Minmax challenge: Building God

[sirpercival]

Here's a quote from Sinfire Titan's guide to playing a GOD wizard, based on Treantmonk20's iconic handbook:

(click to show/hide)

GOD: Merriam-Webster: ...one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality.

3rd edition was founded on the concept of the four roles of the classes: Fighter (natch), Healbot (AKA the Cleric), Blaster (Wizard, previously called Mage), and Thief (Rogue). In the older editions, this worked wonderfully throughout most levels of play. In 3.X, it kinda fell apart. You see, it is possible to play this style when no one at the table understands how the system is broken, but once someone picks up on the game-changing tricks, it's over. Those four roles become largely useless, with a few exceptions.

The reason? Well, there's several. The largest change is the hard, ground-into-the-system rules, which means that 3.5 is less flexible with rules issues than AD&D. Then enemies got improved, and several combat styles got thrown out the window. Then they standardized the classes and their level system into a more manageable form. Unfortunately, they adhered to the older ways of playing and didn't realize just what they had done to the system.

And thus Rocket Tag was born. You are either up there with the gods, and nigh untouchable as a result, or you are getting gibbed. And that's the idea behind this handbook: You are GOD. You have some responsibility for those beneath you. Sure, you're powerful enough to neglect them, but then where's the fun in not manipulating their every move and using them to meet your own goals? Being GOD means controlling their world in ways they can't understand. So put that power to good use and make them believe in you.

There are four context-sensitive ways to play a Wizard. The context is in-combat and out-of-combat. You are capable of doing a great deal during both sets of context. Here's the overview:

Social Leader (The Face, the Fop): This is the guy running his mouth and getting the plot to move along. You can do this all day if you want, but what would a GOD be without some moron inspired worshipper to spread his word for him? Let someone else do the talking, and only speak when you need to put some poor fool in his place.

Subterfuge Specialist (The Sneak, the Corpse): This man's job is to get into places that could kill him, find some object/information of value, disarm traps that could kill him and his friends, and then ambush people who are trying to kill him and his friends. Notice the words "kill him"? That's the standard response to finding someone hiding in the rafters in a Hobgoblin's keep. This guy is meant to be as expendable as possible. GOD is not expendable. Corpses? Are.

Medical Supervisor (The Healbot, the Gimp): This is the walking bandage, and this is the only time of day when it's acceptable to use these abilities. But healing is bad, m'kay? Healing means GOD hasn't done his job and let his mindless followers get themselves owned. GOD shouldn't have to heal, but there should be a healer amongst the group. Preferably, someone else. You healing people is a last resort of the highest magnitude.

Swiss Army Knife (The GOD, the Utility Caster): This is your job most of the day. Need a bridge? There's a spell for that. Need to get to the bottom of a river? There's a spell for that. Need to take over the world? There's a couple of spells for that. GOD's job out of combat is to resolve problems that would normally take inordinate amounts of time to do otherwise. This is what your followers look to you for.

The four roles take on new context during an encounter.

The Big Stupid Fighter: Don't let the title fool you, anyone can do this. Druid, Summoned minion, a cohort, a Warblade, whatever. This is the guy standing in front and getting smacked around while he tries to shove three feet of steel into the other guy's stomach. And therein lies the stupidity. Doing this yourself should be either a last resort or a way of showing off, but a GOD should never do this as his primary goal.

The Glass Cannon: Often times, this character is a one-trick pony that places little value on defenses. Sometimes, however, this character is just a damage-dealer who's got an ulterior motive: He doesn't want to get hit. Getting hit would usually kill him at almost all levels of play. Your job is to keep this idiot alive, not to become him.

The Waste of Space: This is a few steps below the above two categories. This guy has made some mistakes (well, more than some) and as a result he is incapable of doing something that is genuinely useful for the party during encounters. Imagine, if you will, a Truenamer with Vow of Poverty. While that is an extreme example, it is a very good illustration of the point. You can even turn GOD into one of these if you make enough mistakes or run out of spells completely without being in a secure location. Playing smart and using the strategies outlined here will go a long way to preventing this from happening.

GOD: This is Jack's unbridled potential. In other words, this is what you strive to be. You are a fair, patient, powerful ally to the above three, and they should respect your power as a result. In exchange for this respect, GOD provides them with blessings that range from crippled enemies to powerful enhancements to outright revised reality. It sounds pretentious, but years of debates, fact compilation, and practice has lead the minmax community (not just us, but several groups who think similarly to us) to the conclusion that the Wizard class is the path to godhood. You can literally be an unstoppable army all on your own, but that is poor sportsmanship. You are a team-player, dedicated to assisting the rest of the party in a way that makes them feel like winners.

But be honest with yourself: The real secret to their victories is your power. If need be, you can intervene directly and tell the DM that his encounter is screwed. But you should reserve your intervention as much as possible. After all, who enjoys a Deus Ex Machina when they aren't the ones doing it? Yes, you can literally fill all of the roles of the party by yourself. Doing so is both uncouth and impractical. Playing GOD, however, is very practical and much more enjoyable.

The following is the basic philosophy behind playing GOD.

Battlefield Control: The goal behind control is to deny your opponents their ability to take meaningful actions, all the while your threats are doing their damnedest to put people in coffins. This can be accomplished via tactical teleportation, using wall spells, using massive AoEs that apply debilitating status conditions, summoning things to block the way, or by actually reshaping the battlefield itself. The point is to neutralize the enemy's ability to injure your party, allowing your allies to take the glory of the kill. This method has the downside of being loathed by some DMs after the first session and that some BC spells are not exactly party-friendly, as I will explain later on. The go-to school for this is Conjuration, with Illusion being backup. Evocation has a few that are actually decent, and Transmutation can really mess with the terrain. Some Abjuration can be helpful, but Enchantment and Necromancy have less efficient BC spells, or at least have BC spells that are easily replicated by other schools.

Buffing: Fortifying your allies and yourself in order to place you out of the RNG's grasp. Enemies can't hurt you if your numbers get high enough, and this allows your party members to go to town without fear of most forms of reprisal. Everything from AC boosting to outright Polymorph effects can be utilized to this end. The downside is that the DM will sometimes knee-jerk when the party's Big Stupid Fighter is hitting things with damage in the triple digits (not that this was exactly impossible to begin with), all the while being untouchable. This has the side effect of throwing the blame on someone else, as most DMs who have this response do not realize that it is the buffs doing a lot of the work. Transmutation should be the default here, with Abjuration and Illusion on backup. Conjuration has several spells that will prove useful, and Enchantment has the occasional gem that isn't Dominate Person. Necromancy and Evocation are largely irrelevant to you here.

Debuffing: Invert the above concept, and then apply it liberally to your enemies. This is the most direct form of intervention GOD should be allowed to apply, as this gets everyone's attention within seconds. Leaving your enemies blind, deaf, paraplegic, terrified, and mute means they aren't a threat. The downsides are that it paints a target on your head, isn't efficient on the action economy, and can get the DM's rage boiling if they aren't experienced enough to deal with it. It's also impractical against large groups of enemies, although there are a few spells out there that will be. Necromancy, Conjuration, Transmutation, and Enchantment are all solid schools to focus on as a debuffer. Illusion and Abjuration has a few here or there, but Evocation doesn't usually get worthwhile debuffs (and you can ignore it if you have Illusion access thanks to Shadow Evocation).

So, the role of GOD is traditionally played by the wizard, for one very simple reason: they have the best spell access.  The wizard spell list is full of utility spells, tools to approach each and every scenario, often from an unexpected direction.  In contrast, cleric & druid spell lists are significantly more focused (a lot of summoning & buffing, for example), which is why clerics & druids are much more likely to turn to melee themselves.

My challenge to you is to build a divine caster (cleric or druid base) which fills the role of the GOD wizard as well as a wizard could.  Any number of levels (up to 20) is fine.  No tricks to access the wizard list; that defeats the purpose of the challenge.  Spell selection is an important ingredient, obviously.

I'm sure this will need clarification, so as people ask questions, I'll update this OP to reflect.

[phaedrusxy]

No tricks to access the wizard list; that defeats the purpose of the challenge.  Spell selection is an important ingredient, obviously.

Does this include domain selection? I'd guess not, but thought I should ask. There are a lot of sorc/wiz spells that appear on domain lists.

[sirpercival]

No tricks to access the wizard list; that defeats the purpose of the challenge.  Spell selection is an important ingredient, obviously.

Does this include domain selection? I'd guess not, but thought I should ask. There are a lot of sorc/wiz spells that appear on domain lists.

Obviously you get your 2 (or more) domains, that's fine.  I'm talking about things like Divine Magician, or playing an Archivist with a Hexer cohort.

[Halinn]

How about archivists with spells that explicitly appear on divine non-domain lists, but without tricks to port over arcane spells?

[ClayQ]

This character, is definately an archivist even without hexer or geomancer abuse.

[sirpercival]

It's certainly easier with an archivist.    I think it should be doable with a cleric or (possibly) druid.

[ClayQ]

Part of being god is the ability to pull out your spellbook and prepare what spell you need if you don't already have it. Neither clerics nor druids have this ability as they are bound to preparing at a specific time. Anyspell does this in part for a cleric on a limited basis, and ofc theres miracle but yeah.

Personally any god cleric or archivist for me is going to be a buffer/bfc as thats my personal play style. If I get time I might give you a proposal ;P

[phaedrusxy]

Part of being god is the ability to pull out your spellbook and prepare what spell you need if you don't already have it. Neither clerics nor druids have this ability as they are bound to preparing at a specific time.

Spontaneous Domain Casting can go a long way towards remedying that. In fact, barring Uncanny Forethought, that feat/ACF could make a cleric better at being able to cast exactly the right spell at the right time than a wizard is.

So I am planning to submit a cleric/sovereign speaker/contemplative build with the ACF that lets him cast his domain spells spontaneously. I need to look up which domains are available for sovereign speakers, as I'm not that familiar with the class. Anyone want to cooperate on this? Because I don't really have time to make a complete build...


For the druid, I think the obvious thing is to rely on summons and wildshape forms, both of which can also be chosen "on the fly" for maximum tactical benefit. So Planar Shepherd is likely the way to go there (gee, what a surprise? ).

[TiaC]

Spontaneous Domain Casting can go a long way towards remedying that. In fact, barring Uncanny Forethought, that feat/ACF could make a cleric better at being able to cast exactly the right spell at the right time than a wizard is.

I suggest the Shadow domain, nothing does flexibility better in one domain.

[sirpercival]

Guide to Sovereign Speakers

[Endarire]

The Spell Domain has anyspell and greater anyspell.  Sure, it takes about 15 minutes to fill your slot.  You still have some Wizardly versatility.  (Also depends on you having the right spells in your spellbook.)

Dweomerkeeper can work well, too.  Supernatural spells of wish, miracle, and so on provide excellent versatility.

Druids... seem stuck.  They have fewer ways to access off-list spells.  A Planar Shepherd with component-free wish can do lots (due to Fernia and Efreet).  Unsure how else.

Obligatory Link.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

What about a Cleric / Ardent with near-T.O. early entry.
Go up the spell/power levels fast first,
then expand list access on the Cleric side.

[SorO_Lost]

I'd say, how broken?

No I don't mean the Cleric. I mean the Wizard.

For instance, really for a Wizard to Persist a high level spell, he needs to go Incantatrix.
Metamagic Wand Grip is for low level stuff, Arcane Thesis is per Spell, Easy is Dragon, Practical is Sorcerer, etc.

Cleric gets DMM(persist) at level 1. No taking levels in the the most powerful Arcane PrC printed, he gets them out of the box as if it were rather than TOing some Red Wizard ideas or w/e.

It would be completely unfair to the Cleric to say he has to deal with a Persist spamming Wizard, and on the same token, a Wizard that is using a secondary method to obtain Turn Undead shouldn't be a measuring stick either. After all, the Cleric is banned from obtaining the Wizard list, why should the Wizard steal the Cleric favored stuff?

So just how high is this bar set?

[sirpercival]

A persist-spamming wizard is not at a significant advantage compared to a normal wizard in terms of being GOD (as defined above).  The spells that the cleric persists are usually buffs (self or party), which are very nice but aren't really the same in terms of orthogonal approaches to encounters that a GOD wizard produces.  If persist from level 1 makes a big difference in the build, though, then by all means break it out.

BTW, phae, Spontaneous Domain casting is only for one domain.  Though I suppose you might argue that using the Substitute Domain spell could work...

[Rebel7284]

IMO the best cleric god is:
Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 10
Magical Traning
Initiate of Mystra

To be fair, it DOES access some wizard casting via being able to cast anyspell any number of times, however it's still clearly a cleric feature.  Also, Wizard cantrips...

Also, casting in an AMF shenanigans.

[SorO_Lost]

A persist-spamming wizard is not at a significant advantage compared to a normal wizard in terms of being GOD (as defined above).  The spells that the cleric persists are usually buffs (self or party), which are very nice but aren't really the same in terms of orthogonal approaches to encounters that a GOD wizard produces.  If persist from level 1 makes a big difference in the build, though, then by all means break it out.

Well I was going multifaceted there.

For instance Persisted Holy Transformation on top of "buffs" gives a -2 all saves & attack rolls debuff to Evil creatures in a 10ft range, notebly since the spell's effect will "hit" other creatures, you're just a metamagic combo short of something like Fell Drain for free Negative Levels. Maybe Entagle/Deafen Spell want in on this too? Not to mention Holy Word being the final word on how to kill Evil creatures effortlessly, and barring that CC them. I'm sure there is other buff spells that include debuffing effects, and this is just one tactic to follow up on.

On the Turn Undead front, well. Who do you think controls Wight armies at level 1? Both classes can say they could have Dominated a Hydra, but only one says this is my slave till it dies or I throw it away. And apparently, over half the boards here would love to set their Feat slots on fire to take some crappy Devotion Feats which I'm sure someone would like to bring up and not hear "oh God has that too".

Some other misc points since we're still kind of brain storming here. Miracle doesn't mandate 5k XP just for casting it and Azuth's Triple Triad comes online at level 11 letting you triple every spell 3rd level or lower you can prepare in a given day during down time. I believe Any Spell and Sovereign Speaker as been mentioned as well.

[Unbeliever]

Is there really doubt that a Cleric or Druid could play the god role? 

God requires buffing, debuffing, and battlefield control in some combination.  The divine lists have those already present.  And, then you've got things like Shadocraft Clerics, armies of undead, etc. 

Or, is it just a question of what kinds of god-esque divine spellcasters there are out there? 

[linklord231]

What about Archivist?  Casts pretty much every spell in the game if you include domain spells.  Barring that, still gets Entangle, Holy Word, and all those other spells mentioned.  With Sacred Exorcist, it even gets DMM shenanigans.
Already mentioned. 

Gatling Tripper on an RKV base?  Don't cast BFC spells, become them.  Nightsticks + DMM Quicken = win?

[Maat Mons]

So I am planning to submit a cleric/sovereign speaker/contemplative build with the ACF that lets him cast his domain spells spontaneously.

Spontaneous Domain casting is only for one domain.

You could take the domain spontaneity feat (Complete Divine) for each domain if you're using some trickery to get extra feats.  The spontaneous domains feat (Complete Champion) could work if you've got a method of recovering spell slots. 

[Sohala]

Spontaneous Domain + Silent Image as a domain spell + Shadowcraft Mage
or
Spontaneous Domain + Spell Domain

Those would be my choices.