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so this is a question for all y'all well versed in the area of Dnd 3.5 optimization, so If I have a raptoran barbarian/ that dervish thing in BOVD that increases crit range (with fly speed) and I have flyby attack, which I use to make a dive attack, can I use a greater power charge, then a furious charge? in the discription of furious charge it says nothing about dive attacks only that it doesn't stack with lances, so on every charge I make I get a x4 crit mod? I would use a scythe as a weapon, giving myself a 16x crit mod, with improved crit and the 3x from the BOVD class, gives me a 14-20 16x weapon, and on the times that it doesnt do crits its just 4x. i call shenanigans

anyone else find a problem with this?

My brain hurts.

lol dont try to read the punpun build then.

Honestly.... if you have to do that much damage on a single hit...

Seriously though, what level(s) are we talking about?

Actually replace barbarian with fighter,4 the extra feats,also play human. You need lots of prerequisites is say around 13-15?

I stopped at the word optimization.

I will never understand why people play d&d and spend all their time trying to make this godly character when more often than not it ruins the enjoyment of others and puts you on the DM's blacklist.

No broken character can win a fight against a DM.

I agree, I usually dont like optimization, but i was just wondering if it was possible. Often my DMs will run a "High optimization" campaign where they let you be over powered, but they send you up against large monsters.

 Necroshea wrote:
I stopped at the word optimization.

I will never understand why people play d&d and spend all their time trying to make this godly character when more often than not it ruins the enjoyment of others and puts you on the DM's blacklist.

No broken character can win a fight against a DM.

It's some people's play-style. I don't want to play in games like that myself, but I think it's common on games that are on the far left of an axis that goes from "open sandbox" to "tight story-focused" games.

In general, it's not a big deal if the group is OK with 'retiring' truly broken characters and everyone is ont he same page. If there's a party of characters with ridiculous abilities, it's not so broken... And as pun-pun was invoked, it should be mentioned that 'broken melee warrior-type' is generally just fighting to remain relevant with equal level spell-casters that have gone down the same path. Doing x4 criticals, +73 damage to a couple adjacent opponents isn't that scary when compared to a wizard or cleric that can remove small armies from the board every round.

Yeah, do not be surprised by any amount of crazyness that occurs with optimization. 3.5 is infamous for this.

I had a rogue and a barbarian in my last game that absolutely decimated everything in sight doing 15 points on the minimum at level 6. Eventually they were killed in combat against a spell caster and her zombie slaves. These players told me they tweaked their characters to be the best they could be in melee combat because they wanted to wreck face.

Then because the party was too cheap, they reincarnated the barbarian (the wizard had this happen to her, and she came back as a kobold, not bad for a wizard...), well the barbarian went from this 6 foot 11 human to a dinky little goblin. The player got ticked and quit the game right there...

There's nothing wrong with trying to make your character good at something (my most recent character was a skill monkey that could climb, sneak, diplomacize, and perceive everything... She died to being tripled teamed in melee (the dm I think is holding a grudge against me for all of his characters that died over the years. )

There is a really easy way to get around this kind of optimization as a DM. First, if you are in a relatively tight space good luck flying around without magic. Second you can just throw constructs, undead, and etc that are immune to crits. Third tell your player no. I had to use the second one because the rogue was building to be the crit master so I needed to show him it is a bad idea to build a one trick pony.

Or you could just discuss expectations for the campaign with your players prior to building characters rather than trying to ruin their concept after the fact...

Passive aggressive DM'ing is silly.

Oh it wasn't very passive, I told him exactly how bad of a munchkin he was being and threw some guys that he couldn't munchkin against. He wanted to RP from the beginning and I am ok with powerful guys, but when my players go full power gamer then I will become that evil DM that shuts them down hard. I explain this often to them.

 The Foot wrote:
Oh it wasn't very passive, I told him exactly how bad of a munchkin he was being and threw some guys that he couldn't munchkin against. He wanted to RP from the beginning and I am ok with powerful guys, but when my players go full power gamer then I will become that evil DM that shuts them down hard. I explain this often to them.

The same, my players know to expect they will have to role play, they tend to refer to each other by character name (voices aren't needed, since at least 1 person plays a female... usually it's me lol). And much like The Foot, I don't mind when players want to be powerful, but when you have players taking down a CR double their level with little trouble (level 6, took down a CR 10 dragon), it definitely puts it into perspective as to how far your players are pushing.

The other problem I know is this. The game I'm currently playing in, and the one that I played in before we had to keep rerolling stronger and stronger characters to deal with the challenges the DM kept throwing at us. The camel's back eventually broke when I brought in a full Orc Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker with an Adamantine Greatsword, that had like 150 health in rage, and +19 damage to his sword attacks as an attempt to help the survivability of the party, and he still was tossed around like a rag doll..

Yeah, I play the hell outta some 3.5. Whats your question?

potatosack wrote:
so this is a question for all y'all well versed in the area of Dnd 3.5 optimization, so If I have a raptoran barbarian/ that dervish thing in BOVD that increases crit range (with fly speed) and I have flyby attack, which I use to make a dive attack, can I use a greater power charge, then a furious charge? in the discription of furious charge it says nothing about dive attacks only that it doesn't stack with lances, so on every charge I make I get a x4 crit mod? I would use a scythe as a weapon, giving myself a 16x crit mod, with improved crit and the 3x from the BOVD class, gives me a 14-20 16x weapon, and on the times that it doesnt do crits its just 4x. i call shenanigans

...

anyone else find a problem with this?

Yes. You're the reason why people hate 3.5. I'm sorry to say it, but I finally understand.

I want to know what DM lets a player use the BOVD or BOED, or even the BOEF in a semi-serious manner...

 Alfndrate wrote:
I want to know what DM lets a player use the BOVD or BOED, or even the BOEF in a semi-serious manner...

They're not bad if you pick and choose. My beguilier (the king of one use items) got a scroll of one of the less badass Exalted spells once as a backup plan. The books as an entire piece of material are just silly though.

You could say the same about any number of 3.5 splat books. The 'books' are not alone.

 pretre wrote:
You could say the same about any number of 3.5 splat books. The 'books' are not alone.

Oh I know, Unearthed Arcana, Tome of Battle, some pieces of Tome of Magic (far less so) the Magic Item Compendium contained some seriously wtf items...

The ORIGINAL Psionic handbook for 3rd edition... the Expanded Psionics Handbook had plenty of stuff in it too...


Hell Spellcasters from the PHB were OP too...

I still miss the spell in Tome and Blood where you cut off your finger to use as a phylactery, and then you were basically unkillable unless people found the finger.

In fact, one of the key characteristics of 3.5 was the optimization. It was probably the most optimization friendly edition of D&D ever.

I enjoyed it.

Don't get me wrong, I loved some of my characters and what they could do, but man there were some broken things..

 Alfndrate wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I loved some of my characters and what they could do, but man there were some broken things..

That has been true in most editions, however. 3.5 was just more accessible to brokenness. It has always been up to the players and DM to work collaboratively to create a game. One or both of those could bork it up by not playing the same kind of game the others are.

 Alfndrate wrote:
I want to know what DM lets a player use the BOVD or BOED, or even the BOEF in a semi-serious manner...

I've been running a 3.0/3.5 hybrid campaign for the last 10 years, and I can tell you (1) there's no way on Oerth I would ever allow anyone to run a 16x critical hit character (I'd most likely rule that the critical multipliers overlap and don't stack), and (2) the only BoVD material I allow in is what I introduce myself with evil NPC's. If my players happen to observe and study BoVD spells that are used against them, then I allow them to use those spells, and only those spells. Otherwise, BoVD is off limits to my players.

In general, I tell my players NOT to try gaming my system, to play their characters in the spirit they're designed to be played, and to not get greedy. I have turned more than one wish against them when they got out of line.

I played in a gaming group many years ago and we found a ring of three wishes... We had to word everything very carefully, because our DM would mess with the wish simply because of wording...

 Alfndrate wrote:
I want to know what DM lets a player use the BOVD or BOED, or even the BOEF in a semi-serious manner...

I once played an Aasimar Cleric with the Saint template. It was truly ridiculous. But I wasn't actually min-maxing, which is why I think it was allowed. Min-maxing can be really funny if you only realize it happened ex post facto.

DM: The cavern shudders ominously and stray dust and pebbles slip from widening cracks above. The ceiling gives all at once with a thunderous roar and boulders crush you for *rolls a million dice* 183198120218 damage.
Rogue: I'm dead. Like dead dead.
Sorceress: Me, too. This is so fething stupid.
Aasimar Saint Cleric: I am ... actually still alive.
DM: Shut up.
Aasimar Saint Cleric: No for real. Damage reduction. And how much time has passed? I have regeneration, too.

TPK DEFEATED

Saints and VoP were awesome.

I let one of my players have a VoP monk. He was wrong.

 pretre wrote:
He was wrong.

But lawful wrong nonetheless.

Oh, we're talking alignment? He was lawful awesome, I believe.

Played in a serial campaign not long ago. DM liked to "play against" the party. All 3.5 materials were available, only Pathfinder was off limits. He also boosted the monsters using the same.

After the 4th TPK, the players decided to go full-on munchkin on him. I made a Warlock/Favored Soul with a selection of feats to boost the healing and spell casting, then took Supernatural Trans from Sav Spec.
The DM nearly choked when my Wl ray attack sliced through his magic resisted, boosted monsters... usually for 50+ hp a shot.