired Blade autoconfirms all crits, has a multiplier with rapiers of x3, and a threat range of 13-20. The main reason for the 2 weapon fighting is to get more attacks to roll crits, thereby multiplying my damage.
Although, even that aside, I still don't think dex is superior to strength on a swashbuckler for pure damage output. You're losing Double SLice as well as 2 weapon rend, and you have to burn another feat slot (Slashing grace) to even be mildly effective. On top of that, you're not going 2 weapon fighting at that point, so you're not attacking nearly as many times. Sure, there are a couple of panache deeds that I miss out on, but the mains one I'm using (Parry Riposte, Dodging Panache, Targeted Strike, Deadly Stab, Stunning Stab) don't care about str vs dex.
I don't understand how burning a feat, and losing 2 damage output feats, just to be able to do less damage then the strength build, is in any way more effective?
| kestral287 |
You have plenty of room to fit in Dex.
Penetrating Strike is terrible, Greater Penetrating Strike is also terrible. Drop just one of those two and you have room for Fencing Grace. Problem solved.
The Kitsune Pounce/Shapechanger setup is also terrible for a Swashbuckler, as they simply do not have the Swift Actions to spare to set it up and keep it running.
Sorry, I should have gone over this. I'm trying to do a crit build. At level 20 the Swashbuckler Inspired Blade autoconfirms all crits, has a multiplier with rapiers of x3, and a threat range of 13-20.
Can do. I'll revise the above Daring Champion build.
Note that if you take the Dread Devourer you won't get the Swashbuckler capstone. It's still adding one to your CR, so CR 1/level 19 is what you'd start at.
| DKFever |
You have plenty of room to fit in Dex.
Penetrating Strike is terrible, Greater Penetrating Strike is also terrible. Drop just one of those two and you have room for Fencing Grace. Problem solved.
The Kitsune Pounce/Shapechanger setup is also terrible for a Swashbuckler, as they simply do not have the Swift Actions to spare to set it up and keep it running.
DKFever wrote:Sorry, I should have gone over this. I'm trying to do a crit build. At level 20 the Swashbuckler Inspired Blade autoconfirms all crits, has a multiplier with rapiers of x3, and a threat range of 13-20.Can do. I'll revise the above Daring Champion build.
Note that if you take the Dread Devourer you won't get the Swashbuckler capstone. It's still adding one to your CR, so CR 1/level 19 is what you'd start at.
I'll agree that penetrating strike isn't that good. Greater, however, allows me to ignore flat DR, which when you're attacking 8 times in a full attack action is pretty important. That's 40 more points of damage a round, which adds up really quickly.
Understood about the Dread Devourer, if I end up using that one I'll still be down a level. I'll just have to wait a little bit to auto confirm :P
The swift actions on the pounce are on the charge turn, right? I'm pretty sure I'd like a +2 bonus on all my attacks, and a full attack action with movement, over a panache deed for that first turn. After that, if they're still alive then sure, I'll be using my swift actions for Panache. I don't think swift action starvation is going to be an issue.
And again, we're missing Double Slice and Two weapon Rend, 2 pretty high profile damage feats. What's supposed to make up for that lost damage with the dex build?
| DKFever |
Righto, that makes sense, alright. It just seems that, numbers wise, getting 2 extra attacks plus the rend damage, albeit at a -2 penalty, is still superior to doing a little over a 3rd of that damage and having to burn panache points to make it worth my while.
I actually ran the numbers for the dex build when I first tried out this character, and when it comes to sheer DPR, strength wins every time, hands down. Dex is a lot more flavorful, for sure, but this is more optimization than flavor, obviously.
The reason to do a swashbuckler over a fighter or cavalier for TWF is the passive bonuses the swashbuckler gets, along with panache. As a class, it's a really really strong twf class. There's nothing a fighter can do that a swashbuckler can't do, but the 'Buckler gets scaling bonuses to their saves and AC! I don't understand how a fighter is a better class for this type of thing?
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Dafydd
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Just a quick stat run down, for Drow Noble Vampire
18 17 11 16 12 18
12:(+6) 18[+4]
18:(+8+6+4) 36[+13]
11:(Undead, you can ignore)
16:(+4+6) 26[+8]
17:(+4+6) 26[+8]
18:(+4+6) 28[+9]
With just the Belt/Headband, which opens up some gold for a wish or 2.
Panache of 17
Initative of +19
HP around 384
Saves in the ball park of:
Fort: You are undead
Reflex: +32
Will: +19
AC: 56 ish (did not count out GP left, so may be able to push higher)
To hit looks like +33/+28/+23/+18, without a magic weapon. Damage is 1d6+32 (or 4d6+128 total with all 4 hits)
| kestral287 |
Speedy GonStabby, Mythic Agile Human
Daring Champion Cavalier (Order of the Dragon) 20|Champion/Guardian 1
1: Weapon Focus: Rapier
1H: Fencing
3: Two Weapon Fighting
5: Combat Reflexes
6C: Improved Two Weapon Fighting
7: Chain Challenge
9: Double Slice [if required for Dex TWF; ask your GM] or open feat
11: Improved Critical: Rapier
12C: Critical Focus
13: Staggering Critical
15: open feat
17: Stunning Critical
18C: open feat
19: open feat
Mythic:
1: Agile template
2: Champion Path, Dual Path [Guardian]: Fleet Charge, Sudden Block. Adamantine Mind for your path ability.
I'm assuming you rolled your stats and they can be rearranged. If so, set up your base stats thusly:
Str: 11
Dex: 18+2
Con: 17
Wis: 16
Int: 12
Cha: 18
With all five levels, a Belt, five Wishes, and a starting 20, you hit 36 Dex, for a modifier of +13.
That gives you...
Initiative: +33; you act at your initiative count and again at your initiative -20
AC: 10+13 (Dex)+2 (Agile)+5 (Nimble)=30 AC while naked. You can wear Medium Armor.
Panache: With a Belt and four Wishes, you're at 28, which is 9 Panache. Should be plenty.
Attacking:
Assuming +5 weapons but nothing further, a single attack (Charge or AoO) hits for 1D6+18+20 (precision) and crits at 15-20/x3. If you have a Challenge up, that increases to 1D6+38+20. His attack bonus is a +39; +42 with Challenge up.
On a full attack, he's instead at 1D6+18, or 1D6+38 with Challenge up, but he swings at 37/37/32/32/27/27/22; add +5 to all of those with Challenge. Note that Challenge should be up constantly, so you should pretty much use those numbers.
On a crit, the target must make a DC30 Fort save or be stunned for one round; if they make the save they're staggered for 1d4 rounds.
Your standard attack sequence should look like this. Assume target AC 40:
Initiative roll! You win it.
Swift Action, declare Challenge. Charge (maximum 120'), attack at +46 for an average of 89.775 damage.
Other things take their actions; Parry and Riposte as needed. You come up again at 13+your initiative roll.
Your Parry should have done another 89.775 damage. If nothing aimed at you to activate Parry, activate Fleet Charge to engage a target (moving 60') for another 89.775, give-or-take for Fleet Charge's special rules.
Then you full attack, for an average of 495.925 damage.
Total damage across the round, then, comes to 675.475. You had nine attacks and a 30% crit rate, so that's a 96% chance that you crit something this round, and that something is-- at best-- staggered.
If the target was already under a Challenge, or you were already adjacent to it, the kid gloves come off. Two consecutive full attacks with a bonus attack in between puts you at 1068.625 damage, and the chance of getting at least one crit off your 15 attacks is >99.5%.
And that's assuming no kind of magic or items beyond your swords. Add in Haste? Well, not only is your Charge engagement range 180', your Challenge-Charge -> Parry-Full Attack sequence is up to 752.25 damage, and your double full attack sequence is 1222.175 damage. Chance of a crit on the latter is 99.767%
If you want to crit-fish with a ridiculous TWF Swashbuckler, that's a pretty straightforward and simple way to do it. And you still have three or four feats open. If your GM is willing to put something like Stamina or Variant Multiclass from the new Unchained book on the table, or I do some more digging on 3.5 stuff, this can get exponentially nastier.
EDIT: Made a mistake with the numbers, this is now corrected.
| kestral287 |
I'd missed these two comments last night, so I'm going to go back to them.
I'll agree that penetrating strike isn't that good. Greater, however, allows me to ignore flat DR, which when you're attacking 8 times in a full attack action is pretty important. That's 40 more points of damage a round, which adds up really quickly.
Understood about the Dread Devourer, if I end up using that one I'll still be down a level. I'll just have to wait a little bit to auto confirm :P
The swift actions on the pounce are on the charge turn, right? I'm pretty sure I'd like a +2 bonus on all my attacks, and a full attack action with movement, over a panache deed for that first turn. After that, if they're still alive then sure, I'll be using my swift actions for Panache. I don't think swift action starvation is going to be an issue.
And again, we're missing Double Slice and Two weapon Rend, 2 pretty high profile damage feats. What's supposed to make up for that lost damage with the dex build?
Penetrating:
Flat DR is... kind of rare.
Oh, it's around, but the huge majority of DR is breakable. And further, with a crit-centric build, you actually care about DR a bit less. After all, you're relying on a mechanic that lets you double your damage on a hit... and still only allows the DR once.
The Kitsune Pounce thing's issue is this: You're gonna have to move more than once. It's easy to spare a swift action in your first round as a Swashbuckler, certainly. So you can Pounce the first guy.
But then you need to spend the second round's swift action to switch back. Hope you didn't have to Riposte, or use Charmed Life (if Swashbuckler), or Challenge (if Cavalier) or want to use something like a Champion's Strike.
And then, once it's reset, it's a third round's swift to actually pull the trigger and use it again.
A Swashbuckler just doesn't have that degree of spare Swift Actions. You'd be able to use it on the first round and that's about it, and you're going to need to be moving a lot.
Fortunately, you're Mythic. Pounce is frankly really easy. Mythic Haste grants you a free Move Action, so it's more or less Pounce on its own. The Champion gets a third-tier path ability called Fleet Warrior that's basically just a more flexible Pounce. And the Champion also grants Fleet Charge as a strike, that lets you turn your swift action into a move and a free attack to boot, which is strictly better than the Kitsune's stuff (albeit costing a point of mythic power).
I actually ran the numbers for the dex build when I first tried out this character, and when it comes to sheer DPR, strength wins every time, hands down. Dex is a lot more flavorful, for sure, but this is more optimization than flavor, obviously.
Thing is, Dex wins at optimization here easily.
We'll start with Double Slice, because it's easy: it's a non-issue. Either the GM decides that off-hand weapons natively get full Dex to Damage because the "1/2 Str" rule is specific to Str, or they rule that Dex replaces Str at whatever amount Str is at, so if you take Double Slice it brings Dex up too.
Damage, okay, Strength wins-- marginally-- due to Two Weapon Rend. Let's look at the rest though. Compare the stat spread you gave to the one I provided:
Str: 18 or 11
Dex: 17 or 18
Con: 11 or 17
I didn't play with the mental stats, but that's the physical differences.
With similar levels of investment, then, we'd be talking a +0 Str modifier vs. a +13 Str modifier, and a +3 Dex modifier vs. a +13 Dex modifier.
The former means that you'll need a Handy Haversack to carry stuff and will only be okay at making the pathetically-easy Swim and Climb checks. With the feat investment in Two-Weapon Rend, total damage gain is +24.5 per full attack. That's... 5% of the full attack damage of that Daring Champion build I pitched.
The latter is worth ten points of AC, Reflex saves, initiative. If we set up both spreads as Undead so the Con gets shuffled elsewhere, it's another +2 skill points per level or some such.
Thus one's clearly ahead of the other. Now, you can invest in Dex as a Str-based fighter, but that means you're doubling down on resources. When you get to resource-heavy stat boosters like Wish, that starts to cost more than it's worth.
The reason to do a swashbuckler over a fighter or cavalier for TWF is the passive bonuses the swashbuckler gets, along with panache. As a class, it's a really really strong twf class. There's nothing a fighter can do that a swashbuckler can't do, but the 'Buckler gets scaling bonuses to their saves and AC! I don't understand how a fighter is a better class for this type of thing?
Fighter and Swashbuckler are both mediocre-to-bad TWF classes, honestly.
+5 to hit and damage doesn't mean a whole lot. Oh it's nice, but it's not huge. And yeah, you can bring that up to +6/+5 with an Inspired Blade, or +7/+7 with a Fighter and Gloves of Dueling.
But compared to the Cavalier's "Turn on Challenge, gain +5/+20"? No question which is better.
To switch gears: How are you going to level going forward? Are epic levels from 3.5 on the table, or are you taking a new class once you hit 20, or are you allowed to extend the class past 20, or will you just be working off mythic tiers and Better Stuff and your 20 class levels are locked in? That can all change the advice significantly.
To writ: I was assuming the last one, which makes the Devourer (and most templates) terrible. A comment you made makes me think that that was not meant to be the case, which opens up a lot of options:
-Agile Advanced Young Vampire. Adds +1+1-1+2=+3 to CR. Gives you:
+20 initiative; two turns each round
+30' land speed
+2 dodge bonus to AC
+6 natural armor bonus to AC
+6 Str
+12 Dex
+0 Con (nulled by Undead anyway)
+6 Int
+6 Wis
+8 Cha
Small Size (-2 damage per swing, +1 to attack rolls and AC)
Darkvision 60'
Undead typing
DR 10/magic and silver (which is sadly not worth much here)
Fast Healing 5
One natural weapon
Assorted other powers
A bunch of bonus feats (including Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes, and Dodge)
Sum that stuff up and at the cost of delaying the capstone one level, Speedy GonStabby picking up those three extra templates gets another +14 AC while naked (+6 natural, another +6 Dex, +1 size, Dodge feat), deals +3 damage per swing (+6 Dex, -2 Small, -1 with the delay on Challenge), gains +6 to hit (-1 BAB, +1 Small, +6 Dex) +10 initiative (+6 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative), one extra feat (no need to take Combat Reflexes), +2 skill points per level (swap your 11 to Con, your 12 to Str, your 17 to Will, your 16 to Int), hilariously better saves, misc. bonuses here and there... it's kind of a ridiculous gain.
I'd put that way ahead of the Dread Devourer. And note that Young Template shenanigans are only really helpful for a Dex-oriented class. Young/Adavanced wash to +0 Str and Con, but combine for +8 Dex.