How about building a 30foot diameter adamantium cage and standing in the middle of it (out of range of his lance) and then shooting him with arrows until he dies or gets bored and goes away?
better yet, as you are a rogue, steal the cage.
and shoot his bat
|
20 ranger with an 18th level "buff me up" gnome sorcerer cohort. If AM can have leadership so can we.
But it's really hard to build against a "theory build" that has never seen play; and level 20s are made to fight things with hitpoints in the high hunderds, so generally whoever actually gets to attack wins.
|
I think I need to clarify. This combat round is like your character walked into a room at the same time as AM Barbarian. Neither party has had time to prep. You have one round, as we assume you one iniative, unless you can justify surviving to the next round. Unless the prep spells you are intending on casting have a duration of 10 min per level or better, the spell will be negated at the point of this encounter. 10 min per level @ 20th level would assume you've gotten at least 3 hours out of it, so it could foreseeably be active prior to the encounter.
I like the Ranger build, but every evidence supports AM Barbarian surviving you volley, then killing you on his turn depending on your defenses.
The Halfling Rogue build is awesome, I'm just less sure you'd hit with all of your attacks. But the Str damage would likely lower AM's to hit and damage output enough you'd survive to another round and be able to finish him. Need to know what kind of defenses you'd have. Also, wouldn't be able to get the haste potion off, but still very doable.
I don't think the rogue/witch combo would work with what you have at a base. AM's perception is good enough that you may not quite sneak up on him, and your dc for slumber hex will likely be too low for him not to pass.
Rogue Assasin is shaping up better, but lack of prep is going to hurt your odds. Could still definitely work. Maybe if you could do it as an alchemist - vivisectionist/mind chemist, that might improve your odds.
Great Ideas so far, lets keep them comming! So far Halfling Rogue is looking like the winner here, lets see if anything else trumps him!
Leadership pyramid. I win.
Does anyone know exactly how many HP AM BARBARIAN or BATTY BAT has? Even an estimate? I know his AC is tanked in favor of DR and Fortification. That would help a lot in figuring out what sort of benchmark I need to make.
Intimidate-based Thug (Rogue archetype). I've done the math in another thread, but you can safely get to a point at which NOBODY is safe from Intimidate, which means you can Frighten whenever you want.
Intimidate-based Thug (Rogue archetype). I've done the math in another thread, but you can safely get to a point at which NOBODY is safe from Intimidate, which means you can Frighten whenever you want.
Except Paladins, who are immune to fear.
|
|
To continue this thread, we'd need terms and conditions. First, like all of these AM Barb threads, it needs a build to compare to. AB is an iconic low-Cha (ironic) character whose numbers fluctuate well beyond what happens in a game; riding a mount that is arguably the most powerful class in the game that was willing to evolve to his specific needs. But without definition we're assuming +40 to all saves, HP that are maximized with a 40 con, and a continual state of awareness that is unbeatable by any anti-detection.
AM BARB is more of a funny concept than an actually good character. And generally most level 20 characters can kill another level 20 PC in one-on-one if they win init, all awareness being equal.
|
|
My build is Rogue 9/Ranger 3/ Horizon Walker 8
Put all your rogue talent into Terrain Mastery, all your feat goes into Extra Rogue Talent and Favored Defense. It should give a single terrain about +44 at level 20. By choosing Plain as the Terrain with Terrain Dominance it should treat AM Barbarian with your biggest Favored Ennemy Bonus since AM BArbarian as Heart of the Fields. A wand of Instant Ennemy will allow you to get the +44 hit/damage +22 AC but will let AM Barbarian charge you one round. With proper itemization you should have an high enough AC to survive the charge. With a Bow of Speed it's 6 attack with at least +44 DMG that can only miss on a 1, no matter the range increment.
Wow. You sir have impressed me. It looks very impressive at first glance. However, can you take Terrain Mastery more than once? I don't know, as I'm not even sure what book that's in, but I do know unless it says in the description of the rogue talent that you can take it multiple times, then then the answer is only once. My secondary question would be can you use this ability outside of the plains? Would it affect flying opponents, as the sky is another terrain altogether.
Still, I've now got to say that you're a favorite to win, because if it does all work out, your +22AC from your terrain bonus would give you essentially all the time in the world to kill him and there would be a thing he really could do about it.
My build is Rogue 9/Ranger 3/ Horizon Walker 8
Put all your rogue talent into Terrain Mastery, all your feat goes into Extra Rogue Talent and Favored Defense. It should give a single terrain about +44 at level 20. By choosing Plain as the Terrain with Terrain Dominance it should treat AM Barbarian with your biggest Favored Ennemy Bonus since AM BArbarian as Heart of the Fields. A wand of Instant Ennemy will allow you to get the +44 hit/damage +22 AC but will let AM Barbarian charge you one round. With proper itemization you should have an high enough AC to survive the charge. With a Bow of Speed it's 6 attack with at least +44 DMG that can only miss on a 1, no matter the range increment.
Flaw: You forgot Sunder. After its clear he can’t hit your AC, AM BARBARIAN can simply Sunder everything you need to function. He can Strength Surge all of his Sunder attempts by multi-raging, allowing him to effectively auto-succeed on his Sunder attempts. You’d be going into round two minus your weapon, armor, and anything else shiny enough to be a threat.
He'd have to waste his first round figuring out he can't hit the AC though. So, going into the 2nd round you'd still have everything. The 3rd round is questionable.
He'd have to waste his first round figuring out he can't hit the AC though. So, going into the 2nd round you'd still have everything. The 3rd round is questionable.
I doubt he'd waste more than 2/5 lance swings against AC. If I were him and I missed on a 2, I'd be worried something was up and start breaking your shinies. Heck, if you're a non-casty and on his kill list somehow, he'd probably break your armor first for giggles.
Can you switch from full-attack action to things like sunder? That's a CMB check, not a normal attack.
Can you switch from full-attack action to things like sunder? That's a CMB check, not a normal attack.
Sunders, Disarms, and Trips can be made in place of any normal attack.
Honestly though, with Greater Sunder allowing rollover damage, is there any reason not to always Sunder?
EDIT: Oops, didn't realise that Strength Surge was an immediate action. My bad.
Still ridiculous Sunder numbers.
|
|
Just clarified it. That +22 favored defence bonus would apply to his CMD as well, giving him MUCH better chance of avoiding sunder. Thats a 37 CMD (+17 at bonus +22 dodge) before Strength, dex and all other modifiers. As the rest of the build isn't up here, it is still feasible to assume that strength surge will allow AM barbarian to destroy one piece of equipment (+20 AT bonus + 20 Strength surge=+40) He wouldn't be able to cripple him as badly as it would first appear. Since most of the damage is based off a class feature, just be sure to carry a spare of the weapon's used, and you would still get him by the 2nd or 3rd round.
My question would then be, what kind of bonus to AC is provided by Favored Defense? If its a dodge, luck, competence or deflection bonus, this would severely counter the sunders.
Maybe. If I remember correctly however, AM's Sunder numbers start in the low 80's. I could be crazy though.
Honestly though, with Greater Sunder allowing rollover damage, is there any reason not to always Sunder?
EDIT: Oops, didn't realise that Strength Surge was an immediate action. My bad.
Still ridiculous Sunder numbers.
"Using an immediate action on your turn is the same as using a swift action and counts as your swift action for that turn."
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Immediate-Actions
I am aware of this, as my edit notes :)
It would be good to know what the Ranger's theoretical CMD is. Even a +22 may not help.
I made a version of this Rogue in October.
Hide in plain sight instead of the driving bonus at level 10 rogue would net you the ability to disappear right in front of AM. Since Horizon Walkers can use special abilities (such as HiPS) in all terrains they select as a Horizon Walker, they could do it nearly anywhere. At least in 8 different terrains.
I think a Rogue with a HiPS and a stealth score in the mid 90s could just snipe him to death or make him run away. Its a fun build. Favored terrain gives bonuses to stealth, initiative, survival, perception, and Knowledge Nature checks.
|
|
AM Barabarians Potential sunder CMB
+20 bases attack
Base str 20 (18+2 for human)
+5 for lvl
+5 wishes
+6 belt
+2 enlarge (maybe??? I don't know if this was in one of the builds)
+8 Mighty rage
STR 46 (46-10=36/2= +18)
Improved Sunder +4
CMB for Sunder before Strength Surge = +42
I don't have anything included in here for his weapon, as I couldn't even guess what weapon he would have to use for this purpose or what enchantments it might have. Worse case scenario is it would add +5, but I don't think he has quick draw and if he charged with a weapon built for damage, would it be also be built for sundering?
Looking at this, I can see that the ranger will have a hard time defending against this CMB at first glance, However the build given does start at + 17 base attack, + 22 dodge before we've added anything else like strength, dex, deflection, dodge feats & magics.
So his CMD starts at +39, it actually shouldn't be too hard to buff his CMD to a respectable enough level with these other items to provide the ranger a chance.
Further more, I can accept that he would get multiple attempts to sunder each round, but it should also scale down with his base attack bonuse after each attack.
So it should be 42/37/32/27/22.
Since the first attack was used to determine if he could hit him and fail, he'd be left with 37/32/27/22. 1 Strength surge will nearly ensure that one item will get sundered, but the character on the whole should remain relatively unscathed, allowing for it to now get off its volley of attack on the following round.
How is he getting 5 iterative attacks?
Sunder can't be used more then once per round and you can't attack while you sunder. Read trip and disarm then read sunder, it is worded differently for a reason.
Sunder like Vital Strike takes the attack action. Just like you can't do multiple Vital Strikes nor can you do multiple sunders.
Sorry but no LOL I GREATER SUNDER U FIVE TIMES - U ARE DEAD AND SO ARE YOUR SHINIES.
|
|
I found this on the PFSRD. As I don't have access to my books at the moment, I'm using this as the basis of my assumptions here.
You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Sunder feat, or a similar ability, attempting to sunder an item provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver.
The above seem to imply to me that as part of an attack action I can make a melee attack. Thus as a Full attack action, for each of my attacks I can make a sunder attempt in place of a melee attack. I'm assuming that since my sunder is in place of an attack at X bonus, then that bonus is what is used in the calculation for my CMB at the time of the attack.
Please, tell me I've got this wrong, because if so then his sundering capabilities aren't nearly as troublesome to any of the other character concepts out there.
Well, I always thought that it was worded differently from trip and disarm (and similarly to Vital Strike) for a reason, but I guess that I could be wrong.
Here is one such discussion I was able to find on the matter-
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/rules/sunderIsNotAStandardAction26mru&page=1
AM has a flying mount named Batty Bat, with an 800 ft. charge range and the perception to make it a threat.
Ok, I am assuming Arcane Trickster counts as a Rogueish class.
Wizard 7/Ninja 3/Arcane Trickster 10
- Pressure Points Ninja Trick
- Metamagic Rod of Quicken
- Extend Spell, Elemental (Cold) Spell, Rime Spell, Enlarge Spell
- Spell Focus (Evocation), Varisian Tattoo (Evocation), and that Ioun Stone that increases CL
- Generation (Evocation) specialist
- Magical Lineage and/or Spell Perfection for Contagious Flame
- Only necessary buff is Overland Flight
Round 1:
Cast a CL 19 Extended, Cold, Rime Contagious Flame as a Standard action. Hit Batty Bat with one of them, and the Barbarian with the other 4 rays. AM BARBARIAN and BATTY BAT are flat-footed for this attack, since I can go first, so I choose Dexterity for Pressure points and deal 44d6 cold damage + 4 Dex damage to AM BARBARIAN and 11d6 cold damage and 1 dex damage to Batty Bat.
(As a back-up, if they are not Flat-Footed for whatever reason, declare one ray against each as an Impromtu Sneak Attack and reduce damage accordingly.)
Both AM BARBARIAN and BATTY BAT are now Entangled, halving speed and preventing charging.
Use Invisible Thief as a free action.
Cast Enlarged Dimension Door Quickened with the rod and with Tricky Spells for the hell of it making it arguably totally quiet. Travel in a random direction far enough that AM Barbarian can't get within pin-pointing distance of you.
Round 2-11
Bounce Contagious Flame rays back and forth between AM BARBARIAN and BATTY BAT. It lasts nine rounds because the normal 3 rounds were extended to 6 and then increased by half my Wizard level (3). You are using Greater Invisibility for all of these rounds, thanks to Invisible Thief, so you should get Sneak Attack Damage. Always choose Dexterity with Pressure Points because the two of them have crazy Hit Points and are far more likely to die from loss of Dex than loss of HP. They will stay Entangled the entire duration of this, preventing them from charging you. If they ever get close, Enlarged Dimension Door again.
This will work with Sorcerer, too. Probably more believably, but you'd have to reapply the Contagious Flame mess because you'll have 3 less rounds than the Wizard version.
Rings of spell turning.
Round 1:
Cast a CL 19 Extended, Cold, Rime Contagious Flame as a Standard action. Hit Batty Bat with one of them, and the Barbarian with the other 4 rays.
Bounce Contagious Flame rays back and forth between AM BARBARIAN and BATTY BAT.
Do these stop rays?
Spell Turning
School abjuration; Level sorcerer/wizard 7, summoner 5; Domain luck 7, magic 7
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (a small silver mirror worth 100 gp - see errata below)
EFFECT
Range personal
Target you
Duration until expended or 10 min./level
d% Effect
01-70 Spell drains away without effect.
71-80 Spell affects both of you equally at full effect.
81-97 Both turning effects are rendered nonfunctional for 1d4 minutes.
98-100 Both of you go through a rift into another plane.
DESCRIPTION
Spells and spell-like effects targeted on you are turned back upon the original caster. The abjuration turns only spells that have you as a target. Effect and area spells are not affected. Spell turning also fails to stop touch range spells. From seven to ten (1d4+6) spell levels are affected by the turning. The exact number is rolled secretly.
When you are targeted by a spell of higher level than the amount of spell turning you have left, that spell is partially turned. Subtract the amount of spell turning left from the spell level of the incoming spell, then divide the result by the spell level of the incoming spell to see what fraction of the effect gets through. For damaging spells, you and the caster each take a fraction of the damage. For non-damaging spells, each of you has a proportional chance to be the one who is affected. If you and a spellcasting attacker are both warded by spell turning effects in operation, a resonating field is created. Roll randomly to determine the result.
Touch Attacks
Some attacks completely disregard armor, including shields and natural armor—the aggressor need only touch a foe for such an attack to take full effect. In these cases, the attacker makes a touch attack roll (either ranged or melee). When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn't include any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus. All other modifiers, such as your size modifier, Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (if any) apply normally. Some creatures have the ability to make incorporeal touch attacks. These attacks bypass solid objects, such as armor and shields, by passing through them. Incorporeal touch attacks work similarly to normal touch attacks except that they also ignore cover bonuses. Incorporeal touch attacks do not ignore armor bonuses granted by force effects, such as mage armor and bracers of armor.
Damage
Rings of spell turning.
Round 1:
Cast a CL 19 Extended, Cold, Rime Contagious Flame as a Standard action. Hit Batty Bat with one of them, and the Barbarian with the other 4 rays.
Bounce Contagious Flame rays back and forth between AM BARBARIAN and BATTY BAT.
Yeah, as has been mentioned, that won't reflect the rays, and AM BARBARIAN's main weakness is low AC, so I can't imagine the rays missing. And hell, I my build is bare bones, so I can devote plenty of resources to getting rays to land.
I was in a hurry before, but just to expand on specific numbers:
An Enlarged Dimension Door will take the Arcane Trickster up to 2240 feet, well beyond the range AM BARBARIAN can charge, even if he wasn't entangled (which prevents charges). It should also suffice to keep any special senses either AM or BATTY BAT have from pinpointing.
Assuming the rays all hit, and well, it's extremely likely that they will, the Wizard-based version of the build will deal 100d6 of cold damage to each of AM and BATTY over the course of the ten rounds (which averages 350 damage), and, potentially, 175d6 more Sneak Attack damage (which averages 612.5 damage) coupled with up to 25 Dexterity damage.
Assuming 75% fortification on AM and BATTY's Armor, that means they'll each end up taking, on average, 503.125 cold damage, and 6.25 Dex damage, so I was mistaken. The Dex damage is kind of pointless vs. Fortification and is not nearly enough to kill, though 500+ straight damage probably is. If the Ninja had taken Bleeding Sneak Attacks instead of Pressure Points, he could add up to 63 more damage if at least one sneak attack gets by the fortification in round 1 (potentially more afterward if neither AM nor BATTY can make the Heal check to stop the bleeding).
Oh, did I mention that if the Wizard had an Enlarged Dimension Door set with a Contingency for a specific code phrase he could say with a free action, then the Wizard could have used a Greater Metamagic Rod of Quickening to get off two Contagious Flames off, doubling all of these figures.
Again, though, I think the Sorcerer version is much more reasonable, since the Wizard build would require the sort of foresight that would call for having these spells memorized in their specific configurations. I would think the Sorcerer version would likely want both Magical Lineage and Spell Perfection as well as Spontaneous Metafocus for Contagious Flame.
The Sorcerer could be Draconic, Orcish, or Primal (Cold) blooded to add an extra damage per die to each target. Alternatively, he could take Elemental or Marid and save a spell level and feat, as he would not need Elemental (Cold) Spell.
The Sorcerer version's spell would only last 6 rounds, however, the spell could be reapplied several times (pretty much up to the limit of Quickening rods you had for Enlarged Dimension Doors). He could even Enlarge the rays and hit from 145' away. Yes, he'd be foregoing Sneak Attack for the first round, but the rest of the 6 rounds of the spell would still deal sneak attack damage as normal, unless AM and BATTY BAT separate from each other. Hmm, I'll have to figure out some way to prevent that.
and maybe spellsunder will help with the entangled status.
I don't think you could sunder the Entangled status, but even if you could, it is repeatedly re-applied multiple times per round. I don't think his Spell Sunders could keep up.
My alternative idea, if this somehow gets shot down, uses an Alchemist base (since that counts for some reason) and Madness/Confusion bombs, hoping that AM and BATTY never get a turn in sync with each other (and in fact are most likely to just hurt each other back and forth) while slowly destroying AM's Wisdom score until he dies from that.
Since the death attack of the Assassin has seen so much interest I wanted to point out that a 20th level ranger has an almost identical ability, but does not have to waste 3 rounds. This can also be done with a ranged weapon instead of just melee. The save is a fortitude save of 10 + 1/2 Ranger level + Wisdom modifier.
AM BARBARIAN
Their are a couple of variations on the build but I'll post one that should work. Also AM BARBARIAN can rage indefinitely while out of combat with this one.
STR: 44 (18 +2 human +5 level +5 wish +6 belt +8 rage)
DEX: 20 (12 +6 belt +2 wish)
CON: 32 (15 +6 belt +10 rage)
INT: 10 (8 +2 Ioun Stone)
WIS: 16 (10 +6 Headband)
CHA: 7
Skills: Perception 20 ranks (28), Ride 20 ranks (35), Intimidate 20 ranks (23), Profession (Engineer) 2 ranks (17), One other skill as needed 20 ranks
Alternate racial trait Heart of the Fields, Favoured class bonus +6 to superstitious rage bonus +2 skill points
Feats: Power Attack, Raging Vitality, Improved Sunder, Mounted Combat, Leadership, Iron Will, Ride-by Attack, Spirited Charge, Antagonize, Racial Heritage Orc, Destroyer's Blessing.
Rage Powers: Superstition, Witch Hunter, Spell Sunder, Lesser Beast Totem, Beast Totem, Greater Beast Totem, Reckless Abandon, Ghost Rager, Eater of Magic, Strength Surge
Gear: Manual of STR +5 (137,500), Belt of STR/DEX/CON +6 (144000), +5 Furious Merciful Adamantine Lance (101010), Locked Gauntlet (8), Cloak of Resistance +5 (25,000), Hand of Glory (8,000), Ring of Protection +5 (50,000), Ring of Evasion (25,000), Ring of Freedom of Movement (40,000), Pale Green Ioun Stone (30,000), Dusty Rose Ioun Stone (5,000), Stone of Good Luck (20,000), Scarlet and Blue Ioun Stone (8,000), Mithral Chain Shirt +1 Heavy Fortification (37,100), Manual of DEX +2 (55,000), Headband of WIS +6 (36,000), Boots of Speed (6,000), Turquoise Ioun Stone (6,000), Manual of Con +1 (27,500),
Defenses:
Saves: FORT 30 (43 vs spells, etc.), REF 18 (31 vs spells, etc.), WILL 22 (31 vs spells, etc. +4 vs enchantments) re roll a failed save once per rage against spells, SL abilities, or SU abilities gain temporary hit points = to CL or CR
HP 355, DR 10/- , Fire resist 5, Endure elements vs. heat, Spell turning once per day, 75% fortification
AC 30 (32 with shield), Touch AC 32, Flat-Footed 25 (27 with shield)
Offense:
Speed 40 ft.
Charge Attack Line: 47/47/42/37/32 without power Attack 53/53/48/43/38 When using the lance one handed these values increase by 1
Damage 3d8 +150 (168 vs. casters) without power attack 3d8 +96 (114 vs. casters) one handed 3d8 +108 (126 vs. casters) one handed no power attack 3d8 +72 (90 vs. casters)
Sunder: 47, 48 with shield +2 on charge +20 with Strength Surge
I think that covers most of it I haven't put down the cohort or it's gear as these are the most vague aspects of the build. I believe 400 ft. movement flying is set in stone though and it focuses on perception and detecting things AM can't it would have 178,727 GP worth of gear I believe.
Oh AC is 6 less with Reckless Abandon I included Reckless in the attack lines and Sunder can also benefit from Reckless Abandon for a higher CMB if you leave out power attack.
Arena fights are useless without arena rules ...
Without a set of rules tight enough that a fight could actually be adjudicated, and complete character sheets, it's all just going to turn into a magic tea party discussion ... again.
Any way, my personal suggestion for rogue Gorgonzola is a two level dip of horizon walker with ethereal plane mastery, sniper goggles, a ranged weapon and a homunculus (or some other companion) blowing on a horn of fog. Still wouldn't allow sneak attacks on the Barbarian though ... but meh ... you can see him and he can't see you, should statistically buy you a few rounds of attacks unless he gets lucky with blind attacks or happens to have the exact right magic item to deal with the fog.
The fog doesn't stop Batty Bat's senses. I forget if he has Scent or Blindsight or what, but fog doesn't cut it.
The fog doesn't stop Batty Bat's senses. I forget if he has Scent or Blindsight or what, but fog doesn't cut it.Arena fights are useless without arena rules ...
Without a set of rules tight enough that a fight could actually be adjudicated, and complete character sheets, it's all just going to turn into a magic tea party discussion ... again.
Any way, my personal suggestion for rogue Gorgonzola is a two level dip of horizon walker with ethereal plane mastery, sniper goggles, a ranged weapon and a homunculus (or some other companion) blowing on a horn of fog. Still wouldn't allow sneak attacks on the Barbarian though ... but meh ... you can see him and he can't see you, should statistically buy you a few rounds of attacks unless he gets lucky with blind attacks or happens to have the exact right magic item to deal with the fog.
Rogues don't win arena fights. Rogues win by being clever.
I like the horn of fog idea, and the bat (which I personally would never allow as a mount in an ordinary game) detecting the rogue has no bearing on whether the barbarian can, and the rogue could probably take it out pretty easily (preferably at a great height). The mount may move on AM's initiative count but there's no telepathic link.
Regarding the Contagious Flame idea, note this line of the spell:
Every round on your turn, a new ray of fire launches from each creature who took damage from the spell in the previous round—these new rays attack as if you fired them, but their point of origin is the previous creature damaged.
Note that every target hit launches a (as in, singular) ray at another target. It does not say another ray for each from the first round, rather that every target hit by a ray launches a new one. Hence, after the first round, there's only going to be 2 rays total. I don't know how that affects the damage output of the build.