Want to see a 20th level character?

[Ragorn]

http://www.rpgwebprofiler.net/view.php?id=44158

We're starting an epic-level (post-20) campaign, and this is my initial character sheet. The campaign starts after a catalcysm and a loss of memory, so I was instructed to create this character without a name, or a background story.

This character's base class is Duskblade. This is a 'new' base class presented in the Player's Handbook 2 (and not on the SRD website). The Duskblade is like a Fighter-Wizard with a very limited spell list. He can cast spells in light armor, he gets a good attack bonus and good saves, and he has the ability to cast spells into his weapon and discharge them while attacking. For example, as my normal attack action, I can cast shocking grasp into my weapon and swing it once. If it connects, I do normal attack damage plus 5d6 electricity damage from the shocking grasp. The Duskblade can also cast spells normally, of course, and he gets a number of mobility-enhancing spells in addition to offensive magic.

I've also chosen to take 7 levels in Dervish, which is a prestige class from Complete Warrior. The Dervish is like a dancing swashbuckler, who attacks with blazing speed as he nances all over the battlefield. Normally, if you move in a combat round, you can only take one attack that round. You can only take multiple attacks if you stand still for a full round (you are allowed a single 5' step in any direction, however). The Dervish has a special ability called Dervish Dance that I can use 4/day. While dancing, I can take multiple attacks during my movement. So I can run up to an enemy, slash him, move around to his side, slash again, move behind him, slash a third time, then move to another enemy and attack him too. The Dervish also gets a bonus to his movement speed, and a couple other nifty abilities.

At the very bottom of the sheet, I've displayed all my various attack and armor bonuses, to help me figure out exactly what my hit/dam and AC are at any given time.

You can also see the equipment I've chosen to buy. Most of it comes from the SRD website, but there are exceptions (my amulet, for example) that I pulled from offline sourcebooks.

[moritheil]

Ooh, I'll have to nitpick it sometime. I ought to mention that I personally dislike the duskblade progression :( It doesn't qualify for epic spells and it doesn't qualify for advanced fighter feats. But it does offer some neat things and saves the hassle of multiclassing to get them.

Duskblade/Dervish is interesting; let us know how it holds up in epic play! :D

PS - The retributive amulet is so broken :P

[Ragorn]

The retributive amulet is RETARDEDLY broken, but we're playing an "anything goes" campaign ;)

The thing I find most striking about the Duskblade is that prestige classing it is very difficult. You basically have to choose attack progression or spell progression, because it's hard to find a PrC that offers both. The prestige classes that DO offer full spell progression with Fighter BAB (Eldritch Knight, Spellsword) are really just early versions of the Duskblade itself. You're almost always better off staying pure Duskblade and increasing your Quick Cast and Arcane Power bonuses.

For this character, I chose to abandon spell progression after 13th level. Vampiric Touch is really the best spell on the Duskblade list, it's the best spell that can be applied to his weapon. I went to Duskblade 13 for full-round arcane channeling (applies the spell to every attack in a given round, not just the first) and prestiged from there.

No, there are no epic feats which really fit into this character. I don't have Cleave/Greater Cleave (the Dervish gets Cleave for free while Dervish Dancing, but that doesn't count as a pre-requisite), so I can't take Overwhelming Critical. I don't cast epic spells and I don't have any metamagics, so most of the casting feats don't apply to me. I don't qualify for Multispell (cast more than one Quickened spell a round) because it requires 9th level spellcasting. I may just take Great Strength, Epic Toughness, or Epic Skill Focus (UMD) and go from there.

[moritheil]

Yeah; balance-wise, the problem I have with Duskblade is that vamp touch quick-casting can easily be duplicated with a spell-storing weapon (only once per fight, but if you need more, you're in trouble either way.) The class strikes me as a little weak. On the other hand, it can be played as a caster/melee blend from 1 to 20, which is definitely not possible for the fighter/mage builds out there.

I'd say you're a brave man to go into epic with it, but I'm sure you have something up your sleeve ;)

[Ragorn]

Well yeah, if you notice, I have a spell storing weapon there. The effects stack.

I think the Duskblade is far and away the best martial melee class they've printed so far. Your power increases dramatically at 13th level, when arcane channelings starts to affect every swing you take in a given round. With a caster level of 17, I'm getting +8d6 from my Vampiric Touch up to four times a round. Magic Immune enemy? No problem. Cast true strike and Power Attack for +20. With the two-handed falchion, that's 2d4+65 damage on a non-crit (and a crit range of 15-20).

Lot of good utility spells too. Energy aegis grants resistance 20 to you or a party mate as an immediate action. Stand negates broken trip-machines. Halt keeps the dragon from charging you. Swift fly and swift expeditious retreat put you where you need to be. Blade of blood helps you put a little extra oomph behind that big power attack.

All in all, you've got a ton of flexibility that Fighters find themselves lacking. You even get a second good save.

[moritheil]

You make a compelling case. I suppose it looks pretty good compared to a fighter - I've never actually made that comparison. I always thought Energy Aegis just plain sucked because it only works against targeted spells, but I suppose sooner or later it will be useful. Does Halt allow no SR? It didn't strike me as something useful against dragons when I first read it.

When considering power, I compare everything to an artificer or cleric :P

[Ragorn]

Halt allows SR and a saving throw. Other than the orb spells, you won't find many 3rd level spells that usefully bypass SR. Energy Aegis has no requirements. It's an immediate action you can cast on yourself or another target in response to an 'attack,' which I interpret to mean just about anything, including a fireball or a dragon's breath.

At the end of the day, any class that one-dimensionally focuses on combat damage won't stack up to a full progression caster. But as far as martial damage classes go, I think this is the best one out there.

[moritheil]

Halt allows SR and a saving throw. Other than the orb spells, you won't find many 3rd level spells that usefully bypass SR. Energy Aegis has no requirements. It's an immediate action you can cast on yourself or another target in response to an 'attack,' which I interpret to mean just about anything, including a fireball or a dragon's breath.

At the end of the day, any class that one-dimensionally focuses on combat damage won't stack up to a full progression caster. But as far as martial damage classes go, I think this is the best one out there.

Ah, in most RAW discussions I see Energy Aegis interpreted as working against a targeted attack, which of course makes it useless vs. cone of cold, fireball, and basically the vast majority of energy damage spells. (This is because of the wording of the Energy Aegis text - it can be read to imply that the attack must be targeted against you.)

The baatezu is in the details! :(

[Ragorn]

Update time :)

So far, we've been in four combats. The first was a "warm up," comprised of ten (10) Illithids of CR 14. My +19 Will save was more than enough to resist their Mind Blast, so I used my tremendous physical damage to slice them to ribbons. This combat made me wish I had Greater Cleave, because just one Cleave a round wasn't enough.

Our second fight was against two Pit Fiends, each CR 20. With Haste and Inspire Courage from the party Bard, I was able to hit these monsters with all 4 of my attacks on anything but a natural 1. I pulled one of the Pit Fiends away from the party and cut it down with Power Attack. The other Pit Fiend failed an unlucky save against Destruction, and got nuked to death in one round.

Our third fight was against the Tarrasque. The T-bomb swallowed our Warforged Juggernaut in the first round, but couldn't swallow me because of my Ring of Freedom of Movement (MVP item, by the way). So the WFJ went to town on the Tarrasque from the inside, and I was left on the outside to do my thing. With Haste, I was swinging 5 times a round for 40-50 physical damage per swing, plus 8d6 worth of Vampiric Touch (which broke the Tarrasque's SR about half the time). Between the Retributive Amulet, my temporary hit points from Vampiric Touch, and the Cleric's heals, I was able to basically tank the thing with my horrible 32 AC. In the four rounds the battle took, I put out around 500 damage.

The fourth battle was against two Glooms, who attacked us with surprise. Both Glooms sneak attacked me in the surprise round. One critted, and penetrated my Medium Fortification. I failed my Fortitude save and died instantly. Can't prepare for everything :)

[Birile]

*mourn*

[Ragorn]

True Resurrected about two minutes later ;)

[rylan]

Don't mourn, I'm sure he got resurrected quickly :P

[Ragorn]

Don't mourn, I'm sure he got resurrected quickly :P

Even faster than you could post ;)

[Arilin Nydelahar]

So, wtf is a gloom? :P I'd like to know since you beat the shit out of the tarrasque what a gloom is so I know never to fuck with one?

[Tasan]

Basically it's a perfect assassin as a race. Think true camo in shadow + nasty backstab :)

[Eilistraee]

You'll also note Ragorn mentioned failing a saving throw. There is a 'massive damage' rule in that when you take more than X amount, I believe X = 50, from a single attack you have to make a fortitude save or die immediately.

A critical on a sneak attack performed by perfect assassin would quite likely exceed that damage level and mandate a saving throw. And in saving throw's, a 1 can always happen.

[moritheil]

Oh wow. It's unusual that a Dervish (or any TWF damage dealer) finds Great Cleave useful, as they already get a high number of attacks per round. It's interesting to see a situation where Great Cleave was called for.

Glooms are a type of epic monster. Most epic monsters (umbral blots, glooms, abominations, and the like) are decidedly unpleasant viewed through the lens of levels 1-20.

Not surprised to see that the ring of Freedom of Movement more than pays for itself - that thing is seriously underpriced.

Btw, Ragorn - where'd all your money go? Heavy Fortification is usually worth it once you're in epic! :P

[Ragorn]

You'll also note Ragorn mentioned failing a saving throw. There is a 'massive damage' rule in that when you take more than X amount, I believe X = 50, from a single attack you have to make a fortitude save or die immediately.

A critical on a sneak attack performed by perfect assassin would quite likely exceed that damage level and mandate a saving throw. And in saving throw's, a 1 can always happen.

True, but the saving through vs. massive damage is only DC 15. Glooms have a special ability that says if they crit a sneak attack on a Human, the Human saves vs. Fort at a very high DC or dies outright. I rolled a 4, which wasn't good enough ;)

Heavy Fortification wasn't a question of money, it was a question of plusses. My armor is already +10... it's a +5 Mithril Empyreal (+2) Breastplate of Moderate Fortifcation (+3). We were expressly forbidden from buying items with more than +10 total enhancement, so that's the best I could do.

Empyreal is a mod from the Book of Exalted Deeds which lets me trade my armor's Enhancement Bonus to AC for a Sacred bonus to all of my saves. So if I need to, I can make my armor a +1 suit of armor temporarily and give myself a +4 bonus to all of my saves. Since all of my saves are less than +20 (not by much), I decided the potential for better saves was better than the extra 25% crit immunity.

Turns out, heavy fort would have saved me this time, and the save bonus didn't >.<

[moritheil]

Mithril buckler of heavy fortification. You give up the AC bonus when TWFing, but I think you can keep the benefit of fortification.

It's just over 100k gc, IIRC.

[Ragorn]

Dervishes cannot use any of their class features while using shields.

[moritheil]

Dervishes cannot use any of their class features while using shields.

Oh, that's right. I knew there was a reason I seldom build dervishes. :P

[Ragorn]

Yeah the Dervish is a bottom-heavy class, which is why I picked it for the epic campaign. You don't get much out of the first couple levels, but the level 10 ability is simply sick... double your number of attacks every round for the duration of one combat a day. And the +1 to hit and damage every other level isn't bad either, especially post-20 when you stop getting regular BAB increases.

My AC is terribly low, which is why I went looking for an alternate solution. I picked the Retributive Amulet, but a Cloak of Displacement would also have been good (for the concealment miss chance).

[moritheil]

Hmmm, I thought the displacement cloak didn't work against things with true sight. Of course, not everything has true sight, but I'd think it would be much more common in epic.

[Ragorn]

Yeah, going into this game I just kind of assumed that everything would have true sight, blind sight, massive SR, evasion, and high AC. Depending on the campaign (and how mean your DM is and how much he metagames against you), that's really not the case. Old standbys like invisibility, concealment, stealth, and good ol' fashioned Evocation still work in many situations.

[moritheil]

Huh. I suppose that True Sight is limited to relatively close range, so it makes sense that invisibility is useful at a distance, but if a 2nd-level effect works with any frequency in close encounters, I suspect your DM is being kind. :D

[Ragorn]

Well, True Seeing has a 1 min/level duration. It's not like everyone you meet keeps it active all day. The monsters who have it as an extraordinary ability are few and far between, so with a little planning and some foresight, you can get around it. Although if you're in the habit of sending bad guys a telegram to let them know you're coming, you'll be up against a lot worse than True Seeing ;)