Nearly Perfect Meleebuild;-)

[GawainBS]

My friend and me are trying to get the most out of this build. I know, we're using a lot of books, but that doesn't matter. If you have a problem with a lot of books, think of this as a conceptual exercise. I'm aiming for as much Battlefield Control as possible with a melee character.

Anyway, here goes:

Human Monk 2 / Psychic Warrior 8/ Psychic Weapon Master 5/ Knight 3/ Crusader 2.

PsW = Psychic Warrior. (Expanded Psionics Handbook).
PWM = Psionic Weapon Master. (See here: The Mind's Eye: Psychic Weapon Master - Prestige Class (v.3.5))
Kgt = Knight. (Players Handbook II).
Mnk = Monk.
Cru = Crusader. (Tome of Battle).


1: Mnk Lvl 1: Dodge, Monastic Training (Psychic Warrior), Power Attack
2: Mnk Lvl 2: Combat Reflexes
3: PsW Lvl 1: Mobility, Psionic Dodge
4: PsW Lvl 2: Weapon Focus ( Guisarme)
5: PsW Lvl 3: -
6: PsW Lvl 4: Pole Master
7: PsW Lvl 5: Tashalatora
8: PsW Lvl 6: -
9: PsW Lvl 7: Deft Opportunist or Mageslayer
10: PsW Lvl 8: Psionic Weapon
11: PWM Lvl 1: -
12: PWM Lvl 2: Stand Still
13: PWM Lvl 3: -
14: PWM Lvl 4: -
15: PWM Lvl 5: Improved Combat Reflexes, Robillar's Gambit.
16: Cru Lvl 1: Manouvres & Stances:Crusader's Strike, Defensive Rebuke, Thicket of Blades.
17: Cru Lvl 2: -
18: Kgt Lvl 1: Practised Manifester.
19: Kgt Lvl 2: -
20: Kgt Lvl 3: Bulwark of Defense.


Stats ( 32 Point Buy)

STR 15 (Increase every 4th level).
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 16
CHA 8

With the monk, take the PHB II alternative class feature "Decisive Strike". By taking a full attack, you only make one attack on your turn, but it does double damage, as does every attack before your next round, thus including AoO. I am assuming that your DM treats this as flurry for all purposes of qualification, feats, etc... It sounds pretty fair, since it replaces Flurry.
Thanks to Tashalatora, your key monk abilities keep increasing, including this one.
Take Expand as a power, and also Inertial Armour and Hustle.

This is how it works: Expand to Huge. This, combined with the Guisarme, gives you a 30 feet radius theatened area. With the Guisarme being a monk weapon (Pole Master), you also threaten the "deadzone" of 15 feat closest to you (due to wielding a reach weapon) with your Unarmed Strikes. Se the description of the Monk's Unarmed Strike.
Now to Decisive Strike: one attack at double damage. However, all of your AoO's in the coming round will also do double damage.
You now have a 30 feet radius area which is treated as difficult terrain (Bulwark of Defense from the Knight) and in which 5 ft steps also provoke AoO's. (Thicket of Blades). These AoO's deal double damage. (From Decisive Strike). Stand Still allows you, whenever an AoO due to movement occurs, to forego damaging a foe to force him to remain standing where he is, thus ruining his move action and keeping him in your threatened area.
Thanks to the Psychic Weapon Master's improved Combat Reflexes, you get to add your WIS modifier extra AoO's, which, with a base DEX of 14 (This drops to 10 with Expand to Huge) and WIS of 16 and assuming +6 items to both stats, gives you a total of 10 AoO's, even while flatfooted.
Thanks to Hustle, you can take a move action (which, given your improved Monk speed, is quite a lot of distance.) to reposition yourself and still get a full attack.

Pros:
You own pretty much anything within 30 ft.
Pretty high AC.
High Speed.
High Damage.
Evasion.
Good Fort saves, decent Will.
Not shabby HP.

Cons:
Dependant on enemy actions to get the best of this.
Low Powerpoints.
Low Ref saves.

Personal Notes:
I refused to use the Spiked Chain because it's a lame weapon that's made better than all others.
There are several variations possible, like one with Warmind, to get Sweeping Strikes, or more Psychic Warrior levels to get better manifesting.
If you work in Mageslayer from Complete Arcane, a caster can't cast defensively while in your threatened area and thus always provokes AoO's for casting. He can't 5ft-step out of it either, thanks to Thicket of Blades.

So, what do you guys think? I'm sure I overlooked some things.

[Siberys]

Two things-

One, XP penalty's out the wazoo.
Two, 32 points in a point buy is absurd. 25 is the standard.


This may be the perfect build, but it's made with splatbooks, splatrules, insanely broken rules from psionics, and an ultra high point buy. This is unfortunately the mistake everybody makes in believing they have the best build for a game of D&D. The real challenge is making something equally powerful using ONLY the Players handbook, dungeon masters guide, and monster manual.

[GawainBS]

Two things-

One, XP penalty's out the wazoo.
Two, 32 points in a point buy is absurd. 25 is the standard.


This may be the perfect build, but it's made with splatbooks, splatrules, insanely broken rules from psionics, and an ultra high point buy. This is unfortunately the mistake everybody makes in believing they have the best build for a game of D&D. The real challenge is making something equally powerful using ONLY the Players handbook, dungeon masters guide, and monster manual.

First, it has exactly 0 XP penalty. All the classes are within one level of each other, and it's a human.

Secondly, 32 point buy is listed in the PHB and is standard for most people. Even RPGA (For what it's worth.) uses 28. You could roll stats and come up with better numbers. But, even with the 25 point buy, it's doable.
STR 14 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 9 WIS 14 CHA 8.
Granted, not as powerfull, but fully doable.

Third, Psionics aren't overpowered at all. They're pretty balanced. We had a discussion about it already, let's not bring it back, ok? It's still out there to read.

Fourth, only core books? Dead easy. Three builds: Cleric 20, Druid 20, Wizard 20. Two of those can be perfectly viable melee builds. Only goes to show that the splattiness starts out with Core.

[Faust]

Two things-

One, XP penalty's out the wazoo.
Two, 32 points in a point buy is absurd. 25 is the standard.

I'd be hard pressed to call 32 absurd. It depends on the campaign. 32 is pretty common in difficult campaigns with fewer players.

However, I'd fully agree about the rest of Siberys's comment. I get really irritated by the utilization of 36 books to design a character. Psionics is something that particularly annoys me for some reason. It doesn't have much of a place in your average campaign. In most campaigns I've been part of a character like you've designed would be disallowed. In my opinion, a solid role playing concept should be paramount. I have no problem with selected use of additional source (the PH2 is particularly well done), but I'm struggling to understand how Psychic Warrior/Monk/Knight all flow together.

However, from a pure power gamer stance, you've designed a character that has 3 base classes in the mix. You'd probably be better off trading at least one of those in for more levels in one of your other classes or another prestige class. Though, if you keep them all close together during the process of level up it's not a huge issue. Otherwise, it's a powerful up close fighter-type. I don't know if it qualifies as the perfect character, but it certainly is an extremely powerful one.

[Pandaroon]

As Gawain previously noted, splatbooks are the only way to optimize aside from Druid/Cleric/Wizard 20.
As you could also see, splatbooks gave us a way to bypass the spiked chain, an overpowered core weapon, of which we don't like the flavour.
Psionics is personal flavour, so aside from the previous conversations about broken or not, I won't touch that.
About the baseclasses: Sure, 4 IS a lot, but not when you're considering optimizing. Gawain and I considered many alternatives, mainly to keep the concept but make a more viable flavor. Personally, I dropped the knight, because the whole 'Have at you, Knave' concept just didn't fit in. Monk and Psychic warrior are very fitting, especially with the Tashalatora flavor. Crusader's mainly in there for the easy acces to manoeuvres, but crusaders can fit in the tashalatora flavor too. Personally, I chose to go with the Warmind instead of the PWM, not only to avoid the mobility feats (which I just don't like), but moreso because of the Warmind kicking ass/tentacles/everything that's attacked to an encounter at the back.

[GawainBS]

"Perfect" was used rather liberally.

Psychic Warrior & Monk have a lot of fluff in common, especially in Eberron. I got the idea from an Eberron book. (Secrets of Sarlona, the feat Tashalatora.) In Eberron, Psionics have a huge own place.
To be honest, it uses 5 non-core books: PHBII, Secrets of Sarlona, Complete Arcane, Tome of Battle and Expanded Psionics Handbook, which has nearly core-status since it's SRD material.
Furthermore, it has no basis to say that every optimized character is roleplayed bad. The two are completely unrelated. Which isn't to say that every powerbuild is garantueed to be a tremendous example of RP.

One potential weakness: the difficult terrain won't stop dedicated tumblers. Then again, very few tumblers have the AC & HP to stand up to this guy/gall in close combat.

[Greg.]

I fail to see why you're taking monastic training. That only applies if you intend on taking monk levels later.

And about the point buy issue - we use 18 points, but have starting stats of 10. However, we up the cost for stat points 15+ to 2 points per stat increase.

[GawainBS]

Monastic Training is a prerequisite for Tashalatora.

About the points: 15+ already costs 2 points.

[Siberys]

Fourth, only core books? Dead easy. Three builds: Cleric 20, Druid 20, Wizard 20. Two of those can be perfectly viable melee builds. Only goes to show that the splattiness starts out with Core.

Splat is an unneeded supplemental source book, therefore core books are automatically not considered splat.

I've given my reasons as to why I think psionics are overpowered, but the debate ended because my opinion was apparently wrong by any standards, even though opinions aren't actually right or wrong, they are simply debatable.

My opinion is that Psions are essentially wizards with less limitations on how to use your spells, no caps on damage, and the ability to use any energy in many of the powers just to suit the situation. A wizard that has prepared a fireball and goes up against a fire elemental is screwed, but not a psion even if it is the exact same level spell.

I say 32 is absurd because every single creature in the monster manual that does not have a character description to it is created using 25 points as well. Granted, Planetouched, Ogres, goblins, kobolds, and even hill giants and mind flayers don't use these rules as they have a template for creating a character with it, but everything else does not. 32 is not absurd, true, but this is for the casual gamer who doesn't get a lot of time to play and usually wants to play as much as he can without fear of death. 25 however, is for true RPG fans, as it presents an equilibrium between party and enemies, and a 4th level party taking down a 7th level creature IS challenging, whereas it's a piece of cake with a 4th level party using 32 points.

It was my mistake on the XP penalty, I forgot about the highest class rule for humans.

Expanded Psionics Handbook, which has nearly core-status since it's SRD material.

Being SRD material doesn't make it near core material, not by a longshot. It's an open gaming license thing, not a core rules thing. That's why most SRD's even separate XPH from the "core rules" because XPH is not required to play. The only three books required to play the game have always been and always will be the players handbook, dungeon masters guide, and monster manual, there is nothing else necessary thus why every other book is NOT core and each one lists on the back cover that you "need the core books" to play using these rules.

Furthermore, it has no basis to say that every optimized character is roleplayed bad. The two are completely unrelated.

Exactly, both are unrelated, that is why you choose one or the other when you game. Are you a roll player or a roleplayer, there's a tremendous difference for that. The bad thing about it though is that there is a difference, and there shouldn't be. Having a character that's diplomatic and good with a sword is entirely possible, but nobody makes them that way anymore, at least in stereotypes.

As Gawain previously noted, splatbooks are the only way to optimize aside from Druid/Cleric/Wizard 20.

This is the logic that makes D&D less of a roleplaying adventure and more of a contest of who's a better fighter, and once the question has been resolved there's no point to play the rest of the game. It's much like in world of warcraft when people only want to fight each other and not play the quests of the game. Optimized isn't a word that should ever be used in the game of D&D, there's no point to playing if your sole purpose is to be the best wizard, or cleric, or fighter or any other class, rather than simply be a wizard, cleric, fighter or another class.

Optimization is what's destroying the entertainment to the game.

[GawainBS]

Optimizing to a certain extent IS good roleplaying. Adventurers want to survive. They try to be the best there is, or else they're dead. So, they focus their training on effective means to survive, which can easily be translated into "optimizing." If an optimizer can roleplay his character well, what's the problem? It's not a matter of choosing, it's a matter of combining.

If I was in a party with Wizard who depended on his damagedealing spells in encounters, I'd probably slap him against the head. It's horribly inefficient for a Wizard. Battlefiend control is his mantra. If he wants damage to be dealt, he lets the people with the pointy sticks whack it for a bit.

Just a small counterbalance for Psions: they only know a limited amount of powers, 36 I think. (Could be more, but then he would need to blow feats on it.) That really isn't much. A Wizard can know ALL the spells of his list. Sure, it will cost him money, but by level 20 he has 760 000 gold to spend anyway and he won't need a 200 000gp weapon.
Wether or not Psionics are overpowered isn't an opinion, it's fact. Once again, I agree that Psions, being fullfledged casters, ARE overpowered, just as everything else that can cast 9th level spells/powers. But Psionics as a system? That's pretty balanced. If you like it or not, now that's opinion.

I can fully understand that you don't like splatbooks, but I wanted to try to get the most out of this build. You can optimize a character mechanicly and discuss it, because it uses objective rules and criteria and its effectiveness is measurable to a large extent. (Attack bonus, Saves, HP, etc.) You can't do that with a character's "RPness", because it is a subjective factor, unqiue to each of us.
Maybe a rather lame example: One person could have a blast with his character if he's always talking with "Thee" and "Thou" and being deadly serious all the time, with no streak of humour whatsoever. Another person would probably be bored to cinders with this kind of RP and rather descripe his character in 3rd person, often instigating funny and absurd circumstance and making some sort of parody of the fantasygenre.

There are no rules to fun, but there are rules to D&D mechanics, making the latter the only thing that we could try to get as best as possible on an objective ground.

[Siberys]

Wether or not Psionics are overpowered isn't an opinion, it's fact.

And yet there's evidence to support both clauses making psionics overpowered or underpowered NOT facts, but rather opinions. A wizard can know all spells, yes this is true, but that doesn't mean he has the capability of using them or even having them all prepared in a single day.

A sorcerer however, using the "known" rule, gets less known spells by the end of his career barring cantrips. And because a sorcerers spells per day rely heavily on spells known, it costs 5 spells known all of different levels to have all five energies, but it costs a psion 1 power.

Psionics as a system has the potential to not be broken if you ONLY use psionics as a basis for your campaign. However, in a campaign that simply allows psionics, such as eberron, it is very unbalanced.

[Greg.]

Optimization is what's destroying the entertainment to the game.

Depends on what you find entertaining. Some people obviously like min/maxing.

[GawainBS]

And yet there's evidence to support both clauses making psionics overpowered or underpowered NOT facts, but rather opinions. A wizard can know all spells, yes this is true, but that doesn't mean he has the capability of using them or even having them all prepared in a single day.

A sorcerer however, using the "known" rule, gets less known spells by the end of his career barring cantrips. And because a sorcerers spells per day rely heavily on spells known, it costs 5 spells known all of different levels to have all five energies, but it costs a psion 1 power.

Psionics as a system has the potential to not be broken if you ONLY use psionics as a basis for your campaign. However, in a campaign that simply allows psionics, such as eberron, it is very unbalanced.

No, it's not unbalancing when using both. A sorcerer with so few spells known would do well to take Elven Spelllore from PHBII, Energy Substitution from Complete Arcane or become an Archmage and take the Spellenergy feature. (Not sure about its exact name.)
But again: the true power of casters isn't in the damage they deal. It's about things like Gate, Wish, Timestop and Shapechange. Or, in the lower levels, Sleep or Glitterdust, Solid Fog, the whole slew of Divination spells.
Again: the Psion has his own arsenal of insanely powerfull Powers, more or less on par with the Wizard/Cleric/Druid, but that's rather a problem of 9th level casting in general. Banning Psionics won't take care of this problem, it will only close down an intresting system.
Remember, for purpose of Spell Resistance and such, Psionics = Magic.

Oh, and I really don't understand why a good roleplayer can't also be a min/maxer. Most of my players are both.

Back to topic: Has someone an idea what could be done against Tumblers?

[Uller]

I have never played Psionics in any of my 20+ years of playing D&D. It's really just a choice more than anything else and I guess the main "put off" for me was back in the days of AD&D where someone with a psionic rating of 1 (highest back then) could pretty much have a field day with everything that didn't have psionics or was of a lower psionic ability....

I guess I just don't use it because the range of spells within the game (for me) contains enough variety...

I guess I am kind of like those players who flatly refuse to use prestige classes because they see enough scope and flexibility within the core classes (players handbook).

Me on the other hand, I don't think there is anything wrong with using psionics within a campaign if you want to. After all its there as an option to be used.



On the other note with your question about tumblers? Wouldn't using a reach weapon cut their chances of tumbling out down a fair amount?

[GawainBS]

Someone who can consistently beat a DC 25 Tumble check has no problem with moving at full speed while avoiding AoO's. The reachweapon doesn't change that.
Psionics in its current incarnation is well-balanced, even more so than Core. Things that have field days with everything in creation are now Wizards, Clerics and Druids.
I also think that the PHB *should* be able to cover the whole spectrum of "builds", "concepts", whatever you which to call it, but sadly enough, it doesn't, unless you want to cripple yourself. But that's a whole other discussion.

[Oskatat]

i cant think of anything to actively stop tumblers. since everyone els is likely to keep a distance from you, the simple solution is to hit a tumbler hard and early. unless there are 2 rogues sneaking you, you should be able to take out one? Or you could go in a group instead of alone and trust someone else to pick off the tumblers?

there is always one build that will slip past your "optimized" character, that is why people adventure in mixed parties

[GawainBS]

Two rogues that are sneaking that build, are dead. Robillar's Gambit = every time someone attacks you, you get an AoO. One of the Psionic Powers that this guy has, is Greater Concealing Amorpha, which means 50% miss chance. So, every attack of the rogue has 50% chance to miss, has to get through the AC and wether or not it hits, the rogue still gets an AoO.

[Oskatat]

then why worry about tumblers?

[GawainBS]

For example: Throwers with tumble and Close Combat Shot.

[Uller]

Your optimised char wouldn't have a good fort save would he not? So I guess watching out for spells such as disintegrate, wither limb etc may be something to look into...

However if he does have good fort saves then watch out for the Raging Barbarian of the same level who gets his over 50% hit in....I have found that to always sting....especially if a Great Axe is involved and he has Bulls Strength cast on him.