The Ultimate Min-max character

[Dante]

Nobody can compare to this guy. Nobody.

The God of Damage-Dealing (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142565&perpage=30&pagenumber=1)

[Raiden]

Dude. Thats........................I'm scared.

[gh0st]

cooool. talk about a one (half-)ogre army.

[Forever Zero]

That's just insane. I'm guessing that a few rules need to be looked at, because that is just crazy that one character could become that powerful.

[BMHadoken]

Were in the world are they gunna get that much of anything?

[Raiden]

And that's just one of them! Think of having two, or maybe three of them!

[Neverwhere]

all u gotta do is protection from normal missles.. thats just a normal missle shot... and if you enchant it you can just do absolute immunity or something

[VeritasHertz]

I see only one flaw in this plan: lead poisoning.

Truthfully though, the warhulk prestige class is one step over the line in my opinion. Although one of it's downsides is the negation of all skills that are mental stat based (ie. Int, Wis, Cha [at least i think])

[Dante]

all u gotta do is protection from normal missles.. thats just a normal missle shot... and if you enchant it you can just do absolute immunity or something

Not in 3e, where there are no perfect defense-type spells, like 2e stoneskin. You can completely ignore DR, unless someone throws up a wall of force...

I think warhulk doesn't give BAB, which is another reason why it isn't so bad...

[Muffin Mage]

Ye gods! Just cast protection from normal missiles if unenchanted.

Or, using the leetness of psionics, you could use matter rearrangement to give his lead ball the properties of mercury. :D

[Thinkmeat]

Or you could point out that ranged attack bonus is not based off strength, and that he'd have a bitch of a time hitting any character with a passable AC... not to mention carrying all the lead balls.

On top of that, what about deflect arrows? Either the lead ball is a normal projectile which can be aimed and thrown, and therefore deflected, or it's a siege weapon (which is obviously is--how in the hell would armor stop this?), which means that deflect arrows is powerless to stop it...

... which also means that you don't even get to apply your base attack bonus to attack rolls. It's a flat d20. You ain't gonna hit anything with any AC at all.

On the other hand, being able to deal that much damage to structures IS pretty nice (:

"I'm dancin' like a monkey!" - GIR

[Dante]

Or you could point out that ranged attack bonus is not based off strength, and that he'd have a bitch of a time hitting any character with a passable AC... not to mention carrying all the lead balls.

On top of that, what about deflect arrows? Either the lead ball is a normal projectile which can be aimed and thrown, and therefore deflected, or it's a siege weapon (which is obviously is--how in the hell would armor stop this?), which means that deflect arrows is powerless to stop it...

... which also means that you don't even get to apply your base attack bonus to attack rolls. It's a flat d20. You ain't gonna hit anything with any AC at all.

On the other hand, being able to deal that much damage to structures IS pretty nice (:

"I'm dancin' like a monkey!" - GIR

Hmm... I remember seeing somewhere on that post the ability to apply strength to your attack roll with big rocks. I'll go dig it up.

And don't forget - the various protection spells only prevent a set amount of damage each round, and the lead ball he's throwing weighs in excess of 75000 lbs... so you'll need lots of molecular rearrangement to get around that.

EDIT: I checked the thread and the books both PrCs came from. Nothing about the Str to attack. My mistake. Sorry.

[BMHadoken]

Besides for a situation like this, why in the hell is there a skill for throwing things...

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

because a mercury slick the size of rhode island is better than a giant lead ball?

[AzaggThoth]

I cought this in post one of that creepy mound of numbers.


Warhulk: Prereqs BAB 5, large size, power attack. Benefits: 10 levels gives +20 strength, boulder throwing (strength instead of dex to hit, damage 2d8, hit 4 targets with a single throw).


I fear for my character at a DnD RPG.

[Muffin Mage]

Hell, why not turn it into sodium? Giving you a ginormous explosion that will eliminate any further threat.

Or florine, which would kill everything within about fifty miles.

Or uranium, which would kill everything within fifty miles and then be stolen by terrorists.

And so forth and so on.

[Thinkmeat]

That str instead of dex for the attack rolls is just insane... As I've said before, I have absolutely no respect for people who will use obviously unbalanced things from insane books and then claim they're good at D&D. Anyway.

If you can apply *any* stat--str or dex-- to the attack roll, it can't be a siege engine attack. If it's a normal attack roll, it can therefore be deflected (however irrationally) with deflect arrows (or even caught with gloves of arrow snaring). The projectile is such that throwing more than one during a single round is impossible; bags of holding can't carry them, and somehow tying them together to be dragged would take waaay too long to untie. It's absurd to just swat these things away, but it's absurd to be using them in the first place.

On the other hand, if the projectile is big enough to count as a siege attack (so that deflect arrows couldn't handle it), you'd no longer be able to apply dex or BAB to the attack roll. Since it reads "str *instead of* dex", you can't stuff the str on there unless there already is dex.

The build is less effective than it looks, but mostly it's just really, really stupid. I got the impression that the guy who made it made it just because he could; sort of a "hey, look how queer these insanely unbalanced abilites are" thing, and that's ok. Even so, this is nothing more than a very good reason to never allow or use the books that those abilities are taken from.

"I just need... living my own life" - Mudvayne (Not Falling)

[Dante]

The Complete Warrior - Hulking Hurler

Miniatures Handbook - Warhulk

And you are wrong about the Deflect Arrows - only arrows and other normal throwing weapons can be deflected unless you have the Exceptional Deflection epic feat, in which case anybody and his brother can bounce a rock like that.

Sicne it says strength instead of Dex, wouldn't that render the amount of Dex you have immaterial?

Yeah, the guy did build it for fun, but It's probably more a sign of how Wizard's didn't expect the rules to nteract.

[Thinkmeat]

And you are wrong about the Deflect Arrows - only arrows and other normal throwing weapons

Precisely. If it stops being a normal thrown weapon--and it obviously has, no way you could deflect the thing--it becomes a seige weapon, which means that you would not get dex to the attack roll. It says "str instead of dex"; if you couldn't apply dex, there's no dex to replace with str.

The Complete Warrior - Hulking Hurler

Miniatures Handbook - Warhulk

I should have figured. The minatures handbook was balanced by the short bus of Whitney High, and the Complete Warrior is about on par with the Arms and Equipment for just how badly they're balanced. Do those people even play the game?

Of course, this is all my opinion... but I'm right. Just look at some of the things they're putting out. I'm sure we've all seen things in the addon books that are just plain insane.

"My tea's gone cold, I'm wondrin' why I got out of bed at all" - Elton John (Eminem feat Elton John - Stan [grammies])

[Dante]

Precisely. If it stops being a normal thrown weapon--and it obviously has, no way you could deflect the thing--it becomes a seige weapon, which means that you would not get dex to the attack roll. It says "str instead of dex"; if you couldn't apply dex, there's no dex to replace with str.


It's not a siege attack - a creature delivers it, and you can't atack the ground. There's no scatter for it either. Deflect Arrows doesn't apply to it, the same way it wouldn't apply to a ray or another giant boulder, but that doesn't make it a siege attack.


I should have figured. The minatures handbook was balanced by the short bus of Whitney High, and the Complete Warrior is about on par with the Arms and Equipment for just how badly they're balanced. Do those people even play the game?

Of course, this is all my opinion... but I'm right. Just look at some of the things they're putting out. I'm sure we've all seen things in the addon books that are just plain insane.


Amen to that. This is just one of them.

(On a side note, I am perfectly happy with my Mystic Theurge and have no desire to play a hulking hurler...)

[Mikorlias Zard]

Half-Dragon Half-Ogre thus described: 2391d6 + 44 damage... at 20th level, just by throwing a big metal ball at someone.

305d6 damage... from the Vengeful Gaze of God epic spell, causing 200d6 points of backlash damage, the spell requiring 3,771,000gp, 76 days and 150,840XP to develop with a Spellcraft DC of 419, no way can this spell be developed by any Spellcaster much below 400 levels, if I'm correct.

OMG, this is so unbalanced it's funny!

Of course, there are drawbacks.
One assumes that any Sorcerer 10, Mindbender 10 (equal level to said Half-Ogre/Half-Dragon) could permanantly enthrall this creature, until a Sorcerer 11, Mindbender 11 came along.
Don't forget the Rogue 20 sneaking up behind him and throwing a poisoned dagger in his back, before sneaking away before uber metal destroyer ball of doom comes a-visiting.
And returning... the returning feature impies that the magical returning force matches, and exceeds, the force behind the thrown object, thus, the object turns backwards.
If we take damage as a representation of force, then the force of the big metal ball is about 8 times as powerful as the Vengeful Gaze of God spell. Thus, it would take magic just over 8 times as powerful as the Vengeful Gaze of God Spell to make it return. If we now take the Spellcraft DC as a rough determiner of spell level, 419x8+1(to make it return, rather than just stop)=3353.
Oh yeah, just find a 3353 level Wizard to enchant it...
Thus, an enchantment to make this thing return would be of about Caster Level 3353, compared to the Caster Level of Returning, which is 7.
To establish the enchantment bonus for the metal ball's returning feature...
3353 divided by 7 equals 479. Multiply by the caster level of the original returning (+1) and you (quite obviously) get 479.
A +480 Enchantment Bonus (needs at least a +1 generic bonus to be magical) to an item would cost, according to the ELH table...
480 squared equals 230400.
Multiply by 10000gp equals 2,304,000,000gp
So, all we need is over 2 thousand million (is that 2 billion?) gp and a level 3353 wizard to make this thing return.
Perhaps we should just let this thing carry on smashing it's way halfway across the globe bringing destruction everywhere it goes, eventually falling into the sea and smashing against the side of a continent, causing seismic disturbances of unthinkable magnitude.

Mikorlias Zard
Elven Physicist.

[Muffin Mage]

Any 5th level wizard with Craft Magic Arms and Armor can make it returning, yo. And you only need to make it +1. But you need a masterwork enormous lead ball to do it. Or mithril, or adamantine.

And by level 20, 2 billion gp is chump change to a decent party with a slightly parsimonious DM.

Besides which, any level 19 psion should be able to enthrall this sucka.

[Mikorlias Zard]

Any 5th level wizard with Craft Magic Arms and Armor can make it returning, yo. And you only need to make it +1. But you need a masterwork enormous lead ball to do it. Or mithril, or adamantine.

And by level 20, 2 billion gp is chump change to a decent party with a slightly parsimonious DM.

Besides which, any level 19 psion should be able to enthrall this sucka.

I know the Returning feature is only +1, and any 5th level spellcaster with Craft Maic Arms and Armour could make it, I'm just looking at it from a pedantic and physics point of view. No +1 enchantment is going to make that thing stop and turn back on itself. Unless, of course, it was a tricksy sort of enchantment which, rather than opposing the force of the ball, would instead turn just over half of the (already existing) force of the ball backwards, so no -extra- force is needed.

A mithril version of this ball... mithril is light, uber-light... the ball would have to be ENORMOUS!
Though Adamantine'd work.

2billiongp as chump change? The DM would have to be pretty parsimonious, as I think at Epic level, most characters have some millions of gold pieces, nowhere near billions.

I, admittedly, know very little (alright, next to nothing) about Psions. Narieth (my campaign setting) has some psionics in it, Mindflayers for a start, as well as the legendary historical figure of the Drow Sorceress/Psion Varis'y'at Nethend'ris, who was close to world domination until a Catfolk Wizard defeated her. I'm sure, of course, that a lvl 19 Psion could 'enthrall this sucker'.

Mikorlias Zard

[natowarhead]

2billiongp as chump change? The DM would have to be pretty parsimonious, as I think at Epic level, most characters have some millions of gold pieces, nowhere near billions

no, no... he said for a high level party it's chump change....

convincing your friends to give their campaign savings is a wee difficult however. (read: it ain't gonna happen)

____________
earlier someone mentioned deflection...
i don't believe it would matter much. deflection makes the item bounce off you and land a predetermined distance away. if the guy is throwing a gargantuan item, it's not likely to be deflected far enough to completely miss the target.
also, i think there's errata on deflection when pertaining to things over a certain weight.

[Mikorlias Zard]

no, no... he said for a high level party it's chump change....

convincing your friends to give their campaign savings is a wee difficult however. (read: it ain't gonna happen)

Ah yes, party...

Ok, then, say about 6 lvl 20 characters with 4,300,000gp each.
6x4,300,000 = 25,800,000

From that, 2 bil is chump change, but don't forget that a lot of that money will not be in gold pieces, a lot of it will be -invested- in epic level magic items. Heck, that's what I'd do if I had that much money. ;)

(How many +5 Everdancing Vorpal Longswords was that?) Lol.

Ahem, well, back to reality.

Mikorlias Zard

[natowarhead]

i cannot refute your logic my friend... i bow down.

oh, why can't the guy just grab a random boulder or mountain. sure it may count as improvised weapon, but it would still do a boat-, no, armada-load of damage. (-2 or -4 ain't much)

[Muffin Mage]

Because you can do a whole lot more damage with a big chunk of lead, of course.

:rmage: - But I could do more with a paperclip and an onion.

[e-man2001]

just.... oh dear god the squishies.

[Dante]

You know, you guys are being really dumb when it comes to the material of the ball. We use lead simply because it's dense, thus allowing a smaller weapon to do the same amount of damage as a larger volume of rock. Somebody mentioned osmium, which would allow for a smaller bal, possibly allowing it to be hurled with one hand.

And MZ, it's magic. it doesn't matter how big the damn weapon is, magic takes care of that. If there can be Colossal greatswords of dancing, then surely there can be colossal osmium orcish shotputs or returning.

Incidentally, as I said before, you can completely sidestep the throwing damage limitation by simply swinging the damn thing as a melee weapon.

[Mikorlias Zard]

You know, you guys are being really dumb when it comes to the material of the ball. We use lead simply because it's dense, thus allowing a smaller weapon to do the same amount of damage as a larger volume of rock. Somebody mentioned osmium, which would allow for a smaller bal, possibly allowing it to be hurled with one hand.

And MZ, it's magic. it doesn't matter how big the damn weapon is, magic takes care of that. If there can be Colossal greatswords of dancing, then surely there can be colossal osmium orcish shotputs or returning.

Incidentally, as I said before, you can completely sidestep the throwing damage limitation by simply swinging the damn thing as a melee weapon.

1.) Agreed with the material. A ton of iron weighs as much as a ton of feathers after all.

2.) And I wasn't arguing about returning on a rules or a magical basis, just some deranged physics basis.

3.) And the main point about this character is that he (or she) is a Hulking Hurler. He/she can throw up to his/her medium load, not attack with in melee.

Mikorlias Zard

[Muffin Mage]

True dat, but you could also do something truly evil with it.

Bigby's crushing hand, anyone?