So some of my friends and I were shooting the breeze and came up with a fun silly little optimization challenge, which I thought some of the fine folk on these message boards might also find entertaining.
The basic premise is as follows:
You are a 1st level character that has spent ALL your starting gold to buy rats, at 1 copper a piece.
You and they are then placed on an infinite flat featureless plane where you will do battle. You win if you kill all the rats, they win if you die before doing so.
Rules:
20 bp, average starting wealth (which remember is all used to buy Rats) and 2 traits.
You are not allowed to have both a source of permanent flight and any way of doing damage at range, as this takes all the fun out of the challenge.
Currently our most successful build is an Aasimar Synthesist Summoner, since those can gain DR 1/evil from their favored class bonus, and thus be imune to the 1 nonlethal damage a rat does when it hits.
Can you fair community come up with any other builds which can complete this Ratslayer Challenge?
Hard Mode: spend a trait on Rich Parents for a total of 90000 rats.
So damage at range takes the fun out of the contest, but literal immunity to the rats doesn't?
And based on the rules you give, I'ld go for elf monk, combat reflexes and weapon finesse. Dex is your primary score, strength can probably be left at 12, and there you go. AoO every time a rat tries to hit you, so you'll be killing between 6-7 a turn.
So damage at range takes the fun out of the contest, but literal immunity to the rats doesn't?
You're right, that does seem entirely arbitrary now that I think about it. Probably just because we were more familiar with the various races that can grant flight from level 1, and the combo of one of those + any of the classes with a damage dealing cantrip seemed more obvious to us than the synthesist did.
But sure, if you have some more interesting way in mind of using flight + a ranged attack/think that is more fun than the alternative go ahead.
Val'bryn2 wrote:
And based on the rules you give, I'ld go for elf monk, combat reflexes and weapon finesse. Dex is your primary score, strength can probably be left at 12, and there you go. AoO every time a rat tries to hit you, so you'll be killing between 6-7 a turn.
Hmm. Lets assume the elf gets to use their movement to always move at least 10 ft away from the nearest rat (to ensure they don't avoid all those tasty AoO's by 5ft-stepping). I don't think the elf would actually get such perfect conditions as the rats would probably surround them after a few rounds.
If the rats have to charge to reach the elf then they get hit on a 6 (+5 dex, +1 base attack) or 75% of the time.
With a strength of 12, each hit knocks a fresh rat unconscious outright 3/6th of the time, and staggers it a further 1/6th of the time given that the rats have 4 HP, however since it takes 1 damage when it attacks, it too goes down right after.
All in all, half of the elfs attacks kill a rat, so approximately 3.5 dead rats a turn.
Charging rats hit the elf on a 11 assuming a AC of 17 (+5 dex, +2 wisdom), and 5 rats get to attack each turn (4 max in the square, but one goes down immediately after attacking and thus another can take it's place). If they hit they inflict 1 nonlethal damage, so 2,5 non-lethal a turn.
Assuming the elf have 9 hit points (10 con, +1 favored) they go down in turn 4 or 5 having defeated 14-18 rats.
Given that monks are relatively poor with an average 35 starting gp that leaves 332-336 rats alive and consious.
If the Elf positions themselves so that the rats don't charge then they need an 8 to hit (65% chance) and the damage is the same as otherwise, for an average 3,033... dead rats a turn.
The rats now need a 13 to hit for an average damage of 1,75.
The elf now goes down after 5-6 turns, having defeated around 15-18 rats.
All this assumes that both Int and Cha is dumped completely, and you can alter the numbers a bit by distributing the points a bit differently between Wis and Con, but ultimately that doesn't change too much.
Actually, even if the monk gets surrounded, they have to enter his square to attack. That provokes an AoO, of which my elf can make 6 a round. He can make two regular attacks, flurry of blows, at +7 for every attack. I took two traits, Bullied and Mizu Ki Hikari Rebel, so each AoO is at +8, and each hit deals 1d6+2.AC of 16, so each rat only has a 40% chance of hitting. They can't charge on any round but maybe the first, because they're trying to surround me. As they don't threaten, they don't flank. Only a maximum of 4 can attack me in a round, because they have to be in my square to attack, so fight defensively, and I still hit on a 10 AoO, 11 regular, while now they only hit on a 14.
Rats are CR 1/4. So our guy gets 100 XP for slaying one without sharing.
Assuming a starting wealth of 100 gp, that's 100 * 100 or 10,000 rats. 10,000 rats * 100 XP per rat = 1,000,000 XP. As one encounter, it's equivalent to a CR 23 creature.
That's enough XP to get to 15th level on slow advancement, 16th on medium advancement, or 17th on fast advancement. Of course, after a while, the rules state that the GM shouldn't bother awarding XP for challenges that are 10 or more lower than the APL.
Of course, since our guy is solo, his APL is actually subtracted by 1, although I suspect that subtracting it by 2 instead for soloing wouldn't be too egregious. Since 0 is a whole number, at the start of this, his APL is technically 0, not that it particularly matters, it's just amusing to me.
So due to that, I believe our character can only level up to level 10 by doing this.
160,000, 105,000, or 71,000 are the XP required to reach level 10 in the three leveling speeds. So 1600, 1050, or 710 individual rats, respectively, which makes for a CR 18, CR 17, or CR 16 fight, respectively.
For interest, the 90,000 rats from Rich Parents would be a CR 30 fight.
Rats are CR 1/4. So our guy gets 100 XP for slaying one without sharing.
Assuming a starting wealth of 100 gp, that's 100 * 100 or 10,000 rats. 10,000 rats * 100 XP per rat = 1,000,000 XP. As one encounter, it's equivalent to a CR 23 creature.
That's enough XP to get to 15th level on slow advancement, 16th on medium advancement, or 17th on fast advancement. Of course, after a while, the rules state that the GM shouldn't bother awarding XP for challenges that are 10 or more lower than the APL.
Of course, since our guy is solo, his APL is actually subtracted by 1, although I suspect that subtracting it by 2 instead for soloing wouldn't be too egregious. Since 0 is a whole number, at the start of this, his APL is technically 0, not that it particularly matters, it's just amusing to me.
So due to that, I believe our character can only level up to level 10 by doing this.
160,000, 105,000, or 71,000 are the XP required to reach level 10 in the three leveling speeds. So 1600, 1050, or 710 individual rats, respectively, which makes for a CR 18, CR 17, or CR 16 fight, respectively.
For interest, the 90,000 rats from Rich Parents would be a CR 30 fight.
Technically, they wouldn't get the experience until the end of the fight, so they wouldn't level beyond the rats until they are finished with fighting all of them.
One thing about the spacing rules that works out somewhat in favor of our hypothetical PC is that only 4 rats can occupy the same space as our PC.
This greatly reduces the number of attacks per round a PC would need to survive, from thousands to a mere four. Literally 0.04% of the rats can attack per round, especially since attempting hit and run tactics on the part of the rats is stymied until most of the rats die or flee. With Rich Parents, that's ~0.00444% that can attack at any given time.
I can't recall whether two rat swarms can have overlapping spaces, but since Tiny, non-flying creatures are 300 per swarm, 100 gp starting wealth would yield 33 rat swarms and 100 individual rats. That'd make for a CR 13 fight, yielding 29,800 XP, only allowing one to reach 5th, 6th, or 7th level depending upon XP advancement track.
Maximum number of rats from Rich Parents would be 300 rat swarms, which would be a CR 19 encounter yielding 180,000 XP, enough to reach 10th, 11th, or 12th level based upon speed of advancement. Much less than the 9,000,000 XP for fighting all of the rats as individuals, as it is literally 2% of the XP.
Animal Speaker bard archtype can choose rats as his animal friend, then use handle animal to train an elite unit of canabalistic rodent soliders to worship him as God-King and kill all the non believers.
Basically any druid/cleric/shaman/hunter could do it. Warded Against Nature drawback to not have to worry about fighting a lot of rats at once, and then take the slow way of resting when you take damage. Survive with Create Water, and you'll be eating a lot of rats that you prepared by way of Purify Food and Drink. For killing rats, grab yourself a club or whatever else free option you feel like using.
Evil Cleric with Charisma 16.
Herd rats, channel negative energy 6 times.
30' radius of 1d6 damage (Will DC 13 for half) should mess up 140 rats.
Maybe prepare Cure Light Wounds, just in case.
Sorcerer or Wizard.
Pick Acid Splash or Ray of Frost as a Cantrip.
Point Blank Shot feat to get quicker kills.
First level spell is Expeditious Retreat, so you can easily keep ahead of them.
Brace yourself for the long haul.
if they turn into a rat swarm won't like 1 optimized burning hands do the job?
Burning Hands is a 15' cone. That's either 6 squares or 7 squares depending upon whether it's in a cardinal direction or ordinal direction. Either way, though, I believe only a maximum of 6 Rat Swarms could be hit by a single casting of Burning Hands. More likely it'd be three, maybe four swarms at one time.
Unless I missed the part where swarms can fit into one another's squares, of course.
A Sorcerer or Wizard's minimum number of rats is 2000 rats(500 squares), or 6 swarms with 200 rats to spare across 74 squares. So if they're placed just right and the swarms are favorably shaped, they could make a big dent, but there'd still be another 200 individual rats taking up a minimum of 50 squares. Well, unless they can be squeezing to double the number of them per square? That'd put them at 25 squares, still possibly more than a level 1 caster has the spell slots for.
Average wealth for them would be 7000 rats(1750 squares), or 23 swarms and 100 individual rats taking up 117 squares.
Catfolk kineticist. Take the extended range infusion and the run feat; don't trade out the sprinter racial trait. Pew pew times however many thousand rats you can be bothered killing.
This is in the "unfun" category, but the Half Orc (Pain Tolerance) alternative racial trait gives DR 1/- against nonlethal damage. Pick your favorite class from there.
Thought: If the half-orc monk has Rich Parents, and is killing about 6 rats per round, they need to fight for nearly 26 hours. They're going to be mighty thirsty by the time they get out.
Also, it would be interesting if the ratslayer gets to a high enough level to cast limited wish and create some plant seeds in their infinite plane. Could get a neat little self-contained ecosystem going.
My first thought was to play a Tiefling, cover yourself in burning oil/ stand inside a bonfire, and make heavy use of Great Cleave, perhaps with a Reach Polearm and armor spikes so you can score at reach and on adjacent opponents. But you said, no starting equipment.
My next thought was play a Druid who uses her greater Move Speed to get the rats to chase her, Expeditious Construction to funnel the rats into a tight clump, and then Firebelly to blast them all at once, but I think that is too many spells at level 1 and you have that Ranged Combat requirement.
strix with rich parent and that other trait that increases starting wealth by 900 for a total of 1800 gold a reach weapon(i'm assuming a long stick you sharpened yourself would be free) fly 5 feet above and kill a few rats each round with cleave or human with the same traits and a sling with a bunch of rocks and the warded against nature drawback
Here is my best attempt without being immune to them. First the bare bones, Human with Rich Parents and Endurance. Have a good Str, Con, and Wis, then dump Int and , and put the rest into Dex and Cha. Carry your light load in slingstones (as in, free rocks not actual bullets), a quarterstaff, and a loincloth (don't waste carrying capacity on clothing). All of these are free and thus purchasable. Full statblock at the bottom. What you do is start by running away from the rats (who have a 15' speed and only an 11 Con) and then use sling stones to get a few as they advance, and use hit and run tactics with a quarterstaff. Try to pick up a few corpses along the way. Eventually they will flee or get bored, and you can start preparing rats as food.
Here is where things get interesting. Be a Shaman, with the Birthmark and Eschew Materials trait/feat and now you can cast all the spells. Use Purify Food on rats you can cut up by sharpening a slingstone on the featureless ground, or on another slingstone. The only real problem now is finding the darned rats now that they have infinite room to run away, even if you are faster. But between you having create water and them not being able to find any water (as water would be a feature of the plane, and it doesn't have those), and you having a better resistance to hunger from a better Con Score/HP, they probably will die before you do, or will at least look for you giving you more time to kill them. Also you have a spirit animal hunting buddy. But you could theoretically still be killed if the rats managed to all rush you as you slept or something.
Now, if we really want to get mean, a stone shaman with a Goat familiar would be able to kill all of them by having the goat attack all of them while he ran away, but that would make him effectively immune, which is the reason Shaman came to mind and also is less efficient than a pain tolerant half orc (really, almost anything). So instead I assumed the spirit was Ancestors so the shaman could communicate better with the spirit animal, or else some inconsequential spirit, like flame or wind. Most other divine classes with this chassis could also work though, and druid would probably be better if you do not go with the Stone Spirit Animal shenanigans.
Of course, this doesn't work as well if the rats are rat swarms instead of them simply being a lot of individual rats, though the familiar entry does say they gather in groups of 100 without saying they are a swarm, so maybe you just purchase a bunch of rat plagues that don't work together as well as swarms.
rough stats:
Str 16 (14+2)
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 08
Wis 13
Cha 12
Spirit Animal: Any bird, Cat, or Goat depending on preferences.
Spell prep:
Guidance
Purify food
Create Water
Endure Elements
(Any other first level spell)
Gear (assuming rocks weigh as much as sling bullets, and a 0lbs loincloth)
Theoretically Inifinte Slings (0lbs)
1 Quarterstaff (4lbs)
36 rocks (32lbs all stored in slings)
Skills:
Survival
Craft/Profession (whichever applies to weaving straps of leather into other things)
Perception
Acrobatics
FCB to HP, so between 5 and 12 HP depending on starting health.
Verminous Hunter Archetype, Tiefling (Asura Spawn) with maw or Claw (Claw for 2 attacks on a full attack action), Scaled Skin (+1 AC is great here), any vermin animal companion will work for bonus killing.
Build DEX, WIS, CON. Feat Eschew Materials, Run to gain distance.
Use the Companion to thin the herd, claws for direct killing, 5ft into area cleared by ANCO to cast CLW, Virtue (1 Temp HP), Entangle or obscuring mist for a breather.
Use Aspect Worm for Fast Healing1 on AC, and on self when low on health for better heal tanking than a Cleric, Cantrips for food and drink.
If AC is killed, Summon natures ally literally anything and Run feat to gain serious distance.
Verminous Hunter Archetype, Tiefling (Asura Spawn) with maw or Claw (Claw for 2 attacks on a full attack action), Scaled Skin (+1 AC is great here), any vermin animal companion will work for bonus killing.
Build DEX, WIS, CON. Feat Eschew Materials, Run to gain distance.
Use the Companion to thin the herd, claws for direct killing, 5ft into area cleared by ANCO to cast CLW, Virtue (1 Temp HP), Entangle or obscuring mist for a breather.
Use Aspect Worm for Fast Healing1 on AC, and on self when low on health for better heal tanking than a Cleric, Cantrips for food and drink.
If AC is killed, Summon natures ally literally anything and Run feat to gain serious distance.
didn't they make it so aspect of the worm no longer gives fast healing?
Verminous Hunter Archetype, Tiefling (Asura Spawn) with maw or Claw (Claw for 2 attacks on a full attack action), Scaled Skin (+1 AC is great here), any vermin animal companion will work for bonus killing.
Build DEX, WIS, CON. Feat Eschew Materials, Run to gain distance.
Use the Companion to thin the herd, claws for direct killing, 5ft into area cleared by ANCO to cast CLW, Virtue (1 Temp HP), Entangle or obscuring mist for a breather.
Use Aspect Worm for Fast Healing1 on AC, and on self when low on health for better heal tanking than a Cleric, Cantrips for food and drink.
If AC is killed, Summon natures ally literally anything and Run feat to gain serious distance.
didn't they make it so aspect of the worm no longer gives fast healing?
Verminous Hunter Archetype, Tiefling (Asura Spawn) with maw or Claw (Claw for 2 attacks on a full attack action), Scaled Skin (+1 AC is great here), any vermin animal companion will work for bonus killing.
Build DEX, WIS, CON. Feat Eschew Materials, Run to gain distance.
Use the Companion to thin the herd, claws for direct killing, 5ft into area cleared by ANCO to cast CLW, Virtue (1 Temp HP), Entangle or obscuring mist for a breather.
Use Aspect Worm for Fast Healing1 on AC, and on self when low on health for better heal tanking than a Cleric, Cantrips for food and drink.
If AC is killed, Summon natures ally literally anything and Run feat to gain serious distance.
didn't they make it so aspect of the worm no longer gives fast healing?
rats meating a Dhampir with the alternative ability of Vampiric Empathy start with indifrent attitude, and can then be diplomized to help him. since he can speak with them.
tecnicly since they have 0 reach anyone with constent flight or an ability to levitate 5 ft above ground can just attack them with his 5ft reach. (asuming he's small\medium).
BUT
the most easy way is: a level 1 inquisitor, walk in, activate judgment -Resiliency - gain dr 1/magic that last till the combat end and just go about killing them all. done and done.
