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I've noticed in a lot of threads the "powerful" characters tend to be either built around a specific opponent/type of opponent, to be reliant on unique gear or to have minmaxed so in one area they're amazing while in others they're not. So I figured I'd get people to create the most powerful character they can under the following restrictions.
1) No gear beyond basic non-magical/masterwork items. That is you can have normal armour and a sword but you can't have a mystical bow of killing everything
2) lvl 20 Non-Mythic.
3) Must be able to adapt to different types of threat undead, constructs, humans, demons etc. Yes I know you need magical/special material weapons to hurt some of these things. The character can be assumed to have some form of magical item for overcoming DR for this.
4) Can't be minmaxed i.e a 10 minimum in a stat. Standard point buy to begin with.
5) No full casters.
What I'm interested in seeing people create is an adaptable all rounder who if they had level appropraite gear could fight against most threats reasonably well even if they're not playing rocket tag with Cthulu.
Without access to magical items any class that doesn't have a built-in method of bypassing certain obstacles (such as damaging incorporeal creatures, or engaging in aerial combat) is gonna have a tough time.
If you assume that you do have magical items but only for the purposes of reasonably damaging certain opponents as you intimate then it gets a little better; on the other hand, even though you only mentioned combat an "all rounder" should be able to handle non-combat situations (such as the standard 'parlaying with the king' situation), which is going to again be pretty dang tough without high-level magic to fall back on.
A bard would be able to handle both martial and social challenges; but spontaneous casters seem like a bad bet for these circumstances, since they're unable to overcome their fixed casting list without magical items (wands, scrolls, etc.); unless they have access to a way of binding creatures to fill in the gaps.
So Summoner definitely seems like the best choice for a spontaneous spellcaster. Upon thinking about it, they're probably the only reasonable choice under the limitation of no full casters, since they have access to Gate and other 9th-level magic at level 20, not to mention game-breaking level 7+ magic such as Simulacrum, unlike every other 6th-level and lower spellcaster.
Heck, they're even Charisma-based which makes handling social encounters a lot easier if for some reason they couldn't send a delegation of angels to handle the business for them.
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The rules you've stipulated basically scream "Summoner". It's arguably the strongest caster class in the game once the full casters are out of the picture, and to top it off it's got the Eidolon. Due to the ability to customize with evolutions and receive buff spells from the Summoner, a nautral attacking Eidolon isn't seriously impeded by the "no magic items" rule and completely overshadows the martial classes at this level.
You'd have to pick your spell list carefully (as you don't have magic items to supplement it) but at 20th level the Summoner has sufficient spells known to cover all his bases. This is also the only 6-level spellcasting class in the game that gets the Planar Binding spell line, and if its Eidolon is slain it gets Gate as a spell-like ability.
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Your list basically eliminates every non 3/4 caster. Not sure if that was intentional or not.
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Yeah, this is a challenge for the Summoner, or Master Summoner if you want to make a mockery of the challenge.
Paladin with Smite Evil and a variety of weapons?
For example, you can use a Cold Iron Sword, an Adamantine Sword, an alchemic Silver Sword...
You still have to be able to pierce Alignment DR other than Evil, but it is close and you still manage to do good damage due to Smite. Antipaladins can do the same but can only pierce good DR.
Cavaliers have the same problem except that they can't pierce ANY alignment DR.
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Paladin with Smite Evil and a variety of weapons?
For example, you can use a Cold Iron Sword, an Adamantine Sword, an alchemic Silver Sword...
The baseline Paladin probably won't work, since it has no way to fly or teleport, and lacks any good options against invisible foes. If you have a really lenient GM you might be able to finagle a flying bonded mount, but that won't help with the other issues. The Empyrial Knight archetype could get around this, though. You get a fly speed as your capstone in addition to a flying bonded mount, and Summon Monster IX as a SLA. While you're limited to angels and archons, the spells and spell-like abilities of those creatures are sufficient to fill the gaps in the Paladin's own abilities.
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Summoner.
Master Summoner, or Synthesist with a 4 level dip in Oath of Vengeance Paladin are also valid options, if you like.
Also, the 'no non-magical gear' thing really screws this hypothetical in terms of usefulness for what you say you want. A character built to not have any magical gear is exactly the kind of 'niche' build you're complaining about...only worse than many of them, since it's less likely. Especially built at 20th level, since that results in a lot of builds that are...less than spectacular at low levels.
Now, the same hypothetical with no items not in the corebook instead of none at all...that's a lot more viable to determine what you seem to want to determine.
ROGUE
Unless your games never include DR/Alignment or enemies who force Saving Throws, "no magic items at all" won't work.
Even a Paladin with a tricked out Cha will be hurting for saves at 20th without a Cloak of Resistance, Headband of Charisma and Wisdom, and all that other good stuff.
ROGUE
Well, the Rogue can Hide in Plain Sight in a variety of terrains by 20th level, they could probably sneak by a decent amount of potential foes.
Mystic Past Life can give you Summon Monster VII and Summon Monster VIII as 5th and 6th level spells.
Not bad, sort of a poor man's Evangelist Cleric summoner. Giving out rage powers to summoned creatures seems pretty cool, although you're pretty limited in the amount of different powers you have to share out even by level 20.
And you still got nuthin' on Gate.
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Unless your games never include DR/Alignment or enemies who force Saving Throws, "no magic items at all" won't work.
Even a Paladin with a tricked out Cha will be hurting for saves at 20th without a Cloak of Resistance, Headband of Charisma and Wisdom, and all that other good stuff.
I hear this all the time, but it's just not true. The more correct statement is: unless you stop using CR to judge how challenging enemies will be, "no magic items at all" won't work. If you ignore CR and judge challenges yourself, it works out fine.
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Master summoner. Just Ash Ketchum your way to victory.
Since gear is expected, no gear makes the vast majority of characters fairly useless. You could amend this to "only basic big 6 items" and the answer could be more varied.
I still think a samsaran skald is a very plausible alternative to a summoner. Past level 15, summon monster spells will be more useful than summon monster spell-like abilities anyway, simply because of Spell Perfection (although gate is always useful).
I'd disagree with you on Skald being better than Master Summoner as a Summoner; while Spell Perfection is very powerful the Summoner gets a free duration upgrade from 1 round/level to 1 minute/level on his SLA, so it's already got a built-in bonus that makes it equitable to Spell Perfection. In addition you can only take Spell Perfection once, but the Summoner is free to spend it improving a different spell. Not saying that isn't a good combo (because it is really good) but it's not going to upstage the Master Summoner here.
And the vanilla Summoner? His long-duration Gate SLA is his backup plan if his main class features fail him.
ROGUE
Without magic items, Rogues lack any ability that let them fly or deal with invisible enemies. They're not even a consideration here, IMO.
I hear this all the time, but it's just not true. The more correct statement is: unless you stop using CR to judge how challenging enemies will be, "no magic items at all" won't work. If you ignore CR and judge challenges yourself, it works out fine.Unless your games never include DR/Alignment or enemies who force Saving Throws, "no magic items at all" won't work.
Even a Paladin with a tricked out Cha will be hurting for saves at 20th without a Cloak of Resistance, Headband of Charisma and Wisdom, and all that other good stuff.
Well, yes, if you pit a 20th level character against nothing more exciting than some Barghests, then this challenge is simple.
However, the OP said "most threats".
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Paladin, summoner, hunter, magus, ranger, inquisitor, warpriest, and bard
Most can survive under the rules presented. Will not find the rules so grievous.
I would avoid: Fighter, rogue, and monk.
they need magic items to be good. And monk is such a MAD class.
Iffy classes would be: alchemist and investigators. They can do it but your gonna be behind a bit cause your required to craft you alchemical items...which may or may not conflict with the rules.
alchemist and investigators. They can do it but your gonna be behind a bit cause your required to craft you alchemical items...which may or may not conflict with the rules.
Alchemist should work just fine. He has access to flight and true sight via his extracts, and has lots of different ways to get natural attacks. Between bombs/discoveries/extracts he has a rather big toolkit of options. He's still overshadowed by the Summoner in this discussion (who isn't?) but looks viable.
Dasrak: Well, yeah, I suppose summoners are hard to beat.
But just think of the moment when you start playing the violin, and all of your brachiosauruses increase in size to Colossal, get a strength score of 53, grow four claws and fangs, and start pouncing.
That alone makes it all worth it.
You need some way to make them flying Brachiosaurs to complete the combo ;)
The problem isn't so much that your combo there isn't strong (frankly, it's scary) but rather that the Summoner is - as Kestral put it - having a wet dream here. Pretty much an optimum environment for him to rock out with no one to outshine him.
The Skald concept is kind of interesting but I can't see it working. Even assume you stole the Summoner's Summon Monster VIII as a 6th level spell. You Spell Perfection it. What metamagic are you putting on it? Maximize I guess? You can't Quicken it, the level is too high
Sure you can. Use the Magical Lineage trait to bring down its effective level by 1.
For aerial and other ranged situations, add an 18 STR-rated composite longbow. And for the incorporeal things, add ghost salted arrows.
Won't deal nearly enough damage. 1d8+4 damage is a rounding error at 20th level.
If it were not for number 4 an inquisitor would be the best bet. Dump CHA to the floor, boost WIS to the max, and pick up either the conversion, or heresy inquisition. This allows you to be the party face with no CHA. 10 INT is enough for a decent amount of skills so the rest of the stats can be higher. Pick a deity with a good melee weapon because you already have all the good ranged weapons. Judgments allow you to cover any need so you are good there. Your spells will boost your combat ability to be able to deal with almost anything. Your only weak save is reflex which is the least important save of the game. Bane and latter greater bane can be adjusted to any creature as needed, and works with any weapon. Divine pursuit allows it to pursue burrowing, climbing, flying or swimming targets. Even without dumping CHA they are still very strong.
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Deadmanwalking, I think the idea is for the character to not be dependent upon specific gear, so that if you gave them, so that "if they had level appropriate gear could fight against most threats reasonably well," even without any specific magic item.
That's not precisely what was said or how people were answering it. So...yeah, clarifying the intent was what I was requesting, really.
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1) No half of reasons to play PF
5) No another half of reasons to play PF
The answer is GURPS?
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Deadmanwalking, I think the idea is for the character to not be dependent upon specific gear, so that if you gave them, so that "if they had level appropriate gear could fight against most threats reasonably well," even without any specific magic item.
I still think a samsaran skald is a very plausible alternative to a summoner. Past level 15, summon monster spells will be more useful than summon monster spell-like abilities anyway, simply because of Spell Perfection (although gate is always useful). Mystic Past Life can give you Summon Monster VII and Summon Monster VIII as 5th and 6th level spells.
And once you summon creatures, skalds are the best class in the game at making summoned creatures more powerful, even as early as level 3. The only thing that holds them back is their awful summoning progression, which Mystic Past Life deals with at high levels.
Yes sorry if I didn't explain it properly. It's not that they don't have gear it's that I don't want a character design that uses X odd item from 3rd party Y or a weird combination of multiple stacking bonuses to be effective and no ring X has + 15 to ac because it adds 5 to this, this and this stacking bonus. You can assume they do have magic gear but what I'm after is the core character operating inside that gear. No fighters with 3 int or magus with 5 strength kind of situation. Someone who isn't utterly crippled by the loss of a specific item. The reason I rulled out full casters is how easy it is for them to perform in most situations.
Well if you can assume normal gear and maybe some CLW potions, then this suddenly becomes a much more interesting question.
Magi are real contenders, very flexible.
Summoner is still a strong option, but not obviously the best one.
Bard and Skaald are fairly viable.
I would go with Magus.