The Contest Thread

[Username17]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
The "Last Call" Thread was merged with selected portions of the Cheese thread in order to keep the Cheese thread on topic.
[/TGFBS]

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.p ... ]Hillarity ensues.

K and I decided that it was time that the Character Optimization people learned how weak they were, and the fact that they created a contest that I was mysteriously allowed to join was the perfect opportunity.

Heh.

-Username17

[Zherog]

Race/Class/Level: The Word is a Human Sorcerer 1/
Assassin 1/Wujen 1/ Warmage 1/Mage of the Arcane Order 9/
Wizard 1/Sublime Chord 1/ Suel Arcanamach 1/Emancipated
Spawn 2/Bard 1. Yes, Really.

[Thoth_Amon]

Third Life: Rakshasa
The Word does not actually die, but he does undergo a
Ritual of Vitality (Savage Species, page 150), this sets
him back 105,000 XP, leaving him barely enough XP to be
13th level. He can't drop the racial levels until the
Ritual goes off, so instead he loses a bunch of Bard
levels. As per the FAQ, the highest class levels (in this
case the Bard levels) are lost first, reducing him to a
Shadow 10/ Sublime Chord 1/ Emancipated Spawn 1/ Bard 1,
and then replacing the Shadow levels with 14 levels of
Rakshasa.

When you lose enough bard levels that it is no longer your highest class does it keep pulling from them because you are doing it all at one time or does it peel the levels off one at a time?

Nevermind. It took me a second (3 minutes), but I finally figured it out...

TA

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Those two spellcasters, however, should be setting records for ridiculous power.

You two have a fan, it would seem.

[Username17]

Heh. Savage Species with its "you trade XP for power without affecting your current level" trick was always bad. That there is an item in the Complete Arcane that allows you to "recover all spent XP with no power reduction" just makes that trick insane.

There's no reason why you couldn't just transform yourself and regain levels over and over again without limit. This is the infinite Mental Stats loop. I can't believe they printed that.

Actually, with 3.5's level of oversight, I can. Never Mind.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Wow, Alhoon is complaining about how Frank and K's entry is too over-the-top. Isn't that like complaining that the winner of a footrace ran too fast? The point of a cheese contest isn't to make a character any sane DM would allow, it's to make the most powerful legal character you can!

-Desdan

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Although, since this will be determined by voting, there isn't much chance of you guys winning. The Cahracter optimization regulars are shortsighted, and hate being beaten in their own game. Therefore, they won't vote for you guys.

This will be a very definitive moral victory, I think.

[Draco_Argentum]

Well I'll read the other entries for the sake of good form but I think you'll have my vote. Someone post a reminder when voting starts.

[Username17]

Well, the first day of potential postings is just about over, and so far it looks like everybody is keeping their heads down. Odd, I had really expected some other people to come out swinging with an Incantatrix-Druid that fueled Shapechange based on skill checks that in turn could be boosted with skill and feat bonuses gained from Wildshape.

Or a character who went around with a pack of Divine Sudden Quickens to make everybody cry.

Or a character who pumped elemental turning out into crazy land and commanded an army of efreets to grant themselves wishes.

Or Throquool the Mind Flayer Highlander.

Or a Druid who combined Natural Spell, Awaken, Practised Spellcaster, and a Thought Bottle to Shapechange for forever.

Or, you know... something that was basically just like my build. Certainly not have the first guy come out with two moderately effective Cleric Archers and then nothing. I suspect that everyone saw what we had and then went back to the drawing board to come up with somehing a bit more over-the-top than their previous plan of not telling the good guys where their hideout was, and way more awesome than their original plan: "treehouse".

-Username17

[Naar]

I take my hat off to you, Frank and K. That thread on the Wizards board gave me a great laugh.

[MrWaeseL]

That's so awesome. You have my vote.

[Zherog]

I see Josh has tossed down the proverbial gauntlet on the thread at WotC.

[Username17]

Hey Josh, there's still a few more days, want to post a duo based on a Druid and an Incantatrix? We could make two Sisters of nigh-unlimited power instead of two brothers. They could fight or something...

A simple form layering Shapechange character who abused all the Shapechange rules would be pretty funny. The Druid could use the Incantatrix's Magic Jar out of a Ring of Spellstoring and then pop people into Phoenixes which the Incantatrix could dominate.

Meanwhile, the Druid would layer multiple transformations on top of each other in order to get all the feats and all the special abilities and pounce for a huge pile of damage. And by huge, I mean that it would on average drop a primal earth elemental in one round.

-Username17

[Sir Neil]

K and I decided that it was time that the Character Optimization people learned how weak they were....

That was beautiful.

[Boulie_98]

1100797756[/unixtime]]Meanwhile, the Druid would layer multiple transformations on top of each other in order to get all the feats and all the special abilities and pounce for a huge pile of damage. And by huge, I mean that it would on average drop a primal earth elemental in one round.

-Username17

I'd love to see this.

Not that the other two aren't good enough for me, but when we're talking cheese, more is better.

[The_Hanged_Man]

I like the fact that they have a contest involving Masters of the Wild and the Complete books. It's like having a footrace, and saying you can use sneakers, shorts, sweatpants, a headband, and, oh yeah, you can also have an F-16.

And I tip my hat to the Wish and the Word. Very nice. Just wondering, wouldn't MKD be a pain for the Wish?

edit - and you guys obviously went all out, but it looks like simple abuses of Gate and Shapechange would win this contest.

[fbmf]

The Wish has access to a number of divinations. That
number is “all of them”.

Game On,
fbmf

[Username17]

The idea behind The Wish and The Word is to win D&D without rolling dice. They don't do as much damage as other min/maxxed craziness, they don't have the raw firepower, or the infinite loops.

But they do have the ability to kill any enemy without ever rolling a die, and the ability to undo any encounter without rolling a die. They don't have a 1 in 20 chance of having their trick not go off - they don't have any chance of having their trick not go off. They just win, instantly and irrevoccably.

The Multi Druid has upwards of 18 attacks per round which individually do hundreds of points of damage. It can wade through virtually unlimited enemies and can give itself double digit Fast Healing in between combats for free. The MultiWizard backs this up with an intense loathing of doing work and has at his disposal hundreds, perhaps thousands of Epic monsters.

But Hextor beats those guys. He knows where their army is and automatically makes his saves and can negate the first round's worth of damage and can immediately bug out and come back later after he's figured out a way to harm them using his nigh-unlimited hordes of fiends and magical power.

He beats them because there are dice rolls involved. That's his problem. It's not that the multidruid isn't a better character - she totally is. It's that she has a chance - any chance - of not killing all of her enemies before the first turn begins.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

What about the uberdiplomatist? You could take a 1 and change NPC attitudes from hostile to friendly.

[User3]

And I tip my hat to the Wish and the Word. Very nice. Just wondering, wouldn't MKD be a pain for the Wish?

Thanks to the fun that is Contingent Spell and Wishes, the answer is "no."

There is nothing stopping the Wish from Wishing to create a Contingent Wish that counterspells or MDKs the caster casting MDK or doing any number of other wacky things.

Even if there is some unforeseen counter-cheese, the Wish can just leave a petrified goblin somewhere with a Contingent Wish on it to create a new Ring for The Wish when its belly is rubbed.

[The_Hanged_Man]

That's truly kewl.

[Username17]

Remember, while Wish can't replicate a 9th level spell, a 9th level scroll at caster level 20th only costs 4,500 gp. So, um... good luck with that.

-Username17

[Alansmithee]

I really like the Word build, it seems the end-all be-all of the uber-holy word builds. But I don't understand how you can get a ring of infinite wish? Is there something i'm missing?

-Edit I read the explanation on the CO board, and now I understand. I haven't reread Wish since 3.0, so I didn't know that the spell had gotten rid of the GP limit on magic items. Also, it seems as if the whole CO board was up in arms trying to take the pair down. I think you blew their minds (although I remember another build that could get high 80's words, and could 1shot up to 110 or so). Don't know why your's has them up in arms so much, just because you throw the bottle exploit on top doesn't mean it's any worse. I really think the bottle is one of the most poorly designed, metagamed items ever.

[Username17]

The Wish's trick is really, really simple. In 3rd edition
a Wish could grant you any magic item with a cost of up to
15,000 GP, and no more. 3.5's Wish, on the other hand, can
give you any magical item of any cost. The only caveat, is
that if you wish up a magic item that has a cost of more
than 15,000, the XP cost of the spell goes up past 5,000
XP. That's the key, because if you are granted a Wish off
an Efreet or in some other way use a Spell Like Ability to
replicate Wish, you don't have to pay the XP cost, no
matter how high it is.

What it doesn't say, and indeed what it should probably
say, is that with the basic Wish you get a 15,000 GP item
and then have the option of paying XP to pump the value up
even more. With a wording like that, your Spell-Like
Ability bypass of the XP cost would be no big deal.
Unfortunately, the extra XP is just part of the XP cost of
the spell, so you don't have to pay it the same way you
don't have to pay the original 5,000 XP. Oh well.

So making an item of Infinite Wishes is actually really
simple. It's a 9th level spell cast at CL 20 with a 5,000
XP cost per use, so that would normally be 1,574,000 gold
to buy outright, or 162,000 gp and 262,960 XP to make -
right out of the DMG and you don't even need Epic Feats to
make it. Now, when you make it with Wish the price goes up
even more - the total XP cost is even higher - going up to
a not inconsiderable 530,920 XP. That's... alot of XP.
More XP, in fact, than anyone in this contest has to
spend.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately depending upon your
point of view, there is no requirement for a user of a
spell-like ability to have been able to pay the components
of a spell when he doesn't have to actually pay it. So
when an Efreet's Wish granting ability doesn't have to pay
that 530,920 XP to cast the spell, it also doesn't have to
have that much XP. Similarly, when it uses its Planeshift
ability it doesn't need to use a tuning fork tuned to the
plane it is going to, and it doesn't need to have been
able to supply such a tuning fork either.

-Username17

[Username17]

I'd love to see this.

Josh can't do it, but if anyone else wants to make a crazy shapechanging/magic jarring pair, I'd be willing to send in my half of a second submission tomorrow.

-Username17