Hey all! I figured this is a place where a lot of people like to play RPGs, so I figured I'd discuss something that's fascinating to me personally. I'm a big fan of tabletop RPGs. I've specifically been playing D&D 3.5/Pathfinder for close to 10 years now, so I've gotten a fair bit of mastery out of the system. I figured I'd start this thread off by showing you lovely people how to create a sorcerer with an effective 32 Charisma... at level 1.
1. Pick a tiefling. Now, you may be asking, "hang on a minute, tieflings get Charisma penalties. How am I supposed to get to Cha 32 with a penalty?" Well, simply put, you're not. For anyone who's ever thumbed through the Blood of Fiends player companion, you'll note that you can pick variant tieflings with alternate ability score modifiers and skill bonuses, SLAs, etc. The idea is, you first want to pick a tiefling with a charisma bonus. Pitborn, Spitespawn, Shackleborn, and Beastbrood all work just fine for these purposes. Which variant you pick is up to which of your secondary scores you don't mind dumping/increasing- I'm partial to Shackleborn and Beastbrood, but pick your poison. Now, I'm aware that another book (I forget which one exactly) says that you must take a specific feat to be able to pick a tiefling variant, but considering no such restriction exists for aasimar, you could probably haggle a DM into just letting you pick the variant.
2. In the same player companion, there is a list of 100 abilities a tiefling can pick from to replace their spell-like ability. Now, a sane GM probably doesn't let their players handpick an ability from this table. Given our circumstances, though, our imaginary GM is incredibly permissive. Or, if they do make you roll, hope you land on #7- +2 racial bonus to Charisma.
3. Now, we're going to head over to the Inner Sea Races splatbook for the trait that's going to allow us to pull of our next trick. What you'll want to do is pick up the Pass For Human alternate racial trait. This allows you to count as both outsider (native) and humanoid (human) for all purposes. This serves two different functions. Number one, it will allow the next step to actually function correctly, since you will be counted as humanoid. The second purpose is that it lets you take the human favored class bonus for the sorcerer- more spells known! Considering that is something you are otherwise limited on, and a luxury that normally costs feats, I'd say take it while you have access to it.
4. Now, here's the part that's going to get this character shot down in most games, but if your GM allows it, this will be one of the the biggest buffs to charisma you can get RAW. For those that have the Demons Revisited splatbook, you might notice that each of the demons have variant half demons you can add to creatures as templates. For those unfamiliar with template rules, the back of the Bestiary says that you simply adjust your level by the amount of CR a template adds to your character. For instance, a 10th level barbarian has a CR of 9. Add the half dragon template to him, and his CR becomes 11. For a character, this means that to balance your CR out, you have to be two levels lower. However, the section on Monsters as PCs specifically states that you gain levels slightly faster to balance out the loss of class levels. If our theoretically pliable GM okays these rules, then that means you'll be up to par in no time flat. At level 1, the half-fiend template, which we want specifically, adds 1 to our CR. That CR technically scales with level, but with the aforementioned monster leveling rules, that becomes moot in time. Back to Demons Revisited, one of the half-demon variants that can be taken is the half-succubus, boasting a slightly more mediocre spread of stats than the typical half demon, at least until you notice their +8 Cha bonus. This is why we needed the Pass for Human trait from earlier- the half fiend template can't normally be applied to outsiders, but it can be applied to humanoids, which we now count as. If the fluff behind this bothers you, it can easily be chalked up to being a mongrel blooded demon.
6. Now, that's the external factors out of the way- now comes the fiddly character creation bits. If you rolled well (or you did your point buy correctly), you should start with a Charisma of 18 before any additional modifiers. So, here's how all of this will string together. Charisma starts at 18. Add 4 from tiefling modifiers for 22. The half succubus piles another 8 on that for a grand total of 30. "Now hang on smart guy," you might be asking. "Where's the other +2?" Well, simply put, that's going to come from our Fiendish Sorcery tiefling trait. Our Charisma score is treated as two higher for all sorcerer abilities so long as we have the Infernal or Abyssal bloodlines- which includes your spells per day and spell save DCs as well as bloodline powers. That makes 32. For even more cheese, you can always go ahead and age your tiefling ahead- for an old, wholly personable fiend, you can bump your age category to venerable, which will give you an additional +6 to all your mental scores, if you're willing to stomach the -6 to your physical stats, which will give you an effective 38 Charisma to start with.
With all of this combined (excluding age, which is more or less optional), your save DCs will start at 21 for your weakest spells- saves usually reserved for 7th level spells or above. Over the course of your career, buying Tomes of Great Leadership, putting all your stat improvements into Charisma, and getting your Headband of Alluring Charisma +6, You'll have a Charisma score close to or better than 50- beauty usually reserved for deities and their ilk.
Your turn, RPR! What games do you know how to spectacularly break?
1. Pick a tiefling. Now, you may be asking, "hang on a minute, tieflings get Charisma penalties. How am I supposed to get to Cha 32 with a penalty?" Well, simply put, you're not. For anyone who's ever thumbed through the Blood of Fiends player companion, you'll note that you can pick variant tieflings with alternate ability score modifiers and skill bonuses, SLAs, etc. The idea is, you first want to pick a tiefling with a charisma bonus. Pitborn, Spitespawn, Shackleborn, and Beastbrood all work just fine for these purposes. Which variant you pick is up to which of your secondary scores you don't mind dumping/increasing- I'm partial to Shackleborn and Beastbrood, but pick your poison. Now, I'm aware that another book (I forget which one exactly) says that you must take a specific feat to be able to pick a tiefling variant, but considering no such restriction exists for aasimar, you could probably haggle a DM into just letting you pick the variant.
2. In the same player companion, there is a list of 100 abilities a tiefling can pick from to replace their spell-like ability. Now, a sane GM probably doesn't let their players handpick an ability from this table. Given our circumstances, though, our imaginary GM is incredibly permissive. Or, if they do make you roll, hope you land on #7- +2 racial bonus to Charisma.
3. Now, we're going to head over to the Inner Sea Races splatbook for the trait that's going to allow us to pull of our next trick. What you'll want to do is pick up the Pass For Human alternate racial trait. This allows you to count as both outsider (native) and humanoid (human) for all purposes. This serves two different functions. Number one, it will allow the next step to actually function correctly, since you will be counted as humanoid. The second purpose is that it lets you take the human favored class bonus for the sorcerer- more spells known! Considering that is something you are otherwise limited on, and a luxury that normally costs feats, I'd say take it while you have access to it.
4. Now, here's the part that's going to get this character shot down in most games, but if your GM allows it, this will be one of the the biggest buffs to charisma you can get RAW. For those that have the Demons Revisited splatbook, you might notice that each of the demons have variant half demons you can add to creatures as templates. For those unfamiliar with template rules, the back of the Bestiary says that you simply adjust your level by the amount of CR a template adds to your character. For instance, a 10th level barbarian has a CR of 9. Add the half dragon template to him, and his CR becomes 11. For a character, this means that to balance your CR out, you have to be two levels lower. However, the section on Monsters as PCs specifically states that you gain levels slightly faster to balance out the loss of class levels. If our theoretically pliable GM okays these rules, then that means you'll be up to par in no time flat. At level 1, the half-fiend template, which we want specifically, adds 1 to our CR. That CR technically scales with level, but with the aforementioned monster leveling rules, that becomes moot in time. Back to Demons Revisited, one of the half-demon variants that can be taken is the half-succubus, boasting a slightly more mediocre spread of stats than the typical half demon, at least until you notice their +8 Cha bonus. This is why we needed the Pass for Human trait from earlier- the half fiend template can't normally be applied to outsiders, but it can be applied to humanoids, which we now count as. If the fluff behind this bothers you, it can easily be chalked up to being a mongrel blooded demon.
6. Now, that's the external factors out of the way- now comes the fiddly character creation bits. If you rolled well (or you did your point buy correctly), you should start with a Charisma of 18 before any additional modifiers. So, here's how all of this will string together. Charisma starts at 18. Add 4 from tiefling modifiers for 22. The half succubus piles another 8 on that for a grand total of 30. "Now hang on smart guy," you might be asking. "Where's the other +2?" Well, simply put, that's going to come from our Fiendish Sorcery tiefling trait. Our Charisma score is treated as two higher for all sorcerer abilities so long as we have the Infernal or Abyssal bloodlines- which includes your spells per day and spell save DCs as well as bloodline powers. That makes 32. For even more cheese, you can always go ahead and age your tiefling ahead- for an old, wholly personable fiend, you can bump your age category to venerable, which will give you an additional +6 to all your mental scores, if you're willing to stomach the -6 to your physical stats, which will give you an effective 38 Charisma to start with.
With all of this combined (excluding age, which is more or less optional), your save DCs will start at 21 for your weakest spells- saves usually reserved for 7th level spells or above. Over the course of your career, buying Tomes of Great Leadership, putting all your stat improvements into Charisma, and getting your Headband of Alluring Charisma +6, You'll have a Charisma score close to or better than 50- beauty usually reserved for deities and their ilk.
Your turn, RPR! What games do you know how to spectacularly break?
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